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00:21Right now, come on. Good boy.
00:44Hello, welcome to an Easter gardener's world. And it's that first moment in the year for
00:53many people when you can get outside and really appreciate the garden as something to offer
00:58you delight, rather than a series of jobs that need to be done. And the cottage garden
01:04here at Longmeadow is beginning to be delightful. It's just starting to show its colours, but
01:10those colours are very much geared towards pastels, obviously pinks, and then lilacs and
01:17mauves. And, when I can get it, my favourite colour of all in the garden, which is apricot.
01:26Now, there are very, very few flowers that are naturally apricot. They tend to be bred
01:32from a combination of pink and orange. Sometimes you have too much pink, sometimes too much orange,
01:38and occasionally they just hit the sweet spot, but then another one of the same variety doesn't.
01:44It's my obsession. But it is good fun working on a colour theme. And what I have here is a
01:51geom. This is geom Mai Tai. It's from the cocktail series. It's not true apricot, but it's touched
01:58with it. It's got a base of a soft yellow and then flushed with a very orangey pink. The cocktail
02:06series
02:06are particularly low, so great for the front of a border or in a pot, but they flower from, depending
02:12where you are, mid-April right the way through till June. And if you keep deadheading, they will keep
02:17on flowering. That one has got flowers on it. When you're buying a plant from a garden centre, tend to
02:25those that don't have flowers on it, because it's used up the energy of the plant to produce flowers,
02:30and you want that energy going into your garden. So, check out the flowers, make sure it's the colour
02:35you want, and then choose plants that are not yet flowering.
02:41OK, we can get one in here. And I think another over here. Right, that will do for this bit.
02:47Now, the foxclubs. I want to plant those now, because they're bare root. And if you're moving plants
02:52in the garden, move them quickly. The quicker you move them, the less they'll mind being moved.
03:01I've got here some foxclubs called Apricot Delight. Never grown it before. I've grown
03:06from seed. They look as though they could be wonderful. And foxclubs are either a biennial
03:11or a short-lived perennial. And what that means is, they will not flower in their first
03:16year. They flower in their second year. And some won't flower again. They'll set seed
03:21and die back. Quite a few will reappear the next year, maybe even as many as four years.
03:27But by and large, their best performance is in the year after sowing.
03:34Right, I'm going to get this in the ground. And these are in the ground.
03:52It's brilliant planting weather. Over Easter is a really good time. Perfect for herbaceous
03:59perennials or biennials, or even annuals for that matter. Get them in the ground, because
04:04the sooner the roots can get in, the better they're going to cope with summer heat. And
04:08this relates to geoms in particular, because geoms are a plant that really don't like to
04:13be dry. They do their best in moisture-retentive ground. So that's not a bog. They're not a
04:18water plant, but they're not good in very light sand or pure chalk or anything like that.
04:23But they really like soil that can retain moisture. And, of course, you can always improve the
04:30water retention of your soil by adding organic matter.
04:40Now, Ashley went down to Leonard's Lee garden in West Sussex to celebrate spring by looking
04:47at it in detail.
04:54For me, early spring carries a quiet magic. The natural world is awakening, and there's
05:00a thrilling sense of possibility in the air. Colour is returning, buds are swelling, and plant
05:08life unfolds a little more each day.
05:12The garden may seem calm, but that stillness can be deceptive. There's a world of excitement
05:18waiting if you just slow down and look closely.
05:29Magnolias are the real stars of early spring. While most trees wait for their leaves to appear
05:36before flowering, with magnolias, the flowers come first.
05:41I've just noticed this. This is Magnolia Leonard Messel, and it's a really delicate form of
05:48magnolia. There's so many different varieties. What I love about this one is it's got this
05:52two-tone colour to the petals. The outside a lot more of a pastel pink, and the inside this
05:58lovely pale pink. So when you're looking at it from different angles, you get those different
06:02colours. When you look really closely at the buds, you can see they're really fuzzy. They're
06:07almost like little rabbit feet, and this fur actually protects them from cold weather, meaning
06:12that they can flower earlier in the year.
06:15Magnolia flowers are monoecious, and this means that both male and female reproductive organs
06:20are on the same plant. Magnolias evolved nearly a hundred million years ago when bees didn't
06:26exist and dinosaurs still roamed the earth. So they relied on beetles to pollinate them.
06:31So lots of magnolias have robust anthers and stigmas to support these large insects. And
06:37you can see this in some of these flowers here. They're almost like plastic. They're so tough.
06:43Once you start to notice the little details like these buds, you realise that the garden
06:48is full of the promise of spring.
07:01Wow. This is Katsura tree, or Circedophyllum japonicum, also sometimes called the toffee apple tree, because
07:09it has this really sugary scent when the leaves drop in autumn. But I've never noticed the flowers
07:14before, and they're like little flames or tentacles. These are the male flowers of this tree.
07:19There's such a small window of opportunity to see this, so I feel really lucky to be here
07:24just at the right time.
07:33This area of the garden is famous for its rhododendrons, many of which are hybrids that were bred here more
07:40than a century ago. And this one is just starting to show its full colour. But if you look closely,
07:45you can see the different stages we're at now. So you've got the closed bud here, and you can tell
07:51it's a flower bud because it's really fat and juicy. And it also has these really beautiful scales.
07:56Some rhododendron buds have a sticky resin, and this helps to protect it from insect attack,
08:01and also from any wet weather. On this one you can see the flower petals just emerging,
08:07and this is beautiful in its own right. They look like little tongues to me. And then these ones are
08:11in full colour now, and that just shows how you've got these stages, this progression of flowering on this plant.
08:30This is a great example of layering in the garden. You've got your large shrubs and trees like this
08:36pyris above me, and it's been crown lifted, so it opens up opportunity for planting underneath.
08:42So you have your second layer of smaller shrubs and herbaceous plants like these beautiful
08:46hellebores, which are in full flower now. So it provides that early season colour and interest.
08:52And then you've got ground cover like this pakisandra here, which provides a lovely foliage for the
08:57forest floor. And this is something you can apply to any garden, doesn't matter what size you've got.
09:02You could even do it in a container. So you could have a large shrub with smaller filler plants like
09:07hellebores, and then something that trails like vinca. It's a great way to make the most of your space,
09:13and it also means that when these early flowering plants are finished,
09:18you still have all that texture to see throughout the year.
09:30Some shrubs really come into their own in early spring, when colour and fragrance can still be a
09:37little thin on the ground. One of my favourites is this. It's Edgeworthia chrysantha grandiflora,
09:44and it has these amazing ball-shaped flowers. The flowers also appear before the leaves, so it means that
09:50they really stand out, and it packs such a powerful scent. And this acts as a signal. Insects are waking
09:56up from hibernation this time of year. So by putting this scent out there, it says,
09:59I'm open for business. Come and get some nectar.
10:04Planting nectar-rich plants doesn't just give you a beautiful garden, but it also gives wildlife a head
10:10start. Over here we have Coriolopsis porciflora, and it has these delicate pendant-like yellow flowers,
10:17which look like little lanterns. The great thing about this is you could have it in a small garden.
10:22It stays compact, and it has this really nice arching habit to it. If you want to prune your
10:28spring flowering shrubs, the best time to do it is straight after they finish flowering,
10:31because they soon start to produce the growth that will have next year's flowers on.
10:42Once you tune into the season, the signs of spring are everywhere. I've just spotted this, and it's
10:49a emerging leaf bud. And I can tell this because they are very narrow, and you can just make out
10:55the
10:55little fingers of the emerging leaves. And this one has emerged a bit more, and you can see this beautiful
11:01pink hue that it has. It's a type of chestnut, and it will also flower later in the year. But
11:07now,
11:07we can appreciate the foliage. Spotting signs like these is a great way to read your garden,
11:13and it gives you an idea of things to come.
11:28These lakes are stunningly beautiful. And in these cooler temperatures, the surface of the water is
11:34calmer, and it creates this mirrored effect. I can see the trees reflected in the surface, and also the
11:40golden hues of the daffodils in the distance. It's something you could even try at home. You don't
11:47need a massive lake. You could have your own container with water in it to reflect angles from
11:52your garden. It's a great way to add a sense of serene calm into your space.
12:11The soundscape is a huge part of spring for me, and if you listen closely, it tells a story. The
12:17garden
12:18is waking up again, and we too are part of that quiet renewal.
12:27Simply spending time outdoors and noticing those small changes can be surprisingly restorative.
12:33Spring is such a short season, but that's what makes it so special. It's a reminder to slow down,
12:38notice the changes, and really savour the season, because before you know it, it's past.
13:06The thing that I love about spring more than any other season is that it has shifts and changes
13:12over at least two, if not three months. There's an awful lot going on. And one of the things at
13:17the
13:17moment on the mound that really appeals to me is this. It's a Forsythia. Now, Forsythia is as common as
13:24muck.
13:24I mean, there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them around the country.
13:28But this particular one is a bit more unusual. It's Forsythia suspensa nimans. And I've chosen it because
13:37it's got this pale yellow and this quite loose structure and form, and works perfectly with the
13:43daffodils that we have here on the mound. Now, this combination will only last a week at the most,
13:47and then it'll move on and other things will take their place. And I think that's the joy of spring.
14:05Okay.
14:07Good boy. Come on.
14:29I've added a bit of compost to this raised bed, because I'm about to plant up a bed for cut
14:36flowers,
14:37and I'm adding in some ranunculus, ranunculus asiaticus, or sometimes called the Persian
14:42buttercup. But unlike the buttercups you see in fields where they're sort of open, simple petals,
14:47these have a mass of petals that form a kind of globe. These will flower hopefully from about the
14:56end of May into June, planted in December and then kept in the greenhouse and gradually hardened off.
15:04Or you could plant the tubers now, and they would flower later in summer.
15:14I'm going to space these out about six inches apart. And the thing about cut flowers is that you can
15:21plant them closer together than you otherwise would in the border. There are two reasons for that. One,
15:25they're not going to be there for as long. And two, you want the stems to grow tall. You almost
15:31want to
15:31force them up so you get decent stumbling. Choose a spot that's relatively shady and soil that is well drained,
15:41but enriched.
15:54The thing to remember when you're growing ranunculus is that they're half hardy.
15:59So if you live in a very sheltered area that hardly ever gets frost, and if it does it's just
16:03a touch of it,
16:04they may well overwinter, and they're perennial, and they will come back. But anywhere that reliably
16:13gets two or three degrees of frost or more, they're very unlikely to survive that. So treat them as annuals.
16:34I will need to water these in. It's really important that this time of year water everything
16:39you plant thoroughly. I will also have to have a bit of fleece handy for the next month,
16:45just in case we get some late frost, which we can do here. And a bit of fleece covering them
16:50overnight should be enough. So that bed is sorted. The two back beds have got tulips in them,
16:57and these are tulips that I'm trialing. And the ones I like, and maybe only one or two,
17:01I will then order more next year, and they can graduate to the garden proper. Now this bed,
17:08last autumn, I sowed with hardy annuals, particularly amy, amy magus and amy visnaga,
17:16and a bit of wild carrot. However, we had a really cold snap for a few days in November,
17:23followed by one of the wettest winters ever. And I'm afraid that did for them, because if that
17:28wasn't enough, we've had a mass of rabbits this winter, and rabbits love amy more than anything
17:34else. So we lost a lot, doesn't matter. I've now got a free bed, and I want to use it
17:38for cut flowers
17:39again. And I'm going to sow scabious. I love scabious. It makes a brilliant cut flower, makes a
17:44brilliant border flower, and I love the dark colours. Now I've got a variety here called black night,
17:49which is really deep, rich, burgundy speckled with white.
17:57Put them into your hand. Probably best not to do this on a windy day. And just sprinkle thinly.
18:09I'll show you a tip for sowing any kind of seed outside in the garden that I was shown when
18:14I was
18:14a boy. And it works. Draw a drill with your hand. And sow your seeds. And then just simply put
18:25your
18:25thumb and your fingers either side of the drill, and run down either side of it like that. And it
18:31pushes the soil up over the seeds. Works a treat. Now, I grow cut flowers in these few special beds,
18:39and they're brilliant for the house. However, you don't need special beds. Just to pick a small
18:44bunch of flowers from your garden is an utter joy. But for some people, it's more than a joy. It
18:50becomes transformative. It changes their lives. And I think that's absolutely the case for Hattie Colvin.
18:55And we went to visit her at her home in Carmarthenshire.
19:04Flowers are a passion of mine. And I think the more I grow, the more obsessed I become.
19:10I don't think I'll ever have enough.
19:15Just seeing something go from nothing through to a huge display of wondrous colour, I think, is just
19:24something really special. My name's Hattie, and this is my flower farm in Clondilo, Wales.
19:40I'm unapologetically in love with flowers. I could not be without dahlias. So this flower is one of my
19:49favourites. I can never pick an actual favourite. It's called Dunaj or Dunay, depending on how you
19:55pronounce it. It's a pom-pom variety. I love the kind of intensity of the pink colour on the very
20:02small
20:03sort of ball-shaped form and the incredible formation of petals. The pom-pom shape is better
20:09for cutting because they tend to have a bit of a longer vase life cut at the right stage. You
20:14cut before
20:15the centre opens and then it'll last a lot longer.
20:24This one is preference. Preference is incredibly prolific. It does need quite a lot of food and
20:32nutrition, mostly because it produces so many flowers. It just gets a bit tired by the end of
20:38the season if you don't keep it topped up. So our soil here is very clay, so I spend a
20:45lot of time
20:45making sure that the soil is looked after. I use lots of different types of farmyard manure to mulch
20:53the beds. Every time I plant, I make sure that I replenish some of the goodness back into the soil.
21:00When I start seedlings, I use a seaweed feed as well when they're in their trays. Again,
21:08just to make sure that they have a really great start to life. And I find that keeping the plants
21:13as healthy as they can possibly be means that they're more resistant to pests.
21:26I used to live and work in London as an accountant. I did get a lot of joy out of
21:31what I did, but it
21:32wasn't for me. My partner was in Wales and I felt very much the pull towards being here in somewhere
21:39that was back to nature and slower paced. I was commuting back and forwards to London,
21:47so had a lot of thinking time in the car. I had a few dahlias. I found them just
21:55so exciting and loved all the different shapes and the colours and the kind of flounciness.
22:01And I decided that I wanted more dahlias. So that kind of formed the idea for,
22:08ooh, what if I could grow cut flowers? In three years, I've ended up with 27 20-metre beds
22:18and polytunnels as well. So yeah, it escalated fairly quickly.
22:29You don't need a huge amount of space to get started with a cutting garden. And actually,
22:35if you choose carefully what you grow, you could have quite a few vases of flowers throughout the
22:41summer to enjoy. So I very quickly learn in my journey of growing that some flowers are much
22:50easier to grow than others. One that is generally pretty steadfast is cosmos. It comes in some really
22:58beautiful shades. It's easy to germinate and then they're fairly indestructible, I find.
23:06This is a really good example of a cosmos that's actually been pollinated already by the bees.
23:12So you see it's gone quite fuzzy on the inside and that sadly means that I can't use it as
23:18a cut
23:19flower because it won't really last and it'll drop its petals. But it does mean that the bees have had
23:24a
23:24lovely time. Scabias are really lovely at cut flower. They're very generous with how many stems you get.
23:40This is called Black Knight and I did once have somebody ask me if I could give them the flower
23:45with the hundreds and thousands on it because it's got the white little sprinkles on the top.
23:50You also get these lovely seed heads which you can either dry or actually use in an arrangement as well.
24:04For anybody that's thinking about starting up their own cutting garden I'd probably recommend
24:09snapdragons. I think they're really majestic looking and always have a really amazing scent.
24:15A perennial option I would definitely go for a geom, something like totally tangerine which is
24:21lovely beautiful colour and it actually keeps flowering from May. Slows down as it gets to later
24:28in the summer but you do still keep getting flowers and I think obviously you'd have to have some dahlias.
24:37As a flower grower you're very much hailed as living the dream and wafting about in the field with a
24:44truck and a floaty dress gathering flowers. One thing that I have definitely learnt is doing this
24:52is a tough tough job. All of the critters want to get to your flowers before you do. The weather
24:58wants
24:59to destroy things. It is not all glamour.
25:09When I'm arranging with flowers I would tend to find something in the field that does really
25:15inspire me to want to show that off and then everything else kind of gets built around that.
25:24I just slowly keep building the bouquet. I want different heights. I've already got some scented
25:31pelargonium. This is a lemon basil and some pennycrest thlaspie to add some green,
25:37some different textures with different foliages and also that is a delightful smell.
25:45There is definitely a huge sense of pride when you're working with flowers that you've grown yourself
25:52and seeing them all kind of come together like little friends and having a little flower party.
25:59I'm going to try and add this one in. It's quite nice and upward facing which this variety isn't normally.
26:08This feels like a really, really lovely representation of what's flowering
26:13right now in the field. It's all of my favourite colour palettes.
26:25It feels like a huge privilege to get to do what I do for a living. I often find it
26:31really hard to
26:32believe that my slightly random dream that came to me on the motorway is actually now a very beautiful
26:40reality.
27:09It's so easy.
27:19I think it's really encouraging that there are more and more people like Hattie that are local
27:24that have got a wide variety of really interesting plants something I would suggest we all support
27:29now it's Easter and traditionally the main Easter job in the garden was planting potatoes
27:36you get your potatoes in the ground now first early should be ready to harvest round about June
27:41second early is July a main crop in the early autumn there's a variety called Charlotte it's
27:50a second early and these have chitted and you can see look that's a really good example of a chitted
27:57potato you get this knobbly growth and it speeds up the growth and therefore the harvest now how you
28:03grow them depends on how much space you've got if you've got plenty of space you've got an allotment
28:08it's a brilliant idea to dig a furrow or a trench put them in the bottom and then heat the
28:13soil back
28:14up to make a ridge over them if you're shorter space or you're growing in raised beds like I am
28:19it couldn't be easier all you do is simply make a hole stick them in with the chitted shoot at
28:28the
28:28top you want to bury it ideally its own depth below the ground I get three across here give
28:42it at least a foot or so if you're growing them in a raised bed you can grow them much
28:46closer together
28:46than you would in rows potatoes really respond to feeding so if you've got any compost or any
28:57manure anything any soil improver it's really worth adding to the soil and that will definitely increase
29:10the harvest yeah yeah no come here come here look but good boy break over to cover them
29:28hopefully when I come to harvest them we shall have a whole mass of new potatoes and for Ned
29:36a whole mass of new balls to harvest come July at least that's what he thinks right I'm going to
29:47use
29:47this ground because nothing will appear for a few weeks time but I'm going to grow a catch crop
29:54and the fastest growing crop to grow at this time of year is radish and radish will germinate within
30:01a week and be ready to harvest within six weeks before they get crowded out by the foliage of potatoes
30:09broadcast over the surface it just means sprinkle them widely try and do it reasonably evenly put the
30:19and break over them again to slightly lightly cover them I've got these extra sea potatoes but I'm not going
30:32to waste them because I want to grow some in pots
30:41this is a recycled container you can see I've drawn holes in the bottom you need peat-free compost put
30:50it in the bottom not right full up
30:55that'll do to start with what you need is at most three and to be honest two would be plenty
31:04in there but the truth is three wouldn't give me any bigger harvest
31:08the more you put in the smaller potatoes you'll get and that should produce you between about 10 and 20
31:17potatoes
31:19enough for a couple of meals a treat just cover them up put a little bit over the top of
31:25them
31:26don't fill it to the top as the new growth comes fill on top of it that means roots will
31:33grow from the stems
31:34and you'll get more potatoes keep it well watered make sure it's not sitting in a puddle so maybe lift
31:39it a little bit off the ground and
31:41if you can give it a little bit of shelter they'll grow even better and this is a perfect way
31:45to grow potatoes if you're very short of space
31:51the beauty of this of course is that you can grow potatoes whether you want them as a treat or
31:57just because you like spuds
31:58even if you've got very limited space now we went to see tom stimpson i don't know if he grows
32:05potatoes but i do know that
32:07everything else he grows is in pots
32:15when you get home from work it's quite nice to unwind out of the garden surrounded by nature and beautiful
32:21flowers just perfect
32:29hi i think very often there's a misconception that if you have a small space you should have just small
32:49pots and that's not true
32:52it's amazing how many pots you can fit into a relatively tiny tiny space
32:58one of my favorite things to do is build up displays of pots on table tops
33:03and i've got four or five table tops that i sort of rotate and use in different areas of the
33:10garden at different times of the year
33:13so i do that by looking at the size of the pots the shapes of them so some taller terracotta
33:19some squat ones and then some little tiny ones as well to slot in amongst the bigger ones
33:25because that means you can create great floral displays and a little bit of structure and drama
33:39this is muscari armeniacum which is a muscari i grow every single year
33:46it's super reliable easy to grow and i love the intensity of the blue color
33:53they require minimal water bulbs on the whole tend to prefer it to be on the dry side
33:58so planted it in the autumn into really free draining compost
34:02once we get into february green shoots start to appear
34:06and then with a little bit of sunshine once we get into march an eruption of blue
34:10one of the ways to keep your pots of muscari flowering longer is to deadhead
34:14and it's really important not just to pinch here
34:17but to pinch right down at the base remove the stem just discard it
34:22and you'll find that will encourage all the flower buds to keep coming
34:26and for it to flower for a longer period of time
34:38so growing in pots is really straightforward
34:41so it all starts with what's at the bottom of the pot first
34:45so to make sure you've got some crocs
34:47and i then put a small layer of grit just over that
34:51then it's about the potting medium
34:53so i use a peat free general purpose potting compost
34:57nothing too fancy
34:58but i'll always add a little bit of grit
35:00so if i'm using it for pots of bulbs like this one here
35:03i will probably add around 60% compost to 40% grit
35:09and i think that's absolutely key
35:12because the importance of drainage for the bulbs is so important
35:16and you'll have much better results
35:18if the compost can remain just moist rather than sodden
35:21for other varieties of plants, violas, primulas
35:25i won't add so much grit
35:26probably about just 10% just to aid that drainage a little bit
35:30but they're much more tolerant to wet conditions
35:33and then as we get into them growing in the spring
35:36is when you tend to look at the moisture levels a little bit more closely
35:40and then as things start to grow and start to bud up
35:43i'll then start a twice fortnightly feed with some liquid seaweed
35:47just to give a little bit of goodness back into the compost
35:50and support the flowers
36:04so this is Ifean and a variety called Alberto Castillo
36:09i have to say they're one of my new faves
36:11i just love them
36:13they have this wonderful sort of grass-like foliage
36:16and i love the chaos of the stems really
36:18how they grow in whichever way they choose really
36:22and i love the fact that they move and sway in the breeze
36:26and one of my absolute favourite things about it
36:29is the reverse of the petals have a gorgeous stripe down the reverse
36:32at each flower petal
36:43it's important to raise the pod off the table
36:46as otherwise when it rains the compost just remains wet
36:49it never drains away totally
36:51it just there's always a little puddle of water
36:53underneath the bottom of the pot
36:56i found over the years one of the best things to use
36:59is just tile spaces
37:02so when you place your pot on them
37:04you can't see them
37:05but it just allows a few millimetres of air
37:08between the surface of the table and the bottom of the pot
37:11and it just means the water can drain away
37:13and that's the one way i get them through the winter
37:24this is a variety of narcissi
37:26called polar hunter
37:27a relatively new variety
37:29but rapidly becoming one of my favourite ones to grow
37:33it has the wonderful fruity fragrance
37:36quite unlike any other scented variety of narcissi
37:40and it's a beautiful colour
37:42it starts off a limey cream colour as it opens
37:46and then gradually fades to a creamy white
37:49i very often cut a few stems
37:51and just have by the side of my bed
37:53because i love waking up to the gorgeous scent in the morning
37:57it's a brilliant one for pots
37:58but to give it a little bit of extra support
38:01i just add a few hazel twigs in
38:03i love doing that because it looks natural
38:05it's absolutely gorgeous
38:07what do you say to people who don't like ephodils
38:09they should go and get a life
38:16so as we come into mid-spring
38:18i start to think about what's going in the pots
38:20for the summer
38:22and a key variety for me are dahlias
38:24i absolutely love them
38:26they're brilliant for providing colour
38:28from mid-summer through to the first frost
38:30so great value
38:33the tubers are nice and big
38:34so i'm planting into quite a big pot
38:36if your tubers are a little bit smaller
38:38so they're fresh stock
38:40then i'd probably say plant them in a three litre size pot
38:43and get them to grow and shoot in there
38:45before planting out into a bigger pot
38:47or into the border
38:49peat-free compost
38:50i've added a bit of grit for extra drainage
38:53and it's important with dahlias
38:55that the crown sits just above the soil surface
39:00pots for me are a key element to my gardening life
39:04when you have a small space
39:06and if you love plants
39:08pots are essential to add interest
39:10drama
39:10impact
39:11colour
39:13abundance
39:38like tom i grow masses of spring bulbs in pots
39:43this time of year
39:44mainly full of narcissi and tulips
39:47and the great thing about them is you have these splashes of colour
39:50that you can move around and assemble
39:52and by the way if you've not seen this daffodil before
39:55it's called rip van winkle
39:56with this great sort of splay of flower
40:00which is a little bit heavy for the stem
40:02so it's not so much drooping as sprawling
40:05in an elegant way
40:06and certainly looks fantastic when grown in a pot like this
40:11and it's not just spring bulbs that look good
40:15we've got bay here with rosemary
40:17i've got pots in shady areas with ivy and ferns
40:21right across the year and right across the garden
40:24there's always a place for pot
40:35go on
40:41aha
40:43you got it
40:45you got it
40:56now this was where we had soft root until this winter
41:00because i've brought into here
41:03most of the yew cuttings that i took about 10 years ago
41:07the reason i took the yew cuttings were partly to replace the box that got box blight
41:12and i want an evergreen dense hedge
41:15and partly because yew makes wonderful topiary
41:19and i love topiary
41:20so this gives me the raw material for hedges and topiary
41:24and even clip shrubs which i've got in the woodland border
41:27and if you had to buy them they're really expensive
41:31so to grow your own is saving you a lot of money
41:34it's really interesting and i think good fun
41:37this is a yew cutting i took certainly no more than 10 years ago
41:40but you can see it's got a lovely straight stem
41:43and this lends itself to a standard
41:45a standard is anything that is grown on a bare clean straight trunk
41:50it could be a ball it could be a box
41:53it could be a dancing bear or a kangaroo
41:59to create a standard the first thing i'm going to do is clean off that trunk
42:08i want it to be a ball on an upright and i want that to be the bottom of the
42:12ball
42:13and that's the top
42:15so the first thing i'm going to do is take this top off
42:22obviously that doesn't look anything like a globe
42:27but these shoots here these little ones as they grow out
42:31then we get the outside and the harder we clip the final shape the denser it will be
42:36and it doesn't matter if it's empty on the inside which it will be
42:39because the light will be stopped
42:41actually that's not bad to begin with
42:43so the next stage for that is to put into a pot or into the ground
42:47give it light feed it and encourage it to grow
42:54you along with box and holly regenerates from old wood
42:59so you can cut it back as hard as you like and it will regrow successfully
43:05now i've chosen this because it wouldn't be hard to make this into a ball
43:09and you can see because other plants have been around it it's even started to grow inwards a bit
43:13so rather than cut it back very hard i'm going to use shears and clip it
43:26and in this case i don't need to go right back to the old wood because the basic shape is
43:31there
43:39right you can see that i've put all these into bags
43:42plants in a bag will keep perfectly well but for growing things on they either have to be in the
43:46ground or in a pot
43:49you want a pot that's big enough for it to grow into
43:52so something like that really good drainage holes
43:56yew is tough you will take light you will take shade it will grow in almost any soil
44:02although it's happiest in lime so if you've got chalk or limestone that's great
44:08but it will not take sitting in damp it must drain
44:12so this is a very very gritty mix so we'll put this in here like that
44:24take this out
44:28okay that's good
44:39there
44:40now those roots aren't anchored in the pot and all those tiny little new roots will break if it moves
44:47and so we need to
44:48put a cane in there like that
44:51and throughout the rest of this year
44:53this will need watering and feeding
44:55weekly
44:56but in order to get really good topiary shape
44:59it does need light
45:04this should create the shape i want in about three to five years and it will get better and better
45:12now we're going to one of your gardens
45:14it belongs to the driscoll family and they live in cheshire
45:25it's a relatively small space maybe ten by five meters and enclosed by tall fences and rows of terrace housing
45:34with young kids it was a place to play and have fun
45:38as the kids got older and i got the bug for gardening it increasingly became a place for flowers and
45:44colour
45:44though it was still a little untidy
45:47we paid attention
45:48to making space for wildlife
45:50creating lots of interest for emily
45:52and leo
45:54we have a little wildlife pond
45:55it has shallow edges
45:57to allow any animals that might fall in
45:59to climb out
46:00we have been impressed by the variety of different visitors to our garden
46:11but there was one visitor
46:12that we never thought we'd see in our garden
46:14with it being all fenced up and barricaded by rows of houses
46:21then one night
46:22we spotted this on our security camera
46:24at the front of our house
46:28a hedgehog!
46:29could he get round the back to the garden?
46:34Dad made a couple of openings in the fence
46:38one day
46:39one day this summer
46:40in the middle of the day
46:42we saw this
46:43we didn't know what it was doing
46:47turns out
46:48it was building a nest
46:53there was more than one hedgehog in the nest
46:55which meant hoglets
46:58we started putting out hedgehog food
47:01in a feeding station
47:03to keep the cats from eating it
47:11we think they appreciate it
47:18we hope you enjoyed your visit to our garden too
47:21we hope you enjoyed your visit to our garden too
47:48however exciting it is to have hedgehogs in the garden
47:50and it is, it's fantastic
47:53hedgehogs are very much nocturnal animals
47:55so if you see them during the day
47:57and if they're feeding and drinking during the day
48:00it normally is an indication that they are in distress
48:03and last summer we saw a lot of that
48:05because it was so hot and dry
48:06so ideally put out food and water at dusk
48:10and it should be gone by the morning
48:12ok, at this time of year
48:15we sow a lot of seeds
48:17they germinate
48:18and then the next stage of the process
48:20is pricking out
48:21and what I thought I'd do
48:23is make it really clear what pricking out is
48:26why you do it and when you do it
48:29first thing is what it is
48:31is you take a seedling
48:32and you move it on to the next stage
48:35because if you have a mass of seedlings
48:37in a seed tray like this, these are Tithonias
48:39they're all competing for space and nutrition
48:41and they would never develop into good plants
48:45now pricking out
48:47shouldn't take place until you can see the true leaves
48:50so when a seed germinates
48:53it produces what's called a seed leaf
48:57and you can see here
48:58this is a tray of cosmos
49:00these very strappy leaves
49:02look absolutely nothing like cosmos
49:05they are just to give the plant enough energy
49:09for the roots to develop
49:10once the roots have got established
49:12you then get the next stage
49:14which is a true leaf
49:15and if you look very closely
49:17you can see the true leaves are just beginning to appear
49:21and even when they're tiny
49:23absolutely minute
49:25they look like the parent leaves
49:27you can see it actually better here
49:28on this parsley
49:30the difference between the seed leaves
49:33which are here
49:34which basically are strappy and simple
49:36and the true leaf
49:37which looks like a flat leaf parsley
49:39is there
49:40finally tithonia
49:42you've got these spatulate
49:45seed leaves
49:46and then the pointed parent leaf
49:48and again it means it's got roots
49:50so these two trays are ready for pricking out
49:53and that one is not
49:54so you need something to put them in
49:57and you need something to carefully tease them out with
50:00in the past I've used a pen knife
50:02I've used a pencil
50:03whatever works
50:05take hold of the seedling
50:06by a leaf
50:10never hold it by the stem
50:11it's very easy to crush it or break it
50:14whereas if you damage the leaf
50:16it can grow another one
50:18there you go
50:20it's got quite a good root system
50:22it's always quite a surprise
50:23that they have so many roots
50:26now I've prepared individual plugs for this
50:29and I'm just going to pop that in there like that
50:32I'm not going to brutally press it down
50:34and it means that each individual seedling
50:37gets a real chance to grow
50:40now what I'm pricking them out into
50:42is a compost mix
50:43that has a little bit more goodness in it
50:45than the seed mix
50:46you could just use a peat-free compost on its own
50:49I tend to add some sieved garden compost
50:52a little bit of leaf mold
50:53and some sieved garden soil
50:56not a lot
50:57no more than about 5% of the mix
50:59but the bacteria and the fungi in that
51:02will start interacting with the roots
51:04so when I plant it out into my garden
51:06already there is that symbiosis between the two
51:10and they tend to grow away better
51:13sometimes say for example with tomatoes
51:15I prick out into a small pot straight away
51:18because they're going to be quite big plants
51:20and they grow fast
51:21but there is no perfect way
51:23as long as each individual seedling has room
51:26to develop into a nice strong plant
51:30don't try and rush it
51:32regard it as something that
51:33is part of the process of the life of the plant
51:36and you are almost privileged
51:38to be part of that too
51:40and to me that's the essence of gardening
51:43that's really what gardening is all about
52:10I know a lot of people
52:11get confused about pruning hydrangeas
52:16the most common type of hydrangea that you see
52:19is hydrangea macrophylla
52:21with mop heads
52:22great big round heads
52:24or lace caps
52:25which are more open
52:26with masses of petals
52:28but with always a touch of elegance
52:31now this is a lace cap variety
52:34called lamarth white
52:35and will give you a display
52:36from late summer into autumn
52:38now the first thing is
52:40do not prune off the spent flowers in autumn
52:43because they trap warmer air inside
52:46and they just slightly protect the plant
52:49particularly in very early spring from frost
52:52but now we're coming to April
52:54as soon as you get vigorous new growth
52:56you can prune them back
52:57so at very least
52:58take off the spent flowers from last year
53:03however
53:04it's not a bad idea while you're doing this
53:07to take a look and say
53:08okay
53:08am I happy with it
53:09am I happy with the shape
53:10the size
53:12for example
53:13this here
53:14is growing out over the border
53:16and I don't really want that
53:17so I'm going to cut it back
53:19now when you're pruning
53:20this type of hydrangea
53:22go right back in
53:23and prune at the base
53:25and that will encourage new shoots to grow
53:27so
53:27to remove this
53:29I'm going to go in here
53:37young wood
53:39will be vigorous
53:40healthy
53:41and produce more flowers
53:43but remove
53:44no more than a third of the plant
53:46taking the oldest growth
53:48when you do
53:51and if you do that every year
53:53it will renew itself over three years
53:55so none of them will be more than four years old
53:59so
54:00that's the first type of hydrangea
54:03but
54:04to make life complicated
54:05there's another kind
54:07and we're going to prune those now
54:18now
54:20having pruned
54:22a lace cap
54:24this is a very different type of hydrangea
54:27the first thing you'll notice is there are no flowers on it
54:29the second thing is the growth is very different
54:30it's vigorous
54:31it's upright
54:32you've got different coloured stems
54:34and this is a hydrangea paniculata
54:37now one of the features of hydrangea paniculata
54:41and there are a number of different varieties
54:43is that all the flowers are produced on growth
54:48that has happened this growing year
54:51so for example these seemingly new shoots
54:53the sort of burgundy coloured red ones
54:56are last year's growth
54:57and the woody growth is previous years
55:01I planted this about ten years ago
55:02some of this could be ten years old
55:05so nothing that you see
55:07will carry any flowers at all this year
55:10so I'm going to prune this back to a framework
55:13which is pretty much the old growth
55:20unlike the lace caps and the mop heads
55:24which are fundamentally rounded or flattened
55:26these are conical
55:28they look like a squirty ice cream put into a cone
55:31and also
55:32unlike the lace caps and the mop heads
55:35which are very particular about the pH of the soil
55:38paniculatas will stay white whatever the soil
55:41and they're very forgiving so they're great
55:51the new growth will come from these points
55:55they'll grow out here
55:57and we'll have these wonderful ice cream cones of flower
56:01from August onwards
56:03well that was very simple
56:05didn't take long
56:06but it's a good job
56:07and here are some good jobs for you this weekend
56:21everybody loves sunflowers
56:23and they're a great plant to grow with children
56:27now's a good time to start them
56:28they're big seeds
56:30so can go into a pot rather than the seed tray
56:33I use two seeds per pot
56:36simply pressing them into the compost
56:38and then remove the weaker of the two
56:41which guarantees I have one really healthy plant
56:45they need to be watered
56:47and then go somewhere warm to germinate
56:58Easter is a really good time to get out any garden furniture made out of wood
57:02and give it a once over
57:04if it's not painted
57:05consider giving it a coat of linseed oil to protect it
57:09and if it is painted
57:11rub it down
57:12remove any loose or flaking paint
57:14and then give it a fresh coat
57:15and it will be ready for those long summer evenings
57:24now is a very good moment
57:26to divide herbaceous perennials
57:29because they've started to grow
57:31and will recover quickly from any movement
57:34I'm going to split this hosta into two
57:37lift it out the ground
57:39simply chop it with a spade
57:41replant half
57:42and that gives me another fresh plant
57:45to add elsewhere
57:57good boy
57:58no come on
58:00well I'm afraid that's it for today
58:02but it's Easter
58:05Easter when we can all get out into the garden
58:07maybe go and visit a lovely garden
58:09see friends
58:10and just this sense
58:12of the garden
58:14and spring to come
58:15and summer to follow
58:16opening out in front of us
58:19but for the moment
58:20that's all from Longweather
58:21and I'll see you next time
58:22bye-bye
58:23good boy
58:35Katie
58:36let's do it
58:36I'll see you soon
58:36but I'll see you soon
58:48and I'm going to be now
58:51and I'll see you soon
58:53and get to see you soon
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