Carol Klein -

Last Updated on 12 June 2026 by PeteFree

Carol Klein is an Award Winning Gardener, Expert Plantswoman, Writer and TV Presenter on Gardeners’ World and multiple Gardening Programmes of her own.

Carol was born in Walkden, Lancashire on 24th June 1945, she got her early love of gardening from her grandfather who had an allotment and from her mother.

Carol has 2 brothers and her father had a TV shop in Walkden.

Early memories include carrying around buckets of mud to bring into the house to make her own kitchen garden.

Her mother encouraged Carol creative indoor gardening but her Father hated gardening but she never let that deter her.

Her Father loved Motorbikes an interest that Carol also shares to this day.

She attended Bolton School where she enjoyed Art and biology but left at 15.

She wanted to study Art further but her father did not want her to but she was able to return to her love of art later in her career.

Carol Klein’s first job after leaving school was at Kendal Milne a department store in Manchester selling buttons and stockings.

Returning to her love of art, Carol trained as an Art teacher and started her teaching career in Shepherds Bush.

She taught Art for 13 years before moving to Devon in 1978 with her husband Neil and where her career in gardening was to begin.

After scraping enough for a mortgage Carol Klein moved to Glebe Cottage, in Chittlehamholt near Umberleigh in Devon.

The garden at the cottage needed a lot of work but after gardening on the balcony of their London flat, Carol was keen to start.

The garden was full of old cars, sheds and concrete! 15 tons of hardcore soon cleared the old paths to plant fruit trees and the start of her organic garden.

Carol Klein has two daughters Annie and Alice. After they were born she gave up teaching and started selling homemade jam, bread and her garden plants at a local market.

Carol went on to set up the very successful Plant Nursery, Glebe Cottage Plants in Chittlehamholt near Umberleigh on some adjacent rented land next to her cottage.

Carol has had no formal training and her huge knowledge of plants are self taught.

As the Plant Nursery grew in popularity Carol started to take her plants to the shows.

Carol Klein won 6 Gold Medals at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and became a regular medal winner at gardening shows.

In 1989, Carol Klein’s Glebe Cottage garden featured on Gardeners’ World with Geoff Hamilton this was to be the start of Carol Klein highly successful TV career.

In 1998 Carol was a presenter on the popular TV garden makeover show Real Gardens with Monty Don and Ann-Marie Powell. This show was different from the usual format as helped the gardeners through out the season develop their own gardens.

Carol Klein has been a Gardeners World presenter since 2006 to present and her enthusiasm for plants is much loved by the viewers.

Carol Klein has had multiple Television Programmes of her own following the different seasons in her own garden like Life in a Cottage Garden which ran for 2 series between 2011 and 2013.

In 2021 we returned to Glebe Cottage for How to Garden with Carol Klein which had 2 episodes which included seed sowing and propagation.

Carol has also featured as a Judge on Gardening type competition programmes like The Great Gardening Challenge.

For her most recent Television Programme in 2026 she joins fellow judge from The Great Gardening Challenge Diarmuid Gavin for a BBC NI programme Greatest Gardens with Diarmuid Gavin and Carol Klein.

In this programme which was also shown on BBC2, Carol and Diarmuid joined by a different Gust Judge each week tour round Gardens in Northern Ireland finding a winner in each episode to go through to the final to be the Greatest Garden.

The Guest Judges helping them pick the weekly winner from the 3 gardens toured are Prue Leith, Patrick Grant, Penny Lancaster, Katie Piper and Fred Sireix.

In 2011, her plant nursery Glebe Cottage Plants had to sadly close following a dispute with her new neighbours, who did not renew the lease on the land where the nursery was based.

Carol has had 2 hip replacements, not that you would ever know it.

In April 2024 Carol announced on her Instagram she had been diagnosed with cancer and under gone a double Mastectomy and she went on to thank the medical professionals involved in her care and that she hoped to return ASAP.

After declaring she is now cancer free much to the relief of her viewers that she was in good health.