Monty Don details 'horribly painful' surgery and reveals what his wife really thinks of Gardener's World

Monty Don has dished all on his painful recent surgery - and revealed his wife Sarah ’s true thoughts on Gardeners’ World.

The gardening legend, 70, had a “horribly painful” knee replacement in November and said he will have to have another one next year.

“I was finding by the end of a day’s filming I could barely walk upstairs and I certainly couldn’t take the dogs for a walk,” he told Saga magazine’s April issue.

“It was severely limiting what I was doing.

I did it so I could keep on working because it was getting to the point where filming was cutting round me limping.”
Don went on: “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.

“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.

“At some point, I’m going to have to do the other one – but only when I can fit it in, probably late 2027.”
The garden designer met wife Sarah while studying at university and they married on July 29, 1983.

They ran a jewellery business from the early ‘80s until 1987, when it went bankrupt following the Wall Street Crash.

The couple have three grown-up children - Tom, Freya and Adam and live in Herefordshire with their multiple dogs.

Don reflected on the impact of filming Gardener’s World on Sarah, admitting she feels “edged out”.

“The biggest casualty of Gardeners’ World being here has been Sarah’s involvement in the garden, because she’s never really wanted to be in television,” he confessed.

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“I will never do anything radical without referring to her, but I think she quite legitimately feels edged out.

I think I mind that more than her, actually, because Longmeadow was so much our joint venture.”
Don - who unveiled a dog friendly garden at the Chelsea Flower Show last year - added that he sometimes finds it “impossible” to tread the fine line between treating Longmeadow as a private domestic garden and one that works for television.

“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,” Don explained.

The author and broadcaster said he plans to continue presenting Gardeners’ World until at least 2028 and struggles to imagine what retirement would look like.

Read the full interview in Saga Magazine out now.