Eric Robson is to retire from Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 after 25 years, to be replaced by the first woman chair in the show’s history.

Kathy Clugston, better known to listeners as the Northern Irish voice of the Shipping Forecast, will take over in May.

A keen amateur gardener, Clugston said she cannot wait to visit gardens around the country as part of the programme. But she will face an unusual challenge.

Clugston suffers from anosmia, meaning that she has no sense of smell. She has remarked that “the ability to smell a beautiful garden” is missing from her life.

Describing the condition, she once said: “Try to imagine waking up one day and not being able to smell your children’s heads, the roses in your garden, the coffee brewing in your kitchen, the freshly cut grass in your garden.

“That extra layer of experience is missing from a garden, from a house. I don’t feel sad about it but, obviously, there are certain times I wish I had it.”

Gardeners’ Question Time began in 1947 and Robson has been the chair since 1994. “Having travelled the length and breadth of the UK with Gardeners’ Question Time for 25 years, it feels an appropriate time to be moving on,” he said.