John Cushnie: Gardener's Question time star dies of heart attack

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 4:17 PM on 01st January 2010

John Cushnie had appeared on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time for 15 years

The Gardeners' Question Time panellist John Cushnie has died following a heart attack.

He had appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show for 15 years.

Reporting his death, the BBC said Cushnie who lived in County Down was believed to be in his late sixties.

The BBC Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer called him 'a brilliantly knowledgeable panellist' who 'laced every programme with warmth and joy'.

'John Cushnie was a towering figure on Gardeners' Question Time,' Mr Damazer told the BBC.

'His trademark acerbic wit was deployed with terrific timing against a wide variety of plants he did not like - and it was always done with an affectionate twinkle in his eye, with an exuberance of voice and with unrelenting sympathy for fellow gardeners.'

Cushnie, was a landscape gardener who ran his own business, and had also published a book, Ground Cover.

The Radio 4 newsreader Kathy Clugston posted on Twitter: 'Terribly sad news. John Cushnie has died. What a lovely, funny man.'

He had also appeared as Hedge Man on Radio 2's Chris Evans Show, and presented Greenmount Garden for BBC One in Northern Ireland.