AWARD-winning Sale garden designer Lee Burkhill took his own advice when he sat sat down for a cuppa - and he was joined by TV presenter Monty Don, pictured.

Lee was at Hampton Court Flower Show where he was representing Manchester with his garden design - called ‘Fancy a brew? Take a pew’.

He was there as one of four regional winners picked in May at the Chelsea Flower Show, in a competition which challenged gardeners to design a front garden.

Lee said: "They didn’t pick a winner as the judges thought the four gardens were unique and it was impossible to judge them together as they were so different.

"But my garden ‘Fancy a brew? Take a pew’ received some amazing feedback. Monty Don said it was a ‘lovely garden’ and award-winning garden designer Adam Frost said I’d made brave choices and was the man to watch in the future.

"We had thousands of visitors who gave some great comments."

Lee's garden featured on BBC2’s Hampton Show coverage.

Lee, aged 33, has now been asked to be a panellist on the BBC Manchester gardeners' question time, which airs on Saturday mornings.

Lee, a former Manchester University student, started a garden design blog, Garden Ninja, a year ago in order to help people get into gardening and also to showcase his garden design work.

He is an IT project manager and does his garden design projects and his blog - www.gardenninja.co.uk - in his spare time.