A GLORIOUS Sussex garden features in the long-running BBC programme Gardeners’ World tonight.

The show is packed with ideas and timely reminders to help green-fingered viewers get the most out of their gardens.

Tonight, West Dean Gardens just outside Chichester, will appear in a segment about head gardeners.

The gardens have now had to close under the coronavirus lockdown but the BBC film crew got there in the nick of time.

Just before the restrictions came into force, they filmed a piece with West Dean’s head gardener Tom Brown.

He spent the day showing the crew the walled garden, the nectarine glasshouse, the pergola and the spring gardens.

He said: “I was so pleased to welcome BBC’s Gardeners’ World to West Dean Gardens on a glorious day and I am thrilled to have been chosen for this new series of pieces focusing on head gardeners.

“The piece featuring West Dean Gardens will be the first to be shown and I am very pleased to join a prestigious line-up, which also features head gardeners and the gardens they work at including Sissinghurst and Iford Manor, as well as several others.”

Gardeners’ World presenters give advice, share seasonal knowledge and tour gardens up and down the country.

But the presenters are now working out how to do this safely under lockdown.

The programme’s star presenter Monty Don announced earlier this month that he had gone into a 14-day period of self-isolation.

He assured fans he was well and promised to be back with viewers tonight.

“The show goes on,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, West Dean Gardens may be closed to the public, but it has launched a campaign to make sure it can still be there for its admirers.

West Dean said it wants to continue to be a source of inspiration for them.

Short films with Tom sharing professional tips are being shared on West Dean Garden’s social media channels. The first was about sowing salad leaves and the next will be on planting potatoes.

Followers are encouraged to post the topics they want Tom to cover next on social media.

Daily posts of photos and films offer a glimpse of the temporarily secret garden as it bursts into life this spring.

Would-be visitors can see the magnificent magnolias by the pergola or the delicate snakeshead fritillaries under the fruit trees around the walled garden.

They have been assured they won’t miss out on seeing the familiar River Lavant running through the Spring Gardens or the wonderful nectarine house.

And they’ve even been treated to pictures of swathes of daffodils coming into bloom.

West Dean said those who typically use the gardens for creative inspiration as visitors or as students to West Dean College of Arts and Conservation in the grounds are continuing to draw and paint in response to the virtual images.

This week, a new West Dean Sketchbook Project has been launched to encourage people to post their own creative response to regular postings of images from the gardens.

The garden has suggested its latest photo of a fritillary could be the inspiration for a lino cut, a chequered patchwork, a charcoal drawing or abstract art.

See @westdeancollege on Twitter for more information.

Gardeners’ World at West Dean Gardens is to be broadcast tonight at 8pm on BBC Two.