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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

You can have Britbox included in your Prime offerings.

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

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.

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

@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.

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 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

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

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.

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)

Yes! Count me in the Monty lovers camp.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

"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.

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."

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.

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.

I saw this article earlier this week:

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1939897/bbc-gardeners-world-cost-slammed

For those not wanting to shell out $$s for it, you can watch it here: R.A. Javier - YouTube

And yes, one can run you tube on TV, just amazon prime or netflix.

Interesting discussion on the presenters, I feel blessed to be oblivious of the back story. I like the program as such, and all presenters seem fine to me. I guess I will not find MD as charming after all this enlightening discussion. I find the easy going pace of the show calming. And considering I have a micro balcony garden, most of the watching has nothing to do with trying to learn anything much. Yet, I saw candelabra primulas in a couple of the shows and just got some seeds to try my hand at growing them.

Your balcony is a marvel, getgoing. I am constantly amazed at the variety and lushness of your plants.

@getgoing100_7b_nj, I echo HU-etc statement. More and more I look ahead to a time when we will need to downsize and still having a garden continues to be very important to me and your wonderful plantings gives me hope.

Rouge, HU, thanks for the kind words. I am like every other gardener out there. The plants you want to grow and manage to just bring home from one of those frequent garden center/grocery store trips is nowhere proportionate to the space you have to grow them. So, I have 4 clematises (thinking of adding a montana to HF Young, Westerplatter, venosa violasea and sweet autumn), a couple of hydrangeas, hellebores, and roses (i have killed more roses than I can remember, far fewer clems), a peony, an azalea, a camellia, a couple geraniums, siberian iris, 4 jasmines of which 3 are on tall trellises, a struggling gardenia, a fig, a raspberry bush, a saskatton berry for perennials. This year I also grew red and yellow bell peppers (a dozen peppers so far), honeydew melon (volunteer, one so far), ground cherry (no fruit so far), couple of dipladenias, a pelargonium, several dahlias, nicotianas, straw flowers(volunteers) petunias, and iron cross *which is overtaking the entire railing planter and suppressing the large nicotianas). The balony is barely 15x5' and I can just about walk and put a chair and table, and it is hard to reach some of the plants, but its glorious. Now if I could get just a bit more sun on my NNW balcony, it would be perfect.

I had some time this afternoon and so on Britbox I sat down and watched what is listed as Season 61 episode 1. In this episode there was a wonderful segment on a particular allotment in Birmingham; interviews and tours of a few gardeners and their specific plots. Their words were heartfelt and as a fellow gardener I knew exactly where they were coming from. I dont usually say this but watching TV today, made my day.

I am very late to the game in this regard myself. I’d always heard about this Gardener’s World thing, but never actually watched an episode! Until recently, when it came up
on my YouTube feed. And I actually like it. Disclaimer, I’m usually watching on a random feed where someone has assembled old episodes and often “sewn” them into a multi pack 7-hour YouTube episode. I find these perfect to play in the background as I do other things - many are older, pre-pandemic, episodes played in random order…but I don’t really care. It’s just nice to get a fix. Otherwise, dramas over MD as a presenter or whatever - I’m pretty oblivious to, since I don’t know all the players. I just know most of the presenters in a general way - oh there’s the one that started an allotment with her partner; there’s the one who goes out and helps needy communities start their allotments; there’s the one who is overwhelmingly enthusiastic; there’s the one who is always focusing on sustainability; etc.

If you have Roku, there is now a channel devoted to all things Monty Don. His garden shows, travels etc. and most recently, visits to the gardens of folks around britain. All delightful. Seems like a lot of folks are projecting all sorts of things onto old Monty.