Main content

GQT at Home: A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Kathy Clugston hosts a Christmas edition of the gardening panel show.

Accompanying you this Christmas, Kathy Clugston hosts the gardening panel show. Bob Flowerdew, Christine Walkden, and Matthew Pottage are on hand to answer the gardening queries.

Alongside the usual mulch of gardening goodies - a how-to on home-growing parsnips and skirret, a plant that tastes like an oyster, and the curious appearance of a partridge in a pear tree - Kathy brings humour in the form of the now-traditional GQT cracker jokes.

Providing us with some trimmings foraged from the great outdoors, Matt Biggs speaks to the team in charge of growing the Christmas tree for Windsor Castle, and Chris Beardshaw shares the folklore of that familiar festive flora, the holly or ilex.

Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Bethany Hocken

A Somethin' Else production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4

Available now

42 minutes

Last on

Boxing Day 2021 14:00

Plant List

Questions and timecodes are below. Where applicable, plant names have been provided.

Ìý

Q – I have heard that you should leave parsnips in the ground till the first frost, but how much longer after that, and where should I store them?

(1 minutes 46 seconds)Ìý

Ìý

Q – How do you grow a skirret plant?

(5 minutes 10 seconds)Ìý

Ìý

Christine –

Dahlia

Ìý

Bob –

Salsify

Scorzonera

Ìý

Matthew –

Mertensia maritima, Oysterplant

Ìý

Q – I would like to grow a shrub to use in my flower arrangements. Do the panellists have any suggestions for shrubs that could cope with having stalks chopped off regularly?

(8 minutes 44 seconds)

Ìý

Matthew –

Pittosporum tenuifolium, ‘Wrinkled Blue’

Pittosporum tenuifolium, ‘Irene Paterson’

Ìý

Christine –

Elaeagnus ebbingei, ‘Gilt Edge’

Elaeagnus ebbingei, ‘Quicksilver’

Ìý

Q – Should I wrap my lemon tree up against the cold? Do I need to take the wind chill factor into account?

(12 minutes 7 seconds)

Ìý

Bob –

Grape

Ìý

Feature – Matt Biggs visits the team in charge of growing the Christmas tree for Windsor Castle

(14 minutes 17 seconds)

Ìý

Nordmann fir

Ìý

Q – What plants do the panellists love at this time of the year?

(21 minutes 22 seconds)

Ìý

Christine –

Poinsettia

Amaryllis

Hippeastrum

Christmas cactus

Hyacinth

Winter-flowering cherry

Ìý

Q – Can I transplant my Corkscrew hazel?

(22 minutes 30 seconds)

Ìý

Bob –

Corkscrew hazel, ‘Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick’

Hazel, ‘Cosford Cob’

Hazel, ‘Red Skin Filbert’

Ìý

Matthew –

Hazel, ‘Red Majestic’

Ìý

Q – Can the panellists recommend seeds that can be sown at Christmas and ready for action by early July?

(26 minutes 46 seconds)

Ìý

Bob –

Leek

Onion

Ìý

Christine –

Spring onion

Radish

Tomato, ‘Tumbling Tom’

Tomato, ‘Cherry Falls’

Ìý

Matthew –

Liriodendron tulipifera, Tulip tree

Ìý

Q – How do I overwinter a tibouchina plant?

(30 minutes 6 seconds)

Ìý

Matthew –

Tibouchina urvilleana

Ìý

Feature – Chris Beardshaw shares the folklore of that familiar festive flora, the holly or ilex

(30 minutes 34 seconds)

Ìý

Q – Since moving my orange tree into the conservatory for Christmas, the oranges have started growing with knobbles on them. I wonder what has caused this…

(36 minutes 44 seconds)

Ìý

Q – Have the team ever found a partridge in a pear tree?

(38 minutes 56 seconds)Ìý

Ìý

Christine –

‘Snowdrop tree’

Broadcasts

  • Christmas Day 2021 07:00
  • Boxing Day 2021 14:00

Six of GQT’s naughtiest gardening innuendos

When Gardeners' Question Time got mucky.

Podcast