Monty Don, the beloved host of Gardeners’ World, has long been a fixture on British television, sharing his passion for plants and outdoor spaces with millions. Yet, behind the scenes of the BBC’s flagship gardening show, Don has been quietly battling a decade-long struggle with deteriorating knees—a hardship that nearly forced him to step away from the garden he loves. Now, following a major knee replacement surgery in late 2025, Don is not only back on his feet but also looking ahead to new projects and, perhaps, the most candid phase of his storied career.
Don, who turned 70 last year, underwent surgery in November 2025 to replace his worst knee with a titanium and cobalt chrome implant. He described the ordeal as “horribly painful,” telling The Mirror, “However you do it, a knee replacement is horribly painful, but three months on I’m gardening again and haven’t walked with a stick for a month.” The decision to go under the knife wasn’t taken lightly. For years, Don had struggled to walk upstairs or even take his dogs for a stroll after long filming days. “By the end of a day’s filming I could barely walk upstairs and I certainly couldn’t take the dogs for a walk. It was severely limiting what I was doing,” Don admitted, adding that the pain was starting to affect how the show was filmed, with the crew having to “cut around me limping.”
Don’s journey to surgery was a gradual one. He first consulted doctors more than a decade ago, only to be prescribed painkillers and told to “stop digging” in his garden. “You will have rarely seen me do much serious digging, and never kneeling, over the past few series – by the end of a day's filming, I could barely hobble to the end of the garden,” he wrote in Gardeners’ World magazine. Years of kneeling and heavy lifting had taken their toll: “I have spent 70 years kneeling on them asking them to stagger about under unreasonably heavy loads... They have had a long, hard time of it.”
The recovery process has been, in Don’s words, “pretty painful and slow.” Yet, as of March 2026, he’s once again tending to his garden and filming Gardeners’ World at Longmeadow, his home in Ivington, Herefordshire. “Sarah says I’ve been doing far too much stuff, but it’s fine and going to plan – though it can be inexplicably painful one day and then not at all another,” Don shared, referring to his wife. He’s not out of the woods just yet, admitting that surgery on his other knee is likely in late 2027, “but only when I can fit it in.”
Despite these physical setbacks, Don’s passion for gardening—and for sharing it with others—remains undimmed. Negotiations are underway for him to continue presenting Gardeners’ World until at least 2028, a tenure that would cement his status as one of the show’s longest-serving hosts. Don has helmed the program since 2003, with a brief hiatus between 2008 and 2011. Each new contract prompts reflection: “I hope I’m continuing, but as I come up to the end of every contract, I seriously consider how it fits the rest of my life. Each time, it’s come down fairly and squarely that I’d like to continue. But there will come a time when either they’ll say, ‘No, thanks’ or I’ll say, ‘It’s time for a change’, but neither of us, as far as I know, has reached that point yet.”
Retirement, however, is not a concept Don finds easy to grasp. “I genuinely don’t know what retirement would look like. I don’t play golf or tennis, and I can’t see myself doing the crossword all day... I like work,” he told Saga Magazine. His wife, Sarah, jokes that he’s “completely addicted to work,” a sentiment Don doesn’t dispute. “Whenever I say to Sarah, ‘Well, thank God, I have no addictions’, she rolls her eyes and says, ‘You are completely addicted to work!’”
Most fans know Longmeadow as the lush, ever-changing backdrop of Gardeners’ World, but for Don, it’s both a sanctuary and a workplace. “Longmeadow has a dual personality,” he explained. “The compatibility between a private domestic garden for all the family and one that works for television is at best a fine line and at worst an impossible line to tread. Everything we do is heavily influenced by filming. I’m often working on the programme seven days a week and when we’re filming, it’s a place of work at every level.”
The production of Gardeners’ World is no small feat. Don describes it as “quite a big production team. It takes weeks to prepare – two days to film, six days to edit. It’s full on. In-between filming, which we do two days a week, we then have to prepare the garden for what we’re filming thereafter. I brace myself. For the crew and I, it’s like going back to school.”
His love for gardens extends well beyond Longmeadow. Don has traveled the world, from the Arctic Circle to the Australian outback, the Amazonian jungle to Japan, always in search of horticultural inspiration. His latest coffee table book, British Gardens—a tie-in to his BBC series—explores the breadth and depth of the UK’s gardening tradition. As Don puts it, “We have the best weather. And although we complain about the weather all the time, it’s actually perfect for a wider range of gardening than any other country in the world.” He notes that 83% of the UK population has access to a garden, a statistic that, while down from over 90% twenty-five years ago, remains “dramatically large.”
British Gardens features a tour of some of the nation’s most celebrated gardens, including the King’s private garden at Birkhall, the compartmentalized masterpiece at Scampston Hall, the woodland wonder of Wollerton Old Hall, the whimsical topiary at Balmoral Cottage, and the historical landscape of Rousham. Don speaks with particular reverence about Birkhall: “It is private and was therefore a privilege and an act of friendship, almost, to let us film there. They are keen gardeners, proper gardeners and they love it. To have insight into the private world of probably the most public figure in the country was momentous.”
Don’s affection for his canine companions is no secret—his dogs are frequent guests on Gardeners’ World. He recently mourned the loss of Peggy, his 16-year-old dog, but is confident he has “one more dog, at least” in his future. “I’ve always said the deal with dogs is one of you is going to die, and with ageing it’s more likely to be you. But of course, the dog won’t care particularly, I think we completely romanticise that. They’re absolutely callous.”
As Don looks to the future—balancing surgery, new projects, and life at Longmeadow—he remains grateful for the “superb surgical skills” that have enabled him to keep working. “So, like my 40-year-old Land Rover, I have reached that point in life where I am having to do some running repairs and having the occasional refit in order to keep doing what I do!” he wrote, with characteristic humor. For now, fans can look forward to more Friday evenings in the garden, as Don’s journey—pain, passion, and all—continues to inspire.