Monty Don Bids Quiet Farewell to Gardeners’ World After Two Decades
Monty Don ended two decades as presenter of Gardeners' World with episode 32, skipping the clip montage for a few words, a dog and a walk up the garden path. A look at how he said goodbye, and the plants he left behind.
Monty Don left Gardeners' World after two decades as presenter with a farewell that skipped the clip montage and the speeches, and only all knew farewell could be done this quietly. He closed episode 32 of the series with four words and a walk.
The episode was filmed at Longmeadow on what the report described as a beautiful autumn day, "more like September than November". The camera settled on a striking purple-and-white dahlia. Don then came down the garden path carrying a tray of plants, his golden retriever Ned at his side.
A last lesson in winter preparation
Don told viewers that the day may be autumn at its very best, "but it can flatter to deceive". He added: "We know that winter is coming; we know that the cold, the rain and maybe even the snow will come, so it is worth making preparations for winter."
The tray held young Aquilegia alpina, hardy plants with blue flowers. They were a gift to spring, planted by a presenter who would not be there to see them bloom on screen.
He also planted a bulb lasagne. Don called it "the very first thing I ever did on television, back in 1989".
No montage, just a goodbye
Viewers had expected something grander. Don instead sat down with Ned beside him and named his departed dogs: Nigel, Nellie and Patti.
Then he said, "For the last time, bye-bye". He stood and walked back up the garden path, Ned at his side.
One appraisal of the broadcast called it leaving done well: inexorable, without nostalgia, and with the quiet reassurance that he has taught his audience to manage without him. It compared the exit to Mary Poppins being blown away, umbrella aloft.
A career of endings and beginnings
Don read English at Cambridge, and the same appraisal likened his on-screen phrasing to the cadences of writers such as Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne. His career has had its low points. In his 2004 memoir The Jewel Garden, written jointly with his wife Sarah, he recorded "a broken heart, a broken spirit, a broken business".
The same book offers a line that suits the moment. "The most exciting time of all," Don wrote, "is the shining here and now".
Speculation continues over who will inherit the Gardeners' World job. No successor has been named in the coverage of his final episode.
