Don, Monty

Monty Don,
natal chart (Placidus)
natal chart English style (Equal houses)
natal chart with Whole Sign houses

Name	Don, Monty Gender: M
Birthname	George Montagu Don
born on	8 July 1955 at 00:05 (= 12:05 AM )
Place	Iserlohn, Germany, 51n22, 7e41
Timezone	CET h1e (is standard time)
Data source	Quoted BC/BR Rodden Rating AA Collector: Scholfield
Astrology data	15°02' 15°49 Asc. 21°07'

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Monty Don (2007)
photo: jo-h, license cc-by-sa-2.0

Biography

British television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, best known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners' World.

Don was born in West Germany, the youngest son of British parents, his father a career soldier posted in Germany. He had a twin sister and three other siblings; his twin suffered a broken neck and blindness after a car crash at the age of 19.

In 1981, Don and his partner Sarah Erskine started Monty Don Jewellery, a business that designed, made, and sold costume jewellery. Don and Erskine married in 1983; they have two sons, Adam and Tom, and daughter Freya. In 1986, the couple operated from a shop in London and the company grew to have 20 employees, hundreds of outworkers, and 60 outlets across the USA. However, the 1987 stock market crash caused an almost complete bankruptcy as it cut off American sales, their biggest market. The situation prompted Don to embark on a career in writing and broadcasting. He was unemployed from 1991 to 1993, and spent all of 1992 on the dole.

Although Don had never received formal training as a gardener, he was the main presenter on BBC Two's Gardeners' World from 2003 to 2008 succeeding Alan Titchmarsh. He was the first self-taught horticulturist presenter in the show's 36-year history, stepping down only after suffering a minor stroke. He returned to the series and since March 2011 he has been presenting the programme from his own garden, Longmeadow, in Herefordshire.

In 2014 Don became the lead presenter for the BBC's flagship Chelsea Flower Show coverage, again replacing Titchmarsh who had anchored the coverage of the show for some 30 years.

In January 2018 he presented the two-part BBC series Paradise Gardens, travelling across the Islamic world and beyond in search of paradise gardens and considering their place in the Quran. In February 2019 a similar two-part BBC series Japanese Gardens gave similar treatment to gardens in Japan. An American Gardens series was shown in 2020.

Link to Wikipedia biography

Relationships

• compare to chart of Titchmarsh, Alan (born 2 May 1949)

Events

• Work : Lose social status 1992 (On the dole)

• Health : Acute illness 2008 (Minor stroke)

• Work : Prize 2018 (OBE)

Source Notes

Sy Scholfield quotes "Thorny problem: A Don discovered a rare cacti in the 18th century" by Monty Don, The Observer (London, UK), 5 Jan 2003, p. E46: "I have my birth certificate before me. It tells me, in shaky type, that I was born at five past midnight on 8 July 1955 in a Canadian military hospital in Iserlohn, West Germany, and that my name is George Montagu Don... (my twin sister followed me 10 minutes later)."

Categories

• Diagnoses : Major Diseases : Stroke

• Diagnoses : Psychological : Depression

• Family : Childhood : Family large (One of five children)

• Family : Relationship : Marriage more than 15 Yrs (Sarah Erskine, 1983-)

• Family : Parenting : Kids 1-3 (Three)

• Lifestyle : Work : Loss of job

• Lifestyle : Work : Travel for work

• Lifestyle : Financial : Loss - Financial crisis

• Lifestyle : Social Life : Animals, pets (Dogs)

• Personal : Birth : Twin, triplet, etc. (Twin)

• Vocation : Business : Business owner

• Vocation : Business : Entrepreneur

• Vocation : Entertainment : TV host/ Personality

• Vocation : Entertainment : TV series/ Soap star

• Vocation : Writers : Textbook/ Non-fiction

• Vocation : Misc. : Farmer/ Rancher (Sheep farmer)

• Vocation : Misc. : Outdoor vocations (Gardener)

• Notable : Awards : Public Service (OBE)