BBC Gardeners’ World star Monty Don has shared his “golden rule” for pruning and explains being too rigid with gardening calendars could be a mistake in our changing climate
Monty Don warned gardeners not to make a common mistake(Image: BBC Studios)
It’s been a thoroughly miserable start to the year, with vast swathes of the UK still waiting for their first dry day in 2026. Gardening legend Monty Don, noting that his regular BBC Gardeners’ World column must be submitted over a month ahead of publication, reckons the shifting climate has thrown gardeners’ traditional timetable into chaos.
Tasks that “should” be reserved for January can now crop up in December, whilst some spring blooms are already poking through the soil by mid-February. Eyeing up one of his indoor vines a fortnight before the New Year kicked off, Monty felt the urge to prune it, despite it being classically a January undertaking.
He writes: “I found myself not doing it, because January was still a week or so away. ‘Ha!’, you might say, ‘the man is a rule-bound idiot tied to an absurdly rigid horticultural calendar.’
“You would not be far wrong, but I suspect we have all learned that certain jobs should be done at certain times.”
Monty adds that whilst most of us harbour fixed notions about when particular gardening tasks should be tackled, there’s genuinely no incorrect moment to crack on with them: “I always bear in mind what the late Christopher Lloyd used to say, that the best time to prune practically anything is when you remember to do so and have a pair of secateurs in your hand.”
Monty Don shared his golden rule with gardeners (Image: Getty Images)
He reckons there’s a limit to the damage any gardener can inflict by trimming a plant slightly ahead of schedule: “The worst that can happen is that you may cut off flower buds and, heaven forfend, delay flowering by a few weeks,” reports the Express.
Monty points out that, as nature shifts with changing conditions, gardeners must shift alongside it: “Blossom does not start to appear on your fruit trees because it is spring and therefore the right time to flower.
“They are responding to extra light and heat and if – as we are all beginning to experience more and more often with the changing climate-that warming happens in what was formerly considered winter or ‘too early’ they will still produce flowers.”
Monty ranks among Britain’s most cherished gardening telly faces, having fronted Gardeners’ World since 2003 when he took over from the equally legendary Alan Titchmarsh. He’s remained the main presenter throughout, bar a stint between 2008 and 2011 when he stepped away owing to health troubles.
Monty Don warned against being a ‘rule-bound idiot'(Image: PA)
So he’s certainly got the credentials when it comes to gardening know-how, and he’s shared one “golden rule” for budding horticulturalists across Britain – “if it works for you” then stick with it. Though he did throw in one crucial word of warning.
Monty explained to the magazine: “The truth is that the one golden rule of timing is if it works for you, then whatever you did or however you did it is, up to a point, right.
“I qualify that because, as an experienced gardener finds out sooner or later, things that have gone right for years can suddenly and seemingly inexplicably go wrong – which is when you really start to learn.
“Because failure means you have to think for yourself and challenge all the things you have diligently learned from others. And that is when things get interesting.”
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