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rouge21_gw

Watching "Gardeners World" for the first time

This year we started our subscription to Britbox.


And its just in the past several weeks, passing time before the snow melts, that I have been watching Monty in GW.


There is nothing like it that I have seen in Canada. I am enjoying it as I wait impatiently for spring bulbs to arise.


(There aren't many episodes and I think it may be the case that past seasons of the show have been removed from Britbox? So maybe I am late to the party :( ).


So UKers here on this forum...do you continue to watch the show (I assume it is still being made)?


Do others here (Canadian and Americans) watch it regularly?

Comments (29)

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    last year

    I like it, too. Love the dogs and Monty is just so relaxing to watch. Just a charming little show. I agree with GG, the visits to private gardens are wonderful.


    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
  • callirhoe123
    last year

    Many of the GW episodes can be found on YouTube. Also, Monty's program Real Gardens is available there as well.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked callirhoe123
  • Sandy Anderson
    last year

    Many many episodes available free at hdclump.com plus other gardening shows

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked Sandy Anderson
  • sah67 (zone 5b - NY)
    last year

    The new season starts this Friday (3/10).

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked sah67 (zone 5b - NY)
  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    Original Author
    last year
    last modified: last year

    Many of the GW episodes can be found on YouTube

    Right. I think I knew that.

    But for me, for now, I still kind of like watching TV shows on the TV.


    Monty's program Real Gardens


    Thanks for that @callirhoe123.

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    Original Author
    last year

    but if you have access to Amazon Prime streaming you can pull up a few older seasons


    Interesting as we do have AP. I just assumed for streaming it was only available on Britbox


  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    last year

    You can have Britbox included in your Prime offerings. I have a number of channels/networks included with mine and it is ALL streaming.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
  • peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
    last year

    I will definitely check it out on AP! Thank you for that GG. I already have 4 streaming services so not likely to add Britbox as much as I would like to.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
  • floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
    last year

    I used to watch it with my Dad in the 70s (Remember Percy Thrower Rosaprimula?) then for many years I had no TV and didn't see it. Now I do have access to TV programmes via the internet but don't watch it. I saw a couple of episodes in the 90s and I really can't abide Monty Don. I'm not really that interested in TV gardening shows as they seldom have anything new to say. I just had a quick look at the latest programme and, yes, MD, is as irritating as ever.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    Original Author
    last year
    last modified: last year

    You can have Britbox included in your Prime offerings.

    We have Britbox separately from AP (as it was cheaper that way)

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    Original Author
    last year

    I'm not really that interested in TV gardening shows as they seldom have anything new to say


    And I think many of us feel similarly but I do like seeing the segments on GW where individual "amateur"/home gardeners proudly show their own garden, narrating in their own words...love that stuff.



  • cooper8828
    last year

    You might like his older series Small Spaces Big Dreams (or something like that). I really enjoyed it.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked cooper8828
  • charles kidder
    last year

    @rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) You can watch YouTube on a regular TV. I do it all the time. I would guess every TV made in the last 5 years has the app built in. Might even have a button on the remote for it. I have a TV that cost $179 that I can watch YouTube on. In UHD.


    YouTube has hundreds of videos on every gardening topic. Way better than watching TV shows IMO.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked charles kidder
  • rosaprimula
    last year
    last modified: last year

    No, I don't watch TV gardening (and don't have one, but do sometimes watch via the internet).. I cannot bear MD for even a nano-second. I do recall Percy, and Geoff Hamilton. GW used to be ritualistically watched before setting off for a night on the tiles.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked rosaprimula
  • lowville5 zone5b/6 ON, Canada
    last year

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z6a), I've watched the 12 episodes of Great British Gardens with Carol Klein on YouTube this winter. Thoroughly enjoyed them. Especially that of John’s Garden at Ashwood Nurseries:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOZ4s9q_8Oc


    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked lowville5 zone5b/6 ON, Canada
  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    last year

    Now I find Carol Klein to be an extremely irritating presenter!! I much prefer Monty :-)

  • Jay 6a Chicago
    last year
    last modified: last year

    Just curious. Last night I watched Monty Don demonstrating how to make compost, and he doesn't annoy me. Boring perhaps. Why don't you brits like him? Is he a charleton not worthy of all the fame? Lol. I'd rather watch someone more exciting like Henck Rolling doing the orchids at Kew.

  • SeniorBalloon
    last year

    I am with @Jay 6a Chicago , in that he doesn't bother me, I found him kind of soothing, though the info was a bit boring. I would be interested in the segments on public and private gardens and will watch some more, but I may be zipping through some segments.


    I am also curious why the the two brits here can't stand him. Dish the dirt doll(s) . :o)

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked SeniorBalloon
  • arlene_82 (zone 6 OH)
    last year

    Yes! Count me in the Monty lovers camp.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked arlene_82 (zone 6 OH)
  • floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
    last year

    Okay. I’ll bite. There’s much about him which speaks of the British class system at work which perhaps US viewers don’t pick up on. I get the overriding impression of another posh rich boy with little talent beyond the charm bred by that class, who has fallen on his feet. His whole persona as a horny handed son of the soil straight out of a Hardy novel is fake. His distressed, but clearly very expensive, ‘gardening’ clothes, his prop dogs, his ‘boyish’ curls and slight cute little speech impediment, his soft, cloying voice, his Tudor country house, his fantasy life in his fantasy garden, his ‘somehow’ getting into Cambridge despite not successfully finishing school, all make me not want to watch him. Give me the down to earth Carol Klein any day. She didn’t have rich parents. She worked all sorts of jobs after leaving school at 16, started and ran her own nursery for many years and has won many Gold Medals at Chelsea. She has a true depth of knowledge derived from real hard experience and it shows.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    last year

    I really could care less about the presenters' backgrounds, wealth, class, where they went to school (or not) or what they wear. What I do care about is their on-screen persona. I find Carol Klein's demeanor to be incredibly grating and irritating. She is far too giggly and emphatic. In fact, she is my least favorite of any of the usual Gardener's World presenters.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
  • Jay 6a Chicago
    last year

    Thank you for your eloquent explanation floral. I haven't checked out Carol Klein yet. I read up on Percy Thrower and he seems to have had many years of gardening experience. I can't find any old clips of him unfortunately. I was going to watch all the Gardener's World reruns, but I lost interest after about 2 episodes. I used to watch The Victory Garden back in the 80s and 90s, when it was good. It had Roger Swain doing garden veggies, Jim Wilson covering native gardens and Mary Ann the cook, who made dishes highlighting the week's featured vegetables. There was also a British guy who covered formal gardens. Gardener's Diary was also a great show. I miss those shows.

  • Maryl (Okla. Zone 7a)
    last year

    I'm a Monty Don fan myself. The others, particularly Adam Frost can be interesting, but as an American I like the laid back manner Monty Don has. I don't think his dogs are prop dogs at all. Their reaction to him and the tone of his voice when he speaks to them seems to me to be heartfelt and genuine. However, I heard that he is leaving Gardener's World for another series of his own which unfortunately won't be on Brittbox but rather Acorn (another Brit subscription service) which I don't have. I will miss him...........Maryl

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked Maryl (Okla. Zone 7a)
  • rosaprimula
    last year
    last modified: last year

    Thanks Floral. I am totally, unreconstructed working class myself but actually, it isn't even the class business - MD is a charlatan, a shopper, a blagger and a liar. He has never been invited to judge or participate in RHS trials because he has negligible gardening knowledge...unlike Carole Klein or, my favourite, Chris Beardshaw. The female equivalent was the equally irritating and dense Rachel de Thame. All Don does is present (which is, arguably, his job) but it is based on ridiculous lifestyle aspirational BS. He doesn't even do his own garden, FFS. A fake, smug, irritating and pompous. I particularly loathe the fact that our licence fees enrich MD with the barrowfuls of new plants he 'plants' (in soil which is suspiciously friable and ready dug) with what appears to be an endless amount of new tools and equipment.


    There are other things which reveal a very nasty side to MD but I am not keen to mess with some harmless US fantasy that MD is representative of British gardening in any shape or form. The kindest thing I can say is that he is a media construct, through and through, with all the superficial vacuity this entails.

    Apols for coming across as quite angry but when one of your defining joys (horticulture) is co-opted by opportunistic idiots, it tends to make me quite cross.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked rosaprimula
  • callirhoe123
    last year

    "I am not keen to mess with some harmless US fantasy that MD is representative of British gardening in any shape or form" .


    I like MD. I appreciate the information he shares and the real gardens he visits. As for having a fantasy about him representing British gardening, pshaw. That thought has never crossed my mind, nor the minds of most his viewers, I'll bet. It's just another gardening show to me, pleasant and informative.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked callirhoe123
  • violetsnapdragon
    last year

    I watch John Lord's Secret Garden on youtube. I love him! Part of it is his humor and charm and part of it is because we seem like-minded on gardening. For example: the time he talked about having done the white/moon garden thing and he had to add things because there "wasn't enough color."

  • rosaprimula
    last year

    Ah, I generally make a distinction between the people who do the actual research, writing and effort and the ones who photogenically deliver a script.. Might be why I tend to avoid TV...or at the very least, fail to go along with the surface sheen of celebrity. A few years ago, a similarly privileged posh boy, Joe Swift, did a series about allotments. He even leased one (although, as it later transpired, only went to film for the cameras). The following year, he 'writes' a book, (puts his name/brand to someone else's work) as though he was an expert. I find this puzzling and even a bit offensive,


    Grumpy old woman shouts at clouds.

  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    last year

    For those of us that are fans of the show and do not consider Monty Don to be a "privileged posh boy with little talent", the new season of Gardener's World starts streaming on Britbox this Friday, 3/17.

    rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a) thanked gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)