Gardening: Cuttings: My big question

AFTER all that huffing and puffing about the BBC's new showbiz Gardener's Question Time, the panel to be chaired by Eric Robson turns out to be not much of a shock. Members will be chosen from a rolling rota: Pippa Greenwood and Geoff Hamilton, well known already from Gardeners' World; Geoffrey Smith, a stalwart of GQT before ill-health forced him to retire, and now making a comeback; Matthew Biggs from Channel 4's Grass Roots; Bob Flowerdew; and Adrian Bloom of Bressingham's nursery in Norfolk.

The BBC has ditched the last programmes recorded by the old GQT team before their defection to Classic FM, and the new panel will be settled in before 2 April, when Stefan Buczacki and his rebels broadcast the first of their Classic Gardening Forum programmes. Will either team ever be daring enough to answer questions to which they have not already prepared answers? Now that would be a breakthrough.