Seeing Alan Titchmarsh blaming the bleak future of gardening on a lack of interest in horticulture by young people left me somewhat puzzled, especially considering my own experience of what happened after being crowned BBC Young Gardener of the Year.

It's become more common to hear gardening figures on the television or the radio voicing their concerns about how the younger generation don't perceive gardening as "cool" nowadays, something that differs entirely from the reality that we see on the ground (pun intended).

In my work with children and young people, I've been encouraged by the sheer amount of enthusiasm that there is. All it needs is a little nurturing. I've been interested in gardening since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and part of the reason for that was my dad's interest in it. Gardening is in my blood. Similarly, a friend of mine got into vegetable gardening because of working on an allotment with his grandparents and, thanks to Jamie Oliver and modern "foodie" culture, we are seeing more interest in growing your own produce.

There is something of a stereotype of gardeners being uncool, but this is waning as we see more young people in supportive roles. I work with children and teenagers of all ages and they respond so well to being taught by someone similar in age to them. Sometimes it's as simple as coaxing them out of the house and away from their computer screens and games consoles, and the more young people I meet, the more I hope that the increasing interest in the outdoors marks the beginning of a trend.

Some of the responsibility also falls on schools. They need to push horticulture as a viable career option rather than sidelining it in favour of more prestigious-sounding jobs. One of the obstacles facing young gardeners is expense – it has cost me thousands of pounds to develop my own nursery business, and support from the older generation would really have helped.

They may say that we need to encourage younger people into gardening, but we need practical solutions. At my nursery, we've been sponsoring primary school classes, for example, by providing the kids with equipment to take part in a wildflower-growing competition. They go off with a bag of compost and some seeds and then we give a prize for the best results. We also lecture nationwide to gardening groups and associations, and have met many enthusiastic young people along the way, but more needs to be done.

These latest remarks about young people's indifference to gardening are pretty ironic, not only because of the lack of help and resources there, but also because of what happened to me after becoming the BBC Young Gardener of the Year. I decided to go and visit the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and make myself known to the BBC office as I was keen to fly the flag for young people there. Their reaction to my presence makes Alan Titchmarsh's comments about his fears for the future of the show being "little more than a wistful memory" seem a little rich – they barely gave me the time of day. That they profess to be concerned about the lack of participation on the part of young people seems, to me, to be deeply hypocritical.

At my nursery we have also invested £500,000 into building a lecture room so we can work alongside local schools in providing gardening courses. We approached a well-known gardener from the BBC to help with possibly opening the building to the public, but their fees were simply unaffordable for a small business. This just goes to show that, if the BBC and other organisations were that interested in fostering horticultural talent among young people, they'd come and talk to us and encourage us, and others like us, not for cash but from the goodness of their hearts.