Episode One – Spring In this brand new four part series for ITV1, everyone’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh goes back to his roots to find out how our changing seasons affect everything around us. The series reveals the profound and far-reaching impact that each season has on our wildlife and landscape, and how they shape the way we all live. In the first programme Alan leads us through the start of the natural year, spring, a time of hope and optimism is under every foot and around every corner new life is just waiting to begin. Alan’s natural enthusiasm for the subject, alongside stunning photography, brings the subject of spring to life, exploring and vividly displaying its transformative effect as it sweeps from south to north between March and May, affecting everything from scallop fishing in Dorset to stags shedding their antlers in the Scottish Highlands. The programme looks at why spring arrives when it does in Britain and why weather is so unpredictable at this time of year. Its broad scope encompasses how spring heralds a time of reawakening, highlighting the rich profusion of wildlife and plants emerging after the long winter days across our skies, hills, rivers, forests and coastline. Alan says: “Spring isn’t just about what you can see. It’s a feeling in the pit of your stomach and you can smell it too. Not that acrid sour smell of autumn, but a sweetness on the breeze that’s all its own.” Alan explains how the seasons underpin and drive patterns of behaviour that affect humans as well as occur in nature. And he looks at the way our ancestors’ seasonal rituals still influence today’s springtime celebrations. Alan describes spring as ‘nature’s dinner gong’ and he investigates the fundamental importance of insects in the food chain that jolts into life in spring. He tells the programme why so many early spring flowers are yellow as well as taking in the riot of other colours that carpet our forests as
Episode Two - Summer In this brand new four part series for ITV1, everyone’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh goes back to his roots to find out how our changing seasons affect everything around us. The series reveals the profound and far-reaching impact that each season has on our wildlife and landscape, and how they shape the way we all live. In the second programme Alan takes us through the great British summer, the season many of us look forward to the most. Alan tells the programme that in the summer he feels “more relaxed, more expansive”. He says: “It’s not just plants that flower, we humans flower then too.” The programme reveals that summer means so much more to our lives than seaside holidays, messing about in boats, or hoping rain doesn’t stop play. Alongside stunning photography, Alan shows how our countryside dramatically changes throughout the summer months, with a rich profusion of colour carpeting the landscape, wildlife producing, and protecting, their young, at a time when we all enjoy a myriad of outdoor activities. Alan says that one word in particular sums up summer for him: “flowers”. He explains why it is no accident that flowers are so many different colours and so many different shapes; as with everything in nature, it is to ensure their very survival. This is a time of abundance, the best time for animals to produce their young, but the programme shows this is also a time of danger as predators take full advantage of any youngsters that stray too far from their parents. One creature that doesn’t take any responsibly for its young is the cuckoo, well known for laying its eggs in other bird’s nests. The programme features rare footage of a cuckoo chick pushing eggs out of a reed warbler’s nest it has been hatched in, while the reed warbler looks on. *Summer is a time when we love messing about with water, we see schoolchildren investigating the wildlife found in our streams, the joy of dis
Episode Three - Autumn In this brand new four part series for ITV1, everyone’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh, goes back to his roots to find out how our changing seasons affect everything around us. The series reveals the profound and far-reaching impact that each season has on our wildlife and landscape, and how they shape the way we all live. In the third programme Alan leads us through autumn, as it tracks slowly across the country from North to South. It is a season when wildlife stocks up its larder for the winter and trees brighten the landscape with a kaleidoscope of colours. Alan tells the programme: “There’s one day in every year when I know that autumn has arrived. I can’t predict when it’s going to happen, but I’ll walk out one morning and I’ll be able to smell it. It’s a kind of tang and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.” The programme’s broad scope encompasses how nature ensures our wildlife will survive the coming winter, the mysteries that lie at the heart of our great autumn festivals and just where our insects disappear to as the days get colder. Autumn is the climax of the farming year, when traditionally whole communities would help gather in the harvest. The harvested fields were an important part in the food chain for many creatures but in recent times pesticides have had a detrimental affect on our wildlife. However Alan explains that this has improved in recent years due to the rise in organic farming and meets organic farmer George Heathcote who farms according to the seasons and delights in the wide array of wildlife this encourages. The Seasons shows that autumn is a time when many of the birds we are used to seeing during the summer depart our shores for warmer climes. But Alan explains that millions more arrive back, including wading birds who feed on the protein and mineral packed mud of our estuaries. The programme meets Cornish oyster fisherman Tim Vinecombe, who is h
Episode Four – Winter In this brand new four part series for ITV1, everyone’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh, goes back to his roots to find out how our changing seasons affect everything around us. The series reveals the profound and far-reaching impact that each season has on our wildlife and landscape, and how they shape the way we all live. In the fourth programme Alan takes us through winter, when the scarcity of food means nature has to be at its most inventive to ensure wildlife and plants survive through until spring. The programme’s broad scope encompasses how climate change endangers hibernating mammals, the history behind the year’s most magical festivals, and how the cold dark days affect our mood and health. Alan explains that keeping warm is a constant requirement for all mammals in winter, and they use various means to achieve this. The programme shows sheep in Yorkshire who can survive buried in snow for two weeks by living off the fat they have stored in their bodies. Amphibians such as toads and frogs spend the coldest days submerged in mud at the bottom of ponds, while smaller mammals, such as bats and hedgehogs spend the winter months in hibernation. The Seasons shows that of all the mammals we humans have taken the most radical steps to protect ourselves from the extremes of winter. We are cocooned in our centrally heated hermetically sealed homes and workplaces, but Alan reveals the downside to this comfort. We have created the perfect breeding ground for germs, which is why cases of flu, colds and bronchitis rise during the winter months. Alan looks at the seasonal festivals of Christmas and Hogmanay, and he explains how midwinter festivals were held in Britain long before Christianity reached our shores. Lerwick in the Shetland Islands is Britain’s most northerly town, and gets very little daylight in winter months. Every year, towards the end of January, the inhabitants hold a huge party, called Uphelier