Gardeners' World's Monty Don says 'we were getting worried' over 'difficult' ordeal

Veteran horticulturist, Monty Don has admitted that his Longmeadow garden became 'unmanageable' last winter after a 'really difficult' ordeal.

Providing fellow garden enthusiasts with his latest top tips, Monty said he is hoping that there are more generous weather conditions in store this winter.

He said: "Well, the truth is, none of us know (what the weather will be like this winter). I hope to God that it's not as wet as last year, because it really really was difficult for us, I mean we were starting to get worried. Not about the house flooding, but the garden was becoming unmanageable because of the flooding and the wet."

The gardening expert has warned fellow horticulturists to heed his advice and act over the coming months to protect their gardens from the plummeting temperatures that are set to sweep across the country.

But, after learning his lesson from last year, the presenter said that he has put a plan in place for what is set to be a testing time for gardeners: "We've put in two huge pipes to take the water away. What we've done is diverted the rain water off the roofs and pushed them out to the edge of the garden, whereas before, they were just spilling out."

Monty, 69, added: "At Longmeadow, we love dry periods, we love dry winters, we love dry springs and we even love dry summers. We can cope with droughts, because our soil retains enough moisture, and also over the years I've put so much organic matter, that's the least of our worries (droughts)."

"I would be very happy if we had a month of really cold weather, because a) it's great for getting jobs done like pruning, get all the top fruit pruned and you can repair things and it's dry, you can move things around. I would love November to be cool and dry, but I don't mind if December's wet because we're not gardening in December very much anyway, that's our downtime."