Horticulturist Chris Collins has been chosen as this year’s recipient of the Prince Philip Medal, an award by the Prince in his role as President of City & Guilds.
Collins is the resident gardener on children’s television programme Blue Peter.
An apprenticeship at Brighton Parks Department kick-started Collins’s career and this was where he took the first of his many qualifications. After a stint as a landscape gardener, he took his Royal Horticultural Society General Examination in 1989 and passed his Diploma in Horticulture while working at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens in 1993.
At Tokyo University he gained a Masters Diploma in Horticulture, followed by a position with the Limbe Botanic and Zoological Gardens in Cameroon. During his long and varied career, he has also worked at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and been employed as head gardener at Westminster Abbey.
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