Alan Titchmarsh

• Alan Titchmarsh was born and brought up on the edge of Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire and started growing things at the age of ten in his parents' back garden. He left school at fifteen and became an apprentice gardener in the local nursery, following this with full time training at horticultural college and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
• After a spell as Supervisor of Staff Training at Kew he became a horticultural journalist.
• He has twice been named 'Gardening Writer of the Year' and for four successive years was voted 'Television Personality of the Year' by the Garden Writers' Guild. In 2004 he received their Lifetime Achievement Award. He writes regularly in BBC Gardeners' World Magazine and Country Life, as well as being gardening correspondent for the Daily Express and Sunday Express.
• Alan has written more than fifty gardening books, including the fastest-selling gardening book of all time: How to be a Gardener Book 1 - The Basics.
• Alan has appeared on radio and television both as a gardening expert and as an interviewer and presenter on Points of View, Pebble Mill, Songs of Praise, Titchmarsh's Travels, The Nature of Britain and Ask the Family. Since 1983 he has presented the BBC's annual coverage of The Chelsea Flower Show.
• His own daytime show on ITV, The Alan Titchmarsh Show, features a combination of music, the arts and conversation, giving Alan the chance to meet and talk with people from all walks of life – both the famous and the less well-known ‘national treasures.’  His primetime series Love Your Garden on ITV1 has also proved immensely popular.
• Alan lives in Hampshire (and the Isle of Wight) with his wife, family and assorted livestock in an old farmhouse with a 4-acre garden. When not tending that, or his family, or the animals, he enjoys being out on the water.  

Did you know?
Alan won a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1985 for a country kitchen garden.