Anna Pavord

The couple lived on a sailing barge on the Thames at Shepperton, gardening the 80 feet of riverbank that came with the mooring.

"[6]The family lived in Sussex and then later, looking for somewhere wilder, bought The Old Rectory in Puncknowle, West Dorset, built for rector Thomas Seeley in 1702.

The Georgian estate had one and a half acres of land, including a walled garden, a 13th-century dovecote and a neo-Gothic stone folly, built by Henry Etherington in 1846.

She grew peaches, apricots, nectarines, greengages and French pears along the warm garden walls.

In 2002 the family moved to another home in Dorset with 18 acres of land and a garden already stocked with 130 species of plant.

[3] She was the writer and presenter of Flowering Passions, a 10-part TV series on Channel 4, appears regularly on BBC radio and was featured on "Desert Island Discs" in 2017.

[1][8] She wrote The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad (1999) which was listed as a New York Times best seller.

[4] Pavord was awarded the Gold Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society (1991), and an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Leicester (2005).