Highly-respected gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh has named the number one tree anyone with a small garden should be planting now.

Quizzed on which tree is ideal to grow in a small residential garden, the 75-year-old told the Garderners' World podcast: "Even in a tiny garden, you can get height.

"And, there's one tree I would always recommend for a small garden to bring you a bit of height, particularly if the garden offers a little bit of shelter, and it's the Japanese maple."

But, he was keen to add that gardeners should resist going for one of the particulalry vibrant members of the Japanese maple species.

"Now I wouldn't just go for an Acer palmatum dissectum, which is a low mound shaped plant with beautifully finally cut leaves," he added.

"But I'd go for a variety called Seiryu. Seiryu makes a tall-ish tree for a Japanese maple but it is still a small tree and it will fit in any small garden."

Speaking of his own experiences, he went on to say: "I grew one in a pot for donkeys years and then when I moved house, I planted it out and it's with us now, here."

"And it's perhaps eight feet tall, it might get a little bit more than that, but remember you own the garden as far as the sky, so as long as it's not casting huge amounts of shade or its roots are doing terrible damage, I'd go for Acer Seiryu, it's an absolute poppet of a plant, lovely fresh green leaves when they come out, they're green during the summer."

Away from giving his latest advice on what we should be planting in our gardens, Alan is also a frequent fixture on our TV screens, hosting his weekly spot on ITV's Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh, which airs every Sunday morning at 9.30am.

His Sunday morning show is far from his first foray into the world of broadcasting, as it was in 1977 that he made his first steps into the industry.

At the time, he was the gardening expert on BBC Radio 4's You and Yours and The Today Programme.

With decades more experience behind him since then, he became the host of Gardeners' World back in 1996.

Six years later, he stepped down from the role to be replaced by the ever-popular Monty Don, who still hosts the show to this day.