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.
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.
“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.
"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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