As a trained journalist and Horticulturist one would not be surprised to hear that for the last two years Tom has been the gardening correspondent for The Saturday Times, but this is just one string to his multi talented bow.

Tom started his journalistic career working within the Racing World, he spent time with the trainers Jeremy Tree in Wiltshire and Vincent O’Brien in Tipperary, Eire.  This period was followed with a two year stint working for the International Racing Bureau in London as an in-house journalist.  

In 1989 he made a life changing decision to put the racing world onto the back burner for a while and pursue his other great passion – Horticulture – He went off to Oaklands College of Agriculture and Horticulture where he studied for two years. As part his studies he travelled to India to work at The centre of Agriculture, Technology and Learning in Tamil Nadu, South India. A permaculture orientated project growing organic coffee, rice, vegetables and tree fruit, including citrus, avocado etc.  He returned to India for a further six months study after finishing Horticultural College.

In 1993 he joined the Lost Gardens of Heligan staff at the beginning of the gardening side of the project, and he ran productive gardens there for three years. His next project was to oversee the restoration of the historic garden at Newton Ferrers, Callington in Cornwall. In 2002 at the request of Heligan Management he returned to take a further hand in the project.

In 2004 he left Heligan to concentrate on writing and broadcasting. Tom has published a book about the Heligan garden called ‘Heligan A portrait of the Lost Gardens’ with photographs by Melanie Eclare. [Weidenfeld & Nicolson]  April 2005 saw the release of a DVD entitled ‘The Gardening Secrets, hints and tips of the lost Gardens of Heligan’ [HCA Entertainment] an 80 minute close up of gardening tips.

Ongoing work consists of his weekly column for  The Saturday Times entitled ‘The Kitchen Garden’ [now in it’s second year] A sister book on Heligan entitled ‘Gardening the Heligan Way’ due for publication June 2006. Also due for publication in Spring 2006 is a major project entitled ‘Trees that Shaped The World’ An illustrated book on trees that have a major ecological impact worldwide. [Quadrille] A further series of DVD’s on other special gardens with the UK are in the process of being filming [HCA Entertainment].

Contact Hilary Knight | T: 01604 781818 | M: 07951 968708 | E: hilary@hkmanagement.co.uk