Monty Don has spoken about his health (Image: Getty)
For decades, television personality and horticultural expert Monty Don has captivated and informed viewers on gardening topics across the nation. However, the Gardeners’ World host has revealed that his lifelong dedication has taken a toll on his health, particularly affecting his knees.
In his column for BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, the 70-year-old disclosed that he has been battling this painful condition for the past decade.
He confessed that whilst he had consulted his GP about the knee problems, he subsequently disregarded the medical guidance and later needed a double knee replacement.
Monty revealed: “For the last 10 years or more my knees have been giving me the gyp and, it turns out, slowly deteriorating. This is not so unusual or unexpected.”
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Monty Don has spoken about his health in recent years (Image: Getty)
He added: “I have spent 70 years kneeling on them, asking them to stagger about under unreasonably heavy loads or, until 10 years ago, pounding around tarmacked roads. They have had a long, hard time of it.”
The presenter continued by describing how the condition had affected his work on Gardeners’ World, stating: “You will have rarely seen me do much serious digging, and never kneeling, over the past few series – by the end of a day’s filming, I could barely hobble to the end of the garden.”
Monty elaborated: “I remember going to my doctor when I first had knee trouble and he commented drilly that knees were appallingly badly designed and that was the end of it. He prescribed painkillers and told me to stop digging. I ignored both aspects of the prescription.
“Last summer I finally got round to having scans and seeing a surgeon and was duly told both my knees needed replacing. This was a bit of a surprise as I had been working on the assumption that I had one good knee and one bad knee.”
Monty Don (Image: Jeff Spicer, Getty Images)
Despite facing the daunting prospect of bilateral knee replacement surgery, Monty reports that his recovery is progressing well and even drew a comparison to his cherished Land Rover.
He remarked: “The important thing…is that I shall be able to do things again, to get stuck in and crack on….with a fair wind and thanks to superb surgical skills, I should, like my beaten-up old Defender, keep ploughing on a bit longer.”
This is not the first occasion Monty has discussed his wellbeing, with the BBC presenter having previously been candid about living with Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Also referred to as SAD, the condition affects one’s mental health in response to seasonal changes.
During an appearance on the Gardeners’ World podcast, Monty previously shared his coping mechanisms.
He explained: “I now have a pattern whereby I try and spend one day a week on my own in the garden, which is obviously usually a weekend, one of the two weekend days.
“It’s a kind of treat I give myself. But when I say share, I don’t necessarily mean gardening with other people, which actually, personally, I don’t like very much.
“Even my wife and I, who have always gardened together, we hardly ever physically garden together, we just were in the garden at the same time.”
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