It’s finally happened. National treasure Monty Don is hanging up his TV garden shears and saying goodbye to Gardeners’ World after more than 20 years as the BBC show’s lead presenter. I’ve been a grower for more than a decade myself, and Monty has been a steady and wise omnipresence throughout my journey – especially as he’s been on the right side of contemporary gardening debates over the environment and wildlife, and the use of chemicals and peat in horticulture.
That is where the overlap between our worlds of growing end, though. My modest patch of a few veg beds at the end of a small, chaotic and mostly gravelled garden is a universe away from the two-acre dreamscape that is Longmeadow, Don’s garden at his home in Herefordshire. I suspect I’m one of millions who’ve looked longingly at Monty’s remarkable space and the impressive infrastructure (not to mention hired hands!) that make it so special, and cursed the fact that such an ideal garden will never be within reach of us ordinary folk. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been a glorious setting for Monty to share his abundance of plant wisdom from, but now that the search for his replacement is presumably on, perhaps this is an opportunity for a little reimagining.
