"Shall I tell you how my pests and diseases fetish started?” asks Pippa Greenwood, with typical ebullience. "I was probably five years old and walked past a greengrocer that had an amazing array of orange marigolds." Pippa bought them with her pocket money and left them in the bay window of her childhood home in Putney, southwest London, for weekend planting. “The next morning, there was almost nothing left – they’d been absolutely decimated by looper caterpillars, hiding on the plants.”
Incentivised by caterpillar destruction, Pippa went on to forge a thrilling, successful career in horticultural science and garden broadcasting with pests and diseases at its centre. Whether seen on screen, on BBC Gardeners’ World, or heard on BBC Radio 4 institution Gardeners’ Question Time (GQT), her sound gardening advice is warm and encouraging. “I’ve always said that my career has been plants, people and a good dollop of pathogens and pests, and those four ‘p’s are a perfect combination. Whether I’m broadcasting or writing books, I’ve hopefully done something useful in translating science into something digestible.”
I’ve always said that my career has been plants, people and a good dollop of pathogens and pests, and those four ‘p’s are a perfect combination
Science is where Pippa began. After studying botany at Durham University, she did a master’s degree in crop protection at Reading, which focused on entomology, plant pathology and weed science. During
her studies, she worked at the Agricultural Development Advisory Service, analysing samples sent in to the plant clinic by farmers and growers. “That was brilliant, because it was practical and allowed me to become good at diagnostics.” Despite her course director’s disparagement that, as a woman, she’d most likely become a lab technician or go into sales, Pippa landed a role at RHS flagship garden Wisley, going on to run the centre’s plant pathology department. “Being paid to talk to gardeners and RHS members about problems with their plants – it was absolute heaven.”
Pippa describes her subsequent move into garden broadcasting as an accident. “I’ve always been one to make the most of every opportunity,” she says. After writing to Amateur Gardening magazine, she was commissioned to reply to readers’ gardening queries. Then, while working at the RHS Chelsea
Flower Show, she was approached by the BBC to be interviewed by Alan Titchmarsh for a behind-the-scenes programme. “It must have gone well because the following week the producer rang to say that Alan had suggested I join him on Daytime Live, talking about gardening and sick plants.” When the producer moved on to work on Gardeners’ World, he persuaded Pippa along, and soon she was broadcasting from her garden in Hampshire on creating an organic kitchen garden.
As Pippa’s media career accelerated – including authoring practical books, joining the illustrious GQT panel in 1994, consulting on shows such as Rosemary & Thyme and appearing on other TV and radio series – her base in rural Hampshire became an increasing sanctuary; a beautiful piece of land that needed looking after and its wildlife preserved. Pippa is a patron of HART Wildlife Rescue, which runs a wildlife hospital in the county, and describes the natural world as being just as, if not more, important
to her as gardens. “It was an area of the countryside I could use for conservation,” she explains, “but the property was a wreck – we literally wore walking boots in the house for the first year-and-a-half and slept in all our clothes.”
Amid the chaos of renovation, she began a garden, planting sacks of daffodils “à la Wordsworth”.
Working freelance, often from home, Pippa was able to be an active parent to her two children while
retaining an enjoyable, engaging career. She now works as horticulture manager for the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents the interests of UK garden centres and growers. Through her website she also offers gardening advice and products.
If you’re a little bit brave and patient, nature often leaps in
Having spent decades focused on plant health, Pippa has seen dramatic change in both the pests and diseases themselves – from the northward spread of lily beetle to rising concerns over Xylella – and gardeners’ approach to them. She welcomes the shift away from unrestrained insecticide use and the need for perfection towards a better understanding of nature, and a greater interest in biological controls. “By not squashing or spraying everything that’s got six legs, by growing open-centred flowers or letting cow parsley flower at the side of your garden, you can encourage voracious, beneficial, natural predators. Last year, everybody noticed horrendous aphid levels, but later in the season everybody was talking about massive numbers of ladybirds, so if you’re a little bit brave and patient, nature often leaps in.”
One of Pippa’s key aims is to encourage people to grow veg with enough success to want to do it again. “Growing your own food provides a wonderful feeling of achievement. So if someone needs to take some intervention, like nematodes to control slugs on their lettuces, that’s important, because if they didn’t have anything worth eating they’d go to the supermarket and buy something that’s had a much bigger environmental impact. Gardening and the gardening public are the great love of my life, and it has all been fun. I’ve made a habit of not doing things that aren’t.”
Subscribe to Gardens Illustrated to have inspiration dropped on your doorstep every month.
