My Happy Home: Gardener and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh talks to House Beautiful UK about settling into his new home, not being afraid of color, and choosing up a cut price striped couch from Dunelm.
Born and raised on the sting of Yorkshire’s Ilkley Moor, Alan Titchmarsh left faculty at 15 to turn into an apprentice gardener at his native nursery earlier than buying and selling at a horticultural faculty after which at Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
Now 76, Alan has spent greater than 5 a long time serving to us to develop higher gardens and has constructed a profession spanning tv, radio and bestselling books.
Best recognized for internet hosting the BBC’s Pebble Mill within the Eighties, then Ground Force and Gardeners’ World, Alan was awarded a CBE in December 2024 for his providers to horticulture and broadcasting. Now, as he settles into a smaller Surrey dwelling along with his spouse Alison after relocating from Hampshire, he’s additionally sharing gardening know-how on YouTube.
Alan’s Hampshire dwelling, which remains to be in the marketplace
Here, he displays on a cave-vibe DIY dilemma and divulges how he saved for 20 years to purchase a eating room desk, plus why he is bought most of his treasured artwork assortment.
How would you describe dwelling?
AT: Where the household is. We’ve simply moved into the identical village as our two daughters. We weren’t intending to transfer however we discovered this wonderful home, so we’re all now in the identical village. I’d like to say we’re not chasing them – they’re hauling us in.
The home is splendidly trendy and fully completely different from the Georgian farmhouse the place we have been earlier than. We’re refusing to use the B phrase. It’s a single-story dwelling that’s fairly lengthy, however we’re refusing to use the B-word as a result of we have now 5 steps! It’s a completely different lifestyle and fairly thrilling. It’s liberating.
The idyllic gardens in Alan’s Hampshire dwelling
What makes you happiest at dwelling?
AT: Having time to be right here. I like interiors each bit as a lot as exteriors, and I’m endlessly arranging issues, both within the backyard or the home. I’ve at all times had a nice visible sense. I believe gardeners are within the magnificence enterprise as a result of we’re making an attempt to make our environment lovely, calming or invigorating. Particularly with the best way the world is in the mean time, the house is such a sanctuary, a touchstone of sanity and actuality.
What was your childhood dwelling like?
AT: A tiny terraced home in Ilkley, Yorkshire, on three flooring, with a tiny entrance backyard, a again lane, after which the again backyard. It was under no circumstances extravagant, however it was at all times a joyful dwelling. You could make a dwelling lovely, however it’s not there to exhibit. It’s the ambiance you create and the sensation it offers you. That’s at all times been the purpose, definitely from my dad and mom and since I’ve been married.
Right now, what are you up to?
AT: The greatest thrill is that we began my YouTube channel final April, and we simply went over 100,000 subscribers, which is seemingly fairly good in that size of time. The wonderful thing about YouTube is I can say what I would like, we will do longer items reasonably than four-minute chunks and folks can pause it and return at will. It appears to be massively standard.
Alan along with his spouse Alison after he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in April 2025
How would you describe your adorning type?
AT: A combination of previous and new and we have by no means been afraid of color. My spouse and I used some fairly daring colors within the Georgian home and right here all of the partitions are white. It’s a very gentle home, with numerous floor-to-ceiling home windows and French doorways.
We’re introducing color by way of mushy furnishings and sofas. Alongside the fashionable tartan sofas we purchased 25 years in the past, we went to Dunelm and bought a Beatrice inexperienced and white striped couch. It’s beautiful to experiment and provides your self a shot within the arm.
Is there a design development you are least probably to comply with?
AT: The different day, I learn Kelly Hoppen saying she loves fawn, beige and cream. We’re not a beige household. Elephant’s Breath? No, thanks.
What’s your favorite room in the home?
AT: We’ve bought a very huge dwelling kitchen, which has a lantern roof and three units of French doorways opening onto the backyard. It’s so gentle and ethereal. In a method, that bought us the home. Light issues.
I believe all of us bought so low this winter as a result of it has been so gray and dreary. Then you get a few days of sunshine, your shoulders drop and your spirits raise. We are creatures of daylight, not the night time.
What’s your ceremonial dinner type like?
AT: We do not actually do dinner events anymore. We have folks spherical for kitchen suppers or lunch at our huge refectory desk. When the kids have been younger, breakfast was grabbed on the hoof, however supper was the time all of us got here collectively and talked. Meals round a desk are household glue. We’re very informal, not intimidatingly posh!
Alan Titchmarsh with the late Queen Elizabeth II
What’s in your bedside desk?
AT: A lamp, a lavender sleep mist, a pile of books and a little alarm clock – however I virtually at all times get up earlier than it goes off.
What’s your favorite homeware retailer?
AT: Everything from Dunelm to one of many uncommon impartial shops in Farnham, close to us, known as Elphicks. I do a lot of web browsing for furnishings and in addition get a lot of lighting from Pooky. I like their type and so they’re not ludicrously priced. The atmosphere of lighting in a room is crucial.
What’s your greatest extravagance within the dwelling?
AT: I’ve bought some respectable artwork – or we had. I bought a lot of it once we moved, so right here I’ve bought lower than I’ve ever had, however I’ve loved having them previously.
I’ve been gathering for 40 years — or 20 years by way of great things, as a result of I wasn’t incomes sufficient to purchase something good earlier than that. The artwork was at all times my pension hanging on the wall and once we moved, we thought, ‘It’s a likelihood to begin once more’.
The household have been fairly shocked after I despatched it off to public sale. I did name one piece again — a tiny drawing of a horse. It wasn’t the costliest, however I realised I used to be extra hooked up to it than the others. I’ve bought nothing outrageously, ludicrously costly on my partitions now.
And the very best cut price?
AT: About 30 years in the past, we purchased a 2 x 2.5ft white marble-topped oak butcher’s desk. It price us a fiver from an public sale home. It’s been across the household ever since, and certainly one of our daughters has it now.
We additionally saved up 15 or 20 years for a Robert Thompson desk, the Mouseman of Kilburn. He carves a little mouse on every bit of furnishings. We’ve dined round that kitchen desk for 30 years. That’s our signature piece.
What do you like to accumulate?
AT: Books, primarily. I began gathering them about 50 years in the past after I first got here down south and began choosing up botanical books. Since shifting to our new place, I’ve thinned out the gathering, however I purchased a couple of latest ones this week – The Gardens of Arne Maynard and The Great American House by Gil Schafer III.
They enable me to disappear. Funnily sufficient, a lot of the books I purchase these days are on inside design or structure.
We don’t want all of the bedrooms that got here with this home, so I’ve turned two small bedrooms into libraries and painted them with Farrow & Ball Lulworth Blue, which is beautiful.
Farrow & Ball’s Lulworth Blue
What was your worst-ever adorning catastrophe?
AT: When we first bought married, we had a tiny home — two and a half up and down. No room was larger than 10 sq. toes. If you’d swung a cat, it might have been concussed. We painted the dining room two partitions cream and two partitions actually darkish brown as a result of within the mid-Seventies, that was apparently the factor to do. Looking again, it was like dwelling in a cave.
When you get dwelling, what’s the very first thing you do?
AT: Walk across the backyard!
What’s the housewarming reward you like to give?
AT: Usually one thing for the backyard that they’ll plant. A Japanese maple is kind of good as a result of they do not develop too huge, however they provide a little bit of construction and you may both have them in a pot, a tub or planted.
Whose dwelling would you want to nostril round?
AT: Sir Nicholas Coleridge’s. He constructed a folly within the backyard of his home, which is a library. I’ve seen photos of it inside and outside and it is essentially the most fantastically elegant constructing.
What’s outdoors your window?
AT: There’s a terrace, some 7ft tall galvanised obelisks to stand in 4 beds and a lengthy slim border the place I shall put seven Pencil Cypress bushes.
What’s your favorite object introduced again out of your travels?
AT: I used to be 21 after I had my first overseas vacation with my dad and mom and from Majorca I introduced again a easy handblown inexperienced glass vase (under), about three inches in diameter and 6 inches excessive. I nonetheless use it for flowers. It’s such an ageless piece of glass and jogs my memory of my first overseas vacation. It’s been with me ever since.
Would you describe your self as green-fingered?
AT: I hope I’m. I’ve been dwelling a lie if I’m not! I used to be eight or 9 after I sowed Mesembryanthemum – Livingstone daisy – seeds and so they got here up. I took cuttings, and so they rooted. There’s nothing like a little little bit of success to embolden you to keep it up. Maybe if I’d failed and so they’d not come up, I would not have carried on!
Where will we discover you each Sunday?
In the backyard or with the household. We don’t meet up each weekend, however as a result of our daughters are so shut now, we meet a number of occasions a week. The weekend is household time and positively it is time to be dwelling.
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The Garden Edit
Habitat Global 2-Seater Bamboo Garden Bistro Set
Burgon & Ball Scalloped Indoor Watering Can
Natural Scalloped Rattan Outdoor Solar Floor Lamp
Marcy 2-Seater Sling Garden Sofa, Greige
Scalloped Edge Smooth Fibre Clay Plant Pot
