Reimagining Gardeners' World to Reflect Ordinary, Realistic British Gardens
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/claire-ratinon. "It’s time for a Gardeners’ World that reflects Britain’s gardens in all their messy, realistic chaos | Claire Ratinon | The Guardian." September 11, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that now that Monty Don is stepping down from Gardeners' World, the show should stop focusing on his huge, professionally-maintained garden and instead feature everyday gardeners with messy, real-life gardens from different parts of the UK. She thinks this would be more relatable and useful than watching an unattainable dream garden, while keeping the show's calming, gentle vibe intact.
Conclusion
With Monty Don's departure, Gardeners' World should be reformatted to showcase ordinary, regionally diverse, realistic gardens rather than focusing solely on one idealized, resource-rich garden like Longmeadow.
Premises
- Longmeadow, Monty Don's garden, is a two-acre dreamscape with impressive infrastructure and hired help that is completely unattainable for ordinary gardeners.
- Most viewers have modest, chaotic, resource-limited gardens that bear no resemblance to Longmeadow, creating a disconnect between the show's setting and viewers' lived reality.
- The UK's climate and growing conditions vary massively by region (e.g., Cornwall vs. Cumbria), so a single garden's advice may not be broadly applicable.
- Increasingly unpredictable seasons due to climate change mean that tried-and-tested advice from one location may become less useful, favoring a multi-regional approach.
- There is significant value and instructional insight in the ingenuity, scrappiness, and even failures of ordinary gardeners working within real constraints of time, money, and space.
- The show's calming tone and pace should be preserved regardless of format changes, as this quality has therapeutic value for viewers.
Assumptions
- Viewers would find a multi-gardener, multi-regional format as engaging or more engaging than the current single-presenter, single-garden format.
- Showing 'realistic' gardens would better serve or inspire the 'next generation of gardeners' than aspirational content does.
- A change in presenter is a natural and appropriate occasion to also change the show's fundamental format.
- Ordinary gardens across different regions can be filmed and presented with the same production quality and narrative coherence as Longmeadow.
- The soothing tone of the show is separable from its current single-location, single-presenter format and can be replicated in a new structure.