Charlotte Elouise Dimmock (born 10 August 1966) is an English gardening expert and television presenter. She was a member of the team on Ground Force, a BBC gardening makeover programme, airing from 1997 to 2005. Since then, Dimmock has presented numerous TV shows in the UK and US, including The Joy of Gardening, Charlie's Garden Army and most recently Garden Rescue. Early life and education Dimmock attended Wellow Primary School and the Mountbatten School in Romsey, Hampshire. Her father Terry was a merchant seaman, and her mother Sue ran her own clothes shop. Dimmock's love of gardening began at an early age – she enjoyed spending time in the garden as a child (gravitating towards the family pond), and helping her grandfather in his vegetable patch. At junior school she had gardening lessons through the spring and summer terms. As a teenager, Dimmock had a weekend and holiday job at a local garden centre called Mill Water Gardens in Romsey. When she was at school, Dimmock initially planned to specialise in forensic science, but changed her mind and studied horticulture. Dimmock trained as an amenity horticulturalist at Winchester and in Somerset, graduating with a BTEC Diploma in Amenity Horticulture, attaining a distinction, and a National Technical Certificate in Turf Culture and Sporting Management. She spent a year of this training at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. After college, Dimmock joined Romsey Garden Centre. It was here that she met TV producer John Thornicroft, who later produced Ground Force. Television career Dimmock first came to the public's attention in 1997, when she joined the BBC gardening series Ground Force, five years after first meeting the producer/director of the series when she built a pond for the Meridian series, Grass Roots. Dimmock co-presented Ground Force for the eight years it aired. Since then, she has presented such programmes as The Joy of Gardening and Charlie's Garden Army, as well as presenting coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. In 2004, she appeared in the Channel 4 reality TV show, The Games. She has also appeared on American television, presenting a gardening slot on The Early Show on CBS. In September 2006, she appeared on the BBC's Celebrity MasterChef. Dimmock made a cameo appearance as herself in the British soap opera Hollyoaks in August 2002, acting as a special guest booked by character Gordon Cunningham to unveil the "Jubilee Gardens". During the mid-2000s,