Beloved Scottish presenter Jim McColl, who hosted the BBC Scotland show The Beechgrove Garden since it began in 1978, has passed away at the age of 89. After 41 years on screen, he retired in 2019. Fellow gardeners across Scotland were touched by his passion for gardening, which he referred to as “part of the fabric of our lives.” Colleagues paid tribute to him as “a local hero first and a Scottish national treasure next” in the wake of his death.
The Beechgrove Garden was inspired by a similar program in Boston, USA. The garden used in the show, situated in the corporation’s Aberdeen headquarters on Beechgrove Terrace, was originally planned, tended, and managed throughout the year. It stood in stark contrast to other gardening shows on television, primarily due to the challenges of the northern growing season. McColl and co-presenter George Barron led the site’s transformation from scratch in 1978.
Though originally from Kilmarnock, where his father was a gardening supervisor responsible for all the parks, McColl had a career in academic horticulture. He taught at various universities and colleges before joining the Ministry of Agriculture’s Leicester division, where he offered recommendations to commercial growers. A desire to educate his two children in Scotland led him and his wife Billie to relocate to Aberdeen, where he taught at what was then called North College. He then worked on setting up a waste-to-energy project at Aberdeenshire’s Glen Garioch distillery before transitioning into television.
After the programme’s enormous success among viewers, the team produced live shows and a radio spin-off. The garden moved to Aberdeen’s outskirts in the 1990s, where the group began creating it anew. Barron left the show in 1984, but McColl remained in his role and worked with various presenters over the years, including Bill Torrance, Chris Beardshaw, and Carole Baxter. Tern TV, an independent production company, produces the show for BBC Scotland.
The McColl family issued a statement after his death, saying, “It’s with a heavy heart we share the passing of Jim McColl, husband, dad and grandad who passed peacefully yesterday. He will be hugely missed not only by us but by his friends, colleagues and a nation who he shared his passion for gardening with over four decades at The Beechgrove Garden.” BBC Scotland’s acting director Geraldine McCartney praised McColl’s work, describing his gardening expertise and advice on The Beechgrove Garden as “invaluable” to viewers over the years
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