The Biking Gardener is Geoff Stebbings:
I trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and worked in a garden centre, at an airplant nursery and was then Head Gardener at Myddelton House in Enfield, north London (made famous by the great amateur gardener E A Bowles) before embarking on a writing career, first with Garden News, then various others before joining The Garden (journal of the Royal Horticultural Society) and then going freelance. Then I went back to Garden Answers where I reached the heady heights of Editor but I left in Dec 2012 to move to Ireland to get my hands dirty again creating a privately owned garden. I sold up in in the UK in 2017 and bought a part-built house which we finally moved into in 2019.
I now have my own garden to make, from an acre of field. I write and give talks for a living;Ā you will find my work in Landscape, every week in Garden News and each month in Garden Answers.
I also answer garden queries for various companies.
I also write a blog for Knights Garden Centre where I used to work when I was a teenager!
I am a general horticulturist and will grow anything I can get my hands on! So these pages and posts will be eclectic – it won’t be a complete guide to gardening but should include something that excites you as much as it thrills me! From orchids to beetroot – it will be here, plus a few opinions.
It would be quicker to say what I don’t want to grow and these can be quickly distilled into pampas grass, ‘Kilmarnock willow’ and semperflorens begonias; almost anything else will get one chance!
And The Biking Gardener is my creation used for many years in Garden Answers magazine to add fun to a problem-solving feature where I helped sort out problems for gardeners.
Lifelong biker (since I was 17) and gardener (since I was 7).
Two disparate threads I know but they come together sometimes!
Books
In addition to writing in magazines I have several books to my name. The most recent is one on Containers for DK, which was published in 2021.
I contributed to Gorgeous Garden Boosters (Readers Digest) – one of several authors. Before that was Growing Your own Fruit and Veg for Dummies and Spring Bulbs, all still in print and the Gardeners’ Guide to Growing Iris.
Stop press – and now in German!
Gorgeous Garden Boosters
Talks
See the Contact me page for details.
Please note that all the words and photos on this site are my property (unless where stated) and copying any material will be considered an infringement of copyright. If you want to use an image, please ask, I will probably say yes if credited. But please ask, its only polite.
The Biking Gardener 
I used to follow your articles in “Garden Answers” as the Biking Gardener, and I reckoned you had my dream job! Riding around the country on a bike, visiting gardens and helping gardeners with their problems. Was it as good as it looked? From Ali – a garden fanatic cum ex-biker.
Hello š It is good to meet a GA reader! It was not always as good as it looked because I had to get to the gardens and back in a day so they were often long days and I had to squeeze it in with the other work. And because it had to be done every month all year and the days were booked some time in advance I had to go whether it was raining, snowing or sunny! But yes it was fun to meet people. But at the moment I can ride round ireland at the weekend sometimes until I return to the UK
Ah, yes, all those years of getting to work by bike in all weathers – I remember them well!
LOL. I have not had chilblains since I have had a car as well š
Translated into German…
You have done well for yourself,
Despite the baggy corduroy trousers!
Tim
The biking translator
Thank you – not sure about the baggy corduroy trousers though! When did I wear them?
I met you on my bike. I think you had just broken up with the tall German guy, the one with the lisp, if memory serves. Rather vague, sorry, but it was almost 20 years ago.
I did wonder. I remember š
So Mr Stebbings, your thoughts on the Abyssinia beds at Myddelton House and your involvement?
LOL. Hello! How are you?
I do love biking during weekend and exploring various places to get some interesting flowering plants that i can take home. Im a newbie for this hobbies and im loving it. Hope to get some tips and advises from your blog site. š
Regards,
Buboy of Manila
thank you for visiting – I hope I give you some ideas though Ireland is rather different to Manilla š
This event has been cancelled because of a local Covid outbreak