Gardeners' World's Monty Don, 70, has opened up about an "inexplicably painful" health battle. The gardener, who has been open about his physical and mental health struggles in the past, underwent a knee replacement last year after having difficulty walking while filming his long-running hit BBC series - and revealed he will need a second surgery.
"I was finding by the end of a day’s filming I could barely walk upstairs and I certainly couldn’t take the dogs for a walk," the 70-year-old, who lives in Herefordshire with his wife Sarah and their two dogs, told The Mirror after undergoing surgery late last year.
"I did it so I could keep on working because it was getting to the point where filming was cutting round me limping," he explained.
© Getty ImagesThe BBC star said: "However you do it, a knee replacement is horribly painful." Monty shared that he's back gardening three months into recovery.
"Sarah says I’ve been doing far too much stuff, but it’s fine and going to plan – though it can be inexplicably painful one day and then not at all another," he said, adding that he no longer needs a walking stick to help with movement. However, Monty's health journey is not over, with the star sharing he will need to go under the knife again for a second knee replacement which will likely be scheduled for late next year.
Monty's health journey
The 70-year-old, who is back to filming Gardener's World as of March, wrote about his decade-long struggle with his knees in his Gardener's World magazine in January. "For the last 10 years or more my knees have been giving me gyp and, it turns out, slowly deteriorating," he wrote, adding that it was "not so unusual or unexpected".
"I have spent 70 years kneeling on them asking them to stagger about under unreasonably heavy loads," he explained, ending up having his "worst knee" replaced. "They have had a long, hard time of it."
The star was previously forced to take a break from filming Gardener's World after suffering a stroke in 2008 when he was 52. Monty had a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), also known as a 'mini-stroke', while he was asleep. He then had to cancel several tour shows in 2024 after being hospitalised for an undisclosed health emergency.
Along with experiencing physical health woes, he's spoken candidly in the past about his mental health battle with depression, which he's explained tends to get worse in the winter.
Future of Gardeners' World
© BBC StudiosMonty has been hosting Gardeners' World since 2003,. After making hints he would be putting down his gardening shears in the near future, the star previously told The Guardian in 2024 that he expects to depart the show "within the next five years".
His BBC contract was set to run out at the end of the year, but in a new interview with Saga Magazine, Monty shared that there are current negotiations for him to stay on with the series until 2028.
"I hope I’m continuing, but as I come up to the end of every contract, I seriously consider how it fits the rest of my life," the told the outlet, admitting that he doesn't "know what retirement would look like".
