Monty Don has revealed the plants gardeners should start growing this November – but has issued a warning over one popular bulb.
The 69-year-old says winter is a time in which he strips back his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire. He says the impressive plot becomes a “sodden” and “brown” mess over the colder period.
Each week, Monty and his crew are seen diligently cutting back plants that won’t make it through the chill or are drooping. This includes the likes of fennel and cardoons.
In between periods of rain, Monty says he likes to use the winter period to plant bulbs. And there’s one in particular he would start thinking about planting now, reports Devon Live.
Speaking on the Gardeners’ World podcast, Monty explained: “Whenever the weather is dry enough we try and do as much planting as we can that needs doing, so certainly bulbs. We don’t think about planting tulips until November.
“So we try and get everything else done before November, we try, but it doesn’t always work. Again, you can’t plant bulbs in pouring rain.”
Despite the challenges of 2023, which had gardeners “snatching” at the weather, Monty managed to plant a staggering 3,000 tulips across his plot.
He also discusses long-term projects, saying: “We usually take an area and think, ‘what does it need to be zhuzhed up a bit’ and that can be a two or three year project, in other words we see how that goes and we try new tulips for example.”
“Anyone who has grown tulips in any quantity will see something online or in a catalogue and say, ‘yes, that’s perfect, that’s exactly what I want’, and then it flowers and you think, ‘I didn’t order that’.”
“There’s an element of, ‘god, we don’t want anymore of that'”. Monty underscores the importance of laying a proper foundation for a significant project like refurbishing a cottage garden at Longmeadow, which underwent a substantial makeover last year.
His approach involves clearing the space, securing it, and getting to work on the most extensive portion of the plot before settling the bulbs into the earth. He aims to complete these tasks ideally by the end of November, sharing that he prefers not to do any gardening over the Christmas holidays if he can manage it.
