- 2 weeks ago
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00:00.
00:15You coming?
00:16Come on in. Let's go.
00:18Come on in, boy.
00:30I've been away for a much-needed break.
00:35But you know, when you're travelling back home,
00:37you have that moment of,
00:39what's the garden going to be like?
00:42And actually, we've had a little bit of good news.
00:45And some not so.
00:47The wind has knocked a few things over,
00:49so this Artemisia has just collapsed.
00:52So that's easy.
00:54We can stake that one up.
00:57But look at this in front of me.
00:59This is Salix Magnifica.
01:02Which, let's be honest,
01:03is not looking quite so magnificent at the moment.
01:06But before I went away,
01:08because we'd had so much dry,
01:10I thought I'd lost it.
01:11But I've come back,
01:12and that rain that we've had has played its part
01:15because there's signs of growth.
01:18And I think the lesson from that,
01:20especially the season that we've had,
01:23is let's not be too quick to write things off.
01:28All I do is go out and just start to sort of scratch the bark,
01:33see if there's any signs of life.
01:35And you see green, it wants to fight on, eh?
01:39As I've said, nature is a wonderful thing.
01:41What I'm going to do is tidy off these brown leaves,
01:45because it looks better more than anything.
01:49Anyway, we've got plenty to get on with today.
01:52France is in West Yorkshire to see the most extraordinary garden.
01:58What makes this truly remarkable is that it's a private garden.
02:02It's the work of just one man.
02:05And this is just the front garden.
02:08We meet a litigator turned propagator
02:12who's created a beautiful sanctuary from the world.
02:16I was a litigation lawyer, which involves arguing.
02:20And I don't really like arguing.
02:22And the nice thing about gardening is there's no-one to argue with.
02:25The plants just do their own thing, and I do my own thing,
02:27and I absolutely love it.
02:30Advely immerses herself in the romance and intrigue
02:34of a garden designed by Vita Sackrell West
02:38and her husband, Harold.
02:40Their marriage was a safe harbour
02:43and the affairs were mere ports of call.
02:47And walking through this garden,
02:49you can sense the balance of Vita and Harold's personalities.
02:55And a chef turned gardener showcases the best of plot to plate.
03:02And he really knows his onions.
03:05I've got about six different varieties in here,
03:07all grown from seed.
03:09This is a showpiece. Look at the size of that one.
03:25You coming? Good lad.
03:34Right, let's have some fun.
03:35So this is going to be a shady container
03:38that's called getting to know you.
03:40I'm going to use plants that I don't know that well.
03:43And instead of just popping them where the label says in the garden,
03:46I don't forget where I've put them in the garden,
03:49which means they get extra TLC
03:51because I've put them in a container
03:53that I either go and sit by every single day,
03:56or maybe I walk by,
03:58or they're close to the greenhouse where I can water.
04:02So I've drilled holes in the bottom.
04:04So the next thing is to use the croc,
04:07which is broken old terracotta.
04:09The most important thing with this container
04:12is it drains well through the winter months.
04:14So next up is the gravel.
04:16If I can lift this up.
04:18And if I put a layer now,
04:21right across the bottom.
04:24So next, we'll start building our compost.
04:27So what I've done here is I've done a mix of
04:30paint-free compost,
04:32a little bit of topsoiling,
04:34some horticultural grit,
04:36and some composted bark.
04:39These are all sort of woodland,
04:41shade-loving plants.
04:43Now I'm going to add a magic ingredient.
04:46Think about a woodland.
04:48What happens in a woodland?
04:50Leaves fall every single year.
04:52They create leaf mould.
04:54So now if you think about it,
04:55what I've done is I've created my wooden floor.
04:58And now with the plants,
05:00the first one we're going to go for is this Mahonia.
05:03And this is called Volcano.
05:07The flowers come about October time.
05:09They start red.
05:10And then more or less explode
05:12to this sort of golden yellow.
05:15But like a lot of the sort of newer Mahonias
05:18that have come to the market,
05:20they've not got those really spiny leaves
05:23that you could not run your hands through.
05:26So what I'm going to do
05:28is I'm just going to take that out of the pot.
05:30Root system's good.
05:32And we're just going to work that at the back there.
05:35So that though in time,
05:38you know,
05:39will need to come out of this container
05:41because in the garden,
05:42once they get to know it,
05:43that's where it will be.
05:44It will get to one, 1.5 metres.
05:48But there next 12 months or so
05:52will be absolutely fine.
05:54So what I'm going to do now is counterbalance.
05:56So I'm going to use this sort of Japanese holly fern.
06:00Not a plant that I know.
06:02A mate says,
06:03Frosty, you need to try this.
06:05And first of all,
06:06I said, is it hardy?
06:07And he went, yeah, yeah, totally hardy.
06:09So next,
06:10I think we're going to go for a Pacissandra.
06:13But not as you know it.
06:15I think so many of us know Pacissandra
06:17as something that's grown, you know,
06:19in supermarket car parks,
06:21in shady spaces.
06:23Well, this is called Krug's cover.
06:25It flowers in the winter,
06:27white and scented.
06:29And that is followed by a little berry.
06:32All right.
06:33Now I'm going to try and come back in this size.
06:36So what I'm going to go for next
06:37is this Proopsis.
06:39And this is undulata.
06:41I know at the moment you need to look carefully,
06:44but look, that speckled stem,
06:46that, if you imagine,
06:48would be scrambling on a woodland floor in China.
06:53All right.
06:55So this is called Neolubartum.
06:57It's a fern that ultimately
06:59will get to probably about 40, 50 centimetres.
07:02So the next one is Rhinechia.
07:05I suppose a little like Lily of the Valley.
07:09The scent is really strong.
07:14This idea of, you know,
07:16creating containers like this
07:19that are not driven, you know,
07:21by loads and loads of flower cover,
07:23are a great way to understand planting design.
07:27So all I'm doing now
07:29is just filling the voids in between the plants
07:32with that first compost mix that I made.
07:38So all I need to do now
07:39is give that a good soak in, let it settle.
07:42But why I'm doing that,
07:44Francis went to West Yorkshire
07:46to visit a very special garden.
07:57I'm so lucky to get to visit some really wonderful gardens,
08:05but this one has to be up there.
08:07It's got swathes of grasses and perennials
08:10that snake their way around the space.
08:13It's really, really balanced
08:15and the overall feel is incredibly naturalistic.
08:18But to create this has clearly taken an expert eye.
08:27But what makes this truly remarkable
08:30is that it's a private garden.
08:32It's the work of just one man.
08:35And this is just the front garden.
08:49The back garden is equally extraordinary
08:52with more gorgeous planting
08:54merging with the hills and trees beyond.
08:56The thread connecting it all
08:59is a devotion to a particular style,
09:02one which has captured our imagination
09:04and become hugely influential.
09:07Prairie planting.
09:11When prairie planting first emerged
09:13as a way of gardening,
09:14it was really groundbreaking
09:15and it was unlike anything that had come before.
09:17Generally, it's a planting scheme
09:19based around ornamental grasses,
09:22as you would see in a prairie,
09:24usually in North America.
09:26But the way of designing the beds
09:28is completely different.
09:29Rather than a cottage garden,
09:31it's enormous blocks of planting,
09:34things like this Persicaria,
09:36there's Eupatorium,
09:37there's a huge block of phlox here.
09:40And these huge groupings would never be seen
09:42in a cottage garden.
09:43in a cottage garden.
09:44But the idea is that on a big landscape scale,
09:46seeing huge groups of plants like this,
09:49especially with grasses running through them,
09:51can look really naturalistic.
09:52And generally speaking,
09:54prairie schemes are cut back once a year,
09:56usually in the spring.
09:57And that means you also have winter structure,
10:00so seed heads and berries,
10:02and of course,
10:03this massive, beautiful border
10:05in the height of the season.
10:16The man behind these wonderful drifts of perennials
10:18is retired GP Stephen Medley.
10:21So Stephen, this is obviously a commitment to this style,
10:28but tell me what inspired your interest
10:31in prairie style, naturalistic style planting.
10:34I began to see articles in magazines
10:37and on the television about Pete Adolf.
10:40Mm-hm.
10:41And then went to have a look at his garden in Scamston,
10:45which at that time was quite new for England.
10:49Yeah.
10:51How could I copy that
10:52and bring that look into my garden?
10:55How could I move from a Leap 2 garden
10:57to a Premiership garden?
10:59And how did you?
11:01A lot of hard work.
11:03So I first of all started removing the shrubs
11:06that were in this border
11:08and replacing them with herbaceous perennials
11:12all in block forms
11:14and then contrasting the flower heads
11:17from one species to the next.
11:19So we've got spires there,
11:21we've got bobbles here,
11:23an umbel in the flocks.
11:25Yeah.
11:28Umbels up there with the agapanthus.
11:30Yeah.
11:31More bobbles with the verbena brunariensis.
11:33Yeah.
11:34And of course the essential grasses.
11:35Yes.
11:36Yes.
11:37So this is the beginning?
11:38This is the beginning.
11:39This is the first bed.
11:40This is how it started.
11:46After perfecting his prairie-style border,
11:48Stephen's next project was to create a prairie-style meadow,
11:52employing a very specific technique known as matrix planting.
11:57In this kind of scheme, a single or a handful of species dominate,
12:04forming a matrix into which other plants are blended.
12:10In this design,
12:11Sprobulus heterolipus constituted initially 65% of the matrix.
12:16Right.
12:17Echinacea pallida hula dancer, 25% of the matrix.
12:21And Eryngium alpinum formed 10% of the matrix.
12:26Then through the matrix,
12:28you grow individual plants,
12:30such as the Speronicastra america.
12:31Yes.
12:32Yes.
12:33Or the Eryngium yucifolium.
12:34Or blocks of plants, such as the Hyalatelephium.
12:37Can you say that it sounds like a formula?
12:39And yet when you see it,
12:41it's just breathtakingly beautiful, isn't it?
12:44It's so lovely.
12:46And presumably that matrix has changed over time,
12:49but when was this planted?
12:50This was planted in 2015.
12:53This was my first post-retirement project.
12:56Right.
12:57I did half a day at work.
12:58Right.
12:59Half a day at Craven College in Eskipton,
13:02on the horticulture course.
13:04And then the day after,
13:05started lifting the grass from this area to start the meadow.
13:10So first day of retirement?
13:11First day of retirement.
13:12Stephen put his well-earned free time to use
13:17by growing the huge amount of plants he'd need from seed or cuttings.
13:23You're pretty good at propagating them.
13:27I had to be.
13:29Yeah.
13:30Because, I mean, it would cost a small fortune to fill these beds with plants.
13:33How many plants are in them?
13:35There are around about 380 Sporobolis, about 180 Echinacea pallidas.
13:41Okay.
13:42Plus all the rest.
13:43Right.
13:44So there were plants everywhere.
13:45Do you have a method when it comes to how you place things out?
13:48Like, which ones you plant first?
13:50Is it Sporobolis that goes in first?
13:52No.
13:53I planted the structure plants first.
13:55Okay.
13:56So that's things like the oryngiums.
13:57The taller oryngiums.
13:58The veronicastrums.
13:59Right.
14:00And the blocks.
14:01The echinops blocks.
14:02Okay.
14:03The limoniums.
14:06And then filled in with the matrix.
14:09Okay.
14:10In the spaces.
14:11Okay.
14:12And the average planting density through the whole planting
14:15must be round about 7 per square metre.
14:18Stephen has been pretty meticulous in creating his meadow.
14:23But in some parts of the garden, he's wandered off script,
14:27showing a lightness of touch all his own.
14:31This area here is one of my favourite parts of the garden.
14:34The colour scheme is just beautiful.
14:36It's so soft with kind of ochres of the nacella tenuissima,
14:40which most people would know as steeper tenuissima.
14:43And also all the different soft blues.
14:45There's deep blue of veronica.
14:47There's perovskia.
14:48And then there's soft yellow scabius through it as well.
14:51Now, originally this was planted as block planting,
14:54but over time different species have self-seeded and moved around.
14:58And it goes to show you that the gardener has a big impact
15:02on how this will eventually be.
15:04You could really carefully edit and keep it in the blocks that you originally had,
15:08or you could, like Stephen has done,
15:10allow it to be dynamic and change and shift over the years.
15:15But always with this very tempered, very controlled colour palette
15:20that elevates it and stops it from being a meadow
15:23and keeps it a beautiful border.
15:38I think it's clear that Stephen is not the kind of man to blow his own trumpet,
15:42but I can do it for him because to have envisaged this,
15:47designed it, cleared it, planted it,
15:50and then maintained it all by himself on this scale
15:54is such an achievement.
15:56And he should be exceedingly proud of this garden
16:00because it is absolutely glorious.
16:27What a garden.
16:28What did you think, boy?
16:30To be fair, I'd rather have a drink out of your watering can, Dad.
16:34Let's crack on.
16:45Meet Dahlia Murcii,
16:49which is my favourite Dahlia.
16:52Simple,
16:54mowed flower,
16:56not a lot bigger than that,
16:57native of Mexico,
16:59gets to,
17:00what am I?
17:01I'm over six foot,
17:02so you're talking about 1.6, 1.7 metres.
17:06For me,
17:08to date,
17:09has been totally and utterly hardy.
17:12But, that said,
17:14if we have a really cold, wet winter,
17:18wet winter,
17:19I could lose this.
17:21So what I do this time of year,
17:23is collect some seed.
17:25When do you do it?
17:27Well, if you start to look here,
17:28I've got flowers that are doing their business,
17:30I've still got some flowers to come,
17:31and I've got ones that have gone over.
17:33So the first thing to do for me is just to pick one that you think might have seeds in it, and just turn it out in your hand, and you'll soon see, there we go, there's loads of seeds in there.
17:48Then what you need to do, is every time you go shopping, from now on, do not ever throw a paper bag away.
17:57Then I'm just going to work across.
17:59Taking some of these off, and at the moment, all I'm going to do, is drop these in here.
18:05You know, this is a plant that will come true from seed, which is brilliant.
18:11What I'll do when I've done these, is I will put them in my office, because the seeds are not going to get damp at all.
18:19So there we go.
18:21I reckon that will do me, there.
18:24So what I could do now with this, now I've collected some seeds, I could now go over, and I could literally tidy the rest of the bits and pieces off,
18:32making sure the flowers have gone over.
18:35This will now carry on flowering, probably right into October, could even be November.
18:41But we're not stopping there, we're going to make the most of this beautiful sunshine.
18:46There's more to collect.
18:55Hey, I'm laughing because I've got to show you this.
18:59All the years that I've gardened, and there's still certain things that blow my mind.
19:05This is a peony called Molly the Witch.
19:08Slow grower, but look at that foliage, is incredible.
19:12Then on top of that, April, May.
19:14Hello, young man. You all right?
19:17Flowers, April, May, like that soft yellow.
19:20And I would love to grow it from seed.
19:22And you think, wow, look at that.
19:24Pink seed, popping, that's got to be ready.
19:27But actually, with this particular plant, that pink seed indicates that it's infertile.
19:34If you wanted to sow the seed, it would need to be a dark blue black colour.
19:42And even then, it would take you probably about two years to germinate.
19:48To germinate.
19:49It's amazing, isn't it?
19:51The growing world.
19:52Let's find something that we can propagate.
19:55I know it doesn't look a lot, but this is a plant that I fell in love with probably about four or five years ago.
20:09It's called Delphinium Recuenei.
20:12I mean, it's got a sort of soft blue flower that's about June time.
20:18It's an incredible plant.
20:21And you'll read.
20:22Some places it will tell you that it's a short-lived perennial.
20:25Other places it will tell you that actually it's a bay annual, so it completes its growing cycle in two years.
20:32But for me, strangely, a lot of the time now it's behaving like an annual.
20:37So it's hitting the ground, it's germinating, coming up and doing this all in 12 months.
20:44And I'm going to tip the seeds.
20:48And you'll see if this works.
20:51There you go.
20:53You can see how many seeds just literally pop out.
20:58The two plants that I've collected from are species plants, which means, you know, they grow in the wild.
21:06That means the seed that I collect from them will come true to the parent.
21:12Whereas if you start collecting from plants that have been bred, so we call the hybrids,
21:16then you're not guaranteed that they're going to be true to the parent.
21:21Sometimes this growing world, as fascinating as it is, can be a little bit complicated.
21:29Now, we are off to meet a man who, 14 plus years ago, decided to totally and utterly change his life.
21:44I got into gardening as a child.
21:50And now, later in life, I very much enjoy the physical side.
21:53And I enjoy the feeling at the end of the day when you really feel you've achieved something and, frankly, you are exhausted.
21:59But it's very rewarding.
22:01The planting in the garden is quite big and blousy and bold.
22:07I'm not sure that reflects me as a person, to be honest, because I think I'm quite conservative with a small c.
22:15By nature, I'm actually fairly introverted.
22:18And so the garden gives me a way to be a little bit extrovert.
22:25I'm Rudruth Jindal.
22:27I used to be a lawyer, and this is my garden in Suffolk.
22:31And it's something which I've created myself over the last 14 years.
22:37I trained as a lawyer, and I spent 20-odd years in London and in Hong Kong.
22:42But ultimately, it just wasn't my personality, and I gave up my career in my mid-40s.
22:52I was a litigation lawyer, which involves arguing.
22:55And I don't really like arguing.
22:57And the nice thing about gardening is I'm out here usually by myself, and there's no one to argue with.
23:04And the plants just do their own thing, and I do my own thing, and I absolutely love it.
23:08It's been quite a journey from giving up my career and then moving here full-time in 2019,
23:16and getting married and having a very different life.
23:20The sensible thing to do with a garden when you first start out is to leave it a year
23:24and see how the wind blows and the land drains and the sun shines.
23:29But I was impatient. I wanted to get on with it.
23:31I had the idea of creating a garden in the field which wraps round the cottage.
23:38So I started off with the wildflower meadow and the formal garden.
23:42But I've expanded beyond that to create a prairie garden.
23:47Because it's quite a large plot, it's about three acres, the sight lines are quite important
23:52because you want to be able to lead people around the garden.
23:55Without a doubt, this is one of our favourite areas.
24:01This meadow has been going for about 14 years.
24:06To come through the gate and to walk into this and to see every day what might be in the meadow
24:11is really rewarding and fun.
24:14So what I did was mow it as low as I could and then scarify or rake it to create space for the wildflower seeds.
24:23So here we're on pretty solid clay and so I got a mix which was suitable for clay soils.
24:30So this is yellow rattle. Here you can see it in flower.
24:33This is a very clever plant because it strangles grasses and it creates space thereby for wildflower seeds to grow.
24:40We have quite a decent variety of wildflowers in here, obviously the oxeye daisies.
24:47We also get the orchids and the one down here is a lovely pyramid orchid.
24:54It's never ending and it's changing all the time as well and we hope we'll get more interest in variety as the years go on.
25:02But I thought it'd be really nice to be able to walk through the meadows.
25:05So we have this curving path and that makes a real difference because you can get really in amongst the flowers, which is lovely.
25:12But also the sense that when you mow a path, it lifts everything else around it and it creates definition and everything else stands out just a little bit more.
25:21I'm really a self-taught gardener.
25:28I did a few day courses, but basically I went to a lot of gardens and I was always at the front of the queue on the tour with my notebook in hand.
25:36So my knowledge built up in that way.
25:38At Dixter they have, you know, topiary in the middle of a meadow and that inspired me to think about doing something similar here.
25:50So these are my hornbeam cubes. We have three of them in a row and they add an important aspect of formality to the garden.
25:57So I love the contrast of them.
25:58This one here is probably about seven feet high.
26:02They were staked for the first two or three years.
26:05And then when they've reached the height you want, you cut the tops off and then that causes the rest of it to get bushy.
26:13I'm really happy with the way these have turned out. They're very tight. They're very square.
26:17And in my dreams, I'm thinking, well, maybe I could cut them at an angle and make them look like tumbling dice.
26:22My parents came to England in the mid fifties and we ended up in Huddersfield and my father fell ill with cancer and passed away within six months.
26:39My mother's garden was a sanctuary for her from, you know, a busy life as a doctor, you know, challenging times in the sixties and seventies.
26:47I just sort of fell into the garden. She never asked me to do anything.
26:50I just did it because it was there and I enjoyed it mowing the lawn and being creative with my stripes.
26:57There is a picture of me aged maybe, I don't know, four or five years old.
27:01I'm standing behind a lawnmower.
27:03My mother always wore a sari to work and when we could afford it, my mother took my brother and I to India.
27:10And on those trips, we often went to sari shops and I would help my mum.
27:16She would ask my opinion about the sari she was about to buy and I think that experience has stuck with me in a way in that I do have an interest in texture and form and colour.
27:29So in the meadow, we've created several standalone island beds.
27:36Initially, I wasn't sure what to put into it, but I love irises.
27:42Irises, after they flower, need sun and you need to get sun onto the rhizomes.
27:49And so I had that in mind and therefore I wanted to put in plants that were light and airy whilst at the same time creating later season interest.
27:58So this is Achillia gold plate and then in the winter, you get these lovely brown seed heads, which are so attractive.
28:07Down here, we have Gowra whirling butterflies.
28:12Again, it moves in the wind. It doesn't shade the irises too much.
28:15So this is the long border which sits in front of the cottage.
28:22Initially, it was only about six feet deep and that was a mistake because it just looked like it was pushed against the hedge and you couldn't really appreciate it.
28:31So over the years, I've brought it forward and then forward again and then forward again.
28:35So now it's about 12 or 15 feet deep.
28:38I think height is really important in a border, especially when it's this wide.
28:42And for me, one of the nicest plants is this phlomis.
28:46We're all probably aware of the yellow phlomis, but this is a sort of a mauve one, which is very pretty.
28:53And this wonderful Lichnus chalcedonica also provides height and colour.
28:58So it's very stimulating.
29:00It's self seeds and if you look over to this side, you'll see a whole host of them together.
29:06So the height is really important because it lifts the border and it causes you to look up as you walk through it.
29:19Having been a lawyer for 20 odd years and really doing something which I didn't enjoy and frankly did my head in,
29:27it was important for me to find something that defined me that perhaps I could be good at.
29:33And I really wanted to create something beautiful.
29:39Although people say once a lawyer, always a lawyer.
29:43I kind of hope now maybe I can say I'm a gardener.
29:47I think so.
29:48I think if you've created a garden that beautiful, you can definitely call yourself a gardener.
30:02And so many of us think we need that sort of space to make a difference.
30:19And we don't.
30:20I moved in here and I wanted to create a garden that carried more diversity.
30:25So it needed to have a mini meadow.
30:28So this was an old scrubby path.
30:30I had the pear trees and then an area that was about seven metres by about 1.8.
30:37And I thought that's it.
30:38We've got the red campion.
30:39We've got the yarrow now.
30:41You know, things like scabias, knapweed.
30:44For me, the bit that's blown my mind is the wildlife that came in and used this meadow
30:50and how beneficial it's been to my veg garden and the rest of the garden.
30:55You can now see most of the flowers have gone over.
30:59It's looking slightly tatty, but there's loads of seed heads in there.
31:02So this is a time of year now to get in and cut it back to the ground.
31:07As you can see, this is a slightly awkward space.
31:12If I get the strimmer in here, it's going to go all over the place.
31:15There's no chance I'm getting a mower on here.
31:19So my chosen tool is, as strange as it might seem, the hedge trimmer.
31:24I'm going to use this and we're going to work our way through.
31:32Obviously, you know, we think wildflower, everything's a wildflower and technically you're right.
31:46But what I don't want in here is any real pernicious weed that's going to sort of take it over.
31:52And I've got bindweed in my hedge and I've just spotted it in here.
31:58So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to mark it.
32:01You know, during the next sort of few days, I can dig that out, you know, and get rid of it.
32:05I'm never going to get rid of it totally, but at least then I can just keep on top of it.
32:11Right.
32:12Who doubted me? I told you it would work.
32:28I might get in there with a fork and thrash it around a little bit.
32:32And what I'm trying to do is get the seed to fall to the ground.
32:36That then will germinate for next year.
32:39But then I will tidy away because ultimately, if it breaks down, it will start to feed the soil.
32:43And that's one thing that you definitely don't want.
32:47While I get on with cutting the other half, we are now off with Averley,
32:53who's gone to visit a garden that has been created by a fascinating couple.
33:07When it comes to gardeners, there are some names that are synonymous with a particular place.
33:18And for many, the name Vita Sackville West means only one thing, Sissinghurst.
33:24The Elizabethan castle in Kent that her and her husband, Harold, revived and turned into one of Britain's most iconic gardens.
33:35However, it was not their first, not even their second garden, but their third.
33:41Before Vita and Harold created Sissinghurst, their early horticultural knowledge came from here,
33:48just 20 miles away, at a garden called Long Barn.
33:57Vita was born in 1892, the only child to aristocratic parents.
34:03She began writing at an early age, finishing eight novels before she was 18.
34:09She would go on to become a world-renowned poet and writer, as well as a garden designer.
34:19In 1913, she married Harold Nicholson, a diplomat, much to the disappointment of her parents,
34:27who had hoped that she would marry one of her other wealthier suitors.
34:32When they moved here, Vita and Harold were complete novices.
34:42But as they built up the garden together, it brought out their different strengths.
34:48Harold was in charge of the structure, strong lines of paths, hedges and walls,
34:57while Vita filled every space with the rich and overflowing planting that she loved.
35:03Vita's motto was cram, cram, cram, cram.
35:10And even today, the garden is filled to overflowing.
35:18You can see Harold's outline in the strong east-west paths that line the garden.
35:24And then, running at right angles, is this.
35:27A stunning arch, recently replanted with scented roses and other climbers.
35:37But you can see that the path to the bench is not dead straight,
35:43which just shows how organically this garden developed by a couple who are still very new to gardening.
35:51Vita and Harold planned this garden to thrive long after them.
36:01On the U columns that run the length of the garden,
36:04Vita wrote to Harold and said,
36:07They will look silly at first, but when we're a handful of ashes,
36:11they will draw sharabangs, or buses, full of tourists from London, which they regularly do.
36:22Views like these were crucial to Vita and Harold's big idea at Long Barn.
36:29Garden rooms.
36:32They divided up the area into separate spaces,
36:36each with a theme designed to evoke its own atmosphere.
36:43The Dutch garden's L-shaped beds were filled with a mass of cottage garden planting,
36:49which felt exuberant and very modern.
36:53But next door were two peaceful not-gardens
36:56which wouldn't have looked out of place in the 16th century.
37:00Further away from the formality and colour of the main garden,
37:06the orchard has a completely different feel
37:09and much closer to the practical gardens
37:12that would have surrounded the house for hundreds of years before.
37:16And although Vita was the plants' woman,
37:23Harold also had strong opinions on what plants would and wouldn't work at Long Barn.
37:29This is a collection of letters and in one he writes,
37:35I agree that if rhododendrons were native to Kent,
37:41they would be exactly and absolutely what we want.
37:45But they are not natives and we should spoil our lovely Kentish atmosphere.
37:51And I agree with Harold.
37:55It certainly has the feel of a Kentish farm.
38:00And through these various garden rooms,
38:06Harold and Vita hosted fabulous parties filled with the great and the good.
38:12And amongst the artists, authors and actors were some of the many lovers that Vita and Harold took.
38:28Harold and Vita had an open marriage which was highly unconventional for the 1920s.
38:34They loved, trusted and respected each other.
38:39But both had the freedom to indulge their own passions of the heart.
38:44The longest and most intense of all was Vita's love affair
38:48with the renowned writer, Virginia Woolf.
38:54Vita and Virginia's affair continued for several years.
38:57All the while, Vita was carrying on with a married woman named Mary Campbell.
39:03Honestly, it's like a soap opera.
39:06If only these youth could talk.
39:15As their son later put it, their marriage was a safe harbour
39:20and the affairs were mere ports of call.
39:23And walking through this garden,
39:26you can sense the balance of Vita and Harold's personalities.
39:33Despite all the drama, Harold and Vita lived a happy life,
39:39leaving Long Barn for Sissinghurst in 1932 and remained married until their deaths.
39:45And the joy of sitting in a poet's garden is that sometimes you can see it through their eyes.
39:55In 1915, not long after they'd moved here, Vita wrote a very simple poem called The Garden.
40:04We had a garden on a hill.
40:07We planted rose and daffodil, flowers that English poets sing and hoped for glory in the spring.
40:15We waited for them all to grow.
40:17We planted wallflowers in a row and lavender and borage blue.
40:23But love was all that ever grew.
40:29In the end, that's what this garden is.
40:32Not just a backdrop for tempestuous affairs.
40:36It is a garden built of love, as all the best gardens are.
40:43New Dimensions
40:55oding
41:04I love that idea that even then as a couple they were creating it for the next generation to enjoy,
41:12And also, wouldn't you have loved an invite to one of their parties?
41:16I know I would.
41:19So, that's it. Job done.
41:21Discovered some step-over apples that I'd forgotten about.
41:24But the next point of interest here will really be the spring bulbs.
41:42As I wander up the steps to the gravel garden,
41:48things sort of died away over the season,
41:51and I just want to fill the space.
41:53So I just thought here it would be lovely just to add another layer,
41:56just going into the back end of the summer, early autumn.
42:00I'm creating a rhythm through the garden that's driven by grasses.
42:03So we've got a millennia here, we've got a millennia up there,
42:06which are quite low-growth, big, spiky flowers.
42:09So, what I've done in here is gone for a Callumagrostis.
42:14And this is called Brachytrica.
42:17But the interesting thing with this is it will get to about 1.2 metres
42:23and then start to flower.
42:25But the flower has got a beautiful sort of purpley tinge to it.
42:30So it's going to sort of sit here, connect the verticals of the grasses,
42:35but then it's going to start to play with these plants.
42:38And then anemone, good, reliable autumn colour.
42:44This is a new one to me called Serenade.
42:47This will get up to about sort of 600ml growth
42:51and the flower will sit about 200ml above that.
42:55And you've got a lovely pink flower,
42:58but also at the same time, beautiful, strong, rich foliage.
43:03So that will go in there.
43:05And the star of this particular show is going to be this oak-leafed hydrangea.
43:12As we go into the autumn, the leaves on this are rich, glorious, deep.
43:19That sort of warmth that the autumn colours bring.
43:22But when it loses its leaves, as it matures, the stems become quite interesting
43:28because they slightly peel and they're slightly more coppery.
43:31So that's how this whole thing really glues together.
43:34And then when it comes to the planting, I've made sure everything's weed-free this time of year.
43:42If you're thinking about doing any planting, obviously that moisture content is going to be really important.
43:48So what I've gone for is some composted bark.
43:53What I might do afterwards as well, when I've finished and I've given everything a really good soaking,
44:00is that I might use some of this bark in around the plants just to lock that moisture in.
44:09What's lovely about this particular oak-leafed hydrangea is it will take more sun than lots of the others.
44:18But this will also deal with semi-shade.
44:21What I don't want to do is plant this too deep.
44:25If you imagine, you can see that growth habit there now.
44:27What's going to happen is slowly over time it's going to mound a little bit on the steps up on there
44:32and it gives this lovely sort of link.
44:36And if we put the anemone in there, and I know the Japanese anemones don't always come with the best reputation.
44:47And you know, some people can be a little snobby about them and say,
44:51yeah, but they're thuggish.
44:53But actually, in reality, look at the growth, that lake colour that it's going to bring you.
45:00And with that, the reliability.
45:03So next, we're going to get in this Cali Magrostis.
45:09Grasses are not everybody's cup of tea, alright?
45:13So my sales pitch to you, if you were not into them,
45:18was just to say that not every plant you add to your garden needs to be a star, alright?
45:26They play beautifully with the light, they'll give you some movement, a moment of calm,
45:32and even sound, you know, on a windy day.
45:35But what is lovely, is once I water those, you know, mulching around the next few weeks,
45:42because there's warmth in that soil, those roots will really start to get away.
45:48And going into the autumn, coming up those stairs,
45:52will just give me a moment before I find my little seat over in the corner there.
45:58Now, we're off to meet a chef who's had his head turned by the wonder of Grow Your Own.
46:14I'm a real fan of preserving the season as much as possible.
46:18As we all know as gardeners, we always end up with a glut of something.
46:21That's the time to preserve it.
46:23So you've still got the great flavour of that produce, no matter what time of year.
46:29My name's Daryl Taylor, I head up the produce garden here at Thyme,
46:34a country estate in the Cotswolds with a hotel and restaurant.
46:43So now I'm a gardener, but actually I am a trained chef,
46:46so my background is cooking, but I've always had a passion for growing.
46:52As a chef, I know how I want things to taste in my kitchen.
46:57So when I grow here, I kind of almost know the end result.
47:03I know what I'm looking for.
47:04I know the size that I would like to have that in my kitchen.
47:12I've just always had this kind of inner love for propagation and growing things from seed.
47:17It's so rewarding.
47:18So when I was offered a full-time position as the gardener here,
47:22I just had to think about it a little bit because the garden here is pretty big.
47:26I took a little step back and thought, well, how can I really kind of make this garden work?
47:30And I love it because it's a new challenge.
47:33So I'm on a great now kind of learning curve about different varieties.
47:38And yeah, so I'm kind of, I'm beginning my career, my second career, which is really exciting.
47:43And now I'm a chef turned gardener.
47:50I love growing onions.
47:51I've got about six different varieties in here, all grown from seed, ready to be brought inside now and just finished drying off.
47:58But this is a showpiece. Look at the size of that one.
48:01Beetroot.
48:02This is called Chioggia.
48:04It's a stripy beetroot from the Chioggia region in Northern Italy.
48:08Golden beetroot here.
48:10They're heading up quite nicely.
48:11They'll be ready soon.
48:12Really nice thing beetroot, just kind of whole when they're quite small.
48:15You can just roast them.
48:17You could accompany that to some roast meat, a pork chop.
48:20You could have it with some tahini drizzled on.
48:22Beetroots are really versatile, a really nice vegetable.
48:24I like them a lot.
48:26And then these lovely guys, trombette, courgette.
48:29You can roast them and they'll hold their shape.
48:31They don't have a huge water content.
48:32So quite a nice thing to kind of showcase, but I think they're wonderful.
48:43What was a great thing for me in my career as a chef, it was always about the produce.
48:50So in this polytunnel, I'm experimenting this year with gherkins.
48:54Never grown them before.
48:55I've planted quite a few plants because, you know, gherkins are quite small.
48:59So if we're going to pickle them or make a crop worthwhile, I need a decent quantity.
49:04So these are grown in the same way that you would grow cucumbers.
49:07I've got them growing up these wires.
49:10Every morning I just come in and then just twist them around
49:13and they've got these tendrils which will just wire themselves on.
49:17So we would brine them to start within some salt and then pack them into a solution
49:22maybe with some fennel seeds or horseradish leaves.
49:25I'm always thinking about what I'm going to grow, what I'm growing next year.
49:33I've already started the list on my phone that's been going forever.
49:35So I'm always thinking about that time ahead of what we can look to grow
49:40and go on that growing journey, I suppose.
49:43We often find we grow all of our vegetables summertime
49:50and don't necessarily think about kind of those winter harvests.
49:53But radicchioes and chickarees are a really underrated vegetable,
49:57pretty straightforward to grow and delicious to cook.
50:00Radicchioes and chickarees being a leafy crop,
50:03they are a nice thing to follow on from a legume.
50:06So a broad bean, a pea, an early crop of runner beans
50:10because the legumes fix nitrogen into the soil
50:13and it's really good to follow on something that's going to really like
50:17that part of the garden, that nitrogen fix.
50:20Radicchio is even really nice in a pasta.
50:22Sometimes I've sliced and fried radicchio with cream and rosemary,
50:27maybe some chilli flakes and some capers
50:29and you can mix that through some panne pasta or some spaghetti.
50:36This is a real journey of learning and I feel, you know,
50:39I've got the base foundations as a gardener,
50:42but now I'm a grower.
50:45It's nourishing to have your hands in the soil.
50:48It's really hard work.
50:50And I take the approach as I do when I'm in the kitchen.
50:53I want to be productive.
50:54It's really rewarding.
50:56This is my Fatouche salad, a traditional Lebanese salad
51:00showcasing the beautiful ingredients we've got in the garden at the moment.
51:07I take three varieties of tomato,
51:09atomic fusion, green zebra,
51:12and one of my favourites, black cherry.
51:16Toss those with cucumbers, one green, one crystal lemon,
51:21celery and feta cheese.
51:23Add soft herbs
51:26and a good squeeze of lemon.
51:29Throw in a huge pinch of sumac
51:31and finally a good plug of olive oil.
51:35Toasted pita bread, salt and pepper, mix it all up.
51:40And there's my Fatouche salad.
51:45I thought that salad was absolutely incredible.
51:46In fact, watching Daryl make it just made me peckish.
51:50And also, the idea of using horseradish leaves
51:52to flavour the gherkins when you're pickling them.
51:53I am definitely going to use that.
51:54So thank you.
51:58I thought that salad was absolutely incredible.
52:00In fact, watching Daryl make it just made me peckish.
52:04And also, the idea of using horseradish leaves
52:08to flavour the gherkins when you're pickling them.
52:11I am definitely gonna use that, so thank you.
52:28I said about my holiday, didn't I?
52:35This was the biggest surprise, the veg garden.
52:38And anybody that grows courgettes will know
52:41you end up with courgettes, courgettes, courgettes.
52:44Or...
52:49a marrow.
52:50So that will definitely be a meal later on in the week.
52:54I wanna pick all these little babies.
52:58So this time of year, it's all about picking, picking,
53:07and picking.
53:08And on that note, see what else we can find.
53:20It is like a journey of discovery.
53:23This is a great little herb called silver sorrel.
53:26If I chop this finely,
53:28it gives a lovely sort of citrusy flavour.
53:31On salad.
53:34Right, come on.
53:45You're gonna love this.
53:46Distortions are doing really well.
53:49That peppery flower is incredible.
53:55Dwarf French beans, it's nice and easy.
53:59These beans are, like, incredible.
54:03Just so many of them.
54:05Good day.
54:06Absolutely wonderful.
54:08So, I think now, just some young leaves to add to a salad.
54:14And maybe some cut flower.
54:26I love the taste of chard.
54:27And then maybe just a few astrantia stems.
54:40Actually, I nearly forgot something.
54:42Come with me.
54:44Anybody that grows veg and fruit will understand this.
54:54Each year, I think you have a moment of glory.
54:58Well, this is it.
54:59These peaches, the crop, it's unbelievable.
55:02I'm telling you, life does not get much better than that.
55:17So, well, I'll pick the rest of these.
55:20Here's a few things you could be doing at the weekend.
55:22Obviously, you fancy it.
55:24Hostas can look a little untidy after they've finished flowering.
55:39So, it's worth removing the spent blooms once they've gone over.
55:44Cut each stem back to the base,
55:46taking care not to cut any leaves by mistake.
55:50Your plants will look a lot better as a result
55:52and won't waste any energy making seeds.
56:01Composting is a great way of making use of your garden waste.
56:05As long as you have a good balance between green and brown.
56:09Soft material can be added as it is,
56:12but anything woody is best chopped up.
56:16When it starts to rot down,
56:18turn it every now and then using a fork.
56:20This helps to mix up the ingredients and add air,
56:25speeding up the decomposition process.
56:31Coriander is easy to grow from seed
56:33and, with a bit of protection,
56:35may even survive the winter outdoors.
56:39Using a large pot or a spare patch of earth,
56:43make a series of shallow drills.
56:44Water allow to drain and then sow into the wet soil,
56:52leaving about five centimetres,
56:54which is two inches, between each seed.
56:57I like to sow mine now,
56:59as it tends to bolt over the summer.
57:02Keep well watered and, with luck,
57:04you'll have some leaves to pick come October.
57:06Come on, mate.
57:17We have a special guest.
57:21Look who's come to say hello.
57:23It's Isla.
57:24Interestingly, the amount of people since we've had Buster are saying,
57:28is Isla OK?
57:30Yes, Isla is OK.
57:33She's quite happy and loves being out in the garden.
57:38Don't you, girl?
57:39Yeah.
57:40And it has been a great day.
57:42But if you grow veg and fruit,
57:44for me that takes it all on to a different level.
57:47You know, I've got my chard, my beans.
57:49I'm thinking maybe pasta, cream.
57:52You know, the marrow,
57:53maybe that stuff later on in the week.
57:56And then rounding that all off with those beautiful peaches.
58:02That's got to be my proudest moment in the garden this year.
58:06Keep that simple.
58:08Ice cream.
58:09Job done.
58:10Anyway, I'm afraid that is it from us this week.
58:14Monty will be back next week at Longmeadow.
58:17In the meantime, enjoy your bank holiday weekend
58:21and look after yourselves.
58:23Bye-bye.
58:23Bye-bye.
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