Kate Garraway opens up her beautiful garden on Gardeners’ World and says it's been a place of 'hope'

Kate Garraway on Gardeners' World
(Image credit: BBC)

Kate Garraway says the family are preparing the garden to be 'full of colour' for her husband Derek

Kate Garraway has spoken about how gardening has been a family saviour as she takes part in Gardeners’ World tonight on BBC2.

The GMB star reveals to Gardener’s World presenter Joe Swift that gardening has become a lifeline to her family as her husband, Derek Draper, remains seriously ill in hospital after being taken there in March with Covid-19.

“It’s obviously been an odd year for the world, and very directly, personally for me,” says Kate, 53.

But, in a chat with Joe, she says that gardening with her two-children has been a big help and has had a positive effect.

“It was rather sad because the radishes came, they’re one of Derek’s favourite vegetables, and we ate them and he still wasn’t better. So I then thought, we’ve got to go more long term, planting things that were going to take longer to bear fruit... and I’d say, Dad will be better by then, and of course now that it’s been so long, we’ve got a huge basket of bulbs, so that when Dad comes home, the place will be full of colour.

“When you’re living day to day on a knife edge, doing something that gives you a future just helps with a sense of progress, where there is actually is none from the direct situation.”

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Kate Garraway in her North London garden

Kate Garraway in her beautiful North London garden

She also discusses on the show this evening how she’d FaceTime her husband from their North London garden, despite knowing that Derek couldn’t respond. "I’d sit in the garden and do that and talk about the things that he loved. It’s a lovely thing to do.”

Kate continued that the garden had become a really important space for the family.

“It’s been the most important space for us. It’s been a place to find joy, hope, go a bit crazy and feel a bit unleashed in a stifling physical and emotional time that we’ve all lived through.

"It just gives you that sense of positive moving forward. You can’t think short-term in a garden, you have to plan. You have to have hope. You have to invest in a future. You don’t plant something unless you believe it’s going to come up, so by planting something and believing Derek will see it when it comes up, that gives us a sense of future.”

Gardeners’ World is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm (see our TV Guide for more shows to enjoy).

David Hollingsworth
Editor

David is the What To Watch Editor and has over 20 years of experience in television journalism. He is currently writing about the latest television and film news for What To Watch.


Before working for What To Watch, David spent many years working for TV Times magazine, interviewing some of television's most famous stars including Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland, singer Lionel Richie and wildlife legend Sir David Attenborough. 


David started out as a writer for TV Times before becoming the title's deputy features editor and then features editor. During his time on TV Times, David also helped run the annual TV Times Awards. David is a huge Death in Paradise fan, although he's still failed to solve a case before the show's detective! He also loves James Bond and controversially thinks that Timothy Dalton was an excellent 007.


Other than watching and writing about telly, David loves playing cricket, going to the cinema, trying to improve his tennis and chasing about after his kids!