Monty Don's British Gardens

Monty Don's British Gardens (2025) Seen on March 2026, 5 episodes (1 hr. each) Programme: Monty Don’s British Gardens Broadcaster: BBC Format: 5-part documentary series Year: 2025 Date watched: March 2026 Status: Completed Overall reaction This series turned out to be much more than a tour of beautiful gardens. For me, it became a way of clarifying what I actually value in gardens: collaboration, love of plants for their own sake, layered planting, eccentricity, personal expression, and the idea that a garden can be both designed and emotionally alive. Across the five episodes, I moved away from admiring formal design for its own sake and toward wanting a garden with formal structure but naturalistic, looser, more rewilded feeling. The series itself ran in five episodes from Scotland/Northumberland to the South West, with Monty visiting around 60 gardens across Britain.  Episode 1 — Scotland to Northumberland What stayed with me most in the first episode was the idea of gardens as a cooperative and collaborative enterprise. I felt this particularly in Scotland, and especially in relation to Edinburgh and the broader northern setting. The episode is publicly described as covering Scotland to Northumberland, which matches your sense of a northern, community-shaped gardening culture.  My takeaway from this opening was that a garden does not have to be a solitary private masterpiece. It can be made and sustained through shared effort, local culture, and collective care. That social dimension gave the series depth right from the start. Episode 2 — North of England and Northern Ireland In Episode 2, what really struck me was the idea of making gardens simply out of love for plants, not necessarily for spectacle, colour schemes, or status. I was especially taken by one of the later gardens near the Yorkshire moors area, where that love of plants seemed to be the central impulse. Public summaries place Episode 2 in the north of England and Northern Ireland, and broader coverage of the series notes Monty’s interest in plant-rich, climate-shaped northern gardens.  By the end of Episode 2, I had also noticed a visual planting trend that really appealed to me: herbs, grasses, and perennials woven together in a mesh. That planted texture looked soft, rich, and striking, and it felt like something I would genuinely like to try in my own garden. Episode 3 — Wales to Norfolk / the middle of Britain By Episode 3, I was really loving the series. The public garden list for this instalment includes places such as Bodnant, Plas yn Rhiw, Wollerton Old Hall, Biddulph Grange, St Ann’s Allotments, Lamport Hall, Beth Chatto’s Garden, Foggy Bottom, Forever Green Flower Company, and Houghton Hall.  What mattered most to me in this episode was my attraction to the older, quirkier gardens. I referred to one as the “Karen Yates” garden, but I could not verify that exact name in the public garden lists. The best-documented likely matches from the episode are Biddulph Grange, which is strongly associated with eccentric Victorian garden-making, or Wollerton Old Hall, which has that old, atmospheric, deeply composed character.  This episode also made me reflect on allotments. They are not the same as milpas in Mexico: an allotment is a small assigned or rented growing plot within a larger shared site, whereas a milpa is a traditional intercropping system and cultural farming practice. But they do share a spirit of practical cultivation, closeness to the land, and food-growing as lived culture. Public write-ups around the series specifically highlight gardens such as St Ann’s Allotments, which helps anchor that reflection.  Episode 4 — London and the South East Episode 4 felt especially personal because of London. I had lived there, so the places looked familiar and lovely. What stayed with me were George Harrison’s garden at Friar Park, the garden on a boat, the Battersea new development, and later Great Dixter. Coverage of the episode confirms that Friar Park appeared, and broader series descriptions place Episode 4 across London and the home counties / South East.  This was the episode where I became much clearer about rewilding. It helped me realize that a purely formal garden now feels somewhat boring to me. What I want instead is to keep some formal structure, but create a more naturalistic path and a space with a looser, wilder feeling. That became a turning point in my own garden thinking.  Great Dixter was important in that reflection. My impression was that the gardener there was not really “doing rewilding” as a doctrine, but rather gardening out of love of plants. That is close to how the programme and surrounding commentary frame Fergus Garrett and Great Dixter: not as simple ideological rewilding, but as plantmanship, creativity, and letting nature have a place without abandoning intention.  Episode 5 — The South West The fifth episode was brilliant. The verified garden list includes Rousham, Worcester College Gardens, Bowood House, West Lavington Manor, The Newt, Plaz Metaxu, Wildside, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Saint Just Graveyard, Trebah, and Dyffryn Fernant.  The place you called the “elliptical garden” is best identified as the Parabola Garden at The Newt in Somerset. Episode 5 write-ups state that The Newt is one of Monty’s featured South West gardens and that its central formal garden space is the Parabola Garden.  You also responded very strongly to Heligan and Trebah. Heligan is presented in the episode as a Cornwall garden restored from neglect over the last few decades, with the jungle garden and kitchen garden central to its appeal. Trebah is described as a valley garden running down to the sea, famous for its extraordinary range of plants made possible by the local climate. Both clearly resonated with your own memories.  What makes this episode especially meaningful in your review is that it brought back not only admiration, but biography. Trebah reminded you that at one time you felt you could create something similarly expressive on your own land in Mexico. Even if that never happened, revisiting it visually helped you remember where you come from. That is a powerful kind of garden response: not aspiration only, but recognition. Main themes I took from the whole series Across the five episodes, I realized that what I respond to most in gardens is not polish or status, but character. I like gardens as collaboration, as devotion to plants, as layered and textural planting, as eccentricity, as memory, and as a form of self-expression. The series also clarified that my own taste is moving toward formal bones + naturalistic planting + a rewilded or wildish atmosphere. I also came away feeling that I share something deeply with the British garden tradition. Even though I was not born there, I feel connected to that world through the idea of gardens as expressive spaces — places of individuality, atmosphere, and paradise-making. My reflection is that in Mexico there is often a stronger tradition of valuing plants individually or valuing nature as something outside the domestic self, rather than shaping a personal garden as a deliberately composed experiential world. That contrast matters to me. Gardens from the series I would especially like to remember or visit From what you’ve logged, the standout places now are Chartwell as a remembered reference point, the old quirky garden from Episode 3 that may well be Biddulph Grange or Wollerton Old Hall, Friar Park, Great Dixter, The Newt, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, and Trebah. For Episode 5 specifically, the publicly documented itinerary anchors The Newt, Heligan, Trebah, Wildside, Plaz Metaxu, and Dyffryn Fernant as part of the final emotional and aesthetic crescendo of the series.  Final verdict This was not just an enjoyable gardening series. It genuinely changed how I think about my own garden. I began by admiring gardens; I ended by understanding more clearly the kind of garden I want to make. The series gave me a renewed desire to garden, a sharper design instinct, and a sense that a garden can be both structured and emotionally free. Personal rating: 9.5/10