{"id":13585,"date":"2026-03-23T00:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/?p=13585"},"modified":"2026-03-23T00:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:53:25","slug":"monty-don-gardeners-world-is-like-going-back-to-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/?p=13585","title":{"rendered":"Monty Don: Gardeners\u2019 World is like going back to school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2026\/03\/23\/07\/20123721-07bcd61f-7cee-4ddb-9aab-084b8daa13dd.jpg?width=1200&amp;auto=webp&amp;crop=3%3A2\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"main\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"hydrate-root sc-1ihz57b-0\" data-component=\"SupportNSCNative\" data-loading=\"lazy\" data-theme-name=\"independent\">\n<div data-theme-wrapper=\"true\" style=\"display:contents;color-scheme:inherit\">\n<aside class=\"sc-hez36s-0 dFpFuY\">\n<div class=\"sc-hez36s-1 iBibVd\">\n<h3 data-testid=\"support-nsc-title\" class=\"sc-hez36s-2 jVZWGn\">Your support helps us to tell the story<\/h3>\n<div class=\"sc-hez36s-8 juUDRT\">\n<div class=\"sc-hez36s-13 cqPbFA\">\n<div class=\"sc-aja53j-0 rAFIl sc-hez36s-16 jZSKtc\">\n<div class=\"sc-aja53j-6 PdmgT\">\n<div data-testid=\"dropdown-with-gradient-collapsed-content-container\" class=\"sc-aja53j-5 eZqxmv\">\n<div>\n<div data-testid=\"dropdown-with-gradient-collapsed-content\" class=\"sc-aja53j-4 tawua\">\n<div>\n<div data-testid=\"support-nsc-collapsed-content-tablet\" class=\"sc-hez36s-7 gZmYS\">\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iCTyfe\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"sc-1uza6dc-1 cglitp\">Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><button class=\"sc-aja53j-1 keLMOw sc-aja53j-7 eMEmGu\"><span data-testid=\"dropdown-with-gradient-dropdown-tablet\" class=\"sc-aja53j-3 dHXFkr\"><span data-action-type=\"Read more\" class=\"sc-aja53j-2 dcYUYI\">Read more<\/span><svg class=\"sc-eaj12q-0 hUgQwJ sc-culv3z-0 eifaJK sc-a5wy94-0 hyKPon\"><use href=\"#ee6613da15642019\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He\u2019s travelled the world, from the Arctic Circle to the Australian outback, the Amazonian jungle to Japan, visiting all kinds of gardens.<\/p>\n<p>Now filming the latest series of Gardeners\u2019 World in his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire, he and the crew work around the weather.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want people to think that the camera just turns up and follows me pottering around the garden, then we pop off to look at Adam (Frost) or Carol (Klein) doing something else, then after an hour we say bye bye.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reality is it\u2019s quite a big production team. It takes weeks to prepare \u2013 two days to film, six days to edit. It\u2019s full on. In-between filming, which we do two days a week, we then have to prepare the garden for what we\u2019re filming thereafter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI brace myself. For the crew and I, it\u2019s like going back to school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet the broadcaster and author has found time to write a coffee table tome, British Gardens, a tie-in for his BBC series last year, in which he looks at the great and the good, the private and the public, the subtleties and the wow-factor of our some of our outstanding gardens and all they have to offer.<\/p>\n<p>He covers gardens from Scotland to Cornwall \u2013 and everything in between.<\/p>\n<p>So, what makes British gardens so unique?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first is simply climate. We have the best weather. And although we complain about the weather all the time, it\u2019s actually perfect for a wider range of gardening than any other country in the world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Our love of gardening comes a close second, he continues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNapoleon said we\u2019re a nation of shopkeepers. He got it wrong. We\u2019re a nation of gardeners. Even today, when more and more people under 30 or even 35 are finding it hard to have their own home and therefore their own garden, I think the figure is 83% of the population has access to a garden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s gone down in the last 25 years from over 90% but it\u2019s still very, very high. It\u2019s still a dramatically large majority of the population.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat process of gardening cuts across class, race, gender, age and unites us and is a common bond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here he picks some of the outstanding gardens featured in the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Birkhall, Cairngorms National Park<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has to be the King\u2019s garden. It is private and was therefore a privilege and an act of friendship, almost, to let us film there. I know the King a little bit and the Queen. I wouldn\u2019t suggest that we\u2019re friends but I\u2019ve had doings with them over the years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are keen gardeners, proper gardeners and they love it. To have insight into the private world of probably the most public figure in the country was momentous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a curious mixture \u2013 it\u2019s a royal garden, beautifully gardened with great big kitchen gardens, lawns and woods, but it feels domestic, private.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scampston Hall, North Yorkshire<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DPKCi-EDxHf\/embed\/captioned\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"sc-wn0aau-1 dZPXBi\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The walled garden was designed by Dutch nurseryman Piet Oudolf who created a complete compartmentalised garden within the walls around the 4.5 acre site.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt includes his use of structure and hedges and space in a way that he abandoned 15 or 20 years ago. I like his early gardens better than his late gardens. It has a bit of everything \u2013 prairie planting, incredible hedges, the mound, it has the water and it\u2019s beautifully restored and looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s subdivided by hedges into 10 different areas or rooms \u2013 all of which are a sight to behold.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wollerton Old Hall, Shropshire<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is a \u2018wow\u2019 garden. It is the epitome of the British garden, and two of the four acres are woodland. It\u2019s not so much lots of small rooms as different areas connected by sight lines and paths, so they all interlink but they all have their own character.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very much on a domestic scale, not a great big grand house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The garden has been created by Lesley and John Jenkins over 40 years, in what started off as a field when they had a young family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey make a perfect team,\u201d Don enthuses. \u201cThe quote she says is, she uses plants and he grows plants. So what you have is that she designs it, chooses the plants, thinks of the colour scheme. And he will produce the perfect variety to achieve that effect, that loves the soil and loves the conditions and makes sure it\u2019s looking its very best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetween them they have established one of the most magical gardens ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Balmoral Cottage, Kent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DH-cc_DNYla\/embed\/captioned\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"sc-wn0aau-1 dZPXBi\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Topiary, says Don, is an essential component of the British garden and this one has been created by Charlotte and Donald Molesworth, who moved there in 1983 when it had become very overgrown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen they got married she only asked for two presents. One was cuttings and seedlings of yew and box and the other was curtains. She grew the cuttings and seedlings on and made this topiary garden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, you walk down a brick path flanked by high box hedging studded with box balls, along with topiary and hedging with everything else in the garden, he writes.<\/p>\n<p>The topiary ranges from figurative birds and animals, as well as cloud pruning and geometrically shaped hedging.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a cottage, not huge, in a village in the country but is the most charming, quirky, eccentric but tasteful epitome of the very British garden. It\u2019s just magical,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rousham, Oxfordshire<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is one of the greatest gardens ever made. It\u2019s a landscape garden and is undoubtedly the finest survivor of the landscape movement, better than any of Capability Brown\u2019s gardens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was made in the 1730s whereas Brown didn\u2019t start working till a quarter of a century later and is pretty much unchanged. No change could improve it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is open to the public but very eccentrically. There\u2019s a big sign saying \u2018No dogs, no children (under 15), which some people get very cross about but you take it as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s entirely evergreen with lots of statues and water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>British Gardens by Monty Don &amp; Derry Moore is published by BBC Books, priced \u00a335. Photography by Derry Moore. Available now<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more He\u2019s travelled the world, from the Arctic Circle to the Australian outback, the Amazonian jungle to Japan, visiting all kinds of gardens. Now filming the latest series of Gardeners\u2019 World in his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire, he and the crew work around the weather. \u201cI want people to think that the camera just turns up and follows me pottering around the garden, then we pop off to look at Adam (Frost) or Carol (Klein) doing something else, then after an hour we say bye bye. \u201cThe reality is it\u2019s quite a big production team. It takes weeks to prepare \u2013 two days to film, six days to edit. It\u2019s full on. In-between filming, which we do two days a week, we then have to prepare the garden for what we\u2019re filming thereafter. \u201cI brace myself. For the crew and I, it\u2019s like going back to school.\u201d Yet the broadcaster and author has found time to write a coffee table tome, British Gardens, a tie-in for his BBC series last year, in which he looks at the great and the good, the private and the public, the subtleties and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}