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Tony Russell's career with plants and gardens began in 1978 when, soon after leaving school and completing a long distance charity walk from John O' Groats to Lands End, he joined the Forestry Commission in Snowdonia. In 1980 he went to Newton Rigg, Cumbria to study forestry and horticulture and after qualifying in 1983 he took up post as Forester for the New Forest in Hampshire.
In 1989 he was appointed Head Forester of Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire, one of the finest collections of tree and shrubs in the temperate world. His areas of responsibility included development and management of the Arboretum, conservation of its many rare and endangered species and interpretation of the collection and its environmental importance to others.
By 1999 he had increased annual visitors to Westonbirt from 140,000 to 300,000, making Westonbirt the third most visited garden in the UK at that time (after Kew Gardens and the RHS Garden, Wisley). In 2000, in recognition of these achievements, the British Government awarded Westonbirt, National Status.
Tony left Westonbirt in 2002 and is now widely recognised as one of Britain's leading authorities on trees and shrubs. Over the last few years he has become a familiar face (and voice) on both TV and radio, presenting many horticultural and countryside programmes. His six-part TV series 'The Cotswold Garden Trail' was nominated for the 'TV broadcast of the year' at the National Garden Writers Guild awards held at the Savoy, London in November 2002. He co-presented the TV gardening series 'Roots and Shoots' for HTV and scripted and presented the much acclaimed major TV series for ITV 'Britain's Great Trees' - which was screened during the summer of 2003 and repeated in 2004. Also in 2004 he presented a six-part radio series for BBC Radio 4 entitled 'Plant Invaders'. In 2005 Tony presented two TV series - 'Garden Trail' and 'Forests of Southern England' - both for ITV. In 2006 he worked with the BBC on the TV documentary series 'Save Lullingstone Castle', which was based around the creation of the World Garden at Lullingstone Castle in Kent. This was screened on BBC2 in the spring of 2006 followed by a second series in 2007. Also in 2007, Tony presented the BBC Radio 4 series 'Inspiring Trees' and he can currently be heard on Gardeners Question Time on BBC Radio 4.
Tony contributes regularly to the gardening press - which includes features in BBC Gardeners' World Magazine, The Garden and Country Gardener Magazine - and is the author of eight books; 'Westonbirt, A Celebration of the Seasons' published in 1995, 'Cornwall's Great Gardens', published in 1998, 'The World Encyclopedia of Trees' published in 2003, 'Trebah - Garden of Dreams' and 'Trees of the America's' published in 2005,'The Trees of Britain and Europe' and 'Tree Spotting for Children' published in 2006 and 'The Gardens at Spetchley Park' in 2007. He is also editor of the annual publication 'Gardens to Visit' and currently working on a new book entitled 'The World Garden at Lullingstone Castle' for publication in April 2008.
In addition to his writing and broadcasting work, Tony runs a thriving consultancy which looks specifically at encouraging more visitors into gardens. He is Horticultural Director of the La Chaire Sub-tropical Gardens Restoration Project in Jersey, Channel Islands and lead consultant on the exciting 'World Garden' at Lullingstone Castle in Kent (which won the award for the 'Best New Tourism Project of 2005').
In 2006 Tony acted as lead consultant for the Berkeley family - owners of Spetchley Park Gardens near Worcester - in Spetchley's 400th anniversary year. His brief (successfully met) included doubling the number of visitors to the garden and developing several new initiatives for the site. Tony also sits on the Board of Trustees for Batsford Arboretum in Gloucestershire. In 2007 Tony headed up the UK's promotion of the recently discovered Australian 'dinosaur tree' - the Wollemi Pine, which culminated in a silver-gilt medal award-winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Tony regularly leads garden and plant based tours overseas and since 2003 has accompanied groups to Japan, Russia, Estonia, India, Himalayas, Scandinavia, Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Channel Islands, South America and the Amazon rainforest and is set to tour Iceland in 2008.
Tony lives with his wife Rosie and two young sons Charles and Howie in an 18th century Cotswold stone cottage near Avening, Gloucestershire.
Last updated March 2008
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