Monty Don says he often felt like ‘summer had arrived without me’ when spending time at boarding school as a child, a feeling he experiences now when filming a hit BBC show
Monty Don admits part of him “resents” a BBC show(Image: PA / James Manning)
Monty Don finds himself “restraining tears” as he opened up about a moment that makes him “resent” a BBC show. Monty, 70, says he has long realised that “home is the epicentre” of his world.
It came after he was sent to boarding school as a youngster and found himself feeling as though “summer had arrived without me”. Monty says that while the seasons shifted at school, home is where they “truly existed”.
He admits that his world now “spins” around his Longmeadow home, which he purchased in 1991. The property consisted of an abandoned field with a single tree in it when Monty bought it.
It now boasts a series of lovingly crafted gardens. It is at Longmeadow that Monty often finds himself feeling like he did when he was a small child, bursting into tears as he realised the seasons had come and gone.
Writing in the Gardeners’ World magazine, he said: “I still have a moment or two like that every year in the garden, although now, 67 years later, I do my best to restrain the tears.”
Monty says a garden often has a “watershed moment” where it seems as though one season becomes the next. The star believes it can often happen with “seemingly no transition” between the two.
On the whole though, Monty explains that in gardening, things “change constantly” through “slow mergings”. He says one moment he often notices the change at Longmeadow is when he goes to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Monty presents the coverage alongside the likes of Rachel de Thame, Angellica Bell and Nikki Chapman. Monty says he leaves Herefordshire on the Sunday and returns a week later.
In that time, he jokes that his garden has “completely rearranged itself”. “Spring has toppled into summer and I was not there to see it,” he explains.
It brings a “complicated mess of emotions” for Monty, a hark back to his days as a boy at boarding school. He says he feels a sense of “betrayal” from his garden, as well as the delight at welcoming in the new season.
And in part, Monty says he blames the Chelsea Flower Show for taking him away from Longmeadow. He continued: “I do not want to miss out on the greatest garden extravaganza of the year and am delighted to and privileged to present the programme from there, and yet part of me resents being taken away from the garden at this critical moment.”
Monty will return to screens this evening from 8pm (May 15) on BBC Two with Gardeners’ World. He will be making a start on some of his amazing summer planters, including working on his leeks and making fertiliser.
Elsewhere, Frances Tophill will be in Berkshire learning about biodynamic gardening and the benefits it can bring. Adam Frost will be showing viewers around his new garden as it begins to take shape.
