Bill Greeno, one of the duelling pianists at Coventry bar Jumpin Jaks, found himself in a battle of a different sort recently when he invited the BBC Groundforce team into his home. 

He had asked the team to come and help him give his Essex garden a facelift, but ended up in the middle of a war of words between hosts Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh.

The team, which also includes Charlie Dimmock, set about building a water feature and three separate landscaped areas in just two days, whilst Greeno's wife Carole was visiting her parents in Newcastle. 

With time running short the pressure was on to complete the work before Carole returned, and as tempers frayed there was a dust up between Titchmarsh and Walsh who began to size each other up.

Greeno said:

"It was coming toward the end of the second day and the pressure was really on to get the garden finished. 

"Alan Titchmarsh had completed the segment of garden he was working on and had hosed the area down to clean it off, meanwhile Tommy was sawing wood to complete the decking steps he was building.

"The wind caught the sawdust and blew it all over Alan's finished area and he became quite irate, telling Tommy to 'knock it on the head'.

"Tommy was absolutely fuming and simply threw down his tools and, using a series of expletives explained to Alan he could do it himself and promptly walked out.

 "At first I thought it was a staged argument for a bit of fun on the show, but when Tommy walked out and then didn't reappear I realised they were having a very real argument.

"Eventually Tommy reappeared and finished his work but the atmosphere was still quite tense - but once the garden was done they made up and Tommy even apologised to Alan over drinks once it was all over.

"I couldn't believe that they nearly came to blows over my garden!  It was quite a weekend.

“I am used to an entertaining time at Jaks when I play every weekend - but this was a show stopper I would have been proud of."

The episode of Groundforce featuring Bill Greeno and the 'duelling gardeners' will be shown tonight at 8pm on BBC1.