Alan Titchmarsh praised Monty Don for his “brave” move away from Gardeners’ World.
Monty, 69, has recruited his golden retriever Ned to help him create his first garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower show next month. The RHS and Radio 2 Dog Garden has been created with man’s best friend in mind.
In order to create the garden, Monty unleashed Ned to help create the paths among the plants in the plot. The garden will feature dog accessories and a dog house featuring pictures of pups submitted by Radio 2 listeners.
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Monty has previously admitted the garden “didn’t go to plan”. He found his own pooch Ned, along with dogs owned by fellow gardener Jamie Butterworth and RHS director-general Clare Matterson, didn’t follow the route he expected.
Speaking to The Times, he said: "We've been observing the way that they move around among the plants in order to plan out the paths. It didn't actually go according to our expectations, which is good, because it meant that we had to rethink."
Elaborating on the project's "paths", Monty detailed the dogs' influence on the garden's layout: "The way dogs work, when they're moving around, they're sifting and they keep going back to a sort of central point, like the branches of a tree, and then go off sideways and see what's happening and move a little bit around from there, and then go retrace their steps."
Alan, who presented Gardeners’ World before Monty, admits he is “looking forward” to seeing how the star’s plot at the Chelsea Flower Show turns out. Although the 75-year-old, who had dogs at his Barleywood garden, believes it is a brave move.
Writing in the BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, Alan said: “As a fellow presenter who also had dogs in my Gardeners’ World garden at Barleywood I salute Monty’s bravery and am looking forward to seeing how canines and plants can be integrated.
“At Barleywood I settled for a dedicated path from the bottom of the garden to the top, with a rough area of grass half-way up that was forever known as Pooh Corner. Need I say more.”
Alan said his dogs particularly enjoyed the borders of his garden when he scattered blood, fish and bone meal in them. Although he says they did leave the pooches with bad breath.
Monty’s dog garden is set to feature dandelions, daisies, and clover that will be painstakingly moved from RHS Garden Wisley into the turf of his lawn. It will help keep the grass hardy so that four-legged friends can enjoy it.
After the show - which runs from May 20 to 24 - the garden will be moved to the River Thames for the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. The workers, volunteers and rescue dogs will then be able to enjoy the patch.
Alan meanwhile will be returning to screens this morning (April 27) with Love Your Weekend at 9.30am on ITV One. Alan will be telling his guests how to make the most of Britain’s outdoors.
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