Monty Don’s American Gardens episode 1: Monty Don travels across America to explore whether there is such thing as an American garden. Monty begins his journey in a prairie, the original American flowering wilderness.

What is an American garden? Is there such a thing and if so what does it look like? In this three-part series, Monty Don travels across this vast continent in search of answers. In this first programme, Monty travels from Missouri to Chicago and then across to New York and Philadelphia. He begins his journey in a prairie, the original American flowering wilderness. Much of the prairie has disappeared but he meets a couple who have revived the tradition and enjoy showing it to him in full bloom.

In New York, Monty explores vegetables being grown on the city’s rooftops, he rolls up his sleeves to help an enthusiastic community in the Bronx plant up their allotment and he learns about the history of America’s most famous public green space, Central Park. Monty also travels to the garden city of America, Philadelphia, where he visits one of the country’s most famous gardens and enjoys a modern version of a prairie garden.

Monty Don’s American Gardens episode 1

As he travels across the country, Monty learns about the history and culture of American people and their gardens and marvels at the enthusiasm and energy that makes the country so special.

Prairie Garden Trust

The Prairie Garden Trust, or PGT, is a gem of place where you can enjoy the beauty of nature. Stroll through woods and prairie, along ponds and streams to see the ever-changing plants and the birds, butterflies, mammals and more that live here.

We call it a nature garden because it has the beauty of native plants without the messiness of nature untended. The “displays” vary by season: flowering dogwood, redbud, Virginia bluebells and phlox in the early spring, then purple coneflowers and butterfly weed as the prairie blooms in June with blazing star and lotus in July.

Lurie Garden

Lurie Garden is a 2.5-acre garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Designed by GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol), Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses, shrubs and trees. It is the featured nature component of the world’s largest green roof. The garden cost $13.2 million and has a $10 million endowment for maintenance and upkeep. It was named after Ann Lurie, who donated the $10 million endowment.

Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens is an American botanical garden. It consists of over 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, United States in the Brandywine Creek Valley. It is one of the premier horticultural display gardens in the United States and is open to visitors year-round to enjoy native and exotic plants and horticulture (both indoor and outdoor), events and performances, seasonal and themed attractions, as well as educational lectures, courses, and workshops.