Simon Akeroyd

Author of thirty gardening books, Simon is Head of Historic Landscapes at Painshill in Surrey. He was previously a journalist and producer for the BBC gardening website, and has worked as Garden Manager / Head Gardener for both the RHS and National Trust

James Alexander-Sinclair

James Alexander-Sinclair FSGLD is one of the UK’s leading garden designers. An award-winning writer, broadcaster and speaker, he is Vice-President and Garden Design Ambassador of the Royal Horticultural Society and a Veitch Memorial Medal recipient (2022). He writes for major publications, such as Gardeners’ World, Country Life, Gardens Illustrated, contributes regular columns to Scribehound, and co-hosts The James and Joe Garden Show podcast.

Guy Barter

Guy is RHS Chief Horticulturist. After working in the horticultural industry Guy ran the plant trials at Wisley.

There followed three years at Gardening Which?, before running the RHS members’ gardening advice service.

Currently Guy is involved with horticultural press and PR, gardening podcasts, community gardens and social media.

Camilla Bassett-Smith 

Camilla is a television horticulturist appearing regularly on screen alongside Alan Titchmarsh on ITV's 'Love Your Weekend', other presentation credits include 'Spring into Summer' and 'Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club' (both ITV). Graduating from Pershore College in 2000, Camilla spent many years working as Horticultural Consultant for the BBC Chelsea coverage, recently also being featured on camera during show week . Further programmes in her off-camera TV back catalogue include Gardeners' World, The Great British Garden Revival, The Big Allotment Challenge and The Big Flower Fight. A member of the RHS Bulb Expert Group, Camilla is a regular RHS trials judge, chairing the most recent Narcissus trial at Wisley. She is Editor of The Daffodil Society and a judge for South West in Bloom, as well as a frequent contributor to a number of horticultural publications such as 'The Garden Magazine', 'Amateur Gardening' and 'The Plant Review'.

CIAR BYRNE

Ciar Byrne is a freelance journalist with a weekly gardening column in the Daily Mail, writing for  a wide range of magazines including Gardens Illustrated. She has a garden design diploma from the English Gardening School and an RHS Level 2 Certificate in the Principles of Horticulture. She has been a journalist for more than 25 years, working on staff for The Independent, The Guardian and Private Eye before going freelance. You can find her on Instagram, X and Substack @thehalfwildgarden

Alexandra Campbell

Alexandra Campbell is an award-winning journalist who has worked or freelanced for many national newspapers and magazines, including Good Housekeeping, The Times Magazine, The Financial Times and Harpers’ Bazaar. She is the author of over 20 books, published by Penguin, Little Brown and Cico and is currently writer, photographer and video creator on the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel and blog. She is also co-chair of the Garden Media Guild.

Lucy Chamberlain

Lucy's new book, RHS Grow Food Anywhere, was published by DK on 2nd Jan, 2025 (Lucy also authored RHS Step by Step Veg Patch, 2012, DK). She writes regularly for Amateur Gardening, and has also contributed to Gardeners' World, and The Guardian online. She co-hosts the Talking Heads gardening podcast (450K downloads), shares her garden at @lucychamberlaingardens (Instagram), is the guest gardening expert on BBC Essex radio and won GMG Practical Journalist OTY in 2020.

Richard Claxton

Richard Claxton is the CEO of the National Garden Scheme. He previously had a long career in Medicine as a GP as well as in Garden Design. He has written for Hortus Journal and Gardens Illustrated,  and is a passionate advocate for Therapeutic Horticulture – founding the charity Gardening4Health.

Sheila Das

Sheila began her horticultural career in the early 2000s, studying at Kew before roles with English Heritage and RHS Garden Wisley, where she led Education, Edibles, Seed and Wellbeing until 2024. At Wisley, she helped develop the hilltop landscape and reimagined the orchard with a nature-focused approach to food growing. Passionate about sustainable horticulture, soil health and the connection between people and landscapes, Sheila is now Head of Gardens and Parks at the National Trust, leading delivery of its People and Nature Thriving strategy. Committed to horticultural training, she has served as a trustee of the Professional Gardeners' Trust and Beth Chatto Education Trust, and co-founded the Gardener X exchange scheme.

Amicia de Moubray

Author of 20th Century Castles and other books, journalist for The Times, Country Life etc & co-founder Faversham Life. Owner with Richard Oldfield of Doddington Place Gardens, an RHS Partner Garden in Kent.

Sarah Eberle

Sarah Eberle MBE RHS ASH, Hon (Des), FLI, FSGD is an award-winning Chartered Landscape Architect and internationally recognised garden designer. With a career spanning 50 years in horticulture, she has worked across commercial landscapes, private gardens and country estates in the UK and overseas. She has achieved RHS Gold Medals at both the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Hampton Court, including Best in Show and awards across all categories at Chelsea. Her work is characterised by a narrative-led approach, combining strong spatial design with a deep understanding of landscape, the environment and planting.

 Mark Spencer 

Ashley edwards 

Ashley is currently Head Gardener at Crocus and On-Screen Gardener for a new series of BBC1’s long running show, DIY SOS. Ashley is also a regular presenter for BBC2’s Gardener’s World and contributes monthly for Gardener’s World Magazine. 

Ashley uses his platform to help connect people to nature, and tap into its extraordinary properties for healing and wellbeing. As a trained Horticultural Therapist, Ashley has seen first hand how this connection can be so vital even in the darkest of times. 

ERROL FERNANDES

Errol Reuben Fernandes is Head of Horticulture at the award-winning Horniman Museum and Gardens in South London. A presenter on ITV’s Alan Titchmarsh’s Gardening Club and C4’s The Great Garden Revolution, he writes for a range of publications including Gardens Illustrated, The Guardian, The Telegraph and Bloom, and speaks widely on sustainable, inclusive gardening.

Jim Gardiner VMH

Jim worked for the Royal Horticultural Society from 1988 to 2016, during this time he was Curator of Wisley, Director of Horticulture and Executive Vice President of the Society.

He is a Trustee of the Tree Register of the British Isles, serves on the RHS Woody Plant Expert Group and their Awards Committee, the IDS S&E Committee and Borde Hill Garden Council. Jim is a past President of the Magnolia Society International and has written books on magnolias and flowering shrubs and writes for journals including The Plant Review.

Since retiring, Jim is a Vice President of the RHS and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour

Lexi Gee 

Lexi is a horticultural and disability writer, Co-Editor of GMG E-Bulletin, GMG Committee and GMG Awards Co-ordinator. 

Posy Gentles

Posy Gentles is an author, journalist and garden designer.

Melissa Gerbaldi

Having trained and freelanced as a journalist before moving into PR and communications, Melissa Gerbaldi has spent more than 20 years helping organisations tell stories that connect with audiences.Her career has spanned the arts, heritage, charity and environmental sectors, including roles with English Heritage, the Royal Meteorological Society, Pinewood Studios and Guide Dogs. She is now Media Relations Manager at the Horticultural Trades Association, where she leads the Media Office and works with national broadcasters, journalists and industry partners to champion environmental horticulture.

Annie Green-Armytage

Award winning garden photographer, writer and accredited psychotherapist with widely published work.  Recent awards include winner of the Beautiful Gardens category in the International Garden Photographer Awards and the Garden Media Guild Features Photographer of the Year in 2021.

Åsa Gregers-Warg 

Åsa Gregers-Warg is the Head Gardener at Beth Chatto’s Plant & Gardens. Her role includes external projects such as the planting at Chattowood Housing Development, as well as promoting sustainable gardening practices through advice, talks, articles and content for publications. She is the recipient of Andalusia House & Gardens’ Letitia Glenn Biddle Award 2025.

Stephanie Hafferty

Stephanie Hafferty is an award-winning edible gardener, author, writer and speaker, specialising in sustainable, year-round food growing and seasonal plant-based recipes for national and international publications, her website No Dig Home and YouTube channel StephanieHaffertyHomesteading. Author of two bestsellers  (and winner of GMG Practical Gardening Book of the Year 2017) her third book is due in 2026. She also judges top horticultural and food awards, including for the Soil Association, the Guild of Food Writers and the GYO Awards

Gemma Haigh

Known as The Plant Parlour on social media, Gemma is a seasoned writer, speaker and creator with a background in museum curation. Since 2024, she’s made her way as an interior landscape designer, following her RHS silver-gilt winning ‘Hope After Humanity’ studio at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. 

Lucy Hall 

Editor, presenter, podcast and events creator & presenter, journalist & researcher. Trustee of the National Garden Scheme. Formerly Editor of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and Associate Publisher, Deputy Editor of Gardens Illustrated.

Rosy Hardy

Rosy Hardy of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants has 24 RHS Chelsea Gold Medals, is an RHS Master Grower, Honorary Vice-Presient of the RHS and a RHS floral Judge. 

She also runs the Rosy Hardy Gardening YouTube channel, delivers gardening talks and regularly contributes to gardening magazines and radio programmes.

Dan Hatch

Dan is an experienced awards judge, regularly judging for the Content Marketing Institute Awards and the International Content Marketing Awards, among others. He has spent nearly 30 years in journalism and content and is the editor of GMG News.

Kimberley Hornby George

Kimberley Hornby George is Co-chair of the Garden Media Guild and owner of Hornby George PR, a trade and consumer PR agency for the garden, home, gift, pet and leisure industries.

Humaira Ikram

Humaira Ikram has been working as a professional Garden Designer at Studio Ikram for over 15 years and specialises in client focussed landscapes, which are pollinator friendly and as sustainable as possible. She runs the Garden Design Diploma at the KLC School of Design, is a Gardens Advisor to RHS Hyde Hall, and RHS Judge and on various selection and advisory panels for the RHS. She is Co-Curator of the newly established thehub.earth highlighting sustainable, ethical and cross sector events, as well as an award winning broadcaster, who has contributed to BBC Radio 4 Gardeners Question Time, been part of garden focussed TV and media campaigns and programmes and writes for various gardening magazines.

Sandra Lawrence 

Sandra is a journalist and author who has written for all the broadsheets and many, many magazines, including The Times, Telegraph, The English Garden and Hortus. She has written over 20 books, including the Witch's Garden series for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a new biography of garden maverick Ellen Willmott, Miss Willmott's Ghosts. 

Tom Leonard

  Tom Leonard is a professional horticulturist and Senior Gardener at Brownsover Hall Estate. Known also as Daisy Desire: The Drag Queen Gardener, Tom blends horticultural expertise with inclusive public engagement, regularly appearing at RHS shows and on television, championing diversity, creativity, and wellbeing through the power of gardening. 

Alison Levey

Alison Levey writes The Blackberry Garden blog, celebrating the pleasure of gardening rather than giving How To advice. It won GMG Blog of the Year 2019, and ranked as the No.1 UK Garden Blog 2017–2020 (Vuelio).

Jekka Mcvicar

Jekka has been awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour in Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society.  She has written nine books including Jekka’s Complete Herb Book, which has sold over one million copies worldwide

REKHA mISTRY

Head Gardener at historic Haddon Hall (Bakewell, Derbyshire), TV Presenter, Speaker, Garden Advisor, Author of Rekha's Kitchen Garden and winner of GMG Individual Social Media Winner 2023

Dr Toby Musgrave FSA FLS 

Dr Toby Musgrave FSA FLS is a horticulturist, and a garden and plants historian. He is the author of fourteen books and major contributor to a further seven, covering a wide range of garden-related subjects. Musgrave is Faculty Lecturer at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad and gardens one of the historic De runde Haver. He is also a qualified submersible pilot.

Izwe Nkosi

A plant lover at heart who finds deep joy in every bud, leaf and flower. Passionate about all things gardening and horticulture and loves growing food seed to harvest. I have a special love for Acers and roses, drawn their beauty, resilience and character. For me gardening is not just hobby - it’s way of life, grounded, mindful and ever growing. Gardening is a human story and where I am invited to play my small part. I love this stuff! 

kim o'brien

Kim O’Brien is an award-winning garden designer and head gardener at an RHS-funded community garden. She appears regularly as a stage expert for BBC Gardeners World shows and is on their panel of Assessors, as well as the judging panel for Anglia in RHS Britain in Bloom. She writes for several publications, including Amateur Gardening.

Sue Oriel

Sue Oriel has twenty years experience in hands-on television production and as CEO of several sizeable independent TV companies. She has previously judged television awards for BAFTA, Broadcast Magazine, RTS and others. Her Country Lane Flowers company now grows flowers commercially and is a member of Flowers from the Farm.

Jane Perrone

Jane Perrone is head of inspiration at Scribehound Gardening and a garden writer and author, including her latest work The Atlas of Deadly Plants. She is the host of houseplant podcast On The Ledge and writes for a range of garden publications. 

Ann-Marie Powell

Ann-Marie Powell is an award-winning garden designer, author, and TV presenter known for bold, sustainable gardens that support biodiversity. With nearly 30 years of experience, her 2024 highlights include the Hampton Court Palace redesign and winning both the RHS Chelsea Children’s Choice and BBC People’s Choice Awards. A Fellow of the Society of Garden Designers, she has written four books and contributes to publications like The Telegraph and Gardens Illustrated.

Kirsty Raper

Instagram specialist and founder of Rebuildagram.(TechPixies “Social Media Provider of the Year”). Co-founder of Reels Rockstars training individuals and businesses (Great Dixter, Hauser & Wirth, Lorraine Candy, Sophie Robinson, Trish Halpin and Michelle Ogundehin)  in Instagram reels.

Barbara Segall

Barbara Segall writes articles (Amateur Gardening,The English Garden, Essex Life magazine), books (most recent is Secret Gardens of the South East Frances Lincoln 2022) and blogs about gardens, gyo and herbs. She edits The Horticulturist for the Chartered Institute of Horticulture and is an Assistant County Organiser for the National Garden Scheme in Suffolk. For Perennial she serves on the Fullers’ Mill Garden committee. Recently she became an Ambassador for Silent Space. She was delighted to receive the Garden Media Guild Outstanding Contribution Award for 2023.

Ade Sellars

With a previous career in television as a director and editor, Ade now runs his own garden and design business, where he also produces film content for the gardening industry. A TV presenter and stage host for Gardeners' World Live, Ade has a monthly gardening column in Suffolk magazine, and writes for various magazines. He is the creator of the YouTube mini-series Down the Garden Path, and July this year, Ade released his first children's fiction book, The Plot on the Hill: The Carrot Catastrophe. His is also the 2023 GMG winner of The Beth Chatto Environmental Award and 2021 Video of the Year.

Alister Thorpe

Renowned London-based advertising, portrait and garden photographer with clients such as British Airways, Jaguar Land Rover, New Balance and top national and international garden designers. His portraiture clients include the Prime Minister.

ANN TRENEMAN

Ann Treneman is an award winning writer and journalist who writes a weekly gardening columnist for The Times as well as her long-running Notebook column for the paper. She is also a garden designer who has exhibited at RHS Chelsea and Tatton Flower Shows. Her books include RHS Greener Gardening: Containers and Horti Curious: A Gardener's Miscellany of Fascinating Facts and Remarkable Plants. 

Tamsin Westhorpe

Garden writer, author, lecturer, RHS judge, curator and gardener at Stockton Bury Gardens in Herefordshire. A regular contributor to national gardening magazines and author of three books. Previous editor of The English Garden and Inside Horticulture. An authority on practical horticulture.

Richard Wilford

Richard has worked at The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew for 36 years and is currently Manager of Garden Design. He is a writer, photographer and author of eight books on plants and gardens, many illustrated with his own photographs.

Chris Young

Chris Young is a leading writer, publisher, designer and consultant in the gardening industry. He runs CY Gardens, a consultancy specialising in design, publishing, marketing, media and business development. Consultant Gardening Publisher for DK Books, he previously edited RHS The Garden and was Head of Editorial at the RHS, overseeing all publishing platforms.