Gardeners should accept 'sometimes your prized blooms' will be eaten, says Monty Don as he rewrites 20 year old book

When buying a gardening book most people would usually hope to read tips on how to save their prized roses from the ravenous mouth of a slug.

However, Monty Don has rewritten his 20-year-old gardening bible The Complete Gardener to reflect that he now welcomes bugs into his flowerbeds and is relaxed about his prized flowers being eaten.

While he has always been a campaigner for organic gardening, he admits his approach may have been too tidy in the past, and did not take nature into account as much as it does now.

So, he is now releasing a new version of his tome, and it will show how to encourage wildlife into one's garden as well as how to make it colourful with flowers.

He told Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show: "I was asked to bring out a new edition two years ago and I thought no, no, I've got other things to do. Then I thought I'd just write an introduction and a few other pieces here and there. But I had another look at it and thought god, things have changed so much here in the garden, in the world, life has changed, I've changed, I'm older.

"So it was time to revamp the whole thing, and it reflects the huge changes in the garden that have happened."

Mr Don said gardening for wildlife can be "liberating and creative", and that looking after nature on your own land can be an important tool in the fight against climate change.

He added: "People have realised their back gardens, however small, however modest are incredibly rich with wildlife and are the door to the world at large, You don't have to go to the rainforest or the Himalayas or the melting glaciers in the Arctic to really appreciate nature. That's good and bad but the troubling side is climate change effects us all. If you get your garden right, if everybody does that, it's really powerful stuff.

"And it's not hard to encourage wildlife. Don't be too tidy- nature isn't there to be conquered, she is there to be celebrated. Sometimes she wins- sometimes your prized bloom gets eaten. It's about balance. That feeds into your soul and improves happiness, the best way to have a rich life and work with nature."