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Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don reveals he and wife were ‘flooded in’

The TV presenter said he has lived in Herefordshire for 34 years and noticed that flooding in the area has ‘definitely got worse’.

Hannah Roberts
Thursday 09 January 2025 11:34 GMT
Monty Don said ‘floods are proving to be a much bigger problem than drought’ (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)
Monty Don said ‘floods are proving to be a much bigger problem than drought’ (Kirsty O’Connor/PA) (PA Archive)

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Celebrity gardener Monty Don has revealed he and his wife were stuck inside their house earlier in the week after being “flooded in”.

The horticulturist and broadcaster, 69, spoke on the increasing frequency of flooding in the UK and said it is “proving to be a much bigger problem than drought”.

“I live in Herefordshire. We live on a flood plain, so flooding has always been part of life there, you know, forever, but it’s definitely got worse,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“It’s definitely got more frequent. And, I mean, I’ve lived where we have for 34 years, and I’ve just observed that.”

Don is the main presenter of TV show Gardeners’ World, having returned to the programme in 2011, when he began hosting the series from his own garden, Longmeadow in Herefordshire.

On Thursday, the TV presenter spoke on the radio programme about his new BBC Two series, Monty Don’s British Gardens, in which he travels across the UK to discover what gardens can tell us about the nation.

He said: “I think gardeners everywhere are having to deal with this (flooding).

“I mean, one of the things of filming from the north of Scotland, right through Britain, is you’re seeing, wherever we went, people were having to deal with changes.

“It’s adapting.

“And floods are proving to be a much bigger problem than drought actually.

“Twenty years ago, if you’d asked me about climate change, I would have said that we’re going to be in a Mediterranean climate, and we need to adapt to that.

“I think what’s shaping up is, we have these big events, and our gardens are very wet, and they’re very dry, and they’re very cold, and that’s tricky.”

Don said: “It’s these big dumps of rain that come down.

“What’s so odd is it’s not like we’ve had weeks and weeks and weeks of rain.

“It can be almost overnight and the waters come up.

“I mean, on Monday, for example, my wife and I couldn’t get out of the house or garden. We were flooded in.

“No-one could come in, no-one can go out. Now, that’s fine.

“I have a 97-year-old neighbour. If anything had happened to him, it would have been a helicopter time, I guess.”

Don has presented a number of other TV series including The Secret History Of The British Garden, Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens and Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens.

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