After 23 years at the helm, Monty Don has announced that he is leaving Gardeners’ World at the end of the series. All said, you are right to be distraught about it.
Gardeners’ World is a show with a long history – it was commissioned by David Attenborough as a way to showcase the potential of colour television – but Don arguably did the show better than anyone. Under his watch, the show and the host managed to mesh perfectly. He became it and it became him.
Don’s strength was that he approached the show as a self-taught gardener. This meant that it suddenly became more welcoming to newcomers and outsiders who had possibly been a little intimidated by the show.
This was a masterstroke. Previously, watching an episode could be like trying to download a horticulture encyclopedia all in one go, but Don – who always primarily viewed himself as a writer – was able to talk about gardening in more emotional and philosophical terms. Under him, the “why” of gardening became more important than the “how”.
Nevertheless, it took a while for him to bed in. After a minor stroke took him out of action after five years in the job, he returned having made the decision to present from his own home, Longmeadow in Herefordshire. This changed everything. It meant that, instead of seeing gardening happen in the abstract, we watched it happen to him. Over the years, audiences saw Longmeadow develop season after season. Sometimes the garden flourished. Sometimes it failed. But whatever happened, it strengthened the bond between viewer and host immeasurably.
A lot of this is down to Don’s presence as a host. Much has been made about how handsome and charming he is – when I met him last year, during the recording of an AI Michael Parkinson podcast that bewildered us both, there was no denying that he was either – but as he grew older, it was Don’s vulnerability that appealed the most. He became more used to silence, and was unafraid to express his uncertainties. Under his watch, Gardeners’ World became a programme about patience and resilience. Little wonder it surged in popularity during the pandemic.
Needless to say, talk will soon turn to Don’s successor. This is a role that needs to be chosen carefully, because this is a job for as much of your life as you are willing to give it. Although some presenters have enjoyed shorter stints – the original host Ken Burras lasted one year, while Arthur Billett managed three in the 1970s – Gardeners’ World is a programme that is at its best when it is given the space to unfurl according to the sensibilities of the person in charge.
Nobody typifies this more than Don, who took a show that had subtly increased in pitch and frequency under Alan Titchmarsh and went about making it earthier and ever so slightly more romantic. Before Titchmarsh, of course, the show had been in the hands of Geoff Hamilton, who lasted almost as long as Don did.
Fortunately, Gardeners’ World isn’t Top Gear. The BBC will be keenly aware that the last thing it should do is hand the programme over to someone big and starry, who’ll get bored and drift away after a few months.
The better bet is to recruit from within. Adam Frost has already presented episodes by himself, and is now in the middle of creating a garden from a blank canvas on the show. Then there’s Frances Tophill, who could approach from a more explicitly conservation-based approach. There is also Jamie Butterworth, who last year got called “the Jamie Oliver of gardening” and “Monty Don’s protege” in the space of a single headline. All would be worthy replacements.
But that is all to come. For now, it is time to herald Don, and the hole he leaves. The good news is that in no way did Don’s announcement signal a full-blown retirement. “There are more books to write, more programmes to make,” he said.
This is heartening news. Outside Gardeners’ World, Don has made some fine gardening travelogues – taking him to Italy, Spain, Japan and the US, among others – which fits, since he got his TV break in the 1990s on holiday programmes. More of these would be most welcome, as would anything else he chooses to do, quite frankly. He remains the best to ever do it.
