Kate Garraway has revealed she turned to gardening in an effort to cope with the darkest days of her husband’s seven-month hospital fight against coronavirus.
Derek Draper, 53, was admitted in March and put in an induced coma. He is still in hospital, in a minimum state of consciousness.
Tonight the Good Morning Britain and I’m a Celebrity star tells Gardeners’ World how bulb planting had given a sense of hope to her and their two children Darcey, 14, and Billy, 11.
She says: “It was rather sad because the radishes came, they’re one of Derek’s favourites. We ate them and he still wasn’t better.”
Kate, 53, began thinking about more long-term projects and has planted many bulbs so “the place will be full of colour” for Derek’s return.
(Image: PA)
Yesterday she told GMB viewers he is still “not through the woods yet”, but is “fighting on”.
She says tonight: “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.
“It’s been the most important space for us. It’s been a place to find joy, hope, go a bit crazy.
(Image: PA)
“You can’t think short-term in a garden, you have to plan. You have to have hope.
By planting something and believing Derek will see it… that gives us a sense of future.”
Kate has been FaceTiming Derek in hospital. She says: “I’d sit in the garden and talk about the things he loved.
(Image: Tim Merry)
“It’s a lovely thing to do.”
Kate was shocked by US President Donald Trump ’s remarks that contracting the disease was a “blessing”.
She said: “The idea of getting a fatal disease with no confident cure, it’s such a strange thing to say.” She also said his hospital drive-by had been “bewildering”.
- Gardeners’ World, tonight, BBC Two, 9pm.
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