Monty Don opens up about his love for gardening
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Monty Don, who is best known as the lead presenter on BBC’s Gardener’s World, wows viewers with his carefully crafted garden designs. The presenter’s Herefordshire garden is well-documented on the expert’s social media feeds.
The 65-year-old has spoken candidly about his family heartache after his mother never watched him on television, or saw one of his many gardens or even visited any of his homes.
The BBC star and his wife Sarah have been working on their beloved garden for over thirty years after purchasing their home in 1991 when it was not much but soil and rubble.
In the couple’s joint novel, The Jewel Garden, Monty revealed his mum “hated travelling” and never visited him.
He described his mother as “intensely driven” but added that she was also a very “anxious” woman who suffered a heart attack and died in her sixties.
It was around the time Monty had set up a jewellery company with his other half which admittedly he said his mother “never wore” any of their designs.
“I suspect that she was both proud and bewildered by my involvement with jewellery, although she never wore any of it,” Monty remarked.
“She hated travelling and never visited me in any of my homes.”
He added: “This meant that she never saw a garden I made, never read a word I published, and never saw me on television.”
The Gardeners’ World host explained that his mother had shied away from showing her children affection and had been particularly “hard on herself” but he never doubted that she loved them all.
Monty remarked: “She was not good at showing affection.
“But there was love, albeit understood rather than displayed, and if she was hard on her five children, she was even harder on herself.”
Born in Germany in 1955, Monty was raised in England and studied at Magadalene College in Cambridge where he met his wife.
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The couple opened their own successful costume jewellery business, aptly named after the horticulturalist, and was sold in 30 countries, with 60 outlets in America alone with customers including Princess Diana, Boy George and King of Pop Michael Jackson who all wore their ionic designs, which are also on display at the V&A Museum in London.
The business was given approval by Vogue, while Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Liberty who all stocked their creations.
Monty made his first presenting debut on This Morning in 1989 and continued to enjoy a successful career in television.
In 2003, the gardening expert replaced Alan Titchmarsh as the lead presenter of Gardeners’ World, only leaving the show between 2008 and 2011 due to illness.
Monty took some time off to recuperate after he suffered a stroke in 2008.
The presenter, who was 52 at the time, explained: “I am proud to have led Gardeners’ World for the past five years and have enjoyed every minute of sharing my passion with the programme’s viewers.
“I intend to take some gardening leave for the rest of the summer to make a full recovery and so that I am ready to tackle new projects.”
Monty has since returned to the popular BBC programme where he regularly gives viewers an insight into his home life.
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