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Gardeners’ World star Adam Frost has opened up about the work request he refused to do.
The horticulturalist, who is part of the Gardeners’ World presenting team alongside Monty Don, appeared on Sunday Brunch to discuss his new podcast collaboration with Caitlin Moran.
Co-host Tim Lovejoy brought up Frost’s strong dislike of oversized outdoor chess sets.
The BBC star, 56, confirmed his aversion, explaining: "The massive, plastic chess sets. You go to a hotel, or even people put them in their garden!"
"They pave a huge area, and they have these plastic chess pieces that slowly change colour. Really, kids just use them to attack each other."
"If you want to play chess in your garden, buy a board, a set, take it out into the garden around a table with a nice drink. Civilised. Don't do that plastic, no."
Adam Frost shared his dislike for outdoor chess sets Channel 4When Lovejoy suggested that the giant pieces create an “immersive experience”, Frost was quick to reject the notion.
"That's not immersive! How is that immersive? No. It's a complete and utter waste of space,” the gardening expert insisted.
Swimmer Mark Foster, who was also a guest on the Channel 4 chat show, then argued that you could view them as garden art “installations” - although Frost remained unconvinced.
He then recalled “refusing” to install create one in a client’s garden early in his career.
"I can remember, first doing a landscape job very early on when I had a small landscape company and someone wanted me to lay a checkerboard paving pattern in their back garden,” he recounted.
“I refused, very politely. I just couldn't do it. It's just a no."
Frost’s confession comes after he gave fans a bittersweet update on “saying goodbye” to his old home after moving house last year.
He recently moved house with his wife SulinaInstagramHe traded in his Grade II-listed 18th-century farmhouse and its two and a half acre garden for a different farmhouse in October 2025.
The presenter lives there with his wife Sulina and three of their four children - Abi-Jade, Jacob, Amber-Lily and Oakley.
He reflected on the major life change in a video with Gardeners’ World magazine.
"If you're leaving your house and you've gotta leave the garden that you've loved for a long period of time... if you're like me, I wouldn't worry about it at all, I've done exactly that. We left in October, what have I taken with me?” he said.
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"Probably a few little bits I dug and divided, contained them. And then obviously I took all my pots with me. Outside of that, I haven't bothered.
"And you know, the beautiful things is, I went back to see the couple that have bought the garden and I walked around with them and they are absolutely loving it.
"And I think that's a great thing to hold on to, is the fact that maybe you've just left somebody else a whole load of joy."
It is not known where Frost lives now.
His former Lincolnshire home was comprised of two former estate workers’ cottages dating to the 1840s that were knocked into one.
Frost - who joined Gardeners’ World in 2016 - previously revealed the family had downsized to that house because he was suffering “burnout” and depression.
“We moved to our current home in Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 2022 because I needed to simplify my life. I had been working like a lunatic,” he told The Times last year.
“When I fell ill with Covid in 2021 and was forced to stop and isolate, everything came crashing in. It was as if somebody had removed my footings. Emotionally, I was gone.
“Even my passion for gardening disappeared.When I looked out of the window at the vast garden I had created, all I could see were jobs. Ten days later, a psychiatrist diagnosed burnout and depression.
“Talking and medication helped, but I needed to rethink my life. It became obvious that to get back on track mentally, I needed to downsize to a property with a much smaller garden.”