{"id":234400,"date":"2023-08-29T14:46:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T14:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=234400"},"modified":"2023-08-29T14:46:07","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T14:46:07","slug":"alan-titchmarsh-my-friend-charles-cant-express-his-opinions-as-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/celebrities\/alan-titchmarsh-my-friend-charles-cant-express-his-opinions-as-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Titchmarsh – \u2018My friend Charles can\u2019t express his opinions as King\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

You should always be able to count on a good friend\u2019s support when you\u2019ve taken on a new role \u2013 even when you\u2019re the monarch. So with 40 years of friendship behind them it\u2019s little wonder that the nation\u2019s favourite television gardener has nothing but praise and admiration for His Majesty The King.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharles has done brilliantly. The amount of stability he, and the entire monarchy, have brought to society has been incredible, especially when everything else like the NHS, the government and the BBC, seem to be falling apart,\u201d says Alan Titchmarsh, who keeps in touch with members of the royal family.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery large organisation seems to be under siege at the moment, but the monarch is holding the tiller as steady as it can be held.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no such restrictions on Alan\u2019s opinions \u2013 especially when it comes to donning a spot of glitter and fake tan for a certain sparkly dancing show.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrictly asked me again this year for the sixth time,\u201d he admits. \u201cMy wife [Alison] taught dance and she said my knees won\u2019t take the lifts and I think she\u2019s quite right. So I stay clear of that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pity but perhaps the jungle is more his scene? \u201cI was asked to do I\u2019m A Celebrity last year and I turned that one down for about the third time, too,\u201d he reveals. \u201cThat\u2019s not my bag, I\u2019m not a reality TV type. I like to be doing something, like presenting, rather than people assassinating me for the fluff in my navel!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In any case, he says he\u2019s much more about looking after the bugs than eating the bugs. \u201cI worry about the damage to the wildlife on that show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Alan\u2019s a seasoned pro when it comes to television. His first appearance was as a horticulture expert on the BBC\u2019s current affairs show Nationwide in the early 1980s, but he became a household name after teaming up with fellow gardener Charlie Dimmock and DIY expert Tommy Walsh on Ground Force in 1997, and found new fans with Love Your Weekend in 2020. His emotional stint on ITV1\u2019s Love Your Garden always has us reaching for the tissues, and Alan says the show affects him too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always find Love Your Garden difficult. We always think about what would make the person who owns the garden happiest? What would suit them best so we can give them a piece of heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tears aside, Alan is beaming with joy that co-host Frances Tophill has bought her dream home in Devon \u2013 \u201ccomplete with bright yellow door\u201d \u2013 and says that he, Frances and the other gardeners David Domoney and Katie Rushworth are great friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work closely together so we absolutely care about one another \u2013 all four of us. We\u2019ve been in it together from the beginning. We work together, we have supper in the evening together, and we\u2019ve always made it our business to get on with one another. I\u2019ve made three very good mates.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As we chat to him from his home on a muggy summer morning, it comes as no surprise that he\u2019s enjoying scenes of nature through his window.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m watching a moorhen preening and grooming itself on the lily pads \u2013 that\u2019s what my garden is all about. It\u2019s a microcosm of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s lived in his Grade II-listed Georgian farmhouse in Alton, Hampshire, for more than two decades now. He still enjoys tending to his four acres \u2013 with a little help from Alison, who he married in 1975 and with whom he has two daughters: Polly, 41, and Camilla, 39. \u201cShe has what\u2019s known as a \u2018queenly\u2019 role, to advise and to warn,\u201d he says, affectionately laughing, \u201cbut I always run things past her and she\u2019ll say \u2018can I think about that?\u2019 It\u2019s a joint effort, it\u2019s down to me but I run everything by her. I want a quiet life!\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this claim, Alan sparked a fierce debate among experts across the country this summer, after offering his thoughts on rewilding in the garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have assumed that rewilding means just letting it go and not doing anything. If you read properly about it, it\u2019s not,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For us less-green-fingered types, Alan argues that rewilding requires a fine balance between allowing nature to do its job, but not so much that you\u2019re turning your back on the garden and allowing aggressive species to take over.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Author and conservationist Isabella Tree, who runs a 3,500-acre pioneering rewilding project at Knepp Castle in West Sussex, recently offered her thoughts after gardener Monty Don stated he shared Alan\u2019s opinion. She argued they \u201cshouldn\u2019t be scared of rewilding\u201d, and that it can actually be a \u201cgardening revelation\u201d. Alan still doesn\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t do what\u2019s being done there [at Knepp] in the average domesticated garden. There are 900+ species of plants and flowers. If you just let your back garden go, you won\u2019t get that. You\u2019ll get an ever-reducing number of species.\u201d<\/p>\n

A keen organic gardener for 14 years now, Alan avoids sprays and inorganic fertilisers and he makes his own compost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing to remember is biodiversity comes from a wide range of plants as well as a wide range of creatures. A good, well-run garden doesn\u2019t have to go it alone. I feel very sad that gardeners are being made to feel guilty for growing flowers and plants that they love, because wildlife is not choosy about where your flowers come from. The more you can have with nectar and pollen, the more animals and wildlife will enjoy them. To make gardeners feel guilty for planting what they love is just nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan\u2019s latest book, Chatsworth, looks at how garden life has evolved over the years at the stunning stately home in Derbyshire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see how rich, alive and vibrant the gigantic garden is. It\u2019s in constant development, it\u2019s so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI haven\u2019t worked professionally there and I never tell them what to do, that\u2019s not my place. I\u2019m just happy to enjoy the journey with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As any true gardening royalty would expect, Alan has numerous flowers named after him, including a lupin, sweet pea and hosta. So which flower would represent his good friend, the King?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s tough,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cMy sweet pea has been going since the mid-80s. It\u2019s lovely and pink, frilly and delicately-scented. Maybe I\u2019d just present the King with a big bunch of myself instead!\u201d<\/p>\n

Chatsworth by Alan Titchmarsh is out 31 August in hardback, published by Ebury Spotlight, priced \u00a335<\/b><\/p>\n

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