Remembering Percy Thrower - a gardening legend

Picture by Robert Broomfield

Percy Thrower was already a well known national gardening icon long before he joined Blue Peter in 1974, having presented the BBC's Gardening Club from 1956 before heading up Gardener's World from 1969 until 1976. He was also a star of radio and a newspaper writer on all things green and natural. 

Percy's first appearance on Blue Peter was when he helped the team to convert a patch of barren waste ground next to the restaurant block at Television Centre into the Blue Peter Garden. 

Lewis Bronze was to observe:

"It was a very lucky day for us when he agreed to pass on some of his secrets and techniques to Blue Peter viewers. Successions of Blue Peter presenters who'd hardly known one plant from another became keen gardeners when seeds they planted under Percy's eye actually sprouted and grew into plants! Perhaps the keenest of all was Peter Duncan, who Percy turned into an avid gardener".

Amongst Percy's most celebrated works on the programme was his design and supervision of the building of the Italian Sunken Garden, complete with an ornamental fishpond. He also designed a patio and built a greenhouse. Percy was respected by the Blue Peter film crew for his experience in front of camera "knowing when to show the leaf, seedling, or whatever to the right camera at the right time" according to Bronze.

Percy Thrower died in 1988 and shortly before his death was honoured with a Gold Blue Peter Badge to go with his M.B.E., his Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society and a waxwork statue at Madam Tussaud's. Following letters from viewers, a memorial plaque was put up within the Blue Peter Garden, in an area planted with two bushes of pink roses named after him and two of his favourite hardy fuchsias.

Percy was followed by Chris Crowder, Head Gardener at Levens Hall in Cumbria as the Blue Peter gardener from 1988 and then by Clare Bradley from Kew Gardens who joined Blue Peter in May 1991..