John Walker is an award-winning gardening and environmental author, writer, blogger and publisher with 40 years' experience in practical gardening, teaching and the garden media. He grew up in the countryside, caught the gardening bug while still at school, and trained at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Cambridge University Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, where he was awarded the Kew Diploma in Horticulture. He is also a qualified teacher. John was features/deputy editor of Garden Answers magazine and contributing editor of Kitchen Garden. John writes about organic, earth-friendly gardening for national newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph and the Royal Horticultural Society's journal The Garden. His recent book How to Create an Eco Garden: The Practical Guide to Greener, Planet-friendly Gardening was shortlisted for the 2012 Garden Media Guild Practical Book of the Year. He also wrote The Bed and Border Planner and Weeds: An Organic, Earth-friendly Guide to their Identification, Use and Control, edited A Gardeners' Guide to Annuals, and contributed to the Garden Organic Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. John has won the Garden Media Guild Environmental Award three times, and has been shortlisted for Gardening Journalist of the Year three times.