BBC Gardeners' World star announces heartbreaking death in emotional episode

A Gardeners' World star shared a heartbreaking announcement during tonight's emotional instalment of the beloved programme, which was hosted by Monty Don. The BBC team visited Karim Habibi in his stunning nursery in Kent for the instalment as he opened up about his incredible collection of heritage apples. He revealed he has 700 varieties of apples and is on a mission to preserve many of the old types as he can, as they are no longer available in shops. "I'm quite passionate about keeping these apples going," Karim explained. "I'm very glad when people come to the nursery for the first time and say, 'Goodness, I never knew apples could taste like this.'"

As he gave viewers a tour of the vineyard and explained how the orchard is a "labour of love", he then spoke about losing his dear father.

He explained: "In the early 1990s, when my parents started things here, Britain was actually losing a lot of its old orchards. My parents were quite passionate about scouring old material and creating a collection."

"I really wanted to experiment and create my own varieties," he added. "Eventually, I persuaded my dad to let me have a small nook of the nursery where I planted seedling varieties, grafted those out, and eventually I produced some of my own varieties.

"Unfortunately my father passed away before trying any of those apples and one of the first apples which was an exceptional apple I've actually named that variety after my father."

Karim has called the type of apple Hamid's Red Pippin and said he thinks his father would have been very interested to try that.

"It's quite sad he never did," he emotionally shared. "But it's quite nice every time I see that apple to sort of think of my dad."

The orchard owner then proceeded to share tips and tricks with BBC viewers about growing and harvesting the popular fruit.

Gardeners' World episodes are available to watch on BBC iPlayer.