Monty Don - Around the World in 80 Gardens

[Eigon]

I happened to catch this last night when he was going round Mexico, and then Cuba, which was fascinating.
I already knew that Cuba had had an organic revolution, with little gardens springing up everywhere in the cities, and it was great to see it in action, especially the rickshaw taxi man, Chachi, who had plants in tubs all up the walls of the ruined building where he had his workshop.
Anyone else see this?

[Martin]

I saw it for the second time, and this time managed to stay awake for the whole thing (first time round I became hopelessly bored with the blessed high walls garden nonsense, and nodded off)
The Cuban thing was superb - little kiosks dotted all round the city dispensing free horticultural advice, seeds, organic fertiliser etc., and the public gardens where they grew their own produce, situated on any vacant bit of land - by, of, and for the people - food being grown and consumed within yards, and not a sight of "corporate entities" anywhere..........
Come the day the big plug gets pulled out, I reckon the Cubans are going to be a damned sight better off than most of us in the Western world!

[Amaranth]

That sounds like a great programme. I've heard that Cuba is far ahead of pretty much every other urban area with growing food on available urban land.

Germany and Russia also have good home garden systems for urban people though not quite as sustainable as the Cuban one. Both have small buildings on allotments or country gardens where people can stay on weekends and garden. These are on land surrounding the cities.

What other innovative garden ideas did they show?

[Eigon]

Monty Don was in Mexico when I turned over and found it was on, in a jungle garden made/built by an eccentric billionaire, with concrete - statues isn't quite the right word - edifices, maybe - all over the place (and the garden covers 50 acres!). The garden now employs 50 people just to cut the jungle back full time. I think there was a cactus garden on before that.

[old tree man]

mmmm! mabey thet should let the jungle reclaim those 50 acres back

[marshlander]

Lucky old Monty Don - getting paid to visit all those wonderful gardens and meet some really inspiring people.

Like martin, I wasn't taken by the roof top garden that was just high walls - not a pot plant in sight - Emperor's new clothes?
The jungle garden was facinating - just as well it's not in the uk - health and safety police would have shut it years ago!

[Ranter]

My boyfriend & I watched the programme - similarly unimpressed with concrete "garden" at the start - but when it moved to Cuba we were hooked & shouted "That's our garden!" in perfect stereo at one point. We were in Cuba last year & came across one of these little gardens in Havanna. The guy tending it saw us looking & invited us in, although he seemed a little bemused by our interest. It was fascinating. He grew a lot of herbs which were sold to local bars & restuarants as a source of extra income.

[mybarnconversion]

Can anyone tell me how people get jobs travelling the world, visiting gardens and getting paid to do so ??? ... envy grows

[Millymollymandy]

I finally watched the first two episodes. I absolutely loved the jungle garden with all the completely mad concrete structures. It didn't look like they had tamed the jungle at all! Absolutely loathed the high pink wall 'gardens' and now we know where Dairmuid Gavin got his inspiration from! Utter rubbish and shouldn't have been shown on the programme as it has nothing to do with a garden at all.

Australia and New Zealand were OK but oh these 'tamed' English gardens with perfect green grass when the paddocks next door were brown and dusty!

I liked the nature park thing near Alice Springs. Shame it didn't exist when I was there!

[Archie]

Luvverly voice, seems to talk one to one. A tv natural. Should do more programmes like this, like whats his name..er....Palin.

[Eigon]

He was in China and Japan last night - and what struck me was that Chinese and Japanese gardens seem to have hardly any colour at all. They don't seem to be interested in flowers.
In China it seems to be rocks and pine trees to mimic the Yellow Mountains, which are stunning - you look at the art work and think it must be vastly exaggerated, and then see the place, which looks exactly like the pictures. They have a pine tree called the Welcoming Pine, which has a branch hanging down as if to hug you, and trees are trained into that shape in gardens.
I did like the 'shocking' Zen garden in Japan, too, which was made 70 years ago, and caused outrage because it didn't look exactly like other Zen gardens - but it was still mostly moss and stone and gravel. The area with the checkerboard pattern that gradually petered out was lovely.
The designer knew it was going to be contraversial - he only made the garden on the condition that it would never be changed, and the abbot of the temple agreed to that.

[Archie]

Suppose that Monty started with a list..and marvellous choices.
Makes you wonder how some of these countries can do such fine art and yet still kill people and starve away their natural rights.

[Eigon]

Countries are made up of individuals - and some of them are artists, and some of them are murderers, wherever you go.