The famous gardener has been on our screens since 2003
The presenter is famous for being the face of Gardeners’ World(Image: TheMontyDon Instagram)
Monty Don has given gardeners some stern advice as the warmer months approach. The presenter is famous for being the face of Gardeners’ World and has been a familiar presence to viewers since 2003.
Alongside hosting the show from his Herefordshire garden for more than a decade, Monty Don has also found success as an author, writing bestsellers like ‘Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs’ and ‘Down to Earth’.
The famous gardener has offered many tips throughout the span of his impressive career and in his latest piece of advice, Monty has warned against using peat-based composts and slammed it as “bad gardening.”
Offering advice in the Gardeners’ World magazine, Monty said: “Let me be very clear, there is no excuse or reason to use peat under any circumstances. To do so is, at best, naïve and uninformed. Using peat is simply bad gardening. Just say no.”
He continued: “When I was a child, we never bought seed or potting compost. It was made entirely from sieved leaf mould, loam from turf stacks …and a little sieved garden compost.”
The gardener says that any home-made compost is likely to produce its fair share of weeds, but has encouraged people to not let this put them off. He added: “I regard this as a healthy sign and weeding them out is no problem.”
Monty has previously described using peat in your garden as an act of “eco-vandalism”. Using peat in gardening is not a tradition with deep roots. Its promotion by Britain’s horticultural industry only began around the mid-20th century and was primarily driven by economic rather than horticultural reasons.
The 69-year-old mentioned his natural assistants in the compost-making process: “I sometimes use soil from mole hills, but though it’s excellent, it does contain weed seeds and is less open than loam from a turf stack.”
In a blog written by Monty Don on ButterflyConservation.Org, he highlights the damage that can be caused: “As a growing medium peat has many virtues. It retains moisture well yet drains freely. It is cheap. But none of this justifies the loss of peat bogs caused by extraction for horticultural use.
“We are using peat at around 200 times the speed that it can reform and over 95% of British peat bogs, which are essential for a whole range of birds and plants, have been lost this century. It cannot ever be justified.”