{"id":73,"date":"2012-04-04T02:21:38","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T09:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2012-04-17T08:59:20","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T15:59:20","slug":"percy-thrower-gardening-celebrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/articles\/books\/percy-thrower-gardening-celebrity\/","title":{"rendered":"Percy Thrower a Gardening Celebrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Percy Thrower 1913-1988<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the first iconic gardeners Percy was involved with most forms of media. Best remembered for his BBC appearances he was one of the first \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpersonality gardeners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. He started on radio \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGardening Club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in 1956 then TV\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGardening World\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 through the 1970\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. As a regular contributor to the magazine \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAmateur Gardening\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in the 1970\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and the Daily Mail he gave tips and information to a new generation of hobby gardeners. <\/span>These gardeners were less interested in self sufficiency but had started to consider style colour and the aesthetics of gardening.<\/p>\n

Percy started one of the first garden centres<\/strong> which was in Shrewsbury and is still open today. In addition to a range of plants he sold garden furniture, plastic pond liners and the like. At the time he said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYou come in for a packet of seeds and something else catches your eye\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. The centre was one of the first to develop container grown roses that could be sold out of season. Orthodox planting was November to March but growing roses in large tin cans enabled the roses to be offered through early summer for immediate planting and effect. His tips live on in his garden centre web site an example of which is given below<\/p>\n

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Garden Tips by Percy Thrower<\/h2>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIf you fancy planting a magnolia<\/strong>, now is the time to do it. Choose its position with great care. Allow the plant plenty of space and prepare the soil well by digging in plenty of good quality ericaceous compost such as Miracle Gro Azalea, Camellia and Rhododendron compost or John Innes ericaceous compost. Water regularly over the coming months while the plant roots get established. Firm the soil, and support.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

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Percy Throwers early training was at Leeds Parks and Gardens <\/strong>department before eventually moving to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Magnolias\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in Shrewsbury. He was the gardening advisor to Blue Peter. The BBC dropped Thrower in 1975 when he agreed to a contract with ICI, for a series of commercials. He did this in the full knowledge of what the repercussions would be with the BBC. He had a good commercial sense and used his celebrity status to good effect.<\/p>\n

He also wrote many books, which were published by Collingbridge and later Hamlyn including his memoirs \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMy Lifetime of Gardening\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. Check them out on Amazon.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Percy Thrower has been remembered as a celebrity gardener since he started on radio \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGardening Club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-gardeners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}