Katy Guest: The out-of-touch gardener faces His people

In the epic PR battle to make the Prince of Wales appear more attractive to his people, the marketing men scored a direct hit yesterday when they secured His Highness the plum slot on Radio 4. Prime ministers make do with a crotchety 08:10 with John Humphrys and the Today programme. Leaders of the opposition roll up to Desert Island Discs to spin the eight trendy records that they would like people to think are their favourites. Old soap stars and fading DJs might even land a walk-on part in The Archers. But Prince Charles's people managed to get the boss a speaking part in GQT.

Gardeners' Question Time, to the uninitiated, celebrated its 60th anniversary with a special guest appearance by the nation's most famous gardener. And what a success it was for the Prince's man-of-the-people image. To show that he appreciated the honour bestowed upon him, Prince Charles had thoroughly researched the programme and had a question specially tailored for every expert on the panel.

It was vintage listening as the Prince and Pippa Greenwood exchanged organic methods for controlling vine weevils: the Prince revealing how he creeps out in the dead of night in his astrakhan dressing gown, picks the blighters off the root balls by hand and stamps on them. The audience chuckled amenably as Charles agreed with John Cushnie that the only good vegetable is a dead vegetable. We gassed as he exchanged smutty banter with Eric Robson. Gardeners the length and breadth of Britain paused in their sowing of tomato seeds as His Highness and Bob Flowerdew debated the best brand of cider to "recycle" on to one's compost heap (nobody expected the future king to be a Magners fan). Anyone with the bad grace to travel abroad for the bank holiday weekend will be kicking themselves for missing his routine about starlings devouring the royal fat balls.

But unfortunately for fans of Gardeners' Question Time, this episode of the cult program was all in our expectations. In fact, the Prince missed a trick. Here was his chance to win round Britain's gardeners, who are a patient bunch and famously tolerant of eccentric traditional species, however low their yields. This was his opportunity to show that he was just one of us after all, struggling to defend his beloved patch of earth against common enemies such as tomato blight and the neighbour's cat. Instead, he used his slot to give us another little lecture.

The Prince cannot get it into his head, bless him, that other people do not have the same advantages he has. In his segment, he showed Eric Robson around his woodland area, with its two full-sized temples. In the main programme, a lady who cannot afford a garden asked whether she could grow any organic fruit trees on her south-facing window sill.

Poor Charles, it must be difficult to turn out enough compost for the Highgrove estate when there are only two of you producing kitchen scraps. But spare a thought for real gardeners, who get home from a hard day at the office to find the foxes have pried open the compost bin and liberally distributed reeking banana skins down the driveway.

It is heartening to hear that Charles plans years into the future, directing his legion of gardeners to plant trees, landscape grounds and carve out bosky pathways for generations of royals to come. But Prince Charles can't really talk about planning for the future until he has trooped out each November to kneel on frosty lawns, planting 500 daffodil bulbs into frozen earth until his gloved fingers are numbed with cold and then watched from his window, weeping with impotent fury, as a squirrel digs up 499 and gnaws away their roots.

He talked about the importance of children being given their own vegetable plots: his was at Buckingham Palace. He praised the rewards of hard work. "Luckily I have people to help," he added, when Robson mentioned the seven years of digging it takes to get rid of ground elder. He even talked about a sign at Highgrove that reads: "Beware: You're entering an old-fashioned establishment." But that probably doesn't mean that his greenhouse is a dangerous relic from the 1970s unless he grows his tomato plants in an old chest of drawers to save on grow bags.

Gardeners, being forgiving types (of anything but blackfly), will no doubt smile indulgently at the thought of the green-fingered Prince pottering about in his slippers, throwing down bran to keep the slugs off his hostas, but if he really wants to encourage the public to garden organically, perhaps he might like to turn over the Highgrove estate to the nation as a series of small allotments. Until then, he really doesn't know his Astragalus penduliflorus from his Elodea canadensis.

k.guest@independent.co.uk