Contact details
Telephone: 01202 440 841
Fax: 01202 440 860
Email: amateurgardening@ipcmedia.com

Tim Rumball
Editor
Favourite garden: My own... with the walled vegetable garden at Heligan in Cornwall a close second
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Favourite flower/plant: Brassica oleracea
Where I garden: I have a 30x30ft back garden and 14x30ft front garden in Bournemouth , crammed with shrubs and flowers, plus an allotment for veg
Gardener who most influenced me: Geoff Hamilton
My gardening dream: To own a Victorian walled fruit and veg garden
Worst gardening disaster: Killing a client's flowering cherry by pruning hard in late winter
Greatest achievement: Becoming editor of Amateur Gardening magazine
Favourite gardening tool: A spade - there's nothing like the pleasure of turning fresh soil
Worst pest: Pigeons/caterpillars/snails/slugs are all top of my list
Top gardening tip: Follow gardening rules - you may get away with bending them sometimes, but breaking them will lead to disappointment

Lucy Halsall
Gardening editor
Favourite garden: Beth Chatto's (being an Essex girl myself I'm keen to support my local garden!) The gravel garden is truly inspiring, showing what you can get away with in the driest part of the country
Favourite TV programme: I always watch Gardeners' World, just in case readers ask us about things they've seen on it when they call AG's Helpline!
Favourite flower/plant: Being a big fan of all things edible I'd have to say chillis. As well as being really useful for chilli con carne and curries they look absolutely fantastic
Where I garden: I'm in between gardens at the moment. I visit my allotment in Guildford whenever I can and when I go and see my parents I know my mum will have a list of jobs for me to do
Gardener who most influenced me: Joy Larkcom - she's taught me a lot of what I know about vegetable growing and is keen to educate people about the not-so-common crops and traditions such as oriental veg and potagers
Gardening dream: To live somewhere remote and idyllic, being totally self-sufficient in fruit, veg and meat
Worst gardening disaster: Thinking I could beat tomato blight on my allotment by fastidiously cutting out every bit of blighted foliage I could find! It took me ages and was a complete waste of time
Favourite gardening tool: My Felco folding pruning saw. I love pruning and the saw slices through woody stems like butter; it's very therapeutic
Worst garden pest/disease : Tomato blight
Top gardening tip: Don't be governed by everything you read in gardening books. There's very often more than one right way to do something in gardening so experiment, don't be afraid, and you'll learn way more than any book could teach you

Sharon Wynne-Betts
Production editor
Favourite garden: The Lost Gardens of Heligan
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Favourite flower/plant: All my favourites are scented but I can't name just one! The final scented rose from 'Ena Harkness' in winter? My wisteria when the buds burst into a haze of blossom, filling the late spring air with delicious scent? Or the heavy fragrance of night-scented stocks on a still summer evening? And what about dear old sweet peas...
Where you garden: A small, secluded tennis court-sized patch of suburbia
Gardening dream: Enough space for a veg plot and potager
Worst gardening disaster: When my neighbour's bindweed tunneled its determined way through the mortar of our brick dividing wall. It was hidden by my enormous Choisya ternata 'Sundance' and by the time I spotted it, it had taken hold in several places. Aaaargh!
Greatest gardening achievement: Growing lettuce in pots
Favourite gardening tool: Kneeling pad
Worst garden pest: Vine weevil
Top gardening tip: When planting containers, especially with summer bedding, finish off with a layer of gravel/pea shingle to cut down evaporation. And never overfill with compost - always leave a 2in.(5cm) gap to the top of the pot. When you water, it creates a kind of reservoir you can fill before moving on to the next pot

Julia Heaton
Consumer editor
Favourite garden: My own! Not because it's a stunning design full of specialist plants but because it's the one place I can do what I want, when I want. And the beauty is that there's no entrance fee
Favourite TV programme: The City Gardener. Good basic horticultural advice with “revisits” that sort out any major problems concerning the new design
Favourite flower/plant: The peony that's in my garden. It's been in the family for four generations and moved house with me each time
Where I garden: A paved town garden with two large raised beds and an area at the end consisting of mature holly trees and buddleja. I’ve used dark purples and pinks as a colour theme for the beds, which are now rather crowded, so I also have lots of containers
Gardener who most influenced me: My dad. A real enthusiast who loves discovering something new. And he's always on hand with a plant for me to try out
Gardening dream: A pest-free plot so my plants will always thrive plus a large, beautifully crafted, tree house where I can hideaway in comfort and watch the wildlife
Favourite gardening tool: I couldn’t do without my gear-action shears
Worst garden pest: Bindweed. Just when you've used the last of the weedkiller to clear beds and borders, it returns to haunt you
Top tip: Do a little a lot. If you keep putting off jobs it's not long before you can feel overwhelmed

Jayne Lee
Gardening writer
Favourite garden: The Old Vicarage at East Ruston and Sticky Wicket in Dorset
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Favourite plant: Cleome spinosa (despite the facts it smells of cat's wee!)
Gardener who most influenced me: Alan Titchmarsh - a good Yorkshire lad!
Gardening dream: A garden big enough to have rooms like East Ruston so I could practice my passion for indecisiveness and have all different types of gardens
Gardening disaster: Telling someone who was renting my flat that it was okay to prune the bushes if they became too wet and heavy in the rain. Although I was referring to buddlejas and lavateras, they pruned a mature acer and killed it!
Greatest gardening achievement: Growing huge marrows and pumpkins last year
Worst pest: Wasps and mosquitoes
Top tip: remember plants are living and can easily be killed, so if you kill one, just say thank-you, chuck it out and start again!

Marc Rosenberg
News editor
Favourite garden: Great Dixter in East Sussex - home of the famous plantsman Christopher Lloyd
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Favourite flower/plant: Coleus - Just one packet of seed produced enough plants for an amazing bedding display this year. The colours of their foliage beats flowers
Where I garden: A small garden in Poole , Dorset on terrible heavy clay soil. But it still has enough room for some borders, containers, veg and a greenhouse
Gardener who most influenced me: Geoff Hamilton - watching him on TV made me go out and buy seeds and start growing plants when I was a kid.
Gardening dream: To have enough room for a state-of-the art greenhouse where I could grow loads of different plants all year round
Worst gardening disaster: Teaming up with the world's clumsiest landscape gardener when I was a student. He set fire to a customer's fence, spilled paint all over their patio and wrecked a lawnmower - and I had to fix all the damage!
Greatest achievement: Creating a garden from a patch of mud when I bought my house - the garden didn't even have a fence when I moved in!
Favourite gardening tool: Lawnmower. If the lawn looks good then it hides the faults of other parts of the garden
Worst pest: Slugs. There are beasts the size of a sausage living under my shed, and no matter how many I scoop up, there's always plenty more that follow.
Top gardening tip: Use crushed slate to keep cats off borders. It's the only product that I've ever found to be effective. Cats just don't like to dig in slate so they go elsewhere.

Jenny Bagshaw
E ditor’s PA
Favourite garden: Kew Gardens
Favourite TV programme: Ground Force
Favourite flower: Clematis
Where I garden: A small garden on a slope with herbaceous border planting and a garden pond with two large koi carp
Gardener who most influenced me: Alan Titchmarsh
Gardening dream: A large raised deck spanning the whole width across the back of the house for barbeques and parties – preferably built by Tommy Walsh!
Worst gardening disaster: Waking up to find that the pond pump had gone into overdrive and the pond only had about three inches of water in it – a very fast rescue of the fish was required!
Greatest gardening achievement: Being able to identify an elephant hawkmoth caterpillar which my Dad found in his garden, and to reassure him that it would turn into a beautiful pink and green moth
Favourite tool: A small Spanish handtool with a hoe on one side of the head and a twin bladed fork on the other
Worst pest: Slugs & snails
Top tip: I keep a pair of beach ‘jelly shoes’ to wear in the garden when I’m pottering about on summer evenings – they’re cheap, easy to clean and you don’t ruin a good pair of shoes

Imogen Smith-Edmunds
Designer
Favourite garden: Knoll Gardens in Dorset
Favourite TV programme: The City Gardener with Matt James
Favourite flower/plant: Pennisetum 'Tall Tails'
Where I garden: A suburban garden in Salisbury
Gardener who most influenced me: My father
My gardening dream: To have a garden free of slugs and snails
Favourite gardening tool: My hose pipe, which has kept my garden lush and green all summer!
Worst pest: giant slugs
Top gardening tip: If you have problem with slugs and snails it's worth going out into the garden every night with a torch and a bucket, to collect any troublesome pests you might come across and dispose of them in the fairest way you know!

Zoe Tabourajis
Designer
Favourite garden: Knoll Gardens in Dorset
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Where I garden: A secluded south-facing sun-trap overlooking woodland
Gardening dream: I'd get in the materials needed to complete our front garden - especially beautiful glass pebbles to edge our pond
Worst gardening disaster: having great fun feeding bags of freshly-cut grass to the ponies at the bottom of our garden only to be confronted by their irate owner who said that horses must not be fed with fresh grass as it can kill them
Greatest gardening achievement: Watching my husband turning our original building site into a garden in a matter of months in 'Ground Force' style. That's an achievement!
Favourite gardening tool: Secateurs. I just love pruning away dead stuff
Worst pest: Baby deers. They love to munch anything flowering when we're not around
Top tip: When you're planting up a container and don't have any old crock or pebbles hanging around to use at the bottom for extra drainage, just chop up an old plastic pot and use that. It works a treat!

Judith Everitt
Picture library assistant
Favourite garden: The old roses in the walled garden at Mottisfont
Favourite TV programme: Real Gardens on Channel 4
Favourite plant: Fuchsia
Where I garden: My garden in Poole is green and lush and I like to grow seasonal plants in the trough outside my kitchen window
Gardener who most influenced me: Carol Klein
Gardening dream: A large natural pond with a bog garden
Worst gardening disaster: Putting a tray of dahlia seedlings outside one spring morning only to watch them being shredded by huge hailstones a few hours later!
Greatest gardening achievement: After my parents-in-law died, we moved a large camellia from their garden to ours. It filled the back of our car and my husband didn't believe that it would survive, but it reminds us of them every spring
Favourite gardening tool: My stainless steel trowel
Worst garden pest: People who prune spring-flowering shrubs in the autumn!
My top gardening tip: Help plants to thrive by finding out about the conditions they need

Judith Cake
Picture library assistant
Favourite garden: Abbotsbury Sub-Tropical Gardens , Dorset
Favourite TV programme: Gardeners' World
Favourite flower: Poppies and lavender
Where I garden: A small suburban garden, the front doubling as a car park too
Gardener who most influenced me: Former AG gardening editor David Hurrion and AG columnist Anne Swithinbank
Gardening dream: Having a large enough garden to have a big Victorian-style greenhouse
Worst gardening disaster: Having lost a bed of newly-planted annuals overnight to slugs and snails, I learned to remember slug pellets!
Greatest gardening achievement: Designing my front garden and seeing it come to life
Favourite gardening tool: a good pair of secateurs
Worst pest: Slugs and snails
Top tip: Find time to sit and enjoy your garden, sipping a glass of wine!