Percy's Blue Peter garden is on the move

The Blue Peter garden designed by Shrewsbury's Percy Thrower will be moved to Manchester when the BBC relocates the children's show north in 2011, a spokesman has confirmed.

The much-loved plot has been part of the programme since 1974.

Blue Peter pet George the tortoise and a time capsule due to be opened in 2029 are both buried there.

Its devastation by vandals in 1983 shortly before the completion of a renovation moved head gardener Thrower – who died in 1988 – to tears on screen.

A BBC spokesman today denied reports that programme makers plan to replace the plot with a "virtual garden" that children could access on line.

He said: "There are no plans for a virtual Blue Peter garden. Our plan is to move the real Blue Peter garden to Mediacity UK."

But he said the details of how the garden will be recreated in the Salford development have yet to be worked out.

Mr Thrower's daughter, Margaret, today said it was sad news that the garden would be moved.

Miss Thrower, who inherited her father's love of gardening and only recently retired from working at the Shropshire gardening centre that bears his name, said: "It's sad but things move on and things change and you cannot stop so-called progress.

"I know a lot of the older generation who watched dad on TV will be sad to see it happen but that is how life is.

"The garden is part of history and part of tradition but a lot of the younger children don't value the tradition forefathers have created for them."

Miss Thrower said the garden had helped her father's legacy to live on long after his death.