Quotes from Monty Don

I wouldn't want to be known as Mr Depression, but I found that when I did dip a toe in the water and talk about it, the response from the public was incredible.

I like dogs because they are not humans.

You get older, you slow down. Failure feels like less of a humiliation and more of a balanced return.

I'm a great believer in trying things, so I've eaten witchetty grubs, a mountain frog, ostrich and alligator. I like tongue, I like brains and tripe.

Tony Blair is a dreadful man; really truly dreadful.

There is a direct correlation between gardening and mental health, not just to maintain good mental health but to repair it as well - that's anything in the gamut from depression to serious brain damage, schizophrenia or autism.

Absorbing a healthy amount of dirt builds your immune system.

You can trace the entire history of Britain by looking at gardens.

Gardening is seen as a pastime that is almost like belonging to the Church of England - a sign of maturity and wisdom and right thinking.

I had a difficult relationship with my parents, who died young, but they instilled self-discipline and a sense of honour and loyalty and accountability. I'm grateful for that.

I don't think about being the Colin Firth of the gardening world. I live a very insular world based around my family and my home, and to them I'm not the Colin Firth of anything.

I think that's my strength, that I am an amateur gardener who loves gardening. I've read about it, I've written about it, I've done it all my life but at heart, I'm just a passionate amateur gardener.

We don't value food in Britain, so therefore the cheaper it is the better it is. We all eat far too much, we all pay far too little for our food. We have environmental problems, we have health problems, we have food transport problems.

By starting from the ground and tapping into the absolute, uncheatable truth of nature we can make ourselves better

A healthy plant is one that adapts best to the situation in which it finds itself. There is no objective measure of this.

I think that the essence of a Christmas wreath - of all Christmas vegetative decoration - has to be green and, if possible, living. So the basis of a wreath is ideally holly, laurel, ivy, rosemary, larch, fir or whatever is to hand.

Trees are complicated, fascinating things, usually older and more beautiful than any of us.

As September rolls into October, I become obsessed with apples. Now obviously this is provoked by the ripening fruit clustering on the trees in our orchard, but it is as though all things pomological ripen in me, too.

No apple is reliably self-fertile, so each tree needs a pollinator. A neighbour may well have an apple that will do that for you, but it is better to always plant at least two trees to be certain of pollination.

I'm bad at sleeping. I get somewhere between three and six hours a night.

Sweet peas should smell. Half the point of growing sweet peas is to cut them for the house; they should fill a room with an almost painful olfactory inarticulateness. But most sweet peas smell of nothing. This does not stop them being beautiful, but they are like food with no flavour.

People are increasingly realising that what they eat is important. You can't put junk food in your body and be healthy. All sorts of problems can develop, like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, strokes. Gardening not only helps with exercise and mental health, but it can improve diet as well.

That first snowdrop, the flowering of the rose you pruned, a lettuce you grew from seed, the robin singing just for you. These are smallthings but all positive, all healing in a way that medicine tries to mimic.

A plant I have grown for years without really taking much notice of is epimedium. You know how it is: someone gives you a plant, you stick it in the ground and somehow it never presses the trigger. There is no intimacy.