SHARON FISHER

Although Sharon Fisher is delighted to find herself at the helm of , she had no great masterplan behind her rise to the top of gardening television. “I have a significant birthday coming up and so I have been thinking a lot about how I got here, but the truth is it just wasn’t planned at all.” She grew up in Kings Heath, Birmingham (near to the park from where was broadcast in 1996) and studied Communication Studies at university. After graduating she took on a voluntaryat the BBC’s Pebble Mill Studios. A subsequent job as a researcher on the show led to her first piece of horticultural serendipity, working with Stefan Buczacki on his practical gardening demonstrations. From there, again entirely by chance, she went on to work in daytime television and on the garden makeover show with Diarmuid Gavin and on with Chris Beardshaw. It was this experience, she says, that first got her interested in gardening . “It’s also where I learnt my craft producing and directing . When you produce fast turn around telly you have a tight budget and a lot of programmes to make, so it gave me skills that I still use today.”