ANNOUNCING! BBC Gardener’s World presenter and garden designer, Arit Anderson, is heading to Toby’s Garden Festival on Saturday 30 April 2022. 

Arit, known for her gorgeous garden designs – and great fashion sense! – will be giving two talks in the Castle’s Speaker Hall sharing her knowledge of garden design: 7 Design Principles for a Great Garden.

Arit Anderson is a garden designer, writer and presenter on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World. She spent 25 years working in the dynamic industries of retail fashion and creative events. She managed teams that delivered collections and events across the globe. She balanced this fast-paced career with interests in well-being, working as a therapist and teaching holistic therapies, which led her to travel extensively to the USA.

It was the joy of having her own garden that enabled Arit to diversify her creative experiences. She found that the visual nature of fashion and the healing properties of her therapies could beautifully meld in the garden. Playing with a new palette of colour and materials in her garden, drove her to explore the unique relationships between her love of plants, people and place. After just one season, Arit knew she wanted horticulture to become her work as well as her pleasure.

She studied gardening at Capel Manor College where she had success at RHS Chelsea 2013, winning the Fresh Talent category for a student design collaboration with two other students. After attaining a diploma in garden design, she won a Gold Medal for her own design at RHS Hampton Court in 2016 in the conceptual category.

In her designs for both private and commercial clients her ethos includes simplicity and environmental sensitivity – affecting her choice of products and plants at source, with regard to their future setting. Working as presenter for Gardeners World, and writing for national publications has enabled Arit to publicise issues about the future of gardening in an ever-changing climate, and promote solutions to the wider public.

Picture credit: Julian Winslow