Monty Don welcomes us to Monty Don's British Gardens Episode 4 London and the South East
Monty starts by telling us he has been to gardens all over the world and been a gardener and made gardens his whole life. Gardening is his life just like he needs air to breath.
Now its the turn of Great Britain for Monty to explore and to explore why gardening and gardens are so popular here.
From large gardens where you can do anything you want to them or small gardens where you can imagine and create in too.
We all love a garden and they can be made just about anywhere.
Is this to do with being British, where we live or just that as a nation, we love gardens and gardening.
Monty has spent a year travelling and filming as many gardens as he could, new gardens for him, gardens with climate problems and of course the British eccentric gardens!
His quest was to find out what really is a British Garden or does it not exist?
Presenter
Special Guests
Olivia Harrison
Rosamund Wallinger
Diana Everett
Sarah Raven
David Austin
Kit Davies
Fabrice Boltho
Doris Owuasoanya
Abbie Hanson
Andy Sturgeon
Tamsin Saunders
Andre Tranquilini
Isabella Tree
Dylan Walker
Charlotte Molesworth
Fergus Garrett
Gardens visited
Garden Barge Dove Pier
Garden Shed Richmond
This week Monty visiting the most populated parts, taking in London and the surrounding counties and there is a lot of gardens crammed in to this episode, too many I think, not so much a visit but a tiny peek at some of them!
Monty first garden was bought by a world famous band member and we are at Friar Park Henley-on-Thames at the private home of the late George Harrison since 1970.
The 30 acre estate of the Neo-Gothic Mansion is still the home of Olivia Harrison his widow and it was cleared and restored by George and he revealed its long and strange history.
It was built in the late 19th Century by Sir Frank Crisp who was a Lawyer and loved gardening and he spent a lot of money building a fantasy of Grottos, Lakes, Mazes and underground tunnels all maintained by 45 Gardeners.
The most strange part of the garden, is the Rockery but this one comes complete with a smaller version of the Matterhorn on the top!
This took 23,000 tonnes of Yorkshire stone brought by train to Henley Railway Station then to the garden by horse and cart before placing each stone individually so it became a Victorian dream of being the biggest Rockery in Britain.
Sir Frank Crisp passed away in 1919 and the gardens fell into neglect and by 1970 it was a jungle.
Monty meets with Olivia Harrison in the garden and she tells him George was horrified at the state of the garden and he got 2 goats Phil and Ronnie to try and start the clearance.
The goats kept falling off the Rockery so they didn't last long but the Brambles were a thick blanket so it was a machete and flame thrower that did it.
George was 27 years old but after years of fame and intense pressure this was his escape and sanctuary.
Olivia said its like being in another world away from the real on and George was a nature lover and the garden was his adventure.
He grew up helping his Dad on his allotment as well as getting inspiration from the parks in his home town of Liverpool.
His Dad told Olivia that George always wanted his own park as they all shut at 5 pm.
George was the passion behind the garden clearance and now has left his legacy in the garden especially in the restoration of the Rockery.
Olivia now continues the restoration work and she showed Monty an area behind the Matterhorn that was once impenetrable and there an Acer George planted and Olivia has continued the new planting.
Monty says this really is a life times work and just this one area is massive and Monty spots the back of the Matterhorn and Olivia tells him it contains a real piece of the Matterhorn.
Monty carries on his tour spotting the Topiary Garden and this too was once abandoned all 160 pieces had to be cut off to regrow and be shaped again.
Monty describes it as 'a kind of fancy dress party' and for him this topiary Garden 'works'.
What makes the garden special is that its fun, a surreal garden and you can tell the Harrisons have enjoyed making the garden personal just for them.
George even wrote a song about he garden The Ballad of Sir Frank Crisp.
Most of us dream to have a garden like this and to have the privacy and to be able to do what we like to it.
Heading South to a small village called Upton to visit Upton Grey Manor in the village where Monty grew up and the owner of the house was unaware of the gardens past until after she had purchased it.
The garden is 4 and a half acres, and in 1908 it was owned by Charles Holme and he used the famous Garden Designer Gertrude Jekyll to design his garden.
The garden still has lots of her hallmark design features including a geometric structure and herbaceous borders all filled with carefully selected plants to fit the colour scheme.
There is also the lawn tennis court beautifully surrounded by hedges.
Monty used to come to the garden as a child and has had huge changes since then and before Rosamund Wallinger bought the Manor in 1984 it was unkempt.
What was underneath the overgrown garden was a huge surprise after looking into its history, even though Rosamund was not a gardener she decided to restore it using the original designs.
There are 19 sheets of designs all massive in size, even though this is a small garden for Gertrude Jekyll to have designed.
The garden is now a testimony to what it would have been 100 years ago and there was only a few plants she could not get to have in the garden.
Monty asked what of herself has she put into the garden and Rosamund replies nothing as she does not want to and wants to keep to the original design.
The main legacy Gertrude Jekyll has left us is the Herbaceous Border and is still a main feature in the typical British gardens today.
Rosamund says this is what people come to see.
Monty says it interesting that Rosamund sees it as Gertrude Jekyll garden and did not want to personalise it and she is nurturing the original design.
Monty loves returning to the village he grew up in and seeing the changes in the last 40 years.
Monty was stopped by an old man, not because he had seen him on TV but because he was a 'Don' and remembered him as a boy, and Monty found that very special.
Garden Barge Dove Pier
Monty is in London, and growing up in Hampshire this was in easy reach but as a child he remembers it as there was too many people and houses and not enough gardens.
Monty lived in London during the 1980's and he had a garden and this kept him sane and to have a garden in London you need to adapt.
The garden is growing on the Thames, on a Barge near Hammersmith bridge and was created by Diana Everett.
Monty meets Diana by her Barge and invites Monty on board and the garden is long and narrow, crammed with plants and on a separate Barge to their living one.
There are small trees, large shrubs and climbers and they have used raised beds for the planting.
Diana has been there 30 years and used to be a garden designers and her husband said he would get her a garden and found an empty cargo boat and gave her that!
When your in the garden is does not feel like the middle of London and the light in the garden is making the Roses sparkle.
Diana offers Monty a cheeky Whisky and Monty finds the garden to be a wonderful refuge from the City life around it.
Monty in Chelsea for the Flower Show which is the biggest event for British Horticulture and its not only for the exhibitors, with the show gardens and the Nursery stands wanting a gold Medal.
The visitors are also on display and you get a whole variety of them are enjoying the parade, the sunshine and or course the plants.
We are unique in having such a main event made of a Flower Show with it featuring too on prime time TV every night and it also attracts Celebrities too on Press day.
The main attraction is the Show Gardens, and lots of work goes into creating them, costing up to 1 million pounds and taking up to 1 year to design and build.
Tens of thousands of visitors attend and the demand for tickets is very high.
It not just about gardens every aspect of gardening is here and Monty meets with Sarah Raven, who very well known for her range of gardening products.
She has attended the show for over 20 years and Monty asks the question about what defines a British garden and gardener?
Sarah explains its not someone who has the perfect lawn with a gardener, its people out there in all seasons, in the soil growing things for themselves.
Next he speaks to David Austin who is well known for his Roses and he says its all about the plants that can be enhanced by good design, and Chelsea great for seeing all the designs, but for him its the plants.
Back to Sarah Raven and she says there lots of unusual plants and unusual places to grow them at Chelsea it is a real celebration of gardening and it a British thing that we love growing things.
With a lack of gardens in London places like St James Park are an important green space and in fact there are 3,000 parks across London.
This park located near Buckingham Palace is very popular and the parks have evolved through this royal connection.
The park was originally just marsh land and it was Henry VIII that enclosed the park and in the 17th Century the Pelicans arrived and then the canal was reshaped in 19th century.
Layers of Royal history and use of the park have changed it into the place it is today.
It became a public park in the 17th Century whilst Charles II was King and it is now a modern park with parts of the park that are very natural and other parts run like a traditional park with lots of planting displays.
Monty now visiting a very different green space in London, Arundel and Elgin Gardens which cannot be classed as a private garden but a shared Community garden if you are a keyholder!
Monty luckily has been lent a key and accesses the garden which is one of 16 private communal gardens in the Ladbrooke Estate that were made in the mid 19th Century.
We are unique in having such gardens in the middle of residential squares and this one has over 250 key holders living around the 2 acre gardens.
Not everyone needs a key as there are some with direct access from there houses but most of these are now divided into flats.
The Residents manage the garden themselves and Monty meets with Kit Davies who tells Monty they are a very mixed community.
Kit has been a resident since 1991 and back then there would be no children playing as it was an ornamental garden and now its more lively and has changed but it also still connecting the neighbours and building relationships.
Monty noticed all the dogs and Kit said there are 23 resident dogs and they bring a lot of dog owning residents together.
Monty finds this type of gardening interesting, its popular because its so nice but its also a safe place.
Parks are great for socialising, meeting up with people, to exercise in and enjoy the surroundings and Myatt's Field in Camberwell, South London gives people the chance to be more hands on.
There is a project in one of the parks greenhouses that Monty has come to see and he speaks to Fabrice Boltho to see what it is they are producing.
They produce seedlings for local vegetable growers for people to grow on and the first crop is ready in April right through until October.
They have produced up to 80,000 plants but a usual year is up to 40,000 plants.
Fabrice is the only employed person on the project and that is just part time the rest of the workforce is made up of volunteers.
Monty speaks with volunteer Doris Owuasoanya who specialises in growing Chillies and she started growing them following a Social Media Challenge to eat Carolina Reaper Chillies.
Abbie Hanson another of the volunteers uses it as opportunity to grow Luffas which is a sub tropical plant to see if they would grow.
Luffa were grown on the Island her Grandfather came from Okinawa so this is why she wanted to try to grow them here in the greenhouse.
Chinese visitors have seen she is growing 'Sin gua' which is Cantonese for them and also people from both Indian and Chinese background like to use or cook them.
Monty likes how Abbie and Doris have their own interests but are still part of the Communal Project.
The project grow limited types of vegetables that they know will grow well for the community meaning the community will get good results which encourages them too.
Monty still on the South side of the Thames opposite Chelsea Flower Show site to see a very different garden at Battersea Power Station.
This has undergone a very modern revamp and has to include green spaces and the it has created three roof gardens just for residents.
The one Monty is visiting is 2 acres big and 50 metres above ground has the largest rooftop woodland in London.
It was designed by Landscape Designer Andy Sturgeon who meets Monty in the garden to show him around.
Monty says how green it is and Andy explains how harsh roof tops in London are so he flooded the garden with green to make you think you are somewhere else.
Trees are a major part of the garden and Andy explains that woodlands makes him feel of his childhood, countryside and in particular Birch trees.
Monty says he heard load about how important it is to grow things but also important is just to be able to see a green space.
Andy says there are loads of reports stating how good a green space is for their health and wellbeing, even just seeing a tree, although its even better if its your own green space.
Monty says the gardens at Battersea are not there to be gardened or to engage with but as an amenity for the very expensive flats
Garden Shed Richmond
The last garden in London is in Richmond and its the private garden of Interior Designer Tamsin Saunders but he not here for the garden, just the beautiful shed!
The shed is hidden amongst the shrubbery and Monty tells her he an expert on sheds as he has a lot of them and he asks her when did she decide to get a shed!
Tamsin say her father used to tell us about a treehouse he always planned to build for them and so the shed became her longed for treehouse.
She loves having a separate space to design as part of the garden and she uses it to draw and paint in as well as reading and writing.
Her eldest daughter did the painting inside and this has made it very special.
Most garden sheds that are men's domain are more functional but this one is so aesthetically pleasing and Monty really likes it.
Monty has seen as he travelled Great Britain are our garden spaces are where we can express ourselves and garden sheds are a key part in any garden.
Monty has left London to visit a historic garden that is managed in a very modern way and its Waltham Place near Maidenhead and there been a Manor House here for 1,000 years.
He here to see the most recent changes made to the garden in the last 100 years by the Oppenheimer Family who came her in the start of the 20th Century.
In the 1920's they commissioned an Arts and Crafts garden, featuring structured beds filled with British plants that was very popular during the 20th Century and its now a good example of the changes done in the last 25 years.
It was taken over in 1984 by Nicky and Strilli Oppenheimer and Monty had met them before in South Africa and Strilli is very enthusiastic about gardening and a devotee of natural gardening.
Monty walks down the long border by the house and can see the naturalistic approach in the garden that was designed by Dutch Garden Designer Henk Gerritsen.
Bindweed is enclosing the Yew Hedges and there also Ground Elder which is not seen as a problem here and this is all in a mix of more conventional plants.
This combination of letting things grow is a modern approach to gardening that a lot of conventional gardeners would not like!
The garden is 10 acres and there also another 9 sections of garden that have been restored in the last 25 years and there is several walled gardens and the planting is very skilful to combine both natural and conventional planting.
The borders are very large and in a conventional garden have lots of different plants that would be maintained but here they are allowed to grow how they want and this works due to the size of the borders.
The planting is held in by well maintained clipped hedges and Topiary.
There are currently just 3 gardeners and the Estate Manager is acting as the Head Gardener and Monty met with Andre Tranquilini.
He explains how they let plants live through there whole life cycle right from seed and they are then left as a food source or habitat through the Winter months.
All the insects and animals help with the gardening like spreading the seeds to different places and they only interfere if something becoming too much.
Monty says there several ways of letting nature take over and rewilding is a very popular topic at the moment.
Andre says part of it is rewilding but there is amore naturalistic approach to gardening as they still want that human interaction with the garden and nature.
Monty says what he find striking about the garden is that it taken a fresh pair of eyes to make a big change to the garden and a combination of the Dutch designer and the owners wife South African background.
This means they don't look at it to be a traditional British garden.
Monty on his way to visit a garden at the Knepp Estate that can show us all how to re-wild our gardens.
In 2001 owners Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree decided to move away from farming the arable land for financial reasons and turned it over to grass and Livestock.
This was the start of them re-wilding and this brought more biodiversity as well as the public becoming aware of their new ways of maintaining the land making it profitable again.
They started Tourist Safaris using the farm workers and now it has moved from the estate into the gardens of the Castle too.
Monty is visiting the walled Garden and it is unlike any he has seen before, until 2021 the walled garden it just had a swimming pool and croquet lawn.
The pool still there but the rest has undergone a radical change, they brought in garden designers, changed the layout and impoverished the clay soil.
They then planted over 900 drought tolerant species to make a huge Mediterranean Garden and this area is maintained by the garden team.
Monty find the garden lovely and makes you feel like your in the Mediterranean but he not sure how this fits in with the rest of the Estate's re-wilding.
Monty spoke with Isabella Tree to ask her about the garden and she explained people tell her they have re-wilded their garden and just let it overgrow, with trees causing shade and don't go in there.
That is not their thinking on re-wilding, its about a self sufficient ecosystem on a larger scale but on a garden scale you need to intervene and weed out invasive weeds and mimic natural disturbances.
Here they have added loads of hardcore onto the croquet lawn to raise the different levels and make different habitats, the garden for biodiversity.
Isabella says front gardens if they are not all taken up for driveway are heavily maintained, mown, sprayed and leaf blown in the majority of gardens and left with no habitats for insects.
Monty wonders if such a man made garden can be classed as natural and wild but he does find it very interesting and after speaking with Isabella that this is an experiment to see how this beautiful garden turn out.
Monty stops on his travels to visit a project in Lewes that is using dogs to spread seeds and being a dog lover himself he was intrigued.
This seems like a good way of connecting people to nature and how to grow things naturally.
Monty joined the volunteers with their dogs at The Lewes Railway Nature Reserve and met with Project leader Dylan Walker.
They use a mix of wild flower and grass seed and today its a woodland glade / edge mix with species that need some sunshine but are happy in the shade.
He mixes this with some sand and then and the pours it into special packs the dogs wear that have holes in the bottom to distribute the seeds mix.
The dogs then go where ever they want and this distributes it over a wide ranging area.
The dog he was filling decided to have a shake and distributed the seeds on the spot mostly over Dylan and its owner!
The demise of the wild flowers in the woods was mostly caused by dog walkers so the fact they are now trying to put this back using this project.
Monty says the project engages people with the actual re-wilding, by being part of the sowing of the seeds and to regenerate the compacted soli.
More people are re-wilding in their own gardens and connecting this with the more formal parts and the more people do this the better it will be for the environment.
The next garden is created around an ancient horticultural craft at Balmoral Cottage at Benenden in Kent.
The Topiary have all been grown and done by the owner Charlotte Molesworth who has created the whole 1 acre garden with her Husband Donald.
They have lived here since 1982 and originally was the vegetable garden for the big house next door but when they moved in it was bare in places and others overgrown.
Charlotte has been working on the Topiary for over 40 years and there so many different designs in both Yew and Box.
Monty asks Charlotte if she had always planned a Topiary garden and she said she had box and Yew cuttings on their wedding list.
The Yews are from her Wedding cuttings and depending on how they grew and the type of trunk decided how they were going to be shaped,
She sees her shears as an extension of her hands and see Topiary as a big part of a traditional British Garden as well as looking good all year round.
Monty loves the garden and the Topiary is just so good and a fantastic example of it and Charlotte had real confidence in herself to just start creating it.
Monty last visit in this part and its to Great Dixter in East Sussex which is a great garden to visit if you want ideas and to get tips and ideas or just for a great day out.
It is not only one of Great Britain's great gardens but also one of the world's great gardens.
The first thing you see if the stunning meadow full of wild flowers which is no easy feat but a very high level of horticulture.
There are lots of different gardens around the 15th Century house and it was the family home of the late Garden Writer Christopher Lloyd.
Known as Christo he was always experimenting in different horticultural trends and practices especially in the plant combinations he used in the gardens.
He was an outstanding plantsman and the structure of the garden had originally been designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1910 for his parents.
The mixture of this and his planting makes for a glorious garden according to Monty.
Monty in the famous long Border and says it does not look that exceptional now but back in the 1960s and 1970s it was inspirational for his use of annuals, bulbs, small trees and shrubs in the border.
The planting reflects our climate in Great Britain and the wide variety of plants that are suitable to grow because of it.
Every part of the garden is crammed with plants and there are lots of surprises with unusual plants or some odd combinations.
This is the only garden Monty knows that uses plants they way it does here.
Monty meets with Head Gardener Fergus Garett and he had worked with Christopher Lloyd for the last 14 years of his life.
Fergus says the garden still evolving even though its so Iconic as Christopher was always changing things and trying new things as he wasn't sentimental about plants or people!
So he tends the garden as if it was his own and they don't feel the pressure to re-wild or let nature take over, people have said its a re-wilded garden.
They just use plants they like or go with the plan and none have been bought in to benefit the pollinators or insects and still they come into the garden.
Monty asks him to define a Great British garden and Fergus says a garden centred around plants and combinations, creativity, letting nature have some of the garden, its plantmanship and love of plants.
Fergus not only maintains the garden but also teaches the next generation.
Monty says everyone answers his question in roughly the same way that people want to grow plants they love in their own patch.
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