About Pippa

Gardener, BBC broadcaster, writer and lecturer

I trained as a botanist at Durham University (BSc hons) and then gained an MSc. in Crop Protection at Reading University. In 2007 I was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science by The University of Durham.

In 1985, I started working at The Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley in Surrey, where I ran the Plant Pathology Department, answering several thousand gardening queries every year.

In 1988 I began working for the BBC, joining Alan Titchmarsh for the weekly gardening slot on BBC 1’s Daytime Live.

For over 13 years, I was a regular presenter on BBC 2’s ‘Gardeners’ World’, presenting items on garden pests and diseases, science and gardening, and creating and running my organic kitchen garden from my Hampshire garden.  I’m also a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time. 

I presented my own series, ‘Growing Science’ on BBC Radio 4. and was the Presenter on BBC Radio Solent’s ‘Topsoil with Pippa Greenwood’, a three hour gardening and music show.

I have guested on a number of television and radio programmes including : Tomorrow’s World, You and Yours, Woman’s Hour, This Morning, GMTV, Breakaway, Grass Roots and Call my Bluff. 

I was the gardening consultant for the ITV murder mystery series Rosemary and Thyme starring Pam Ferris and Felicity Kendal, advising on the gardening sub-plot and other plant related matters, and the gardening personalities of the two actresses!

I have several regular writing commitments including BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine & NFU Countryside and for 18 years was the gardening columnist for The Mirror newspaper. 

I have written many books including the bestsellers, ‘New Gardener’ (in excess of one and a half million copies sold) & Gardening Hints and Tips, RHS Garden Pests and Diseases, Garden Problem Solver, Flower Gardener,  Pippa’s Organic Kitchen Garden,  A Garden for All Seasons, Pippa Greenwood’s Gardening Year, 1001 Ways to be a Better Gardener.  I co-authored The Gardeners’ Question Time book. My latest publication is The Gardener’s Year (Summersdale).

I love giving gardening-related talks and demonstrations and do so all over the UK, to gardening clubs and societies and at garden centres and at many shows.

I spent most of my childhood in the garden and had my own mini-plot from the age of four. I now live in Hampshire where I garden on a windswept hillside with a strongly alkaline, heavy-clay soil.

I love plants, gardens and gardening (and am rather fond of gardeners too!) and want to do everything possible to ensure everyone else catches the ‘gardening-bug’. So it was logical to set up ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’ – you choose the veg you’d like to grow, we supply you with great UK-grown garden-ready veg plants and I then provide you with weekly at-your-elbow advice and tips for the best possible results .

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