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Gardeners' World Season 59 Episode 2
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FunTranscript
00:11You coming? Come on then.
00:25Come on then. Come on.
00:27Good boy, you are a good boy.
00:35Hello. Welcome to Gardener's World.
00:45And welcome to a lovely spring day here at Longmeadow.
00:48And a brand new piece of the garden.
00:50This used to be one side of the copse.
00:53And I planted it over 30 years ago from hazelnuts that I gathered.
00:58I planted some trees in here.
01:00And underplanted it with all the lovely primroses and bluebells
01:03that you get in coppice woodland.
01:04But the trees grew very big.
01:07And they sucked all the moisture from the soil.
01:09Blocked all the light.
01:10And for the last five years it really hasn't been very good on any level.
01:15But no longer.
01:16Because I have begun the transformation into making this area
01:20into a really beautiful woodland garden.
01:44Now, the essence of any woodland garden is shade of some sort.
01:48but shade is not a problem you will find plants that will thrive in almost every variation of
01:56the shade theme whoa hang on a minute that's Ned Ned what are you doing come on come here okay
02:06good
02:07boy would you like a little something would that make you feel better now please don't bark when
02:12we're filming right what I'm going to plant today are two modest plants but they are charming they
02:20will grow in shade and they spread really easily but not out of control so what's not to like now
02:28first one is tiarella this is tiarella spring symphony and tiarella has these tiny white little
02:37starbursts of flower carried on long stems and flower from now through till May and they are
02:44happiest with dappled shade that doesn't dry out too much this is telema telema grandiflora and you can
02:53see the foliage is quite similar but the furs are rather different because they are born on long
02:58thin stems but they're pale primrose yellow tiny little bells I love them they'll last into June
03:03and they are the perfect ground cover woodland plant that also looks really good they're not
03:10just filling a space they're performing as well both these plants come from the damp woodlands or
03:18forest of the west of America so don't stick it in very dry shade it's gardening convention the
03:32plants look better placed in odd numbers than even if you plant in threes five sevens even nines
03:40it tends to look more natural than if you do it in twos or fours or sixes so I tend
03:47to plant in triangles
03:48in groups of three if you want a mass defect of any kind it's nearly always more economic and more
03:58successful to buy lots of small plants than a few really big ones small plants established much more
04:06easily and they're much cheaper although I absolutely love the creativity of making a new garden the thing I
04:23love most in the world is actually planting on a spring day with the sun shining the birds are
04:30selling putting plants in the ground knowing that they're going to grow that sense of hope and satisfaction
04:37all comes together and it's just as joyous now as it ever has been in my life now we're going
04:44to visit
04:44Mary Keane now Mary Keane over a long period of time has been one of our our best-known garden
04:50designers and
04:51writers and she's made gardens all over the world but Joe has been to see her in her own garden
04:57at home
05:02when I think of gardening royalty Mary Keane is right up there and what sets her apart is her instinct
05:10for planting
05:13from Grand British Gardens to designs across the world Mary's work is about atmosphere and emotion and she designs gardens
05:22that are to be loved lived in and feel truly alive but down this path is something even more personal
05:30it's her own sanctuary and it's not somewhere that she shares very often so this is a real treat
05:42so Mary you design gardens for oh the rich and famous royalty some very high profile clients
05:50quite high profile I'm not allowed to talk about any of them I know we're not going to talk about
05:54any of them
05:54but what I'm interested in is how different it is designing their gardens and designing your own garden
06:01it's completely different I like small flowered plants that you see through and that are ephemeral I'm not
06:08doing display I'm doing atmosphere and it's for me to potter and wander about in the morning in the evening
06:16and the middle of the day
06:17it's just a lovely place to be not a place to look at not a place to show off and
06:22the actual layout did
06:24you draw it out a piece of paper no I didn't it's two rectangles like two tennis courts end on
06:29end
06:30and I knew I wanted some flower beds for conventional plants and then I wanted two thirds which we're in
06:38now
06:38to be wild with wildflowers all year and I made this s line of beauty path through it to make
06:47the garden
06:47seem longer and more mysterious if you've got a small garden you want to be able to walk around it
06:53and to feel like a sort of adventure
07:00oh this is energizing Mary I gotta say what style of planting would you call this border then mixed can
07:07we call
07:07it mixed it sounds a bit boring it's got lots of stuff in like snowdrops and hellebores underneath
07:13so it goes on all the time and then these sort of bursts of color like the henry lily and
07:20the agapanthus
07:21don't ask me I think it's a headborne hybrid but it's just a good dark form yeah I love the
07:26orange some people don't like orange I love orange I love it there really is a lot to see because
07:32you're
07:33planting in small groups here like you said not large brushstrokes no and it's got a sort of wild
07:38feel and the more you look the more you see you could stand here for hours and just look at
07:43the detail
07:47a plants woman at her core mary has filled her garden with plants that bring her joy not as you
07:54as you might expect in the usual arrangements of threes or fives more like an artist playing with
08:00color on a canvas
08:04mary's really got me thinking because i've been reticent to use purple foliage plants in my garden
08:11mainly going for greens but she inherited that purple berberis which is on the boundary and she's
08:17picked it up in colors and stems of other plants like the thalictrum there has got dark stems we've got
08:24the
08:24hollyhock with those purple flowers really deep colors and over here we've got the foliage of the
08:30dahlias and that red sanguisorba in the back there as well and it's really got me thinking it has a
08:36lovely depth to the planting color-wise and a nice rhythm as well might have to use it
08:50so this border got a name well that border beyond that we've just looked at is wild and high and
08:58shrubby and this one is the transition between wild and high and shrubby not totally working
09:05and a much more gardened flowery look against the wall so that's the floweriest
09:12traddest bed catchy names you got there for them i love the hollyhocks i love the height because a lot
09:18of people think oh tall plants you've got to put them at the back of the border but you're bringing
09:22them to the foreground and you're looking through them well i love the looking through tall plants
09:27that's my aim always to look through i love this euphorbia it's segreana what is it you love about
09:36euphorbias mary oh well i like their greenness you like euphorbias too don't you love them i love their
09:43leaves i love the fact that they perform all year it's the zinginess isn't it they say they set off
09:49other plants in the garden so well and the diantha's carthusian aurum that is my favorite plant
09:56your favorite plant of all time i've got a lot of favorite plants but that is currently my favorite
10:02plant yeah okay yeah desert island plants desert island i'm allowed eight no that's records okay
10:10nobody's fabulous thing about it is it grows in shade it grows in gravel it grows in the border
10:14and it flowers for a long long time i mean it's just a brilliant brilliant airy graceful lovely plant
10:26as well as being a great designer she obviously loves her plants too does mary because look from
10:32the front of the garden all you see is plants you've got an apple tree with planting all the way
10:37around it
10:37no voids whatsoever and before i came i thought oh there's going to be some unusual stuff some rare
10:43things i better gem up a little bit but actually what's lovely is they're mainly cottage garden
10:49style plants and things that we can all get our hands on in nurseries and garden centers things like
10:55the pinks the oregano there we've got crocosmere here peonies iris fennel agapanthus and it's all put
11:06together so effortlessly too this is idyllic this courtyard it's beautiful well i rather love it
11:16because it's got a lot of rarities you said there weren't any rarities in the rest of the garden
11:20this is rarity corner here well i can see this is more unusual it's more exotic yeah i like a
11:26challenge
11:27i've got the fuchsia climbing lady boothby that's lovely and melianthus which joe likes i like well
11:34i think it looks great there yeah i think it's lovely actually and what about the one by the door
11:39over there oh that's begonia albopictorosia it'll stay out all summer and then it'll go in the kitchen
11:46in the winter so of all the gardens that you've created how does this one rate when people ask me
11:53what's my favorite garden i always say mine of course and they're quite surprised but of course
11:59it's your isn't yours your favorite garden most definitely because that's where you can garden
12:03and that's what we want to do it just is the place where i feel completely at home and myself
12:10the passion comes across from you so strongly oh joe thank you so much this has been amazing seeing
12:18it was lovely having you here thank you for coming thanks for inviting us
12:40come on
12:51many many years ago i visited mary keen's previous garden in berkshire it was wonderful and she was
12:58the very first person to come and see my garden in london 43 years ago and she wrote an article
13:05about it
13:05and arguably started my career as a garden writer and broadcaster so it's fascinating to see her garden
13:13now now now i'm just gathering one or two of these scented leaf pelargoniums which i'm going to take
13:19down to the end because it's time to give them a bit of attention
13:30come on panty boy hot panty boy
13:39the thing about these scented leaf pelargoniums
13:43is obviously as the name suggests they're fragranced now this is tormentosum and you rub the leaf and it
13:51releases this strong odor of peppermint it's really powerful now this is a new variety called torrento
13:59which rather weirdly smells of those little cola sweets
14:05it is slightly weird i have to confess but interesting and there are lots and lots of fragrances from the
14:13slightly weird to the absolutely delicious
14:17but whatever type of pelargonium you have now is the time to get them ready for spring
14:27this is a much more familiar zonal pelargonium it comes from south africa and rather than these
14:35relatively compact plants with big flowers when you see them growing wild they are they can be big shrubs
14:42big woody shrubs sort of six foot tall with smaller flowers which are then pruned by fire
14:51but from it they regrow and i don't necessarily suggest getting a blow torch to prune this
14:57but prune it you must if you don't want it to get really leggy these have been in the greenhouse
15:03all
15:03winter so they've flowered all winter however you've got to be bold and cut them off now or else you
15:10won't have any in summer it's exhausted and it needs a rest so if we take off those flowers and
15:16cut back
15:16refresh the compost water it feed it we'll get vigorous new growth and that will give us a really
15:23good display later on in summer you can cut these really hard or if you like a little bit of
15:30legginess
15:30and i do then you include that so what i'm going to do is just cut here which leaves a
15:37bit of stem
15:38and then here and that can come off there now this one the one that smells of cola bottles
15:54i'm going to be much more ruthless
15:58take that off that there now can you see there is new growth right at the base
16:05and that's where i'm going back to now that is radical but because it's a young plant
16:12i'm doing that to really encourage a fresh flush of growth from the base
16:19and finally this one tormentosum i like the way that it spills down i don't really want to reduce this
16:26at all all i'm going to do is take off any spent leaves however this one here this zonal pelargonium
16:36needs repotting and i'll show you how to do that so i'm going to take it out of the pot
16:40like this
16:45and what i'm going to do is take off the bottom third so we're taking off quite a lot of
16:52the compost there
16:58and i've put the crocks back in the bottom
17:04and i've got some fresh compost here now this is a wood-based compost a little bit of garden compost
17:11added
17:11and quite a lot of grit
17:15just look at the roots on that great india
17:28and i'm going to wiggle it to work the soil around the roots
17:33and then address that with some grit which just makes it look better
17:40give it a drink but make sure it drains thoroughly
17:48and then feed it liquid seaweed once a week and you should start to see healthy new growth
17:54and keep feeding it until it starts flowering
17:59i will go through all the pelargoniums particularly the zonal ones
18:02and set them up for fresh growth and of course a really fresh good display in the summer months
18:15now last september we went to visit karim habibi in his nursery in kent
18:20and his incredible collection of heritage apples
18:31we have 700 varieties of apples what i'm doing is actually preserving lots of the old varieties
18:37it's important that these are available for people to grow in their gardens because they're
18:42not available in shops and people forget what very nice heirloom varieties taste like
18:48each apple is like rehearing a song you've not heard for a while
18:51because i'll instantly remember the other times i've tried that apple
18:56so i'm quite passionate to keep these apples going
19:00i'm very glad when people do come to the nursery try an apple for the first time and they say
19:05goodness
19:05i never knew apples could taste like this
19:13this is sweet society it's a lovely dessert apple with quite an intense flavor quite crisp as well
19:25this is jumbo one of my favorite cooking apples and it cooks down to a lovely apple sauce very very
19:30easily
19:36this is captain kid a lovely sweet apple with a pear drops flavor
19:45caring for all these trees is a huge operation i'll be producing 7 000 or so new trees a year
19:52i am obsessed with the apples i'm obsessed with looking after fruit trees
19:57and maintaining the collection it is a sort of labor of love
20:03right now we're amongst the mother trees so there's about a thousand trees here and every single
20:08tree is actually a different variety and that's essential to have so that i can harvest cyanwood and
20:14cyanwood is essentially new growth on that tree which i can use for cloning
20:19just above each leaf stalk there is a bud and each one of these buds has the potential to produce
20:26a new
20:26tree if you look at older growth on a tree those active buds aren't there so that's why you can't
20:31use older wood and you need new growth
20:36so right now i'm taking the leaves off the cyanwood so that it doesn't actually dry out i'll also
20:44take the top off because that is actually too thin to work with
20:48so now that's ready and the next stage is to graft this onto some rootstock
20:59right now we're amongst the rootstocks the rootstock obviously determines the vigor of the tree
21:05and so every apple tree that is in this country is actually made in this way where it's actually
21:12made up of two parts the rootstock and the cyan which is above that and you can usually see the
21:17graft
21:17union where it's actually going to have different bark it's going to look quite different so that's
21:22the part where you know that any flowers on that top part of the tree will produce let's say your
21:28bramleys or your cox's orange pippins so this cyanwood that i collected from the mother tree i'm going to
21:34graft this onto this rootstock right here using a technique called chip budding i'm making a shallow cut
21:41cut on the cyanwood the next stage is to make the exact same incision on the rootstock
21:55i'll then tape this up
22:02and that's now done so that bud that is now on there that will fuse to the rootstock and next
22:09year in next
22:09season's growth that will grow into a one-year maiden so it might put five six foot of growth on
22:22so every summer i'll be out here chip budding in late july through till august it's a lot of work
22:28i will probably be spending the best part of 10 12 hours a day both collecting cyanwood and chip
22:33budding i'll probably aim to do 500 of these a day i'll work well into the night some nights with
22:40head torch on and that's just because there is a shortish period where you have to get quite a lot
22:46of
22:46work done once you grow an old variety like ashmead's kernel for example it's such an unforgettable variety
22:57that you become quite excited and passionate about preserving more and more old varieties because
23:03you realize that these apples are some of the best fruits in the world you can go back through time
23:09and see how important a certain apple was to a certain area because that apple is cloned you can
23:16actually taste exactly what people were tasting sort of 200 300 400 years ago and you can't really do that
23:23with a lot of other fruits in the early 90s when my parents started things here britain was actually
23:32losing lots of its old orchards my parents were quite passionate about actually sourcing old material
23:38and creating a collection things like margill or pitmast and pineapple these old varieties which
23:45were such lovely apples to actually grow and try yourself they really wanted you know everyone to
23:53have that experience i really wanted to experiment and try and create my own varieties eventually i
24:02persuaded my dad to let me have a sort of a small nook of the nursery where i actually sort
24:08of planted
24:08seedling varieties grafted those out and eventually i have actually produced some of my own varieties
24:15unfortunately my father passed away before trying any of the seedling apples and one of the first apples
24:21which was an exceptional apple i've actually now named that variety after my father i've called it
24:26hamid's red pippin i think he would have been very interested to try that it's quite sad he never did
24:32but it's it's very nice to every time i see that apple to sort of think of my dad
24:40right now we're amongst the maidens in the nursery to get to the point where your one-year-old tree
24:46is going
24:46to start to thrive and produce apples firstly you want to plant the tree in the winter time and let
24:52the tree establish so that means plant the tree well so the roots are happy and water the tree quite
24:57a
24:57lot so in that very first winter time whilst it's dormant you probably want to cut some branches off
25:03lower down so these lower branches in the long term are not going to be very useful perhaps if you
25:08are going to sort of try and train in espalier or step over but for a free standing tree which
25:12generally
25:13is what most people plant you really want a clear trunk lower down so that maintenance is quite easy
25:18and then at the top of the tree most people actually want quite a sort of three-dimensional crown so
25:23imagine a goblet shaped tree and those are where you want your fruit so that the tree is able to
25:29sort
25:29of hold itself up whilst carrying heavy fruits you can essentially choose where you want the crown of the
25:34tree to be by cutting the leader off at a certain point because what happens is if you cut the
25:39leader off
25:40all the buds below the certain point where you cut the tree they're going to compete for apical
25:46dominance which means they're going to try and grow as much as they can so you end up with a
25:51large sort
25:52of cluster of branches coming out and from that you can actually select some that will form a balanced
25:59crown of about sort of four branches five branches i would like to think that in a few hundred years
26:06time
26:07people might have a hamid's red pippin tree in their garden and they will look up who was this
26:12person where did this apple come from oh i live in kent oh okay i know where that you know
26:17where that town is
26:19it's something that i'm very fortunate to be able to do and i certainly would love it if one day
26:25one of
26:26my children wants to continue this i can't think of anything nicer than working alongside one of them
26:32or all of them if they all want to join in so many apples yummy
26:52when i planted this orchard so many years ago
26:56i carefully hunted out and chose heritage local varieties i wanted to build up something that could
27:03only represent this area so therefore of course i really admire what karim is doing and he's doing
27:09it so well it wouldn't be marvelous if his children carried that on his grandchildren
27:14what a fantastic project now it's time to visit one of your gardens
27:20we're going down to dorset to visit the garden of james baker hello i'm james off of the traitors
27:29welcome to weymouth i do this for a living gardening so i thought i'd show you my humble abode
27:34this is like a patio area obviously it's a bit early in the year but your tulips are coming up
27:39now
27:39it's constantly experimenting daily i might move something around whatever tickles my fancy that's part
27:44of the fun of gardening you know you're never right and you're never wrong everyone's a busker me
27:49included structurally functional down the middle i have a family i don't have any please keep off
27:57the grass business i just like to fill the beds with everything just go wild and i like to let
28:02the periwinkle cascade down a bit like a waterfall the hebe just goes wild and what i love about this
28:09you get the purple and i've got a climbing rose that comes through and the pink and purple intertwine
28:15beautiful now this is my piece de resistance my favorite bit of the garden this pear tree so
28:20basically this pear tree was swamped with ivy and it was on its last legs had one little pear on
28:25it we
28:25replanted that seed and that is growing down there that scraping sound you hear in the background is uh
28:32my son hello raking up the leaves good man and i let the kids do what i used to do
28:37in my granddad's
28:38garden is just learn on the spot watch learn experiment trial and error my great-granddad was
28:43an incredible gardener lived to 102 uh so you know there's something to be said to be outdoors you know
28:49breathing in the air it's good for the soul gardening master and apprentice i think you're
28:55the master there in this area i'm gonna put onions down here carrots in the front row radishes lettuce
29:04plants uh potentially a cucumber plant running up that you've got the job now it's yours so this
29:10little area i salvaged what i could from the wreckage of a hedgerow this bay was put in and it
29:16was a
29:16twig when we cut it back but it's you know been shaped now no edward scissorhands but you know good
29:21enough the little hack i've got is sedum stone crop it's good ground cover it's great weed suppressor
29:26this came from one clipping i got which is incredible they're up there with periwinkle for me for
29:31beautiful almost like forest floor carpet coverage here's my bravery award for gardening this aeonium
29:39was left out all year kind of as an experiment really it was a success story so i will be
29:44trying that again i hate to chatter the illusion it is trial and error gardening gardening adds years to
29:50your life and life to your years and that is like the best quote i think i've ever heard i
29:54want that on
29:55a t-shirt that's my garden thank you for watching
30:24i like the fact that james's son was growing vegetables
30:30well it's time that i started to sow some vegetables too long meadow had such a soaking
30:36all winter now the raised beds make a difference and actually now they're not too bad they're ready
30:42the rule of thumb if you're sowing seeds or indeed planting anything out is if the soil feels cold to
30:49your hand don't do it but if it doesn't feel cold doesn't feel warm it just doesn't feel cold then
30:54you're
30:55away and you can get going and what i'm actually going to put in here is for me a bit
31:00unusual
31:02this is garlic and nine years out of ten i plant garlic directly into the bed usually in september but
31:11certainly no later than october but i couldn't get the bulbs to plant until october late october and by
31:18then the ground was too wet so what i did is i planted them up into these plugs i bought
31:24them on
31:24in the greenhouse for about the first month and then they've been outside all winter because for
31:29garlic to form cloves rather than just a single bulb it needs a period of cold weather
31:41if you've planted bulbs and they've rotted in the wet or if you've just got ground that stays wet all
31:46winter this system of planting the garlic in deep plugs or three inch pots and then planting out when
31:52the ground is ready i think can work very well now last august carol went to rhs rosemore
32:09to see their vegetable garden and potager and of course i'm sure they produce delicious food
32:15and i'm pretty sure that all of it gets eaten but it also looks fantastic
32:25as far as i'm concerned nothing beats growing your own fruit and veg and eating it
32:33here there's so much to inspire you to grow your own
32:41this is a huge space the sort we might all dream of mind you with a veg garden this big
32:47we'd have to
32:48feed the whole street there are so many ideas here we can take away and use in any size garden
32:54or even
32:56without one there are examples all around of veg herbs and fruit growing in containers there are tomatoes
33:03chilis aubergines basil parsley an array of herbs and even a glorious apple tree traditionally in larger
33:14gardens fruit and veg are separated from flower borders to be more productive but that's not practical in
33:22smaller spaces so if you want to grow a bit of both and have limited space there's a perfect solution
33:32well this is another of rosemore's beautiful gardens this one is called the potager there are vegetables
33:39galore here but it has a whole different aesthetic from the vegetable garden in the vegetable garden
33:45everything's grown in serried ranks here everything's grown because it looks beautiful next to its
33:53neighbor the whole idea is about design using vegetables ornamentally and making
34:00them look utterly beautiful the overall design in this garden is important it's based on a circle
34:09there's a circular herb garden in the center and around it are arranged four symmetrical beds although
34:16everything's edible it's all about what plants look like together so you've got beautiful chard here
34:24with these pink stems but over there another swiss chard but this time with golden stems with the sunlight
34:31streaming through it it's hugely versatile and what's more you can eat it right the way through the year
34:39it'll overwinter wonderfully it's very very hardy i love the addition of these tagetes all around the edge of
34:47this bed there's the tall one here which is one called cinnamon but the point is it's single which
34:54means it's hugely attractive to pollinating insects and of course that's just what you need to pollinate
35:00your beans and lots of your other flowering plants and then for a bit of drama in the background we've
35:07got
35:07this amaranth this is one called red army with these very dark stems and dark flowers and seed heads
35:15amaranth is a wonderful vegetable it's grown all around the world for its leaves here it's grown both
35:22to eat but also decoratively now everything's set against each other here to give interest in texture
35:29and colour but also there's height from these beans growing up an obelisk in the corner and next door to
35:37them another vertical emphasis that great big aurac looking gorgeous in seed against the blue sky
35:44and then right in the middle these two sentinels these great big plants of bronze fennel another
35:52interesting texture to add to what already exists right the way through the bed and in fact
35:59right the way through the garden how about this for a novel idea if you've got a fence separating one
36:06bit of the garden from the other don't just leave it grow something up it grow something like this
36:13beautiful plant this is an ornamental gourd and it's just using the fence as support all along these stems
36:21flowers are produced both male and female and when the bees have moved the pollen onto the female flowers
36:28flowers they'll turn into fruit now on this plant they're ornamental gourd so they're not edible but there are so
36:35many members of the cucurbit family that grow in exactly the same way that are utterly delicious
36:41squash and pumpkins for a start all they need to grow successfully is loads of sun and lots of water
36:49beautiful
36:56not only is this garden packed with beautiful vegetables but there are so many fruit trees too
37:03and so many good examples of how to grow them here's a step over apple the whole idea is it
37:10makes a really really low plant
37:12and yet it's extremely productive just look at the apples here and all that happens is as the apple
37:20comes up two big shoots are trained horizontally along wires the wires are just a couple of feet off the
37:27ground and it's tied in and keeps making progress all the time and each time it sends out a side
37:34shoot
37:34that's cut back to a couple of buds which is when it makes these fruiting spurs and eventually these lovely
37:42delicious apples too but another wonderful way of training apples is this this is an espalier and it's
37:51a beautiful example of this technique so here's the central trunk and this time these branches have been
37:59trained out horizontally these ones first obviously the plant has grown up a couple of feet and then two
38:06more are trained out sideways again that happens third one and probably you'd end up with a fourth one
38:14you have here and all the way up you've got this bountiful crop of apples so even in a tiny
38:21space or on a
38:23flat wall or in between two parts of a garden you can produce a plant which gives you loads and
38:30loads of fruit
38:34throughout the veg garden there are glorious examples of companion planting as here with this wonderful
38:41archway full of fig leaf gourds look at those beautiful fruits but at their feet are growing
38:48contagities and they are supposed to deter white flies and other kinds of aphids they've got a really
38:55strong pungent smell and they bring in all sorts of pollinating insects the potager and the vegetable
39:03garden show us all that with a little bit of creativity we can put vegetables and flowers together
39:10to produce something which is just as beautiful as any bed or border
39:16to produce something which is just as beautiful as well as we can put them in all sorts of plants
39:40now here's another change that we made over the winter this is the mound
39:44and for the last six or seven years these have been big beds on either side of the path with
39:52roses
39:53and quite big planting but the space was awkward so taking them out and this has been laid as a
40:03terrace
40:03here you're raised up i'm looking down on the new woodland garden which is pleasing and so i'm very happy
40:21with the result
40:22this is proved to be the perfect place to keep house plants and they're happy in here for three
40:28reasons the first is the light is good it's bright but it's not glaring it's never very direct sunlight
40:37the second reason is that the temperature in here is pretty constant and house plants like that
40:43whereas in a modern centrally heated house the temperature can fluctuate by 20 degrees
40:48and thirdly the reason why they're happy in here because they're neglected
40:52and neglect is the secret of the happy house plant
41:07when i say they thrive on neglect what i mean is is that you can really damage them
41:13by too much of anything too much watering too much feeding too much warmth too much light
41:19is going to do far more damage to house plants than a bit of benign neglect
41:25i'm going to go through each of these and do what i would do in spring as we enter the
41:31growing season
41:31i'm going to start with the cheese plant because this poor thing is not in a good state look it's
41:36fallen
41:36completely over it's lost its support and if i put it on the table for a minute you can see
41:43what's happened this
41:45here has broken away so the first thing to do is to prune it now now is the time to
41:52prune a cheese plant
41:54too big reduce it in size if it's damaged take off the damaged part
42:00by and large it's actually not at all unhealthy can you see me through the leaves it's looking quite
42:07happy so the first thing i need to do is to support it make sure they're strong and make sure
42:14they're
42:14tied in well when you're tying up any plant always use soft twine so it doesn't damage the plant
42:24there we go if the leaves get at all dusty just wipe them with a damp cloth with your fingers
42:34just
42:34remove some of the compost maybe the top inch and then top it up so a soil-based compost or
42:42a bark-based
42:43compost with plenty of drainage this just gives it a little bit of extra goodness to kick off
42:51this fresh growing season the next thing to do is to give this a good drink
42:58what i have is a very weak solution of seaweed feed and i'm going to water that in until it's
43:03running out of the bottom let it be sodden and then let it really drain well
43:12now this spider plant is moderately happy and spider plants are one of the few house plants
43:20actually can be a bit wetter than most because they're very forgiving so if you do over water
43:25them you're unlikely to kill them but once a week is plenty with house plants you may experience little
43:31flies these are fungus gnats and they are living off decaying organic matter in the compost one of the
43:40reasons why it's decaying is because it's too wet so the quickest way to get rid of it is take
43:44off the
43:45top layer of compost replace it with fresh give it a soak and then only water it again when it's
43:51bone dry what i'm going to do with this now is give it an immersive soak hold it down until
43:58it
43:58stays under the water can you see the bubbles coming up there it's bubbling like a man who's
44:04had jerusalem artichokes before his bath it's got a good way of watering house plants that have become
44:12so dry that the water just seems to bounce off the top now while that's having a soak i'm going
44:18to deal
44:19with the chinese money plant and what i'm going to do with this is re-pot it that's pretty firmly
44:25in
44:25there a little trick is to use a cane in the bottom and just push like that now you can
44:31see that that is
44:33essentially pot bound if you can see more roots than compost it needs repotting now i'm going to
44:40put it back in the same pot rather than putting it in a bigger pot so i'm going to remove
44:44some of
44:45the existing roots and compost and i'm just going to use my fingers i'm just going to scrape away a
44:50bit like this creating room for some fresh compost and therefore fresh roots to grow into
45:00we'll put a little bit of compost in the bottom
45:08push that down in having repotted i will give this a water and a feed let it drain thoroughly
45:16and then put it back now your best friend with any house plant is this a mister
45:23if you're not sure how much to water or when to water you can never go wrong by increasing the
45:29humidity so place them somewhere where you can spray them so their leaves are distinctly damp and
45:35sometimes running with water without damaging carpets or curtains or cushions and having watered
45:42them if any has accumulated in the saucer that's beneath them throw that away don't let them sit in
45:47the wet and that will do for most house plants of course it doesn't apply to cacti or succulents
45:55which are another whole thing altogether now the whole point of house plants is that they deliver
46:03all the year round but out in the garden there are some plants that are absolutely of the season
46:10and only perform for a few brief bright weeks but are really special when they do and we went down
46:18to
46:18cornwall to visit a grower of camellias which of course are at their best now and i think you might
46:26truly say that he does love a camellia i'm described by my missus as a serial obsessive and my current
46:43obsessions are camellias really in it deep with camellias
46:51the italians used to call them perfecters there's a perfection in the arrangement of the flower that is
46:58pretty much unrivalled
47:05my name is jim stevens i've been in professional horticulture all my life
47:09this is my garden in doubles in southeast cornwall and we've been here for about 35 years now
47:16camellias give me interest in the garden from late autumn right through to spring when not much
47:22else is happening being evergreen shrubs providing greenery through the winter and form a background
47:28for everything else that's going on they're beautiful look at that
47:38there are over 30 000 varieties of camellias there's about 300 species
47:44there are camellias with beautiful foliage right through to the other extreme where you've got
47:49flowers six inches diameter in vivid pink and everything in between you've got perfume you've
47:56got big growers you've got small growers there's got to be a camellia for everybody
48:01i've got a couple of dozen here when i'm showing you them all i want you to
48:05put your hand on your heart and say you don't like any of them
48:10this is uh camellia annette carroll which has long been one of my favorites it always performs
48:16really well every year i love the way it opens from a fairly deep pink bud and then fades so
48:21at any
48:21one time you've got a sort of range of different colors across the bush
48:29this is one called camellia japonica bob hope as good a deep rich red camellia as you'll get but a
48:37very typical japonica type camellia so it's a fairly solid presence in the garden this one has been here
48:43probably 12 or 15 years and i've kept it around about the same size by taking a couple of years
48:49growth
48:50off every second year when you read gardening books they'll often tell you that camellias
48:57don't need pruning but if you don't prune them they'll grow into small trees and are
49:02much too big for a small garden and you can prune them they respond extremely well to pruning
49:13so if you're wanting a really good starter camellia i've got a variety called debbie
49:18this is a williamsii camellia it's a good rigorous grower has lots and lots of flowers over a long
49:25period of time one of the characteristics of the williamsii is that they generally speaking drop
49:30the flowers before they go brown one of the reasons that they're so popular the japonica varieties which
49:37comprise the majority tend to hold on to the flowers and they go brown on the bush
49:43this one's one called minato no acibono which means harbor at dawn and this is a luchuensis hybrid
49:51which means that it's beautifully perfumed right beside that towering above it is camellia reticulata
49:58mystique which is very very different a very blousy pretty pink thing
50:06camellia reticulata is the the prima donna of the camellia world and this i guess is what
50:11most people would associate with camellias this is what they would be thinking of beauty is in the
50:16eyes of the beholder that to me is beautiful at the other extreme are things like this this is
50:23camellia luchuensis which is a species such as you'd find growing in the world so the flowers are tiny
50:29they're single flowers they're quite sweetly perfumed which the vast majority of camellias are not
50:35and then the third one that i've got here is a variety called koto no kaori which is a hybrid
50:40between
50:41luchuensis and a japonica variety and this to my mind combines the best of both worlds you've got the
50:48color you've got the floriferousness of it plus you've got the perfume
50:57this is my propagator and i took this batch of cuttings very late july early august last year
51:03they've been pretty much undisturbed since then just water them occasionally
51:08and it'll be interesting to see whether they've got any roots on them
51:12ah look at that a little root system oh you're looking at a happy man here terrific
51:20when i take them in the cuttings that i took i cut that off right at the base
51:26wounded it slightly with a very sharp knife i just pair the bark off just down one side which is
51:32just
51:33enough wounding to to stimulate rooting a bit and stuck it in the propagator so that needs to be potted
51:40up now into a little individual pot and lots and lots of new plants
51:53here we've got another species camellia this one's one called trans noquensis with tiny little white
52:00flowers very very strong contrast with this and the debbie behind it the typical what people would
52:06think of as camellias perhaps wouldn't even recognize this is a camellia at all but it has a much more
52:12natural relaxed habit of growth a very thin twiggy upright habit of growth that might be much more
52:18appropriate to a lot of people's more natural type gardens than the traditional camellia
52:30people who don't like camellias are not amenable to reason are they for heaven's sake
52:35how could you not like camellias it doesn't make any sense
52:55well it's hard to say this jim but you may notice i don't have a single camellia in this garden
53:01because i'm one of those terrible people that has not yet learned to love them but maybe it will come
53:07to me but i do love hydrangeas and i've got some here in the writing garden you may notice that
53:14we've
53:14made some changes over winter because when we put the doghouse up last summer we put a path in front
53:20of it and it was a bit narrow so we widened the path to make a terraced area and now
53:26there is space
53:27to put big pots i've got two and i'm putting in hydrangea paniculata hydrangeas cope well in light
53:35shade and they need relatively good drainage and the great thing about paniculata they can be pruned
53:43hard every year so therefore you can grow them in a pot without them getting too big
53:49first things first it needs a crock in the bottom it's not so much to improve the drainage but it's
53:55to stop the compost falling out the bottom of the pot i've already mixed up a mixture of grit
54:02plenty of our homemade leaf mold and the rest is peat-free compost
54:18right now that obviously gives lots of room for growth and because this is a great big pot i do
54:25want
54:25it to be dramatic this is a hydrangea paniculata kayushu and it carries conical white flowers june
54:34july august a lot of hydrangeas you think of as being september coming into their best later in summer
54:41and into autumn also the critical thing about them is they flower on new wood
54:48right let's take it out the pot
54:52as a rule of thumb when you're planting anything in a pot
54:56leave at least an inch for watering
55:00perfect
55:11now as always particularly at this time of year when you plant anything water it in
55:19in a pot
55:20give it a good soak
55:22as well as watering it and giving it moisture it's moving the soil around the roots
55:28and i will water this weekly
55:31now what you see will carry no flowers at all so these stems will be bare
55:36the new growth will carry the flowers eventually what i want
55:41is a plant that is about seven foot tall festooned with white conical flowers
55:51now i've got some jobs you could do this weekend
56:04buddlia can be pruned now
56:07it flowers on new growth so everything that is on the plant now will produce no flowers
56:15so you need to cut hard
56:17if you go down to two buds from the base of the plant that's about as low as you need
56:23go
56:23or maybe about two or three foot but be brave and cut hard
56:37now is a great time to soak cosmos for a really good late summer display
56:43fill a seed tray with peat-free compost and carefully sprinkle the seed so they're evenly placed across
56:50it cover them over water them and the best way to do this is to dip it in a tray
56:55of water for about
56:5610 minutes and then put them somewhere warm to germinate and they should be ready to prick out
57:01in a few weeks time
57:08if you've got hyacinths that you've grown for an indoor display over winter or any other bulbs that
57:15you've grown in containers you can plant them out into the garden when they've finished flowering
57:22and then put the whole thing untidied up leaves stems and all into the soil bury them and let them
57:30die
57:30back naturally and they will flower next year
57:39so
58:03I will take these buddler cuttings and put them through a shredder and then that will go onto paths and
58:11that way everything gets recycled.
58:14Well, that's it for today. It's been a beautiful spring day here at Longmeadow and I do hope that you
58:22can get out into your garden and enjoy some spring sunshine and just this sense of the world breaking free
58:30from winter and coming alive again.
58:32I'll see you back here at Longmeadow next time. So until then, bye-bye.
59:04Longmeadow
59:06Longmeadow
59:06Longmeadow
59:06Longmeadow
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