It’s been some years since she was on mainstream TV but evidently there is a sizable section of the public that has never forgotten Charlie Dimmock.

Currently reprising her role as Fairy Organic in Worthing Theatres’ Jack And The Beanstalk, the Ground Force star always enjoys meeting the audience after each performance. “But I’ve noticed it’s not just children who want to come and meet me,” she says with a chuckle. “There’ve been quite a few dads and grandads.”

No wonder; this is the woman who was dubbed “horticultural Viagra”, who made (would-be) gardeners of the most unlikely men; a woman whose 2000 calendar outsold that of underwear model Caprice.

I don’t want to mention her infamous bra – or lack thereof – but she brings it up herself when discussing her first stage role in the 2010 Calendar Girls tour. “Ooh, that was frightening!” says the 47-year-old. “I hadn’t done any theatre before then and to go into it with all these proper actresses was intimidating. I’m definitely not an actress. There was only one reason I was asked to do that show...”

Doesn’t it irritate her, this fixation on her physical form? Looking through past cuttings, it’s near impossible to find an article that doesn’t mention her “tumbling red curls” – reminiscent of “a romp in a haybarn” according to one slavering interview – or her bosom. But Dimmock is a resolutely practical sort. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s just a laugh. I mean, it’s all very silly but it’s just one of those things, isn’t it? I’m good friends with Esther Rantzen and she told me long ago that the media likes to pigeonhole people – she’s still referred to as ‘buck-toothed’ despite having had her teeth fixed after the second series of That’s Life! I let it go over my head.”

Dimmock was still working in Mill Water garden centre in Romsey, Hampshire, when Ground Force took off. The garden makeover is a format that’s been much copied since, but back in the late 1990s it seemed we couldn’t get enough of watching Dimmock, Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh rip out people’s washing lines and cover suburban gardens in wooden decking.

But none of the trio could ever have anticipated the unlikely day when they found themselves drinking tea with the late Nelson Mandela in the garden of his Johannesburg home. “I don’t think any of us thought the producers were serious,” says Dimmock. “Even when we arrived in Johannesburg I don’t think we thought we’d be doing his actual garden. But he was great, signing our copies of his autobiography and handing out tea and coffee.”

Disappointingly, she has no dirt to dish on working with Titchmarsh. As one might expect, he was “lovely, with a great sense of humour. We’re still in touch.”

The producers too, had a keen sense of humour. In another show Dimmock tours (and which comes to Worthing in February) she recalls the pranks that would be engineered for viewers’ amusement.

“I remember putting a bench together and I could see the director elbowing the cameraman and grinning. We were having problems putting the kit together and I couldn’t work out why. When the programme went out it turned out I’d been set up and we were putting it together back to front. We looked like right idiots!”

Dimmock was and continues to be unfazed by any notions of celebrity. It was “great fun” when she was at the peak of her Ground Force fame and the money wasn’t bad either (she reportedly earned around £500,000 a year). Off the back of it, she was given a popular American TV gardening show, published a couple of books and wrote a lot of columns. But she knew it would die down at some point and when it did, she was just as happy to return to her neglected garden and get stuck into some weeding. “It actually looks all right these days. I used to be away so much I never had any time to do anything.”

Had all the TV stuff never happened she has no doubt what she’d have been doing instead – running the garden centre where she used to work. “My boss has just retired actually. I can’t say I wasn’t slightly tempted.”

Dimmock continues to live in Romsey, in the village where she grew up. She prefers not to discuss her decision to live there. She inherited the house belonging to her mother Sue and stepfather Rob when the couple were killed in the December 2004 Asian tsunami.

An only child, she had a close relationship with her mother and after her death, turned down all work for the next two years. Not far away is the garden centre where Dimmock was taken on as a Saturday girl aged 16 and later returned to manage after studying horticulture in Winchester.

She has lived alone since an affair with Ground Force microphone operator Andy Simmons ended her relationship with Jon Mushet, a viticulturalist from New Zealand.

It suits her, she says – she has always enjoyed her own space. And besides, she’s not entirely alone – there’s the dog and the cat and the horse for company, and friendly neighbours. She has surprised some by having a chair lift fitted in the house. At 47?

“I’m always thinking ahead,” she replies. “I like to be prepared. That’s being a gardener for you!” It seems premature but Dimmock is a realist. “Ageing doesn’t worry me at all,” she says cheerfully. “I’ll be quite happy to be a dotty old dear pottering around the garden.”

  • Charlie Dimmock stars in Jack And The Beanstalk at Worthing Theatres until January 4. Call 01903 206206 for more information.