SHE rose to fame on Ground Force and now Charlie Dimmock is making her comeback on another gardening show for the BBC.

Weekend spoke to the green-fingered presenter during a break in filming for the as yet unnamed series which is expected on TV in June or July.

She will also be at Bents on March 19 and 20 for the Glazebury garden centre's Get Gardening Weekend.

"It’s all a bit stressful," she said.

"I’d forgotten what filming is like. TV is very much like: ‘Hurry up, we need it now’ so it’s all a bit hectic."

Charlie is working with Harry and David Rich, who are award-winning landscape architects and garden designers who won a gold award at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The 49-year-old said that working on the show has brought back memories of Ground Force, which was watched by 12 million viewers at its peak.

But the new series is more about the practical nature of gardening to fit people's everyday life.

Charlie added: "The thing you have got to remember about gardens is we all want those picture box type gardens but at the end of the day there are washing lines, dustbins and sheds.

"There are areas of the garden for children to scream and run around and play and stuff like that which they don’t tend to build in at the Chelsea Flower Show.

"It's about how to make that space workable for you, your family and your situation.

"We basically go along to someone’s house, they give a budget for the garden and we come up with designs for them to choose from, then as a team we build it.

"We haven’t done any builds yet though. At this stage we’re just meeting the people and finding out what they want but it has reminded me of the joys of the weather.

"We were stood in Pontefract the other day in four inches of snow. That was helpful as we couldn’t even see the garden."

Charlie said that anyone can achieve their dream garden even those on a tight budget – but it may require patience or compromise on the materials.

"It’s like all things," she said.

"You can cut your cloth to fit your budget. You can go one of two ways. You can do the whole garden and go for products that are more affordable like gravel and have less hard paving and less fancy plants.

"Or you could set yourself the task of saving up and doing a section at a time over three years to get exactly what you want.

"It depends on you. It’s like doing up a house. You can through and make it look really tidy and give it a quick lick of paint.

"Or you could pick out a bedroom and make it perfect knowing that means you won’t get around to the rest of the rooms until next year or in a couple of months’ time.

"Everyone can do it. It’s just a case of being inspired.

"Maintenance is a big key thing for a lot of people and what we don’t want to do is put in gardens that require lots of maintenance.

"Because then what happens is that people find them a chore and it puts them off gardening.

"Everyone likes to potter in a garden. Everyone likes to go to a garden centre and buy some pretty plants in the spring and pop them in.

"Leave space for that. But I’m a great advocate for having a good basis of flowering shrubs and as long as you choose ones that are size appropriate to your garden you don’t have to do that much to them."

Charlie became a household – or garden – name when she presented Ground Force with Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh from 1997 to 2005.

The celebrity gardener, who also presented The Joy of Gardening and Charlie's Garden Army, added: "My main memory of Ground Force was laughing lots.

"It was the same team week in, week out as well as the same production and crew. You know what it’s like when you work with a team of people and you get on.

"When we first started filming we were polite to each other for the first two series but by the third series we were like family."

Charlie also admitted that gardening has changed since Ground Force last aired a decade ago – but for the better.

She said: "The wonderful thing is that people are a lot more into growing fruit and veg at home.

"So we’re going back to when I was a kid and everyone had a vegetable patch.

"The thing to remember though is you don’t have to have a patch to grow vegetables. Some vegetables look really quite attractive mixed in the flower borders.

"Runner beans climbing up through a climbing rose are quite pretty. Salad leaves look quite pretty edging a border. Even if you’ve got quite a tiny garden there are a lot of vegetables that are fine in containers."

Charlie fell in love with gardening when she was just four.

She added: "I was very much a tomboy as a kid so I would be out in the garden with my granddad rather than in the house with my gran who tended to like to put me in pretty frocks and curl my hair.

"Then I got a Saturday job in a garden centre when I was about 13. I decided I enjoyed the outdoor life and it went from there.

Gardening is very satisfying because you know where you’ve been. You can see where you’ve mowed the lawn or edged it or weeded the border or planted the bed out.

"It’s well known that gardening is good for you mentally. It gives you a very positive outlook to life so it’s very therapeutic.

"You’re away from the phone, you don’t feel the pressures of life and you can just switch off which is good for you."

- You can meet Charlie at Bents in Warrington Road, Glazebury, this Saturday and Sunday

DAVID MORGAN