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Lee Burkhill: from barrister to Garden Ninja
Lee Burkhill has taken a route into gardening that most people don’t. He went to university, started out in IT, then did a law degree and was called to the bar. “I started to work for a big blue chip IT company”, he tells us. After around a decade, it caught up with him. “I could just feel myself getting really burnt out”.
His husband pushed him towards what he actually loved.
Lee remembers saying, “That’s a hobby”. Still, he signed up for a garden design course. Then RHS exams. “Always on weekends”. Then came the break that changed everything. “I won a competition with the BBC as a new designer with the RHS, and then it just kind of snowballed”.
What drives him now is access.
When he was learning, he says “everything was locked away in books and courses and in groups”. So, he decided to do the opposite, to “open it all the way up”. That’s the heart of Garden Ninja - his blog and YouTube channel. “My whole driving force really is probably to share way too much knowledge”, he laughs, “hoping that other people just can enjoy the garden”. “If you need to know it, I’ll show you, and there’s no barrier to it.”
A Ninja to the Rescue.
You’ll know Lee from Garden Rescue, alongside Charlie Dimmock in the last six seasons. On camera, he’s calm and precise. Off camera? It can be chaos. “On a specific episode, Charlie wanted to do everything”, he recalls, “she reluctantly gave up one section for me to build. So she threw a slug at me, which then got stuck in my hair while I was on camera”. That turned into a long-running prank war across shoots. Soil in hair. Slugs. Trying not to laugh while presenting.
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Lee’s view is simple. A garden should help you live, not just look good for a reveal.
“I’m not going to give you like an easy garden”, he says. “I want you to have to do something in there, because then you’ll engage, and then you’ll start to get the benefits”.
Lee’s quick tips:
Don’t fear height: don’t panic that a plant gets to six, nine, 12 feet tall - we can use that as a focal point.
Pruning rule: only prune spring-flowering shrubs after they flower, or you’ll cut off all the buds.
Go bigger with pots: tiny pots mean watering every day, often twice a day. One bigger pot is easier.
Sunflowers: start them off from bigger pots. Group them in 3, 5, 7, and you’ll get an amazing display.
You can watch Lee on Garden Rescue on Together TV and can read his top tips as well as watching free tutorials on www.gardenninja.co.uk. And if you are a Garden Rescue fan, head over to our Youtube channel for more content.
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