About Toby
Toby is a lifelong gardener with a passion for the outdoors. His horticultural career as a gardener started on leaving school, working as a pinks and rose nurseryman at Whetman's Pinks in Devon nursery before leaving to train in horticulture first at Bicton College in Devon then later to study Landscape and Amenity management at Hadlow College in Kent. Further training at Cambridge University Botanic Garden led to a post there as woodland supervisor.
He comes from a family of builders and gardeners. His grandfather was a professional gardener who grew cut flowers for the London theatres. Toby followed his grandfather into the trade, though his love of creating handmade features crafted from reclaimed and found materials he owes to his father and uncles, all lifelong builders.
Although Toby is best known for his time on BBC Gardeners' World, other TV credits include BBC's Garden Magic, Home Front in the Garden, UKTV's Weed It and Reap, and as resident kitchen-garden expert on Great Food Live. In 2009 he was honoured with an Environment Award by the UK Garden Media Guild for a BBC programme entitled 'For Peat's Sake' which investigated the controversial use of peat in horticulture. He has also won accolade for garden design and in 2008 was awarded a prestigious RHS Gold and Best in Show for his Ethical Garden at BBC Gardeners' World Live.
Toby has penned five gardening books ~ The Garden Makeover Book (Cassell Illustrated), Garden Boundaries (Murdoch Books), How to Make Your Garden Grow, recently revised and reprinted and BBC Gardeners' World: Practical Gardening Handbook (Ebury). Toby's latest book Flowers:Planning and Planting for Continuous Colour is published by Ebury Books in April 2011.
He writes regularly for numerous gardening magazines, including weekly for Amateur Gardening, Kitchen Garden, The English Garden Magazine, as well as the Saturday Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday and Guardian Weekend.
