Chris Baines is one of the great pioneers of wildlife gardening. He built the first wildlife garden ever allowed at Chelsea Flower Show in 1985, and in the same year his television programme Bluetits and Bumblebees, and his book, How to Make a Wildlife Garden, inspired many people to begin gardening with wildlife.
After an early career in landscape contracting, Chris taught landscape architecture at post-graduate level until 1986, when he was awarded an honorary personal professorship at Birmingham City University. Since then he has very successfully combined his professional interests in urban design and land and water management with conservation, popularising environmental issues through skilful evidence-based writing and broadcasting.
Chris is committed to urban wildlife and wildlife gardening and has a lifetime’s involvement with the voluntary sector and with environmental education. Over 40 years ago he co-founded the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country and he has been a national vice-president of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts for more than 35 years. He is a former trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and is patron of the Countryside Management Association and Hon President of the Thames Estuary Partnership. He also advises the National Trust on the natural environment. He is an honorary Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology.
In 2004 Chris was presented with the RSPB's annual Medal of Honour for his contribution to nature conservation and sustainable water management. In 2013 he received the Peter Scott Award from the British Naturalists Association. This award is made annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of natural history and conservation.
Chris is self-employed and has worked for many years as an independent environmental adviser to industry and government. He works regularly with senior executives in the water, energy, minerals and construction industries, and chairs the independent Stakeholder Advisory Group of the National Grid. He has also had a distinguished broadcasting career and was an early presenter on BBC Countryfile programme. This evolved from his original regional series "Your Country Needs You". The Wild Side of Town, which accompanied a five-part television series of the same name, won the U.K. Conservation Book Prize in 1987. In the same year, Chris recorded an album of the music from his television series, The Wild Side of Town, playing spoons and vocals with the folk-rock group The Albion. He works from home in inner city Wolverhampton.
Chris Baines is one of the great pioneers of wildlife gardening. He built the first wildlife garden ever allowed at Chelsea Flower Show in 1985, and in the same year his television programme Bluetits and Bumblebees, and his book, How to Make a Wildlife Garden, inspired many people to begin gardening with wildlife.
After an early career in landscape contracting, Chris taught landscape architecture at post-graduate level until 1986, when he was awarded an honorary personal professorship at Birmingham City University. Since then he has very successfully combined his professional interests in urban design and land and water management with conservation, popularising environmental issues through skilful evidence-based writing and broadcasting.
Chris is committed to urban wildlife and wildlife gardening and has a lifetime’s involvement with the voluntary sector and with environmental education. Over 40 years ago he co-founded the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country and he has been a national vice-president of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts for more than 35 years. He is a former trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and is patron of the Countryside Management Association and Hon President of the Thames Estuary Partnership. He also advises the National Trust on the natural environment. He is an honorary Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology.
In 2004 Chris was presented with the RSPB's annual Medal of Honour for his contribution to nature conservation and sustainable water management. In 2013 he received the Peter Scott Award from the British Naturalists Association. This award is made annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of natural history and conservation.
Chris is self-employed and has worked for many years as an independent environmental adviser to industry and government. He works regularly with senior executives in the water, energy, minerals and construction industries, and chairs the independent Stakeholder Advisory Group of the National Grid. He has also had a distinguished broadcasting career and was an early presenter on BBC Countryfile programme. This evolved from his original regional series "Your Country Needs You". The Wild Side of Town, which accompanied a five-part television series of the same name, won the U.K. Conservation Book Prize in 1987. In the same year, Chris recorded an album of the music from his television series, The Wild Side of Town, playing spoons and vocals with the folk-rock group The Albion. He works from home in inner city Wolverhampton.
Patrons of the Wildlife Gardening Forum
The Forum's Patrons are environmentalist, author and broadcaster Professor Chris Baines, botanist, horticulturalist and broadcaster Pippa Greenwood, and our Founder Patron Dr Steve Head
Professor Chris Baines
In his own Wolverhampton
wildlife garden
Professor Chris Baines
In his own Wolverhampton
wildlife garden
Patrons of the Wildlife Gardening Forum
The Forum's Patrons are environmentalist, author and broadcaster Professor Chris Baines, botanist, horticulturalist and broadcaster Pippa Greenwood, and our Founder Patron Dr Steve Head
Pippa Greenwood
In typical floral habitat
Pippa Greenwood is best known to all gardeners through her regular appearances on the panel of Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time (GQT), where her erudition on all matters horticultural, and her seeming delight in handling diseased plant specimens, have made her extremely popular.
She studied botany at Durham University, followed by an MSc in crop protection, and ran the RHS Plant Pathology Department at Wisley for 11 years. In that time she must have answered questions about practically all subjects in horticulture, a great training for GQT.
Pippa’s association with the BBC started in 1988 followed by 13 years as a regular presenter on BBC2 Gardeners’ World. Her strong science background meant that for three years she had her own series Growing Science on Radio 4. This makes her a perfect Patron for the Wildlife Gardening Forum, which is at its heart an organisation based around sound science and evidence-based advice.
She has guested on a vast variety of likely and unlikely TV and radio shows and was the gardening consultant for the ITV murder mystery series Rosemary and Thyme, which must have been tremendous fun.
Pippa gardens on a windswept hillside in Hampshire with a strongly alkaline, heavy-clay soil, which proves her determination to overcome all challenges!
Pippa Greenwood is best known to all gardeners through her regular appearances on the panel of Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time (GQT), where her erudition on all matters horticultural, and her seeming delight in handling diseased plant specimens, have made her extremely popular.
She studied botany at Durham University, followed by an MSc in crop protection, and ran the RHS Plant Pathology Department at Wisley for 11 years. In that time she must have answered questions about practically all subjects in horticulture, a great training for GQT.
Pippa’s association with the BBC started in 1988 followed by 13 years as a regular presenter on BBC2 Gardeners’ World. Her strong science background meant that for three years she had her own series Growing Science on Radio 4. This makes her a perfect Patron for the Wildlife Gardening Forum, which is at its heart an organisation based around sound science and evidence-based advice.
She has guested on a vast variety of likely and unlikely TV and radio shows and was the gardening consultant for the ITV murder mystery series Rosemary and Thyme, which must have been tremendous fun.
Pippa gardens on a windswept hillside in Hampshire with a strongly alkaline, heavy-clay soil, which proves her determination to overcome all challenges!
Pippa Greenwood
In typical floral habitat
Pippa Greenwood
In a typical floral habitat
Steve was apppointed Founder Patron in late 2021 when he left the Trustee Board after many years as Coordinator and latterly as Trustee Chair. Steve was present at the very first Forum meeting back in 2005 and joined the Steering Committee under English Nature. When English Nature budgetary constraints forced them to give up the Forum, he took on the role of managing the group to keep it going, writing the first Constitution as a Small Charity in 2010. By 2014 he successfully negotiated formal Registered Charity Status - the Charity Commission needing a lot of persuading that helping garden wildlife could be charitable!
For years Steve organised (with help!) our wildlife gardening conferences and events, until these were nipped in the bud by Covid. Starting in 2013 he began consulting on a web site for the Forum, and this first went live in 2014. Since then Steve has commissioned and written about 340 web pages, and it is still growing. He looks forward to a rebuild in the near future taking into account big improvements in web capability in the nine years since our site was conceived.
Professionally, Steve is an invertebrate zoologist and general ecologist, completing his PhD on coral reef ecology in the Red Sea. He had a lecturing career at Oxford University, the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, where he became Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Science. Returning to live near Oxford, for ten years he was CEO of two conservation NGOs, managing their growth and development. His long experience in other countries gives him a healthy scepticism about some conservation assumptions in Britain.
For eight years Steve was a Secretary of State Member on the Exmoor National Park Authority, leading on biodiversity and landscape. He has a particular interest in gardening and helping people at every level to understand the importance of garden wildlife both for its biodiversity importance and its value for people.
He has had a string of radio and television appearances and lectures and runs courses on wildlife gardening. He is particularly proud of leading a team that won Gold and Best in Show for a Courtyard Garden at Chelsea in 2010. He gardens on chalky ground near Wallingford, and tries to make the garden as interesting, entertaining and eclectic as possible for visitors, as well as looking after wildlife.
Dr Stephen Head Founder Patron
Installing a wind-blown hawthorn into the Two Moors Festival garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2010.
Dr Stephen Head Founder Patron
Installing a wind-blown hawthorn into the Two Moors Festival garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2010.
Dr Stephen Head Founder Patron
Installing a wind-blown hawthorn into the Two Moors Festival garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 2010.
Steve was apppointed Founder Patron in late 2021 when he left the Trustee Board after many years as Coordinator and latterly as Trustee Chair. Steve was present at the very first Forum meeting back in 2005 and joined the Steering Committee under English Nature. When English Nature budgetary constraints forced them to give up the Forum, he took on the role of managing the group to keep it going, writing the first Constitution as a Small Charity in 2010. By 2014 he successfully negotiated formal Registered Charity Status - the Charity Commission needing a lot of persuading that helping garden wildlife could be charitable!
For years Steve organised (with help!) our wildlife gardening conferences and events, until these were nipped in the bud by Covid. Starting in 2013 he began consulting on a web site for the Forum, and this first went live in 2014. Since then Steve has commissioned and written about 340 web pages, and it is still growing. He looks forward to a rebuild in the near future taking into account big improvements in web capability in the nine years since our site was conceived.
Professionally, Steve is an invertebrate zoologist and general ecologist, completing his PhD on coral reef ecology in the Red Sea. He had a lecturing career at Oxford University, the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, where he became Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Science. Returning to live near Oxford, for ten years he was CEO of two conservation NGOs, managing their growth and development. His long experience in other countries gives him a healthy scepticism about some conservation assumptions in Britain.
For eight years Steve was a Secretary of State Member on the Exmoor National Park Authority, leading on biodiversity and landscape. He has a particular interest in gardening and helping people at every level to understand the importance of garden wildlife both for its biodiversity importance and its value for people.
He has had a string of radio and television appearances and lectures and runs courses on wildlife gardening. He is particularly proud of leading a team that won Gold and Best in Show for a Courtyard Garden at Chelsea in 2010. He gardens on chalky ground near Wallingford, and tries to make the garden as interesting, entertaining and eclectic as possible for visitors, as well as looking after wildlife.
