Monty don admits ‘my children can’t afford to buy a house with a garden’

Monty Don admits he feels “lucky” to be able to have a garden as his own children “can’t afford” their own. Monty, 69, began gardening when he was a teenager in Hampshire. Along with his

brothers, Monty was regularly tasked with mowing the lawn and collecting strawberries from the family plot. He moved to France to study work as a gardener in the Aix-en-Provence before

returning to the UK to study at the University of Cambridge. It was there that he met his wife Sarah, with the couple later settling in London. During his time in the capital, the couple had

an impressive garden. Something Monty admits was "very unusual" at the time. Monty’s impressive plot even caught the eye of a photographer, which led magazines to take note of

him, giving Monty his first media exposure. The Gardeners’ World star believes he is “lucky” to have grown up in an era where he could afford a garden as a younger man. The average house

price in London in the 1970s started around £4,480, around £60,500 today, ending at around £19,925 in 1979, around £96,600 today. In contrast, the average home in London in 2025 costs

£556,000, with a semi-detached property costing £714,000. Monty revealed his grown-up children Adam, Tom and Freya cannot afford the same luxuries he could in his younger days when speaking

on the V&A Dundee podcast. It came as he was asked what inspired him in his garden. Monty explained: “I don’t really feel that I suddenly got inspiration, in so much that I realised, as

I got older, between the age of 17 and 27, that increasingly other things than being in the garden, were in the way of being in the garden, and I needed it. I don’t want to sound precious

about it but I really needed it. “It wasn’t a question of feeling inspired to go be creative, it was a question of going to the garden to save my mind. I was really lucky because I am of a

generation where we could afford, in our twenties, to buy a house or rent a house and live on our own and have a garden. My children can’t afford to do that. “I had a garden of my own at the

age of 25 and so I think that now, we must find out what it is, if you love plants then grow plants. I personally love planting and making spaces, and what plants I use are less interesting

than the overall effect.” Having left his London home, Monty and his family moved into Longmeadow in Herefordshire in 1991. The plot, which was in a state of disrepair at the time, has

since become a staple on Gardeners’ World as Monty shows how he maintains his two-acre space. Monty will be returning to screens presenting the coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower show on BBC

Two from 8pm tonight (May 21). In collaboration with BBC Radio 2, Monty is presenting his first garden at the show this year, centred all around dogs.