GARDENING ON TELEVISION tends to be presented as a corduroy sort of thing: a baggy jumper with holes in the elbows, something that happens in a potting shed. My new show may be the first time gardens have been shown as the high-end, high-fashion design destinations they truly are.

TV CREPT UP ON ME SNEAKILY. Jackie, my wife, was one of the first wedding organisers in Britain and was doing an enormous amount of television 15 years ago. Her agent was approached by the BBC to see if he knew any interior designers and I was rather pushed forward for it. Even when they rang to say I'd got the job despite my ridiculous name, stupid way of dressing and terrible haughtiness, I still never saw it as a day job.

I'VE ALWAYS DRESSED TO SUIT myself. It's not about fashion or dressing to be noticed. I'm in my mid-40s and a country squire, so there's a lot of tweedage and a lot of suitage. I don't wear shellsuits, I don't wear shorts and I've got one pair of flip flops which only come out in irony.

THE LIST OF NAMES MY MOTHER wanted to call me included Sebastian and Lancelot. I think Laurence was a good compromise.

JACKIE AND I LIVE IN A VERY "us" way. We don't compromise, so our children have always been part of our slipstream. Both girls have always been delighted to float round the world with us or do a shoot for OK! at home.

AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF psychology is involved in interiors. All those years on Changing Rooms has really helped me in my career. I've had to do rooms for some really kooky people on TV and when you're faced with a real-life person that experience is invaluable.

I ONCE DID THROUGH THE KEYHOLE and David Frost, who I suspected of being not entirely sober, said "and all your friends call you Larry". I was slightly in awe of him and didn't feel his mind was currently quick enough to cope with the fact people didn't call me Larry, so I just nodded. But no-one has ever called me Larry.

JACKIE AND I GOT TO THE £1 million question in Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2006, which was: "Translated from the Latin, what is the motto for the United States of America?" When "In God We Trust" came out there was a big ripple around the audience, but the answer they were looking for was "Out of Many, One." The US embassy got involved and said In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum were both mottos, so we had to go back and re-record the ending.

IT SUITS ME NOT TO HAVE AMBITION or a list of life goals. Life is something which is best surfed rather than trying to be a complete Canute about it and suggesting that the tide will do what you want it to do.

SOMEONE TOLD ME ONCE YOU should never wear brown shoes with a blue suit. They were right.

WHEN I EXPECT A DAY OF national mourning. Television screens will go black, they'll muffle the hooves of the carriage horses, and there'll be women crying into black-bordered lace handkerchiefs wearing large, powdered wigs. To be honest, I've decided not to die this time - it's too inconvenient.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen presents the four-part series I Own Britain's Best Home And Garden, on Five

Interview by Paul Dalgarno