Profile

Freelance garden writer and broadcaster, Steve Bradley has an RHS Master of Horticulture Diploma. With his wife Val, Steve is the gardening correspondent for The Sun newspaper. Steve also teaches amateurs to academics at the English Gardening School, London. His vast knowledge of gardening regularly assists listeners on live phone-ins basis as BBC Southern Counties Radio’s primary gardening expert.  

Steve researches, presents and advises the BBC and independent television stations and on productions such as the Chelsea Flower Show videos, turning to exhibiting (and winning a Silver Gilt medal) in 2002.

Steve writes newspaper columns and journal articles and has nurtured more than 30 gardening books, including Propagation Basics, (Hamlyn Books) and was winner of the Garden Writers’ Guild Award for Best Practical Book of 2002. He is author of the booklets for the Ground Force series of gardening programmes on BBC television and he has just completed the Ground Force Weekend Workbook co-authored with Alan Titchmarsh (BBC Books).

Biography

Steve Bradley (known as Brad) is a freelance garden writer and broadcaster who featured in Channel 4's highly successful gardening series Garden Doctors.

He studied horticulture at Writtle, Cannington and Pershore Colleges, and attained the highly prestigious RHS Master of Horticulture Diploma. In 1986 he was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship to further his horticultural studies in the USA and Canada. He has a vast knowledge of horticulture, and has spent many years teaching horticulture and plant propagation at all levels in England and the USA.

Brad has worked as both a presenter and researcher for two Channel 4 gardening series: Plant Life (broadcast autumn 1993); and Garden Doctors (broadcast autumn 1995 and 1996). He has been presenter/adviser on a series of 12 gardening videos for Phostrogen, including A Guide to Clematis(1993), A Guide to Roses (1994), and Lawns and Lawncare (1996). He has also acted as the horticultural and script adviser on two RHS Chelsea videos, in 1994, 1995 and as both advisor and presenter in 1996.

His books include; A Gardeners' Guide to Plant Life with Susan Berry (Collins & Brown 1993); The Complete Guide to Container Gardening with Susan Berry (Collins & Brown 1995); Practical Guide to Pruning (Crowood); Best Plants for your Garden with Susan Berry (Anness 1996); Garden Doctors with Dan Pearson (Boxtree 1996) and Vegetables Fruit and Herbs (Collins & Brown).

He has written a major series of books for Ryland, Peters & Small about gardening through the seasons, entitled Autumn, Spring and Summer published throughout 1999. He co-authored Groundforce, with Alan Titchmarsh, for BBC Books and has written three books for Murdoch Books: Winter Gardening, Garden Harvest and Fragrant Garden and What's Wrong With My Plant? for Hamlyn. His book Propagation Basics for Hamlyn, won the Practical Book of the Year award from the Garden Writers' Guild in 2002. He has also co-authored Groundforce Weekend Workbook with Alan Titchmarsh for BBC Books. Steve's latest book is The Pruner's Bible (paperback) due for release in March 2009, previously  published in hard back by Quarto in Spring 2005.

He writes for many of the popular gardening magazines, including Garden Life, Gardeners' World, The Garden and Garden Answers and has also written for the Sunday Express. He is behind the Masterclass series in Gardens Monthly, and writes specialist articles for the RHS Journal and BBC Gardeners World Magazine. His knowledge of gardening is vast and he enjoys testing it on BBC Southern Counties Radio, where he regularly answers listeners' questions on a live phone-in basis in his capacity as their primary gardening expert, and also guests on Radio Kent on alternate Sundays each month.

In October 2002 Steve and his wife Val - also a qualified horticulturist, joined Peter Seabrook as gardening correspondent for The Sun every Saturday, and a recent survey established that Sun has a readership of 11 million and that the Saturday gardening page is the most read page of any newspaper on any day of the week!

He is a popular garden tour guide and he has been involved in planning and building medal-winning exhibits at some of Britain's leading horticultural shows, including Chelsea and Hampton Court and won a Silver Gilt medal at Chelsea in 2002. Brad also still finds time to pass on his knowledge, lecturing to students at Capel Manor College (Enfield) and the Inchbold School of Design in London and leads specialist days at the English Gardening School in London.

Updated 28/02/2009