still from an early edition of Gardeners World filmed at The Magnolias,
BBC

Believe it or not, Alan Titchmarsh started his gardening career as the editor of Percy’s books. He recalls the excitement of seeing colour for the first time in gardening programmes: “what a gift to a gardening broadcaster to be able to say… Just look at this border and there it will be in all its glory. It makes things so much easier to get across because people could see why he was so keen on something -not that excitement was something that was embodied by Gardeners’ World in those days – but enthusiasm was.” [BBC 2]

At ‘The Magnolias” from My Lifetime in Gardening

One of the side-effects  of moving to colour was that the studio garden was no longer credible   And the BBC looked for a real plot near the studios in Birmingham  to use as a base.  They found an  overgrown allotment,  and then expanded until they had six.  But unfortunately they forgot that gardens, particularly ones which are to be seen on television, need constant attention.  With no one allocated to look after it the area soon became weed-infested, and viewers noticed.  Complaints began to arrive…..  and so, before long, the programme began to be broadcast from Percy’s own garden at ‘The Magnolias’, the house a few miles from Shrewsbury that had been designed by him and his wife Connie between 1963 and 1968.

The Outside Broadcast Unit at ‘The Magnolias’, producer Bill Duncalf is the the striped shirt. From Gay Search, Gardeners’ World Through the Years

from Percy Thrower’s Guide to Gardeners’ World

This was not as simple as it might seem.  As can be seen from the photo the  Outside Broadcast Unit needed large crews, not the one or two we might associate with  recording today.   This meant there had to be parking for three or four pantechnicons, room for a crew of more than 30 people –  cameramen, sound engineers, recording engineers, production team, and riggers who had to manhandle not only the heavy cameras but the thick cables to be connected to the power supplies.  It also meant  stable wide pathways which could bear the weight of the cameras.  Hand-held cameras did not come in until the very end of the 1970s and Barry Edgar one of the producers regretfully commented: “what gardens we could have covered if we had had some of these!”  (Gardeners’ World Through The Years, page 9) .  The whole process was made even more difficult because of the expense of moving such an enormous amount of equipment and people, so the gardens had to be big enough to have interest for two complete programmes to be recorded on any one visit.

still from an early edition of Gardeners World filmed at The Magnolias, BBC

There were no scripts. Bill Duncalf, another producer, recalls that “Percy works entirely spontaneously.” This made him “so easy to work with and so proficient at the way he handles exhibits in front of the camera.”   For much of the time,  remembers Titchmarsh, “Percy performed alone, with a matchless sense of timing.  Not only was his richly accented delivery beautifully paced, but it could also come out the second, without the need of a stopwatch…” His voice was “rich and deep in tone, thanks to years of pipe smoking, and it seemed to me that he’d been broadcasting for so long that he couldn’t stop.”

Percy spraying fruit trees in winter – and in his trademark jacket, tie and nice shoes from Percy Throwers Guide to Gardeners’ World

Sadly almost none of the vintage episodes were archived so there is almost no record – and the little footage that survives has lost the sound. However “the steady stream of letters” he received from viewers led him to write a guide-book to the programme in 1973.

Percy watering in the greenhouse [and his shirtsleeves!] from Percy Throwers Guide to Gardeners’ World

It has a Preface by Bill Duncalf explaining how the programme was made, and a single page introduction by Percy himself outlining how he planned to give the viewer “all that is best in present-day gardening.” The rest of the book is made up of brief notes on monthly tasks illustrated with line drawings of Percy doing some of them.  It also included a map of “The Magnolias” so that viewers could follow his progress around the garden during the broadcast.

Percy soon became a familiar face well beyond Gardeners World.  He was on his way to becoming a National Treasure.  But he also began to capitalise on his reputation and ventured into commercial horticulture. This began to push the BBC to its limits.

from My Lifetime in Gardening

A quiet drink in a pub with a friend who was a travel agent in Shrewsbury led to him “earning a few coppers on the side” as an expert garden guide taking tours to Dutch bulb fields with [I kid you not] Derby Airways.  At first ” Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was certainly good value for money,” but once  a larger operator ” got in on the act and also began hiring Derby Airways …  we began to find that if an aeroplane broke down it was always us that suffered.” He found himself  “having dear old ladies at the airport who had never flown before when it would be announced that there was to be a half an hour’s delay in the flight. We would provide them with a glass of brandy to make up for the wait, but then after another half an hour’s delay they wanted a second brandy. After a further two hours’ delay they felt entitled to a meal – and looked to us to provide it. After several of these experiences we decided enough was enough: if we could not do the job properly we wouldn’t do it at all.”

Lifeboat drill on Arkadia
from My Lifetime in Gardening

Instead the owners of a cruise liner Arkadia suggested he work with them.  So in  1964 he formed Percy Thrower’s Floral Tours to take groups on garden cruises to Madeira [from£148 pp!] , the Canaries and South Africa [from £435 for 28 days]. This later led to work on the QE2 where he gave lectures on gardening.

He also became a consultant to Plant Protection, a subsidiary of ICI , then the  leading company in garden-related pesticides and fertilizers. This did not involve advertising their products directly.  He would, however,  give talks sponsored by ICI where there were obvious displays of their products, although somehow always managed to avoid referring to them directly.  Since he was, at the same time, the gardening expert for the Radio Times  ICI cheekily also used to advertise their products next to his columns in the magazine every week.  “Percy was gold to advertisers.” [BBC2]

The Queen Mother at the opening of Syon Park Garden Centre, from My Lifetime in Gardening

In 1967 he was asked by ICI  to go to Syon to meet the Duke of Northumberland. This was not a social call but to give advice on the possibility of turning  a  section of Syon Park into a “a national garden centre” which would be backed by ICI in partnership with the Duke.  The aim was to produce a place “where all that was best in British gardening could be put on show.”   Percy ended up being appointed to the board and later welcomed the Queen Mother when she officially opened  the garden centre in 1968.

Outside the Percy Thrower Garden Centre from My Lifetime in Gardening

In 1970 he heard that a local nursery,  Murrells of Shrewsbury, was for sale, and he immediately bought it  in partnership with an old acquaintance.  The 40 acre site was on  the Shrewsbury by-pass, and already had a well-established catalogue and clientele. This became Percy Thrower’s Gardening Centre.

from http://www.shropshiremagazine.com/2011/08/back-to-her-roots/

Unlike most of today’s gardening emporia the former Murrells remained a proper nursery, propagating huge quantities of their own plants, including many container grown  deliberately for the mail-order market.

In 1977, the year Thrower published his autobiography, the nursery grew 150,000 roses, using a Dutch expert to do budding grafts at the rate of 4,000 a day! He estimated that they also raised 100,000 shrubs from cuttings only buying in a few species such as azaleas, rhododendrons and magnolias.

So Percy was not just a National Treasure he was also an astute businessman. All of these commercial involvements were just about acceptable to the BBC, but,  at the time, they had a very strict policy about any of their presenters being directly involved anything which they saw as compromising the independence of their programmes.