- 8 hours ago
Gardeners' World Season 59 Episode 2
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00:11You coming? Come on then.
00:25Come on then, come on.
00:27Good boy, you are a good boy.
00:42Hello, 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 that 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 into a really beautiful woodland garden.
01:44Now, the essence of any woodland garden is shade of some sort.
01:49But shade is not a problem.
01:51You will find plants that will thrive in almost every variation of the shade theme.
01:59Whoa, hang on a minute, that's Ned.
02:01Ned, what are you doing?
02:02Come on, come here.
02:06OK, good boy.
02:08Would you like a little something?
02:09Would that make you feel better?
02:11Now please don't bark when we're filming.
02:13Right, what I'm going to plant today are two modest plants, but they are charming.
02:20They all grow in shade and they spread really easily, but not out of control.
02:26So what's not to like?
02:28Now, first one is Tiarella.
02:30This is Tiarella Spring Symphony.
02:33And Tiarella has these tiny white little starbursts of flower carried on long stems
02:39and flower from now through till May.
02:43And they are happiest with dappled shade that doesn't dry out too much.
02:50This is Tiarella, Tiarella grandiflora.
02:53And you can see the foliage is quite similar, but the firs are rather different
02:56because they are born on long, thin stems, but they're pale, primrose-yellow, tiny little bells.
03:02I love them.
03:02They'll last into June and they are the perfect groundcover woodland plant that also looks really good.
03:09They're not just filling a space, they're performing as well.
03:14Both these plants come from the damp woodlands or forests of the west of America.
03:21So don't stick it in very dry shade.
03:30It's gardening convention that plants look better placed in odd numbers than even.
03:37If you plant in threes, fives, sevens, even nines,
03:40it tends to look more natural than if you do it in twos or fours or sixes.
03:46So I tend to plant in triangles, in groups of three.
03:53If you want a mass defect of any kind,
03:56it's nearly always more economic and more successful
03:59to buy lots of small plants than a few really big ones.
04:04Small plants establish much more easily and they're much cheaper.
04:16Although I absolutely love the creativity of making a new garden,
04:22the thing I love most in the world is actually planting.
04:27On a spring day, with the sun shining, the birds are sinning,
04:31putting plants in the ground, knowing that they're going to grow,
04:34that sense of hope and satisfaction all comes together
04:38and it's just as joyous now as it ever has been in my life.
04:43Now we're going to visit Mary Keane.
04:45Now Mary Keane, over a long period of time,
04:48has been one of our best-known garden designers and writers
04:52and she's made gardens all over the world.
04:55But Jo has been to see her in her own garden at home.
05:02When I think of gardening royalty, Mary Keane is right up there.
05:07And what sets her apart is her instinct for planting.
05:13From Grand British Gardens to designs across the world,
05:17Mary's work is about atmosphere and emotion.
05:21And she designs gardens that are to be loved,
05:24lived in and feel truly alive.
05:27But down this path is something even more personal.
05:30It's her own sanctuary.
05:32And it's not somewhere that she shares very often.
05:35So this is a real treat.
05:42So Mary, you design gardens for, well, the rich and famous royalty.
05:48Some very high-profile clients.
05:50Quite high-profile.
05:51I'm not allowed to talk about any of them.
05:53I know, we're not going to talk about any of them.
05:54OK, Jo.
05:55But what I'm interested in is how different it is
05:58designing their gardens and designing your own garden.
06:01It's completely different.
06:02I like small-flowered plants that you see through and that are ephemeral.
06:08I'm not doing display.
06:09I'm doing atmosphere.
06:11And it's for me to potter and wander about in the morning and in the evening
06:16and in 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.
06:22And the actual layout, did you draw it out on a piece of paper?
06:25No, I didn't.
06:26It's two rectangles, like two tennis courts, end on end.
06:30And I knew I wanted some flower beds for conventional plants.
06:35And then I wanted two-thirds, which we're in now, to be wild, with wildflowers all year.
06:42And I made this S line of beauty path through it to make the garden seem longer and more mysterious.
06:50If you've got a small garden, you want to be able to walk around it and to feel like a
06:54sort of adventure.
07:00Oh, this is energising, Mary.
07:02I've got to say, what style of planting would you call this border, then?
07:06Mixed?
07:07Can we call it mixed?
07:08It sounds a bit boring.
07:10It's got lots of stuff in, like, snowdrops and hellebores underneath, so it goes on all the time.
07:15And then these sort of bursts of colour, like the Henry lily and the agapanthus.
07:21Don't ask me.
07:22I mean, I think it's a head-borne hybrid, but it's just a good dark form.
07:25Yeah.
07:26I love the orange.
07:26Some people don't like orange.
07:28I love orange.
07:29I like it.
07:29I love it.
07:30There really is a lot to see because you're planting in small groups here, like you said, not large brushstrokes.
07:37No.
07:37And it's got a sort of wild feel.
07:39And the more you look, the more you see.
07:40You could stand here for hours and just look at the detail.
07:48A plantswoman at her core, Mary has filled her garden with plants.
07:52That bring her joy.
07:54Not as you might expect in the usual arrangements of threes or fives.
07:58More like an artist playing with colour on a canvas.
08:04Mary's really got me thinking because I've been reticent to use purple foliage plants in my garden, mainly going for
08:12greens.
08:12But she inherited that purple berberus, which is on the boundary, and she's picked it up in colours and stems
08:19of other plants.
08:20Like the thalictrum there has got dark stems.
08:24We've got the hollyhopp with those purple flowers, really deep colours.
08:28And over here, we've got the foliage of the dahlias and that red sanguissorba in the back there as well.
08:34And it's really got me thinking.
08:35It has a lovely depth to the planting, colour-wise, and a nice rhythm as well.
08:41Might have to use it.
08:50So, has this border got a name?
08:52Well, that border beyond that we've just looked at is wild and high and shrubby.
08:58And this one is the transition between wild and high and shrubby not totally working, and a much more gardened,
09:07flowery look against the wall.
09:10So, that's the floweriest, chaddest bed.
09:13Catchy names you've got there for them.
09:16I love the hollyhocks.
09:17I love the height, because a lot of people think, oh, tall plants, you've got to put them at the
09:20back of the border.
09:21But you're bringing them to the foreground and you're looking through them.
09:25Well, I love the looking through tall plants.
09:27That's my aim always, to look through.
09:30I love this euphorbia.
09:33It's Segueriana.
09:34What is it you love about euphorbias, Mary?
09:37Oh, well, I like their greenness.
09:39You like euphorbias too, don't you?
09:40Love them.
09:41I love their leaves.
09:43I love the fact that they perform all year.
09:46It's the zinginess, isn't it?
09:48They set off other plants in the garden so well.
09:52And the Dianthus carthusian aurum.
09:54That is my favourite plant.
09:56Your favourite plant of all time.
09:59I've got a lot of favourite plants, but that is currently my favourite plant.
10:02Yeah, OK.
10:04Desert Island plants.
10:05Desert Island, I'm allowed eight.
10:07No, that's records.
10:08OK.
10:10No, but it's fabulous.
10:10The thing about it is it grows in shade, it grows in gravel, it grows in the border, and it
10:15flowers for a long, long time.
10:17I 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 the front
10:32of the garden, all you see is plants.
10:35You've got an apple tree, we're planting all the way around it.
10:37No voids whatsoever.
10:39And before I came, I thought, oh, there's going to be some unusual stuff, some rare things.
10:44I better gem up a little bit.
10:45But actually, what's lovely is they're mainly cottage garden-style plants and things that we can all get our hands
10:52on in nurseries and garden centres.
10:54Things like the pinks, the oregano there.
10:57We've got crocosmere here, peonies, iris, fennel, agapanthus.
11:05And it's all put together so effortlessly too.
11:12This is idyllic, this courtyard.
11:14It's beautiful.
11:15Well, I rather love it, because it's got a lot of rarities.
11:18You said there weren't any rarities in the rest of the garden.
11:21This is the rarity corner here.
11:23Well, I can see this is more unusual, it's more exotic.
11:26Yeah, I like a challenge.
11:27I've got the fuchsia climbing Lady Boothby.
11:30That's lovely.
11:32And Melianthus.
11:32Melianthus, which Joe likes.
11:34I like it.
11:34Well, I think it looks great there.
11:36Yeah, I know, I think it's lovely, actually.
11:38And what about the one by the door over there?
11:40Oh, that's Begonia albopictorosia.
11:44It'll stay out all summer and then it'll go in the kitchen in the winter.
11:47So of all the gardens that you've created, how does this one rate?
11:51When people ask me, what's my favourite garden?
11:54I always say mine, of course, and they're quite surprised.
11:58But of course, isn't yours your favourite garden?
12:01Most definitely.
12:02Because that's where you can garden and that's what we want to do.
12:05It just is the place where I feel completely at home and myself.
12:10The passion comes across from you so strongly.
12:15Oh, Joe.
12:16Thank you so much.
12:16This has been amazing seeing you.
12:18It was lovely having you here.
12:19Thank you for coming.
12:21Thanks for inviting us.
12:40Come on.
12:51Many, many years ago, I visited Mary Keane's previous garden in Berkshire.
12:56It was wonderful.
12:57And she was the very first person to come and see my garden in London 43 years ago.
13:04And she wrote an article about it and arguably started my career as a garden writer and broadcaster.
13:10So it's fascinating to see her garden now.
13:14Now, I'm just gathering one or two of these scented leaf pelargoniums,
13:18which I'm going to take down to the end because it's time to give them a bit of attention.
13:30Come on, panty boy.
13:32Hot panty boy.
13:39The thing about these scented leaf pelargoniums is obviously, as the name suggests, their fragrance.
13:46Now, this is tormentosum, and you rub the leaf and it releases this strong odour of peppermint.
13:54It's really powerful.
13:56Now, this is a new variety called Torrento, which rather weirdly smells of those little cola sweets.
14:05It is slightly weird, I have to confess, but interesting.
14:10And there are lots and lots of fragrances, from the slightly 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.
14:31It comes from South Africa.
14:33And rather than these relatively compact plants with big flowers, when you see them growing wild,
14:41they can be big shrubs, big woody shrubs, sort of six foot tall, with smaller flowers,
14:48which are then pruned by fire, but from it they regrow.
14:53And I don't necessarily suggest getting a blowtorch to prune this,
14:57but prune it you must if you don't want it to get really leggy.
15:01These have been in the greenhouse all winter, so they've flowered all winter.
15:06However, you've got to be bold and cut them off now, or else you won't have any in the summer.
15:11It's exhausted and it needs a rest, so if we take off those flowers and cut back, refresh the compost,
15:18water it, feed it, we'll get vigorous new growth, and that will give us a really good display later on
15:25in summer.
15:25You can cut these really hard, or if you like a little bit of legginess, and I do, then you
15:33include that.
15:34So what I'm going to do is just cut here, which leaves a bit of stem, and then here.
15:45And that can come off there.
15:49Now, this one, the one that smells of cola bottles, I'm going to be much more ruthless.
15:58Take that off.
16:00That there.
16:01Now, can you see there is new growth right at the base, and that's where I'm going back to.
16:07Now, 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.
16:25I don't really want to reduce this at all.
16:27All I'm going to do is take off any spent leaves.
16:33However, this one here, this zonal pelargonium, needs repotting, and I'll show you how to do that.
16:38So I'm going to take it out of the pot, like this.
16:45And what I'm going to do is take off the bottom third.
16:49So we're taking off quite a lot of the compost there.
16:58I've put the crocs back in the bottom.
17:04And I've got some fresh compost here.
17:06Now, this is a wood-based compost, a little bit of garden compost added, and quite a lot of grit.
17:15Just look at the roots on that.
17:19Great.
17:20In you go.
17:28And I'm going to wiggle it to work the soil around the roots.
17:33And then I'm going to dress that with some grit, which just makes it look better.
17:41Give 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.
17:55And keep feeding it until it starts flowering.
17:59I will go through all the pelargoniums, particularly the zonal ones, and set them up for fresh growth
18:05and, of course, a really fresh, good display in the summer months.
18:14Now, 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.
18:34What I'm doing is actually preserving lots of the old varieties.
18:38It's important that these are available for people to grow in their gardens,
18:42because they're not available in shops.
18:44And people forget what very nice heirloom varieties taste like.
18:48Each apple is like rehearing a song you've not heard for a while.
18:52Because 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,
19:04and they say, goodness, I never knew apples could taste like this.
19:13This is Sweet Society.
19:15It's a lovely dessert apple with quite an intense flavour, quite crisp as well.
19:26This is Jumbo, one of my favourite cooking apples, and it cooks down to a lovely applesauce very, very easily.
19:36This is Captain Kidd, a lovely sweet apple with a pear-dropped flavour.
19:40This is Captain Kidd, a lovely sweet apple with a pear-dropped flavour.
19:52I am obsessed with the apples, I'm obsessed with looking after fruit trees and maintaining the collection.
19:58It is a sort of labour of love.
20:03Right now we're amongst the mother trees, so there's about a thousand trees here,
20:07and every single tree is actually a different variety.
20:10And that's essential to have, so that I can harvest Cyan Wood.
20:13And Cyan Wood 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 tree.
20:27If you look at older growth on a tree, those active buds aren't there,
20:31so that's why you can't use older wood and you need new growth.
20:36So right now I'm taking the leaves off the Cyan Wood so that it doesn't actually dry out.
20:42I'll also take 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.
21:02The rootstock obviously determines the vigour of the tree,
21:06and so every apple tree that is in this country is actually made in this way,
21:11where it's actually made up of two parts, the rootstock and the Cyan, which is above that.
21:15And you can usually see the graft union, where it's actually going to have different bark,
21:20it's going to look quite different. So that's the part where you know that any flowers on the top
21:25part of the tree will produce, let's say, your Bramleys or your Cox's Orange Pippins.
21:31So this Cyan Wood that I collected from the mother tree,
21:34I'm going to graft this onto this rootstock right here using a technique called chip budding.
21:38I'm making a shallow cut on the Cyan Wood.
21:45The next stage is to make the exact same incision on the rootstock.
21:56I'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,
22:08and next year and next season's growth, that will grow into a one-year maiden.
22:12So 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.
22:27It's a lot of work. I will probably be spending the best part of 10, 12 hours a day,
22:31both collecting Cyan Wood and chip budding. I'll probably aim to do 500 of these a day.
22:38I'll work well into the night, some nights with a head torch on,
22:41and that's just because there is a shortish period where you have to get quite a lot of work done.
22:50Once you grow an old variety like Ashmead's Kernel, for example,
22:54it's such an unforgettable variety that you become quite excited and passionate about preserving
23:01more and more old varieties, because you realize that these apples are some of the best fruits in
23:07the world. You can go back through time and see how important a certain apple was to a certain area.
23:14Because that apple is cloned, you can actually taste exactly what people were tasting sort of 200,
23:19300, 400 years ago. And you can't really do that with a lot of other fruits.
23:28In the early 90s, when my parents started things here, Britain was actually losing lots of its old
23:34orchards. My parents were quite passionate about actually sourcing old material and creating a
23:40collection, things like Margill or Pitmast and Pineapple. These old varieties, which were such lovely
23:47apples to actually grow and try yourself, they really wanted, you know, everyone to have that experience.
23:56I really wanted to experiment and try and create my own varieties. Eventually, I persuaded my dad to
24:04let me have a sort of a small nook of the nursery where I actually sort of planted seedling varieties,
24:10grafted those out, and eventually, I have actually produced some of my own varieties. Unfortunately,
24:16my 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 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
24:46going to start to thrive and produce apples, firstly, you want to plant the tree in the wintertime 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 lot. So in that very first wintertime, whilst it's dormant, you probably want to cut some branches
25:03off lower down. So these lower branches, in the long term, are not going to be very useful. Perhaps
25:08if you are going to sort of try and train an espalier or step over. But for a freestanding tree,
25:12which generally is what most people plant, you really want a clear trunk lower down so that
25:17maintenance is quite easy. And then at the top of the tree, most people actually want quite a sort
25:22of three-dimensional crown. So imagine a goblet-shaped tree. And those are where you want your fruit,
25:26so that the tree is able to sort of hold itself up whilst carrying heavy fruits.
25:32plants. You can essentially choose where you want the crown of the tree to be by cutting
25:36the leader off at a certain point. Because what happens is if you cut the leader 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
25:51a large sort of cluster of branches coming out. And from that, you can actually select some that will
25:58form a balanced crown of about sort of four branches, five branches.
26:03I would like to think that in a few hundred years time, people might have a Hamid's red pippin tree
26:09in their garden, and they will look up, who was this person? Where did this apple come from?
26:14Oh, I live in Kent. Oh, okay. I know where that, you know, where 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
26:26of my children wants to continue this. I can't think of anything nicer than working alongside
26:31one of them, or all of them, if they all want to join in.
26:35So 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
27:03could only represent this area. So therefore, of course, I really admire what Kareem is doing,
27:09and he's doing it so well. It wouldn't be marvellous if his children carried that on,
27:13his grandchildren. What 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.
27:26Hello. I'm James off of The Traitors. Welcome to Weymouth. I do this for a living, gardening,
27:32so I thought I'd show you my humble abode. This is like a patio area. Obviously, it's a bit early
27:37in the year, but your tulips are coming up now. It's constantly experimenting. Daily, I might move
27:42something around, whatever tickles my fancy. That's part of the fun of gardening, you know. You're never
27:46right and you're never wrong. Everyone's a busker, me included. Structurally, functional down the
27:54middle. I have a family. I don't have any please keep off the grass business. I just like to fill
27:59the beds with everything, just go wild, and I like to let the periwinkle cascade down a bit like a
28:04waterfall. The Hebe just goes wild, and what I love about this, you get the purple, and I've got a
28:10climbing rose that comes through, and the pink and purple intertwine. Beautiful. Now, this is my
28:16pièce de résistance, my favourite bit of the garden, this pear tree. So, basically, this pear tree was
28:22swamped with ivy, and it was on its last legs. It had one little pear on it. We replanted that
28:26seed,
28:27and that is growing down there. That scraping sound you hear in the background is my son. Hello, Noah.
28:34Hello. Rake up the leaves, good man. And I let the kids do what I used to do in my
28:37granddad's garden,
28:38is just learn on the spot. Watch, learn, experiment, trial and error. My great-granddad was an incredible
28:44gardener, lived to 102. So, you know, there's something to be said to be outdoors, you know,
28:50breathing 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 going to put onions down here, carrots in the front row, radishes,
29:03lettuce plants, potentially a cucumber plant running up that. You've got the
29:08job now. It's yours. So, this little area, I salvaged what I could from the wreckage of
29:13a hedgerow. This bay was put in, and it was a twig when we cut it back, but it's, you
29:18know,
29:18been shaped now. No Edward Scissorhands, but, you know, good enough. The little hack I've got is
29:23sedum stone crop. It's good ground cover. It's a great weed suppressor. This came from one clipping
29:28I got, which is incredible. They're up there with periwinkle for me for beautiful, almost like,
29:33forest floor carpet coverage. Here's my bravery award for gardening. This aeonium was left out
29:40all year, kind of as an experiment, really. It was a success story, so I will be trying that again.
29:45I hate to shatter the illusion. It is trial and error gardening. Gardening adds years to your life
29:50and life to your years, and that is like the best quote I think I've ever heard. I want that
29:55on a t-shirt.
29:56That'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. Longmeadow 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.
30:43The 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 have to feel warm, it just doesn't feel
30:53cold. Then you're away and you can get going. And what I'm actually going to put in here is, for
30:59me,
31:00a bit unusual. This is garlic. And nine years out of ten, I plant garlic directly into the bed,
31:09usually in September, but certainly no later than October. But I couldn't get the bulbs to plant
31:16until October, late October. And by then, the ground was too wet. So what I did is I planted
31:22them up into these plugs. I brought them on in the greenhouse for about the first month,
31:26and then they've been outside all winter. Because for garlic to form cloves, rather than just a single
31:32bulb, 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
31:45all winter, this system of planting the garlic in deep plugs or three-inch pots and then planting
31:51out when the ground is ready, I think, can work very well.
32:05Now, last August, Carol went to RHS Rosemore to see their vegetable garden and potager. And of course,
32:13I'm sure they produce delicious food. And I'm pretty sure that all of it gets eaten. But it also looks
32:20fantastic.
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 feed the whole street. There are so many ideas here we can take away and use in
32:53any size
32:54garden, or even without one. There are examples all around of veg, herbs and fruit growing in
33:01containers. There are tomatoes, chillies, aubergines, basil, parsley, an array of herbs,
33:08flowers and even a glorious apple tree. Traditionally, in larger gardens, fruit and veg are separated from
33:17flower borders to be more productive. But that's not practical in smaller spaces. So, if you want to
33:25grow 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.
33:37There are vegetables galore here, but it has a whole different aesthetic
33:43from the vegetable garden. In the vegetable garden, everything's grown in serried ranks.
33:48Here, everything's grown because it looks beautiful next to its neighbour. The whole idea is about design,
33:57using vegetables ornamentally and making them look utterly beautiful.
34:04The overall design in this garden is important. It's based on a circle. There's a circular herb garden
34:11in the centre, and around it are arranged four symmetrical beds. Although everything's edible,
34:17it's all about what plants look like together. So, you've got beautiful chard here, with these pink
34:25stems. But over there, another Swiss chard, but this time with golden stems, with a sunlight
34:32streaming through it. It's hugely versatile. And what's more, you can eat it right the way through
34:38the year. It'll overwinter wonderfully. It's very, very hardy. I love the addition of these tagetes
34:45all around the edge of this bed. There's the tall one here, which is one called cinnamon. But the point
34:52is, it's single, which means it's hugely attractive to pollinating insects. And of course, that's just
34:59what you need to pollinate your beans and lots of your other flowering plants. And then, for a bit of
35:05drama in the background, we've got this amaranth. This is one called red army, with these very dark
35:12stems and dark flowers and seed heads. Amaranth is a wonderful vegetable. It's grown all around the world
35:19for its leaves. Here, it's grown both to eat, but also decoratively. Now, everything's set against each
35:27other here, to give interest in texture and colour. But also, there's height from these beans growing up an
35:34obelisk in the corner. And next door to them, another vertical emphasis, that great big orac, looking
35:41gorgeous in seed against the blue sky. And then, right in the middle, these two sentinels, these great
35:49big plants of bronze fennel. Another interesting texture to add to what already exists right the
35:56way through the bed, and in fact, right the way through the garden. How about this for a novel idea?
36:04If you've got a fence separating one bit of the garden from the other, don't just leave it. Grow
36:10something up it. Grow something like this beautiful plant. This is an ornamental gourd. And it's just
36:18using the fence as support. All along these stems, flowers are produced, both male and female. And when
36:25the bees have moved the pollen onto the female flowers, they'll turn into fruit. Now, on this plant,
36:31they're ornamental gourd, so they're not edible. But there are so many members of the Cucurbit family
36:37that grow in exactly the same way, that are utterly delicious. Squash and pumpkins for a start.
36:44All they need to grow successfully is loads of sun and lots of water. Beautiful.
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
37:11a really, really low plant, and yet it's extremely productive. Just look at the apples here. And all
37:18that happens is, as the apple comes up, two big shoots are trained horizontally along wires. The
37:25wires are just a couple of feet off the ground. And it's tied in and keeps making progress all the
37:31time.
37:32And each time it sends out a side shoot, that's cut back to a couple of buds, which is when
37:38it makes
37:39these fruiting spurs and eventually these lovely, delicious apples too. But another wonderful way of
37:47training apples is this. This is an espalier, and it's a beautiful example of this technique.
37:53So here's the central trunk. And this time, these branches have been trained out horizontally.
38:01These ones first, obviously, the plant has grown up a couple of feet, and then two more are trained
38:07out sideways. Again, that happens. Third one, and probably you'd end up with a fourth one you have here.
38:15And all the way up, you've got this bountiful crop of apples. So even in a tiny space, or on
38:23a flat wall,
38:24or in between two parts of a garden, you can produce a plant which gives you loads and loads of
38:31fruit.
38:34Throughout the veg garden, there are glorious examples of companion planting. As here,
38:40with this wonderful archway full of fig leaf gourds. Look at those beautiful fruits. But at their feet
38:48are growing tagetes, and they are supposed to deter whiteflies and other kinds of apis. They've got a
38:55really strong, pungent smell, and they bring in all sorts of pollinating insects.
39:00The potager and the vegetable garden show us all that, with a little bit of creativity,
39:08we can put vegetables and flowers together to produce something which is just as beautiful
39:14as any bed or border.
39:40So here's another change that we made over the winter. This is the mound. And for the last
39:46six or seven years, these have been big beds on either side of the path with roses and quite big
39:54planting. But the space was awkward. So I've taken them out, and this has been laid as a terrace.
40:03Here, you're raised up. I'm looking down on the new woodland garden, which is pleasing, and so I'm very happy
40:10with the result.
40:22This has proved to be the perfect place to keep house plants. And they're happy in here for three reasons.
40:29The 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 is 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.
41:32I'm going to start with the cheese plant because this poor thing is not in a good state. Look,
41:36it's fallen completely over. It's lost its support. And if I put it on the table for a minute,
41:42you can see what's happened. This here has broken away. So the first thing to do is to prune it.
41:50Now,
41:50now is the time to prune a cheese plant. Too big, reduce it in size. If it's damaged, take off
41:57the
41:58damaged part. By and large, it's actually not at all unhealthy. Can you see me through the leaves?
42:06It's looking quite happy. So the first thing I need to do is to support it.
42:12Make sure they're strong and make sure they're tied in well. When you're tying up any plant,
42:17always use soft twine so it doesn't damage the plant. There we go. If the leaves get at all dusty,
42:29just wipe them with a damp cloth. With your fingers, just remove some of the compost, maybe the top inch,
42:38and then top it up. So a soil-based compost or a bark-based compost with plenty of drainage.
42:47This just gives it a little bit of extra goodness to kick off this fresh growing season.
42:54The next thing to do is to give this a good drink. What I have is a very weak solution
43:00of seaweed feed,
43:01and I'm going to water that in until it's running out of the bottom.
43:05Let it be sodden, and then let it really drain well.
43:13Now this spider plant is moderately happy,
43:16and spider plants are one of the few house plants that actually can be a bit wetter than most,
43:22because they're very forgiving. So if you do overwater them, you're unlikely to kill them.
43:27But once a week is plenty.
43:29With house plants, you may experience little flies.
43:33These are fungus mats, and they are living off decaying organic matter in the compost.
43:39And one of the reasons why it's decaying is because it's too wet.
43:42So the quickest way to get rid of it is take off the top layer of compost,
43:46replace it with fresh, give it a soak, and then only water it again when it's bone dry.
43:52What I'm going to do with this now is give it an immersive soak.
43:57Hold it down until it stays under the water. Can you see the bubbles coming up there?
44:03It's bubbling like a man who's had Jerusalem artichokes before his bath.
44:09You've got a good way of watering house plants that have become so dry that the water just
44:14seems to bounce off the top. Now, while that's having a soak, I'm going to deal with the Chinese
44:19money plant. And what I'm going to do with this is repot it. That's pretty firmly in there.
44:26A little trick is to use a cane in the bottom and just push like that. Now, you can see
44:32that
44:32that is essentially pot bound. If you can see more roots than compost, it needs repotting.
44:39Now, I'm going to put it back in the same pot, rather than putting it in a bigger pot.
44:43So I'm going to remove some of the existing roots and compost. I'm just going to use my fingers.
44:48I'm just going to scrape away a bit like this, creating room for some fresh compost and therefore
44:57fresh roots to grow into. We'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. If you're not
45:23sure how much to water or when to water, you can never go wrong by increasing the humidity. So place
45:31them somewhere where you can spray them so their leaves are distinctly damp and sometimes running
45:36with water without damaging carpets or curtains or cushions. And having watered them, if any is
45:42accumulated in the saucer that's beneath them, throw that away. Don't let them sit in the wet. And that
45:49will do for most house plants. Of course, it doesn't apply to cacti or succulents, which are another
45:56whole thing altogether. Now, the whole point of house plants is that they deliver all the year
46:03around. But out in the garden, there are some plants that are absolutely of the season and only perform
46:11for a few brief, bright weeks, but are really special when they do. And we went down to Cornwall
46:20to visit a grower of camellias, which of course are at their best now. And I think you might truly
46:27say
46:28that he does love a camellia.
46:38I'm described by my missus as a serial obsessive and my current obsessions are camellias.
46:46Really 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 Stephens. I've been in professional waterculture all my life.
47:09This is my garden in Dogwalls in southeast Cornwall. And we've been here for about 35 years now.
47:17Camellias give me interest in the garden from late autumn right through to spring,
47:22when not much else is happening. Being evergreen shrubs, providing greenery through the winter,
47:27and form a background for everything else that's going on. They're beautiful.
47:32Look at that.
47:39There 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 flowers
47:51six inches diameter in vivid pink and everything in between. You've got perfume, you've got big growers,
47:57you've got small growers. There's got to be a camellia for everybody. I've got a couple of dozen
48:02here. When I've shown you them all, I want you to put your hand on your heart and say you
48:07don't like any of them.
48:11This is Camellia Annette Carroll, which has long been one of my favourites. It always performs really
48:16well every year. I love the way it opens from its really deep pink bud and then fades. So at
48:21any one
48:21time you've got a sort of range of different colours across the bush.
48:29Well this is one called Camellia japonica bob hope. As good a deep rich red camellia as you'll get,
48:37but a very typical japonica type camellia. So it's a fairly solid presence in the garden. This one has
48:43been here probably 12 or 15 years and I've kept it around about the same size by taking a couple
48:49of
48:49years growth off every second year. When you read gardening books they'll often tell you that
48:56Camellias don't need pruning, but if you don't prune them they'll grow into small trees and are much
49:02too 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 vigorous 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,
49:36which comprise 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 harbour at dawn. And this is a Lutruensis hybrid,
49:51which means that it's beautifully perfumed. Right beside that towering above it is Camellia
49:57Reticulata mystique, which is very, very different. It's a very blousy, pretty pink thing.
50:05Camellia Reticulata is the prima donna of the Camellia world and this I guess is what most
50:11people would associate with Camellias. This is what they would be thinking of.
50:15Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. That to me is beautiful. At the other extreme are things like
50:22this. This is Camellia Lutruensis, which is a species such as you'd find growing in the world.
50:27So the flowers are tiny, they're single flowers. They're quite sweetly perfumed, which the vast
50:33majority of Camellias are not. And then the third one that I've got here is a variety called Koto no
50:38Kaori,
50:39which is a hybrid between Lutruensis and a Japonica variety. And this, to my mind, combines
50:46the best of both worlds. You've got the colour, you've got the floriferousness of it,
50:50plus you've got the perfume.
50:57This is my propagator and I took this batch of cuttings very late July, early August last year.
51:04They've been pretty much undisturbed since then, just watered 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 pare the bark off just down one side,
51:32which is just enough wounding to stimulate rooting a bit, and stuck it in the propagator.
51:38So that needs to be potted up 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 Transnocoensis,
51:58with tiny little white flowers. Very, very strong contrast with this and the debbie behind it,
52:05the typical, what people would think of as camellias. Perhaps wouldn't even recognise this
52:09as a camellia at all. But it has a much more natural, relaxed habit of growth, a very thin,
52:15twiggy, upright habit of growth that might be much more appropriate to a lot of people's more natural
52:21type gardeners 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,
53:00because I'm one of those terrible people that has not yet learnt to love them. Maybe it will come to
53:07me.
53:08But I do love hydrangeas, and I've got some here in the writing garden. You may notice that we've made
53:14some changes over winter, because when we put the doghouse up last summer, we put a path in front of
53:20it, and it was a bit narrow. So we widened the path to make a terraced area, and now there
53:26is space to put
53:27big pots. I've got two, and I'm putting in hydrangea paniculata. Hydrangeas cope well in light shade,
53:36and they need relatively good drainage. And the great thing about paniculata, they can be pruned hard
53:43every year. So therefore, you can grow them in a pot without them getting too big. First things first,
53:50it needs a crock in the bottom. It's not so much to improve the drainage, but it's to stop the
53:55compost
53:56falling out the bottom of the pot. I've already mixed up a mixture of grit, plenty of our homemade
54:04leaf mould, and the rest is peat-free compost. Right. Now that obviously gives lots of room for growth,
54:23and because this is a great big pot, I do want it to be dramatic. This is a hydrangea paniculata
54:29kaiushu, and it carries conical white flowers, June, July, August. A lot of hydrangeas you think of
54:37as being September, coming into their best later in summer and into autumn. Also, the critical thing
54:43about them is they flower on new wood. Right, let's take it out the pot.
54:52As a rule of thumb, when you're planting anything in a pot, leave 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.
55:19Give it a good soak. As well as watering it and giving it moisture, it's moving the soil around the
55:27roots. And I will water this weekly. Now, what you see will carry no flowers at all, so these stems
55:35will be bare. The new growth will carry the flowers. Eventually, what I want is a plant that is about
55:42seven foot tall, festooned with white conical flowers. Now, I've got some jobs you could do this weekend.
56:04Budlea 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. If you go down to two buds from the base of the plant, that's
56:22about as low as you need go,
56:23or maybe about two or three foot. But be brave and cut hard.
56:37Now is a great time to sow cosmos for a really good late summer display.
56:43Fill a seed tray with peat-free compost, and carefully sprinkle the seeds so they're evenly placed across it.
56:51Cover them over, water them, and the best way to do this is to dip it in a tray of
56:55water for about 10 minutes,
56:57and then put them somewhere warm to germinate, and they should be ready to prick out in a few weeks'
57:02time.
57:08If you've got hyacinths that you've grown for an indoor display over winter,
57:12or any other bulbs that you've grown in containers, you can plant them out into the garden when they've
57:19finished flowering. Put the whole thing untidied up, leaves, stems and all, into the soil, bury them,
57:29and let them die back naturally, and they will flower next year.
58:03I will take these buddlier cuttings and put them through a shredder, and then that will go onto
58:10paths, and that way everything gets recycled. Well, that's it for today. It's been a beautiful spring day
58:19here at Longmeadow, and I do hope that you can get out into your garden and enjoy some spring sunshine,
58:27and just this sense of the world breaking free from winter and coming alive again.
58:33I'll see you back here at Longmeadow next time. So, until then, bye-bye.
58:59Longmeadow next time.
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