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00:00Hello and welcome to Gardeners World and in the process of going around the garden
00:25digging up hellebores not because I don't want them but I want to move them to the new woodland garden
00:32and now is a good time to do that this has been here I suppose about 10 years and the roots are
00:39really established and the ground is really dry and hard so it's quite a caper but it does show you
00:47what hellebores can do and why they're so long-lived because a hellebore can live for decades
00:53and they establish this big root system that goes quite deep but it makes moving them a little tricky
01:00there you are what are you doing this is not helpful if I go on the wheelbarrow that will
01:16flummox you what are you going to do disaster I know I know okay well there you go
01:24it's like a tooth coming out okay we got it we're ready to go and coming up on today's program
01:40Ashley visits RHS Hyde Hall in Essex where they are experimenting with growing plants that thrive
01:48in hot dry conditions here's something you don't see every day in a UK garden a prickly pear this one
01:56was planted about three years ago and it's an experiment by the team here to see how it would
02:01do and it's thriving we meet a designer whose love for bright colors burst out of every border I see
02:10my garden as an explosion of color I wanted full-on I wanted fireworks I wanted zingy and zesty
02:21Adam celebrates ornamental grasses and explains how they can bring height movement and texture to any garden
02:30this is a great little spot just to talk about what the different species bring to the party when
02:38you're designing and playing every single one of these plants will hold form right through the winter
02:44months and we pay a visit to a gardener who's taken her love of Japanese maples to a whole other level
02:52the garden is influenced by the gardens of Japan and I grow a lot of aces there's over 70 in this garden
03:01now this area has been for last 30 years part of the cops but it wasn't working for a number of
03:30reasons so we made big changes and I'm transformed into a woodland garden which is sort of the same
03:37thing but some important differences when you're creating a woodland garden what you've got to do
03:47is find plants that are adapted to the conditions which quite specific you have almost no shade in
03:54in winter and early spring and then of course the shade grows as the surrounding trees put on leaves
04:00and it gets drier and by midsummer it's dense shade so what I'm planning to do here and I started with
04:08the shrubs is have some spring color and then gradually as we move into summer green will take
04:15over now hellebores slightly span both because of course the foliage you can see here even in
04:22autumn is still looking good so they provide that green that I want from their leathery leaves which
04:27grow by the way after the flowers but it's the flowers you grow them for now this one is a double
04:33one multi petal white flowers really profuse and I think it will be great right there you can see poor
04:46things how dry they are but I want to group them together and I'll put that there like that on the
04:53wooden floor plants tend to grow in drifts or groups so that's what I'm going to do here now
04:58the drifts don't have to be huge but you need to get this sense of plants finding their way along
05:03the woodland floor and accumulating over the years and it's the same with the hellebores so we'll pop
05:08that there now I've also bought a box of these which I have to say have been delivered in the best
05:18packaging I have ever seen charming little woolen socks and of course it's not just sweet it's really
05:25practical because you could plant it in the sock just pop it in the ground the roots will grow
05:29through the salt will biodegrade and it will work perfectly well or you could take it out of the
05:35sock and put that on the compost heap and then plant it if the roots will hold together these are
05:41cultivars bred specifically for certain characteristics they're from the Harvington yellow group they're
05:49fundamentally yellow with touches of white and I think they have the subtlety that is absolutely
05:56right for this kind of situation one of the things that if you grow hellebores you'll find is that they
06:03seed themselves and they will pop up in unlikely places but they have a tendency to hybridize and
06:08there is just as much chance of the worst of both parents qualities as the best being reproduced in the
06:15offspring so when you buy hellebores you need to see them in flower start well and the chances are
06:21that the dominant genes of the parent will be reproduced but you can't guarantee it so I'm buying
06:26fresh stock to give fresh impetus of these delicate colors that I want here in this part of the garden
06:32right let's do the biggest first so I'm gonna move that out of the way and dig the hole there
06:43if you want to divide hellebores probably the best time to do it is after they've flowered in late spring
06:57now of course that will need a good soak but I will plant everything and then water everything
07:13at the same time so that's the first let's get this little one next to it and you can see the leaf has
07:18broken off there but that's not a disaster because as long as you've got the shoot that shoot there and
07:26we've got another one there is another one there and I always remove all the leaves before flowering
07:34and that gets rid of the risk of hellebore blight I've got one last batch of hellebores which I
07:44absolutely love and are one of the only two native ones to this country and this is hellebores
07:52fetidus and it produces flowers which are green and are tipped with red and absolutely right for this
08:03kind of planting sorry Ned now I place these in little groups they will spread and one of the features
08:22of these is there's a clue in the name fetidus because they smell now I quite like the smell it's
08:30slightly foxy slightly rank but in a good way if you know what I mean and the final fact about hellebores
08:39fetidus which is a gem is that the seeds are spread by snails they get stuck in the snail's slime and then spread out
08:48these are small plants they will grow about two three foot tall now this garden is embryonic it's
09:06existing in my head but it it won't look like the image that I see in my mind's eye for I guess another
09:13two or three years but that's fine that's the fun of making a garden but Ashley towards the end of the
09:19summer went to visit one of the RHS's more established gardens this is RHS garden Hyde Hall a place of peace and
09:40tranquility it has a diverse range of garden styles from the traditional to the modern and spade falls
09:46of planting inspiration I can't wait to explore the garden has been welcoming visitors since 1993
09:56its location in one of the hottest and driest parts of the country means it has to regularly cope with extreme
10:03climatic conditions so the team have to choose plants that will survive this is the dry garden and
10:10it was completed in 2001 it showcases plants that are drought tolerant and thrive in areas with very
10:17little rainfall from South Africa to Australia to the Mediterranean this garden has it all
10:23over 800 tons of crushed concrete were brought to site to create this mound and provide drainage for the
10:42plants 250 tons of boulders are brought here and that helps to knit the garden together some of
10:49the biggest boulders in this garden like this one behind me weigh over five tons and I think it helps
10:54to create a really established look the dry garden has more than 400 species and apart from when the plants
11:06are first planted here it doesn't get watered even after one of the driest summers on record is bursting
11:12with color and variety here's something you don't see every day in a UK garden a prickly pear a puntia and
11:19these are actually from Mexico and the southern states of America they have really spiny pads and they also
11:26produce fruit which tastes a bit like watermelon and come in reds and yellows this one was planted about
11:32three years ago and it's an experiment by the team here to see how it would do and it's thriving it loves
11:38the sharp drainage the southern aspect and this boulder which acts like a storage heater it just goes
11:45to show what you can do if you push the limits of gardening
11:59I've always loved nephophia or red hot pokers because they look so otherworldly but they're
12:05actually from South Africa and this is nephophia coalescence it has this incredible two-tone color
12:13this muted coral and the flowers open to yellow it's a plant that kind of went out of fashion for
12:20a while but they are becoming more popular because they are so resilient it's never green nephophia it
12:26has these straplight leaves which help to retain moisture it has thick fleshy stems and the roots
12:33go really deep so they can get that moisture that's locked into the soil there are spreading plants so you
12:38do need to give them quite a lot of room but you can dig up and divide them and give them to your
12:42family and friends they're definitely worth a place in your border
13:02one of the major features of this garden is seed heads and seed pods and there's lots of different
13:08grasses and perennials that i'm familiar with but this one caught my eye because i've never seen it
13:12before it's a brassica called fibigia cliopiata or roman shield which is a lot easier to pronounce
13:19it has these incredible translucent seed pods that really capture the light and not only that but it
13:26produces a rustling sound as the wind blows which i just love it's definitely one i would love to have
13:31in my own garden
13:45we've come from the dry garden which is very loose and frothy in its planting and now i'm in a very
13:52formal part of the garden the rose garden and you can see the hedges form a really great frame for these
13:58beautiful roses and i'm drawn to this one lady of shallot because it's my favorite color orange but
14:05it also packs a really powerful scent it's delicious it's like that really old-fashioned tea rose i love it
14:21while the formal areas of the rose garden are thriving one of the original features is getting
14:25a makeover overseen by garden manager ian ball ian we're still in the rose garden but there's not
14:33actually many roses in this area what's happening well we're in our new uh rose rope walk so this was
14:38a kind of iconic part of hyde hall the original creators of hyde hall developed back in the 1950s
14:44and 1960s they're little wooden frames swags and rope with climbing and rambling roses and well
14:50everything's got its kind of natural lifespan and the roses are kind of holding the wooden frames up and
14:54they're kind of collapsing so it was time to have a bit of rejuvenation and create something new so
14:59this is the modern interpretation hopefully of the original one so we've gone for these metal
15:03cylinders that we're going to train our roses around and then we've got metal rope between
15:08those metal frames at the moment it's completely planted with marigolds what what are those all about
15:14the marigolds are really part of our multi-pronged attack really if you like on trying to help reduce
15:19the effects of rose replant or rose sickness which is not a well-defined condition but in essence if
15:25you put a rose back in where a rose was going previously it may struggle to get going probably
15:30the leaves will look a little bit yellow probably not putting on any extension growth so one option
15:35is to actually change your soil but that's a big job maybe not particularly environmentally friendly the
15:40other option is to really try and improve the soil so the marigolds they have little nodules on their
15:44roots and they are actually kind of attracting some of those pathogens and if you like nasties that
15:49have built up over the years so they're hopefully in effect cleaning the soils they've actually given
15:54us good color during the summer months they've looked really good but they're hopefully having a
15:57positive effect on the soil health and once the marigolds have done their job and you've taken
16:02them out what varieties are you thinking to put into the beds so as with the original one we're doing
16:07a mixture of climbing and rambling roses obviously thinking about the climate going forward it's
16:12tending to be hotter drier particularly in our summers down here in the southeast so we're trying
16:16to do a lot of research into what rows are tough what their pest and disease resistance is like
16:21how free flowering are they are they flexible to train and then also we'll add in some of our old
16:27favorites one called morven hills which is a good kind of round actually an english rambler got a small
16:32lemon yellow flower which is good a rose called cecil brunner that we have grown for a number of years
16:36actually it's got a little delicate pale pink flower quite a nice flexible stem so it trains in very well as well
16:42and we're not really going to know until you know a year or two down the line whether they've actually
16:45helped whether the new roses do get going so it's a bit of a kind of live experiment fantastic what a
16:50great experiment to be a part of i can't wait to come back and have a look and see how it turns out
17:04i've loved exploring the garden here and it's amazing to see how the team are pushing the boundaries
17:09in all areas to give plants the best chance of success
17:24i do think that the the hide hall dry garden has been a complete success and it is staggering to
17:32think that it hasn't been watered for 25 years i mean we don't water the borders here at long meadow
17:38but we have lots of rain and i know there they have one of the lowest rainfalls in the country
17:43it does show it's a leading light on how we've got to tackle climate change and it's going to affect us
17:48all one way or another luckily despite the drought this summer the vegetables sort of came through but i
17:54confess i did water vegetables a bit however the effect of the summer is visible now in the chard
18:02chard is one of my absolute favorite vegetables always grow it but what this has done is bolted
18:08but unlike say lettuce chard is still edible when it bolts the taste is still good and it regrows
18:16even if you cut it right back to the ground right through winter so what i'm going to do at this stage is
18:22cut this back two tips when you're harvesting chard either take individual leaves or cut the whole
18:32thing low and don't leave half the plant on if you're going to cut cut low and cut it all
18:40right moving on
18:50i've got a bed of beetroot here and i'm inordinately proud of it because for the first time i tried
18:57an experiment of under planting my sweet corn with beetroot normally i'll do it with french beans or
19:02lettuce something that i will harvest either simultaneously or very soon afterwards but of
19:09course the beetroot is really a winter crop and having lifted the sweet corn it's now looking really
19:16good it's a variety called burpees golden very sweet very delicious and for harvesting them i just lift
19:23them gently like that you can see they come out and they are this beautiful sort of glowing orangey golden
19:31color very sweet and the great thing about beetroot is that the leaves are good to eat and even if you
19:38have a really cold winter and the beetroot seems to rot and sometimes they can be disgusting all gloopy
19:44on the inside you think that's a disaster actually it will regrow perfectly good leaves and in spring
19:52they are delicious as part of a salad so it's just win-win okay let's take a couple of these
20:04now last but actually not least by my lights because i love them
20:08is this chicory this is a red chicory which comes under the broad bracket of radicchio
20:16and this is a variety called rosso de treviso and like all chicories in summer it grows with
20:22a sort of profusion of green leaves which are completely inedible but what they're doing is
20:27forming the root from which the red leaves which are inside the green ones appear so you gradually
20:33remove the green and you're left with the edible part which is the center and it's a slightly bitter taste
20:42but i love it and to me it's a key winter ingredient and of course it makes a wonderful salad but also
20:49you can cook it one of the best pizzas i've ever had in my life was a radicchio pizza sounds weird but
20:55it was delicious so we'll just take one and you cut it from the base and if you do it like this you
21:01will get regrowth from that base it won't make the same firm heart but the leaves will be completely
21:08delicious just a little bit looser and if you're really lucky you can get a secondary growth in
21:13spring but this first cut they're not so bitter and they're absolutely delicious i love them they
21:20look great too okay let's add that to the mix
21:39good boy come on
21:50it's really interesting because these helianthus have become really dominant at the moment in the
22:06jaw garden and i confess i forget which variety it is but when we dug up everything in the jaw garden
22:12last winter i split it into about six different parts replanted it this spring and didn't think too
22:18much about it but it's regrown with extra vigor which of course all herbaceous prangles will do when
22:25you divide them and it's loved this very hot dry summer and also because along with the tithonias
22:34and the salvias and the dahlias these are short day plants now the difference in a short day plant
22:41and a long day plant long day plant the growth is affected more by light and the lengthening days
22:46than heat where short day plants which come from nearer the equator where the light is much more
22:52constant are affected more by heat and we haven't yet had a frost here at long leader so even though
22:58the days are getting much shorter it doesn't mind at all until the first frost comes these are blazing with
23:06color now we went to visit a garden where color was the driving force behind everything
23:16i see my garden as an explosion of color
23:21i wanted full-on i wanted fireworks i wanted zingy and zesty and vibrant and strong
23:29it brings joy it brings happiness and i try to have something happening year round
23:42my name is janis and i'm a planting designer
23:47i was born in latvia and this is my garden invoking sorry
23:53color brings the garden alive it gives so many extra dimensions to get succession of color in the
24:04garden it requires quite a lot of research in plants what flowers at the same time what happens earlier
24:13what happens later but creating color throughout the seasons is important to me
24:23so whenever possible i will use and go for and choose bright and vibrant colors but as the seasons
24:31progress end of summer going on to autumn it sort of turns to be quite autumnal so this imperator
24:38red baron is sort of sets the tone for what's to happen later in the autumn as well when this
24:45sedum autumn joy will turn from white to very dark rich autumnal red somewhere in between the
24:52darkness of these rudbeckius links it all together and you sort of create a contrast between the
24:59bright colors that pop and then something slightly darker that contrasts with the rest and let it stand
25:05out the garden i remember from my childhood was created by my dad and it's somehow embedded somewhere
25:14in my memories this is the little rose corner that i've created and i only realized it later in my life
25:24that this is in memory of my dad because this is where it all started years and years ago from my
25:30childhood this is one of the areas which keeps the succession of the color going so this comes to its best
25:40in june and then it is very important to dead head to keep the color going once the roses are past their
25:48best i bring in some pots with summer color as well just to keep and brighten up this corner
25:57this little corner of my garden is influenced by my travels from asia
26:02asia um singapore sri lanka so there are some cannes the mousse basju banana some gingers in the background
26:13there as well cannes are absolutely beautiful they take quite a few boxes they are unusual they are
26:19strong punchy vibrant colors and they're rewarding i think one little tip you don't deadhead cannes
26:27you only pull out the sort of spent petals on them because one stem will bring up few flower spikes
26:35if you enjoy tropical planting schemes and exotic planting schemes cannes is one of those absolutely
26:43essential plants to have they create little fireworks in your garden
26:49i was fortunate enough to have an employment and work at rhs wesley which was an excellent
26:56learning opportunity somehow realized that exactly planting design is what is the closest to my heart
27:04i take a plant and i look at it and i think well what would go well together with it
27:11this is an example of a color wheel which i usually follow and which sets sort of the base of my designs
27:20you can see the three primary colors here which is blue red and yellow
27:25and then you add some secondary colors which are the purple orange with this begonia
27:34and green and then that makes the color stand out red and blue are next to each other on the color
27:42wheel and in between as a secondary color is the purple and that combination works together very well
27:49and these combinations and playing with them and combining them is how i create colors in my garden
28:04this is the green and the lushness this is panicum sprinkles last year i had it in the borders as
28:11well because i believe it gives this lushness and it lifts all the colors in between but it can be vigorous
28:19and it can take over so you need a bit of maintenance and controlling it once it grows a good idea is to sort of
28:27bunch and strap it together because later on it tends to flop and fall over all other plants
28:35by having green and lushness in your borders it sort of elevates the colors and at the same time
28:44reduces the busyness in the borders that sometimes the color on its own can create
28:50life is not interesting enough and life is a bit boring in my opinion with pastels
29:06they might creep in at some point later on but not just yet it's all about strong vibrant colors at the
29:13moment live the moment
29:28come on
29:33well i too love bright color and the jewel garden is all about intense color
29:38but it's a shame not to enjoy all the subtlety and beauty of pastels you can can do both i think
29:54this time of year is the perfect time to prune climbing roses but i know that that's something
30:01that can seem very daunting this is a rose called madame alfred carrière and you can see
30:06that it's grown hugely but if you're systematic and you know what you're trying to achieve it's
30:13actually not that difficult let me show you
30:17climbing roses produce all their flowers on new growth so what it means is everything you can see
30:25will not carry any flowers next year so all this can go as long as there is a framework from which
30:32side shoots grow and those are the ones that carry the flowers so go right back down and we'll take this off
30:44now if you're worried about cutting too much this is one year's growth and by year
30:50i mean it started to grow in april and was this length by september so you're looking at sort of three
30:58four months growth incredibly vigorous and you need to cut back hard
31:03now straight away we're beginning to see structure
31:20what you're looking for is a framework of about five or six diagonal main branches
31:34there's a sweet little nest here i hope it raised the brood
31:42this is where i've been cutting in previous years now all that vigorous vertical growth
31:49i'm removing because the weight of it would arch it down and that would stop the sun getting to the
31:54bottom so you'd have no flowers against the wall you'd have masses of flowers at the top
32:00but you wouldn't be able to see them and the whole thing just loses its shape and loses its structure
32:06if you want a rose to scramble free then you're much better off choosing a rambler
32:14the difference between a rambler and a climber is that ramblers flower on the previous season's growth
32:21so if you prune them now there will be very very few flowers now what you want to cut back to is a bud
32:30it can just look like a slight crease in the green stem and it will grow a shoot from these points and
32:37if you don't you have a section that is never going to produce any new growth and tends to die back and
32:43you're inviting virus and diseases to come in so a nice clean cut just above a bud so for example here
32:50i've got a bud there i can just cut like that and that can come out
33:05now you also occasionally need to replace some of the main branches now this is an older growth i'm going
33:11to take this off right so get behind there okay that's hopefully that will do the job easy peasy
33:23now this comes up you can see it's got very knobbly growth massive shoots what you really want is nice
33:32long clean shoots with lots of side shoots regularly spaced along it that's the ideal
33:38that leaves a space there and then this one can be tied in
33:48having cut back it's really important to tie in because everything wants to be secured against
33:54the worst of winter weather with any woody shrub but particularly with roses horizontal growth encourages
34:03lots of side shoots therefore once the rose is big enough to fill the area you want you want practically
34:10no vertical growth at all you want it to be as horizontal as possible this is a job that i like to
34:17do in october or november but actually you can do it anytime you like between october and even the end of march
34:25now we're going to join adam who has gone to visit the garden that's full of lovely things but he
34:33is really focusing on grasses
34:42i'm going to put my head above the parapet today i love grasses
34:47and i can't imagine a planting scheme without them there you go i've said it chances are you might
34:58not agree but stay with me because this garden created by judy pierce could change your mind
35:06i think back to probably over 30 years when i first started planting grasses with jeff hamilton which
35:19funny enough was about the same time this garden was created grasses really do bring i think something
35:28quite magical to our gardens so today i want to talk about the array the size but most importantly
35:40how to design and play with them
35:47this is a great little spot just to talk about what the different species bring to the party when
35:54you're designing and playing every single one of these plants will hold form right through the winter
36:00months and i'm looking now at that calamagrostis and straight away you can see it's a strong vertical
36:06plant carries its foliage further up those flowering stems and it's really really vertical gets up to
36:14about six foot reasonably see-through so maybe really lovely sort of mid-border whereas behind me there
36:22the miscanthus they're heavy blocks really good forms so for me that would sit at the back of the
36:28border and then look here you've got a millennia which is called sky racer but straight away what
36:34jumps out is the foliage is really low and then those stems with that feathery finish sit high nearly six
36:42foot but you can see through them so that works well at the front of a border because it makes you engage
36:49and the last one is down the front there that's the champs here and for me that feels like clouds
36:56it's fluffy soft so for me i love to rhythm that through a board and use it more than one place
37:06and you can use that airiness to bring a touch of lightness to a bold colorful border
37:13grass is a fantastic way of just breaking up space
37:21so here this nacella is just an individual highlight if you want to start to build on that
37:27you then drop over the other side of the path there's a bigger block straight away that's giving
37:32you this idea of rhythm as it's moving down through the border but then you can see some of the herbaceous
37:38principles just starting to pop up through new petoriums over here we've got verbenas we've got the
37:44russian sage we've got echinaceous so you're balancing that grass planting with the flower
37:55even without much room you can create memorable billowy combinations that gently float about in the space you've got
38:08you're looking at this if you haven't got a lot of space you've got that rebeck here everything else
38:14is built around the wonderful flatness of the yellow flowers with these black buttons then you've
38:20got the steeper gigantic coming up through and it's got its beautiful oat heads and then all the way
38:25around here is the champs here so it's soft and it's fluffy you literally could do that in containers
38:32outside the back door so many of these grasses are easy to propagate from seed really simply all i'm
38:54going to do is run my fingers through there like a comb and you will see the seeds just start appearing
39:07so we're going to sow these seeds and all we're doing now is working in peat-free compost
39:12i've got rid of most of the lumps and the next thing is to give that a good soaking
39:16just break them up and just sparsely wipe them across this surface there you go give them just
39:30a really light covering could do it with some grit maybe some vermiculite so once they're done leaving
39:38in the greenhouse probably for about three or four weeks if nothing happens don't panic put it outside
39:45for the winter probably back against a sheltered wall so it doesn't get too wet leave it for the winter
39:50then maybe bring it back in you'll find that they'll start to germinate
40:08i think lastly it's looking at the bigger boulder grasses the miscanthus at the back there big clump
40:15screen beautifully and then here slightly small miscanthus but there's a backdrop things like the echinacea
40:22really show them off and bring them alive so it really is thinking about grasses it's maybe not
40:29the stars in the garden but the plants that bring others alive
40:35go on give a grass a go might change your border could change your life
40:45i think grasses can be the star of the show they work beautifully with other plants but some of them
41:01are equally beautiful in their own right and i certainly intend to add some here in the woodland garden
41:09but before i start placing grasses i'm just putting sticks down to mark the spot where i'm going to put
41:17some clipped evergreens however i need to mark them now so i allow room for them to grow
41:23and what that means is the space around them i won't plant
41:34this is a grass i've chosen because it'll do well in the semi-shade of woodland
41:40in fact it does well almost anywhere it's hakuna kleur and it's become really popular in the last 10
41:47years and rightly so it's not very tall and it spills and it flops and it makes a really good plant in
41:54the front of a border because it softens the edges my plan is is to fill an area something like this
42:05with a solid block of grasses spilling over and the total finish height will be not much bigger
42:11than they are now standing in the pot i've got some more hakuna kleur now despite the fact that these
42:18are uniformly green this is a variety called all gold and in full sun the leaves will turn gold
42:26i want them to be just sort of tinged with gold or yellow so i'm putting them in quite a shady place
42:34so let's get these in the ground
42:39and these are tough plants these are plants that really don't need any special treatment basically
42:45make a hole stick a minute give them a good watering and they'll be fine
42:54just break the roots up a little bit because then they will regrow from the point that they're
42:59broken out into the soil
43:05conventional wisdom is the best time to plant grasses
43:10is late spring when the ground warms up but with climate change and with the sort of droughts
43:17we're having i think autumn planting is the way ahead
43:28if you want a massed effect plant small and then they grow into each other and you achieve that much
43:35much sooner
43:40this will run underground and spread so
43:44hopefully this is the beginning of a match really rather than the block
43:55now one plant which i've never really had much success with whenever i've planted them and wherever
44:00i put them here in the garden aces i love them they're beautiful but i don't think they love me
44:06or long meadow however we went to visit joe neyman's garden in buckinghamshire and she certainly does
44:14have success with aces
44:24the garden is influenced by the gardens of japan and i grow a lot of aces there's over 70 in this garden
44:33i bought the first one in 2004 and i thought oh i like this tree and yeah the rest followed
44:46i don't go looking for aces
44:51they come looking for me yes
45:03hello i'm joe i was born in romania and this is my first garden
45:09we came here 21 years ago and it was a blank slate
45:17this is the area of the garden closest to the house there's seven aces in this area some of them
45:23looking really good at the moment we have eight acer palmetum rangiola which is a dissectum maple red in
45:31summer and then in autumn it changes color to a different shade of red dissectum means the leaves
45:38are very fine and divided that's acer palmetum benny sucasa which is green in summer and it turns shade
45:47of pink in the autumn and we have acer palmetum riusen which is over there it has a fantastic
45:55orange color at the moment in summer it's lime green not particularly eye-catching but at the
46:01moment it looks great
46:06i love aces because they have year-round interest they're just very nice trees
46:17aces provide color year-round the color of an acer in spring is not the same as the color of an acer in
46:23summer or in autumn and even when they drop their leaf they have fantastic shape
46:32so this is acer palmetum ucon over there it's been in the ground for about 15 years
46:39i bought it about half the size it is now just about fitted in the car
46:44it's a classic acer shape so this is what a well pruned acer should look like though this is a bit
46:49dense on the top so it's due pruning this winter it starts lime green turns to mid green like it is
46:57now in the summer and it's bright yellow in the autumn a bit like this it's the last acer in the
47:04garden to turn to its autumn color so it won't turn till the end of november
47:08Japanese acers come in three groups acer palmetum which has the most varieties and also the most
47:21varied in leaf shape acer japonica of which there aren't very many varieties and acer shira savanum
47:30which again doesn't have too many varieties
47:33this is acer japonica aquinitifolium in its autumn color it starts off green and its autumn color is
47:43very spectacular orange and red it's beautiful and as opposed to the palmetums which have five lobes
47:50this one has well seven or even nine it's a very easy to grow acer it has naturally an open habit so
48:00it would need to be pruned particularly and it has great autumn color
48:08i do love pruning pruning is an art and shaping a tree is an art and acers lend themselves very well to
48:16that this is acer palmetum cuttura it's a very fast growing acer as you can see from these wispy bits
48:25that come out so it has to be pruned a few times a year to look nice this part of the tree is quite
48:32dense here and of course there's all the wispy bits that need to go so i'll be thinning a few medium
48:39sized branches in this area most people don't prune trees however when you look at trees in japan
48:49everything is pruned to make it look its best and the trees don't suffer for it you want to see a
48:58trunk if it's dense the bro is just a blob and the branches inside would die it just makes it a much
49:07more attractive looking tree when you can see its main structure i don't like a blob some people might i
49:14don't
49:22most of the aces are in pots simply because of space considerations they could all grow in the ground
49:30but i have to consider the space how do you care for an acer if it's in a pot it would need regular
49:38watering doesn't need much feeding and if i wanted to stay in the same pot it would need the roots pruning
49:44every few years you take the plant out the pot and you shave about i don't know an inch on each side
49:54with a saw like that and maybe an inch from the bottom and repot it with some fresh mix that has to
50:02be done in winter unless there's absolutely no choice like a pot breaks or something like that
50:07it's a bit of a myth that aces like acidic soil and they don't actually they can grow in most soils
50:16except for really chalky in terms of positioning aces most aces can grow anywhere especially the red
50:26ones would like to be in the sun otherwise they go a slight green color but quite a few of the greens also
50:33can take full sun the newer introductions they're a bit more delicate and some of them quite like shade
50:40variegated aces of which there aren't that many they also like shade
50:44variegated aces you can always find room for another acer especially in a pot
50:52the thing about aces of course they look fantastic in autumn
51:11but i think they look at their best just as the leaves are beginning to open out in spring
51:20and they do have an incredible sort of glowing vitality almost better than any other tree i wish
51:27i could grow them better here at longmither but what i can grow and i do grow a lot of are bulbs
51:33and from the end of january up to the end of may but certainly the early spring bulbs are going to
51:40give you your best color and your best feeling of life emerging from the ground
51:47now what i'm going to do today is grow some hyacinths this is a hyacinth called delft blue blue is
51:52actually the rarest color in the whole plant world and this is a good blue almost all bulbs other than
52:01snowdrops camasias and fritillaries need really good drainage it does make a difference so if you're
52:06planting a pot use a peak free compost and plenty of grit and mix them up mix them up well
52:16now when you put them in a pot you're going to find that there is a big drainage hole
52:23but your gritty compost is going to fall through that
52:27so you need to add a crop so choose a croc that is curved that is not going to block the hole
52:33and just sit it over the top fill the pot about half full
52:41right now the key to planting any bulbs in pots is to cram so as long as they're not touching get in as
52:51many as you can
52:57it's worth stressing that there are two types of hyacinth there are treated hyacinths and they've
53:03been treated to flower extra early and those you plant half buried in october or even september for
53:12christmas but these are not treated these will not flower till spring so therefore they need to be
53:19buried and like all bulbs ideally you plant them at least the bulb's height below the soil
53:26and what i always do with all bulbs in the pot is put some grit on top if they're left outside it
53:45stops them being pitted and splashed by heavy rain and finally it stops when you water them it stops the
53:54wet compost splashing up onto the petals
54:00water them and then they can be kept outside these are completely hardy in fact they need a
54:06bit of coal to trigger flowering but they don't want to get soaked so ideally if you've got a suitable
54:12place put them somewhere where they are outside but covered a cold frame is ideal under the eaves of the
54:20house if not you can put them indoors until you start to see shoots appear and then when there's new growth
54:27they do need light so you'll need to put them outside and that's it easy peasy and i have to say that
54:34this is one of my favorite jobs i love planting bulbs outside and in pots in autumn but even if these are
54:42not your favorites here are some jobs for you this weekend
54:48you're not your favorite jobs for you this weekend you're not your favorite jobs for you this weekend
54:58although i'm a very keen advocate of making as much leaf mold as possible from fallen leaves
55:05i do brush some underneath hedges this does two things first of all it provides really good cover for
55:12wildlife ranging from small insects to mammals and also it acts as a feeding mulch for the hedge itself
55:29now is a very good time to take hardwood cuttings of roses you can either cut from a growing plant
55:35or use prunings but either way take nice long straight stems some divide them into pieces about
55:43six to nine inches long and a good tip is to cut the top as an angle and the bottom straight to make
55:49sure they're the right way up strip the leaves off and then make a narrow trench filling the bottom with
55:55drainage material like grit and place the cuttings along its length burying them to about three quarters of their depth
56:02leave them for a year by which time they should have rooted
56:14if you grow lilies or any other summer bulb in a good terracotta pot recycle it by repotting the lily
56:22in a plastic pot cutting it back weeding it and maybe topping it up with a bit of extra compost
56:28the lilies can then be stored outside in a sheltered place meanwhile wash the pot and it's ready either
56:36to be reused for spring bulbs or protected against the worst of winter weather indoors
56:42it's absolutely the best time to plant tulips and if you have a long border like these orchard beds
56:59i like to have a really strong rhythmic presence rather than having lots of different tulips doing
57:06different things these beds in particular look good if you just have sort of one effect running
57:12all the way down both sides and i've got a new tulip i've never grown it before it's called brown sugar
57:18and i've chosen it because it has that lovely caramelized orangey color that looks really good
57:25in this bed one little tip that i found out of the years that that helps the thing to do
57:30is to mark it out with canes and so what you have is a meter square
57:38plant the same amount of bulbs in each square regardless of what else is in it and sometimes
57:44you have to cram them in sometimes you can spread them out no two squares will be alike but the overall
57:50effect will be a big hit without looking regimented and in this case it's really easy because these
57:59come in packs of 10 so i'm just putting in 10 per square but we've run out of time for today's
58:08program and this will take me about an hour or so however i will see you back here at long meadow
58:13next week so until then bye
58:26so
58:43you
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