In Paradise Gardens with Monty Don

Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don was at Cheltenham Literature Festival, talking about his latest book Paradise Gardens. I was invited along to hear what he had to say.

Is it worth listening to an author speak when you’ve read the book or, in my case, watched the television programme? Is there anything new to learn?

It’s a question I found myself asking while waiting for Paradise Gardens with Monty Don and photographer Derry Moore at Cheltenham Literature Festival. I needn’t have worried. True, a lot of what was said had been covered elsewhere but the printed word or television programme can go only so far and it was the anecdotes and ‘behind the scenes’ glimpses all told in Monty’s familiar relaxed style that brought this talk to life.

Monty started with an overview of what makes a Paradise Garden – four ‘rivers’ representing milk, honey, water and wine, four equal beds, usually sunken and planted with olive, fig, date and pomegranate. Citrus, we were told, didn’t come into the gardens until the 11^th century and, while they are most usually associated with Islam, Paradise Gardens actually predate it by more than 1,000 years.

There followed a tour through the gardens of Iran, Marrakesh, Spain, Istanbul and Kashmir before finishing up in England; our journey gradually gathered speed to allow time for questions at the end.

Iran proved the most challenging for the pair: the visas arrived with just two days’ notice and then there was a long delay as their passports were scrutinised by security.

“Derry kept saying ‘Go and be charming, charm them’,” Monty told us. “I wasn’t quite saying ‘Do you watch Gardeners’ World? Do you like dogs?’ ”

There was no way to get a camera crew in so a local team had to be recruited. With language a major barrier, an English-speaking ‘fixer’ was also needed.

“I was having to direct the crew and work out what I was going to say all through an interpreter.”

A long drive out into the desert – “The cars kept getting stuck and had to be dug out.” – showed the importance of Paradise Gardens.

“It gave an idea of how, if that was reality, how you lived all the time, how beautiful an oasis would be.”

The gardens were “a bit shabby” as Western-style restoration is unknown, while photographing them without tourists or signs in the frame near impossible: “I had to make use of Photoshop,” Derry admitted.

Trying to get a photograph of the Taj Mahal – one of India’s great Tomb Gardens – meant an early morning start to avoid the worst of the crowds.

What is most important though is the atmosphere that Paradise Gardens create and their use of light and reflections. It means looking at them not in a European way in terms of planting but more as a whole. Indeed, the pair visited Iranian mosques before they went to any gardens.

The tour finished with Monty’s own project to build a Paradise Garden at Longmeadow and Prince Charles’ interpretation at Highgrove, where plants that will cope with the Cotswold weather have been used in Paradise Gardens style.

“We went thinking we’d better be polite because it’s the Prince of Wales but really rather liked it,” admitted Monty.

There was discussion of why certain pictures worked – usually the way the light fell or the movement in them – and why Derry dismissed some of the gardens as uninteresting to photograph.

Some of the images were chosen for the book simply because they liked them: “You can’t do that on the telly,” Monty said.

The most memorable captured locals using the gardens, revelling in the water in the heat or using the grounds for picnics.

“For me, the real lesson I have learned and what was critical was Paradise Gardens come alive when people occupy them and they cannot be forced into a mould,” Monty told us. “The garden will become what’s right for the people that live there at the time.”

• Press pass courtesy of RHS Malvern Spring Festival and the RHS, sponsors of Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens at Cheltenham Literature Festival.

• Images courtesy of Two Roads Books, copyright Derry Moore.

• Paradise Gardens by Monty Don, photographs by Derry Moore, is published by Two Roads Books, priced £35 RRP. Buy now. (If you buy through this Amazon link, I get a small fee. The price you pay is not affected.)