Monty Don, the beloved host of BBC's Gardeners' World, has spoken candidly about his own gardening failures, dismissing the idea that he is a perfect gardener as 'nonsense'. In an interview with the i newspaper, the 71-year-old revealed that he makes mistakes every day, including a recent failure with his sweetcorn crop.
'I’ve grown sweetcorn all my life. I know how to do it – I’ve done it hundreds of times with success. Last year, they were fantastic. This year, they’ve not germinated. I don’t know why, because they were perfectly good seeds. But something has gone wrong,' Don said.
The Value of Mistakes in Gardening
Don emphasized that mistakes are essential for learning and improvement. He recalled interviewing head gardeners for a book he wrote 45 years ago, all of whom were in their eighties. 'They all said the same thing: they didn’t really begin to get good at gardening until they’d had some serious failures. Because if you succeed at something, you stop working out how you do it. Whereas if you fail, you really have to think: what am I doing wrong?'
Common Gardening Mistakes to Avoid
In his July blog post, Don warned gardeners not to leave clippings behind, as it can affect plant growth. 'All Spring-flowering bulbs should have completely died back so that long grass can be cut without affecting their display next year,' he wrote. For his own Longmeadow garden, he added, 'At Longmeadow, we often wait until August to do this because not all wild flowers have set seed, but by the end of July most wild flower meadows can be safely cut back. The important thing is to remove all the grass, raking up every last piece to compost so that it will not enrich the grass and thus limit next year’s wild flower display.'
Another common mistake is mowing wet grass. According to BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, 'Mowing when the ground is sodden can lead to compaction, the mower will smear and rut the soil, and wet grass clippings will clump and smother the lawn below.'
Gardeners' World returns to UK screens tonight (July 16) at 8pm on BBC Two.
