Video Documentaries

Monty Don continues his quest to uncover the secrets of paradise gardens. Having mastered their basic building blocks in Spain, Morocco and Iran, Monty sets out to explore the wide variety of gardens offering a slightly different vision of Paradise. In Turkey Monty is dazzled by an extraordinary display of the Ottoman Empire's favourite flower - the tulip - and learns of its sacred significance. At Topkapi palace, the heart of this vast Eastern empire he learns how this sacred value was extended to all plants, landscapes and even panoramic views in a way that created gardens that rejoiced in nature. Travelling further east to India, Monty encounters a new type of spirituality in the tomb gardens of the Mughal Empire. Stunning mausoleums were set in vast gardens as places where an earthly king could enter a divine paradise. But unlike our quiet courtyards and cemeteries these were places filled with life - tented cities where people lived as well as prayed. As favoured spots for yog

In this series, Monty travels across the Islamic world and beyond in search of paradise gardens. The Koran, the holy book of Islam, tells of these magical places - green spaces filled with flowers and fruit where shade and water provide a safe haven from the harsh climate that dominates the Arab world. For Muslims, these gardens are an earthly vision of the real paradise awaiting believers in heaven. Monty starts in Spain, a country synonymous with Christian traditions but which, for 800 years, was actually Islamic. At the Alhambra, he discovers the basic building blocks of paradise gardens - green spaces divided into four by channels of water that meet at a central fountain. In Seville, Monty explores their symbolic significance. Water is the key feature of these gardens. In the desert, rain was a mercy from heaven. The channels of water that divide the garden are representative of the four rivers of heaven: water, milk, honey and wine. The repeated geometric shapes seen in the fount