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10 Episodes 2008 - 2008
Episode 1
59 mins
Monty visits Mexico, starting with floating gardens, the heritage of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and even older Precolumbian cultures. Next the non-planted, partly vertical gardens of Luis Barragan, and eccentric Englishman James Edward's staggeringly vast and inspired surreal garden in the jungle. In Cuba, Monty concentrates on productive, communal city gardens in Havana, the surprisingly efficient post-soviet way to supply their own food and medicines.
Episode 2
59 mins
Monty starts his tour of Australia in Syndey, like colonization did, initially struggling to establish any agriculture. A public park and royal botanical gardens demonstrate how most ornamental plants were introduced from Europe, the home country (which in turn imported from elsewhere). A seemingly wild native plants park in the desert calls to contemplate what a garden is. Next Melbourne, the country's gardening capital. Finally overseas to New Zealand.
Episode 3
59 mins
Monty enjoys his first visit to exotic, history-conscious India. In the north, he compares the majestic, yet rather austere Mughal gardens in Agra's imperial capital area, especially the unique Taj Mahal, with the maharajahs' more exuberant lust gardens in Rajasthan. Next the gardens and plantations in Kerala, the ancient home of spice and tea growing, and British parks as in Delhi, with special admiration for a living man's vast recycling park.
Episode 4
59 mins
Monty Don visits the world's 80 most inspiring gardens. This time he is in South America, a continent twice the size of Europe and the home of more than 50,000 endemic plant species. In Rio de Janeiro, Monty visits the private garden of Brazil's most famous artist, Burle Marx. He views the ingenious floating gardens of the Amazon. He visits a crumbling estancia (ranch) in the windy Pampas. He ends his journey on the Pacific coast of Chile in a garden that sits harmoniously in its landscape.
Episode 5
59 mins
Monty starts in New York state, not Manhattan but East Hampton, a rich sculptor's garden which serves as background for his extensive art collection, yet in Monty's eye it also turns architectural plants into 'art objects'. In Virginia, focus on founding father and president Jefferson's estate, more of a test area, almost a lab extension. Finally, in California's lush climate, extravagant Hollywood gardens.
Episode 6
59 mins
In China, Monty visits famous gardens from an old tradition, inspired by Buddhism and Taoism, with symbolism and focusing on harmony, notably with nature, which inspired it as well as other art forms quite literally, as he finds by comparing with Yellow Mountains landscapes and bonsai. In Japan's imperial and cultural Kyoto, Monty visits Zen gardens, from a form of Buddhism imported from China, which is even more formalized and inviting to meditation. In both traditions, rocks and architecture play an even larger part then plants, among which bamboo is predominant, and gardens are used for social or artistic activities, such as the tea-ceremony.
Episode 7
59 mins
In Italy, Monty visits first, around Rome, emperor Hadrian's vast 'villa' gardens, as representative of classical Roman Hellenistic gardening, then some Renaissance cardinal villa gardens, representative of the monumental styles that still dominate any Western parks. In Morocco, the walled royal garden complex, mainly orchards and water basins, in former Almoravid imperial capital Marrakech, stands for the Islamic merger of aesthetic and functional gardening; a French painter's blue garden revolutionized color - and material contrast-principle. In Spain, the grandeur of the Alhambra's Generalife gardens in Granada is the highlight of Moorish lust gardens, Cordoba's patios, part of close neighborhood life, live on today and a Madrid landscape architect excels in modern syncretism.
Episode 8
59 mins
Kirstenbosch botanic garden in Capetown. VOIC garden became the city's central park. Stellenberg is a surviving estate and garden in Dutch colonial style, ironically built by an Englishman. In university city Stellenbosch, in fruit and vineyard country, architect Henk Scholz's garden regular pruning twice a month . Further east, the high Drakensberg mountains are the home of most species introduced in Europe, like lobelia and eucomis, because of its alpine winters. Kirklinghen garden was carved in the rocks with elaborate irrigation there by another Englishman. Magaliesberg is a sculptor's huge, not atypical, messy rock garden with plenty of succulents and cacti. In Johannesburg, the very rich Oppenheim family's Brenthurst estate, originally in Edwardian style, now organic except for the Japanese garden.
Episode 9
59 mins
Europe north of the Alps is extremely rich in worthy gardens, so Monty makes a personal choice of one he's dying to see either the first time or again, representing a broad spectrum. In England, Oxfordshire's Rousham landscape park, all about wide spaces and green, contrasts gloriously with Kent's borders paradise Sissinghurst. In France, the Loire château Andreville's enormous geometrical garden is balanced by Monet's flower beds and waterlily ponds. In Antwerp, landscape architect Jacques Wirtz privately enjoys his 'stock nursery'. In Holland, stadholder and later English king William's royal castle Het Loo's forest-conquered model of Duch husbandry is countered by a modern designer's focus on durability. Finally to Norway's Tromsoö island botanical garden of Alpine plants, a surprisingly abundant summer paradise thanks to the Gulf stream.
Episode 10
59 mins
After discussing exoticism-inspired use of tropical plants in Western (mainly 'jungle') gardens, Monty sets out for SE Asia, where the real paradise garden might exist. In Thai capital Bangkok, pragmatism dominates, even in the royal palace gardens, despite the generous climate. In Singapore, even a government-project to turn the whole city state into a garden ends up rather soulless. In Indonesia, the Hindu remnant on Bali comes closest in temple - and communal ('kampong') gardens, yet not in the Western sense of ornamental gardening.