Greatest Gardens with Diarmuid Gavin and Carol Klein was first shown on BBC NI on 23 March 2026 and on BBC2 on 10 April 2026.
The 6 part programme features Gardeners Diarmuid Gavin, Carol Klein and a different guest Judge each week all visiting 3 Gardens in Northern Ireland.
The team will judge each garden and the winning garden from each week will go through to the grand final.
The final will take place at Greenmount Walled Garden in County Antrim and the finalists and their families will find out who is Northern Ireland's Greatest Garden.
This programme follows a similar format to Garden of the Year which was shown on More4 in 2022.
The judges in this were Manoj Malde, Lachlan Rae and Zoe Ball and each week featured a different region where they judged 4 gardens ending in a grand final for the winner of Garden of the Year.
This programme was never done again so really should have been Garden of 2022.
There are also several House of Year programmes that follow a similar format on the BBC.
On the Greatest Gardens the 3 judges tour the garden, pointing out the planting highlights and talking in depth about the plants and planting schemes.
They talk about favourite parts of the garden and the Garden owner talks about the gardens story and history.
Carol Klein as usual goes into detail about the plants and her knowledge is endless, Diarmuid experience as a Garden Designer sees him looking at the design.
The Guest Judge, a keen gardener themselves, brings their own opinion on what makes a great garden to the judging panel.
The Garden judges also asks the Garden Owners questions about the Garden.
It is not just praise the gardens get, there is also some criticism and with such diverse gardens featured in each episode, although each are special in there own way, I do wonder if the winning one is not always a bit obvious in these type of programmes!
Diarmuid Gavin has had several Television Programmes shown only in Northern Ireland so it is good the BBC are showing this for us all to enjoy.
It lovely to see new gardens and what Northern Ireland Gardeners are doing in their plots and you can tell the Judges are loving having a snoop at what are the best gardens in Northern Ireland.
As all the episodes are already on the BBC iplayer I will not reveal the winning garden on this page until each programme has been aired!
Presenters
Guest Judges
Prue Leith
Patrick Grant
Penny Lancaster
Katie Piper
Fred Sireix
Episodes
Episode 1
Guest Judge
Prue Leith
Gardens Visited
Fernhill Cottage Garden Ballynahinch, County Down - Tomas Raju and Thomas McCaw
Suburban Garden Jordanstown, County Antrim - Karen
Holly House Gardens Crumlin, County Antrim - Will
Winning Garden
Episode 2
Guest Judge
Patrick Grant
Gardens Visited
Coastal Garden Millisle County Down- Heather
Brockagh Wood Benvarden, Ballymoney -Shaun Boyd
Iona Cottage Garden Greyabbey, Ards Peninsular - Darren and Victoria
Winning Garden
All Photographs copyright of BBC NI
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