Carol Klein

"A garden is a place to enjoy and indulge in, something you can love, somewhere you can nurture. It stimulates all the senses, and its very unpredictability gives it a vitality not often encountered in our contrived and controlled world. My plot is on a south-west-facing slope about 150m above sea level in north , in a lull between and . The soil is heavy , ochre and grey at its worst, with random streaks of , known locally as shillet. There are trees wrapped around one side of it and a seriously overgrown hedge, up to 18m tall and counting, whose fallen leaves have gradually changed the soil beneath to acid . All the garden lies in front of the house and is bisected by a track that joins the cottage to the outside world - or is it the other way around? For such a small plot, less than an acre, there is a huge diversity of conditions, from sunny and Mediterranean to murky shade, enabling us to grow a wide range of plants. We cultivate vegetables and some fruit, too."

"The garden at Ashwood Nurseries is wonderful and John Massey is a brilliant bloke. , naturally, but also Marchants Hardy Plants. I’ve known [founder] Graham Gough ever since he was working with Elizabeth Strangman, who is one of my all-time heroines. I love the – I love everything about it, but particularly its overall attitude. It’s incredibly welcoming and it involves not just visitors from elsewhere but everybody in the city. It has real energy."

"In 1978, she and her husband Neil (who sounds completely splendid) settled in and bought Glebe Cottage, which came with an acre of rough grass, weeds and brambles. Creating a garden there, the first proper one she’d ever had, transformed her life. ‘As much as I made this garden, this garden made me,’ she writes. She discovered she had a knack for propagating plants and started selling them at country markets before creating her own nursery, while also raising her two daughters. Soon she began exhibiting at shows and then was asked to design a garden at the . Before long, a TV producer spotted her potential and she got a job presenting the show Real Gardens. Klein first appeared on in 1989 when the late, great did a feature on Glebe Cottage."