Quotes by Monty Don - Page 2

I was brought up a strict Christian. My father was a lay preacher, my mother a church warden. The rhythm and ritual of the Anglican Church was part of our lives.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Preacher
Rhythm
Ritual
Strict
Anglican
Lay
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There is a British assumption that you mustn't speak evil of anyone's garden because it is rude - it is like criticising their home, their children or their pets.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Assumption
Garden
Pets
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Visiting gardens is bad for you. Not only does it encourage too much eating of cake but sets up all kinds of false notions that are ruinous to your garden back home.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Cake
Garden
Visiting
False
Notions
Sets
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You would be surprised at how many letters I get criticising me for straying outside the strict limitations of horticulture or even for expressing what is clearly an opinion.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Letters
Strict
Expressing
Limitations
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I had a difficult relationship with my parents, who died young, but they instilled self-discipline and a sense of honour and loyalty and accountability. I'm grateful for that.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Loyalty
Accountability
Honour
Self Discipline
Instilled
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I don't think about being the Colin Firth of the gardening world. I live a very insular world based around my family and my home, and to them I'm not the Colin Firth of anything.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Colin
Insular
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Happiness is a by-product rather than an end in itself. It pops into your life unbidden, and then tends to pop out again. I'm on record as being depressive. It is related to winter.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Depressive
Pops
Related
Winter
Life Happiness Your
By-Product
Tends
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It does seem to me that the British in particular, British horticultural literature and television programmes, focus a huge amount on how we garden and hardly at all on why we garden.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Garden
Programmes
Hardly
Huge Amount
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The horticultural industry is unimaginative and dominated by vast, supermarket-like outlets. But the small nurseries and growers remain - praise them with your wallets, not your memories.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Praise
Dominated
Unimaginative
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My gardening apprenticeship was similar to the way a chimney sweep is pushed up a chimney. It was enforced by my parents, non-negotiable - it would be weeding the strawberries, mowing the grass.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Apprenticeship
Grass
Strawberries
Chimney
Enforced
Pushed
Similar
Sweep
Copy Quote
A column is a curiously intimate affair. For a start, you know by default that you will have regular readers, so it gives the writer the privilege of continuing a running conversation with them.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Affair
Default
Intimate
Column
Curiously
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The British have such an odd relationship with food - and the land. I want the public and the Soil Association to see that growing things in a garden is no different to growing things in a field.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Association
Garden
Odd
Soil
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Modern man has a very abstract idea of what a wood is. I guess that if you stopped anyone on the street and asked them what a wood actually was, they would see it as a place where big trees grow.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Abstract
Modern Man
Wood
Copy Quote
The key to our oldest woodland is that it has been cut down and regrown, in some cases as often as 50 or 60 times. It is one of the most perfectly sustainable resources and ecosystems known to man.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Cases
Ecosystems
Woodland
Sustainable
Oldest
Perfectly
Copy Quote
We are extremely uncomfortable with the spiritual aspects of gardening, and yet most people feel it in some form or other, even if it's a sense of connection to the greater world on a beautiful day.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Beautiful Day
Form
Greater
Spiritual
Uncomfortable
Aspects
Connection
Extremely
Sense
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We know that gardening is good for you. It is fantastic, all-round exercise. That is easy to see and evaluate. It inculcates high levels of well-being. That is undeniable and needs little measurement.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Evaluate
Levels
Measurement
Well Being
Undeniable
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I think that's my strength, that I am an amateur gardener who loves gardening. I've read about it, I've written about it, I've done it all my life but at heart, I'm just a passionate amateur gardener.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Gardener
All My Life
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The divide between a 'wild' plant and what is suitable for the garden is unnatural and meaningless. Gardens begin and end in the mind, and the Western way of thinking is not good at accommodating that.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Garden
Meaningless
Plant
Suitable
Unnatural
Western
Begin
Wild
Divide
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I do wear gloves for things that sting a lot or prick a lot. But I just like to feel with my hands. I find gloves cumbersome and uncomfortable and I've got tough old hands so the old cut doesn't matter.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Gloves
Hands
Tough
Uncomfortable
Cut
Wear
Sting
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The Romans brought with them spices such as ginger, pepper and cinnamon, and herbs including borage, chervil, dill, fennel, lovage, sage and thyme, all of which have remained staples of the British kitchen.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Ginger
Herbs
Sage
Spices
Pepper
Remained
Romans
Copy Quote
I think that most people are aware that it takes so much oil and water to produce what they're eating. But the problem is inherent within the solution, in so much as you don't want to tell people what to do.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Inherent
Solution
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My basic philosophy is never do anything with the word 'celebrity' attached to it. Without being overly pompous, if you have worked hard to have an audience trust you a bit, why blow it? That is my currency.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Blow
Currency
Pompous
Attached
Overly
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I have been growing vegetables since I was a boy. When I was about 17 I was the only one of five children living at home. My parents were ill and I took over the vegetable garden and I have had one ever since.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Garden
Ill
Vegetable
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That first snowdrop, the flowering of the rose you pruned, a lettuce you grew from seed, the robin singing just for you. These are smallthings but all positive, all healing in a way that medicine tries to mimic.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Positive
Flowering
Grew
Healing
Lettuce
Medicine
Rose
Singing
Mimic
First
Robin
Seed
Tries
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No apple is reliably self-fertile, so each tree needs a pollinator. A neighbour may well have an apple that will do that for you, but it is better to always plant at least two trees to be certain of pollination.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Neighbour
Plant
Tree
Apple
Reliably
Copy Quote
Blackthorn has wicked spikes that are highly brittle and tend to snap off under the skin and then fester horribly. This means that they can only really be part of a hedge that you do not want to get too close to.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Wicked
Skin
Close
Fester
Hedge
Horribly
Snap
Tend
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Any British household with a scrap of land has always grown herbs for the kitchen. From the superb monastic herb gardens down to the humblest cottage, a supply of fresh herbs would have been considered essential.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Herbs
Household
Scrap
Superb
Cottage
Gardens
Herb
Humblest
Supply
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By having a direct stake and involvement with the process of plants growing, of having your hands in the soil and tending it carefully and with love, your world and everyone's else's world too, becomes a better place.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Better Place
Involvement
Soil
Love World Your
Carefully
Plants
Stake
Tending
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As September rolls into October, I become obsessed with apples. Now obviously this is provoked by the ripening fruit clustering on the trees in our orchard, but it is as though all things pomological ripen in me, too.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
All Things
Apples
Fruit
Orchard
Provoked
September
Obviously
Ripen
Rolls
Though
Trees
Copy Quote
Organic is loaded with a sense of rightness, with a set of rules. I would much rather someone bought food that was local and sustainable but not organic than bought organic food that had to be shipped across the world.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Loaded
Organic Food
Rules
Across
Bought
Sustainable
Set
Local
Organic
Rather
Sense
Shipped
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A plant I have grown for years without really taking much notice of is epimedium. You know how it is: someone gives you a plant, you stick it in the ground and somehow it never presses the trigger. There is no intimacy.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Intimacy
Plant
Notice
Trigger
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For every gardener there is a minimum level of engagement that is needed to sustain and develop the relationship. There is no magic figure to this and it will vary from person to person and season to season, but it is there.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Engagement
Gardener
Magic
Minimum
Needed
Vary
Develop
Season
Sustain
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I was a sickly child, and it wasn't until I was 19 that I realised I was quite a robust, vigorous person. Since then I've taken ill health to be an irritating interruption into what is a fairly reliable stream of good health.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Health
Good Health
Ill
Irritating
Realised
Robust
Taken
Vigorous
Health Good Good Health
Child
Since
Fairly
Quite
Interruption
Reliable
Sickly
Stream
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There is a direct correlation between gardening and mental health, not just to maintain good mental health but to repair it as well - that's anything in the gamut from depression to serious brain damage, schizophrenia or autism.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Depression
Autism
Correlation
Damage
Mental Health
Schizophrenia
Brain Damage
Maintain
Repair
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My father was an army officer who left the forces when I was six and never really fitted back into civilian life. My mother had five children and a mother with Alzheimer's, who lived with us, so I imagined that she had a lot to do.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Army
Six
Life Mother Father
Life Father Children
Civilian
Fitted
Forces
Imagined
Officer
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I think that the essence of a Christmas wreath - of all Christmas vegetative decoration - has to be green and, if possible, living. So the basis of a wreath is ideally holly, laurel, ivy, rosemary, larch, fir or whatever is to hand.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Decoration
Essence
Ivy
Holly
Ideally
Laurel
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We don't value food in Britain, so therefore the cheaper it is the better it is. We all eat far too much, we all pay far too little for our food. We have environmental problems, we have health problems, we have food transport problems.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Environmental
Cheaper
Environmental Problems
Health Problems
Transport
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A weekly column is not always a treat. It can be a tyranny. There are times when I have very little to say. There are times, every year, when I am weighed down with depression. At these times it takes days of slog to force the words on to the page.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Tyranny
Column
Weighed
Copy Quote
Daffodils, blossom and tulips jostle to the front of the stage in April. I love these early perennials: they may be more modest but they nearly all have that one special quality that a plant needs to transform your affections from admiration to affection - charm.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Quality
Admiration
Affection
April
Charm
May
Modest
Needs
Plant
Special
Stage
More
Affections
Blossom
Nearly
Early
Front
Transform
Tulip
Copy Quote
Once you engage with the simple enough business of feeding yourself, of soil and water, weather, season and harvest, it becomes personal. It is about you, your family and friends. Food becomes an aspect of those relationships as well as your intimacy with your plot.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Family And Friends
Feeding
Harvest
Intimacy
Plot
Soil
Weather
Engage
Copy Quote
I use the period between Christmas and New Year to potter about, think and completely change my mindset. In that easy no-man's-land between Boxing Day and New Year, loins are girded and mettle readied. It is time, as we voyagers bid farewell to the old year, to fare forward.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Christmas
New Year
Boxing
Mindset
Bid
Period
Fare
Forward
Potter
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My favourite thorn belongs to the rose with a name like a mouthful of broken teeth, Rosa sericea pteracantha. It is grown almost entirely for its astonishing ruby-red shark's fin thorns that are at their lapidary best in early summer, especially when backlit by a low setting sun.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Astonishing
Rosa
Setting
Teeth
Belongs
Entirely
Setting Sun
Shark
Thorn
Copy Quote
Sweet peas should smell. Half the point of growing sweet peas is to cut them for the house; they should fill a room with an almost painful olfactory inarticulateness. But most sweet peas smell of nothing. This does not stop them being beautiful, but they are like food with no flavour.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Being Beautiful
Half
Painful
Peas
Smell
Cut
Fill
Room
Copy Quote
The thing the British hate more than anything else is people who are getting above themselves. There are a hundred different expressions for it all around the country, but it comes down to the same thing: this inherent mistrust of authority, and trying to topple people off a pedestal.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Authority
British
Hate
Hundred
Inherent
Mistrust
Pedestal
Above
Hate People Anything
Anything Else
Getting
Expressions
Off
Country People Trying
More Than Anything
Same Thing
Themselves
Topple
Copy Quote
People are increasingly realising that what they eat is important. You can't put junk food in your body and be healthy. All sorts of problems can develop, like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, strokes. Gardening not only helps with exercise and mental health, but it can improve diet as well.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Diet
Health
Body
Disease
Exercise
Healthy
Heart
Heart Disease
Important
Junk
Junk Food
Mental Health
Obesity
Realising
Strokes
Your Body
Eat
Develop
Sort
Improve
Increasingly
Put
Mental
Well
Problems
Copy Quote
Intellectually the French are wonderfully open, in a way the British just don't begin to be. You can question ideas in France, endlessly. In Britain, two things happen when you do that. Either you're branded an intellectual, which is fundamentally mistrusted, or you're branded a phony and pretentious, which people despise.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Branded
Britain
Despise
France
Phony
Pretentious
Things Happen
Begin
People Way Ideas
French
Endlessly
Fundamentally
Intellectually
Question
Wonderfully
Copy Quote
The more people share woodland, absorb it and regard it as part of their personal heritage and culture, the richer our society will be. The more people can work in woods and use them practically rather than go through the motions as a kind of ersatz exercise, the more they will care for the places themselves rather than the political idea of them.
Monty Don / Television Presenter
Exercise
Heritage
Regard
Woodland
Work Society Culture
Absorb
Practically
More People
Motions
Richer
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Monty Don Quotes - Page 2

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