Getting the Full Monty

Jan 26, 04:14 PM

In fact, when the 52-year-old went travelling last year in order to shoot his new television show Around The World In 80 Gardens, he got withdrawal symptoms.

"Not only did I suffer but since I started gardening again I'mactually having to slowly get back into it," he says.

"I lost the habit. It's like being a musician, you're rusty and you have to get acquainted again. We're going to have to get to know each other again - the garden and I."

Journeying across the globe for six months out of the last 18 examining "people's lives via their gardens" led him to establish a very strict routine.

"When I was away the first thing I'd do every morning would be to get out my laptop and look through pictures of my own garden and go for a walk round it, via digital technology," he reveals.

"I never went anywhere in the world where I wanted to be more than I wanted to be at home.

"The two things that really come through is one, wherever I went in the world, all the most interesting gardens, without exception, were linked somehow to the place they were set in, by their plants, or their culture, or their religion," he continues. "And the other thing is that most gardens can and should be an unembarrassed artistic expression. We should relish them as works of art. And I think they are - I think gardening is an art formand in this country we're rather obsessed with it as a science and as an aspect of horticulture."

"The obsession with 'gardening' is certainly something that's completely unique to us," he says. "No other culture I came to found it necessary to put on the wellies and go out and get their hands dirty in the way that we do. We talk about a 'proper gardener' but I never came across that concept anywhere else in the world. Gardens are viewed for aesthetic pleasure or productivity, not for one's personal role in it. It's very rare for someone who could afford to pay someone else to do their garden to do it themselves."

So when Monty got stuck in amongst the locals in Mexico, Cuba or South Africa, they found it very strange.

"They tended to be slightly embarrassed," he laughs. "'Who is this loony Englishman? Why is he wanting to dig and plant and weed?"' Still, getting involved was crucial to the host, who didn't want to be painted as some dilettante foreigner with a film crew. The result is a reflective and beautiful travelogue, focusing on parts of countries we don't usually see.

However, he stresses, "it's not a top 80, it's not a list. The thing was to get under different culture's skins through their gardens. No-one's ever done that." Not only that, he adds, "it was my choice and it was personal - not to say I didn't have very good researchers but it's my opinions. It was very much a personal trip."

Around The World In 80 Gardens, BBC2, Sunday, 9pm

(c) 2008 Daily Post; Liverpool. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Getting the Full Monty
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