Monty explores the influence of the Venetians on gardening, starting in their home city at the top of the Adriatic coast and travelling on through Croatia and Greece, visiting a range of public and private gardens.

British garden enthusiast Monty Don takes a journey of the gardens of the Adriatic. He centers this tour on Venice, which for centuries has been the commercial center of the region, although he realizes that gardens are not what one generally thinks of when talking about Venice. He then follows the historic Venetian trade route down the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. He finds that after half a century of Communist rule, its associated poverty, and the destructive Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the populace of Croatia is still trying to find its footing with regard to gardening, and not just thinking about using arable land to grow food, a necessity during those times of poverty. His final stop is Greece, where the harsh and ever harsher climate due to climate change will factor into how Grecians garden in the twenty-first century and beyond.—Huggo