Tom Allen opens up on how gardening helped him grieve for his dad

What did you miss?

Comedian Tom Allen has told how getting into vegetable growing has helped him to process his grief over losing his father.

He appeared on BBC Two's RHS Chelsea Flower Show coverage, where he opened up to Sophie Raworth on the healing effect that gardening had had on him.

Allen also spoke about his fondness for drunk gardening and how he has been embracing his garden failures.

What, how, and why?

Tom Allen is a big fan of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and he stopped in to this year's event to tell Sophie Raworth how getting into gardening had helped him to grieve for his father.

The comedian appeared on BBC Two's coverage of the show, where he spoke about his own attempts at gardening and how he had been inspired to grow vegetables because his late father had always grown them.

He said: "He died about two and a half years ago. If you lose somebody close to you, it's difficult to process sometimes and I thought actually, spending time in the garden just gave me space to remember him in a way that was active."

Allen added that he had been sowing his vegetables in alphabetical order so that he wasn't confused about what they were when the plants came through.

"I've been embracing failure," he added of his gardening efforts. "I've been enjoying putting it on my social media and I like to play a game of 'dead or not'. It looks like it's mainly a stick but maybe it'll come back to life. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

"It doesn't matter if it works out or it doesn't. If you have a go with gardening, that's the joy of it and a lot of the time it's the way it makes you feel."

What else happened on the RHS Chelsea Flower Show coverage?

Allen also shared his love of gardening after enjoying his favourite tipple.

He said: "I've done a bit of drunk gardening. I don't know if I've coined (the phrase). I've done various bits of gardening when drunk, but most recently I was at an awards ceremony and ended up stealing the table centrepieces and brought those home."

Raworth asked: "And are they still alive?" but Allen admitted: "Well, no, they're dead. It's nice to look at foliage and enjoy whatever nature's delivered, and sometimes a glass of wine helps me do that."

He added: "It is easy to get overexcited (at Chelsea). I did buy an urn but I didn't check the measurements. It's enormous and it makes my garden look rather like a cemetery.

"Do be careful not to get carried away, because it might look wonderful in Chelsea but it might not look quite so good in suburban Bromley."

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show coverage airs on BBC Two at 8pm.

Read more: Chelsea Flower Show

• Japanese-style garden wins top prize at Chelsea Flower Show (PA Media, 2 min read)

• What to expect at this year's Chelsea Flower Show (House Beautiful, 10 min read)

• Children centre stage at Chelsea Flower Show as green issues high on agenda (PA Media, 5 min read)

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tom-allen-chelsea-flower-show-grief-191911490.html