Gardening is one of my passions so it was wonderful to attend the Southport Flower Show recently.

BBC Gardeners World presenters Joe Swift and former ‘Rishton girl’ Christine Walkden were among the guests at the event.

With their respective, distinctive expertise, local crowds were given an opportunity to see them in action during workshops, lectures and a final day finale with a lengthy Q&A session from Christine.

She confirmed unequivocally her in depth knowledge of horticulture is a far cry from her earlier days as a local lass seen at local allotments.

Both took the opportunity to talk to Asian Image and gave an insight on their experiences.

Londoner Joe Swift emphasised his modular style of gardening saying that all gardening was about human intervention with nature.

He found the people vastly friendlier up north, reflected by a typical Lancashire welcome afforded to him.

With this being his first ever visit to Southport he was surprisingly impressed by the wide variety of gardens on show to remarkably high standards.

Christine was particularly impressed with the three prison gardens.

“They have had lots of enthusiasm, with some awesome plantings to rival Chelsea," she said.

"All of this requires skill, patience and knowledge and it’s a personal credit to the lads for their hard work."

Having travelled widely throughout Asia, especially India, Christine confirmed: "People are travelling more and there is greater diversity these days in gardening.

"For instance we are growing crops for Asian, African, Caribbean and Vietnamese cuisine and the skills for their nurture are improving across the board."

In Joe’s allotment in London there are all gardeners with origins from many parts of the world. "There is a richness of crops they grow.

"The Asian gardeners are especially good at growing Asian crops especially dudhi’s, fenugreek and exotic species of plants.

"Asians are inherently natural gardeners because of their agricultural past."

In terms of changing future gardening trends Christine said: "There is a recession of space and consequently a development of gardening space vertically up walls, multi occupancy flats having containers and LED lighting will be more common in the future."

"It's important to engage and touch the younger generation with the joy of planting things.

"That has nowt to do with fashion which in this respect is redundant and bunkum.

"If you give them a seed let them plant it themselves and watch it grow it always fascinates children producing something themselves."

She started gardening aged 10 at primary school when everybody was given a crocus and a bowl and compost to grow it in when she became hooked.

"I started going to the allotments and tried in my own way growing things generally disrupting the established plotters, they then showed me the correct way of doing things and I got my own allotment which then progressed into having six allotments.

"I grew fruit and veg and sold it on to the teachers at school.

"My dad told me to charge the headmaster an extra penny for his produce and when he eventually would ask why I was to say it was because he could afford it."

Her hints for all gardeners irrespective of experiences was as she put it: "Every season is a gift when something can be grown and produced.

"If you mess it up one year it's all right because you can start again the following year.

"Water and feed regularly. What would you be like if you didn’t get the right nourishment for years on end."

Gardening gave both these presenters a spiritual connection and Joe confirmed how gardening was a great antidote against depressive illnesses as proven by numerous studies.

Christine added: “There is an absolute revitalisation of life and connection with a spiritual side from gardening."

As we see the growth of gardening TV programmes and an explosion in all things green local Asian gardeners will wonder what the fuss is all about.

For they come from a previous agricultural generation rich with the knowledge, skill and expertise folk are only waking up to in places such as at Southport.

The show witnessed hundreds of visitors daily making 2015 one of the most successful years.

Surprisingly there were no Asian entries.

A time for local Asians to start integrating competitively and showing off their produce and what they are capable of growing. What next also?

An Asian gardening presenter. Let's bring it on. I await in hope at Southport 2016.