Diarmuid Gavin

The 'enfant terrible' of contemporary landscaping, Diarmuid Gavin is probably the best known garden designer working in Britain today. After fronting a string of garden makeover shows and appearing as a celebrity guest on the hugely popular BBC series Stricly Come Dancing, he currently enjoys a far higher profile than any of his peers.

But Gavin is much more than a mere TV gardening personality. One of the most exciting landscapers around, he has earned considerable acclaim for his distinctive, bold and radical design work that is seen as a breath of fresh air in the sometimes conservative world of landscape gardening.

Born in 1964, Gavin hails from Dublin, Ireland, where he embarked on a landscaping career after leaving the College of Amenity Horticulture in Glasnevin. He established the Dublin School of Garden Design and set about making a name for himself internationally, winning a medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1995. It was here that he was spotted by television producers who picked up on the Dubliner's ingenious use of outdoor space as well as his natural charm and humour.

Over the next few years, Gavin was invited to work on a number of TV projects for many of the major UK channels. His big break came as an expert on the BBC's Home Front and its spin-off series Home Front In The Garden.

Gavin estimates that he has created well over 300 gardens since 1988, averaging around 20 a year. Taking inspiration from the likes of Roberto Burle Marx, his modernist style of landscaping is renowned for its shock value and has drawn comparisons with the artist Damien Hirst.

Diarmuid Gavin

Although often highly functional and impressive in their use of small spaces, Gavin's uncompromising designs have proved too radical for some, attracting controversy for their unsettling 'weirdness'.

Gardens based around items such as sardine cans, oil rigs and ski ramps have alienated many traditionalists, and seen Gavin nicknamed "the punk rock gardener". The biggest clash came at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show, where Gavin's infamous, silver medal-winning "Bouncing Lottery Ball" design led to a screaming row with rival designer Bunny Guiness and almost resulted in a ban from the Royal Horticultural Society.

For his part, Gavin likens his more flamboyant, unconventional designs to outrageous catwalk fashions that are intended to provoke thought and reaction rather than be copied in residential gardens up and down the land. He sees landscape gardening as a new avenue for those who might otherwise have gone into fine art.

Despite his obsession with the 'new' and the 'modern', however, Gavin claims to be increasingly respectful of traditional styles of gardening, recognizing that "you can't go forward unless you absorb the heritage". Indeed, his own garden is relatively subdued and conventional.

Gavin is married to Justine, who has joined him in the garden design business. They met when Gavin was working on the garden of Justine's father, a former Irish chief justice. The couple live in North London, with a country retreat in Ireland.