“Inspiring, educational and entertaining” is an accurate way to describe Pippa Greenwood or to introduce her as your guest speaker. Her style is engaging, practical, enthusiastic and passionate about all aspects of gardening.Pippa is well known to a huge audience as a regular panellist on the very popular BBC Radio 4 programme Gardeners’ Question Time. For over 13 years, she was a regular presenter on BBC 2’s Gardeners World, presenting items on garden pests and diseases, science and gardening. She created and ran an organic kitchen garden from her own Hampshire garden.
Pippa speaks at a wide range of events, including for expert gardeners, complete beginners, people increasingly keen to “grow your own” and for students and young people. She also gives more formal lectures and gardening-related demonstrations.
She graduated as a botanist at Durham University (BSc Hons) and then gained an MSc in Crop Protection at Reading University. In 2007, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of Durham. In 1985 Pippa joined the staff of The Royal Horticultural Society’s world-famous Garden at RHS Wisley in Surrey, where she ran the Plant Pathology Department, answering thousands of queries from gardeners every year.
In 1988 Pippa joined Alan Titchmarsh for the gardening slot on BBC 1’s Daytime Live. In 2000, 2001 and 2002 she presented her own series, Growing Science on BBC Radio 4. For several years, she presented Topsoil with Pippa Greenwood for BBC Radio Solent, a 3-hour gardening and music show. She has made guest appearances on TV and radio programmes including: Tomorrow’s World, You and Yours, Women’s Hour, This Morning, GMTV, Breakaway, Grass Roots and Call My Bluff. She was also a judge for the BBC Garden of the Year 2001 competition.
You may not know that Pippa 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, plant-related matters, and the gardening personalities of the two actresses!
Her regular writing commitments include BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, as gardening columnist for The Mirror newspaper, and a regular blog for the BBC Gardeners’ World website.
Pippa’s bestselling books include New Gardener (more than 1.25 million copies sold), Gardening Hints and Tips, Garden Pests and Diseases, Garden Problem Solver, Flower Gardens, Pippa’s Organic Kitchen Garden, A Garden for All Seasons and Pippa Greenwood’s Gardening Year. She co-authored the Gardeners’ Question Time book and her latest book is 1001 Ways to be a Better Gardener.
Her own garden is on a windswept hillside in Hampshire, with strongly alkaline, heavy-clay soil.