Matt James is a British garden designer, horticulturist and university lecturer who rose to fame on the TV programme '' The City Gardener'' which was shown on the UK's

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

. Originally from

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, he now resides with his wife and children in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. James's gardening career began when he was a teenager working on a small farm. He then went on to study at various horticultural colleges and work at nurseries. He was honoured in 2000 as Londoner-of-the-Year in the field of environment and regeneration, in recognition of his work establishing a successful circuit of

farmers' market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

s in the capital. His enthusiasm has led him to teaching, lecturing on a part-time basis in garden design at

Falmouth University Falmouth University ( kw, Pennskol Aberfal) is a specialist public university for the creative industries based in Falmouth and Penryn, Cornwall, England. Founded as Falmouth School of Art in 1902, it was later known as Falmouth College of Ar ...

in Cornwall. Currently James leads the award-winning, degree leve
garden and landscape design
delivery at the

Eden Project The Eden Project ( kw, Edenva) is a visitor attraction in Cornwall, England, UK. The project is located in a reclaimed china clay pit, located from the town of St Blazey and from the larger town of St Austell.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS E ...

in Cornwall. James has also won two gold awards at the annual California Landscape Contractors' Association Awards. The success of the City Gardener TV programme also led onto other successful TV programmes - ''Matt James Eco Eden'' is shown on

UKTV UKTV Media Limited, simply known as UKTV, is a British multi-channel broadcaster, which, since 2019, has been wholly owned by BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. It was formed on 1 November 1992 through ...

and he is also the co-host of ''Selling Houses''. James presented an episode of ''

Great British Garden Revival ''Great British Garden Revival'' is a British documentary television series that was first broadcast on BBC Two on 9 December 2013. The series was presented by Monty Don, Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Rachel De Thame, James Wong, Tom Hart Dyke, Chr ...

'' that aired on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

in 2014. James has also filmed an American version of the City Gardener called Urban Outsiders for

HGTV HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, appr ...

, featuring gardens in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. James has also released five books - The latest is ''How to Plant A Garden'' for the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...

, published in March 2016. This follows ''The Urban Gardener'' published in 2014, again for the Royal Horticultural Society. His other books were The City Garden Bible, released in 2005, The City Gardener in 2003 and The City Gardener: Urban Oasis in 2004. Matt has also written for numerous publications about gardening and garden design including ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'', '' The Garden'' and the ''Garden Design Journal''.

Publications

* RHS How to Plant a Garden: Design tricks, ideas and planting schemes for year-round interest, 3 Mar 2016, , Mitchell Beazley * RHS The Urban Gardener, 7 Apr 2014, , Mitchell Beazley * The City Garden Bible, , Channel 4 Books; Transworld Publishers

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:James, Matt English landscape and garden designers English television presenters Living people Television personalities from Cornwall People from Essex Year of birth missing (living people)