Diarmuid Gavin says some people aren't aware that Ireland is one of the best countries in the world to garden.
Gavin and horticulturist Paul Smyth are hosting a new GoLoud Original podcast, DIRT.
It offers practical advice for all gardeners of all levels, and challenges you to look at whatever space you have in a new way.
Diarmuid told Down to Business we have it very good in this country.
"We live in one of the best country's in the world to garden, and I think that is really striking people at the moment.
"We have this temperate climate; so we don't get any of the extremes that we see on our television on a weekly basis at the moment.
"Our landscape isn't been burnt to bits, our ground doesn't get a deep-freeze in winter.
"So we can grow plants that have originated from all around the world.
"And most of us in this country, on this island, are only a couple of generations removed from a farming background".
"We have an innate relationship with the soil, and we also have a very high rate of home ownership.
"So many people have access to gardens or land on which to grow".
'Elite systems designed to keep people out'
But Diarmuid says a perception of elitism comes from elsewhere.
"Maybe not so much on this island but gardening is one of these things, it's been acceptable to the higher orders - the dukes, the barons.
"They've built big palaces and they've had the new gardening style of the day.
"It's often been quite elite and sometimes these elite systems are designed subtly to keep people out.
"So you will often see people gardening who look like me or who look like my wife.
"You don't often see people from the Travelling community or the New Irish who've come here over the last few generations reflected in what we do.
"There's a case to be made in that a lot of these people maybe couldn't afford gardens... or they're not welcomed in gardening societies because they don't see themselves reflected, or they don't see themselves on television programmes talking about this craft".
And he says the pandemic has brought more people into the fray.
"Gardening has boomed right through the pandemic because so many people want to be involved, want to learn about it.
"Instagram, oddly enough, became a very, very big medium to communicate with people and also for advertisers".
