Monty Don's Italian Gardens

Florence

Monty Don is on a grand tour around Italy, this time visiting gardens both in Florence and around the sun-scorched Tuscan countryside. Monty discovers how, like a piece of sculpture, renaissance gardens were created as works of art, and how a group of Edwardian ex-pats mistakenly reinforced the idea that formal Italian gardens were flowerless.

The South

Monty Don continues his grand garden tour of Italy. This time he is in Naples to visit some of the most sublime, romantic retreats in southern Italy. After all the formality of the green gardens around Rome and Florence, Monty seeks out idyllic horticultural gems set against the dramatic scenery of the Amalfi Coast to discover why, in the south, gardens are informal and, above all, filled with flowers.

The Veneto, Lucca and The Lakes

Monty Don concludes his garden tour of Italy in the wealthy north where, in the Veneto and Lucca, extravagant pleasure gardens were created for flirtation and fun. Further north in the Lakes, Monty meets up with the garden society, the Grandi Giardini Italiani, to peer over the fence at luxurious creations of the rich and famous. The journey ends on Lake Maggiore to see the most theatrical horticultural gem of Italy.