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GreatBritish1
  • 6/26/2025
Gardeners World 2025 episode 15
Transcript
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00:28Hello. Welcome to Gardener's World. This is perhaps one of the least physical jobs that
00:38you do in the garden, but it's one of my favourites. Deadheading roses at this time
00:43of year is absolutely essential to try and keep them going for as long as possible. This
00:48has been a really good year for roses. Now, we're coming to the end of the rose season
00:52here at Longmeadow, but if you keep deadheading, taking off anything that's finished flowering,
00:58you might well encourage more flowers. What you shouldn't do is this, is you see some
01:03people just take the petals off like that. They pull the petals off as though that's going
01:08to do the job. But the reason why you deadhead is to stop the plant developing seed, which
01:14is what it wants to do, and form rose hips. So if you take the seedhead off and go back
01:22to a leaf, then there's a chance that it will develop a new flower. As well as extending
01:41the flowering season and tidying them up so the roses look at their best, it also gives
01:47me a daily dose of just wallowing in these lovely roses. Now, coming up on today's programme.
01:58Toby takes a tour of Stockton Berry Gardens in Herefordshire and meets the owner whose family
02:03has lived there for five generations. You've been working this ground for so many years.
02:09I guess you know its idiosyncrasies, when to do things and how to do things. They do say
02:15that it takes four lifetimes to know everything. And by the time you know everything, you're
02:19so boring nobody wants to talk to you. We visit a self-confessed fern fanatic in his garden near
02:28Swindon. I suppose one of the things that stood out most is how old ferns are. They've
02:34been around, I think it's around 350 million years on this planet. You know, they are living
02:39dinosaurs. We catch up with Sue at home and find out if her seed experiment was successful.
02:47Last time you were here, I had lots of old annual seed and I didn't know what to do with them.
02:52And lots of things have come up. And we visit a garden in Dorset, in a beautiful
02:58location overlooking Lime Bay. The frame of this view is very important
03:04to me. When I sit there and I look out, I have all my favourite plants. Most of what is really
03:13important in this garden to me is Visin bis Vista.
03:28Come on. Good boy. These are the grass borders. Now the reason they're called the grass borders
03:56is because they're dominated by grasses. Now, that may seem a straightforward thing, but
04:02actually, it changes everything. On one level, there are more grasses in here than anything
04:08else. And there are lots of different types of grasses and Miscanthus and Steepers and
04:11Carexes. And they all have a place here. And some of them grow very big and dominant, like the giant
04:18Miscanthus. Some of them are quite small and subtle. But that's not all that we've got in here. We've got plenty of other plants too. We've got gingers, we've got here.
04:24Two, we've got gingers, we've got helianthus, we've got rhubecchias, we've got nautias, all kinds of things.
04:31But the way that they grow and the selection of the varieties and the individuals is dominated by
04:37the way that the grasses grow around them. And of course, they grow pretty big, by and large.
04:41So by this time of year, it's a wall of green. And there isn't a huge amount of colour yet, but I like
04:47that. More will come through, because the sort of plants that can cope with the competition from these
04:53grasses tend to flower later in the year. So you get more colour in August, September and October than
05:00you do in May and June. But you get this lovely green. And all the textures and the shapes of the
05:06grasses as they as they flow and mingle in with each other. Now, you can see they're very crowded.
05:14There's hardly a square inch in these borders. But I've got a little bit in the front.
05:19And I've got a couple of grasses that will work in here. Now, this is Carex muscingumensis.
05:29Technically, it's not a grass. It's a sedge. A good way of remembering it is sedges have edges.
05:35And the stems tend to be triangular. If you feel them, they have a little edge, whereas grasses are round.
05:41And this one splays very nicely, and I thought would fill that gap. So before I untie it and let it
05:49splay, I'm just going to dig a hole. Sedges, by and large, prefer dampish conditions. In the wild,
05:57so to speak, you'll find sedges in bogs. But they're very adaptable.
06:01Now, that is pretty dry. And at this time of year, if you're planting into very dry soil, here's a tip.
06:20Rather than watering the plant after you've planted it, water the soil and the hole before you put the
06:28plant in and let it drain. And what that means is that when the plant goes in and the roots start to go
06:41down, they will go down into moisture. They will find it. Rather than if you water it after it's
06:47planted, only the top few inches will have water. And that makes all the difference in the world.
06:51While that's draining, I'm going to put the other one in. This is Melinia carriolea,
06:57transparent. And the flower heads, which in all millennials are very elegant and tall and waft,
07:05are, as the name suggests, particularly transparent. You can see through them. So for
07:10the front of the border, they will shift and move, but they won't block out the interior.
07:15That's the plan, anyway. We'll pop this in here.
07:27Firm it in well. And what I'm going to do is just leave a slight doughnut around it,
07:39and then I can water that.
07:51Okay, let's get the carriacs in.
07:53You can see it. I have watered this. It's pretty dry. The roots are growing up the side,
08:04so what I'm going to do is break the roots with my fingers. Don't try and untangle any root-bound
08:10plant. That doesn't really help. Just break them. And when you break them, they have to grow new roots,
08:17and it's the new roots that will be feeding roots. So the new roots will grow out into the soil.
08:24So let's see if we can get it in the ground. There we go.
08:26Now, the reveal.
08:41And what that will do, I want it to do, is to spill.
08:47That looks good. I'm very happy with that. That's great. So you've got that which spills,
08:51and then it has small brownish flowers, and this which will grow taller. This will grow
08:55right up here with these very tall, elegant flower heads, transparent, that will shimmy,
09:01like looking through the finest gauze as I go through there.
09:07Now, last month, Toby came to this part of the world. In fact, he didn't come to see me.
09:12He came to see a wonderful garden that is just down the road from here.
09:18A tapestry of horticultural and historical delight. A place where the bones of the past mix naturally
09:31with the present. This is Stocktonbury Gardens, a four-acre masterpiece in the middle of a working
09:39farm in Herefordshire. Now, it's been on my radar for years because it's a plant lover's paradise.
09:44But I also know that it's a garden crafted and grown from serendipity. Bricks and stones that slumber
09:52in the soil have been used to create it. So it's therefore a practical person's garden. So right up my street.
09:59The garden has been in the same family for five generations and opened to the public 30 years ago.
10:12Raymond Treasure was born here and worked the land until he retired. But at 78, he still runs the garden
10:20like clockwork. Your broad beans are looking fantastic. When did you put them in?
10:26Uh, 15th of November. The aqua dulcia there, winter beans. Is there a significance about the 15th of
10:32November? Well, it happened to be my birthday and that gives me a clue I want to get the beans in.
10:36Oh, is that it? How long have you been planting them according to your celebrations then?
10:40I don't know, but I've been guarding this garden all my life really, since I was about six.
10:44You've been working this ground for so many years. I guess you know it's idiosyncrasies,
10:50when to do things and how to do things. They do say that it takes four lifetimes,
10:54to know everything. And by the time you know everything, you're so boring nobody wants to talk to you.
11:10What's this Raymond? Everybody asks this. This is cow muck from the cattle yards.
11:16And we bring it up here in a wheelbarrow and put it in a row all the way up the garden here.
11:20So there's a bit of topsoil in amongst them? Just enough to start. So once they get into it,
11:24they'll root themselves down into the rotting muck. This is genius, because I've got my courgettes,
11:29they can rock around in the wind and the stems are very brittle, aren't they? Is that what these tubes are for?
11:33Yes, and also it does help to keep the slugs off. They've got a job to climb over the top.
11:38And once they've established, after about a fortnight, then you just take the tube off.
11:42It's got a certain circus element to it. It's sort of like being shot from a cannon.
11:46The thing is, every year you think you've tracked it. This is how I'm going to do it.
11:56But you can guarantee the next year it'll be a completely different story.
12:00That's the beauty of nature, that you never really know exactly what's going to happen in the future.
12:06And so it's all a nice surprise.
12:08Stockton Bree's signature building is this 12th century dove cut.
12:19And with its ivy camouflage coat makes it really cuddly, doesn't it?
12:24A wonderful thing. And at its feet, a signature plant.
12:27Tulipa Sprengeri. I mean, this is a you-see-it-you-want-it kind of flower, isn't it?
12:32Look at the colour on that. But it's not easy to grow.
12:35I've been trying to establish this in my garden. It needs sun. It needs free draining soil.
12:40The flowers only open in sunshine. But I've had just, what, a decade of disappointment.
12:47Easier when it comes to self-sewers. And I like self-sewers because they give a garden
12:52a naturalistic look. There's cow parsley. A great filler for May into early June.
12:58Of course, it's a little echo of the Hereford hedgerows. Beautiful thing.
13:03And at its feet, one of its cousins. It's got a terrible Latin name. It's called Smyrnium perfoliatum.
13:10But this is a floristry dream of a flower. And beautiful in a border. And if you can grow foxgloves,
13:16you can grow this. And it's dead easy to grow. Because like a foxglove, it forms a crown at its base
13:21in its first year. Then comes up to flower in its second. And all you do is let the flowers go over.
13:27The seeds fall to ground. And once they're in the soil, the plant will look after itself.
13:31Just come along then with a sharp pair of snips. And job's a good'un.
13:35The garden embraces an ethos of waste not, want not. With materials being repurposed,
13:46recycled and mended. And guess who by?
13:53It takes a lot of work to make a shed look this messy. But isn't it amazing in this day and age,
13:58this disposable time to meet someone that can make do and mend and keep good tools going.
14:04Raymond, what are you working on? I've got sharpening up some shears.
14:08Okay. They're sheep shears. They're past it as far as losing for the sheep.
14:12But they're quite good enough for cutting the grass. All the tricks. How long have you had them?
14:16Well, I think they're probably, might be 80, 90 years old.
14:24Even our terracotta pots are recycled. We can grind them up into a fine dust,
14:29which we can dress the pots with. And I love buildings,
14:32or every stone that was ploughed up in the field. I would bring back and build a feature with it.
14:39The idea is to try and make it look as if it happened just by accident.
14:45The farm used to serve an old priory. But this isn't the remnants of that.
14:51This is a relatively box-fresh building created from old stones on the farm.
14:55And with a prospect over the distant Black Mountains, it's a ruin with a view.
15:07This is a cannonball from the Battle of Waterloo. A family heirloom, apparently.
15:12Raymond has turned it into a lock for his gate. There is nothing he doesn't reuse.
15:27The greenhouse. The engine rooms of the garden. Even in here there's features created by Raymond.
15:34This is an old millstone. Oh, look at this. Nicotiana or tobacco.
15:41Now, this is a plant associated with Victorian greenhouses because of its practicality.
15:46In the evening, you get beautiful perfume on the flowers. But during the day, the stems on this are tacky.
15:53So it's like a living flypaper catching aphids. Peaches on the wall. You'd expect to see them.
16:00But perhaps not the utilitarian potatoes. This is definitely Raymond's greenhouse.
16:07The dingle is where Raymond's approach, I think, comes together. Bear in mind, this was once pasture,
16:27with cattle on it. But now, with its babbling streams, outcrops of stone, you could be in a sheltered
16:35valley on the moor. It's just extraordinary.
16:48Have you always had a passion for plants?
16:49I think so. I stole an iris from school when I was a lad. And I still got it here today.
16:55And it's still growing well and doing well.
16:57In the 70 years you've been gardening here, what have you learned from Mother Nature?
17:01That she always has the upper hand at the end of the day. But it's a game worth playing with her.
17:07And it's a wonderful, wonderful life.
17:10I feel like I've learned from a master today. In a world that's endlessly hungry for the next best
17:21thing, Raymond, even with his 70 years of gardening, it's like a breath of fresh air. He treats his tools,
17:28he treats Mother Nature, he treats the land with respect. And respect is what I have for him.
17:34What is so attractive about that, as well as a wonderful garden, is this idea of real slow
17:57lasting care. And a sense of things mattering, but in a gentle, humble way. And it's really inspiring.
18:11It's really inspiring.
18:17No, we're going in here, Ned.
18:21Go on, look.
18:28When I went to Gardener's World Live the other week, I indulged myself. I thought I'd buy myself a
18:34present, or at least actually a number of presents. I've got a birthday coming up soon, so I thought I'd go with it.
18:39And what I bought was some scented leaf phalagoniums. These are plants, when you rub their leaves,
18:44they have really strong fragrance. And the beauty of it is a whole range from chocolate to roses to
18:52citrus, all kinds. And this is a really good example, because this one is called Old Spice.
18:58This does smell like aftershave. Now, that's a good or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about it.
19:05But it's completely fascinating, and got a tiny little white flower. So very happy to have that.
19:12This is an oak leaf one, royal oak. And it has a curious, almost piney scent.
19:20Now, this is a new variety that has been bred called Pink Capricorn.
19:29As curiously, it's actually quite a delicate smell. It's a cross between lemony and rose,
19:34if that makes any sense.
19:39This is Pelargonium Tormentosum. Tiny little sprays of flowers,
19:44great big, felted, very soft leaves, which are strongly minty. Now, this you could cut back now,
19:58and stop getting too leggy. Although personally, I rather like them sprawling. I like the way
20:04that they all have different shapes. So I'm going to keep them as they are.
20:07Now, I'm going to pot these up into terracotta pots, partly because they look nicer, and also partly
20:17because it will suit the plants better. These are South African plants. They come from the
20:22fame box. I've seen them growing there. And they're exposed to full light in summer. Poor soils,
20:30they cope with that too. What they don't like is extreme cold in winter or extreme wet. So basically,
20:36these need to be kept frost free if you can, and also dry in winter. I'm going to use a compost mix,
20:45which is very straightforward. You don't need to elaborate on it. But this is a bark-based compost
20:50with some added sieved garden compost, some grit and some perlite. Good drainage. Doesn't have to be
20:56too rich. When you are filling a pot with anything, but particularly this sort of thing, never fill right
21:02to the brim. Because if it dries out and you go to water and it's filled to the brim, the water just
21:08bounces off. You've got to give it just a little space for the water to pool a bit.
21:12If you don't have a greenhouse, these will do very well on a windowsill in winter. But I'm going to pot
21:22up the rest. But one other little tip I want to do before I do that is this. Now, you wouldn't think
21:28this had much to do with gardening, but the people that I bought these off showed me this. You get the
21:34leaves of your favourite scented leaf, pelargonium, and put some in a jar of sugar. Leave it in there
21:43for a few days. And then when you next bake a cake, it will delicately infuse a sponge cake with either
21:53rose or lemon or mint or whatever it is you want. And they gave me a piece of cake that they had made
21:58using this technique. And it was absolutely delicious. So I'm definitely going to try this.
22:12I confess that when I saw this Felicifolium at Gardner's World Love, I thought it was a fern.
22:31I'm very happy that it's a pelargonium, although I do love ferns. But having said that, I don't love
22:37them as much or with the same intensity as the gardener we went to visit down in Wilshire.
22:48I wouldn't have thought for a million years that I would be this involved in a plant species.
22:5615 years ago, I remember picking up ferns in the garden centre thinking,
23:00what are these strange plants? The interest came when I started working at my old job.
23:06One site had a bed that was full of ferns. And one year, we just decided to lift and split. And
23:11before doing that, I thought, I better read that and make sure I'm doing it right. That was it. As
23:15soon as I'd started, I realised what a big world there was to ferns.
23:21I'm Neil Frame. I'm a fern fanatic. I would love to live, if I had the chance, in a cabin in a little
23:28woodland. We're on a housing estate here, not far from Swindon. But with the trees in full leaf,
23:34you wouldn't even know it. I suppose one of the things that stood out most is how old ferns are.
23:41They're just ancient. They're prehistoric. You know, they've been around, I think it's around 350
23:46million years on this planet. You know, they are living dinosaurs. They're an incredibly versatile
23:52plant. They're suited to any style of garden, really. I think that is due to the fact that they
23:56are found in so many locations across the world, barring Antarctica, which just shows what a successful
24:02plant group they are.
24:03So this is a soft shield fern, Polisticum cetiferum. And the great thing about
24:13Polisticums is they just tolerate dry shade once established. It's just such a graceful,
24:21beautiful looking fern.
24:31So this is Asplenium scolopendrium, commonly known as the heart's tongue fern. Despite its more
24:37tropical look, it will withstand really heavy minus temperatures and just come back with ease.
24:43It does hold on to its shape and its form well into winter. So it's a great fern to have in the garden
24:49when more deciduous ferns are dying back.
24:56Ferns are an incredibly good plant to have in pots. This is Blechnum spickant. Common name is
25:03the hard fern. It gets that name from the texture of the fronds. They're a lot more rigid and rough
25:08compared to a lot of ferns. This is a more acidic loving fern. My garden is really quite alkaline,
25:15so if I was to plant this out in the ground it wouldn't last a year. Stick this pot full of
25:20ericaceous soil and it's happy as anything in there.
25:27So there's 37 more common species of fern in the UK and amongst those there are hundreds of variations,
25:36varieties and cultivars. Some people may say they all look the same. You can kind of see where they're
25:41coming from but you really have to look closer because the devil is really in the detail. So you
25:47have the blade which is the green part. The stipe is the stalk coming from the ground. So with the
25:53stipe and the blade that is the frond. The differences in frond structures can be seen
26:01on these ferns here. So this one you have the frond and then it is divided once also known as pinnate.
26:11This fern you can see is bipinnate. You have the side pinner which is then divided into pinnules.
26:22And we have this frond here which is tripinnate. So you have the frond which is divided up into
26:28the pinner on the side. Off the pinner you have the pinnules and then the pinnules themselves
26:35are divided up into pinnules. I really started to go out and look for ferns in the wild when I joined
26:48the British Pterodological Society.
26:53In the wild ferns don't produce seeds like flowering plants. They don't need to be pollinated. They can
26:59just reproduce by spore by themselves. It's probably one of the main reasons that ferns have been on
27:06this planet for such a long period. This is how you propagate from spores. Cleanliness is key. We've
27:14got some pots that have been in the dishwasher and the compost is sieved fine composted bark and then we
27:21need to sterilise the soil. A piece of kitchen roll, boiled water and you just pour it over the top
27:29and allow it to run through. You want to leave the kitchen roll in place so that no foreign bodies
27:36get onto the soil. So once it's cooled down you can then place it in a bag.
27:44If you look on the underside of the fronds of a fern at certain times of year you might see small
27:48circular structures called sawry. These sawry produce spores which float away in the air.
27:56Once you are ready to sow the spores it's just a matter of tap onto the soil surface
28:05and that is all you need. A little bit goes a long long way.
28:11Within a couple of months you would hope to see a green film where the spore has actually germinated.
28:17It will look a bit like a moss which is the gametophyte.
28:23So the gametophyte has both male and female sexual reproductive parts. Once that is fertilised it
28:31could take anywhere up to two years for the first frond to start appearing. Definitely worth the wait because
28:39one good thing about stowing the spores it could just throw up complete different variations
28:46and yeah new varieties.
28:51Ferns they remind me of the wilderness a time before humans were even on the planet.
28:56Be wandering around amongst them expecting to see like a velociraptor run past.
29:00It's just primal feeling from them. I love being around them.
29:04I love ferns too although I don't share Neil's complete fascination with the detail.
29:21But what I particularly love about them and use a lot here at Longweather
29:24is the way that they create a combination of a green backdrop and visually they're soft.
29:31They loosen things up and the fact that they can do that in deep shade makes them I think
29:36invaluable for any garden.
29:57It's time to harvest garlic. I've got elephant garlic here and some hardneck garlic the tops of
30:04which are completely browned off which I planted in October. I normally like to plant in September
30:10if I can but I couldn't get hold of any clothes and you can see it's grown enormous we've got the
30:15flower heads opening these are edible alliums. You know that garlic is ready to harvest when the
30:21foliage starts to die back. Now when you're harvesting garlic don't just yank them out the ground
30:27you need to dig them out and remember that they're planted quite deep they're not like onion sets or
30:33shallots. They need carefully lifting out.
30:49Elephant garlic is much bigger than normal garlic or should be that's not particularly big
30:54and technically it's a member of the leak family
30:59but in practice you use it like garlic but although it's bigger it's milder. Now these are actually
31:05quite small for elephant garlic and that's probably because it's been so dry. Although garlic is associated
31:13with Mediterranean food and and heat it actually likes plenty of moisture when it's growing.
31:22And the reason I like elephant garlic is because it's slightly milder it stores really well and so
31:33it's easier to use you can use it with a bigger variety of things it doesn't dominate in the way that garlic can do.
31:39At this stage you don't want to damage the roots leave them on there because in order to store these need to dry out.
31:50Now this was a variety called cork white which if I look at that that has rotted. That's no good.
32:03Interesting. Interesting.
32:13Now look that's completely horrible. Look how that's rotted.
32:18And the cloves are in there but I don't think they would keep.
32:31What I'm rubbing away is slimy.
32:34Yeah, no.
32:36No, no, no, no, no, no.
32:37What I'm asking myself is why this garlic hardneck garlic from a very reputable supplier
32:48for the first time ever since I've grown garlic is no good. It's rotting. It's difficult to see now
32:56whether it's got a virus or whether it's got a fungal problem. But the elephant garlic in the same bed
33:03with the same growing conditions is untouched and fine. I don't know. What I do know is whilst
33:10it's not a total disaster I definitely will not grow garlic in this particular bed for at least another
33:16three years. So if it's a fungus if there are any spores in the soil or if there's a virus then at
33:23least that won't remain in the soil and by the time I come back to this bed it'll be gone.
33:27Now we're going to Swansea because a few weeks ago we went down to visit Sue in her own garden.
33:44It's midsummer and because we've had such a hot spring everything's coming along nicely.
33:50There are roses are blooming in the garden, the borders are full of flowers and my tumbling tom
33:55bush tomatoes which I planted earlier this year are looking fabulous and I haven't had to do
34:00anything to them. They've got lots of lovely fruit on. I've also grown some cordon tomatoes
34:05so I'm being able to have a taste test later on in the year.
34:10Over the years I've realised that if I want my garden to look as flowery as possible
34:15for as long as possible I've got to do a midsummer refresh. And last year I grew these. These are
34:21amaranth but I grew them as a vegetable and they were so beautiful I thought they'd look great in a
34:25border so I saved the seeds, I've grown some on and I'm going to plant them.
34:40These flowered right through to October last year so they really are good value. Now I've grown them
34:51from seed, they've got a nice root system on and I'm going to place them along the border at varying
34:58intervals and what I hope will happen is when the hydrangeas flower above and they start to fade their
35:06colour will complement this rich burgundy and it's going to look wonderful. I'm going to water these
35:12in later but for the moment I'm going to cut back the lead flower or pinch out but I've got to use
35:18scissors. This will make the plant bushier. I'll probably have smaller flowers but I'll have more
35:25of them and the plant's going to grow to quite a size so I'm hoping as they're going to be planted
35:30all the way along here there's going to be quite an impact.
35:42Last time you were here I did a bit of an experiment. I had lots of old annual seed and I
35:47didn't know what to do with them so I sowed them all on this bed and lots of things have come up.
35:54One of the packets was a 40 year old status plant and I didn't really know what they were going to
35:59look like and I knew they had sort of thistle leaves so I left a couple of plants in hoping
36:04that that was those but these are definitely weeds and they're going to come out.
36:10But generally it's been quite a success it's mainly the newer seeds that have done well. Echiums,
36:16cosmos, poppies and down below here I don't know how they got in there have even got some lettuce.
36:23Oh out it comes. I've got this lovely green abundance at the moment but soon it's going to be
36:29full of flowers and there's some plants I still don't recognise so there's still that element
36:34of excitement to come.
36:49I've been thinking about getting a pond for a long time but the thing that put me off
36:53is having a great big space in the garden that would be unmanageable and then I found this tub
36:59which I think is an old washing tub and I thought it would be ideal. I want to get wildlife in the
37:04garden because I want more frogs to eat the slugs that eat my lettuce but I also want it to be at
37:09the right height for me so I've put it on a table so the animals can get out. I've made a little bridge
37:15over to the rest of the garden. I don't know about ponds so I went to Malvern and got lots of great advice
37:21and I've stored the plants that I bought there in this enamel bowl which if you were really short
37:27of space would make a lovely pond in itself. So the first one is a bulrush. I love the structural
37:33form of this with its long stems and it can take up to 35 centimetres its growing point under the water.
37:41Now I'm a bit nerdy so I've got a ruler to check. Now I'm about 25 centimetres in depth so this is
37:50going to be fine here. I'm also going to add a variegated form of water pennywort which I think
37:58is rather pretty. I've wanted this plant ever since I started thinking about a wildlife pond. This is
38:06Anemopsis californica and it has beautiful white flowers and it likes to sit about five centimetres
38:13below the water level. My final one is hornwort which is an oxygenator and it's got a weight on
38:22the bottom and literally it's very easy just throw it in sits at the bottom of the pond and the fronds
38:27will float up and it gives you know a bit of shade and a bit of cover and a bit of life at the lower
38:32level for any insects that come into the pond. And I'm going to fill this up with fresh rain water
38:38and I'm very excited. I've kept the plants to a minimum so I can give them my full attention
38:43and let's see what happens.
38:54One of my first memories of the peace that trees can bring
38:59was lying under the dappled shade of my grandfather's walnut tree. My grandfather took a walnut and
39:05grew a tree for my father. My father did the same for me and now I want to do the same for my son
39:12making four generations of walnut trees. To do this I need to plan ahead and the walnut tree doesn't always
39:20give me walnuts but this year it has and look they're beautiful they're just beginning to develop
39:26and this will be the husk and inside will be the nut. Now we like nuts but so do squirrels so I'm
39:33going to need to protect these with a chicken wire contraption later on. And in the autumn they'll be
39:38ready to harvest and go on to the next stage and I like to imagine that in 15 years time my grandchildren
39:45will be sitting under the shady leaves of the walnut tree in their summers.
39:58When there's rain forecast or I'm going away on holiday it's the time I choose to preserve my roses
40:14by drying them so that I can have them all through the winter and I like to choose a nice open rose.
40:21This is sweet honey. It was a rose of the year in 2020 and it's a floribunda.
40:27It flowers throughout the summer. It's got a delicious scent but it can't make up its mind
40:32whether it's apricot or pink as it changes.
40:51You can dehydrate flowers hung up in a dry place for a couple of weeks but I prefer to use a
40:58dehydrator. I originally used this for food but now I'm absolutely loving dehydrating flowers.
41:04As soon as you pick them they need to go into the dehydrator. I put mine on for about 10 hours at 35
41:11degrees and here's my blue peter moment. I dehydrated sweet honey rose last night and look how beautiful
41:21this is. Let's compare it with this one. The dehydrated rose is smaller, it's firmer and it's
41:28slightly changed colour but they both still smell delicious and so this is a great way of in the
41:36winter when it's a bit gloomy bringing summer back into your house.
41:42I've got a dehydrator but I've only ever used it for chilies and it works really well but maybe roses,
42:01maybe that's the next step.
42:18The opium poppies here in the jewel garden are exceptionally good this year and the exception is
42:24because, because we've dug up the jewel garden, moved all the plants and it's the digging that is
42:30the crucial thing because poppy seed is triggered into germination by exposure to light. It can lie
42:37dormant in the soil for years, even a hundred years or more and I know that we haven't sown or planted out
42:46any opium poppies for at least 10 years. Now there's one non-negotiable rule about the jewel garden, no white
42:54allowed and there we've got a rogue white. So we snip it out, I'll stick it in the vase and the reason I'm
43:04doing that is partly because the white offends my jewel palette but also because they hybridize and I don't
43:11want this hybridizing with a jewel color and what you end up is with these very pretty pink and white
43:16flowers which are not ripe for in here. They'd be brilliant in the cottage garden where I've got another
43:21set of poppies.
43:33We do have a few opium poppies that are self-seeded here in the cottage garden but much more relevantly we
43:40have oriental poppies. Now these, unlike the opium poppies, are not annuals, they're perennials.
43:46They flower at their best in May and just into June a little bit and I've got two either side of the
43:52path here called Patty's Plum. Now Patty's Plum is famous for its smoky grey purpley color and it can vary
44:01hugely to a real plum purple to a muddy almost brown sometimes and that's his charm because you never quite
44:09know what you're going to get but in order to appreciate it you need to manage the way it grows.
44:15So we have here the plants you can see these are the flower heads they're actually rather beautiful in
44:21their own way but with oriental poppies they should be cut right back as soon as they finish flowering
44:28and then they will regrow and at very least the foliage will look fresh and good and four years out
44:34of five they will flower again in late August or September. So get right back down in there
44:44and cut at the base like that.
44:54Right so what we have is a perfectly healthy plant and then I've got space which I could put in
45:01plants around it and freshen up the whole area and that goes on the compost heap and in time that
45:07goodness will go back into the garden. I've got another one on the other side and I'll cut that
45:13back now too but we're off now to Lime Regis because last September we went down there to visit the
45:20the spectacular garden of Erica Savory.
45:30This garden really means absolutely everything to me. I think it's quite sumptuous it is orientated by
45:38texture shape and color in every way whether it is the shrubs whether it's the trees or the perennials
45:46it's all about diversity. My husband and I bought the plot almost 20 years ago there wasn't a garden there
45:59was a small patch of grass tufty grass a few shrubs and that was it it meant to come to grips with a
46:07with a plot which has a lot of levels so we needed to create an infrastructure path steps
46:14I have three separate kinds of soil on the east side there's a lot of clay the middle of the garden
46:23is more flint and sand and the west side of the garden is full of leaf mold and it's very easy to work
46:32on everything's been a learning curve there were times when I thought oh my goodness what have I done
46:39but you know once you're you're you're in it you you just well it's it's i suppose it's my character
46:46as well you just carry on
46:52we are in the southwest of the country on the jurassic coast we have the sea with us all day every day
47:01the garden is very much exposed to the sun and the elements
47:12i have four major areas in the garden the one in the south is the vegetables then going into something
47:20which is much more subtropical bananas gingers incredible how well things do here
47:33when i'm on the terrace the the view the frame of this view is very important to me and i sit there
47:40and i look out i have all my favorite plants it's like embracing them really most of what is
47:49really important in this garden to me is within this vista
47:59this is the sun part of the garden it's the warmest part and virtually the part where we have sun
48:06from morning to evening and a lot of my favorite babes the salvias
48:14this one of my old favorites is this one here which is called phyllis fancy which is just starting to
48:23come into flower it is sort of silvery with purple and this is an absolute hit later in the year
48:33this one here this one here is a loycantha which is called purple velvet and i do have to say nobody can
48:43walk past this plant and not touch it it's gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous
48:48the leaves shapes are hugely diverse quite a few of them are actually heart shaped properly heart
48:58shaped which is really gorgeous and of course the bees love them
49:03i have a lot of stones in the garden and one can do so so much with them to give an accent to an area
49:19but it's also that the stones are collecting the heat therefore they are very good for these plants
49:26because the heat which is collected during the day then holds on for the evening and the night
49:34and it gives structure to the garden and i like that
49:48i've been very fortunate in my life to travel a lot
49:51i used to live in south africa for eight years and there are a number of plants plant types
50:00which are reminding me of that this is a leodotus leonorus which is one of my absolute favorites
50:08it will go on flowering until the very end of october i remember it from south africa i think i saw it
50:17more in parks and in the wild because it's quite good at looking after itself i've put it together
50:24with this salvia which is salvia oliginosa and i started with this salvia very
50:33shy a couple of years ago and then decided that it was an absolute perfect
50:38for for the sea behind and obviously to go with this orange it's absolutely perfect
50:47for the sea behind and then to go with the sea behind and then to go with the sea behind
50:49having done a lot of traveling and not really having a home as such for many years
50:58there are things throughout the garden which are evoking certain memories and places
51:06and i think that's very important because i do believe that a garden needs to have a soul
51:10and this to me is just absolute bliss and being by the sea is i consider as a real gift
51:22and it has given me so much more than i could ever have dreamt of
51:40it's a very special garden
51:45obviously erica's garden is unusual in that it's a fabulous situation and she's made a really special
51:50garden different parts have had very different soil conditions we're used to being north and south
51:56and shade and dry and wet but sometimes even the difference between just outside the back of your
52:02garden and down the end you'll find the soil is very different and plants will grow very differently
52:07and it's really important to know that and to go with it not to fight it rather than treating your
52:12garden as just one unit
52:16now we are always very keen to receive films that you make about your gardens whether it's a good tip
52:25that you've had or whether it's something that you think is particularly unusual or even a human story
52:31that you would like to share with us please if you go to our website you can find out how to do it and
52:36we'll be delighted to hear from you
52:50i've always wanted to grow peaches and apricots but thought they were too difficult but actually
52:56both of them are not that difficult to grow it's just getting the fruit to develop and to ripen
53:02that's hard there's two reasons for that the first is that that family those stone fruits
53:08all flower very early if you think of cherries sometimes they can be flowering
53:12practically the end of february but certainly by the end of march early april they're in full flower
53:17now here at long meadow and for most of the country the risk of frost is real then
53:21in fact inevitable here and that will kill the buds and you'll have no fruit at all so
53:26if you're growing them outside except in the most sheltered areas they will need protection from frost
53:32the second thing is getting them to ripen can be tricky in a british summer however hot it is
53:39obviously the hotter the better so when i got the greenhouse i thought great i can protect them
53:44from frost and they'll get extra heat and this is a variety called peregrine it's now three years old
53:50and you can see there's masses of new growth but the new growth is covering up the fruits so i'm
53:56going to prune back the growth that i don't want because fundamentally i'm fan training it partly
54:02because we have a lot of room in here but also it's a good way of exposing as much of the fruit to sun
54:07as possible now what i want to do here is remove some of these side shoots simply to reveal the fruit
54:15if i cut back like this you can see when now we're starting to see the fruit and if i can see the
54:21fruit the sun can see the fruit and they're more likely to ripen and now is the time to prune these
54:28stone fruits don't prune them in winter because there is a real risk of bacterial canker and of
54:34silver leaf both which are bad news you really do not want those so never prune them in winter only in
54:41summer and only to shape they don't need pruning for the tree this is simply so it fits in whatever
54:48training you want to do and the end of june to the middle of august is perfect right this here is
54:55taking a lot of energy it wants to be the leader of the tree so i'm going to cut this right back
55:01so that energy can go into producing more fruit so that comes off and immediately that's changing the
55:06shape of it so we'll go there and there revealing this fruit here and here and that's we've got side
55:16shoots coming up here and that one come back and i think we're almost there i'm happy with that and
55:26what it means above all else is that the fruit has a better chance to ripen now that's the job done
55:35here's some for you this weekend
55:46if you're growing cordon tomatoes it's important to keep them growing as upright as possible with
55:53plenty of ventilation around them to avoid blight and to that end remove the side shoots that grow
56:0045 degrees between the main stem and a leaf if you water them well the next day they'll be very easy
56:09to snap off with your finger and thumb and you should do this regularly
56:18it's not too late to add some color to your garden sown from seed plants like nasturtiums and calendula will
56:26germinate quickly grow quickly and should be flowering in about six weeks time and go on flowering
56:31well into autumn i'm sewing nasturtiums once eat to a plug cover them over soak them in a tray of water
56:39for about 20 minutes and put them somewhere warm to germinate and then they should be ready to plant
56:45out in about a month's time and remember with nasturtiums they flower much better in poor soil
56:50a very simple but effective tip at this time of year is to cut
57:02the edges of any openings or gaps in your hedges now this is not a proper hedge cut it's too early for
57:08that and you don't want to disturb nesting birds just take off the minimum necessary to create a straight edge
57:17and it's extraordinary how that sharpens up the whole garden
57:31here in the paradise garden the colors are all combining to form a particular moment of richness
57:36you have this modigan lily clawed shride which is an extraordinary it's got yellow edges to the
57:44petals and then these tears of turks cap flowers that come down and this plum burgundy color i've got
57:52two different roses english roses there's munsted wood and darcy bustle a deep deep red and we have
57:59the sanguisauber i love sanguisauber and this is crimson queen it's actually going to develop the full
58:05richness of its color over the coming weeks but it's all part of this momentary dark rich tapestry
58:14that's dominating this little garden well i'm afraid that's it for today and next week adam rachel
58:23and francis will be at the rhs hampton court palace garden festival i'll see you back here at long
58:31we'll be there in a few weeks time but until then bye-bye
58:46so
58:52so
59:00you
59:04you
59:06you
59:08you