University of Oxford Botanic Garden

Oh, wow.

I'm actually going to give a shout out for Oxford Botanic Garden.

Favourite garden tool or tool of the trade? Oh, my daughter Ellen bought me one of those Japanese knives, which...

A hori-hori knife? That's the one with a kind of curve to it.

Given these figures, it's not surprising that the U3A movement has hundreds of active garden groups operating at a local level across the country.

But why do so many people embrace the hobby of gardening later in life and what are the benefits? Timothy Walker is a gardening expert and author and former director of the Oxford Botanical Gardens, who delivers talks about gardenings to many U3A groups.

Susie Hodges caught up with him recently and put that question to him.

The later life thing is, the question is, it's interesting because I'm one of those strange people, I suppose, who got into gardening at a young age.

I did do some research on the garden, and the designers and the, the people in the community help keep it going, but.

I also visited, uh, Oxford Botanic Garden.

Okay.

It has a lot of paths that lead you through borders and glasshouses and plants from around the world.