Around the World in 80 Gardens

Around the World in 80 Gardens is a television series of 10 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visits 80 of the world's most celebrated gardens. The series was filmed over a period of 18 months and was first broadcast on BBC Two at 9pm on successive Sundays from 27 January to 30 March 2008. A book based on the series was also published.

Around the World in 80 Gardens
GenreDocumentary
Adventure travel
StarringMonty Don
No. of episodes10
Production
ProducerBBC
Running time10 × 1 hour
Original release
NetworkBBC Two
Release27 January (2008-01-27) –
30 March 2008 (2008-03-30)

The title of the series was a reference to Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days.

Mexico & Cuba

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# Country Garden Notes
1.   Mexico The Floating Gardens, Xochimilco, Mexico City The chinampas of Lake Xochimilco, floating vegetable gardens dating back before Aztec times.
2.   Mexico The Gardens of Luis Barragán: Casa de Luis Barragán, Casa Prieto López and Casa Antonio Gálvez Gardens created by leading Mexican architect, Luis Barragán, in Mexico City. Website of the Barragan Foundation
3.   Mexico The Ethno-Botanical Garden, Oaxaca A new botanic garden containing the region's many species of cactus, built alongside the Santo Domingo Cultural Center, formerly a monastery, on a site originally slated for development as a hotel. Website
4.   Mexico Las Pozas, Xilitla A surreal collection of jungle plants and concrete follies created in a former coffee plantation by Englishman Edward James in the Sierra Madre Oriental. Website
5.   Cuba Alberto's Huerto, Havana An urban vegetable garden in the space left by a collapsed building.
6.   Cuba Vivero Organopónico Alamar, Havana A large urban collective organic market garden (Organopónico)
7.   Cuba Maria's Garden, Havana A small urban flower garden.

Australia & New Zealand

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Starting with Botany Bay...

# Country Garden Notes
8.   Australia The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney Botanic gardens around Farm Cove at the centre of Sydney, on the site of a grain farm established by the first European settlers in 1788. Website
9.   Australia Kennerton Green, Mittagong, New South Wales A colonial-style garden with European planting in the hills near Sydney.
10.   Australia The Sitta Garden, Sydney A modern garden designed by Vladimir Sitta, including native plants and large slabs of red rock from central Australia.
11.   Australia Alice Springs Desert Park, Northern Territory A park near Alice Springs recreating the habitats for desert plants across central Australia. Website
12.   Australia Cruden Farm, Langwarrin, Melbourne Gardened continuously by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch since the 1920s.[1]
13.   Australia The Garden Vineyard, Moorooduc, Melbourne A European-style garden on the Mornington Peninsula, replacing European planting with Australian natives. Website
14.   New Zealand Ayrlies Garden, Auckland A 12-acre (49,000 m2) country garden created since 1964 in a paddock east of Auckland by Beverley McConnell. Website
15.   New Zealand Te Kainga Marire, New Plymouth A domestic city garden of native New Zealand plants. Its name is Māori for "the peaceful encampment". Website

India

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# Country Garden Notes
16.   India Taj Mahal and the Mehtab Bagh, Agra Website, Garden Visit review.[p]
17.   India Akbar's Tomb, Sikandra
18.   India The Monsoon Garden, Deeg Gardens of the Deeg Palace. Garden Visit review
19.   India Jal Mahal, Jaipur
20.   India Hindu Temple Shrine Garden, Jaipur
21.   India Mr Abraham's Spice Garden, Thekkady, Kerala An organic spice garden. Website
22.   India The Old Railway Garden, Munnar, Kerala The garden is maintained by the Kanan Devan Hill Plantations Company. The company is South India's biggest Tea producer and exporter and is also the first ever employee owned plantation company in India. Tea Purchase Website Company Website
23.   India The Rock Garden, Chandigarh A sculpture garden created illegally by transport official Nek Chand who started the garden secretly in his spare time in 1957. Today it is spread over an area of forty-acres (160,000 m2), it is completely built of industrial & home waste and thrown-away items. Website Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine

In addition to the Old Railway Garden, Don also featured the surrounding "tea gardens" (tea plantations). He expressly did not count it as one out of the eighty, however.

South America

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# Country Garden Notes
24.   Brazil Burle Marx's Copacabana Promenade, Rio de Janeiro
25.   Brazil Garden of the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, Rio de Janeiro
26.   Brazil The Floating Gardens, The Amazon River The locals live in floating houses on the river, and they grow vegetables and medicinal plants in small barges attached to their houses
27.   Brazil Bacu's Forest Garden, The Amazon
28.   Argentina Carlos Thays's garden at Estancia Dos Talas, Dolores, Buenos Aires, in The Pampas In the middle of the limitless pampas a grand French-style mansion with gardens in 1500 hectares of lands and the infinite pampas beyond. Website
29.   Chile The private garden of Chilean landscape architect Juan Grimm at Bahia Azul, Los Vilos

United States of America

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# Country Garden Notes
30.   United States LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton, New York The Long Island gardens housing Jack Lenor Larsen's sculpture collection. Website
  United States Central Park
31.   United States Gantry Plaza State Park, New York A garden at Hunters Point in Queens, beside historic ship-loading gantries on the East River. Designed by Thomas Balsley. Website
32.   United States Liz Christy Garden, Manhattan, New York The first community garden in New York City, founded in 1973 by local resident Liz Christy on a vacant lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston Street. Website
33.   United States James Van Sweden's garden at Ferry Cove, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland A modern garden of grasses, melting into the surrounding landscape.
34.   United States Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia The garden of the author of the US Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Website[a]
  United States Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
35.   United States The Huntington Botanic Garden, San Marino, California A 120-acre (0.49 km2) botanic garden around the Huntington Library, laid out in the early 20th century. Website
36.   United States Lotusland, Montecito, Santa Barbara, California The gardens of opera singer Madame Ganna Walska. Website[a]
37.   United States Roland Emmerich's Garden, Hollywood, California An instant mature garden for the Hollywood director and producer, with tall palm trees installed to provide privacy.
38.   United States The Greenberg Garden, Brentwood, Los Angeles Designed by Mia Lehrer.

China & Japan

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# Country Garden Notes
39.   China The Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou 16th-century garden, with many pavilions, island, pools and bridges.
40.   China The Lion Grove, Suzhou
41.   China The Imperial Summer Palace, Beijing Complex of palaces and gardens northwest of Beijing, covering 3.5 km2, looted and destroyed by the British and French in 1860.
42.   Japan Ryoan-ji Temple, Kyoto Famous karesansui (dry landscape) rock garden. Part of the World Heritage Site. Website
43.   Japan Issidan, Ryogen-in Temple, Kyoto Large Japanese rock garden.
44.   Japan Totekiko, Ryogen-in Temple, Kyoto Small Japanese rock garden.
45.   Japan Urasenke Tea Garden, Kyoto Tea room built by Sen Sōtan. Website
46.   Japan Tofuku-ji Temple Garden, Kyoto Designed by Mirei Shigemori in the 1930s, including a moss garden and Japanese maples. Website

The Mediterranean

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# Country Garden Notes
47.   Italy Villa d'Este, Tivoli A spectacular Renaissance garden with many fountains. Website Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine[i]
48.   Italy Villa Adriana, Tivoli The remains of the garden set out for Roman Emperor Hadrian around his palace.[i]
49.   Italy Elio's vineyard, Tivoli A private fruit and vegetable garden.
50.   Italy Villa Lante, Bagnaia A 16th-century Mannerist gardens of surprises.
51.   Morocco The Aguedal, Marrakech Royal vegetable gardens dating to the 12th century, irrigated with water from the Ourika valley, with water stored in large central cisterns. Garden Visit review[p]
52.   Morocco The Majorelle, Marrakech The botanical garden created by French artist Jacques Majorelle in 1924, and restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé in the 1980s. Website
53.   Spain The Alhambra and Generalife, Granada The gardens of the Moorish palace in Andalusia. Website[p]
54.   Spain The Patios of Córdoba Private courtyard gardens, opened to the public in May each year, in the annual Courtyards Festival of Cordoba [es]. WebsiteTourism Information
55.   Spain Casa Caruncho, Madrid The private garden of Spanish landscape gardener, Fernando Caruncho. Website

South Africa

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# Country Garden Notes
56.   South Africa Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Town A botanic garden on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. Website
57.   South Africa Henk Scholtz's garden, Franschhoek near Cape Town
58.   South Africa The Company's Garden, Cape Town Originally created to provide fresh food to passing ships, using water from natural springs; now a city park.
59.   South Africa Stellenberg, Kenilworth, Cape Town
60.   South Africa Donovan's L'il Eden, Hout Bay, Cape Town A garden in a Cape squatter camp.
61.   South Africa Kirklington, Ficksburg, Free State A garden established in the first half of the 20th century by English expatriate Edward Tudor Boddam-Whetham and his wife Ruby Newberry, daughter of Charles Newberry. It makes careful management of scarce water resources, and is named after Edward's ancestral home, Kirklington Hall in Nottinghamshire. Photos
62.   South Africa The Savanna Rock Garden, Magaliesberg, Johannesburg A rock garden created by a married couple (one a sculptor, the other an artist).
63.   South Africa Brenthurst Gardens, Parktown, Johannesburg The garden of Strilli Oppenheimer, wife of Nicky Oppenheimer. Website
64.   South Africa Thuthuka School Garden, Tembisa Township near Johannesburg A garden in a township school.

Northern Europe

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# Country Garden Notes
65.   UK Rousham Park, Oxfordshire Perhaps the first English landscape garden, created by William Kent in the early 18th century. Website
66.   UK Sissinghurst Castle, Kent Influential English garden created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson; owned by the National Trust since 1967. Website
67.   France Chateau Villandry, The Loire Valley Acres of parterre and box hedge, recreated in the 20th century. Website
68.   France Claude Monet's Garden, Giverny Obsessively painted by Monet; now receiving over half a million visitors each year. Website
69.   Belgium Jacques Wirtz's Garden, Schoten, Antwerp The private garden of Belgian landscape artist Jacques Wirtz, including his trademark "cloud" box hedges. Website
70.   Netherlands Het Loo Palace, Apeldoorn The Baroque Dutch garden of William III and Mary II, originally designed by Claude Desgotz in the 1680s but replaced by an English landscape garden in the 18th century; restored from 1970 to 1984 to its appearance in 1700. Website
71.   Netherlands The Boon Family Garden, Oostzaan, Amsterdam An example of a small modern domestic garden, designed by Piet Oudolf for Dutch architect Piet Boon.
72.   Norway The Arctic Alpine Botanic Gardens, Tromsø The northernmost botanic garden in the world, 200 miles (320 km) inside the Arctic Circle. Website

South East Asia

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# Country Garden Notes
73.   Thailand Jim Thompson's Garden, Bangkok A jungle garden created by American Office of Strategic Services agent and silk merchant, Jim Thompson. Website
74.   Thailand The Grand Palace, Bangkok Official residence of the King of Thailand. Website (Monty Don also visited the agricultural research fields at the Chitlada Palace.)
75.   Thailand The Klong Gardens, Bangkok Don visits one of the private gardens that line the canals of Bangkok, accompanied by actress Patravadi Mejudhon.
76.   Singapore The City in a Garden The landscaping fulfilling the vision of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, to soften the harshness of urban life by clothing Singapore in green. Singapore National Parks website
77.   Singapore Wilson Wong's Community Garden An urban vegetable garden created as a community project.
78.   Indonesia Pura Taman Ayun, Mengwi, Bali A 17th-century Hindu temple ("Taman Ayun" is Balinese for "beautiful garden"). Don also visited the Denpasar night Market.
79.   Indonesia Traditional Home Compound, Ubud, Bali A typical Balinese private household. Don also visited Villa Batujimbar, luxury resort visited by Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall
80.   Indonesia Villa Bebek, Sanur, Bali A modern Balinese garden, designed by Australian Made Wijaya (Michael White). Website

References and Notes

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a.a1 a2 Revisited in Monty Don's American Gardens
i.i1 i2 Revisited in Monty Don's Italian Gardens
p.p1 p2 p3 Revisited in Monty Don's Paradise Gardens
  1. ^ "Gardening Australia – Fact Sheet: Dame Elisabeth Murdoch". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 25 January 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2008.

See also

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