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00:05Hello and welcome to Gardener's World.
00:10Today we're revisiting some of the most inspirational stories and gardens from the past year.
00:16The beauty of gardening is that it really doesn't matter whether you have a large country garden, a small urban
00:23backyard or a balcony.
00:24Its unfailing ability to enrich and enhance our lives works equally well.
00:32Now, coming up on today's programme.
00:37Ariat visits the garden of two designers who have blended three distinct planting styles into one.
00:44Coming out of the expanse of the lawn, the path is beginning to really constrict me again, which is lovely
00:50because I'm up close and personal to all of these wonderful plants.
00:54And again, it's the third zone of the garden that feels completely different.
01:00We meet a wildlife cameraman who has filmed the secret life of bees in his own back garden.
01:06Each plant here has a purpose. The primroses are massively important to the hairy-footed flower bees.
01:13The dandelions, you will see bees on them just getting a drink.
01:18Ashley goes to RHS Hyde Hall in Essex, where they are experimenting with plants that thrive in hot, dry climates.
01:26Here's something you don't see every day in a UK garden, a prickly pear.
01:33We visit a garden in Gloucestershire whose owner has created a haven that provokes powerful memories.
01:40I love cosmos because it reminds me of a Tibetan meadow.
01:45In Tibetan, it's called kelpa sangu, which is also a good time, good kind of life, flower of happiness.
01:52I feel like I'm kind of home.
01:57And Francis is in West Yorkshire, exploring a garden filled with late summer colour and interest.
02:05What makes this truly remarkable is that it's a private garden.
02:09It's the work of just one man, and this is just the front garden.
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02:53In this workshop I make the hurdles that I use all the time in the garden and I make them
03:00usually in the winter simply from square chestnut fencing posts, sometimes ash, that I can split and shape and I
03:13use it because it doesn't rot very easily when it's wet.
03:17So it means that the bits that stick in the ground will last for years and years. I've got some
03:22hurdles that I made 10, 15 years ago.
03:28So, the first thing to do is make all the elements before assembling any of it, which is a bit
03:35like planting a border.
03:37And knowing that I've made them and that I've spent these hours in this shed, quietly, usually with Ned, gives
03:47the kind of satisfaction that nothing you can buy ever reaches.
04:01It's one of those things that I regard as part of my gardening life and I love it for that
04:06variety.
04:11By March, the garden is waking from its winter slumber and everything and everybody feels that fresh invigoration.
04:21The pots that I plant up with bulbs every autumn really come into their own now and create the richest
04:28display in the garden, packed on the potting shed table.
04:33But if you wait a couple of months, that's when all our gardens are flourishing, and this is usually the
04:39best time to go out in search of inspiration.
04:45Now, Arit went to visit a garden near Horsham in Sussex.
04:49It had been inspired by a number of different styles and created by not one, but two garden designers.
05:06Every garden has its challenges.
05:08Maybe lots of shade, heavy soil, or a tricky terrain.
05:15And this garden has all of those things, and yet it is an incredible, beautiful space where the plants are
05:23the main players and there is minimal hard landscaping.
05:26And there are so many great design tips that can be used in any garden.
05:36It's helped that Debbie and Ian run a garden design business together from the house, so they understood the issues
05:44and the atmospheres they wanted to create.
05:51The garden is looking splendid, but where would you start with a garden like this?
05:57We had quite a challenging design issue to resolve here, because it actually slopes in two directions.
06:03It slopes from the house down to the bottom of the garden in the west, and it also slopes from
06:08the north side of the garden down to the south.
06:10So we had two slopes to try and resolve.
06:13We love Mediterranean gardens.
06:15We love English country gardens, I guess, and we love Japanese gardens.
06:18So those three different elements, how could we put that into a garden in a way that is coherent?
06:23So here we've got the sunny area, you've got the plants that love that.
06:27That ticks the Mediterranean box, if you like.
06:29And as we move down the garden, then we're moving towards a shadier area.
06:33So we've actually got this transition of an English country garden, and then at the bottom where it's quite shady,
06:38we can use the Japanese type plants and give you a different character.
06:41You can tell that this garden is all about celebrating plants, and is that part of the approach that you
06:49have with the design?
06:50We love plants, and we especially love roses.
06:53We knew right at the beginning that this was going to be a plants person's garden, and I think we
06:58envisited it as an entirely planted space, out of which we then carved the spaces.
07:03So that, you know, we've got an oval lawn in here, and the path snakes down through the plants.
07:09So I think it's like a little private universe that we've created here, its own little character, its own little
07:15atmosphere.
07:19That oval lawn is designed to be low maintenance.
07:24We call it a 10-minute lawn.
07:25By the time you've thought about mowing it, and then walking down to the shed to get the mower, walking
07:30back up to mow the lawn and putting the mower back in the shed takes 10 minutes.
07:41Within the main areas of this garden, there are other hidden spaces and strong focal points.
07:50I really love this part of the garden.
07:54It's absolutely gorgeous, densely planted, which is what I really enjoy.
07:58I've got fragrance pumping at me from the roses, so Vanessa Bell and Emily Bronte here.
08:04And there's a steeper tenuissima, alcamilla mollis.
08:08It's really immersive.
08:09It's coming off of the patio, so it's almost like it's a garden within a garden.
08:14But what's really clever, and what is a design must, is to bring the plants as close to the house
08:22as possible,
08:22so that when you're inside, your garden is with you as a permanent view.
08:28And I think it's done beautifully here, and something to be celebrated.
08:35To tempt you deeper into the garden, it's clever design that leads you on.
08:45The hard landscape materials in this garden are very minimal, and what's been chosen are very soft and mellow,
08:52like the silver timber on the garage and the local stone on the patio, which is really lovely.
08:58But Debbie and Ian spoke about the level change issues that they had in the garden.
09:02And so I like how they've created these kind of very gentle steps that lead you onto this gravel path.
09:08And they've deliberately curved it, because that creates a meander into the space.
09:12And as I've come down into the garden, the atmosphere of the space has really changed,
09:17and even the microclimate and the plants.
09:20But it makes you really want to go on and explore even more.
09:27It leads to the country garden, the 10-minute lawn, and the planting,
09:32which is lifted by the natural tilt of the terrain.
09:37One of the other things that they've done is celebrate the slope here by accentuating it in this border.
09:44Now, of course, what that means is that when you plant into it,
09:47that all of the plants that would normally be maybe this height, now can be this height,
09:51really adding to the immersement in the garden.
09:54I love how the kardoons are towering over me.
10:00The open green of the lawn sets that planting off beautifully
10:05and creates a gentle breathing space.
10:12And then comes the shade.
10:17Coming out of the expanse of the lawn,
10:19the path is beginning to really constrict me again,
10:22which is lovely because I'm up close and personal to all of these wonderful plants.
10:27And I can see that Debbie and Ian have taken advantage of this shady area of the garden,
10:32bringing in the Japanese influence that they like,
10:34things like the lovely Hakuna Kloa grass.
10:37And again, it's the third zone of the garden that feels completely different.
10:48The plant in here is lush.
10:51This hydrangea has lots of space to flourish.
10:55There's texture in different leaf shapes,
10:58the gentle sound of water and an amazing atmosphere.
11:17It's so beautifully tranquil.
11:26This garden is about the size of a tennis court.
11:29And yet, by hiding the fences and boundaries with plants,
11:33it feels much bigger and borrows the landscape and the trees beyond.
11:39But it still creates the private universe that the owners really wanted.
11:49I'm really glad that Debbie and Ian took the time out to design a garden for themselves
11:53so that they can experience what it's like to be in this wonderful tranquil space.
12:08Come on, Debbie.
12:09Probably the single most important key to unlocking the potential of your garden
12:14is to understand its limitations.
12:16Because your soil aspect and local climate inevitably edit your choice of plants.
12:22However, that choice can be increased by creating specialist conditions using containers
12:27and I do this with a range of plants, including agapanthus,
12:31which I love, but which does not love my heavy clay.
12:36These are agapanthus.
12:37I'm just taking out spent flower stalks, which are very spiky and sharp.
12:42And you can see the white on them is because these have been stored over winter
12:46in a dark shed and they just haven't had enough light.
12:50They love bright sunshine and well-drained soil.
12:54If you can give them that, they'll grow anywhere.
12:56Now, if you look in there, you can see that these fleshy rhizomes are very congested.
13:01So it's time to take them out of the pot and repot them.
13:05Agapanthus flower best if their roots are constrained,
13:08but not so constrained that they can't take up any nutrients at all.
13:13So it's a fine balance.
13:14But I'm going to see if I can take this out.
13:16And I warn you, it's tricky and it doesn't always work.
13:19First of all, let's take it and see if they'll tip out.
13:22I think the chances are almost nil.
13:24Oh, I don't know, actually.
13:27That sounded good.
13:36OK, let's try it.
13:40Yes!
13:41Fantastic!
13:42Right, there we go.
13:44Now, if I lift that up, you can see it's root bound.
13:48So it needs a bit more space.
13:50So I'm going to divide that up and repot them.
13:53And this is where this comes in.
13:54This is the best tool for dividing an agapanthus, an old saw.
13:59If I just go halfway down like that, off we go.
14:13I'm going to put that in the bottom.
14:17Mix up a really gritty mix of potting compost.
14:22So you can see I've added lots of grit.
14:31Now, if I put that in like that, perfect.
14:35Just break these roots.
14:39So we'll go down in there.
14:50I will water that in.
14:52The plant is rejuvenated.
14:54And therefore, over the foreseeable future, will give me more flowers.
14:57But only do this, I would say, every three or four years should be necessary.
15:07Last summer was, for all of us, exceptionally hot and, at Longmeadow, the driest for years.
15:13But one particular aspect of the garden benefited hugely from this.
15:20One of the features of this year so far is that there have been noticeably more insects.
15:25In fact, more insects than I can remember for a very long time.
15:29Now, that, in wildlife terms, is really good news.
15:33And we went to visit a professional wildlife cameraman who has developed a fascination for one particular group of insects.
15:46You can see him hovering down and you can see he's looking at her and he's really, like, really, really
15:51just staring at her.
15:52And as she moves, he follows her everywhere she goes.
15:55I'd play your game again if you let me play as the queen of your heart.
16:02And it's like he can't take his eyes off her.
16:04And if she goes over there, he'll go over there.
16:06And then he says to her, I love you, I do, I love you.
16:16My name is Martin Dorn.
16:18I'm a wildlife filmmaker.
16:20I started as a cameraman about, you know, 35 years ago.
16:24And I've been travelling all over the world ever since, filming every kind of creature, lions, elephants, ants.
16:33But I never really thought of my garden as somewhere, you know, dramatic or that interesting, until about 12 years
16:41ago when I saw what turned out to be a wild, solitary bee.
16:47And as soon as I got closer to the bees, I was drawn in to a whole other universe.
16:58In this garden, I would say there are 60 or more species.
17:06As I was filming the bees, you know, I was learning about which plants they like.
17:10And so we let them spread and we let them grow more.
17:15And thus the garden you see is a result of that kind of non-invasive gardening.
17:29This section here, pretty much all of the plants are naturally seeded, naturally planted.
17:37Some of them are plants people would call weeds.
17:39But, you know, in my view, these are plants in the right place at the right time, just growing the
17:46way they like to grow.
17:48Each plant here has a purpose.
17:50The primroses are massively important to the hairy-footed flower bees, among others.
17:56The dandelions, you will see bees on them just getting a drink.
18:02The bugle is such a spectacular plant.
18:04And, again, it's a favourite of many different kinds of bee because it has a particular tubular-shaped flower,
18:11which, for example, honeybees can't access, so there's less competition.
18:27This here just looks like a little pile of earth that you might just walk over or ignore.
18:32But, actually, it's the excavations of a mining bee.
18:37She's dug that nest over the last few days.
18:39There's a tunnel in there.
18:40I know she's in because the door is shut.
18:43There's no hole in the top.
18:44And she's down there excavating little cells that she's going to fill with pollen.
18:50If you tread on it, you'll make her life harder.
18:54But if you lawnmow it, when she's out, she won't be able to find it again.
18:59See this dandelion here?
19:00When she leaves, she'll clock the position of that dandelion.
19:04If it's gone when she comes back, she really won't be able to find the nest.
19:13People, when they think of being nice to bees, they think of planting bee-friendly flowers,
19:18and that's great.
19:19But the truth is that what bees really need from you is a nest site.
19:24If you want to cut your grass without mucking up the bees, do it at dusk.
19:27Again, I use a sickle.
19:28It's much more accurate and much less destructive, which means I can cut around these holes quite easily.
19:35Oh, look, I've got a bee.
19:38Now this, I'm pretty sure that's a chocolate mining bee male.
19:42He's quite a small one.
19:43Why'd you go and do it?
19:45Leave me on the floor.
19:48Parallel paths can't take it no more.
19:50Bee City started off just as an old lump of sycamore that I just drilled some holes in,
19:55and some bees came and nested in it.
19:58The more holes I made, the more bees I got.
20:01Yeah, the bees, they like a clean entrance, no splinters or anything like that.
20:07If you drill along the grain, there's fewer splinters.
20:11It's smoother for the bee.
20:14The sighting of any kind of bee hotel really needs to have a good chunk of sun in the day.
20:20Ultimately, the wood must be dry.
20:23Leaf cutters are actually among the most interesting because they cut leaves
20:28and because they use those leaves to line their cell so that they make a wall
20:32so that they can then lay an egg in there.
20:36They cut the sort of long shape to wrap the cell,
20:41and then they cut circles, and they use the circular pieces for the plug of the cells.
20:46So, you know, if you see a plant with these beautiful circles cut out of it,
20:51that is a leaf cutter.
20:53For me, a flower is more beautiful if it has been designed by the process of evolution entirely,
21:00but it's even more beautiful if I can see the bee it was designed for actually using it.
21:08And in the case of the gumfrey, this bee needs a huge tongue to get to the nectar at the
21:13top of the flower,
21:14but then the flower also makes it get pollen all over its belly in order to get the nectar,
21:20and thus take pollen to the next flower.
21:30This plant here, most people would see as a weed.
21:34It's a kind of hawk's beard.
21:36When this is in flower, it's going to just have loads of yellow dandelion-like flowers,
21:41which is a crucial resource to a couple of species of bee here.
21:45For me, it's grown to be a really valuable plant.
21:49I really try and nurture them, so I try not to tread on them or cut them,
21:53and this patch here seems to be where they thrive the best.
21:56When they're all out, that's when I have pride in my garden.
22:00I love brambles.
22:06They're great for bees.
22:07There's lots of species of bee who really like the flowers,
22:10but their yellow-faced bee family seems to like brambles above all else.
22:14They go around in little gangs, a little bunch of males all fly around the flowers,
22:18and they try and find the females on the flowers, and then they jump on them,
22:21and you can train them to go where you want them.
22:24I think of it as a kind of rose, and some of them have got a lovely pink colour to
22:28them.
22:28They're very beautiful flowers.
22:31The green alkanet, a lot of people just take it out because the leaves are quite rough,
22:36but actually, I find that the blue flowers, which are a constant presence, really,
22:42from early April all the way through to July, they're still flowering,
22:47and they're really useful if colour is your thing.
22:49They grow like weeds, they self-seed, and bees also love them.
22:55For many species of bee, they're a key nectar source.
23:00Forget-me-not is really interesting for certain kinds of bees, in particular
23:06the nomad bees, the cuckoo bees or the mining bees.
23:09Yeah, we just let it go. It's lovely. How could you not want that?
23:16I would say bees are people too, and I don't mean that they're like people,
23:21but they are individuals. There is a being there.
23:24Across the country, across the world, bees pollinate so many plants.
23:30Without them, many ecosystems would collapse because the plants would no longer be able to
23:36reproduce. Bees are absolutely crucial to the world.
23:56I know that sometimes it can seem as though it's a black and white thing.
24:01You either have a gardener that attracts wildlife or you don't.
24:05But actually that just isn't true. There are lots of different ways of gardening to maximize
24:11the benefits for wildlife and for you as a gardener.
24:14And one of the best and most simple ways is just let some grass grow long.
24:18It's great for pollinating insects. It's great for small mammals to get in.
24:23And if you combine that with a little bit of controlled gardening, like a mown path through it
24:28or clipped hedge, that contrast can be very beautiful as well as really good for wildlife.
24:49A couple of years ago, I added lots of roses to the cottage garden.
24:53And to keep their display going for as long as possible, it means that by mid-June,
24:58there is a vital daily job I have to do.
25:15This is perhaps one of the least physical jobs that you do in the garden, but it's one of my
25:20favorites.
25:22Deadheading roses at this time of year is absolutely essential to try and keep them going for as long as
25:29possible.
25:29This has been a really good year for roses.
25:31Now we're coming to the end of the rose season here at Longmeadow, but if you keep deadheading,
25:37taking off anything that's finished flowering, you might well encourage more flowers.
25:42What you shouldn't do is this, is you see some people just take the petals off like that.
25:46They pull the petals off as though that's going to do the job.
25:50But the reason why you deadhead is to stop the plant developing seed, which is what it wants to do,
25:56and form rose hips.
25:59So if you take the seed head off and go back to a leaf, then there's a chance that it
26:06will develop a new flower.
26:20As well as extending the flowering season and tidying them up so the roses look at their best,
26:26it also gives me a daily dose of just wallowing in these lovely roses.
26:35The roses at Longmeadow love this summer's heat, but the changing climate is forcing
26:40all of us to rethink what we grow and how we grow it.
26:43And with this in mind, Ashley went to Essex to explore a garden
26:47a garden garden designed to cope with more extreme conditions.
27:02This is RHS Garden Hyde Hall, a place of peace and tranquility.
27:07It has a diverse range of garden styles from the traditional to the modern,
27:11and spadefuls of planting inspiration I can't wait to explore.
27:19The garden has been welcoming visitors since 1993.
27:23Its location in one of the hottest and driest parts of the country
27:27means it has to regularly cope with extreme climatic conditions.
27:31So the team have to choose plants that will survive.
27:35This is the dry garden and it was completed in 2001.
27:39It showcases plants that are drought tolerant and thrive in areas with very little rainfall.
27:45From South Africa to Australia to the Mediterranean, this garden has it all.
28:03Over 800 tons of crushed concrete were brought to site to create this mound
28:07and provide drainage for the plants.
28:10250 tons of boulders were brought here and that helps to knit the garden together.
28:14Some of the biggest boulders in this garden, like this one behind me, weigh over 5 tons.
28:20And I think it helps to create a really established look.
28:28The dry garden has more than 400 species.
28:31And apart from when the plants are first planted here, it doesn't get watered.
28:35Even after one of the driest summers on record is bursting with colour and variety.
28:41Here's something you don't see every day in a UK garden, a prickly pear, a puntilla.
28:46And these are actually from Mexico and the southern states of America.
28:50They have really spiny pads and they also produce fruit which tastes a bit like watermelon
28:55and come in reds and yellows.
28:57This one was planted about three years ago and it's an experiment by the team here
29:02to see how it would do and it's thriving.
29:04It loves the sharp drainage, the southern aspect and this boulder which acts like a storage heater.
29:10It just goes to show what you can do if you push the limits of gardening.
29:26I've always loved nifofia or red-hot pokers because they look so otherworldly.
29:32But they're actually from South Africa and this is nifofia coalescence.
29:36It has this incredible two-tone colour, this muted coral and the flowers open to yellow.
29:43They are becoming more popular because they are so resilient.
29:47It's an evergreen nifofia.
29:49It has these straplight leaves which help to retain moisture.
29:53It has thick fleshy stems and the roots go really deep so they can get that moisture
29:58that's locked into the soil.
30:00They're a spreading plant so you do need to give them quite a lot of room
30:03but you can dig up and divide them and give them to your family and friends.
30:06They're definitely worth a place in your border.
30:25One of the major features of this garden is seed heads and seed pods and there's lots
30:30lots of different grasses and perennials that I'm familiar with.
30:33But this one caught my eye because I've never seen it before.
30:36It's a brassica called Fibigia cliopiata or Roman shield which is a lot easier to pronounce.
30:42It has these incredible translucent seed pods that really capture the light.
30:48And not only that but it produces a rustling sound as the wind blows which I just love.
30:53It's definitely one I would love to have in my own garden.
31:08We've come from the dry garden which is very loose and frothy in its planting
31:14and now I'm in a very formal part of the garden the rose garden and you can see
31:18the hedges form a really great frame for these beautiful roses and I'm drawn to this one Lady
31:24of Shalott because it's my favorite color orange but it also packs a really powerful scent it's delicious.
31:33It's like that really old-fashioned tea rose I love it.
31:43While the formal areas of the rose garden are thriving
31:46one of the original features is getting a makeover overseen by garden manager Ian Ball.
31:54Ian we're still in the rose garden but there's not actually many roses in this area what's happening?
31:59Well we're in our new rose rope walk so this was a kind of iconic part of Hyde Hall the
32:04original
32:04creators of Hyde Hall developed back in the 1950s and 1960s they're little wooden frames
32:09swags of rope with climbing and rambling roses and well everything's got its kind of natural lifespan
32:15and the roses are kind of holding the wooden frames up and they were kind of collapsing so
32:18it was time to have a bit of rejuvenation and create something new so this is the modern interpretation
32:23hopefully of the original one so we've gone for these metal cylinders that we're going to train our
32:28roses around and then we've got metal rope between those metal frames. At the moment it's completely
32:34planted with marigolds what what are those all about? The marigolds are really part of our multi-pronged
32:39tack really if you like on trying to help reduce the effects of rose replant or rose sickness which
32:45is not a well-defined condition but in essence if you put a rose back in where a rose was
32:50going
32:50previously it may struggle to get going probably the leaves look a little bit yellow probably not
32:56putting on any extension growth so one option is to actually change your soil but that's a big job
33:01maybe not particularly environmentally friendly the other option is to really try and improve the soil so
33:06the marigolds they have little nodules on their roots and they are actually kind of attracting
33:10some of those pathogens and if you like nasties that have built up over the years so they're hopefully
33:15in effect cleaning the soils it's actually giving us good color during the summer months they've
33:18looked really good but they're hopefully having a positive effect on the soil health. And once the
33:24marigolds have done their job and you've taken them out what varieties are you thinking to put into
33:27the beds? So as with the original one we're doing a mixture of climbing and rambling roses obviously
33:33thinking about the climate going forward it's tending to be hotter drier particularly in our
33:37summers down here in the southeast so we're trying to do a lot of research into what roses are tough
33:42what their pest and disease resistance is like how free flowering are they are they flexible to train
33:47and then also we'll add in some of our old favourites one called Morven Hills which is a good kind
33:53of rambler actually an english rambler got a small lemon yellow flower which is good a rose called
33:57Cecil Brunner that we have grown for a number of years actually she's got a little delicate pale pink
34:01flower quite a nice flexible stem so it trains in very well as well and we're not really going to
34:06know until you know a year or two down the line whether they've actually helped whether the new
34:10roses do get going so it's a bit of a kind of live experiment fantastic what a great experiment to
34:14be
34:15a part of i can't wait to come back and have a look and see how it turns out
34:27i've loved exploring the garden here and it's amazing to see how the team are pushing the
34:31boundaries in all areas to give plants the best chance of success
34:45coping with regular drought is something that we are all going to have to adapt to
34:50and this will inevitably mean some forced changes but there is a good range of plants
34:56that do thrive in dry hot conditions and none more so this summer at long meadow than our figs
35:04it's been a really good year for figs and they ripen almost overnight and when they do the birds
35:11love them look at that that looked perfect you reach up turn it round and the birds have been at
35:17them so this is something that i'm now harvesting every single day and i'm not exaggerating when i say
35:24that this one tree has given us over a hundred figs all of them delicious it's very much a figgy
35:31year
35:31and to grow good figs you don't need a lot of space you don't even need a garden because they
35:38grow really
35:46well in a pod they're easy to grow you could have a decent sized fig tree in five years time
35:54i've got one here this is a brown turkey so you need to get yourself some decent compost what i
36:01have
36:01here is peat free bark based compost sieved garden compost and then this is horticultural grit
36:12because the one thing they do need is drainage so whether it's grit or even sand you will need
36:18to add drainage to whatever compost you use in order to give it goodness i'm going to add the garden
36:26compost
36:29to the potting compost and just mix that in a little bit
36:37and the grit i'm going to add all of this
36:41like that and then mix this up thoroughly
36:50i'm using a recycled plastic pot but it doesn't want to be at this stage any bigger than this
36:56i may well when the roots are filling this pot this on into a really nice terracotta pot but that's
37:02a few years down the line we'll put a decent layer of compost in the bottom
37:15yeah it's about right now if i take it out
37:20you can see that there's a good root system and it's a little bit root bound at the bottom nothing
37:25to worry about at all in this case don't try and untangle roots just simply gently break them
37:32and they will grow out into the soil rather than round and round at the base of the plant
37:39right hold that in place
37:44and fill around it
37:50just firm it down lightly
37:56now that's all you need to do except for a regular water this will need watering once a week
38:03however if you go away and for any reason can't water it for two three or even four weeks it
38:09will
38:09survive so it does make it the ideal plant to grow in our increasingly hot dry summers whether you do
38:16so
38:16on a balcony outside a back door but wherever you put it put it somewhere sunny
38:33we're now going to a garden in gloucestershire it belongs to tashi donda and for him it is extra special
38:41because it includes many memories and associations of his tibetan heritage
38:48sunflowers for me is symbolized the sun and i'm very symbolic person also it symbolized the energy of
38:56sun and moon is male and female energy for me you need both moon and sun to grow
39:06sunflowers for me when i was young and i don't know the word garden if i knew the word garden
39:14or seen
39:15garden then i think i would love to have one even when i was young i grew up in orphanage
39:25school in india
39:26for tibetans who doesn't have parents as a kid growing in the nature was kind of for me kind of
39:36relief
39:36because i feel very sort of discomfort in classroom and teachers and i was never good in studying and
39:45never got interest to it so the nature really comfort me
39:53when we arrived in this garden 11 years ago in stroud it was just full of concrete
39:59so there was nothing in this garden so much it's only that crab apple that's the only thing in this
40:05garden which is a nature the rest was just yeah concrete
40:17i don't go on holiday so much so i'm trying to bring places which i love to go in in
40:24our family
40:25garden so this is a tropical bed when i sit there on the chair have a cup of tea or
40:31coffee i felt like oh
40:32i'm in different space let's sing bananas and tree phone we've got cannas here the cannas is a very
40:40easy to grow from seed growing from seed makes you cheaper and more plants so most of these plants
40:47really need sun basically to flower to change color and that one albizia common name is persian
40:54seed tree that is the plant which i say it goes to sleep in the evening because when the sun
41:00comes
41:01it opens the leaf when the sun goes down it closes the leaves and it's it goes to bed like
41:08i will go to bed
41:14i love my children to grow stuff so the younger one liked her to saw all my sunflowers every year
41:22the sunflowers she saw just grew and grew and grew and it was so tall so she jumped on my
41:29shoulder
41:29she raised her hands up she couldn't touch it and that's what she was amazed about what the seed can
41:36do
41:37it's a it's a miracle it's a magnificent it's just yeah it just makes me happy
41:45yeah and then i'll take the chinese money plant in and give it to the teacher oh that's nice that's
41:51beautiful yeah i'm sure she will like it yeah everything in this garden all the flowers are all
42:02sown by seed i love seeing plants grow which teach me lots of things about patience and resilience or yeah
42:16this is called macronopsis linkum but the common name is called himalayan poppy or blue poppy or tibetan
42:25poppy this plant is quite tricky to grow but you need lots of patience if you have yes you will
42:31manage
42:31to grow them i failed three times i realized my mistake because in england we have lots of rain
42:40cold doesn't kill it but too much water can can kill this plant i put some perlite underneath for
42:48well-drained you put the soil you put the gravel on the top and then you sprinkle the seed on
42:54the top
42:55like you you're trying to mimic in the nature what how it does naturally but they shouldn't be grown
43:02in the hot place like greenhouse or something so it needs shaded place cool if it's going to be heavy
43:09pouring weather i will cover the lid so it don't drench from the rain this plant species is
43:18quite endangered now in the native habitat and i must give a hand to save it
43:26so this is the macronopsis bed i just created it's quite new and this is the second year grown
43:35from a seed i feel very happy and to be proud and i feel it like it's it's touched my
43:43heart because i
43:44it's from my hometown so this is a chili plant three years old and i love growing chilies this is
44:09called
44:09put jolokia and the common name is called ghost pepper if you like spicy chili then this is the
44:17plant you can go for it but i warn you it's very very spicy i love it i love it
44:23i store it in i store
44:26it in oil so it keeps fresh and longer most people like to grow chili as an annual but if
44:34you look where
44:35they are from most of the northern himalayan region chilies they are perennial so you can you can keep
44:43them alive if you have space and it will get more bushy and bushy and it will grow as a
44:48small bushy tree
44:51to care for winter i cut all the leaves only the leaf not any branches because they will die naturally
44:59take it somewhere just above five degrees you store it in a light place not dark don't water too much
45:07and then that's it
45:14i love cosmos because it reminds me of a tibetan meadow in tibetan it's called kelpa sanghu which is also
45:23a good time good kind of life flower of happiness i feel like i'm kind of home
45:34so but power of growing for me it's healing it's coming in your nature and third thing very
45:41important it makes you grounded once you are grounded nothing can nothing can shift you
45:51i do garden to give back to the mother nature which i'm grateful to be alive on this beautiful
45:58green planet that's why i love growing anything which gives you joy
46:22i really like the way that tashi expressed something which i suspect an awful lot of us feel
46:29which is that gardening grounds you and when you're grounded nothing can shift you
46:36and gardening doesn't solve many if any of life's problems but it does help you cope with them
46:48now my grapes this year have been better than they ever have been before and there are two reasons
46:56for that the first is that i thinned much more radically than i've ever done before i would say we
47:04put on the compost heap two-thirds of the bunches of grapes when they were green and that has meant
47:11that the ones remaining have had more chance to take in nutrients more light and more air
47:18it's worth pointing out now look at that i mean it's just cornucopia fantastic this by the way is
47:24a variety called black hamburg and it's a dessert grape so no good for making wine the only slight
47:30issue with dessert grapes of any type is they tend to all ripen at the same time and they're difficult
47:36to
47:36store so you tend to pick them by degrees which means that sometimes they're not fully right but
47:43even when there's a touch of sharpness they're still really good and the luxury of growing your
47:48own grapes is really something
47:52whilst many of us have gardens that use a variety of approaches and combinations
47:56either flowers vegetables or fruit some focus on one distinct style
48:04and francis went to west yorkshire to visit a garden specializing in prairie planting
48:14i'm so lucky to get to visit some really wonderful gardens but this one has to be up there it's
48:20got
48:20swathes of grasses and perennials that snake their way around the space it's really really balanced and
48:28the overall feel is incredibly naturalistic but to create this has clearly taken an expert eye
48:41but what makes this truly remarkable is that it's a private garden it's the work of just one man
48:47and this is just the front garden
49:02the back garden is equally extraordinary with more gorgeous planting merging with the hills and trees
49:08beyond the thread connecting it all is a devotion to a particular style
49:15one which has captured our imagination and become hugely influential prairie planting
49:23when prairie planting first emerged as a way of gardening it was really groundbreaking and it was
49:28unlike anything that had come before generally it's a planting scheme based around ornamental grasses
49:34as you would see in a prairie usually in north america but the way of designing the beds is completely
49:41different rather than a cottage garden it's enormous blocks of planting things like this persicaria
49:48there's eupatorium there's a huge block of flocks here and these huge groupings would never be seen
49:55in a cottage garden but the idea is that on a big landscape scale seeing huge groups of plants like
50:01this
50:01especially with grasses running through them can look really naturalistic and generally speaking prairie
50:07schemes are cut back once a year usually in the spring and that means you also have winter structure
50:13so seed heads and berries and of course this massive beautiful border in the height of the season
50:28the man behind these wonderful drifts of perennials is retired gp stephen medley
50:37so stephen this is obviously a commitment to this style but tell me what inspired your interest in
50:44prairie style naturalistic style planting i began to see articles in magazines and on the television
50:51about pete adolph and then went to have a look at his garden in scamston which at that time was
51:00quite new for for england yeah how could i copy that and get bring that look into my garden how
51:08could i
51:08move from a leak to garden to a premiership garden and how did you a lot of hard work so
51:16i first of all
51:17started removing the shrubs that were in this border and replacing them with herbaceous perennials
51:24all in block forms and then contrasting the the flower heads from from one species to the next
51:31so we've got spires there we've got bobbles here an umbell in the flocks yeah umbells up there with
51:41the agapanthus more bobbles with the babina brunariensis yeah and of course the essential grasses yes
51:48yes so this is the beginning this is the beginning this is the first bed this is how it started
51:58after perfecting his prairie style border steven's next project was to create a prairie style meadow
52:05employing a very specific technique known as matrix planting
52:13in this kind of scheme a single or a handful of species dominate
52:16forming a matrix into which other plants are blended
52:22in this design spirobulus heterolepis constituted initially 65 percent of the matrix right echinacea
52:31pallida hula dancer 25 percent of the matrix and eryngium alpine and formed 10 percent of the matrix
52:38and through the matrix you grow individual plants such as this veronic astro america
52:44yes yes or the eryngium ucifolium or blocks of plants such as the hyalith telephium when you say
52:50it that it sounds like a formula and yet when you see it it's just breathtakingly beautiful isn't it it's
52:57so lovely and presumably that matrix has changed over time but when was this planted this was planted in
53:042015. this was my first post-retirement project right i did half a day at work right half a day
53:12at
53:13craven college in skipton on the horticulture course and then the day after started lifting the grass
53:20from this area to start the the meadow so first day of retirement first day of retirement
53:28stephen put his well-earned free time to use by growing the huge amount of plants he'd need from seed
53:34or cuttings
53:37you're pretty good at propagating them i had to be yeah because i mean it would cost a small
53:43fortune to fill these beds with plants how many plants are in them there are around about 380
53:51spirobulus about 180 echinacea pallidas okay plus all the rest right so there were plants everywhere do you
53:58have a method when it comes to how you place things out like which ones you plant first is it
54:03spirobulus
54:03that goes in first you know i planted the structure plants first okay so that's really the taller are
54:10in germs the veronicastrums right and the blocks the echinops blocks the the limoniums and then filled in
54:21with the matrix okay in the spaces okay and the average planting density through the whole planting
54:27must be around about seven per square meter stephen has been pretty meticulous in creating his meadow
54:36but in some parts of the garden he's wandered off script showing a lightness of touch all his own
54:44this area here is one of my favorite parts of the garden the color scheme is just
54:48beautiful it's so soft with kind of ochres of the nacella tenuissima which most people would know
54:54as steeper tenuissima and also all the different soft blues there's deep blue of veronica there's
55:00perovskia and then this soft yellow scabia through it as well now originally this was planted as block
55:07planting but over time different species have self-seeded and moved around and it goes to show
55:13you that the gardener has a big impact on how this will eventually be you could really
55:18carefully edit and keep it in the blocks that you originally had or you could like stephen has
55:22done allow it to be dynamic and change and shift over the years but always with this very tempered
55:30very controlled color palette that elevates it and stops it from being a meadow and keeps it a beautiful
55:48border
55:50i think it's clear that stephen is not the kind of man to blow his own trumpet but i can
55:55do it for him
55:56because to have envisaged this designed it cleared it planted it and then maintained it all by himself on
56:05and this scale is such an achievement and he should be exceedingly proud of this garden because it is
56:42absolutely glorious
56:47These are the seeds of sangisoba and I've got them here by the thousand in July and early August they
56:56have wonderful sort of rich plum coloured flower heads that work perfectly here in the paradise garden.
57:03And there's always that debate at this time of year, do you leave plants with their seed heads and with
57:10their dried stems as part of the evolving palette of autumn and obviously providing really good material for birds and
57:19insects in winter or do you cut them back and cut out the dead material in order to maintain the
57:25vibrancy and colour of what remains of summer?
57:28Well obviously it's a question of making a decision plant by plant. On balance I'm all for taking out dead
57:37leaves and dead foliage but leaving seed heads but obviously also gather seed wherever possible.
58:05Come here. Good boy. Good boy. For all the work that there is to do in the garden and all
58:11the jobs there's one thing I hardly ever do and that's sit.
58:17And certainly not sit here in the jewel garden. It's nice. I've forgotten what it's like.
58:23Just breathe it in for a few moments and then you're ready to go again.
58:30But not today because that's it for this programme and I'll see you back here at Longmeadow next time.
58:37Until then, bye bye.
59:08.
59:08.
59:08.
59:08.
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