The expert gardeners who found television fame on the BBC programme Ground Force have seen their own lawns turn yellow and brown during a record breaking summer of drought and five heatwaves across the United Kingdom.
Alan Titchmarsh, Charlie Dimmock and Tommy Walsh are all currently subject to hosepipe bans at their homes in the south of England, where restrictions have been widely imposed. Aerial photographs show their normally pristine gardens are suffering, despite benefiting from the shade of mature trees.
Titchmarsh, 77, lives in Farnham, Surrey, where his property is surrounded by healthy green trees, but the grass is visibly affected. Dimmock, 60, has a home in Romsey, Hampshire, where the grass beneath her lush trees and in the surrounding fields is parched. In Hackney, east London, the garden grass at 69-year-old Walsh's home is also yellow.
The trio became household names after Ground Force began broadcasting in 1997, taking on garden makeover challenges across the country. The programme drew up to 12 million viewers at its peak. Titchmarsh and Dimmock were the gardening experts, while former builder Walsh used his skills to lay patios and fit decking.
Titchmarsh left the programme in 2002. Ground Force ran for three more years before it was cancelled in 2005.
Titchmarsh also stood down from presenting the BBC gardening programme Gardeners' World shortly after leaving Ground Force. He had started his career in 1964 as a 15-year-old apprentice gardener with a single O-level, later studying and working at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, south-west London, before moving into gardening journalism and broadcasting on the magazine programme Pebble Mill at One.
Dimmock studied horticulture and had her television breakthrough in 1992 building a garden for the ITV Meridien regional programme Grass Roots. She has since presented programmes including The Great British Garden Revival on BBC Two, and the daytime programme Garden Rescue on BBC One, which has broadcast more than 150 episodes since 2016.
Walsh has featured in other programmes including Challenge Tommy Walsh, Tommy's DIY survival, and Homes Under The Hammer.
Celebrity gardens defy the drought
While the Ground Force team struggle, other celebrities have managed to maintain verdant lawns. Broadcaster Monty Don, 71, succeeded Titchmarsh on Gardeners' World in 2003. He and his wife Sarah have owned Longmeadow, a two-acre estate near the market town of Leominster in Herefordshire, since 1991. The property appears healthily green with lush trees and shrubs, contrasting sharply with the parched yellow fields around it.
Severn Trent Water, which supplies parts of Herefordshire, has not imposed a hosepipe ban, while Welsh Water has only restricted use in Wales.
Don wrote in the Daily Mail's Weekend magazine in 2021 about his estate, which features several themed areas including a Cottage Garden, a Jewel Garden, a Spring Garden, a Wildlife Garden, a Writing Garden, a Vegetable Garden and an Islamic-inspired Paradise Garden.
He wrote: "The way that I have designed my garden is, as a friend of mine only half-jokingly described it, 'like a series of allotments'. It means there are a number of different areas, all quite separate and usually hidden from the rest. I make no apologies for this and enjoy the surprises and sense of enclosure that it brings. Inevitably this means that different sections of the garden have their own character."
He added: "We also try to treat each separate area as though it were the only garden that we had. This means that each section has to stand up to the strictest scrutiny and aesthetic standards."
In Essex, the 18th-century Grade II-listed mansion belonging to 81-year-old rock musician Sir Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster remains exceptionally green. Sir Rod bought the property for 4.65 million pounds in 2013. It is supplied by Affinity Water, which introduced a hosepipe ban across its central region, including Essex, on July 17.
There is no evidence that Sir Rod has breached the ban, as residents can use watering cans or may hold exemptions.
Television presenter Jeremy Clarkson offered an explanation for how Sir Rod might be maintaining his lawns, pointing to the methods he uses at his Farmer's Dog pub in the Cotswolds, where aerial photographs on Monday showed lush green grass despite parched neighbouring fields.
"Could it be, perhaps, that Rod, here with wife Penny, probably has a borehole?" the former Top Gear presenter wrote in a column for The Sun. "You dig a hole maybe 100m down into the ground, put a pump in it and water comes out. Water that's not subjected to any kind of government interference. That's what we did at my pub, which is why the lawns there are also weirdly verdant."
Private lakes and brown lawns
Beatles musician Sir Paul McCartney has a green herb garden at his 160-acre estate in Peasmarsh, near Rye in East Sussex, but the property also features swathes of yellow and brown grass. He appears to be adhering to the ban imposed last month by South East Water, which covers Sussex, Berkshire, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has greener lawns than most at his 70-acre, Grade I-listed 12-bedroom estate in Essex, which he bought for 6 million pounds in 2019. He has a large private lake close to the house and has installed hosepipes between the pond and his garden. Water drawn from a privately owned source, such as a lake, pond, spring or well, is exempt from the hosepipe ban.
Faring perhaps less well is The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, 82, who has a small patch of green grass circled by buildings at his West Sussex home, but the rest of his estate is as brown and dry as the surrounding fields. He has no visible private water source. The county was placed under a hosepipe ban on July 25.
Months of restrictions expected
More than 27 million people across England now face hosepipe restrictions. Eight water companies have implemented bans, legally prohibiting customers from using hosepipes to water gardens or wash cars, patios and boats.
Wessex Water became the latest authority to announce restrictions earlier this week, affecting 1.4 million customers in Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. It is the company's first hosepipe ban since the 1976 heatwave.
Thames Water, Britain's largest water company, has restricted use for 10.1 million people. Nevil Muncaster, the company's strategic water resources director, told Times Radio on Friday that the ban will likely remain in place until the end of the year.
"I think realistically, it's going to be towards the end of the year before that comes off," Muncaster said. "That's something that we need to make sure we do just to protect the environment."
He said customers use 25 per cent more water than usual when temperatures exceed 25C (77F), and up to 50 per cent more when they rise above 30C (86F). Temperatures have frequently passed that mark this summer, peaking at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on August 13 during the fifth heatwave of the season.
Muncaster warned that more dry weather is expected.
"The Environment Agency forecast is that it will be drier than normal for the next few months, but we'll wait and see," he said.
Thames Water is currently 19.5 billion pounds in debt. Creditors are attempting to negotiate a bailout deal after government ministers recently rejected the latest proposal. The company loses 569 million litres of water a day, a decrease from 654 million litres a day ten years ago.
Driest July on record
England and Wales recorded their driest July in history, while southern England experienced its driest month since records began almost 200 years ago. At the end of last month, parts of London, Kent, Essex and Sussex were all officially declared to be in drought.
Some relief arrived on Monday night, when those areas saw light or patchy rain. On Tuesday, the Met Office said some areas experienced their "first meaningful rain for a long time", while also warning people to brace for floods.
The village of Wisley in Surrey broke a 62-day dry streak, the longest in the country, when 1.6mm of rain fell in the early hours of Wednesday.
The Met Office predicted showers on Friday, describing some as "heavy and thundery", with temperatures near average to cool, before the rain is expected to lessen on Saturday.
