Television series
Around the World in 80 Gardens
- Light-hearted
Monty Don travels the globe visiting eighty extraordinary gardens, from Zen temples to sprawling estates. It's a meditation on how humans arrange plants and meaning, shot with genuine wanderlust. For anyone who finds peace in gardens, travel, or the patient accumulation of beauty.
If you liked this
Gardeners' World1968
Monty Don's home base: decades of practical wisdom, seasonal rhythms, and his own Herefordshire garden becoming almost a character. Pure comfort television that teaches without preaching.
But If you want dramatic structure or narrative arc, this meandering weekly show might feel formless. It's about the doing, not the story.
The Biggest Little Farm2019
A couple transforms a degraded California ranch into a biodiverse farm. Like Monty's series but condensed into two hours of gorgeous time-lapse and genuine ecological wonder, with stakes that feel personal.
But The relentless optimism and soft-focus cinematography occasionally tip toward magical thinking. Occasionally saccharine about the earth's bounty.
A Year in Provence1993
Travel, landscape, and the slow reveal of a place's character across seasons. Ian Richardson narrates with dry warmth as a couple renovate a farmhouse. Meditative in the same register as Monty's wandering.
But 1990s production values and pacing will feel leisurely to anyone accustomed to modern editing. Deliberately slow.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Around the World in 80 Gardens
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
My Octopus Teacher2020
Both are about how sustained attention transforms a place into intimacy. Monty teaches us to look at gardens; this teaches us to look at anything with that same reverence.
A man spends a year filming an octopus in a South African kelp forest, developing an unlikely intimacy with the place and its life. Not about gardens, but about patient attention revealing character. Monty's method applied to the wild.
But If you go in expecting marine biology, you'll find philosophy instead. The pace is contemplative to the point of stillness for some viewers.
More like this (6)
Grand Designs1999
Kevin McCloud follows ambitious building projects over months and years. Shares Monty's interest in how humans shape their environments, with more drama and occasional disaster.
But Later seasons rely heavily on wealth and spectacle. Early episodes are better; the show can feel less about design and more about money.
Civilisations2018
Simon Schama's sweeping exploration of how cultures make and remake beauty across continents. Gardens are one language among many; this expands the conversation Monty's series starts.
But Ambitious scope means any single subject—gardens included—gets less sustained attention. You might want to stay in one place longer.
The Secret of Kells2009
Animated, Irish-folklore-inflected beauty about illuminating manuscripts. Like visiting a garden through a stained-glass window: colour, pattern, and the accumulation of tiny perfect details making something whole.
But The plot is deliberately slight; this is pure aesthetic experience. If you need narrative momentum, this will frustrate you.
Catfish: The TV Show2012
Norwegian television's almost absurd commitment to real time: two hours of cutting and stacking wood, beautifully shot and somehow hypnotic. Peak meditative television, kinship with Monty's unhurried pace.
But There is no narrative, no music, almost no editing. It is literally a man cutting wood for two hours. Respect the premise or don't bother.
The Great Beauty2013
Both treat arranged spaces—gardens or cities—as records of desire and civilization. But where Monty finds peace, Sorrentino finds decay lurking beneath the roses.
Sorrentino's Roman fever dream: decadence, fountains, gardens glimpsed through marble and excess. It's what happens when you photograph the world like it's a garden—every frame composed, gilded, arranged for beauty.
But Three-and-a-half hours of sensory immersion with almost no plot. Gorgeous but exhausting. Not interested in making you comfortable.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi2011
Both celebrate how humans create small ordered universes—whether through plants or precision. The accumulation of small choices becoming something transcendent.
An eighty-year-old sushi master's obsessive pursuit of perfection across decades. Like watching someone garden with fish: minute adjustments, seasonal awareness, the space between things as important as the things themselves.
But Meditative to the point of quietness. If you need entertainment or conflict, this patient document of mastery will bore you senseless.
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Monty DonPresenter