Around the World in 80 Gardens

by Montagu Don

Monty Don, host of the BBC-TV’s Gardener’s World and one of the United Kingdom’s most respected gardening writers, ventures far from home in this vivid account of gardens on all seven continents. Around the World in 80 Gardens visits the exotic floating gardens of the Amazon, magnificent Renaissance Italian water gardens, colorful alpine flower meadows in Norway, and Monet’s world-famous Giverny, all brought to life in beautiful photographs. In his explorations of the often surprising horticulture in these and other locales, Don emphasizes as he puts it, No garden is an island.” Don applies that insight to the Dutch Het Loo, the tropical gardens of Thailand, and the intriguing fusion of indigenous and colonial garden cultures of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Genres: Gardening, Travel, Nonfiction, Nature, Horticulture

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Montagu 'Monty' Denis Wyatt Don is a German-born British television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners' World.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Around the World in 80 Gardens” was a great read because it was travel writing as well as a garden book. It was very strongly first-person, complete with lost items and interactions with entertaining strangers. The police in New Zealand mailed his notebook home. He really does go all over the world and I loved it and added piles of places to my must-visit list.

Don leans toward the flexible side on the spectrum of “but is it a garden” and tends to go in with quite a bit of charity, though he has his foibles and snark. It was kind of shocking, then, that he had so many nasty things to say about the US and our gardens. Also he picked odd ones. His favorite parts seemed to be a Manhattan street garden and a prairie nature preserve in Kansas? I promise the US had better gardens he could have chosen, even back in 2007.

[Ann Balmforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gentle, high level look at a few gardens to wet the appetite.

[Stephen Coates · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2008, British garden enthusiast Monty Don produced a TV series titled "Around the World in 80 Gardens" in which he featured 80 gardens in many countries on each of the six habited continents. This book documents this project. While one might assume that descriptions of gardens without accompanying photographs would leave the reader a little wanting, his descriptions more than make up for the limited number of photographs. In addition to describing the garden from a visual perspective, he describes the essence of the garden as he experienced it and how it was described by the creator or curator as the case may be as well as how fits with its geographic and cultural locale. And thankfully, descriptions of the difficulties experienced making the documentary were scarce. Reading it certainly brought back memories of watching the TV series and kindled interest in watching it again. My only criticism was that there were three inserts of photographs, but two of them were the same. Perhaps it was just my copy.

[IE · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can imagine how this would have been better as a TV series than it was as a book. I didn’t watch the TV series, so I can only rely on this book, which was disappointing. Heavy on words, light on photographs, at times impossible to imagine from the descriptions… these are certainly not the ‘best’ 80 gardens in the world, Monty himself admits at the front of the book that there are some he would have left out (and we get to guess which ones those are I suppose). To me, a garden must have plants, if no plants then it is a lawn, a yard, a desert, or an artistic landscape. There are a few in here that while beautiful, are not “gardens” to me personally, it was dull in parts. Perhaps I would have felt differently were it not for the minuscule photographs!

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice book.

It's mostly pictures and descriptions of gardens. I'm new to the Monty Don world and wasn't sure what to expect. Some of the gardens are very big and famous and some are smaller. I was hoping for more information about the plants and creating beautiful gardens.

Overall it's a nice coffee table book but could have used more pictures. It also feels Euro-centric given what gardens he visited outside of Europe. It's an easy book to page through.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a travelogue, probably a blast for Monty Don to write but a great disappointment for anyone looking for gardening inspiration. It is verbose while the photos are minimal and tiny. The text is about the history of the place, how it came to be, how it is managed... not how the gardens were designed or how the plantings have developed. Great for travelers who like to visit gardens, bad for gardeners who like to garden.

[minz · Rating 3 out of 5]

high level picture book of the BBC show. Each garden has about 4 pages, one of which was a full page color picture.
Coffee table book, you can flip through the pictures and read the entire thing in an afternoon.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely prose and pictures.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable collection of essays on some of the most interesting and notable gardens around the world. Travelling far and wide to the less obvious locations as well as some of the more obvious destinations. There will of course never be a definitive 'best' 80 gardens, and every reader will doubtless have some places they would have liked to see included (personally my choices might have included some bustans, monasteries or shrines of the Middle East. Plus maybe an island or two in some of the more unique botanical locations) , but Monty does his best to explain why each site is chosen, and what they mean to him.

Written in a close and very personable style, the author's charisma comes across as well as it does on screen. It reads as a very good travelogue as much as a book on gardening or horticulture. Lavishly illustrated with good photographs, it would make a great gift for anyone interested in garden history and/or travel. My only criticism of it is that there could have been included some general and more specific location maps, for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

[Lily C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The overall impression is he visited a lot of gardens which had a lot of money invested in them, but he did visit some much more modest gardens created with limited budgets which was refreshing. I think that he likes green gardens with well trimmed hedges.

[Nancy Thormann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This makes me want to work on my own garden more, even though I don't have much time for the garden. I'll have the winter to plan the garden properly for next year though.

Grow and buy local is the main message I got from this. Work with plants that I'm familiar with, like herbs.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book...wish there were more pics of the gardens...and less pics of the author.

[Yorky Caz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed in the lack of photos of the gardens

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and I found even more reasons to love Monty Don. Keen, insightful and really made me laugh out loud! I don't think the world realizes just what a great sense of humor he has.