Meet our new gardening writer Kirsty King. As Nora Cleeve discovers, Kirsty’s own garden might be small but that doesn’t stop her having big ideas!
“Mum gave me a patch of the garden when I asked to grow my own vegetables. I wanted to have my wee bit of the garden and not be told off for digging something up.”
And the fruits of her hard labour are still thriving.
“I planted a rowan tree which is now the size of my parents’ house, and I prune it every time I go back to visit,” she says. When Alan Titchmarsh and co burst onto our screens for the very first Ground Force series eight years ago, Kirsty toiled behind the scenes as a horticultural researcher. As Charlie and Tommy became household names, Kirsty worked her way up to associate producer, sourcing all the plants for the show.
Then with Alan’s departure to pastures new, it was Kirsty’s time to emerge from behind the camera — but she very nearly didn’t grace our screens.
“The executive producer told me they were looking for someone new to work with Charlie and Tommy and I said, ‘I don’t know if that’s what I want to do’.
“I, er, kind of said no, actually,” she laughs. “So they started looking for other people. But they couldn’t find anyone suitable and so I thought about it some more, and went back and said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it’.”
Kirsty had just two months to get used to the idea of being a TV presenter.
“I thought it would be no problem as I had known Charlie, Tommy and all the crew for years but I was kidding myself and it was quite scary.”
So did her co-presenters give her any pointers?
“No, they just let me get on with it to make all my mistakes in front of millions of viewers,” she laughs.
“Luckily, we’ve only got one camera so we have to do everything four times from different angles so by the fourth time I’ve usually got it!”
The show is fizzing with on-screen chemistry.
“Charlie and Tommy are lovely, fantastic people and very down to earth. We are great friends as well as work colleagues, and at the end of the day we don’t all go our separate ways but have a drink and a chat together.”
Kirsty loves the outdoors, whatever the weather.
“I’ve never had an office job and it does get to me if I am stuck indoors for hours. I can’t stay in all day. I have to go out to do something, even if it’s just pottering for half an hour.”
Sunburn and chilblains are hazards of the job but Kirsty is made of tough stuff.
“I like to get in my shorts from April when everyone is still wrapped up in layers. I think it’s the Scottishness in me — but I love the cold weather, too. As long as you are working you keep warm.”
After a hard day’s graft, Kirsty comes home to a pocket-sized garden.
“It’s only tiny — 18 ft square — but I’m away too much to keep a big garden. It’s jam-packed with plants at the moment. I’ve got a bit of everything in it from robinias and magnolia, to bananas and strawberries.
“For a small garden it has a deck, a patio, a lawn and a swing, but sadly I don’t have room for a vegetable patch.” Kirsty has two little helpers — daughters Niamh (4) and Daisy (3) — on hand to keep the weeds in check.
“They like helping me out in the strawberry patch, with potting up seedlings, and they even love snails, slugs and spiders.”
The girls are Mum’s biggest fans.
“When Ground Force comes on they yell, ‘Mummy, you’re on telly’, but if the camera moves off they say, ‘Where did you go, Mummy?’” she laughs.
For those yet to catch the gardening bug, Kirsty’s enthusiasm is infectious.
“You just get so much back from it. It can be very rewarding, even when you’re muddy and wet. You are actually creating something that is going to be there for a long, long time (like my rowan tree) and that gives me a lot of pleasure.”
Sounds like the dream job?
“Yes, it’s brilliant,” she says without hesitation. “And having been part of the show since day one, it’s nice to finally be in on the jokes, rather than having the director shouting at me to be quiet!”
Kirsty says her best moment on the show was transforming Nelson Mandela’s garden in South Africa.
“It was our first one overseas and it was for such an amazing man. You can’t really top that,” she smiles.
So are there any famous gardens that Kirsty would love to get her green fingers into?
“Well, I was at Buckingham Palace the other week and I think that could do with a bit of a makeover. I looked at the back garden and thought, ‘This is a bit boring’.”
Weeding for the Windsors? Now that would be a show worth watching.
It may be January but that doesn’t mean your garden can’t look interesting. Let the shape of your trees and shrubs do the talking, suggests Kirsty . . .
With gardens at their barest, why not look at the shapes present in your garden? Not just the outside boundary, but the living shapes of existing trees and shrubs. Any evergreen plant will have a strong outline at the moment but when choosing an evergreen for your garden remember it doesn’t have to be green.
Maybe a golden conifer like Thuja occidentalis ‘Sunkist’, or a variegated shrub like Fatsia japonica ‘Variegata’ will lift the winter gloom from your garden. The Fatsia’s large glossy leaves are edged with a creamy variegation, which catches your eye and instantly lights up wherever the plant is placed. The variegated Fatsia will form a 3m high dense shrub and will also give a large spray of white flowers in the autumn. It will need a bit of shelter and kept away from strong winds and will reward you with a small piece of tropical-looking heaven.
Now is a good time to cast a critical eye over your flowerbeds. It’s easy during the flowering months to be distracted by the beautiful flowers and showy foliage but when they are gone, what are you left with? A garden should keep you interested all year round, whether by using pots to give a bit of colour and lift in the cold months or strategic use of key plants to catch the eye. Try using Olearia macrodonta for its tough, silvery, evergreen leaves and Corylus avellena ‘Contorta’ with its beautiful bare branches, twisting back and forwards, as winter focal points.
If you feel your evergreen mix is sufficient, maybe there is room for some striking winter stems. The upright flame red network of branches of Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’ will look stunning planted in a group of three or more. Rubus cockburnianus is a fantastic white-stemmed plant. It does have wicked spiky stems that arch over, so try to locate it towards the back of a border, where it won’t cause you any harm.
The bare branches of your trees and shrubs will clearly show their basic shape, whether round headed, fan or vase, broad spreading or upright. Try drawing the shapes you see in your flowerbeds on a bit of paper. You don’t need to be a budding artist to achieve this task as we are only looking at the outline. Add a tall, narrow spire or a small weeping shape and play around on paper to see if you can find a new look for your planting scheme by just adding one key plant in the right place.
One final festive note — now Christmas is over why not move your exterior fairy lights from the front garden to a tree or shrub in the back garden that you can see from your kitchen window? A certain sparkle over the next few months will be a most welcome sight as you glance out of the window into a dark night and see your garden glowing quite happily.
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