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Charlie Dimmock
Born
Charlotte Elouise Dimmock

(1966-08-10) 10 August 1966 (age 58)
West Wellow, Hampshire, England
EducationThe Mountbatten School
Cannington Horticultural college
Occupations
Employers
Height5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)

Charlotte Elouise Dimmock (born 10 August 1966) is an English gardening expert and television presenter. She was a member of the team on Ground Force, a BBC gardening makeover programme, airing from 1997 to 2005.

Since then, Dimmock has presented numerous TV shows in the UK and US, including The Joy of Gardening, Charlie's Garden Army and most recently Garden Rescue.

Early life and education

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Dimmock attended Wellow Primary School and the Mountbatten School in Romsey, Hampshire. Her father Terry was a merchant seaman, and her mother Sue ran her own clothes shop.[1]

Dimmock's love of gardening began at an early age – she enjoyed spending time in the garden as a child (gravitating towards the family pond), and helping her grandfather in his vegetable patch. At junior school she had gardening lessons through the spring and summer terms. As a teenager, Dimmock had a weekend and holiday job at a local garden centre called Mill Water Gardens in Romsey, managed By Tim Bath of Romsey.[2]

When she was at school, Dimmock initially planned to specialise in forensic science, but changed her mind and studied horticulture.[3] Dimmock trained as an amenity horticulturalist at Winchester and in Somerset, graduating with a BTEC Diploma in Amenity Horticulture, attaining a distinction, and a National Technical Certificate in Turf Culture and Sporting Management.[4] She spent a year of this training at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.[5]

After college, Dimmock joined Romsey Garden Centre. It was here that she met TV producer John Thornicroft, who later produced Ground Force.[3]

Television career

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Dimmock first came to the public's attention in 1997, when she joined the BBC gardening series Ground Force, five years after first meeting the producer/director of the series when she built a pond for the Meridian series, Grass Roots.[6] Dimmock co-presented Ground Force for the eight years it aired.[7]

Since then, Dimmock has presented such programmes as The Joy of Gardening and Charlie's Garden Army, as well as presenting coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show.[8] In 2004, she appeared in the Channel 4 reality TV show, The Games. She has also appeared on American television, presenting a gardening slot on The Early Show on CBS.[9] In September 2006, she appeared on the BBC's Celebrity MasterChef.[10]

Dimmock made a cameo appearance as herself in the British soap opera Hollyoaks in August 2002, acting as a special guest booked by character Gordon Cunningham to unveil the "Jubilee Gardens".[11]

During the mid-2000s, after Ground Force had ceased production, she presented a local ITV Meridian series entitled River Walks, in which she walked along various rivers in Southern England, visiting landmarks and attractions along the way as well as meeting people who live and work on the rivers.[citation needed]

Dimmock was President of the Television and Radio Industries Club (TRIC) from 2003 to 2004 and presented their annual awards ceremony that year.[citation needed] In 2011, she joined the team of experts on ITV's Daybreak breakfast magazine show acting as gardening expert.[citation needed] In 2013, she presented an episode of The Great British Garden Revival.

In July 2016, Dimmock became a member of the team presenting Garden Rescue, a series on garden transformations produced for the BBC by Spun Gold TV.[12][13]

Other projects

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Dimmock has written several gardening books, including the BBC Ground Force books Water Garden Workbook and Container Gardening, as well as Enjoy Your Garden, a book on general gardening published in 2000. Dimmock wrote a weekly gardening column in the Mail on Sunday for many years, until January 2008.[citation needed]

Dimmock appeared in pantomime over Christmas 2011 at The Spa in Bridlington playing the Organic Fairy in Jack and the Beanstalk: she reprised the role in December 2012 at the Pomegranate Theatre in Chesterfield.[14]

Dimmock launched her In the Garden range of gardening equipment with the retail chain Poundland on 29 February 2016.[2] She expanded her range in 2017.[15]

Multiple flowers have been named after Charlie Dimmock, including the apricot orange Dahlia 'Charlie Dimmock'[16] and cherry red/silvery pink Charlie's Rose.[17]

Personal life

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Dimmock's mother Sue Kennedy, 59, and her stepfather Rob, 58, both died in the 2004 tsunami caused by an Indian Ocean earthquake while they were holidaying in Thailand.[18][19]

Charity work

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In 2003, Dimmock competed in the Macmillan 4x4 UK Challenge charity event, raising the profile of the event considerably, which has gone on to raise over £100,000 each year for Macmillan Cancer Support.[20]

Dimmock has also been involved in many other charity works, such as Dreamflight, a charity organisation backed by British Airways for children with serious illnesses, that takes them to Florida, United States, for a "holiday of a lifetime".[21]

Bibliography

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  • Charlie Dimmock, "Ground Force" Water Garden Workbook, 1999, (ISBN 0563551135)
  • Dimmock, Charlie (2000). Enjoy Your Garden: Gardening For Everyone. ISBN 0718144295.
  • Charlie Dimmock, Water Garden Workbook, 2000, (ISBN 1856136582)
  • Dimmock, Charlie (2001). Charlie's Enjoy Your Garden. ISBN 0140290419.
  • Dimmock, Charlie (2002). "Ground Force": Container Gardening. ISBN 0563488093.

References

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  1. ^ "Charlie Dimmock". Hello! magazine. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
  2. ^ a b February 2016, Lucy Moore | 16. "Exclusive interview with Charlie Dimmock on her new range at Poundland". www.femalefirst.co.uk. Retrieved 31 August 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Hellomagazine.com. "Charlie Dimmock. Biography, news, photos and videos". Hello. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  4. ^ "Charlie Dimmock | Gardening Experts at Gardening Direct". www.gardeningdirect.co.uk. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  5. ^ Echo, Liverpool (16 January 2009). "The Celebrities at Home and Garden Show". liverpoolecho. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  6. ^ Meet Charlie Dimmock UKTV article. Retrieved 22 June 2010
  7. ^ Chris Roberts (2006). Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme. Thorndike Press. ISBN 0-7862-8517-6.
  8. ^ BBC coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2002 17 April 2002. BBC Press Releases & Press Packs. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  9. ^ The Early Show - Charlie Dimmock CBS Broadcasting Inc. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  10. ^ "Meet Charlie Dimmock" Archived 8 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine UKTV Style Gardens. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  11. ^ Official Hollyoaks Website, 6 August 2002, archived from the original on 19 August 2002, retrieved 2 July 2021
  12. ^ Frost, Caroline (4 July 2016). "Charlie Dimmock Returns To TV Screens With 'Garden Rescue'". HuffPost. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  13. ^ O'Grady, Sean (9 July 2016). "TV preview: Garden Rescue, BBC1, Monday 3.25pm; Wedding Surprises: Caught on Camera, ITV, Tuesday 9pm". The Independent. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  14. ^ Bonner, Neil (10 December 2012). "Jack and the Beanstalk review at Pomegranate Chesterfield". The Stage. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  15. ^ Avis-Riordan, Katie (3 May 2017). "Poundland and Charlie Dimmock have released a new gardening collection and, yes, they're £1 each!". Country Living. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  16. ^ "Dahlia Charlie Dimmock". Royal Horticultural Society. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  17. ^ Easitill. "CHARLIE'S ROSE (hybrid tea) | Garden Roses | Pococks Roses | The Cornish Rose Company". Garden Roses. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  18. ^ Gardener 'copes' with family loss" BBC News Online, 27 January 2005. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  19. ^ UK victims of Asian tsunami", BBC News Online , 18 December 2005. Retrieved 23 March 2010
  20. ^ Land Rover World article Macmillan 4x4 UK Challenge 2003
  21. ^ "High Profile Supporters". dreamflight. Archived from the original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
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