Charlie Dimmock talks to editor Nicky Holford about life after Ground Force and some exciting projects in the pipeline

Once again the year started off with the BBC's Ground Force gardening team helping out on some tough gardening calls, but for Charlie it's all part of her busy and varied life that's about to change.

Having triplets would be a bit of an upheaval in anyone's life, so it is hardly surprising that Ground Force took pity on a Dorchester family with three, three-year-olds. The team put in a path and patio using railway sleepers and circular paving and made a secret play garden for the children.

"Filming with the triplets was great fun," says Charlie. “It was the first time their mother had been away from them. She left all these prepared meals but their Dad just gave them whatever they wanted. I bet he was in big trouble when the programme came out."

Such moments are soon to be a thing of the past. After eight years, and 130 gardens Ground Force has gone. "We've stopped filming Ground Force," says Charlie, who is ready to move on to new pastures. "Tommy and I decided after eight years it's time to do something different, and Tommy wants to spend more time with his family.

“We've done over 130 gardens. We might do revisits, but it's time to move on."

For those suffering Ground Force withdrawal you can still see Charlie if you are in America. Charlie is still a regular on the American network CBS on the Early Show where the ratings keep going up.

Filming the show means several trips a year to the States for Charlie. "I normally go over about seven times in the summer when I'll film three sections each session. This time it's going to be slightly different when I go in May because I'm doing a garden rather than just talking about it. I'm doing a garden for one of the top anchormen, Harry Smith, so that will be interesting. I get to see it when I go over in April and I imagine we'll be doing live links from the garden.”

Hard work and helping others is one of the many attributes that make Charlie so popular. Unlike many television presenters who find it hard to maintain the popularity momentum Charlie is just as successful now as she was several years ago when her tumbling red tresses, and muddy jeans first hit our screens.

Searching the web it is hard to keep up with the inspiration Charlie has created. First there is her fan club, her long red locks have led her to be a winner of Redhead of the Year and an icon on a celebrity hairstyle site. Her books are on e-Bay and there's even a site of look-alike Charlie's. And she's even been immortalised as a gnome - as in fact have all of the Ground Force team.

"Oh yes," recalls, Charlie of the time the creator of the gnomes showed up on set with a garden ornament of Charlie, Tommy and Alan Titchmarsh. "There are quite a few gnomes out there - there's one that's about knee high and I'm very busty. A stonemason bought them down to the garden we were doing and gave them to the owners. Then he sent us all one and charged us. It wasn't cheap!

“Tommy had a fit because he charged us about £30 for the gnome and then the carriage on top of that. As they are so heavy that was another £30. Tommy kept saying ‘they are only concrete’."

For Charlie having a good time is not about being in the headlines, it's about spending time with friends and family, lolling on the sofa with a glass of wine or sharing a good meal. While she is always amazed at the opportunities TV has given her for doing different projects and meeting interesting people, she is down to earth and always most at home in the garden, come rain or shine, getting on with the business of plants and wildlife.

One of her most rewarding experiences was going on Dream Flight a charity set up by a former employee of British Airways, Pat Pearce, OBE, which takes children who are ill, often terminally or have been traumatised, on holiday without their parents to Disney in Florida.

"It was fantastic, such great fun and the video is fabulous, watching these kids having a ball," says Charlie. "The kids were such good fun and in their element. For 10 days they go to all the Disney theme parks from 9am until 5pm or even 6 pm. They take over a whole hotel. There are magicians and clowns at dinner and breakfast. The main clown comes in at breakfast and says: 'Who is best? Boys or girls.' All the boys scream ‘boys’ and the girls scream ‘girls'.

“We would sing a Peter Pan song and it was just bedlam in the evening. They have to be in bed by 9pm but one night we came back from one adventure where everyone had been swimming and were very tired. So we had a pyjama party rather than go down for dinner. The kids got straight into their pyjamas and had pizzas in the corridors. They loved it."

With her love of children it is not surprising that one of Charlie's latest enterprises has been putting the finishing touches to Mucky Hands, a creative gardening toy for children that will be on sale in September. Mucky Hands is a toy that's a gardening project. "It's a pack with eight different projects and a DVD," explains Charlie. Most of the major outlets will be selling it from toyshops to garden centres and department stores.

The main project is an oriental garden. "You get a moulded tray which you can paint and you build the garden on it. The project comes with acrylic paint and a pergola that will snap together, a water feature that you press to make the water go round, and an oriental screen that slides behind it.

“In other projects there are pots to fill. You get the seeds, which mostly are quick-growing ones, but I do say in the DVD that you can use apple pips if you want to make a proper bonsai. There's also pot decorating, grass stencilling, and jam jar friends making little people in the jam jar and then growing plants inside as well - like a microclimate. It's creative as well as teaching kids how to grow things. There are a lot of different things in the pack."

You would not normally expect to find a gardener at sea but this year if your summer holiday happens to be on a cruise ship you may well bump into Charlie. "I'm booked on two cruises this year, for P&O and one on Cunard. Unfortunately the one in May was going to the Caribbean and I thought I'd tie it in with seeing a friend who lives on one of the islands. But because of the hurricanes the cruise companies have subsequently had to rejig the schedules so now both of them are in the Mediterranean.

“I'll be giving talks. On a 10-day cruise you do about six talks, only when you are at sea all day without going into port. Depending on where we are heading I think I shall talk about the plants that people might see and also talk about Ground Force behind the scenes which people seem to be quite intrigued about, and also behind the scenes at Chelsea and Hampton Court."

If you find yourself short on ideas for presents for someone who has everything why not get them a Red Letter Day with Charlie which can be bought in department stores such as Debenhams, in magazines and other large outlets. A real treat would be to see Charlie when she is at Capel Manor, near Enfield just off the M25 junction.

"It's an ideal location for people who want to go to a garden that's easy to get to. Literally you get off at the junction and it's there. It's an interesting place because they have a variety of different gardens. It used to be a manor house and the manor house is still there, (although not the original one) and it has the formal gardens that a manor house would have, a rose garden and woodland area. It's a college that's open to the public and also where Which? do research so there are gardens that are testing different things such as growing hedges in different ways.

“As an example to experiment with pruning, there are three types of garden: one garden which is left to grow naturally, one that is semi-pruned and one that is classically pruned so you can see the differences. There are many small gardens, which have come from shows like Chelsea or Hampton Court, and some which have been done by the students.

“Usually the gardens are the size of an average suburban back garden. As an example there's one that just uses bedding plants, one that's wildlife, one based on a jungle scene, and a recycle theme. If you are looking for ideas it's a really good place to go. Capel Manor also have heavy horses and rare breeds of smaller animals like pot belly pigs and different chicken varieties so it's a great day out for all the family."

May means the Chelsea Flower Show and this year it's going to be a bit different. "I'm really looking forward to Chelsea which is 23-28 May, because it's a day longer with a Saturday. So that's put a spanner in the works. For the people who want to go and can't in the week it's great but the guys who are running stands are probably worried about the extra day as it will mean they’ll probably have less time to break the stands down and they have to make them last that much longer. That's not a problem for the gardens but it's harder for people with cut flowers.”

Charlie who will be on TV going around the garden for viewers has her fingers crossed for the weather but she is prepared for anything to happen. "You know what it's like at that time of year, it can either be baking hot or freezing cold, it's never just right."