TV’s most soothing gardener bids viewers farewell in his own inimitable style: poetically, and with barely a hint of fuss
Monty Don paces through his garden, slowly and deliberately. “Welcome to a beautiful day,” he announces. Autumn has hit and the greens of Longmeadow have modulated into soft yellows and oranges. He’s right. This is as idyllic as his place will get.
“But,” he warns, “we know winter will come.” And with winter comes change, and death, and a final loss before regrowth. Don is talking about gardens, about how it won’t be long before the first frosts arrive. But maybe, just maybe, he’s talking about himself. This is his final episode of Gardeners’ World, after presenting on and off for almost a quarter of a century, and the subtext hangs heavy in the air.
Subtext has always been a big part of Don’s tenure on the programme. Where some previous shepherds of Gardeners’ World – Percy Thrower, Geoff Hamilton – had a slightly authoritarian side, Don has tended to veer more poetic. Yes, there have been hard and fast instructional segments, but he has always managed to enthuse about the potential of a garden.
His stock in trade has always involved enthusing about what gardens represent – the slow changes, the gentle struggle, the nurturing of life – and this is apparent during his final outing. Maybe it is the time of year. Maybe it is because this is the last episode before winter. Whatever the reason, a sense of loss suffuses the show.
There is a segment on pruning back roses and a segment on packing and tying up tropical trees – both acts of preparation for colder times ahead. There is a film about a garden designer who finds solace in her garden after the death of her husband, as well as talk of letters from viewers whose gardens helped them through difficult times. The seasons shift. Things move on and, try as we might, we are unable to stop them.
Of course, for the most part, all this is presented as a perfectly normal episode of Gardeners’ World. Doing anything else would be crass, although we’re promised a fuller Longmeadow retrospective around Christmas. Until the final few minutes, the closest thing we have to a recognition of the end is Don’s segment on making a bulb lasagne – a pot of layered tulips that prolong display – which he says was the first thing he ever made on television, all the way back in 1989.
It is yet another sign of the deeply felt subtlety which has long been Don’s hallmark. Under his watch, Gardeners’ World – which, in its time, could be abjectly boring – has become blissful. There’s a stillness to it, a sense of peace so pronounced that you can feel your breath slow as it unfurls before you.
Don’s last segment is about how to care for windfall apples. They can’t be stored, he says, but they’re perfectly good to eat or to juice. Watching this, you have to thank heaven that Don doesn’t have the same cut-throat commercial instincts as some of his peers. Were he Jeremy Clarkson, for example, we wouldn’t be able to move for Longmeadow apple juice and theme park garden centres with his face all over them.
Instead, you always get the sense that he is gardening for the love of it. If the cameras weren’t there, he would still be potting and pruning, dog in tow, purely because he enjoys it so much.
If this episode should be seen as an audition for Don’s successor, the result is inconclusive. All of the show’s presenters are moulded in his image, with the same sense of understated wonder, to the extent that continuing with a figurehead may not be the best idea. Perhaps the only way to fill Don’s boots is to employ a team of presenters with equal billing. He’s a hard act to follow.
When it comes, Don’s goodbye is brief. “That’s it for today, and this series,” he announces, before adding: “For myself, Ned and Longmeadow, it’s the final goodbye.” In the years since he started, and especially since he started filming at Longmeadow, the garden has grown. Dogs have died. It was his privilege and pleasure to do it all with us in tow, he says. And then, with another word of thanks, and a more keenly stressed wish of good luck, he says goodbye. A fitting end to an extraordinary stint.
