Gardener’s World star Monty Don is one of the best-known horticulturalists in the country – but has been vocal about his struggles with his mental health.
Don suffered a turbulent childhood, battled cancer, suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with SAD (seasonal affective disorder) – a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern – but continues to work on his recovery.
The BBC star has said in the past that his gardening and passion for horticulture have helped, but it was his wife Sarah Don that gave him the push.
Working on his mental health has been an uphill struggle and Don previously revealed how his wife threatened to leave home with their young children - Adam, Freya and Thomas - unless he got help.
Don previously said he has “suffered from depression” which comes and goes but “is worse in the winter”.
He was later diagnosed with SAD which made a lot of sense for the star and encouraged him to create his garden which he called Longmeadow as an escape.
Monty Don has fronted Gardener's World since 2003
BBC
Opening up on how he has evolved, Don told Radio Times: “I’m fine. I’m good. I wouldn’t say I have been healed. I’d say I am being healed. It’s an ongoing process.
“I don’t do the shows just to understand the garden. I do them to understand the gardener. In the end, people are what really interests me.”
This isn’t the first time Don has opened up about his health, as he discussed his immune system “packing up” in his book, The Jewel Garden.
He explained: “I remember one particularly grim November week I had dysentery, a bad sinus infection and thrush simultaneously. Happy days.
Monty Don opened up about his mental health struggles
BBC
“The body becomes a burden. Your immune system packs up, your bowels go haywire and your teeth ache. Your hair falls out and your skin erupts, cracks or sags.”
Don has been the face of the BBC series since 2003, but previously hinted that he will stand down from the show in two years’ time.
Speaking to Jane Garvey and Fi Glover on Times Radio, he admitted he has been “contracted for another year” and said: “If they offered me more then I might take it.
“But I mean, the serious point is I will be 70 in two years' time. Will I want to go on? I like making television programmes, I like writing books.
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Monty Don opened up about his mental health
BBC
“To have the energy to do that and not scrabble, always that sense of scrabbling. I think I have to give something up and I'm not prepared to give up writing and I really enjoy the travel stuff I do.
“So therefore the logical thing to give up is Gardener's World, which is, for all its virtues, a remorseless treadmill.”
He went on to say the BBC would have to “think ten times” before hiring a white, middle-class and middle-aged man like him.
