Last May, on the very first day that travel was permitted, I set off from my bubble at Longmeadow to a start filming a series on Adriatic gardens. This had been delayed by a year due to the pandemic and during that time I had barely left the garden at all, other than to take the dogs for a walk in empty fields. So Heathrow was a culture shock (and a fiasco - we weren't allowed to check-in because a form had been filled in an hour too early, falling just outside the 24-hour window). So, off to a hotel and another flight the next day, this time involving a change and innumerable checks on paperwork before finally starting to film - a day behind schedule.
As well as a terrible start, the whole experience was a hassle. Everywhere we went there were different interpretations of the required Covid paperwork plus a few deeply invasive and unpleasant PCR tests on top of the ones back home and, of course, the obligatory 10 days quarantining on return.
But... it was a joy to be out and about and experiencing new places, seeing different ways of gardening and, having spent the previous year only filming with robot cameras, working with a live crew again.
My Adriatic album
Snapshots from Monty's Covid-hit year of filming
A High-end design by Fernando Caruncho makes a bold statement
A Water as far as the eye can see, at the Rothschild garden, under a Corfu sun
A The Croatian version of a Paradise Garden, by YouTube gardener Ante Karanušić
A Exploring a private, coastal garden on the Croatian island of Lopud
A hidden gem by the Grand Canal in Venice the Renaissance Palazzo Nani Bernardo
A Shipping wealth of Stavros Niarchos funds one of Europe's biggest roof gardens
Gardens and cloisters on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore
This story is from the February 2022 edition of Gardeners World.
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This story is from the February 2022 edition of Gardeners World.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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We love June
We're cruising towards midsummer: this is a month full of love and abundance. Wherever you look there will be something in your garden that lifts the spirits and makes you glad to be alive. We have colour to cheer us, we have leaves that still have the bounce and freshness of small puppies, we have the first berries fattening up, there are birds frantically parenting very demanding broods of chicks, the bees are all over the place, it's prime barbecue and picnic season, and we have lawns as lush and green as billiard tables. What a month to fall in love.
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