Kate Garraway says gardening has given her hope during husband Derek's Covid-19 battle
Kate Garraway has opened up about how gardening has helped her find joy and hope during husband Derek Draper's ongoing battle with Coronavirus.
Derek was taken to hospital with Covid-19 in March and remains seriously ill.
Speaking to BBC Two's Gardeners' World, the Good Morning Britain presenter explained that the garden has become a lifeline for her and the couple's two children, Darcy and Billy, during this difficult time.
"It’s been the most important space for us," Kate tells presenter Joe Swift during the programme, which will air on Friday, 9 October. "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.
A post shared by Kate Garraway (@kategarraway) on Oct 8, 2020 at 9:46pm PDT
"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."
Discuss the positive effects of gardening itself, Kate says: "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."
She added: "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."
During the show, Kate also opens up about speaking to her husband over FaceTime from their garden in North London, despite knowing that Derek couldn't respond from hospital.
She says: "I’d sit in the garden and do that and talk about the things that he loved. It’s a lovely thing to do."
Gardeners' World airs on BBC Two on Friday, 9 October at 9pm.
For more information about Coronavirus and its effects, visit the NHS website.
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