Around the World in 80 Gardens

Monty Don visits the world's 80 most inspiring gardens. In Mexico, Monty visits the ancient water gardens of Mexico City and a surrealist fantasy garden hidden in the rainforest. In Cuba, he discovers a green revolution sprouting out of crumbling colonial lawns.

Monty Don is so shocked by the Australian obsession with lawns that he declares "It could be Surrey!". Imported plants have replaced the native fauna, which disappoints Monty. In New Zealand, however, he is inspired by a magical rainforest garden created from native plants.

Monty Don is in India, and visits the majestic tomb gardens of the Mughal emperors and the pleasure gardens of the Hindu Maharajahs. He looks at the quaintly British gardens of tea country and visits the famous architectural gardens at the Taj Mahal. Finally, Monty visits a little-known rock and sculpture garden.

Monty Don is in South America, a continent twice the size of Europe and the home of more than 50,000 endemic plant species. In Rio de Janeiro, Monty visits the private garden of Brazil's most famous artist, Burle Marx. He views the ingenious floating gardens of the Amazon, and visits a crumbling estancia (ranch) in the windy Pampas. He ends his journey on the Pacific coast of Chile.

Monty Don continues his journey with a visit to the richest and most powerful nation in the world: the United States of America. There, he meets garden guerrillas in New York, visits a Virginian garden that reflects the birth of the nation, and finally travels west to California, to see if gardens there reflect more than the glitz of the movie industry.

Monty Don visits the world's 80 most inspiring gardens, this time in China and Japan, two of the world's oldest gardening cultures. In China he visits the ancient scholars' gardens of Suzhou and the awesome Yellow Mountains of Huangshang that inspired them. He visits the Imperial Summer Palace Gardens of Beijing. In Kyoto, Japan's city of gardens, he tries to understand the Zen garden.