Having just celebrated his 70th Birthday, Gardeners’ World favourite Monty Don, who admits he rarely makes long-term plans, has made some decisions about the future.
The globetrotting gardener, who has travelled as far afield as China, Morocco and Cuba for Around the World in 80 Gardens, looks set to stay closer to home in future.
“In April I started filming a new travel series going from the source of the Rhine to the sea,” he told The Garden Magazine. “visiting gardens in Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany, Holland and France.”
He added: “I’ve got a couple of gardens that I’m working on for charity and have more talks to do. That will take me through until November. I’ve decided I won’t do any more tours after that.”
Monty said last year that he had no immediate plans to leave Gardeners’ World, saying: “I’m now 68, I was going to stop when I was 65. I’ll now go on till I’m 70 and then reconsider.
“The reason for that is,” he added, “it’s not so much wanting my garden back, although there’s a strong element of that… It’s just that, whilst I’ve still got energy, there are lots of other projects I want to do that mean I can’t be here every week.”
That doesn’t necessarily entail retirement, he stresses, as the current series of BBC Gardeners’ World will keep him busy until October, and his publishers are expecting another three books from him in the coming couple of years.
This move will take his total number of books to over 30, which is an impressive achievement for a writer who was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of nine.
It’s not the only challenge Monty has had to contend with. He has also suffered from depression for much of his life, revealing in 2004, when he was 49: “There are times, every year, when I am weighed down with depression.”
At one point, Monty’s wife Sarah threatened to leave him if he did not seek help. After trying a number of different approaches, he realised that his principal problem was seasonal affective disorder, and found relief with a light box.
Getting out in the garden has been a big help, too, and Monty has said that that gardening “heals me better than any medicine.”
There are some ailments that even a day in the garden can’t fix, though. In 2007, Sarah found him unconscious on the floor and he was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery for peritonitis.
The following year, Monty suffered a mild stroke, having ignored the warning signs for some time. He assumed he had just been tired and run-down after all of the travel involved in filming Around the World in 80 Gardens for the BBC.
With that in mind, Monty’s decision to slow his pace of life down a little makes perfect sense.
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