Lights, camera, elephant... Islamic gardens get the full Monty
It has to be my favourite Monty moment. There he is, clad in regulation British-gardener-abroad rusticated Panama hat and blue cotton suit, a blue and red silk scarf tied raffishly round his neck, wobbling slightly from side to side in the frame. The reason for the wobbling becomes apparent as the camera pans out to reveal Monty seated resplendently atop a swaying elephant that is making its stately way along stone ramparts, the honeyed Indian landscape glowing in the background. At this point Monty, who looks as insouciantly relaxed as ever, assures us: “Arriving by elephant is the most appropriate way to approach the Amber Fort.”
These are gardens fed by flowing waters and heavily scented with roses, citrus plants and herbs
The elephant ride may have been a set-up, but as Monty enters the courtyard a group of young women clad in bright saris are stripping rose bushes of petals for garlands, a wonderfully picturesque piece of happenstance and one of the details that makes this programme such a pleasure. The Indian interlude in the second programme is the highlight of a beguiling two-part series, Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens (which starts Jan 19 and continues on Jan 26, BBC Two), in which our globetrotting horticultural hero tours Spain, Morocco, India, Iran, Turkey and finally Britain in search of the paradise gardens of the Islamic world. These are gardens fed by flowing waters and heavily scented with roses, citrus plants and herbs, their cruciform structure based on descriptions of paradise in the Koran as a fertile land watered by two rivers.
The Indian section was the high point for Monty as well. “To be honest I think we could have made a whole programme just about India,” he says. “Though what doesn’t come across is that when we were filming there it was unbelievably hot.”
The heat was one reason why Monty rose at 4am to get to the Taj Mahal at dawn – only to find a giant queue in front of him. But we are at his side as he walks through the Taj’s gate and gains his first glimpse of the “almost silvery” building, its famous domes shimmering in the distance.
“I was practically in tears at that point,” he admits. “I was so moved. It really is transcendental. It lifts you up.” As with all television presenters, there are times one feels Monty is manufacturing his enthusiasm, but this is not one of them. Overall the commentary on the gardens, however, is inevitably superficial in that it reflects BBC policy to use the Gardeners’ World team for all garden programmes, including those on specialist areas of history. Their shtick is always: “I don’t know anything about the subject – but I know what I like.”
Monty rose at 4am to get to the Taj Mahal at dawn - only to find a giant queue in front of him
That would not be the case if the subject was, for example, Renaissance art, when an expert would be engaged to talk to us – but gardens, and the gardens audience are, it seems, not deserving of intellectual respect. The BBC thinks we are a bunch of flower sniffers who do not deserve to be treated like educated grown-ups.
The programme does not fight shy of criticism where it is due, however, and in the case of the garden around the Taj, Lord Curzon comes in for some stick.
It was he who transformed the Taj’s garden into an English park of lawns and trees, obscuring the intended vistas across the garden in the process.
On the other hand, the Indians’ apparent lack of interest in restoring the recently rediscovered Mehtab Bagh, or “moonlight garden”, across the water from the Taj, goes unmentioned, even though Monty tells me, “I found that side quite frustrating.” Perhaps that is diplomacy at work.
There were times in Monty’s epic Around the World in 80 Gardens when he looked exhausted and frankly fed up. He never gets to that point in Paradise Gardens but in Iran he does start to look rather hollow-eyed.
He explains: “We had applied for visas to film in Iran and had heard nothing at all for seven months. Then, when I was filming Gardeners’ World, I was rung up to be told I would be going to Iran on Tuesday. There was to be no film crew – just me and the stills photographer. We had four days’ notice and we had to put it together with no contacts, no transport, nowhere to stay.
“Penelope Hobhouse helped us with contacts in Iran and we went out and met the Iranian film crew, who didn’t speak English.”
So who directed it? “I did!”
Monty adds: “The single best thing about Iran was seeing people picnicking on carpets in the gardens. One of the things I learned, not just in Iran but across the Islamic world, is the intensity of the flowering period, which is basically three weeks in spring. In that context you realise that the carpets are not just an accessory – they continue the flowering period into the summer. They are a part of the garden, just as pots are for us.”
Again, the political backdrop is studiously avoided, with no mention made of the dilapidated state of these gardens although that is plain to see. These great Persian gardens are clearly deteriorating before our eyes. There is one moment, however, which could prove challenging to those who like their gardens in pretty pastels: a park in Istanbul covered by a swirling display of thousands of block-planted tulips.
Monty admits he didn’t know what to think. “It was one of those bewildering moments when you find yourself in a cultural dishwasher.”
Dishwasher or no, Paradise Gardens clears away some cobwebs and makes for refreshing midwinter viewing.
