Ground Force - First Episode

Here we are, fatsias ... they're related to the castor oil plant, but unlike their cousins, they’re not poisonous and they're a lovely tropical-looking plant.

– Gardener Karen Jackson shops at the garden centre for plants for Brent's backyard

While Brent's gone off fishing, the Ground Force team are moving in, and we've got a garden out the back that can be described in one word — boring! And we’ve got two days and a modest budget of three and a half thousand dollars to make it very unboring.

– Presenter Ginette McDonald

While Mike and Karen mark out the new garden, the rest of us are left to pull the old one apart — remembering of course that interesting curves are in and anything remotely dull is out.

– Presenter Ginette McDonald on the landscaping team's progress

The show's concept, borrowed from a series of the same name in England, is simple but catchy. Get a SWAT landscaping team in to redesign someone's backyard over a 48-hour period, then watch for expressions of horror and hopefully joy on the owner's face when they return and discover the results.

– Sunday Star-Times writer Ian Pryor on Ground Force, Sunday Star-Times, 4 October 1998

I do love flowers ... but I'd have to have a well-oiled young man out there doing all the work for me. I never really saw myself on hands and knees in the soil.

– Ginette McDonald on her role as presenter for Firth Ground Force, Sunday Star Times, 4 October 1998

I'm not much of a gardener or builder, but I am learning a lot from working on the show . . . it offers an amazing perspective on how to jazz up an area and achieve it cost-effectively.

– Ginette McDonald, in the press release for the launch of Ground Force