AN OBSESSIVE gardener has proved he is a cut above the rest after turfing out the competition in a national lawn contest.

Dr Chisholm Ogg spends up to 10 hours a day manicuring his prized garden.

The retired kidney doctor, of Long Wittenham, has carefully tended his Thames-side garden for 14 years now.

He said: “I am a slightly mad but enthusiastic gardener.

“I feel very strongly that a lawn isn’t a lawn for a lawn’s sake, it’s part of the garden.

“A good lawn sets off the whole garden.”

The other 122 entrants were left feeling for-lawn after the 74-year-old wowed the judges.

The grandfather-of-two said: “I have always been a keen gardener but I have never had the time to do as much as I wanted to.

“Now I garden virtually every day including in the winter but I don’t when it is covered in snow.

“It can be six days a week in the busy times of April, May, June. I will certainly do something morning, afternoon and usually evening as well.

“Eight or 10 hours is commonplace.”

He added: “I currently mow the lawn near the house twice a week, some times even three times. I’m fairly obsessional. I like things to look right.”

The former London doctor said his wife entered him in the contest after seeing it advertised in the National Gardens Scheme newsletter.

He said: “I was very reluctant and she did all the work and I signed the paper work.”

Entries were judged on quality, features and maintenance routines.

Applicants had to send in photographs and a description of their lawn.

Dr Ogg was awarded with a new lawnmower from firm Briggs and Stratton which ran the competition to find the top domestic lawn.

He also got a commemorative plaque for his garden.

He said: “I was very surprised to win. I’m proud of my lawn and people tell me how nice it is, but I don’t think I am God’s gift to horticulture.”

He said the unusual wet weather this year had only meant he had to mow the lawn more often and later into the year.

Wife Gay, 71, said: “He loves it and it’s been a wonderful retirement occupation.

“He had a very busy job before he retired and he has become really quite obsessed by it, and it gives him a lot of pleasure. Mind you it doesn’t leave much time for him to help me.”