Chris Beardshaw
CHRIS BEARDSHAW
Passionate, inspiring and hugely informed Chris Beardshaw is emerging as one of the leading lights in the world of gardening both as a television presenter and ambassador – breathing new life into the industry with his unique blend of skills and qualifications which embrace planting, garden design and landscape architecture. Fiercely committed to the authenticity of his profession Chris has often said that gardening doesn’t start at 60. “Gardening touches everybody. It’s a great leveler.”
The award-winning gardener, designer, author and lecturer caught the gardening bug at the age of four - thanks to his Gran. Since receiving his first packet of seeds all he ever wanted to do was work with plants. Committed to research and with a deep hunger for knowledge he qualified first as a horticulturalist and then as a landscape architect and was already lecturing and running his own business by the time the broadcasters came knocking on his door. In fact, his TV debut was a mistake as he was told 'you'll do' by a TV crew who were searching desperately for someone to interview at a flower show.
His TV debut was in 1999 on Surprise Gardeners (Carlton TV). He then moved over to the BBC with Real Rakeover, again as the expert contributor. In 2000 he co-presented Gardening Neighbours for BBC2 and was offered a guest position on Gardeners' World where he quickly established himself as an integral member of the team.
With his fan-base growing as rapidly as his plants, he was offered his own series The Flying Gardener, in which he looked at how a knowledge of surrounding local conditions and climate can help the gardener to select and cultivate plants for their own domestic setting. Highly popular, he went on to record three more series. He also presented two series of the garden history programme, Hidden Gardens, in which British gardens from the past were restored to their former glory.
His Channel 4 debut came in 2005 when he co-presented The Great Garden Challenge. The series, shown three times a week in the afternoons, was broadcast live from the grounds of Blenheim Palace and pitted amateur and professional designers against each other to see who could create and build the best show garden.
Chris has recently joined the Radio 4 celebrated Gardeners’ Question Time team and is a regular contributor to their shows. He also writes a weekly column for the Daily Mail and monthly articles for Period House. His literary skills have also been employed by The Garden Writers Guild as a judge for the award’s in 2005 and 2006.
As an author he has written The Natural Gardener (2003), in which readers learn how to develop gardens that are in tune with nature, where plants will flourish with minimum effort. There are also two books out based on his television series Hidden Gardens. His new book published by Dorling Kindersley called ‘How does your Garden Grow?’ will be released May 2007.
His integrity and wealth of experience has been recognised academically and Chris was recently awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Cheltenham and Gloucester University – making him the University’s youngest ever fellow. He has cemented his local links with the University by becoming a regular lecturer in Landscape Architecture and has also just been appointed external examiner for University College Falmouth.
As if that doesn’t keep him busy enough he also runs a private design and consultancy practice, undertaking projects from small private gardens right up to public reclamation schemes and has a healthy crop of medals, including Gold and The RHS BBC People’s Choice Award for his 2006 Chelsea Show Garden. 2007 sees him producing no less than 3 major show gardens (Malvern’s official show garden, Chelsea and Hampton) all of which have a strong educational emphasis and is something that is close to Chris’s heart. It is not only the well publicised show gardens that captures Chris’s interest though as he is a regular and popular contributor at The Sandringham Flower Show where he lectures and judges the show gardens and he has also agreed to become an ambassador for the prestigious Shrewsbury Flower Show which is held in August - where again he is judging the show gardens.
He also finds time for charity and ambassadorial work, particularly with The Woodland Trust, The Salvation Army, The Environment Agency and The National Lottery.
You can find out more on Chris’s website – www.chrisbeardshaw.com
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