After its long winter break, BBC2's Gardeners' World sprouts again this evening.
The long-running show, fronted by Monty Don from his magnificent Herefordshire garden, features a rotating cast of co-presenters, many of whom film segments from their own plots.
But, while viewers are able to nose around their enviable flower beds, the houses that accompany them are rarely seen. Ahead of the new series, John Sturgis takes a peek at their lives and homes.
Gardeners' World returns to BBC2 tonight at 8pm
Carol Klein's home in Devon
Now a grandmother in her 70s, Carol has lived in the same house near the picturesque village of Umberleigh, Devon, for more than 40 years.
As a young gardening-obsessed teacher at a north Devon college, Klein said she "just wanted a garden" and found the "perfect" spot in Glebe Cottage, now thought to be worth around £1million.
It wasn't so perfect to begin with, however. When Klein and husband, Neil, moved in they were faced with a garden that had become a dumping ground for broken-up old cars.
They had to hire a JCB to remove them before Klein could get started on planting up the stunning garden in which every plant has been grown from seed.
For many years, the couple ran a commercial nursery based nearby but she now focuses on broadcasting. Klein has two grown-up daughters, Annie, who lives in California, and Alice, who lives in south London.
Monty Don's home in Leominster, Herefordshire
This year is Monty's 21st anniversary at the helm of Gardeners' World, having taken over from Alan Titchmarsh in 2003.And it may be his last - as he has begun hinting at retirement.
Regular viewers will be familiar with the resplendent gardens he oversees at Longmeadow in Leominster, Herefordshire.
Don, 68, and his wife of 41 years, Sarah, 70, bought the main house as a ruin in 1991.
When they first moved in, the Grade II-listed, timber-framed home had no roof, electricity, running water or even sanitation.
The gardens were on an abandoned farming field brimming with brambles and stinging nettles, while another area was strewn with builders' rubble.There was just one solitary tree.Today it would be worth around £2.5million.
Before becoming "the nation's gardener", Don and Sarah were regular fixtures on the 1980s society scene, their jewellery business boasting Princess Diana as a fan.When the business was wiped out following the crash of 1987, Don had a breakdown and spent time on the dole.
The move to Herefordshire was part of his recovery. Gardening, he has said, "eases a troubled mind - it is happiness". Despite handing over more hosting responsibility to co-hosts including Adam Frost - who some believe is being groomed as Don's successor - the grandfather-of-three has said he wants to continue working into his 80s.
Their grown-up children, Adam, Freya and Tom keep well out of the public eye. But Monty's dogs, Patti and Ned, are regularly filmed trotting around after him at Longmeadow. Sadly, his beloved Golden Retriever Nellie died last year.
Adam Frost's home near Stamford in Lincolnshire
The closest Gardeners' World has come to dropping a bombshell occurred at the beginning of the last-but-one series, when the affable Frost announced he had moved house - to one with a much smaller garden. Frost had previously been a tenant of a grand country house, set in five acres near Stamford in Lincolnshire and owned by The Burghley Estate. Now he, his wife Sulina, 48, and their four children - Abi-Jade, Jacob, Amber-Lily and Oakley - have moved back into the Grade II-listed, three-bedroom house in the village of Tinwell they had originally bought in 2013.
Although it was put on the market for £850,000 in 2021, the Frosts appear to have changed their minds about selling and moved back in.
The 53-year-old told viewers: "As a family, we've just decided to scale back, so I can spend more time with them - but it does mean I've got a smaller garden." Frost grew up in east London before the family moved to Devon when he was 15. He was later mentored by former Gardeners' World favourite Geoff Hamilton, before going on to win gold medals at Chelsea and start TV work.
Rachel De Thame
De Thame, 61, initially trained as a ballerina until a bout of glandular fever ended her dancing hopes and she turned to modelling, then acting in film and TV.
In 1998, following a two-year gardening course, she was soon presenting on Gardeners'World. Her first marriage to Stephen Colover, from which she had two children, broke up in 1993, and she later remarried one of the country's most successful advertising executives, Gerard de Thame, with whom she had two more children.
In 2018, de Thame took a career break after being diagnosed with breast cancer - but is now regularly back on screen.
Her London bolthole is in fashionable Maida Vale, but de Thame more often presents from the extensive walled gardens of her eight-bedroom, Grade-II listed manor house in the Cotswolds.
Believed to date back to the early 1800s, it is worth in the region of £10million.
Joe Swift's home in Stoke Newington, north London
Unlike many of his country-dwelling co-stars, Swift, 57, is a born and bred Londoner. The son of novelist Margaret Drabble and Clive Swift - the actor best known as Mr Hyacinth Bouquet - Swift has lived for many years in a townhouse with a small garden in Stoke Newington, north London, with wife Cathryn, 56, and their two older children, Stanley and Constance.
Limited space means he doesn't broadcast much from home - he once took on an allotment and filmed there - but has given viewers the occasional glimpse into his relatively small garden, where he grows bananas. The house is worth around £1.4million.
Arit Anderson's home in Capel Manor, north London
Raised by a single mother with six siblings, many of whom were in foster care, Anderson, 58, didn't have a garden of her own until her mid-40s.After a 25-year career in fashion retail, she enrolled on a horticulture course at Capel Manor, north London.
Her breakthrough came when she won a "fresh talent" award at the 2013 Chelsea Flower Show, followed by a gold medal at the Hampton Court Flower Show a couple of years later. Broadcasting work followed and she's been a Gardeners' World regular for several years. She's also let her family into the spotlight. Her husband Scott and two teenage step-children, Freya and Harvey, all appear.
The family lives in a late-Victorian terraced cottage with a small back garden worth around £800,000 in west London.
Nick Bailey's flat near Crystal Palace park
Like Arit, Nick Bailey was a relative latecomer to broadcasting. As a jobbing gardener, he lived a peripatetic lifestyle for many years, both in the UK and abroad. Bailey, 49, originally from Kent, first began broadcasting while living in Norfolk around 15 years ago.
But his leap into prominence came when he took a job as head gardener at the world-renowned Chelsea Physic Garden a decade ago, before winning silver gilt for his garden based on mathematical principles at Chelsea Flower Show in 2016.
He's been a regular on Gardeners' World ever since, filming around various British gardens and returning to South Africa, where he had previously lived. Like Frances, his most high-profile relationship is with a dog, his spaniel Orla, who he acquired during lockdown. Otherwise he has never introduced his private life into the show and has not filmed around his own home.
He lives in a garden flat worth around £500,000 near Crystal Palace park in south London.
Frances Tophill's home in south Devon coast
The youngest regular presenter, Frances, 36, will have exciting news for viewers: she has recently bought her first home - and garden.
Frances grew up in Deal, Kent, before moving to Scotland to study horticulture and plantsmanship at Scotland's Rural College.
After graduation, she lived and worked in Devon before moving back to Kent. She once filmed in her garden with Alan Titchmarsh. She has since left and briefly stayed with mum Christine. But now she's bought her own place, on the south Devon coast.
