BBC gardening expert Smith dies

Gardener and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith has died at the age of 80.

He appeared on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time for 20 years and created one of the great gardens of northern England - Harrogate's Harlow Carr.

Gardening was his great joy as well as his work. "If I am depressed, or I think the world's a filthy place, I just go and look at a flower," he said.

His BBC2 series Geoffrey Smith's World of Flowers was watched by more than five million viewers.

They were attracted by his philosophy that plants have unique personalities, share human feelings and "need as much pampering as women".

Mr Smith was an old school gardener and staunch Yorkshireman with a golden rule: "Put the brown end in the soil, the green end above it, and you're in with a much better chance."

He decided his life's work would be outdoors after a year at boarding school, where he felt "incarcerated" and had to leave.