Get to know the expert writers behind T&M’s blogposts
Image: Thompson & Morgan
With decades of gardening know-how, learn more about the writers and experts who contribute to the wealth of advice published by Thompson & Morgan.
This page was reviewed by the T&M horticultural team and updated on 1st February 2024.
Annelise Brilli
Annelise Brilli is the Horticultural copywriter for Thompson and Morgan. Annelise caught the gardening bug from her mother, whose tiny backyard was crammed with a huge collection of plants. As an adult, she had a career change into horticulture, gaining a training apprenticeship with the National Trust at Powis Castle Garden in Welshpool. She went on to work in a range of private and public gardens, later running a garden design and maintenance business. She is passionate about sustainable gardening and has developed her own wildlife-friendly garden which she has opened as part of Macmillan Coastal Garden Trail.
Sophie Essex
Sophie Essex is a freelance garden writer with a passion for horticulture and environmental conservation. With a BSc in Botany/Plant Biology from the University of Plymouth, she further honed her expertise through a Masters of Science in Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants from The University of Edinburgh. Sophie has also worked as a professional gardener and landscaper, showcasing her practical skills by transforming outdoor spaces. Her commitment to fieldwork is further evident in her acquisition of a Certificate in Field Botany from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and over the years, she has interned at the Eden Project, Cornwall, the National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Find more information about Sophie over at LinkedIn.
Sue Sanderson
Sue Sanderson
Sue Sanderson was the e-Commerce Horticultural Executive at Thompson & Morgan for many years. Plants and gardens have always been a big part of her life – she fondly recalls helping her dad to prick out seedlings even before she could see over the top of the potting bench! Having received a BSc. (Hons) degree in horticulture from Writtle University College, Sue started her career in a specialist plantsman’s nursery, going on to work as a consulting arboriculturalist before joining T&M in 2008. Her initial role was Plant Trials Co-ordinator, while also looking after the grounds. After supporting the web team and offering horticultural advice online, Sue left Thompson & Morgan to pursue her horticulture career further. She has a keen interest in drought-resistant plants and a passion for perennials, particularly hardy geraniums. She previously stood as regional secretary for the International Plant Propagation Society.
Lee Burkhill
Garden Ninja
Lee Burkhill is an RHS winning Garden Designer from the North West of England covering Manchester, Liverpool, Southport and the Cheshire region. He is one of the presenters on BBC1’s Garden Rescue and runs the award-winning Garden Ninja blog & YouTube channel to help troubleshoot your garden design problems.
Ellen Mary
Ellen Mary
Ellen Mary has loved plants and gardening since she was a child. By her own admission, she now lives and breathes gardening – she writes garden and travel content, hosts The Plant Based Podcast, works as a television presenter and producer, and promotes the ways that nature and gardening can benefit well-being. Check out Ellen’s wellness coaching business ‘People Plants Wellbeing’, or read her books: ‘The Joy of Gardening’ and ‘How to Grow a Garden’.
Mandy Bradshaw
Mandy Bradshaw
Cotswold-based Garden Media Guild member, Mandy Bradshaw, is also known as The Chatty Gardener. Passionate about gardening and writing, her beginnings are in football-reporting for her primary school, and Mesembryanthemum-planting with her mother. Winner of the ‘Garden Journalist of the Year’ in the 2018 Property Press Awards, she writes for not only her own blog but also newspapers, magazines and other sites. Mandy was also a finalist in Garden Media Guild Awards for 2022 for ‘Blog or Vlog of the Year’.
Carol Bartlett
The Sunday Gardener
Carol Bartlett, The Sunday Gardener, lives in the north of England where she has created a diverse garden including wildflowers, natural areas, herbaceous borders, a wildlife pond, trees and wetland plants, along with a vegetable plot.
She has been gardening, reading, researching and photographing plants for over twenty years and her website is a popular resource for gardeners young and old. Carol’s philosophy is that gardening is a great combination of the therapeutic and practical – our outside space, big or small, is the perfect place to escape day-to-day stress.
Nic Wilson
Nic Wilson
Nic Wilson is a writer, professional garden designer and author of The Guardian’s Country Diary. She was a Garden Media Guild Awards nominee for her excellent blog – dogwooddays, and her horticultural qualifications include an Advanced Diploma in Garden Design and RHS Level 2 Qualification (with commendation). Nic also works for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, and her writing has featured in anthologies, journals and magazines including The English Garden, The Garden (RHS Magazine), BBC Wildlife Magazine and the John Clare Society Journal. In her own north Hertfordshire garden, Nic enjoys growing flowers as well as unusual fruits, vegetables and herbs. She has a passion for natural history and loves to encourage nature into her garden. When she’s not gardening or writing, Nic enjoys cooking gluten-free food with homegrown produce and has been a keen forager since she was a child.
Geoff Stonebanks
Geoff Stonebanks
Geoff Stonebanks is the owner of Driftwood Garden – a multi-award winning coastal garden in Seaford that has raised £170k for charity since 2009, much of which for Macmillan Cancer Support. His garden, which first opened to the public in 2009, has been featured on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and BBC 2’s Gardener’s World.
When he’s not tending his plants, Geoff writes a weekly gardening column for The Argus and contributes a monthly article to Garden News magazine. He’s also an Assistant County Organiser & Publicity Officer in East & Mid Sussex for the National Garden Scheme. In 2023, Geoff was crowned one of the 500 Coronation Champions.
Sue Russell
Sue Russell
Sue Russell joined Thompson & Morgan’s customer care department in 2016 as a horticultural advisor. Having grown up on a farm, Sue fell in love with the outdoor lifestyle at an early age and trained in horticulture (Professional Gardening ACNH) before setting up her own gardening business in the Suffolk/Essex area. For the past 15 years Sue has tended the grounds of a 25-acre private estate.
When she’s not gardening, you can find her supporting the Blues at Ipswich Town Football Club. Follow her Instagram page at @russellinthebushes123.
Holly Taylor
Holly Taylor
Holly Taylor has worked at Thompson & Morgan since 2008 and was appointed Group eCommerce Manager in 2021. Starting as a keen novice, she has quickly developed her growing skills over the last decade and her garden is now full of beautiful flowers and a small vegetable patch. Holly enjoys photography and being outdoors, both of which are perfect when you have a garden!
Caroline Broome
Caroline & David Broome
Caroline Broome has been gardening for more than 20 years. Having achieved a General Certificate from the RHS, she has since developed her East Finchley garden into a ‘personal paradise’ that she and her husband invite the public to visit each year via the National Garden Scheme. Her picturesque garden won the Best Small Back Garden Trophy in the London Garden Society Awards three years running and has been featured on BBC1’s The One Show and ITV’s Love Your Garden.
Caroline describes herself as the plantsperson, always experimenting with unusual perennial planting combinations, and her husband David as the creative genius behind all their humorous and quirky garden ornaments and water features! They have transformed their terrace into a plant-packed ‘Catio’ for their six cats to enjoy the outdoors, whilst safely enclosed within a mesh covered frame that allows the birds and wildlife the freedom of the garden beyond. Always on the lookout for new projects, they created a prairie-themed roof terrace above the Beach Hut summerhouse, and an exotic front garden with ornamental grasses adorning hanging buckets and a mini living wall.
Alison Levey
Alison Levey
Alison Levey is a keen amateur gardener living in Leicester. Her inspirational blog, The Blackberry Garden won Garden Media Guild Blog of the Year 2019, and Vuelio named it ‘Garden Blog of the Year’ from 2017-2020.
In addition to growing and writing about plants, flowers, fruit and vegetables, she also reviews gardens, horticultural books and products. Her own garden is divided into sections with beautiful, whimsical names like the ‘exotic border’, the ‘dancing lawn’ and ‘the prairie’. Alison also loves wildflowers, and has been a valuable member of T&M’s customer trial panel for several years.
Kris Collins
Kris Collins
Kris Collins is the Quality Control Manager at Thompson & Morgan. He indulged his interest in horticulture shortly after leaving university in 2003 by becoming Features Editor at Horticulture Week. Almost 6 years later he progressed to Gardening Editor at Amateur Gardening and after 5 years in the hot seat he joined the Thompson & Morgan team where he has worked ever since.
Graham Ward
Graham Ward
Graham Ward was Thompson & Morgan’s E-Commerce Marketing Assistant from 2013 to 2018, but he has been gardening for as long as he can remember. In fact his earliest memory is planting seeds in his Grandfather’s prestige flower bed and growing a prize lettuce amid the flowers!
Graham has also run his own professional gardening and landscaping services and loves all aspects of gardening – from the design and build stage through to planting out the things he has grown from seed or raised from plugs. In his own garden, he enjoys trying new and unusual varieties, even if that sometimes means learning from his mistakes!
Jean Willis
Jean Willis
Jean Willis began gardening over 65 years ago on her dad’s allotment. Now retired, she spends a huge amount of time in her award-winning Bournemouth garden where she specialises in hanging baskets, containers and troughs.
Jean doesn’t have space for a permanent greenhouse but nurtures vast numbers of blooms in a 4-foot plastic growhouse which is dismantled when not in use. She loves begonias and fuchsias, and has been a valuable member of T&M’s customer trial panel for many years.
For expert tips, advice and innovations be sure to check out our gardening masterclasses. Here we gather together the best expert content so you can spend less time scouring the internet and more time getting the best from your garden!