Monty Don's Adriatic Gardens
British garden enthusiast Monty Don takes a journey of the gardens of the Adriatic. He centers this tour on Venice, which for centuries has been the commercial center of the region, although he realizes that gardens are not what one generally thinks of when talking about Venice. He then follows the historic Venetian trade route down the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. He finds that after half a century of Communist rule, its associated poverty, and the destructive Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the populace of Croatia is still trying to find its footing with regard to gardening, and not just thinking about using arable land to grow food, a necessity during those times of poverty. His final stop is Greece, where the harsh and ever harsher climate due to climate change will factor into how Grecians garden in the twenty-first century and beyond.
- 2022-2022
- 1 season
- Documentary
British garden enthusiast Monty Don takes a journey of the gardens of the Adriatic. He centers this tour on Venice, which for centuries has been the commercial center of the region, although he realizes that gardens are not what one generally thinks of when talking about Venice. He then follows the historic Venetian trade route down the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. He finds that after half a century of Communist rule, its associated poverty, and the destructive Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the populace of Croatia is still trying to find its footing with regard to gardening, and not just thinking about using arable land to grow food, a necessity during those times of poverty. His final stop is Greece, where the harsh and ever harsher climate due to climate change will factor into how Grecians garden in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Season 1 Episode Guide
3 Episodes 2022
Episode 1
Venice
59 mins
In traveling to Venice, Monty does what he realizes most tourists don't do, namely visit their gardens which most tourists probably don't even know exist in most of them hidden gems behind tall stone walls not visible to the public. With the exception of one garden in Padua, all the gardens he visits are located in the central part of the city. While many of them contain traditional Italian Renaissance elements, most of them are relatively new by European standards. One of the few things unique to Venice as opposed to the rest of the country is the city being located in a salt water lagoon, hence many of the gardens needing to contain salt tolerate plants. In that vein, he visits a few gardens that were hit hard by the flood of 2019, the second worst flood in the city's history, he however, unable to notice any damage in not knowing what those gardens looked like before the flood. The other, also related to water, is everything needed to be transported via the canals. As such, he watches a parks crew prune some large trees, the debris, which must be transported out of the city via the canals, and visits a nursery which in turn must bring in all its inventory via the canals.
Episode 2
Croatia
59 mins
Following the historic trading routes of Venice, Monty embarks on the second leg of his Adriatic journey from Trieste, down the Croatian coast to Dubrovnik. With Croatia under Communist rule for the better part of the latter half of the twentieth century followed by the destructive Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Croatia is still finding its way in terms of gardening, in particular moving from it being purely a utilitarian function of growing food, which was necessary in the country's poverty under the Communists, to something more holistic. Some gardeners are trying to find their way from the beginning, while some of the most spectacular gardens are those created fully by nature, such as the landscape around the Plitvice Lakes. Beauty of a different kind can be seen in the utilitarian meeting the historic in an olive grove on the island of Pag, where the rough and rocky land is not owned by anyone, but each olive tree, some estimated to be two thousand years old, are individually owned.
Episode 3
Greece
59 mins
Monty is on the final leg of his Adriatic garden journey, this leg which is solely in Greece. He starts on on the northernmost island of Corfu, whose climate is variable from the more typical Greek climate on the coast and its olive groves to a more temperate rainforest in the interior mountains. With his journey centered on Venice and the historic Venetian trade routes, he finds that outside of Venice, Corfu has the most Venetian influence of anyplace he has visited on this trip. He next goes to Athens, and the heavily irrigated Royal Garden. He next visits a garden that is trying to transform the typical Greek garden using Mediterranean climate influences from around the world. He then visits three different gardens to see what twenty-first century gardeners are doing to address the harsh and changing Athens climate, the first an inner city allotment garden, the second the newly built public Stavros Niarchos Park attached to the National Library of Greece and Greek National Opera House, and the third a coastal hillside vineyard on the outskirts of the city. His final stop is the under construction rocky and hot hilltop garden of a Belgian friend on Hydra, he acting as consultant. Monty hopes that his previous assistance for another friend on Hydra years earlier will have improved his skills in this task.