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00:00The Jewel Garden has had an interesting time of it this year because like everybody else it's
00:22had to cope with this extreme heat and drought but on top of that it had a major revamp it took
00:29months to take everything out and then we started to replant it this spring but then of course it's
00:35had to cope with the weather and some things have done really well the tithonia for example the Mexican
00:40sunflower loved it been completely at home it's an annual planted it out in June and it's just
00:47romped away producing masses of flowers some things have surprised me this is a hellenium
00:56Sarhin's early it was flowering in June and has kept on flowering without break since it's gone
01:02from Sarhin's early to Sarhin's late maybe this is adapting to the changes really well climatists
01:08have surprised me they're over now much earlier than normal and they've set seed but while they
01:12were in flower they were magnificent even though they weren't being watered at all and this is a
01:17plant that needs moisture because I think we hadn't dug it up we'd left it in the ground the roots were
01:23deep and it was accessing moisture further in the ground some plants however well they've done will
01:30need winter protection and our salvias are a good example salvia curvy flora here completely happy
01:37normally that's a bit iffy but whatever type of salvia it is I will have to give them winter protection
01:43and as well as taking them in I shall be taking cuttings now coming up on today's program
01:49Joe visits an organic flower farm in Bristol which is at the heart of the local community
01:57I'm chatting to you right now and I'm realizing I have to be picking a hundred stems
02:03okay moving then I feel like actually just give me a pair of secateurs joining in we head to a garden on the
02:10south coast built by a mother to give her children a truly intimate connection with nature
02:16I wanted our children to have a feeling of wildness and the plants being taller than them and enveloping them in
02:25wilderness Adam meets a ceramicist who has used her artistic eye to create a superb prairie style
02:35garden I focus less on color yeah more on contrasting forms daisy-like forms like the echinacea and
02:43helenium but then contrasting that with plate-like flowers like the Achillean and we find a spiky and
02:51unusual North London garden packed with exotic plants although a lot of people would think that
03:00they were tender actually about 90% of what there is here is perfectly happy to stay outside and and
03:07thrives over the winter months
03:23Ned has taken to getting up on the ball thinking that it's winsome and somehow it'll make me like
03:30him more or give him food or something like that I don't know what it's about what's it all about maybe
03:36you just think you look good
03:39silly boy come on
03:47this is salvia amistad I've grown it in a pot this year not knowing we're going to have the drought
03:54because I could give it extra drainage and I knew that would cope with relative lack of water because
04:00last summer it was very wet and of course he's loved it absolutely love the summer covered in flower as
04:07it has been for months and I'm really pleased so certainly that's a win nevertheless although it is
04:14robust and although it does survive lower temperatures better than most salvias it doesn't survive in this
04:21garden combination of wet and cold always does for whenever I've tried I've always lost the plants
04:26so I need to take cuttings because that ensures that whatever happens over winter I've got a fresh
04:32supply what you're looking for are side shoots so you have the main stem a leaf and then at 45 degrees
04:41a shoot coming out from it and a side shoot without a bud or a flower and that is perfect that's
04:48absolutely perfect now you can cut that but sometimes you can just peel them off and they
04:54take a little bit with it so so that is perfect and can you see that that's got a little bit of the
05:00main stem attached to it which will help the development of roots now as ever when you're taking cuttings
05:08have a polythene bag to hand and that will buy you a little bit of time because the minute you take a
05:15cutting it's a race and it's very simple it's a race against the plant dying because you cut it
05:22and creating new roots that will keep it alive and by popping it in the bag you're slowing down
05:29the dying process because it's going to die of dehydration we've got another one on the other side
05:34I can take that perfect that and these are just breaking off I don't need succotus
05:47come on
05:48so I've got a pen knife to do the cuttings got pots I've got perlite you can use just any gritty mix
06:07you can use pure sand but drainage is key so take them out one at a time and then
06:15with a knife clean that off there don't worry about losing material because all you're doing
06:23is setting this up to grow more so that is now ready and I find that salvias take very well
06:31in just a pure mix like that and pop that in the corner like that okay that's one done
06:38okay once you start taking cuttings and they strike and you grow new plants it's so exciting
06:49and so liberating because you suddenly realize that you can create dozens even hundreds of plants
06:57for free and the fact that you've done it and you've enabled it to happen
07:01is is really empowering I love it pop that in water them and then any kind of propagator where
07:10you can close the lid even if it's just a cover over a seed tray will help and just miss the plants
07:17two or three times a day and it will take about 10 days two weeks before you start to see new growth
07:23and that means it's got roots then you can pop them on into potting compost and grow them on keep
07:29them over winter and they'll be ready to plant out next year now we're going to join adam as he
07:36visits a garden down in the southeast corner of the country
07:46i've come to the kent sussex border which is a part of country that is not short of glorious gardens
07:53and today i think we're in for a treat we're going to meet a gardener who has transformed
08:00an old horse paddock into a big bold garden driven by her love of the arts
08:13emma burrell is a ceramicist by trade but her whole life changed when she laid her eyes on this piece of land
08:23since then she has been transforming this space and the result is a beautiful prairie style garden
08:31emma first of all wow i've walked in and there's a certain feeling to this garden take me back to
08:40the beginning how did it all start well a friend of mine told me about this place coming on the market
08:46we came and had a sneaky preview and we thought the garden was just this section that we're standing
08:53in and it turns out it was a lot more than that so i was delighted my husband was horrified and that
09:00was it we just sort of fell in love so when you moved in what was the garden like there wasn't really
09:07a garden here it was basically paddocks overgrown fields some knee-high grass so when it came to the
09:14design yeah you got the main garden laid out on paper yes i did so i started to think about all
09:20my fantasy bits of a garden i ever wanted to grow and then we just did the garden in little sections
09:26so we did the borders one year and we might plant two hedges another year and then the orchard we put
09:33that in one year i'd say we're still we're still doing it i'd always wanted to divide the studio off
09:47slightly from the rest of the garden but i didn't want a solid division so i'd seen someone using
09:53grasses as a as a hedge i planted that variety it's callum agrostis carl forster forster yeah i planted that
10:01variety because it's very upright it's got a really long season of interest when i'm stood here you
10:07can see the proportions you know of the house against the studio and this more or less links
10:14the two together yeah yeah i think you have to be generous sometimes yeah and it's it's a bit scary
10:18putting in 200 grasses all one variety they came in quite big pots so i could divide them in half so
10:27i divided them all in half so i've got twice as many plants because i'm always one for a bargain
10:35what i like about the way that you've set things up is is that shape and form
10:41is incredibly important to you yeah i think i've used i've focused less on color yeah more on um
10:49contrasting forms so i've got daisy-like forms like the echinacea and helenium but then contrasting
10:55that with more sort of plate plate like flowers like the achillea and and your eye kind of follows
11:03follows all the way through the border with the achillea because it's such an intense color
11:07i've mirrored the planting in both sides so your eye gets drawn from the house through to one plant
11:13there and then it moves over there there there and then you get drawn into the landscape beyond
11:18so what about watering i don't water anything i water when i'm planting and i plant quite small plants
11:25and then i just let them get on with it send their roots right down and which i think they have and
11:30you've got some really good strong planting and everything's holding its form really well isn't it
11:36and i suppose when we talk about the form for you that's incredibly important yes it is yeah
11:41and that contrast between different forms as well just keeps the interest going
11:56and as you're walking through space to space you come across things like this which for me a living
12:02architecture they connect the buildings together they add this point of relief they're different sizes
12:08different shapes forms but emma's created them in reality they are just three hedging plants that have
12:13been planted and then tailored they're beach and actually as these brown as the winter goes on
12:20they connect beautifully with the calamagrostis over there great idea
12:29also i like the simplicity and the honesty of the materials you look at the timber deck
12:36it's textural and the walls their timber the colors are absolutely beautiful
12:41and then look i'm going to take you back late 60s early 70s council paving slabs they are the first
12:50thing that i ever laid on the council the old three-by-twos and i tell you they were really heavy
12:57and then a concrete planter so the whole place there's this simplicity and then there's these strong lines
13:05and then this is planting that just brings it all alive it really is lovely
13:11oh look
13:28i'm going to describe this as more loveliness oh so how did this part start so this was actually a thick
13:35layer of compacted rocks gravel and then another thick layer of sand on top so i rather than trying
13:43to improve that i just tried to see what would survive within those conditions i collected together
13:49lots of north american prairie plant seeds from all over the place i got all excited about these amazing
13:55plants yeah that didn't go very well um i thought okay we'll have to try a different tactic so i planted
14:03a few plants like the veronicastrum and things like the euphorbia that's pseudovigata which is
14:09very invasive and i wouldn't put it in a border but actually in these conditions it's done really
14:15well yeah it does its job also um i've got a perennial sunflower the helianthus at the end there as well
14:21which that is in a slightly better patch of soil also it's a wonderful demonstration of how good plants
14:29are adapting i know they want to grow and it's amazing yeah what they can grow in you know you
14:36seem to thrive on that challenge yeah i'll give that a go see how that gets on and yeah because then
14:41you're surprised and it's all there's that sense of satisfaction as well it means everything to me
14:45this garden i think because of all the work i've put into it but also the pleasure that it gives
14:50me and other people i love being in it but i also love the evolving aspect of it
14:56and just the physical aspect of gardening i couldn't live without that
15:07i think this place is a great reminder that so many lovely gardens are about people but also that
15:16constant experimenting which guarantees you one thing this garden will definitely not stand still
15:25what i really like from that was the brave simplicity of the design
15:53sometimes it's much harder to do a very simple thing like those 200 grasses
16:01than it is to chuck everything at it and and and have a sort of wonderful jumble of plants which
16:06can look fantastic of course but to be pure and simple and then bring it off like that
16:13is really good what i'm doing here is the the middle process of a three-part
16:19progress from seed to planting out into the garden these are ruby streak mustard and they're one of
16:27a number of greens that i sowed just a couple of weeks ago and i love them for their peppery
16:35so hot mustardy taste in greens as part of a salad in winter and of course you can also cook with them
16:42so i've sewn them they germinated very quickly probably a little bit too thickly but that's okay
16:47and then just tease out individual plants with as much root as possible always holding by a leaf because
16:53if you hold it by a leaf and the leaf breaks it can grow another hold it by the stem and it breaks that's
16:59it you've had it and then i've already put compost into these plugs just gently firm it in all leaf crops
17:09i grow like this and the advantages are that you can focus in on individual plants very young
17:16so rather than thinning as they're growing you you thin basically at this stage and then each of these
17:22has space to grow and become a nice strong plant these now need a good soak and to be kept water
17:28don't let them dry out put them somewhere protected until they're ready to plant out
17:33at this time of year most salad crops take two to three weeks to establish a strong enough root system
17:52but once a plant has grown on it's time for stage three in the process
17:56this is rocket now if i take out a plug first of all it comes out complete and it holds together
18:09in my hand and you can see the roots on the outside it's not root bound but it's solid now that's the
18:15perfect moment to plant it out so i just plant that in there and push it in now when you sow seeds
18:23and you thin it seems incredibly radical to thin to even three inches apart you're discarding so many
18:32plants whereas when you're planting out like this and especially with rocket i would recommend at least
18:39six inches and preferably more so this sort of spacing is ideal and the reason for that
18:47is because you will then get really big strong plants that you can repeatedly cut and harvest
18:55and i reckon to get three good cuts from each or to just take a few leaves from each and that means
19:03actually you get more of a harvest than if you plant them close together
19:06there is a reason why rocket is grown either in early spring or in late summer because it hates
19:17hot dry weather it just immediately bolts now normally if you plant it out or sow it at the end of august
19:24you can expect the weather to get a bit cooler and hopefully wetter but if you don't have the resources
19:30to water it regularly don't plant it just wait till it cools down even if that means waiting for another
19:36two or three weeks however with any luck if you do and you can you can water it make sure it doesn't
19:41dry out it'll grow well lots of lovely tender leaves delicious eaten raw really good cook by the way
19:48rocket pesto is fantastic and you use walnuts rather than pine nuts and maybe even cheddar rather than parmesan
19:55and it's really good okay they're watered in and we're off now to crouch end in north london to visit
20:18the garden of steve buckley and liz roberts
20:29i'm liz and this is our garden in north london where we've been for the past 15 years
20:35and i'm steve i'm a sculptor by trade and i work at a bench down the garden a bit of an obsession with
20:42geology hence the rocks everywhere
20:44i'd say the garden is mediterranean exotic spiky lush evergreen
20:56mediterranean planting is increasingly viable in this country because the climate's changing
21:03generally to negative effect of course and the way we plant what we can plant is changing
21:09definitely too most of the plants you see here although a lot of people would think that they
21:15were tender and they did need to come in for the winter actually about 90 percent of what there is
21:21here is perfectly happy to stay outside and and thrives over the winter months
21:30some people are surprised by exactly how much is hardy and does stay out so for instance
21:36that big puya in the curvy pot is happy outside all the year that yucca rostrata be happy to minus 10 or
21:43more and so is this dioun edgily which i absolutely love beautiful sculptural plan
21:52doesn't look hardy looks like a house plan it's tough it's been out here over last winter no problem
21:57cycads for instance the common one cycas revoluta is available everywhere as a house plant but there's
22:09one down there that's been there for about 10 years outside and it's now a wingspan of six or eight feet
22:18there are other cycads here which we really love for instance one called encephalatus laymanii a blue
22:24glaucus blue thing i occasionally think i should risk that over the winter outside but i love it so
22:31much i'm a bit twitchy about trying it so it comes in
22:39the garden's full of palm trees of various types this is possibly my favorite it's a trachycarpus
22:47princeps and it has this secret of having blue undersides i just love the structural shape the
22:56architectural shape of it tough as old boots planted straight in the ground possibly with a bit of
23:02extra drainage some grit i can't remember the last time i fed it and i can't remember the last
23:07time i watered it and uh it's happy as larry in semi-shade this garden looks great looks the same
23:21all year it doesn't go into hiding for the winter mahonia soft caress is one of my favorite plants one
23:31that i think more people should know about it's great in shade it's got these lovely delicate leaves
23:38much softer foliage than some mahonias this will get big blushes of small yellow flowers along with
23:45a beautiful scent in late winter very easy to grow very tough as well i mean people are always looking
23:53for something that's good in shade and i think this really has a lot to give in that respect the fact
24:02that these plants thrive is partly to do with where we live but it's also to do with the drainage i
24:09think drainage is more important than position to be honest we're very careful to give them conditions
24:16that they like and it's not that difficult really
24:18i love the agaves that we've got in this garden i think my favorite has to be the agave americana
24:27it's absolutely stunning color and gorgeous leaf shapes really really big and amazing plant
24:33this plant is absolutely hardy it needs no protection
24:37and it's withstood everything that's been thrown at it for years
24:44there's a lot in common i would say between sculpting and pruning
24:49i do think that the act of pruning maybe taking a bay tree which i've topiarized actually into a roof
24:56above my bench it's the same kind of skill really
25:06my love of exotic plants um has extended into the fruit and vegetable area for example the sheet so which
25:14is used in japanese cookery got pineapple sage and then we've got this beautiful szechuan pepper tree
25:21which is totally hardy it has very fragrant leaves big spines and then it has all these wonderful
25:28peppercorns now these can be made into a pepper and they also give a very unique sensation of tongue tingling
25:40this sometimes surprises me uh how much exotica grows in the dark almost or at least semi-shade like this
25:48bitosporium tabira and this gorgeous i think daphnifilum macropodum with the blue underside to the leaves
25:59this fatsia spider's web i think really works in the dark because the definition
26:05given by the variation shines out of the darkness at you
26:13plants like to grow outside even proper house plants they weren't evolved in houses and they
26:19prefer to be in the sun and the rain given half a chance that saguaro cactus is actually planted
26:26on a little mountain of old bricks shingle grit topped off with heavy rocks and facing south so it kind
26:36of thinks it's in arizona some people see the garden and ask is it high maintenance i have a couple of
26:43thoughts on that one is i don't really regard it as work it feels like fun the other is it's definitely
26:51not low maintenance but it's not as hard as it looks either most of it doesn't need much help at all
27:21and i always marvel at the differences in growing conditions on this small island because there
27:27you have crouch m which is only 150 miles away from here but another world when it comes to growing
27:33i could keep almost none of those plants outside here at long meadow the aeoniums for example had to go
27:39in in about six weeks time and it's the combination of cold and wet which does for most of those plants
27:47the key thing is to try avoiding that combination of wet and cold if you can increase the drainage
27:53a lot of plants particularly mediterranean ones will survive quite cold weather
27:58i'm improving the drainage of the compost here by adding a lot of grit to my normal compost mix which
28:04is a mix it's peat-free compost that i buy in which is bark based and then we add our own garden
28:10compost leaf mold and perlote the reason i'm doing this is because i want to plant out some amerines
28:15amerines amerines are a cross between nerines which are wonderful elegant south african autumn bulbs with
28:24spidery petals and a long stem and amaryllis which we all know and love and the amaryllis gives the
28:33nerine a little bit more oomph and substance and they're at their best in october it's a very much
28:39an autumnal thing and they share the same characteristic whether it is an amerine or a
28:45nerine of having a distinct nose on the bulb a long proboscis that sticks up above the main body of the
28:55bulb and whereas most bulbs you plant deep usually twice the depth of the bulb like that these need
29:02to stick out of the soil so you want to bury them only to about that depth which means you can use a
29:08shallower bowl always use terracotta for this type of thing because this is really decorative this is
29:13an autumnal joy so use the best pots you possibly can crock in the bottom we'll put a layer of the
29:22gritty mix so now i've got three here they don't need too much space they will flower better if they
29:29are crammed in to a certain extent right now we will put some more compost around them
29:39keeping those noses sticking out the ground and then i'm going to dress these with a surface of grit
29:47the main reason is because it looks better but also it does stop compost splashing up when you water them
29:54this is a variety called aphrodite a wonderful candy pink spider-like flowers
30:05these are now ready now the important thing is to give them as much heat and light as you can these
30:11are plants if you plant them outside must have really good drainage in the sunniest spot that you
30:16possess i'm going to put these in the greenhouse and then when they start to grow then they can go
30:21outside just on the point of flowering to give them every chance of success
30:41we're going to join joe now he has been going around the country
30:44visiting gardens that have one particular characteristic because they are created
30:51and looked after by people who not only can make a lovely garden but also can simultaneously nurture
30:59the community
31:09i just love to meet horticultural heroes those people who fly under the radar you know those rare
31:16individuals who are doing great things but don't make a song and dance about it and that's why i've
31:22come to this flower farm on the outskirts of bristol it's called heart of bs13 and they grow beautiful flowers for the local community and beyond
31:37but here's the best bit through their social enterprise work they also offer people mental health and well-being support
31:45to find out more i'm meeting manager sol harmsworth hello sol hi so you're picking annual deadheading as
31:54you go through some some good ones here i know come on off of their heads it's a beautiful cosmos isn't
32:01this gorgeous stunning this is our apricotter it's like a rusty orange yeah florists love it but we have
32:07to get the cosmos when they are so fresh when these buds haven't pollinated they're barely open so tell
32:16me about the setup because the whole ethos yeah so we're a social enterprise which means we're part of
32:22a charity that is tackling health inequality in this postcode this postcode is in the top 10 percent of
32:28multiple deprivation right which means a lot of people have much more disadvantage into education into
32:35employment into nutrition we can offer volunteer programs trainee programs and employability skills
32:43the exciting thing is the wholesale industry want to buy our flowers however we have to work at a pace
32:50i'm chatting to you right now and i'm realizing i have to be picking a hundred stems can we keep moving
32:55and i feel like just give me a pair of secretaries joining in jill carpenter is a volunteer who grew up in the area
33:07and today she's one of a team preparing these wonderful rebecca for a wedding tomorrow so if you've
33:15always been local joe i'm interested to find out how you think this project has affected the local community
33:23um i think it's affected them greatly because this is the green space that we've got left all the
33:31building work going on you need something like this it's great for the youngsters from the schools coming
33:36up and you're not just stuck in house yeah you know if you're retired some people just sit there
33:41don't they you know watching tv that's when your mental state gets worse i think if people can come out
33:47and do this even a couple of hours a day yeah would improve the situation so much and save the nhs a lot
33:55money vicky is from hong kong and for her the flower farm is a place to connect with people and nature
34:04i'm in here to make us so many friends and they are very lovely and nice when you're looking to
34:11flowers you will be happy and enjoy and essentially and jack is the farm's most recent recruit
34:20so you're the newbie then yes yes so i've only been here uh for two weeks now so can't claim any
34:25credit for any of the hard work everyone else has done so far what made you want to what made you want
34:31to get involved in um so uh recently i've sort of been having a few sort of um well-being issues so this
34:36was um first and foremost excellent for my mental health um and to be honest um it's sort of i
34:45realized recently that i really wanted to make horticulture my career um and sort of make that jump
34:50over to um yeah just sort of actually make that change in my life fabulous positive change um and
34:57it's fantastic i mean being mentored by the guys here um it's amazing and uh yeah i mean who couldn't love
35:04it up here as well as offering the local community life-changing opportunities the team here are
35:12intent on nurturing the soil and the wider environment which means they're completely off-grid
35:22they're low impact they're incredibly resourceful and always thinking of ways to develop what they've
35:28got here so the polytunnel is about 300 square meters of roof now when it rains they can capture a
35:36lot of that rain water by using this gutter it goes down into the tank here but because they're off-grid
35:43they've got a solar panel which powers around the back here a solar pump and that solar pump goes into
35:52this drip feed system and irrigates the whole of this polytunnel which is just fabulous
35:58and when it comes to composting there's compost heaps everywhere here they're trying out different
36:04blends they're finessing it just getting it right for seedlings and for planting out so resourceful
36:11in fact they're actually going out into the community out there as well and asking them for
36:15their food waste to bring it into the site to compost that too food waste is collected from local schools
36:24and businesses by electric bike operated by another horticultural hero head of compost jen liggett
36:32back at base she can start the process of turning it into high-grade material for the growing beds
36:39right so the food waste has gone in there and then you're going to chuck some of these wood chips
36:43in the wood chip in so it doesn't get a big smelly mess okay um so portion that now what's the
36:49proportion so it's the same amount of food waste to wood chip we're just creating an environment a bit
36:54like a stomach really where all the bacteria can just have the perfect environment to grow really
37:02as the mixer is turned internal blades break down the waste everything coming out yet yeah it's all
37:08coming out and after around 10 days it's ejected from the other end as a starter compost yeah that
37:15is that's hot isn't it the temperature was checked today by ben and it was over 60 degrees
37:21and that's literally just the bacteria it's just like loads of people going into a nightclub it just
37:25gets hot steamy once collected the fresh compost is transferred to large well ventilated maturation
37:34vats and from there to the finishing bays turning food waste into flowers
37:44it's really inspiring to spend time here where plants nature and people are encouraged to thrive
37:52in the hands of the farms florist clem richards it's an ethos which delivers on pure beauty too
37:59so when you're creating something do you tune in to where it's going who is for
38:08that emotional connection i guess is quite important i want people to know that when they
38:13see their flowers that they know that a lot of heart and soul has gone into every piece the fact that
38:19they've been grown with all this love and care care for the planet care for the soil i think what
38:25we're doing here with the volunteers with the environment it sits well within this acre and a
38:32half that we have here it's just fabulous it shows it can be done you're proving it can be done a model
38:39that hopefully others can follow too
38:57so
39:09i think it's interesting and really good news that more and more people are buying british grown
39:15flowers that aren't having to traverse across the world to reach us and let's hope that's a trend
39:21that continues now certainly more and more people are buying and consuming blueberries but it is
39:29something that we tend to think of of not part of our garden fruit vocabulary but that's wrong
39:34they're really not difficult to grow at all as long as you follow one or two basic requirements and the
39:41first is they really need an ericaceous soil
39:55now this is a bought ericaceous mix it's actually made up of a mixture of coir and bark
40:03just remember an ericaceous compost is acidic it's for plants that need acidic soil and that is
40:11non-negotiable so you can buy it you can also make it so for example leaf mold which i've got here
40:19does very well as an ericaceous compost it also improves soil structure which means it retains water
40:27so i will be adding it to my bought compost
40:33the second thing is choosing your variety now i've got three varieties here
40:37i've got this one which is blue crop it will harvest about july august good berries a plant
40:43will grow to about four five foot tall very reliable pretty hardy not all blueberries are
40:51completely hardy so that's a good place to start if you've got the room i've also got a much smaller
40:59variety here called top hat this is designed to be grown in small pots very productive brilliant if
41:06limited on space and finally i've got this one which is one of the oldest varieties which is called
41:12jersey and it's fairly large it'll grow to seven foot now doesn't matter how big they are they all need
41:18to be grown in the same way so we start off with ericaceous compost right i think i want a bigger pot for
41:26this one they're going to spend their lives in a pot so you don't want to be repotting them endlessly
41:34and this is a plant that likes lots and lots of water i've got my leaf mold and i've got the mix and
41:41i'm going to mix it up so let's put some of that in the bottom i don't need to put crocs in the bottom
41:50because the drainage holes are to one side and anyway i don't want this to drain too much a little
41:57bit of my leaf mold mix that in there we go
42:01i gave this a really good soak i'm going to pop that in there now hold it and leaf mold around the
42:14outside right a little bit more around there
42:21i'm leaving an inch or so at the top for water these are plants that should never dry out
42:29also there are plants because they're ericaceous that should be watered with rain water if at all
42:35possible because if you've got hard water you've got limey water you're adding lime in quite noticeable
42:41quantities to the compost and that will affect the plant so if you are growing blueberries on anything
42:47other than the smallest scale just think about where you're going to get your rain water from
42:52it may be the incentive you need to install a water bud some varieties are not self-fertile all
42:58these three varieties are but all of them will crop more heavily and better if you have two to cross
43:05pollinate and of course they don't have to be of the same variety in order to pollinate each other as
43:11long as you've got two plants that are flowering at the same time okay that's set up there so i'll give
43:16this a good soak and put it somewhere warm now in winter i have lost blueberries but i found that if
43:22you put them in an unheated greenhouse or if you've got a conservatory or a porch that will protect them
43:27from the worst of the weather and that's it easy grow your own blueberries i will now give these a good soak
43:41and enjoy the autumn color when it comes which it will and hopefully fingers crossed be enjoying the
43:47fruit this time next year now blueberries are a plant that that need a lot of control a lot of gardening
43:55very specific conditions but we went to visit a garden on the south coast where the whole point of
44:01it was to be free to create an atmosphere that encourage wildness not just of nature but of human spirit too
44:10we moved to this garden in 2017 after we had been living in london for about six years we had two
44:27children and we're in quite a small flat looking to live somewhere a little bit more rural
44:31joyous soil my name is flow and this is my garden in deal in kent
44:46i grew up in amsterdam in the city center the area we used to play in was in an area in amsterdam called
44:52gozoveld and the island we used to play on is translated in english as to rough read every morning we'd
44:59wake up early and we'd climb across on our little raft and we'd go to the island and we'd climb
45:05through all the weeds and the brambles and I wanted our children to have a feeling of wildness and
45:12the plants being taller than them and enveloping them in wilderness.
45:19I wanted them to remember this garden as a big garden even though it's such a small space but
45:24by making everything so tall by putting different paths through it they could have it sort of
45:29almost fall over them you have to sometimes fight your way through it especially later in the year
45:34as things start to fall over. Do you like playing hide and seek in here? Yeah it's quite tall grasses
45:42which make it easier. Make it good for hiding. Yeah when you walk down the path the bees go all over you.
45:49Yeah so there's lots of wildlife isn't there? Yeah. Do you remember when we had baby blue tits in the garden?
45:56Yeah. Lots of the plants in this garden are growing from seeds that I've collected and then
46:07sow them sometimes in pots sometimes direct to see if they'll come up and if they'll be happy here but
46:13I take a lot of their behavior from how they behave in a natural space to try and get a similar natural
46:20feel in this garden this area I would say is about 80 percent self-seeded there are the sea holly this
46:34comes from the beach and then in there we've got the purple toad flax the linearia the seed heads are
46:41so pretty and they stay all winter and then we've got teasel which is also from the beach and from the
46:48fields around here which the goldfinches love and it's very much a garden that
46:53i hope supports wildlife there used to be concrete slab here and we removed it and i piled the concrete
47:01into little mounds over there so that we've got little mounds of rubble and sand for the
47:06bees to nest in and the ants like to nest in there when we moved there i had no idea of what to do with
47:12gardens i knew nothing of plans so it was all quite a big learning curve the garden was done in a very
47:20sort of traditional way there was a lawn and on the edge were two long borders and the house also
47:26being quite long it made it feel like a bit more of a runway so by taking those out and giving it more
47:33of a width and then cutting the path at an angle we tried to create a little bit more different movement
47:40for your eye to wander through as you move through the garden here it gets even taller and it sort of
47:47moves a lot so it gives you a sort of a multi-sensory feeling you get lots of the noise from the birch
47:53tree from the leaves rustling because we're on the coast you get lots of wind so there's movement and
47:58sound as you walk through this this is the calamagrotus grass it's a real dutch sort of almost like a
48:04national grass now i love it for its movement this time of the year but i also love particularly how
48:11it behaves in the winter it goes really pale and golden and it stands up straight it adds structure
48:17to the garden so through here next to the calamagrotus we've got lots of beautiful fennel all from the
48:26beach and these were all tiny seeds i collected about six years ago and it started to drift through the
48:32garden but this is the original batch and it grows every year bigger and stronger and it really
48:38reminds me of greece and the scent of it is really nice and it's filled with pollinators
48:42and it stands beautifully in the winter
48:49the last few years i've noticed we get more extremes we either get extreme rainfall
48:54and then we get such long periods of drought so it's it's garden that can be resilient because
49:00it's got the prairie style planting but it also has the mediterranean planting and because the soil
49:05is quite poor and quite dusty almost because of where we are those plants cope really well
49:15this is a lazy person's garden i do very very little i let things do its own thing i spend about
49:24a weekend in march cutting everything back packing up and tidying it and then i might spend a couple
49:30of saturdays just pulling out anything that i think is growing too intensely too close to another plant
49:36that i'm keen to give a bit of space but other than that it does its own thing i'm happy with the
49:42slight messy look of it i prefer it i think because so little money has been spent on any other plants
49:52so much has been grown from seed or has just arrived in it means i'm less precious about changing things
49:59if something doesn't work or we need to change the shape or something else is needed i'm quite happy
50:04every year in the winter to plan work out what everybody wants and then adjust the plans accordingly
50:13when we kind of finished with this space i realized i also really enjoyed growing fruit
50:18and vegetables and there wasn't any space here and i didn't want to put anything in here because this is
50:23a different type of environment it's more meadow like but the parking area is also south-facing
50:30and is ideal to grow vegetables so put a bit of convincing my husband we decided to park the car
50:37on the street and to put vegetable beds in there see what's in there shall we my favorite thing to
50:42go and harvest is potatoes because it's like an easter egg hunt what have we got here well done yeah
50:51it's a bit hairy this one isn't it it's a different variety that's all right i i like it because uh it
50:57keeps my mum busy uh you can just pick them and eat them and then it's just an easy snack
51:07is it good yeah there you go is it
51:14i think through doing this garden i've learned lots about plants and horticulture which has been amazing
51:19to learn about but more than anything it's been just a joy to have this space with the family to share it
51:26with the kids and my husband and to have this space to invite friends over and also a space to come at
51:31the end of the day and relax i think the kids enjoy the space but i hope that they look back on it and
51:38they know what it feels like to walk through space that is buzzing i hope that they have an experience of
51:44the natural world that as they grow older we'll recognize in other spaces
52:02so
52:08i think of that style of gardening as being essentially dutch and obviously it spread right
52:26across europe has been hugely influential in the last 20 years and clearly as you see in flo's garden
52:31it works on any scale at all now this is the exact opposite of that whereas flo's garden is loose and
52:39free and has this sense of being growing and self-sown this uh completely artificial shape
52:48growing as something that is highly manicured and man-made and doing exactly what i wanted to do here
52:54in the writing garden because these privet lollipops i planted to pick up and mimic the round shapes of
53:01the alliums that flower here in may and june and they do that beautifully and also the other thing that
53:09i found it does beautifully is give it structure in winter so it's doing a double job for me and that
53:14works right let's just clip that off
53:22the reason why i haven't been giving these their due attention is partly because of the drought they
53:28haven't grown very much but also because i have totally ignored the writing garden for the last three
53:35months and there is a good reason for that because i have planned and have known that i need to change
53:42the shed in the writing garden and i have changed it in quite a dramatic way because now this has
53:49replaced the writing shed and this is the dog house that i had on my dog garden at rhs chelsea back in may
53:59the story of this building began last february when i designed it from scratch
54:13using reclaim materials that we salvaged from all over the country bits and pieces it was never a building
54:21and it was designed completely to fit in the space at rhs chelsea now it was offered
54:27to battersea dog and cats home along with the rest of the garden and they decided not to take it
54:32i then discovered it was going to sit in a builder's yard and be plundered bits and pieces used for
54:38different project over the coming years and i thought that was really sad now we've changed it slightly
54:43we've added the sliding doors we're going to line the inside with old scaffolding planks because this
54:48is going to be a working building this is going to be a potting shed for the really big pots that we use
54:54right across the garden and i have to say that as a memento of that extraordinary experience of making
55:02an rhs chelsea show garden it's great i'm really glad to have it here and now that it's up it means
55:10that i can turn my attention to the poor old writing garden that's been neglected and get on with jobs here
55:16well that's my work cut out for me here are your jobs for the weekend
55:34if you're growing tomatoes particularly out of doors you have to cut your losses
55:38and remove any trusses with fruit smaller than a marble because the whole object is to put the
55:46energy into ripening existing fruit take off the tops of the plants and then remove the bottom half
55:53of the foliage and this will expose fruits to as much light and heat as possible
55:58if you grow rhododendrons azaleas or camellias it's important to make sure that they are watered
56:12regularly now and for the next month or so this is because next year's flowers are forming and if
56:20they're dry at this time of year the buds are very likely to drop off before the flowers open next spring
56:33although some seed heads should be left because they look great in winter and also supply food
56:38for birds others do need to be removed such as these lilies lilies are finished flowering remove
56:45the seed heads because they're taking energy away from the bulb and therefore next year's flowers
56:50and with new foffia when they've finished cut them right back at the base of the stem
56:55and that will encourage more flowering this autumn
57:20come here good boy good boy for all the work that there is to do in the garden and all the jobs
57:38there's one thing i hardly ever do and that's sit and certainly not sit here in the jaw garden it's nice
57:46i've forgotten what it's like and it's a good time of year to sit and take stock because however we look
57:54at it it's the end of summer and there's a new season coming up and that's full of all kinds of
58:00interesting things and i love the september light and there's lots of jobs to do but right now it feels
58:07like the door is closing on summer i don't feel sad about that it's worth taking stock and surrounded
58:15by the flowers of the jaw garden is a good place to do it but i'm afraid that's it for today
58:23i'll see you back here at long meadow in a couple of weeks time so until then bye
58:40so
58:58you
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