Green Fingers

GreenFingers

The Alan Titchmarsh column

He’s a brilliant presenter, accomplished gardener, talented novelist, and all-round horticultural inspiration. This month, Alan Titchmarsh discusses the next generation of green-fingered gardeners. You’ll find me talking quite a bit about the new breed of gardener coming through. For me, it’s a natural evolution that presents to me two different things – firstly, the art of gardening is much more interesting and much cooler than it ever was in my day; and secondly, it seems as though I am becoming more and more aware of my own mortality! Percy Thrower was the one who inspired me most when I was a kid. I watched him on Gardening Club on the box, and as the years have gone by, I have been lucky enough to work with a number of the horticultural greats. Christopher Lloyd was a friend, Beth Chatto is a friend who I really value and whose work I really admire. After a while you realise you have progressed from the student to the teacher, and I’ve always been very proud to be that person. Ultimately, I want to inspire everybody to get into the garden, because I think there are so many benefits. And I do admit, the likes of James Swift, James Wong, Annemarie Powell, Katie Rushworth and Frances Tophill all have a knack of conversing to young audiences that I probably don’t have… and that’s great. I want to see our gardens and our outside spaces continue to flourish over the decades to come, despite the noise and appeal of doing other things elsewhere; and you know what, I’m sure they will.