THE Duchess of Cornwall is teaming up with Monty Don for A Gardeners’ World Royal special. The Duchess, 74, will appear on this week’s show as Monty, 66, shows her round Longmeadow. The pair will chat about her long standing love of gardening and what she most enjoys growing as they explore the Jewel Garden. […]
THE Duchess of Cornwall is teaming up with Monty Don for A Gardeners’ World Royal special.
The Duchess, 74, will appear on this week’s show as Monty, 66, shows her round Longmeadow.
The pair will chat about her long standing love of gardening and what she most enjoys growing as they explore the Jewel Garden.
At one point, the Duchess discusses how important gardens and gardening can be for our wellbeing, especially over the course of the past 18 months and numerous lockdowns.
She says: “I think gardens got people through Covid, they realised how special a garden was and what they could do with it,they could become inventive, even if they hadn’t before they could start growing vegetables.
“It was a sort of spiritual experience for them, they discovered a sort of affinity with the soil – you can go into a garden and you can completely lose yourself, you don’t have to think about anything else.
“You’re surrounded by nature, you’ve got birds singing, you’ve got bees buzzing about – there is something very healing about gardens.”
As for what she would like to do in her own garden, the Duchess spoke of the importance of attracting wildlife in.
She says: “I’ve got a little bit of a woodland garden that I’ve started and I would love to build that up more, I would love to put down swathes of bulbs, and I would also like to have a proper wildflower meadow.
“At the moment I’ve got a bit, but the grass has taken over and we’re going to have another go this year of planting more seeds, because I think, especially now, it’s ever more important to have these wild flowers – if we’re going to keep on attracting butterflies and bees – I think that’s very important.”
However, despite the fact the Royal has substantially more land and gardens to deal with than the majority of us, she still faces some of the same issues.
She reveals: “I’m very lucky I’ve got a big vegetable garden, but you get
the mice, the voles this year, all ate the asparagus roots and got into the strawberries, so you can never win, there’s always something.”
Gardeners’ World airs Friday, August 20 at 8pm on BBC Two.
