Monty Don reveals agonising health battle spanning ten years after ignoring doctor’s advice — with subtle signs hidden in recent series of BBC’s Gardeners’ World

Monty Don has opened up about a painful health struggle that has quietly shaped his life — and his television work — for more than a decade, with careful viewers now realising the clues had been there all along on Gardeners’ World.

The beloved gardening expert, 70, has revealed that a long-running knee condition has limited what he could physically do on the BBC show, which returns later this month. Writing candidly in Gardeners’ World magazine, Monty admitted that years of relentless gardening have taken a serious toll on his body.

“For the last ten years or more, my knees have been giving me gyp,” he explained. “They’ve been slowly deteriorating — not unexpected when you realise I’ve spent 70 years kneeling on them, hauling unreasonably heavy loads. They’ve had a long, hard time.”

Monty revealed that when he first sought medical advice about the pain, doctors prescribed painkillers and bluntly advised him to stop digging. But stepping away from the garden was never really an option — even as the condition worsened.

As a result, viewers may have noticed subtle changes in his on-screen presence. “You’ll have rarely seen me do much serious digging, and never kneeling, over the past few series,” he wrote. “By the end of a filming day, I could barely hobble to the end of the garden.”

Last year, scans confirmed what Monty had long feared. A surgeon told him both knees needed replacing, and in November 2025 he underwent surgery on his worst knee. He was fitted with a titanium and cobalt chrome replacement — a procedure followed by what he described as a “pretty painful and slow” recovery.

Now on the mend, Monty says he’s finally regaining his independence after years of being forced to sit more and scale back tasks on the show. “I’m able to do things again,” he shared, reflecting on how much his mobility had been restricted.

Using one of his trademark metaphors, Monty likened himself to his ageing Land Rover Defender. “Like my 40-year-old Land Rover, I’ve reached the point in life where I need running repairs and the occasional refit to keep going,” he wrote. “With a fair wind and superb surgical skills, I should keep ploughing on — uncomfortable, noisy, a bit slow and cumbersome, but still working in all weathers.”

The revelation comes after Monty previously amused fans with a very different kind of health-related mishap, recalling how he was once left “stark b*****k naked” in his garden after a herd of cows wandered onto his property. Speaking in a recent interview, he described leaping from the bath to chase them away — only for his towel to fall as he ran around Longmeadow wearing nothing but wellies.

Earlier last year, Monty was also forced to cancel six dates on his An Audience With Monty Don tour after spending several days in hospital. Despite the setback, he has since confirmed a return to work and landed a brand-new BBC project, Monty Don’s British Gardens, alongside his continued role on Gardeners’ World.