As Johanna Griggs enters her 22nd year on Better Homes and Gardens, Editor in Chief Michelle Giglio sat down with the effervescent host about Christmas, family and building her dream home.
There’s an incredible energy surrounding Johanna Griggs wherever she goes. I’m out at Mona Vale beach as Seven’s Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) is filming its first episode for 2026. Charlie the landscape designer is on the sand pretending to be a nipper learning the ropes from the Mona Vale Beach Surf Life Saving team. Chef Colin and horticulturalist Graham are preparing a delicious lunch, bantering away. And Johanna – or Joh as she is known – is recording promos, joking with the photographer, polishing someone’s sunglasses, and without missing a beat points out a whale breaching the water.
It’s an energy that’s infectious, and when I later sit down to chat to Joh, I come away from our hour-long discussion full of positivity and inspired about life.
Joh has been host of BHG for 21 years, with a solid 33 years in broadcasting behind her. But that’s not the sum of all her parts. The Collaroy local does a huge amount of charity work in mental health and children’s wellbeing, and let’s not forget hosting Seven’s Commonwealth Games coverage every four years – a legacy of her first foray into television after retiring from professional swimming at the ripe old age of 19.
Now 52, Joh is such a well-known face across Australia that she is often stopped by people while out doing groceries on the Northern Beaches, or in many of the far flung towns she visits as part of BHG filming. People wanting to share their garden projects or home renovation disasters. And Joh is always happy to chat.
“Because they have such a connection with the show, people will just come up and give me a hug – literally random strangers,” Joh says, smiling. “And it’s because they feel like they know you, which is the greatest compliment they can give. Because I think we’re all exactly who we are on camera as off camera.”
Australians love the show, which has been on our screens for 32 years and is complimented by a widely read magazine of the same name. With an audience reach of 1.4 million each episode, and in the face of alternatives full of drama like The Block, Masterchef – as well as 27-season
Grand Designs – I ask Joh how BHG has stood the test of time.
The BHG team filmed the 2025 Christmas special at Calmesly Hill City Farm
“It’s a legacy show that has longevity and been able to revive itself along the way and stay fresh,” Joh explains. “At the core, it’s authentic. People know what they’re going to get. Whether it be inspiration, something that’s totally aspirational, or something that’s really practical.”
Best of all, it’s a show with no judgement or hidden objectives – just good ideas about DIY, cooking, gardening, decorating, travel and pets, of course! “The world is going crazy at the moment,” Joh muses. “By Friday people have been bombarded with horrible images and terrible news. So we need to give them a respite from that. We need to give them something that gives them comfort, but still inspires them. Something you can come together at the end of a week and watch with your family.”
Demographics show that viewers are all ages – from first home buyers looking for inspiration on a budget, to retirees looking for their next grey nomad adventure.
“Because it’s been around so long, there’s such an ownership from the public,” Joh explains. “They feel like it’s their show and that’s why they stop you in the street to talk about it because they feel such a sense of connection. And it’s now generations of family that have that connection.”
The show’s success is underpinned by its ability to tap into social change. “Because I am literally in every state and territory in Australia regularly, and I can be somewhere incredibly remote and isolated, or I can be somewhere that’s really big and busy and happening, my finger is very much on the pulse of what people are feeling and thinking,” Joh says.
Reflecting on the latest trends, Joh says that intergenerational living is ‘really big’ which has affected the design of new homes. Rises in the cost of living has meant that children are staying in the family home for longer, with building material price surges also affecting homemaker renovations. “Certainly in the last two years with cost of living going up so dramatically, we have had to really draw back our makeovers to make it all achievable projects,” Joh states. “We still occasionally show an aspirational home, but we have to break down at least six things in that home that you could put into a budget build. Whether it be in gardening or interior design – things where they can find a way to actually translate to money saved.”
Asked to pick a highlight from the 21 years Joh has hosted, she laughs and says ‘Not a chance!’ “I never have one week the same as the other. I get to do the most travel (out of the team of 10 presenters) around Australia. A theme I love is when we tell stories of Australian makers who are just doing the most random things and we are able to change the fortune of their business by showcasing them.
“So that’s the power of the show, because when people are authentic and if we are just having great fun with them and telling a great story, we know our audiences will respond in spades.”
Joh really does ‘live and breathe’ what she learns on the show, and together with husband Todd Huggins has a 100- acre farm in the Hunter Valley which has enabled her to take on many of the ideas showcased in BHG.
“Todd has built me a Mrs Huggins hobby hut because he reckons I’m the woman of a thousand hobbies because I get exposed to so many. So I whittle, I grow 85% of my veggies. I pickle, I preserve. I dehydrate. I knit, crochet, and bee keep. They’re all things that have come from BHG. And Todd says, ‘What’s this week’s hobby? What are we taking up now?’”
Todd is a builder by trade and together they run Collaroy Constructions on the Northern Beaches which takes a lot of inspiration from award-winning homes featured on BHG. “Maybe that’s why I’ve been in that role for so long!” Joh jokes. “I genuinely love it. I don’t (ever) have a bad day at work.”
The couple are currently building their ‘dream home’ on their Huggins Hill Farm, doing as much work as they can themselves to build an off-the-grid courtyard house where there is a view of nature from every window. For someone with such an incredibly busy life as Joh, the farm is a refuge. “I’m a massive advocate for mental health. For me, it’s resting my eyes on green and making the time to do the things that give me joy. I could sit in a paddock for hours just watching my cows.
“That place invigorates me because it’s all the things I love. People say to me sometimes, ‘Why would you want to go out and work in a vegetable garden?’ Because my hands are getting dirty. I’m picking fresh food. I’m thinking about the meals I can make with fresh produce.
“(Todd and I) get to the point where we just need to go and totally decompress and potter in the garden.”
Mental health has been such a huge part of Joh’s life since she won a bronze medal in backstroke at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games aged just 16 – then developed chronic fatigue which led to two years of isolation and setbacks. It’s one of her passions and why she has been on the board of national mental health charity Beyond Blue for over a decade.
Joh (far right) with her four siblings
One of Joh’s Christmas tables
BHG often films on the Northern Beaches, with Joh seen here at Narrabeen
with cook Clarissa
Joh is very open about how she maintains her mental health, and says she will always see a psychologist if overwhelmed. “It’s just part of my toolkit of what I do to stay on top of everything in my life. It gives me clarity,” she explains.
“(As a society), we are getting smarter at realising you’ve got to talk about it to make it better.”
The Humpty Dumpty Foundation is another cause close to her heart, which provides medical equipment for children in hospitals around the country. Joh’s Instagram is peppered with photos of her in newborn intensive care units, meeting mothers with premature babies who are being assisted with equipment funded by Humpty, as well as nurses who care for them.
Seven gives Joh the time to do all her charity work, and as one of the network’s longest-serving presenters (three decades and counting), she is full of praise for their support. “Every time I’m away, they give me the opportunity to go to Beyond Blue and Humpty. It’s with their blessing.”
Family is very important for Joh, who talks with so much pride about sons Jesse, 29 and Joe, 28, who she had with ex husband, actor Gary Sweet. And equally she talks with fondness for her siblings (older sisters Emma and Sarah, who still live on the Beaches) and younger brother Mick, and their idyllic upbringing in Harbord on Wyuna Avenue. Captaining Freshie nippers and wandering around Warringah Mall barefoot are some of the memories she cherishes. “My husband’s so horrified that anyone would go to a shop barefoot! But back then it was so small and so relaxed, between the beach and swimming and going down the shops, that was our upbringing.”
School was at Harbord Public and Freshwater High – but Joh admits she did not have a lot of formal senior education because she was travelling so much for swimming.
“Mum was so stressed out about how much school I would be missing that she would say, ‘Learn about where you are and come back and find an interesting way to tell that to people so that they can feel like they’re part of what you’re doing.’” The habit certainly put Joh in good stead for her future career.
Given the importance of family in her life, and her love of entertaining, Christmas is an important time of year for Joh to bring everyone together. With hundreds of BHG ideas up her sleeve, it’s no wonder Joh makes Christmas such a magical event for the family. There’s a ‘reveal’ for the table – which is always stunning and looks like something out of a magazine – and a new tradition is Secret Santa.
Christmas will be extra special this year as Joh and her siblings seek to make memories for their mother, Leigh Griggs, who has recently gone into dementia care. “She shouldn’t be able to remember anything short term, but she one hundred percent remembers Christmas last year. She remembers the colour and the fact that there were lights here, and lights there, and everyone was happy. So we are adamant that while our mum is with us and able to remember, that we are going all out.
“I would love to be able to have something else that she can remember and that she associates with joy and family.”
Joh gets emotional recounting her mother’s ‘incredible generosity of spirit’ while she and her siblings were growing up. “We always had billets live with us. We had a hitchhiker that lived with us for eight years. We had entire sports teams. Our mum fed everyone.
“She now has a (constant roster of visitors at her care home) of people from golf, tennis and her teaching life. It’s funny seeing how the way she’s lived her life has been paid back.”
Reflecting on her career is something Joh does often, imparting her wisdom at schools and speaking events. For someone who did not complete Year 12, Joh says it’s really important to understand that there are ‘lots of different ways to get to the end result.’ And try everything, even if it’s out of your comfort zone, Joh advises. “For every moment in your life that forces you to pivot, learn to see it as a blessing.”
Working on BHG has been a ‘privilege,’ Joh states, and she has never begrudged the attention it attracts from the punters. It’s also something she has instilled in the BHG team.
“(I say) don’t ever forget the order. It’s not people thanking us. It’s us thanking them. Because look what we get to do because of them.”
Watch the BHG Christmas special filmed at Calmsely Hill City Farm on 28 November at 7pm on Seven.
