Matt James

Matt James is a garden designer, broadcaster and lecturer.

Fuelled by a passion for plants and gardens he has worked widely within the horticulture industry from nursery production to landscape construction. He trained at Merrist Wood College, and then onto a degree in horticulture at Writtle College, Essex.

For setting up farmers’ markets in Surrey and South London in 2000-01, Matt was honoured with ‘Londoner of the Year’ in the field of the environment and regeneration.

Channel 4’s The City Gardener introduced Matt to the gardening public; the series was later broadcast around the globe. Two series about urban garden design in the US soon followed. Matt continues to make appearances on television notably ITV’s Love Your Garden and BBC 2’s Great British Garden Revival.

Currently Matt is a senior lecturer and leads the degree level garden and landscape design delivery at the Eden Project in Cornwall. This follows five years teaching on the award winning BA (Hons) Garden Design course at Falmouth University. Students under his tutorage have won numerous awards including the RHS Young Designer of the Year three times and the Society of Garden Designers Student of the Year award again three times, the most recent in 2017.

Matt has written five books about gardening and garden design. The latest is How to Plant A Garden for the Royal Horticultural Society, published in March 2016. This follows The Urban Gardener published in 2014, again for the Royal Horticultural Society. Matt has also written for numerous publications about gardening and garden design including The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Garden and the Garden Design Journal.

Matt has won awards for his design work in both the UK and California and runs a design practice based in Cornwall, working in the UK and abroad.

To book Matt for your Event, contact Prime Performers for more information, either through our online booking enquiry form or by calling us on 020 3500 3331.