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Gardeners' World Season 59 Episode 1
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FunTranscript
00:09I
00:37Come on.
00:51Hello, and welcome back to a new season of Gardener's World.
00:55And welcome back to Longmeadow.
00:57After a very long, wet and grey winter here,
01:02suddenly the garden is positively bursting out into spring.
01:07The daffodils here in the orchard have all started flowering just in the last few days.
01:11These are the wild narcissi that I first planted a quarter of a century ago,
01:16and they're still bringing me joy every single year.
01:20I've made other more recent changes.
01:22This winter I added some big hornbeam balls in amongst the apple trees,
01:26and I'll talk more about those another day.
01:28But there are lots of changes and lots of things to be getting on with.
01:58So let's go.
02:01One of the first big jobs of the gardening year for me,
02:03particularly when the sun is shining and you raise a feeling
02:06that we're moving away from winter,
02:08is to cut back the grasses in the grass border.
02:12So the grasses look really good from June right through
02:17till at least the new year, and that's the magic of them.
02:20Because when the rest of the garden is dying back from September onwards,
02:24the grass borders are looking brilliant.
02:25And at the same time, they're giving brilliant cover
02:29for a whole range of wild animals.
02:32I found hedgehogs hibernating in the grass borders,
02:35and mice of all kinds, let alone all the invertebrates,
02:39ladybirds and beetles and one thing or another.
02:40So very good for wildlife, looks great in the garden,
02:44and really easy on the gardener.
02:46Very, very low maintenance.
02:48But it is important that this time of year,
02:51you do the one big thing, which is to cut them all back,
02:54except for the evergreen grasses.
02:57Now, if you have evergreen grasses like this, steeper.
03:00This is steeper gigantia.
03:02Just run your hand through and tease out any dead material,
03:06but put on some gloves, because the green can be very sharp.
03:10Ow, you see, I cut myself then.
03:12You've got to be a bit careful.
03:13So put on a pair of good stout gloves,
03:16staunch the flow of blood, and off you go.
03:19But most of these grasses are deciduous,
03:22can be cut hard back to the ground,
03:24and you either do it with a pair of shears,
03:26or I have done it before with a hedge cutter,
03:28which works perfectly well.
03:29And the time to do it is once you see the new growth,
03:33which can be early February.
03:34You don't want to do it when the new growth gets too long,
03:37because you don't want to cut that back.
03:50So, this is a miscanthus.
03:52And you can see the flower heads are still on.
03:55Relatively small because it was so incredibly dry last summer.
03:58Miscanthus are very tough.
03:59They'll grow in almost any conditions,
04:01but they need a little bit more water than they got last summer.
04:04No new growth at the bottom,
04:05so I can just get in there and cut like that.
04:11I cut to the ground, clear it away,
04:14and take it to the compost heap.
04:16Another way of doing it is called chop and drop.
04:18So you can do it with grasses,
04:20you can do it with any plant that's got dead stems
04:22still standing in winter, like this Rebecca.
04:25And what you do is instead of cutting at the base
04:27and then clearing it away,
04:28you just cut it bit by bit down
04:31and let the pieces fall wherever they may.
04:35And they stay on the ground as a mulch.
04:39But I'm going to finish this and clear it all away,
04:42because there is another stage I want to go through.
04:44I want to weed it,
04:46because this is the big opportunity to do that.
04:48And then when I'm happy with weeding, I want to mulch it.
04:51But first, when I go from a garden which has been here now
04:56for over 30 years
04:57to a brand new garden, or at least a brand new plot,
05:02and a very excited Adam.
05:14See that? That is one very excited face.
05:18I am like a kid in a sweet shop.
05:21I have a new garden to play with.
05:23October we moved in, and to be fair,
05:27it looked a lot better then than it does now.
05:33It's amazing, isn't it, how much mess you can make with a digger.
05:38It's 20 metres wide by about 50 metres long.
05:44The first job was to get the space measured up and down on paper,
05:49so that I have an actual scaled plan to work with.
05:53What I've done is divided it into basically four spaces.
05:59The first one really, I suppose, let's call it the family garden.
06:03You know, it connects back with the house.
06:05I'll wrap that around with planting,
06:07and then there'll be a lovely little raised pool that sits on that side.
06:12And then a nice big simple lawn,
06:14and you can see I've started to add these trees going through the space.
06:19Big borders, each side, nice simple area for the dogs and the family.
06:27Right, so now we're off down the garden path.
06:30There's going to be a little brick edge all the way along here.
06:34We'll get halfway down the path,
06:36and then we're just going to have a little seating area.
06:38Maybe two little rockers,
06:40and what this will benefit from is the sunset, which is over there.
06:45So it's going to be incredible just looking over the planting,
06:48and then into the distance.
06:50And then we'll carry on that journey.
06:52And then at the moment, I've got to jump down.
06:57So I'm now what?
06:59My knee height.
07:00So you're talking about sort of two foot down, so about 600.
07:04But this is a good place to explain how the garden was when I got here.
07:08If you imagine, it was just a slope that disappeared to that water.
07:13That water over there is flooding off the field.
07:16The river runs along the bottom.
07:18And then when it does burst its banks, it comes into the space.
07:21So what I've done is I've created this sort of series of terraces.
07:25So if the water eventually does come in, it will push it all that way,
07:30and it won't come into the garden.
07:31You are now, though, you're in the herb garden.
07:34So we're talking herbs, fruit, maybe the occasional little veg.
07:38But I am stood in my, what will be eventually, my new greenhouse.
07:43Really simple space, but very, very immersive.
07:46You know, when you're going to be in the planting here.
07:52A few weeks ago I actually started work and prepared the ground for some bare root hedging.
08:01The hedges I'm going to use to obviously either side of the garden,
08:05but then also to divide the garden, a hornbeam.
08:08So conditions-wise, where I live, you know, east side of the country,
08:13so actually summers can be very, very dry.
08:15But then in winter, down at that river, and you can see where that water's holding,
08:19that could well be wet down the end of the garden.
08:22And hornbeam are a good tree because they'll deal with so many conditions.
08:27So when it comes to actually looking after these as they grow and mature,
08:32I'll choose the height that I want, first of all,
08:34but then I'm going to keep them quite crisp and clean.
08:38And not only will that then work either side of the garden,
08:42but also as I divide the spaces and break the areas up,
08:46it becomes the backdrop, you know, for the soft, bellowy planting.
08:51They say the best time to plant a tree was yesterday,
08:54and I've already made a start.
08:58Trees will be integral to the garden,
09:00and getting them in the ground in the right place early on is vital.
09:06So that line is 90 degrees to the house,
09:09but what this allows me to do is start to set out the final few trees for this space.
09:30I talk about soil being the most important thing in the garden.
09:38This was an old farmyard.
09:40So in places, literally old stones and bricks.
09:52Get the jacket off.
09:55I'm digging a hole.
09:56It's probably twice the size of the root ball.
09:58And I'm not talking about depth, just talking about width.
10:01The fact actually that it's a square hole is important as well.
10:06If you imagine clay soil, you dig a hole that's just slightly bigger than your root ball, your container.
10:15You slot it in, your roots start to go, and they go round and round in a circle.
10:21By doing this, as the roots get out, they'll get to the corner,
10:25and then ultimately they'll take themselves out, and they will cement the tree into the ground.
10:31Interestingly, in the tree world now, there's lots of conversation about whether you should put any compost,
10:38well-rotted manure in the bottom of the hole.
10:41Partly because what you want to do is you want that tree to work hard.
10:47You know, you want that tree to put on good, young, fibrous root.
10:51And if I make that area too much of a happy place,
10:57what you'll find is the roots won't go searching, and that's what we want.
11:02It's interesting, when you're sort of choosing trees,
11:04I think a lot of the time we're sucked into the tree that we really want,
11:08you know, whether it's a silver birch, whether it's a ginkgo,
11:11and then we work out where to put it.
11:13Whereas this itself is a nut, it's a hazelnut.
11:17And this will be beautiful because it will sit at the end of the border,
11:20I can control that growth, but also there's going to be a path that comes across the bottom of the
11:24garden,
11:24and this will sit at the end of that path.
11:27Why I've gone for multi-stem, actually, because it will be slightly smaller,
11:31so it's going to sit in the border, so I can leave it four or five years,
11:35and then I could coppice it back to the ground.
11:37So let's get it in.
11:39It's covered and wrapped in hessian.
11:41You don't have to take that off, it's biodegradable, so that will just break down.
11:45What I am going to do, before I start planting, I'm just going to free this tree.
11:51So, I've got the face where I want it.
11:55We can start filling in.
11:58If I just heal that in, water it in, but I won't give it too much at the moment.
12:05What you'll remember is any new tree you're planting over the winter, going into March,
12:11the further you get into the season, the more water that plant is going to need.
12:16So I will make sure, right through the year, I'm out here, and I'm checking these trees every day.
12:25I think there's something magical about planting trees.
12:30So I've put an awful lot of thought into exactly where they're going.
12:35And when I plant and plan, it tends to be one tree gets placed,
12:40and the other trees are driven from that tree.
12:43And that was the ginkgo. The ginkgo, which is a beautiful tree, but it needs space.
12:48That will sit as a stand-alone focal point.
12:51But all the time I'm building, I'm thinking about shapes and forms.
12:56And also, the beautiful thing about it, in reality as well, is you're not just planting for you and the
13:01family.
13:02You could well be planting for another generation.
13:14Look at that.
13:16Can you imagine the first time I saw this at the end of the garden?
13:21I mean, I've created gardens for lots of people, literally all over the world, and also at home for my
13:29family.
13:30But this has got to be the most exciting garden I have ever created.
13:37And it's just lovely that I'm going to be able to take you with me.
14:05I can remember that excitement when I first came here.
14:09That sense of creating something.
14:13And look at me here.
14:1436 years later, I'm still doing it.
14:17So, can't wait to see how that develops.
14:20What I'm doing here is much more prosaic.
14:22Having cut back the grasses, cleared everything away, that's gone to the compost heap.
14:28I've used the opportunity just to have a bit of a weed through.
14:31Now this is couch grass.
14:33It's a really successful plant.
14:36And once it gets established, it takes over.
14:39And couch grass is something that will work its way into the roots of other plants.
14:43That's its real problem in a border.
14:45If it works its way into perennials or shrubs, let alone into hedges, it's almost impossible to get out.
14:51And it's quite brittle.
14:53So if you leave any little bit of it in the ground, it will reproduce.
14:57So we try and take out as much of that and burn it.
15:00Don't put it on the compost heap.
15:03And I've got a nettle in here.
15:05Now, I'm avoiding getting stung because nettles in spring sting like nothing else.
15:15But what you can see are these very characteristic yellow roots.
15:19And it's the yellow that gives them away.
15:21Now, with nettles, if you cut the top off, that can go into the compost heap.
15:25But the roots of nettles, of couch grass and bindweed, burn them and then put the ash on the compost
15:32heap.
15:32And if you can't have a fire, then put them into green waste.
15:36But there you are, a glorious nettle, not wanted in this part of the garden.
15:40It's worth pointing out that we do keep nettles on the fringe of the garden because they're brilliant for caterpillars.
15:46So don't regard them as always being a weed.
15:49It's just the wrong plant in the wrong place.
15:52Then it becomes a weed.
15:54Now, here on the grass borders, I'm going to mulch with pine bark.
15:59And I use it especially here on the grass borders for two reasons.
16:04Because it is slightly acidic and low fertility.
16:08Because grasses don't like too much fertility.
16:14And our soil here is very fertile.
16:17So if I mulch this with farmyard manure, we get too much lush growth.
16:22And that's not good for grasses.
16:24So I'm just using this.
16:26We're keeping the moisture in.
16:28We're keeping the weeds down.
16:30But not enriching the soil too much.
16:32So it lasts a long time.
16:34So I only do this every other year.
16:37And also when it breaks down, it really lightens the heavy soil.
16:41It's a big mistake to mulch half-heartedly.
16:46If you're going to mulch at all, you really want to aim at two inches.
16:50Sort of four centimetres minimum.
16:52Because that is what you need to block the light and stop evaporation.
16:59Do it now.
17:01Do it in spring.
17:02That's partly because you can see where you're going.
17:04Don't mulch over the top of existing growth.
17:07And then the beauty of this stuff is you just use your hand.
17:11And that just goes round like that.
17:18Now we're going to Carmarthenshire to visit a garden owned by Bob and Ranvig Wallace,
17:24who are amateurs but have a huge amount of knowledge and passion for a distinct group of plants.
17:37It's hard to believe that this all started when, as a four-year-old, I went into the local churchyard
17:42and picked all the tulips.
17:44I'll bet your grandma was upset.
17:46Then I joined the Alpine Garden Society, went to a couple of talks and I think you came along and
17:52you were hooked as well.
17:53By that time we had a pretty small garden.
17:56Ranvig got interested in these small plants, alpines.
18:00So we thought, well, what better, small plants for a small garden?
18:03The collection has grown and grown over the last 50 years until it is what it is today.
18:16Since, what, the 1980s?
18:19Yes.
18:19We've been travelling widely all over the world looking at bulbs in the wild.
18:24And it is absolutely phenomenal to see huge numbers of what are reckoned to be pretty rare species in cultivation
18:31growing in vast numbers on mountain hillsides in Iran or in Uzbekistan or in Morocco or wherever.
18:39And also it gives you a lot of hints as to how to grow them, what conditions they need in
18:44cultivation
18:44when you see what they're coping with in the wild.
18:47Yeah.
18:55All the greenhouses are absolutely full of plants in pots now because we like to exhibit what we've got as
19:01well.
19:02Six greenhouses, two polytunnels.
19:06We've got the show on Saturday.
19:07Yes.
19:08I thought we might start thinking about some of the specials that we might have to take.
19:11How about that?
19:12Yeah, that's not bad, is it?
19:13Cyclamen pseudobirical.
19:15You remember going up into the wild in the Amarnas Mountains where Turkey and Syria join?
19:20Yeah.
19:20Warm, quite humid woodland.
19:22This is a particularly good form, isn't it?
19:24With these dark pink flowers.
19:25Although, I do like the pale pink ones as well, I have to say.
19:28I like them all.
19:29This is the more common one in the wild, isn't it?
19:32Yes.
19:32The botanists had a real field day with that, didn't they?
19:34Because they used to be Chionodoxa and now they're scillers.
19:37And like all the bulbs, it responds well to a nice free draining compost and a bit of care and
19:43attention when it's coming into growth.
19:45Easy, but spectacular.
19:47Yeah.
19:47Lovely.
19:48We now need something a bit taller and a different colour.
19:50Maybe a yellow Narcissus would make the three look nice.
19:53Oh, I think I've got just the thing.
19:55I had to go to the other greenhouse to get it.
19:56Okay.
19:57Hurry up, then.
20:06How about that?
20:08That's looking good.
20:09That's a really nice hybrid there.
20:10So, this is a form of Narcissus triandrus, the angel's tears, because of the shape of the flower with the
20:17corona hanging down and these petals swept back like that.
20:22And it's a really elegant plant.
20:24So, do you reckon that would go nicely with those two?
20:27I do, yes.
20:28Yeah.
20:29And I think it needs lifting up a little bit, so the flowers show above the two other ones in
20:34front.
20:39This is Irish Sindhpurs, which is actually a hybrid between two Turkish species.
20:45A big tall blue one and a little tiny one about the sizes of these here.
20:52I think it might go to the show.
20:54It's a matter of what we think on Friday.
20:57We may even take it on Saturday and decide not to, depends on the condition of the flowers.
21:02We've grown it for years, so we have to be very, very careful about watering and to water just in
21:08the pot and not in the plant.
21:09And that's probably true of a lot of things, actually, that watering is the crucial thing.
21:15For example, this one, you see the leaves are forming a sort of a cup.
21:18And if you get water down into that cup, which in the world probably happens naturally, but the plant dries
21:25up very quickly.
21:26Here, with the humidity that we have here in West Wales, it doesn't dry up.
21:30You get rots that go down into the bulb and all of a sudden the bulb's dead.
21:39All but my particular favourite is this one here, which is Corridalis maracandica.
21:46It occurs in two colour forms, one yellow and one purple.
21:49And as you can see, this one seems to be a mixture of the two, which makes it really appealing.
21:56The alpine house has got very good ventilation.
21:59You can see running down each side of the greenhouse, there are these louvre windows, which are open all the
22:04time.
22:05The air still flows over the plants and keeps them healthy.
22:07These plants are definitely for greenhouse growth.
22:11They would be temperature hardy outside, but they certainly wouldn't be rain hardy.
22:15So there's no point to trying these out in the open garden, they just wouldn't survive.
22:21We're here in the middle of February.
22:23It's freezing cold outside, it's in low single figures, it's snowed overnight.
22:29You can come into the greenhouse and see all sorts of things growing, flowering.
22:34There's loads and loads of colour in here.
22:37And of course, once you've got this big collection of plants, you want other people to see them.
22:41So what better way of exhibiting your plants than going to various Alpine Garden Society shows
22:47and putting them on the show bench?
22:49You mean you like to show off?
22:50Well, a little bit of that, but...
22:52Yeah, and there's actually quite a bit of competition as well, so it's, you know, it's a lot of fun.
23:03It's been a very long day because we had to get up early to get here on time.
23:06We then had to unload the car with all the heavy boxes that we have to carry in.
23:10And then they all have to be placed on the benches.
23:13They have to be labelled, arranged in their classes.
23:18Picked over to make sure there's no dead flowers or dead foliage.
23:22I just want to soak up the kind of excellence of horticulture, really.
23:25All these gorgeous plants, the sort of things that you never get to see anywhere else.
23:30There are some amazing plants here and just amazing examples and an opportunity to find new gems that we want
23:36to grow.
23:37You're into plants, and even if you're not, you might get into plants if you come to a place like
23:42this.
23:42Because you'll see something and think, right, what is that? I want to grow it. How do you do it?
23:51It's such a fun day out. I mean, not only do you have all of these lovely people, you've got
23:57all of the nurseries,
23:58and then you can come and see old friends, new friends.
24:03I'm very proud that I've managed to get thirds.
24:05This particular one is a Hepatica Nobilis, and yeah, it's just, it opened out last night.
24:12So I was very, very chuffed that it was actually making it for the show.
24:16Basically, it's just tiny plants. I love them.
24:19I've received a first on one of my plants.
24:22It's a Ginospermum, which is in the Berberadesi family.
24:27Exciting. They bring intense colours through what can be quite a boring time of year.
24:32I think that's what I love about the shows.
24:34It brings the best of what's looking good at this time of year.
24:38Well, we got a first with all of our Corridalis.
24:41These are all Corridalis with a big tuber under the ground,
25:10somewhere under a stone.
25:11Can I have an ice pack for my black-eyed bits?
25:15Our first show, I think, must have been 1972, when we were both students.
25:21And that's 54 years ago.
25:24Between us, we've been growing for more than a century, if you like.
25:27And we're still going strong.
25:50What do you think? What do you think?
25:51Oh?
25:53Now, don't go on the border. Good point. Just stay there.
25:56One of the things that I increasingly respect is the way that there's this deep reservoir of knowledge
26:03amongst people who have devoted their lives to plants.
26:06And I think that's something that we should treasure.
26:09Now, I know that none of those experts would think that the spring garden here is particularly special,
26:15because none of the plants are particularly special.
26:17But at this time of year, as we come into spring, it holds centre stage here at Longmeadow.
26:23And now coming through are the hellebores and the snowflakes, the leucosium.
26:28You have the tete-a-tete daffodils.
26:30And I can see that the imperial fritillaries are starting to grow.
26:34So, this slither of Longmeadow is certainly the best thing in the garden.
26:39And then, by about mid-May, it's done its stuff.
26:42It's over until next year.
27:04Come on up.
27:24Right, what I'm setting up is a new framework to support a new batch of raspberries that I'm growing.
27:31This is a new plot near the greenhouse, near water.
27:34This is going to be our new soft fruit bed. We've got strawberries at that end.
27:37I've planted autumn fruiting raspberries, but what I'm planting today are summer fruiting raspberries.
27:44And these fruit on canes that are grown the previous year.
27:49So, the ones I plant today won't give me any fruit until next summer.
27:54Now, if you're planting raspberries, and now is a good time to do it,
27:59and they're summer fruiting, they need support.
28:01It can be a trellis, it can be a fence, but I like this wire system.
28:05So, what I've got are wires attached to tensioners at either end.
28:13And this is quite important, because if you just loop the wire around, inevitably it gets slacker,
28:18and then you can't tighten it.
28:19And you want the wires to be reasonably tight.
28:22So, I just hook them onto there, and then tighten it up.
28:28And, by the way, these are eight-foot posts driven two foot into the ground, so I've got six foot
28:33of height.
28:34These could easily stay in position for 10, 15 years, and absolutely necessary to have into place before you start
28:43planting.
28:51Having walked all over the soil putting up the wires, I'm just loosening it.
29:03Now, these brown sticks will bear fruit, but they're two quite different varieties.
29:09There's Glen Ample, which is a trusted variety.
29:14I've grown it many times before.
29:15It's very disease resistant.
29:17It copes very well with wet conditions compared to other raspberries, and is delicious.
29:22And that will crop from sort of the end of June to early August.
29:28And this is bare root, so that needs to go in the ground first.
29:31In a pot, looking very undistinguished, I've got Malling Admiral.
29:37And I've chosen this, although I've not grown it before, because it's disease resistant, coping with all kinds of soil,
29:43and a delicious fruit.
29:45Now, you can see there are five stems in the pot.
29:49Those are five separate plants, and you need to space them out at least round about 18 inches apart.
29:56I'm not actually going to plant these now, I'm going to plant the bare root ones.
29:58Because bare root plants, they're not in the pot, they're not in any compost,
30:02so you need to get them in the ground as quickly as you can, ideally the same day.
30:10Now, here are a bundle of bare root plants, and you can see there are the roots.
30:14Now, if it's going to be a slow process, have a bucket of water nearby and stick them in.
30:20One, don't let the roots dry out, and that is really, really important.
30:24I'm not going to plant them in the ground, I'm going to plant them on the ground.
30:29So if I put that like that, I'm just going to bring the soil up around them.
30:40Raspberries have very shallow roots that grow sideways, not very deep,
30:44and they really hate sitting in very wet soil.
30:49However, if you've got free draining soil, that's fine.
30:51That's okay, you can plant them normally.
30:58I will water them in, and I will tie them,
31:01because by tying them, it gives them stability while the roots get established.
31:06Once the roots are established, these can then be cut back.
31:09Right, one more row of Glen Ample, then a couple of rows there,
31:12and I'll have four rows of summer fruiting raspberries, which will be ready to harvest in July 2027.
31:21There's forward planning for you.
31:27Now, Arit has been to Kew.
31:31Most of us go there and walk around and visit the glasshouses and see the planting,
31:35and it's very much a sort of a public park, as well as one of the world's greatest botanic gardens.
31:40But she has been allowed behind doors that very few of us ever go through.
31:47Hidden deep within the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew lies a world almost no one ever sees.
31:54Closed to visitors, this secret tropical nursery is a plant emergency room for some of the planet's rarest plants
32:01and has become one of the most biodiverse corners on Earth.
32:05The work carried out here is a battle for survival, and every second counts.
32:11Behind these doors are over 10,000 plant species.
32:16Many of them are rare, threatened, or of vital conservation concern.
32:21But today, I've been given exclusive access to learn more about these critically endangered plants
32:26and to meet the specialists that are working around the clock to save them.
32:35Within the nursery are an incredible 21 separate climatic zones split into four groups.
32:42Orchids, temperate, moist tropics, and arid.
32:49Carlos Magdalena is a senior botanical horticulturalist.
32:53He is known for his remarkable success in bringing the world's most threatened plants
32:58back from the brink of extinction.
33:01Hello. Hey, Carlos.
33:04This is proper laboratory.
33:06I feel like I'm somewhere really sci-fi.
33:08What work are you doing here?
33:10Well, in this tank alone, there is about 50 different types of water lilies.
33:16We have also the smallest water lily in the world, which almost went extinct about a decade ago.
33:21So this is the smallest water lily in the world?
33:25Yeah.
33:25Why is it not in the world? What happened to it going nearly extinct?
33:30The habitat where it grows is probably smaller than this tank.
33:34So it was a matter of time before something happened, you know.
33:38There was only four plants left and they were here in queue, which was quite scary.
33:42Trying to grow the seedlings to maturity was almost impossible.
33:47Right.
33:48So I managed to come up with a way of cultivating these ones from seed.
33:52All you have to do is grow them very, very shallow.
33:55Yeah.
33:56So that when the seedling germinates, it touches the air.
33:59It's things like these that make a whole difference, right?
34:02From those four plants, we produce lots.
34:04We have here more than 100 now.
34:05But also we have sent them to many different places.
34:08There is growers in America, Asia, Africa, Europe, you name it.
34:12So it's very well secure out of the habitat.
34:15Saved by the bell, really.
34:17One of Carlos' biggest successes was the integral role he played
34:22in saving the plant known as Café Morón.
34:25Café Morón was thought to be extinct until a single surviving tree
34:29was spotted by a schoolboy in 1979
34:33in its native island of Rodriguez in Mauritius.
34:37So this has had a real challenge, hasn't it?
34:41There's a real story behind it then?
34:43Yeah, it has taken us almost a whole century
34:46to work out how to save this.
34:48Wow.
34:49It was not seen in a while for more than 40 years.
34:52So then a class specimen was found
34:54and then a cutting was flown to queue.
34:58Right.
34:59From that plant, we managed to root a plant.
35:02For more than 25 years, not a single seed was produced.
35:05And then even though we had many plants,
35:07they were all cloned because they were all from the same cutting.
35:10Yes.
35:10If you take a cutting, it's cloning the plant.
35:13And then it will carry the same problem,
35:15that it flowers but it doesn't produce seeds.
35:17And if you want to reintroduce the plant in the wild,
35:20you will need to have a plant which is able to reproduce by itself.
35:24There was plenty of chances for us to try new things.
35:28And then one day, bingo, I got a fruit with nice seeds.
35:32Which is incredible.
35:34Yeah.
35:35So you're the plant whisperer.
35:36Oh.
35:37You brought it back from extinction near enough.
35:40That's amazing.
35:41Why is it so important to keep these plants on our planet?
35:46What would happen if we were to lose plants like this?
35:49Well, first of all, every species has kind of like a link with other species.
35:55So they are all part of our ecosystem.
35:58But more importantly for us humans, they are the main reason we can get the medicines.
36:04Everything you eat comes from a plant or something that eats plants.
36:08And therefore protecting plants is really essential and important to humankind.
36:13I think it's amazing work that's been done over a long time.
36:17So long may you continue to be keeping plants alive, Carlos.
36:26Globally, one of the world's most threatened plant groups are arid plants.
36:30Tough enough to survive deserts, they are now facing unprecedented danger and need urgent help.
36:38Tropical nursery manager Paul Rees is on a mission to save them.
36:42Paul, it's like being in a different world.
36:45All of these plants, what sort of challenges are they facing out in their own environment?
36:51The plants in this zone are species that come from very dry conditions.
36:56Often when we think of climate change, we think of a warming climate
36:59and we immediately think that arid plants are going to be able to cope with that.
37:04But often they're sort of living sort of at the extremes already.
37:07And if the conditions get hotter and drier, there's lots of pressures that cause problems.
37:11Some of them are very rare as well.
37:13So they'll only exist on one slope or one or two slopes within a region.
37:16And that has lots of implications where if they're overexploited or there's change in land use,
37:21species can go to endangered quite quickly.
37:24Is there anything particular that you've been working on recently?
37:26The plants we've got here in front of us, these are conophytans, succulent plants.
37:31They are endemic to the northwest of South Africa into Namibia and they sort of exist nowhere else naturally.
37:38When the conditions become hotter and drier in the spring, they start drying out and form these papery sheaths.
37:44So by midsummer, the plants all look like they're completely dead.
37:48And that's sort of extremely beneficial for the plants.
37:51In the deserts, there's a very high diversity of tortoise.
37:55And the tortoise will get all of their moisture during the dry season by eating plants.
37:59So if you as a conophytan look like you're dead, the tortoise ignores you and eats something else.
38:05So they're very, very interesting, well at least to me.
38:09This is one of the group that sort of captured the attention of people,
38:12which has led to over-exploitation in habitat, mainly through poaching.
38:17And species through these mass poaching events have gone to critically endangered if not extinct overnight.
38:24Wow.
38:24And the estimate currently from that region is sort of about 1.9 million plants stolen from habitat since 2020.
38:31Our goal is to ensure we've got backup collections.
38:36Conserving a species where it's supposed to be is priority one.
38:39And then we're also looking to ensure that there's decent seed collections of very vulnerable species in our seed bank
38:44to try and reduce, if not stop, stop species from going extinct.
38:49What advice can you give to people in terms of when they're buying their house plants?
38:53It's fantastic in many ways. To see people growing plants is amazing.
38:59And more people interested in the natural world and more people growing plants is important.
39:04But I think understanding that when we are buying plants,
39:08we need to just make sure that we're buying them from places that are reputable.
39:14You can really feel the power of plants here, their beauty, their resilience and their importance to all living things.
39:24The work going on behind the scenes here is all about passion meeting purpose, saving plants and safeguarding the diversity
39:31of these plants for future generations to come.
39:58Well, I do know just how vital the work they do at Kew is.
40:04And it's a privilege to get a chance to see it in action.
40:08Much more upfront and available to all of us are the colours you get from flowering bulbs at this time
40:13of year.
40:14And every October and November, I make a real point of planting as many as I can into pots.
40:20And this is the result. We've got various daffodils, we've got hyacinth, the wonderful little iris, crocus.
40:27It lasts a few weeks. And just as we come through a long winter, boy, does it make your heart
40:35sing.
40:35Now, that's going full blast. And hopefully that will keep going for a little bit longer.
40:41What I do need to do now is prepare for summer, particularly late summer.
40:46And what I've got in boxes are dahlias.
40:48And dahlias are an absolute essential plant for Longmeadow from the middle of July through till November.
40:59Now, these have been stored all winter in a dark place wrapped in newspaper,
41:04which we found is a really good way of keeping them at the right humidity levels.
41:09So this is a variety called Rothsay reveler, which is a kind of raspberry ripple of a flower.
41:15And you can look. Lovely tubers.
41:18Now, what I'm looking for here is to see if any have rotted, if they've got too dry,
41:24if the mice have been nibbling at them. Maybe there was a slug in there with them having a go.
41:28So just check them over. Feel the tubers. Are they firm?
41:31If they're soft and squidgy, that's not good, and you need to cut them off.
41:35And fatter and the sort of more firm the tubers are, the more flowers they will produce.
41:40I have to say, that's a very nice group of tubers.
41:43So at this stage, there are three things I can do.
41:47The first is to put them back into storage for another month,
41:51because it's too early to plant out dahlias yet.
41:54They're not frost-hardy, so I wouldn't plant these out until mid-April at the earliest.
41:59The second thing to do is to pot them up and grow them on in a frost-free place,
42:04but with light, so that when you plant them out, they've got growth a foot tall,
42:09and that will give you flowers about a month earlier.
42:11And we tend to do that with most of ours.
42:14And the third thing to do is exactly what I am going to do now.
42:17And that is to pot them up, but specifically to produce cuttings.
42:22Now, any old pot will do, as long as it's big enough.
42:25Recycle pots.
42:30Put some compost in.
42:34It doesn't have to be anything special, but it does have to have reasonable drainage.
42:42So, you might want to add a bit of perlite or grit.
42:48Now, let's get the level right.
42:51Yeah.
42:52When you plant dahlias in the garden, you want to plant them deep.
42:55And the deeper they are, the better they are protected from cold weather.
42:59When you're putting them in a pot, the cuttings are taken where they come from the tuber.
43:03So, if it's buried, you can't get at it.
43:06So, we'll put that like that in there.
43:08And then just put a little bit of soil around them.
43:14But not burying it completely.
43:22Right. The important thing is to give this heat, water and light.
43:28And that will produce new growth.
43:30If you've got a windowsill above a radiator,
43:33that's absolutely fine.
43:34If you've got a greenhouse, that's better.
43:36And ideally, a heated mat in a greenhouse.
43:40And that's perfect.
43:42And the new growth will appear after about a week.
43:44And the cuttings will be ready when they're about sort of two to six inches long.
43:50And that's usually three to four weeks.
43:51And I'll do that with you when they're ready.
43:53If you're not worried about taking cuttings,
43:55then just put it somewhere frost free and light.
43:58And you'll get growth ready to plant out round about the end of April.
44:06Now, we're going to a garden near Maidstone in Kent.
44:11Where Kathy Smythe and Gary Catamole have created an exotic paradise for their dogs.
44:25The tropical plants here transport you to another place.
44:29And it's so wonderful to just have that illusion of maybe you could be anywhere in the world.
44:35And that's all done by plants.
44:37They're really tactile.
44:38You can touch them.
44:39You can hug the trachycarpus.
44:43Which is a little bit weird, I know.
44:45But, you know, sometimes I'll just give them a bit of a squeeze.
44:48And you don't tend to do that with cottage garden plants so much.
44:52We've never been to the tropical islands of anywhere.
44:55So it's nice to kind of drag it to rural England.
45:05In 2017, we applied to a doctor setter.
45:09And that's how Bowie came into our lives.
45:11He's a calm, beautiful, peaceful, joyful boy.
45:16After Bowie came along, we realised that we weren't going to stop there.
45:20Dotter is our ball of energy.
45:22She's just a delight.
45:25Then Melly.
45:26And then our baby, Mojo.
45:28So now our little rescue family is complete.
45:32We wanted to give them a space that was just beautiful, considering they'd had troubled backgrounds.
45:39We didn't want to restrict them in any way.
45:41Before we knew it, we'd thrown ten tonnes of sand down and we were calling it the Small Deeds.
45:51It's been a great space for the dogs to rehabilitate and they've got their own little routines, places they like
45:58to go in the garden.
45:59Some of them feel comfortable going up higher, or they could bury down low, or they could just sniff around
46:06and really enjoy themselves.
46:07It fills your heart to see just how content and happy they are.
46:18This is where it all began in the Small Deeds with one raised bed with a formium that was a
46:25gift from a friend who had moved and didn't want it anymore.
46:27So, thank you Dawn.
46:29We call this Formium Wavy Davey.
46:33Very, very resilient plant.
46:35Very robust.
46:36It can take a bashing from the dogs.
46:38Fantastic.
46:39Love it.
46:40We also had our Cordyline, which is up here.
46:43And this is a Torbay Dazzler that we call Miss Tina Turner for obvious reasons, with the spiky groovy hair.
46:49She came home in the footwell of our car, but over the years has just shot up.
46:56And yeah, this is where it all began.
47:00A lot of the planting is quite sturdy, because the first thing we say is, can it take a bashing
47:06from the dogs?
47:07Don't normally assume that you can have four quite exuberant dogs and a wonderful space for yourself as well.
47:15And I think that we've actually proved that you can here.
47:23Cathy's excellent at remembering the plants' names. I'm absolutely terrible.
47:27It's easier to remember the names of things when you genuinely have an interest and Gary is the...
47:33He...
47:34Plantus Potus is what I can remember.
47:40I absolutely adore this palm. Look at it. It's like it's having a really bad hair day.
47:47This is a Washingtonia, so it's a cross between a Robusta and a Philephora, and they call it a filibuster.
47:55So what you'd normally see these, maybe out in Beverly Hills, they're called skyduster palms, right up into the air.
48:01But, unfortunately, they're not hardy for a severe winter.
48:06So, as it is one of my ultimate favourites, if we do have a Bruta winter, we'll build a cage
48:11for it and we'll protect it, so it can just grow up to the sky.
48:17As the gardens evolved over the years, we've added more plants and they develop, you kind of grow fond of
48:24them in a weird way, so the plants become part of the family too.
48:33Look at this beautiful, hairy, fibrous trunk. I love it. I can't stop touching it. It's from the Trachycarpus family.
48:41It's a Fortunii.
48:43I like to make little pitter pockets out of the fibre here and then wedge a Bromeliad in, an air
48:50plant or some succulents, just to make it a little bit blingy, which is lovely.
48:55Then we have, same again, Trachycarpus family, but this is our Wagnerianus.
49:02Easy to tell the difference because these palms are really quite stiff and they are more suited for windy areas.
49:10These are boys and this one's a girl and I know this one's a girl because you can see the
49:15seeds here.
49:16So, once the seeds have matured, they'll fall and then over the years, you'll find yourself with seedlings like we
49:23have here,
49:24which are potentially lots of little palm trees, which are actually crosses between a Fortunii and a Wagnerianus.
49:34Look how resilient these plants are because you think they're being stamped by the dogs day in, day out.
49:42They take all the frosts, they take any snow, super hardy.
49:51Because the garden was originally a car park with loads of hardcourt, we have to get a groundbreaker in for
49:56any small plant.
49:58And every time I'll visit the nursery and I think, hmm, I really like that.
50:02And you can see Gary's face just dropping because he knows that he's going to have to get the groundbreaker
50:07out and that's going to be fizzy hands for the next three weeks.
50:16So, here we have the staple for every tropical style garden, I believe, which is the hardy banana, Moussa Bazju.
50:25These guys add so much to a tropical garden.
50:28You look at the leaves, they're fantastic. They're like big sails waving in the wind.
50:32When the weather's bad and the winds come in and the rain hammers down, the leaves tear and shred and
50:38they look like gorgeous feathers.
50:40It's just something really magical.
50:43This one here has flowered this year.
50:45If you see up there, you can see the remnants of the flower and the tiny bananas, which aren't at
50:51all edible, but this will die.
50:53If I move this, you can kind of see it becoming a little bit fragile at the base.
50:58But the good news is that it will pop babies up, or pups as we call them.
51:03So, we lose this one and then we have more replacing it.
51:14I get quite emotional when I think about the garden, really, because it's come a long way.
51:21It was designed for these guys here. They've come such a long way too.
51:27And it just gives so much joy.
51:30It's a dream come true to have these incredible animals with us in a lovely environment like this.
51:39We're so lucky.
51:40Very lucky.
52:22Come on.
52:43It's good to see another version of a dog garden, and you'd like that, Ned. You would.
52:48To have that sort of exotic paradise within one garden, fabulous for people and fabulous for dogs.
52:56Now, I'm going to do a job which really needs doing fairly soon.
53:00It's cutting back late flowering clematis.
53:03These are group three clematis, as sometimes referred to, and all of them flower on new growth.
53:08And you can see the new growth. It's appearing.
53:10And if you don't cut them back, you get a lot of bear growth at the bottom of the plant,
53:14and then a mass of new shoots at the top with the flowers on.
53:17But because they flower on new shoots, you can prune back all last year's growth,
53:22knowing there will be new growth to carry new flowers.
53:25And at the same time, it will encourage extra new growth, therefore extra flowers.
53:29So it's win-win.
53:37What I do with clematis that's growing in a border is I don't take it right to the ground.
53:41I take it about a foot or two above the ground so that the growth isn't competing with all this
53:48other growth that's going to come around them.
53:49However, if you've got this on an open fence or by a door, you can cut nice and low.
53:55Leave two buds.
53:57So if we take this tendril here, there's some buds there, buds there, and there, and there's some right down
54:06there.
54:06It just means if for any reason one set of buds gets damaged or frosted or whatever it might be,
54:13you've got another.
54:14And then everything above it is now redundant and can be thrown away, even though there's new growth on there.
54:27Now, at this point, it's worth just inspecting your supports.
54:31And if in doubt, now is the time to change them.
54:34These have lasted about three or four years.
54:37That's all I expect from the hazel in the garden, particularly when it's been so wet.
54:42So these can come out.
54:44Oh, yeah, that's broken.
54:46So it shows they needed doing.
54:47I mean, as a rule of thumb, if they break like that, they're no good.
54:51They're not going to be strong enough to hold the weight of a clematis.
54:54A big, strong clematis full of flower in August or September needs pretty stout support.
55:02However, you can put them against a trellis, you can put them against a wall, as long as they're reasonably
55:06strongly supported.
55:09The main thing when you're growing any clematis is they do not like to be dry.
55:14So if you're planting at this time of year, add a little bit of compost or actually any organic matter,
55:21not so much to feed it, but to soak up moisture and hold moisture.
55:29And I'm really pushing them in as hard as I can.
55:45Right, that's a good job done.
55:49And if you've got late flowering clematis, then I do recommend that you get on with it and do it
55:54as soon as possible.
55:55But if you haven't got any late flowering clematis, here are some other jobs that you can do this weekend.
56:14It's time to begin sowing tender annuals.
56:17This is something that I like to do in stages across the coming weeks.
56:21I'm beginning by sowing Tithonius, the Mexican sunflower, with their intense orange petals.
56:29Sprinkle the seed thinly on compost in a seed tray, cover them over, water them, ideally from below by sitting
56:36them in a tray,
56:37and then put them somewhere warm to germinate.
56:40And then, in a few weeks' time, the seedlings will emerge.
56:50Now that they've finished flowering, but still got lush foliage, is the perfect time to lift and move snowdrops.
56:56You can either spread an existing group by lifting them and dividing them and then replanting them locally,
57:01or take them to a new location and plant them there.
57:05Either way, they will scarcely notice they've been moved, and they'll re-flower with renewed vigor.
57:20Music
57:20Chitting potatoes, particularly for first earlies, is the best way to get the earliest possible harvest.
57:28Music
57:29In principle, it simply means taking the seed potatoes and placing them on end in some kind of container,
57:35either an egg box or I'm using a seed tray, so that one shoot is exposed to light.
57:42Put them in a frost-free but sunny place, and that shoot will become knobbly and hard, but when you
57:48plant it,
57:49it'll be primed to burst into growth.
58:06I think Ned is quite relaxed.
58:11I sat down here for a minute, and two seconds later he was on my lap, and now he's flat
58:15out.
58:16But it has been a wonderful day.
58:17I can't tell you how nice it's been to spend the whole day outside in the sunshine, and looking forward
58:24to so much more,
58:26because of course, not only is the garden looking better every day, but there is quite a lot to do.
58:31And in the end, that combination of enjoying the garden and gardening is what makes it so special.
58:39But that's it for today, and I will see you back here at Longmeadow next time, so until then, bye
58:44-bye.
58:46Longmeadow next time.
58:50Longmeadow next time.
59:02Longmeadow next time.
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