A POPULAR horticulturalist has expressed her excitement about her forthcoming trip to Cumbria and divulged a few gardening tips.
Charlie Dimmock will no doubt draw crowds when she appears as a celebrity guest for the 24th annual Holker Garden Festival and she can't wait to explore the South Lakes.
Now one of Britain's best-known TV gardeners, Charlie found fame on the BBC the television show Ground Force, where she patrolled Britain's back yards and front lawns with Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh.
Charlie has made her way up to the Furness peninsula once before to titivate a garden on Walney. Although she reminisced fondly about the last time she was in the area she admitted that the trip was sadly blighted by torrential rain.
She said: "We had had horrible horizontal, driving rain for two days solid when I was in Walney. Drive through the area looked beautiful but unfortunately I couldn't enjoy the countryside as much as I would have liked."
This June Charlie will return to the South Lakes as she makes her appearance at Cumbria's most beautiful and prolific gardening festival to hold Q&A sessions and mingle with visitors.
Gardening enthusiasts have always had a soft spot for Charlie's hands-on approach and beaming smile.
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She will be a very exciting addition to the Holker Garden Festival and a much anticipated attraction for Ground Force fans. She has revealed that she herself is very excited about the weekend, saying: "I am really looking forward to my drive up to Cumbria for the garden festival. I have heard great things about Holker Hall and I am eager to see it for myself.
"It will be fantastic to spend some time relaxing in the Lake District and getting some tranquility after the hectic filming schedule I have been on recently.
"I am planning on taking in some of the scenery and exploring Cartmel village and the surrounding area. I may stay up near Windermere and hopefully see a bit of that area too."
Charlie will hold her Q & A sessions in the Holker Garden Theatre to offer her expert advice and top tips to amateur gardeners and visitors. However, she has given the South Cumbria residents a few early tips ahead of the festival, for any gardeners who are making to most of the beautiful May weather.
Many visitors to Holker Hall and Gardens leave feeling inspired to get more in to their own gardening and Charlie had a few words of wisdom for beginners. She said: "For any guests who want to get a bit more involved this Spring and want to start planting more flowers, I would recommend starting with hardy annuals such as poppies, marigolds and corn flowers.
"Another thing I would recommend this season is planting your own vegetables and helping your children to plant too. Children are much more willing to eat Vegetables if they have grown them themselves and you don't need much space at all to grow the basic ones.
"A good place to start is with tomatoes because they taste so great, but there are plenty of salad vegetables you can integrate in to your flower borders.
"Kale is hugely trendy at the moment and it's one of the easiest members of the cabbage family to grow. Plus it looks quite pretty nestled in among the flowers because it has quite curly leaves." Charlie has just started filming again for a new gardening show with the BBC and hopefully we will be seeing much more of her throughout 2016.
Garden festival regulars will be familiar with the great number of attractions on show over the weekend and it would appear that rumours of the array of high quality local produce and talent have reached Charlie's ears. She said: "I have heard there is a really eclectic mix of food stalls which I am looking forward to sampling and I just love arts and crafts so you'll probably find me perusing the crafts tents and arts village while I'm there."
Charlie's expertise will be added to those of Holker Head Gardener Glyn Sherratt, who has already collected a prestigious BBC Countryfile award for the best garden in Britain this year. He and his team are now well in to the intensive show preparations. Charlie said: "I am very much looking forward to meeting Holker's new Head Gardener Glyn Sherratt and having a good chat about the gardens and the beautiful work he has done since arriving last year."
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