Monty Don: shedworker

Those of you who watch Gardeners' World on the BBC will last week have noticed that presenter Monty Don did rather a lot of work in what he called his 'Writing Garden'. Although he didn't elaborate on the shedlike atmosphere that was constantly in shot (pictured above in screengrabs), we're presuming this was his writing hut which Bunny Guinness referred to in the Daily Telegraph . Here's what she said:

Long Meadow has been created on a limited budget by Monty and Sarah, and maintained for the past four years with no outside help. It is their dream garden, and we viewers will be able to see it all: from the walled garden at the front where the family eat outside, to the orchard, where Monty’s son built a special writing hut for him while he was ill, and all the intriguing spaces between. The Spring Garden, Dry Garden, Vegetable Garden, Lime Walk, the Jewel Garden (using jewel or metallic colours for high impact), greenhouse and potting shed, nursery area, Cricket Lawn, Hazel Copse and the Damp Garden – all connected, it seems, in a well-ordered and cohesive fashion.

You can see the episode again on the BBC's iPlayer thingy here - the hut is featured mostly towards the start of the programme.
Thanks to Robin Peach for his eagle oculos. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monty Don in his writing shed

My Monty is in the writing shed. 🐾🐾 pic.twitter.com/gb95TgTKDg

— Monty's Dog Nellie🐾 (@montysdognellie) September 9, 2017

We've talked about gardener and broadcaster Monty Don and his writing shed before on Shedworking. Here's a rather nice picture of him at work in it. --------------------------------------------------------

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Monty Don's 2025 Chelsea Flower Show garden

The announcement that Monty Don - whose writing shed has featured on these pages several times -  will be putting together a garden design for the first time for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show next year has not unreasonably focused mostly on the fact that it will be dog-friendly.

But what caught the eye of the Shedworking staff was that the design, inspired by Don's own Longmeadow which regularly features on BBC's Gardener's World television series and pictured above, will also include a summerhouse, or as the RHS put it: "The lawn drifts into longer grass planted with ornamental spring flowering bulbs to create a tameflower, rather than wildflower meadow. Brick paths run straight creating vistas – a touch of Monty Don’s own Longmeadow garden – with one providing the route through the garden for visitors and another leading to the summerhouse." We will watch the design develop with interest and report back here. 

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Monty Don's writing shed

We have covered Monty Don's writing shed several times before on Shedworking but this is such a beautiful image from him this morning that we felt it would be nice to pass it on to readers as inspiration. Below, he takes us for a walk up his writing room path.

Down the writing garden path pic.twitter.com/NnxLBnAwKv

— Monty Don (@TheMontyDon) April 2, 2020

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Monty Don's Christmas writing shed

An early Christmas present from gardener and broadcaster Monty Don to shedworkers everywhere, his writing shed with a yuletide touch. More on Monty Don's garden office on Shedworking here.

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Monty Don's writing shed

Gardener and broadcaster Monty Don has posted a photo of his garden office on Twitter captioned "Writing shed in the early morning light" and he is getting plenty of positive reaction...

I spend ages thinking what would look beautiful there and can see you thought about everything, the roof shape reflecting the trees with delicate honeysuckle adding to the heavenly perfume, tall and erect, soft and billowing, gorgeous white always bringing light,rustic, stunningx

— Viv (@anotherviv) July 30, 2019

Monty Don's new summerhouse

Gardener and broadcaster Monty Don's writing shed has been featured on Shedworking several times because it's lovely. Regular viewers of BBC Gardeners' World will know that he has various other shedlike buildings at his Longmeadow garden in Herefordshire, including a potting shed and greenhouses. On his instagram account he often includes shots of these and recently has been including the build of his new summerhouse on the Mound section of Longmeadow. Last night on Gardeners' World he unveiled it for the first time on television. It's an interesting corrugated build - we didn't get to see inside it - and part of his ongoing campaign to just sit in his garden and enjoy it, a fine move. 

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Monty Don's writing shed in June

We've covered Monty Don's writing shed several times on Shedworking because he obviously loves it so much and it's so picturesque. Here is what it looks like this morning, framed with the lovely rambling 'Wedding Day' rose. --------------------------------------

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Inside Monty Don's writing shed

Here's the inside of gardener, writer, and broadcaster Monty Don's writing shed. Read more about it in previous posts on Shedworking.

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Shedworking wins blog award

I'm as proud as Punch to announce that Shedworking has picked up a top award at the prestigious Fork'n Monkey blog awards which celebrate gardening-related bloggers. Shedworking won the You're My Favourite Way of Wasting Time category, an award for the most entertaining gardening website. The full list of winners is below and I'd urge readers to check them all out:

Is There Anybody Out There? goes to esther in the garden

The Adam Pasco Award goes to Frankie at her Veg Plot

Proud Parent - Fuggles for the dancing frog beansprout photo

Vegetable Matter - Bifurcated Carrots

What’s New Pussycat - Wilb at Big Sofa

Inky/Green Fingers - Blogging at Blackpitts

We Are All in the Gutter - VP at Veg Plotting

Crash Bang Wallop goes to Cleve West’s poppadom photograph

The Jeeves award goes to Monty Don

Road workers help pave the way for entrepreneur's garden office business

Workers carrying out improvements to junction 10 of the M6 for National Highways and Walsall Council stepped in to help when their work brought them into contact with Monzur Mia.

Monzur, who has cerebral palsy and uses a motorised wheelchair to get around and an electronic talk box to communicate, came to the attention of the project team when a pedestrian route had to be diverted for safety reasons during the improvement work and they realised that the diversion was taking him out of his way when he wanted to travel between his home and Walsall.

They decided to do something for Monzur in appreciation of his understanding so Works Manager Steven Adamson arranged for workers to prepare and level the ground and install a concrete path with recycled stone. Six people from the team volunteered to carry out the work over a weekend.

Monzur launched his flower business, Monty’s Flowers, during the pandemic and he sells artificial blooms. He is planning to build a garden office to support the business at the end of the garden and the new pathway will help him achieve that goal.

“I am very grateful for their help," he said, "for sparing their time and helping to improve access for me, preparing the ground for my future freestanding office plans. This meant so much, I want to give a big thanks to all who helped.”

National Highways Project Manager, Rumbi Dzikiti, said: “We appreciate that any roadworks, particularly on a scheme as large as this, can cause disruption for local people and appreciate their understanding while works are carried out. So if we can be a good neighbour and help people in the local community we are happy to do so. The project team got to know Monzur and volunteered to carry out this work in his garden. Hopefully he can now better enjoy the outdoors this summer and ultimately get the office he wants to support his business." 

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Unbound: a new shedbased model for book publishing

We've mentioned Unbound before previously on Shedworking but didn't want to give too much away before its official launch. So here's the full story... Unbound, a revolutionary new approach to publishing has been revealed at the Hay Festival today. Well known authors including Terry Jones and Gavin Pretor-Pinney have signed up to the project in the Unbound Pledging Shed. The brainchild of three writers (QI’s John Mitchinson and Justin Pollard and former Deputy Editor of The Idler, Dan Kieran), Unbound allows authors to write the books that they want and readers to choose what gets published.

Using the Unbound.co.uk publishing platform, authors can now pitch their book ideas directly to their readers. Readers choose the ideas that they like on the website and pledge their support. When an idea has enough supporters, the book is written and supporters receive a clothbound limited Unbound First Edition with their name in it. Supporters are kept up to date throughout the creative process via the author’s private area or ‘shed’, where they can read the blog, watch interviews and meet other supporters and the author themselves.

A number of high profile authors looking to set their books free have already pitched their Unbound ideas at Hay: Monty Python, writer and performer Terry Jones has proposed a “darkly funny set of linked tales about vengeful phones and hoovers”; cloud-guru Gavin Pretor-Pinney wants to take us inside clouds with the help of award-winning digital publisher Touch Press; and This Life writer Amy Jenkins will write her first new book in 10 years. Other Unbound authors include Booker-shortlisted novelist Tibor Fischer, bestselling author of the The Horse Boy Rupert Isaacson and maverick cultural historian and film maker Jonathan Meades.

Supporters to Unbound can chose the level of support that they wish to pledge, from £10 to funding the whole book. Rewards range from e-book downloads and personally dedicated Unbound First Edition, to invites to the book launch party and lunch with the author. Those who recommend projects to friends will receive credits to spend elsewhere on the site. Authors receive 50% of all profits from Unbound books.

John Mitchinson, Dan Kieran and Justin Pollard from Unbound comment:
“There are lots of great books that we’re not getting the opportunity to read. Unbound democratises the book commissioning process by enabling authors and readers to make the decisions about what does or doesn’t get published.” Unbound has the support of Faber & Faber, who will sell and distribute trade editions of selected titles under an Unbound imprint. Any subsequent success of these trade editions is likely to add to the limited first edition’s value.

More Unbound writers will be revealed throughout the week at Hay. Readers can visit the Unbound Pledging Shed to meet authors, watch their pitches and pledge support for their new book ideas. Visit www.unbound.co.uk to watch the pitches and to make a pledge.

The Unbound Pledging Shed at Hay is housed in a 3rdSpace Garden Room designed and built on site by Sawhorse Limited: Shedworking was delighted to have been the matchmaker between Sawhorse and Unbound. Pictured below are some early shots of the garden office just before it opened for business...

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Cressida Cowell's path to the writing shed in June

Regular readers will have enjoyed the regular updates of the path to her garden shed of children's novelist, current Children's Laureate, and contributor to my latest book,  Cressida Cowell. For those new to the ongoing series, Cressida takes photos of the path to her writing shed garden office almost every month throughout the year. Pictured above is this month's late June example (see what it looked like for example in February, May and October last year).

And as a bonus, here is Felicite-Perpetue rambling over Monty Don's writing shed.

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