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00:10Come on, Ned.
00:57Hello, welcome to Gardener's World.
00:59I'm just loosening this area up because this bank on the side of the mound originally
01:06was grass and we had lots of bulbs in and you had a display and then when they died
01:11back we cut it back and we kept it as cut grass.
01:13Over the years, all kinds of things have seeded themselves in here.
01:18Some of them are lovely, like the cow parsley coming through.
01:21But I want to start putting in spent bulbs from this year.
01:26That's bulbs that are flowered and finished.
01:29These are in pots.
01:30But actually there's no reason why I can't put them straight in the garden.
01:32And you can do this in a border.
01:34And that's what I'm going to do here.
01:36And the colour theme here on the mound is yellow and blue, so I've got some yellow and blue
01:41hyacinths.
01:43Well, some hyacinths of the yellow and some hyacinths of the blue.
01:46Not both at once.
01:55These are delft blue, so take them out.
02:00Being slightly careful.
02:02There we go.
02:07So you've got, you can see, there are the bulbs.
02:11So I will carefully separate these out.
02:15Okay.
02:17Let's just take each one.
02:19Let's take a few like that.
02:22There we go.
02:29See if that can go in there like that.
02:37Now you notice I'm not cutting back or trying to tidy up the leaves.
02:41It's really important there.
02:43Because these must be allowed to die back naturally.
02:47That will feed into the bulb and form next year's flower.
02:50If I cut those off now, there's a real chance that there will be no flowering next year.
02:55And if you have blind bulbs, it's very often because either they've been too dry or there
03:02hasn't been enough light on the foliage after they've finished flowering.
03:10Okay.
03:20Longmeadow is pancake flat.
03:22I think we've got a fall of no more than a foot from one end to the other.
03:26So this is our only slope in the whole of the garden.
03:30And slopes are brilliant for most bulbs because most bulbs like good drainage.
03:36It's only fritillaries, camassias, leucogeum that really can cope with damp soil and thrive
03:44in it.
03:44So a slope like this lends itself to be covered in bulbs.
03:56I quite like the way that they'll intermingle with what has naturally sewn itself here.
04:03And it really goes back to this combination of working with nature to use all the lovely natural
04:12things that are occurring and popping up and seeding themselves, but also plant in amongst
04:17them.
04:17So it becomes a creative act of which you are a partner rather than the controller.
04:23And I think that's really inspiring.
04:37Right.
04:47Now, we're going to join Carol in her garden, who shows us that you don't need a big space
04:51to grow really good food, and as well as being delicious, it can look beautiful too.
05:09I absolutely love my garden.
05:12We've been here for 47 years.
05:15And ever since we came, I've grown all kinds of ornamentals, trees, shrubs, flowers, bulbs.
05:23But at the same time, I've also been growing vegetables, because it's just wonderful to grow
05:29your own produce.
05:30But what happens if you've only got a limited area?
05:33I want to show you during the course of this year, just how you can turn even a small area
05:39into both a productive space for vegetables and a thing of beauty, with all sorts of beautiful
05:46flowers.
06:09This is the plot.
06:11It's about eight feet by five feet, give or take.
06:14So it's pretty small, but I'm going to be growing so intensively in here that the whole
06:20thing eventually is going to be full of beautiful flowers and wonderful, wonderful vegetables.
06:26I'm not going to be planting everything today, but I'm going to be adding to it right the way
06:31through.
06:32All manner of stuff, but absolutely everything in here is going to be an annual.
06:37Most of it is going to be grown from seed, as were these sweet peas, which are the very
06:43first thing I'm planting in here.
06:46I'm growing several different sweet peas, but these are cupani, which is this glorious purple
06:54and maroon one with wonderful, wonderful scent.
06:58Of course, sweet peas are climbers.
07:00So my husband Neil has made me this wonderful structure.
07:05It's a cylinder because it means that I can grow sweet peas and climbing beans.
07:12So I'm going to intersperse them with different climbing beans.
07:28Beetroot are indispensable.
07:31Roasted or cooked, sliced and pickled are delicious.
07:35It can be sown direct into the soil or into modules, then potted on and planted out.
07:42The variety I'm using is boltardy.
07:45It's not just the roots we eat.
07:48Those leaves are a lovely salad vegetable in their own right.
07:57In between them I'm planting lettuce.
08:00This is a lettuce called Little Gem.
08:03And I'm putting them in two at a time, one behind the other.
08:08And the whole object of doing that is that I can harvest one first and then the next one
08:14can grow on and get bigger.
08:16It's really my absolute all time favourite lettuce because not only is it delicious in salads when it's young,
08:25you can cook with it as well.
08:26Just stick it in the pan for less than a minute with a bit of butter and salt and pepper.
08:33It's delicious.
08:41So that's the first veg planted.
08:46And it might seem a bit random, a bit willy-nilly, but it's not.
08:49It's all part of a cunning plan.
08:51So I'm going to grow a squash at the front there.
08:54And then here I'm growing a tomato.
08:57But tomato with basil is the perfect combination.
09:00So I'm going to actually sow some basil seeds right round here and then finally plant the tomato in.
09:08I'm not doing it today because they're not ready.
09:10But what I am going to do is plant a few flowers.
09:20Alongside the beetroot and lettuce, I'm planting some pink cosmos informally.
09:25As they grow, they'll give the lettuce a bit of dappled shade.
09:31Cosmos have to be one of the most rewarding annual flowers.
09:36And with constant deadheading or cutting for the house, they'll keep going until late October.
09:50I'm going to sow quite a lot of vegetable seeds and flower seeds straight into the ground.
09:56But there are some things which are much better off grown on in pots or modules first of all.
10:03So this is a method I use for all beans.
10:06But the beans in question are these beautiful broad beans.
10:11The crimson flowered broad bean.
10:14So not only do you get the most delicious beans.
10:18But in addition, you get the advantage of these utterly glorious flowers.
10:23So I'm just pushing them in.
10:25You want them about half an inch or so.
10:29And then cover them with grit, which will retain the moisture once I've watered them.
10:34Keep the weeds down.
10:36And make sure that they don't rot when they come up.
10:40But they're very, very unlikely to do that.
10:42I mean, they're tough things, these broad beans.
10:45Here's what I did earlier.
10:47There's the top of the bean.
10:48And look already, that little root just starting to go down there into the compost.
10:54And then we'll get a shoot and then we'll get some utterly glorious flowers.
11:00These broad beans I'll water well and then I'll wait until they're a few inches high before I put them
11:05out.
11:15You can use exactly the same idea of combining edibles and ornamentals in a pot.
11:22And that's just what I'm doing here.
11:23This is orac.
11:26It's a relative of spinach.
11:28You can eat it.
11:29But it also looks gorgeous.
11:32And they will go really big and flower when it's way up high.
11:37But I don't want it to flower.
11:39So all you do, just take those two little shoots off the top like that.
11:44And that will encourage all those side shoots to spread out and give us a really nice bushy plant.
11:51And I'm going to do exactly the same thing.
11:54Nip the top with all the cosmos too.
11:58Now already this plant is trying to branch.
12:01But if I nip out this bit here, that's all you need.
12:09So the cosmos I'm using in here is one called purity.
12:13And you've guessed it, it's pure white.
12:17And it takes it a while before it starts to flower.
12:21But when it goes for it, especially if you pinch the top and you've got loads of flowering side shoots,
12:28it's absolutely lovely.
12:37Now, the great thing about doing this is that I'll put these things in now.
12:43They'll be joined by some of our crimson flowered broad beans.
12:48But I can add all sorts of things.
12:50Whenever I see something that I find inspiring, I'll squeeze it in here.
12:55And as for the main patch, we've only just begun.
12:59I'll be adding more veg, loads of beautiful flowers.
13:03And the whole thing's going to come together and just look absolutely wonderful.
13:07And taste good too.
13:32I do think that actually most vegetables that are well grown, vegetables, herbs and fruit, have a beauty of their
13:39own.
13:39And of course you want it to be beautiful too.
13:42Anyway, it'd be fascinating to follow this through for the rest of the series.
13:46What I'm doing here is planting out parsley.
13:51And to do that, we start off sowing it in a seed tray and then prick it out into individual
13:55plants as a plug.
13:56And you can see that here you have a plug.
13:58It's absolutely ready to go out.
14:00Got a good root system.
14:02And give it space.
14:04Now this is the key thing.
14:06I am placing this actually not in squares but in a kind of grid.
14:12So each plant has plenty of space around it.
14:18And then as a result you get a big strong plant.
14:21Partially remember the carrot family.
14:23They have a deep root and they want to grow to a plant about that tall with a thick stem
14:28and then they flower.
14:29So if you let it become well established with strong roots, you can then go on picking the leaves over
14:37a period of about three or four months.
15:07Those have now had a good soak and I will leave them but make sure they don't dry out for
15:13another two, three weeks before they're ready to harvest.
15:16We will harvest these, oh, well into summer, by which time the next crop we're ready to plant it out.
15:23And actually the secret of all vegetable growing, it doesn't matter how much space you've got, whether it's very limited
15:28or huge,
15:29is planning ahead, succession.
15:31So you maximise the harvest from whatever ground that you have.
15:37And also not just maximise it in quantity but also quality.
15:41Grow what you like to eat.
15:42That is the secret.
15:44Come on in.
16:07The potting shed and the greenhouse are my happy place, taking plants on this journey from seed to full high
16:16performance out in the garden.
16:18So you have seeds that sown and you get a seed tray full of seedlings like that and then you
16:24prick them out and they look something along these lines into individual plugs.
16:29They then are grown on and moved over onto this side and you can see these are all plants that
16:34have been pricked out and getting bigger.
16:35And at some stage, a lot of them are potted on.
16:39But before they can go outside, even if they're not tender plants, they need hardening off.
16:44And hardening off is something I really want to make clear because it's actually terribly important.
16:49You need to acclimatise the plant to life outside in the big bad world.
16:54So from the greenhouse, they go to a cold frame.
16:58And this is round here.
17:01Now at the moment, the cold frame is filled mainly with plants that have been pricked out.
17:08They're hardy plants, but they're protected from heavy rain.
17:11They get a little bit more heat from the glass through the sun and it means they're not too cold.
17:15And then they go to the next stage and you can see here we've got some wild carrot, sweet peas.
17:24I've got some salvias sitting here where they will remain for at least a week before going into the garden.
17:31They're protected from the cold east wind.
17:34They've got a hedge there, meaning that it's not too blurry.
17:37The sun is not too hot in the middle of the day and it's not too cold at night.
17:42They will gradually acclimatise to life outside.
17:47And if you sow your seeds on a windowsill, that's fine.
17:49The next stage could be just sort of outside the back door or around the corner by a shed where
17:55it's out of the worst of the weather.
17:57That also applies when you buy a plant from a garden centre, particularly a young plant.
18:02So harden it off for at least a week in a slightly protected place outside.
18:07But there's another form of hardening off which is also really relevant, particularly at this time of year.
18:16Come on, Deb.
18:21The other kind of hardening off is of plants that are perennial and can live for years as long as
18:32they are protected from the cold.
18:33So, for example, here we've got some agapanthus, some pelargoniums, lemon verbena, salvias.
18:40And this was, until last week, full of citrus plants.
18:44It's just enough to get them through the winter.
18:46But again, if you take them from having spent all winter in a greenhouse and then put them outside just
18:53because it's safe to go,
18:54they're going to sort of blink in the sunlight and they literally just stop growing.
18:59They hunker down and it can take them two or three weeks to get going again.
19:03Far better to gently introduce them and acclimatise them.
19:07And if I take a plant like the lemon verbena, so if I take this, you can see new growth,
19:11which means it's coming into life.
19:13And it's the new growth that you've got to harden off.
19:16The woody growth is fine. That doesn't need any protection.
19:19It's these new shoes.
19:21Before I take it outside, though, it needs a really hard prune as they tend to get very woody and
19:28leggy.
19:28Cut back to the lowest growth you can see.
19:33And this will result in a fresh flush of new leaves.
19:41Okay.
19:44What I normally do with lemon verbena is do a first pass like that, taking off any obvious pieces that
19:53are too long and straggly.
19:54And then when new shoots develop to another prune, the tighter you can prune it, the better the end result.
20:06Oh, a savvy one.
20:15As the new growth emerges, it will do so into a slightly harsher environment than it was in the greenhouse,
20:21but it will adapt.
20:22And that's the key to all hardening off.
20:25All the trouble you go to, or whether you buy plants from a garden centre, give them a chance to
20:30adapt to your environment, acclimatise, and they'll be a lot healthier and happier as a result.
20:37Now, we have all kinds of different growing environments here at Longmeadow, but the one thing we don't do is
20:41have a floating garden.
20:42But Amy Chapman does.
20:47Hi, gardeners world.
20:49I'm Amy.
20:50This is my narrowboat.
20:51I moved onto it in the autumn and I'm turning it into a little floating garden.
20:55Let me show you around.
21:03This is my little rooftop garden.
21:06I am trying to grow as many edible plants and useful plants and also plants for pollinators too.
21:13I have always loved growing my own food and I didn't want to compromise on that when I bought the
21:19boat.
21:19I've got these planters, which are quite shallow.
21:22So I'm trying to choose plants that will suit a shallow depth of soil and also plants that don't grow
21:29too tall,
21:30because I don't want them to obstruct my view when I'm cruising the boat.
21:34There's a lot of interesting things that you have to consider when you're growing on the roof.
21:39You don't want to put too much weight on one side of the boat.
21:44I am filling up this container with perennial vegetables,
21:47which are some of the easiest, lowest maintenance edibles that you can grow.
21:53These are Welsh onions and you plant them once and they will live for years and years
21:58and they'll just keep dividing and producing more and more onions.
22:02With watering, I'm worried about the sort of shallow depth of soil in the summer and keeping everything watered.
22:08So I think I'm going to have to cover everything with a thick mulch and try and keep as much
22:14moisture locked in as possible.
22:18I've got a couple of these babington leeks left.
22:21Leeks that will basically grow out into like clumps of little baby leeks.
22:27You plant them once and they'll give you multiple harvests.
22:32I started gardening about five or six years ago.
22:36So when I bought the boat, I knew that I had to find a way to make gardening work and
22:41turn the roof into my own little garden.
22:48So this is the front of the boat, also known as the bow.
22:53And this is where I like to have a lot of colour and cheerfulness because a lot of people that
22:58walk past the boat say how happy it makes them to see flowers.
23:01So I've got some honesty here, which is great for pollinators.
23:10It's just a lovely way to live and you always feel like you're really connected to nature and the seasons.
23:16This is only my first spring on the boat, but I'm hoping that by the summer it's going to be
23:20absolutely overflowing with plants.
23:22I'm hoping it can be a wild, abundant, magical garden.
23:27Thank you so much for joining me.
23:29I hope you enjoyed having a little look around my floating garden.
24:05You know, when I moved to London at the very beginning of 1980s, we very nearly bought a houseboat and
24:12wanted to live on it.
24:13But I turned it down because I thought I must have a garden and I couldn't have a garden on
24:17a houseboat.
24:17Well, Amy has proved me wrong.
24:18Not only can you have a garden, you can have a beautiful garden.
24:22So that's fantastic.
24:23Now, the grass borders here, if you remember, I cut back at the very beginning of March and it's brutal.
24:31You take everything out, clear it back to the ground and it stays pretty empty for a month or so,
24:37depending on the weather.
24:38However, it's beginning to grow.
24:41Some are already up to knee height and within a few months time,
24:45things like the big Miscanthus will be as tall as I am and grow taller yet.
24:49But the key thing about all these grasses and this spot here is that they are open to full sun.
24:56But I've got some grasses in my barrow which are perfect for shade.
25:12This is the woodland garden.
25:13At the end of summer, we started to replant it as not just a woodland border, but incorporating the trees,
25:20incorporating the shade and making the most of it.
25:22This barrow is full of grasses that not only will cope with dry shade, but actually thrive in it.
25:29And if you get the right one, I think they look great in shade and in woodland settings.
25:34So that's what I'm doing.
25:35The first is one called Hakonon Chloa.
25:38It's become very trendy.
25:40It creates these low mounds like sort of a low bubbling fountain that spills out and the leaves bend up
25:49and then fall over to the ground.
25:52And if I plant it near the edge of a path, it won't grow too big, but it will just
25:56soften that edge.
25:57And it means I can plant it around the roots of trees.
25:59So this is going to do a job for me for that.
26:02That will spill out nicely.
26:04Let's have another spiller there.
26:11Tucked in behind the ewe here.
26:14There we go.
26:15This can go here like that.
26:22I wonder if we could get that in there.
26:25The key thing at this stage is not to try and be too controlling.
26:30Try it out.
26:31Move them about.
26:32And then when you've decided where you want them, it's very easy.
26:35You just make a hole in the ground.
26:37Take it out the pot.
26:37Pop it in.
26:38Job done.
26:40Now, the other grass that will serve me very well in here is called Cecilia autumnalis.
26:47And the name is a clue because it actually thrives best in spring and autumn.
26:53Semi-evergreen.
26:54So I thought that here I put three.
26:58Now, you notice I'm putting this in a clump.
27:00I'm actually going to get a third.
27:03Because this is a grass that looks best in clumps or groups or if you've got a lot, drifts.
27:10So I'm thinking something like that.
27:15Not too close to the hellebore.
27:17So maybe more like that.
27:18Not too close to that.
27:24Oh, my God.
27:51I'll get the rest of these in the ground now, but just a reminder that whatever you're planting at this
27:57time of year, even if it's something that thrives in dry shade, give it a soak when you plant it.
28:03Water it in well, and that sets it off to cope with whatever summer may bring.
28:09We're going to join Adverley now, who has gone up to Scotland, to Fife, to the Backhouse Rossi estate, where
28:18she revels in some extremely unusual and rare daffodils.
28:26As a huge fan of daffodils, there's nothing to rival a daffodil festival in full bloom.
28:34And when those flowers carry history in their petals, it's even better.
28:39And this array includes the national collection of Backhouse daffodils, blooms created by one family over several generations since the
28:541800s.
28:56To me, the oldest blooms often carry the best secrets and stories.
29:03But one particular daffodil is here thanks to the brilliance and passion of several determined women.
29:13The Backhouse family were originally Bankers and Quakers, but alongside their work life, several of the Backhouse men started breeding
29:24daffodils, very successfully.
29:30Initially, the only daffodils in Britain were the wild ones, which were seen as rather common.
29:37But as new varieties were produced in different colours and different shapes, they became very fashionable.
29:47Then in 1884, Robert Ormston Backhouse, a banker and daffodil enthusiast, married Sarah Elizabeth Dodgson, having been introduced to her
29:59at a Quaker meeting house.
30:03Sarah was the daughter of a pharmacist who grew up seeing her father using plants to prepare and dispense medicine.
30:13And on the back of this knowledge, a whole new era of Backhouse daffodils began.
30:23Sarah had the perfect springboard.
30:27Her father-in-law had already cultivated a breathtaking collection, which she inherited.
30:33She developed it into something entirely her own, creating a new range of daffodils in all shapes and sizes.
30:47This is Lord Kitchener, with its ruffled trumpets and contrasting white petals with a twist.
30:56Sarah named her daffodils with retail in mind.
31:01At the time, Lord Kitchener was a well-known military man, so by naming it after him, it immediately gave
31:08the flower selling power.
31:12Her tactics worked, and as she created more incredible daffodils, she caught the eye of other growers.
31:24This is sunrise, with these gorgeous gold rays spreading from the centre.
31:31It was really popular, and in her papers, there's an order for a thousand bulbs at two shillings each.
31:39Some of her later daffodils sold for much more.
31:45Sarah set her heart on creating daffodils with different coloured trumpets or cups.
31:52Mohican was an early success, sporting a red edge, but a full red trumpet soon followed.
32:01This here is a classic Sarah Backhouse red cup daffodil set off by these beautiful ivory petals.
32:12She named it after another daffodil grower called Dick Wellband, and it's truly striking.
32:24Obviously, none of this happened overnight.
32:28Daffodils can take five years, from seedling to flower.
32:33And some of her varieties needed three crosses or more.
32:38But Sarah had the patience and passion.
32:47This is a list of just some of the daffodils that Sarah created.
32:52There are pages and pages of them.
32:55And these are just the A's, the B's and C's.
32:59So you've got Abundance, you've got Alba, you've got Albion Star.
33:03Because all in all, she created over 500 varieties.
33:09She won countless RHS awards of merit, and was the first woman to receive the coveted Peter Barr cup.
33:20But one of her biggest achievements was the first ever pink cupped daffodil.
33:29Pink cups don't occur naturally in nature, and it's likely it took Sarah over 20 years to create one.
33:39But when Sarah's descendant, Caroline Thompson, started tracking down the backhouse varieties, she couldn't find the pink cups growing anywhere.
33:49However, she did have inside knowledge.
33:54How did you find it, Caroline?
33:57Well, it was my mother.
33:58She remembered as a small child, Robert Backhouse, her older cousin, coming to her grandparents' house with a gift of
34:10the pink daffodils.
34:12When we heard the story, decided to go down to Herefordshire and have a look at what is now a
34:21nursing homes, grounds, and see if they were still there.
34:27Amazingly, they were in the exact spot her mother remembered them being planted.
34:35These are so beautiful.
34:38They're not like a barbie pink, are they?
34:42They're more like a salmon.
34:43These, I find beautiful because during the longest part of their flowering, they are this salmon-y coral pink from
34:57the tip of the rim right down to the base.
35:00To begin with, they come out a sort of yellowy color, and when they're older, they fade to a whitey
35:07color.
35:07But for that longest full flowering period, they are pink, and they are the first true pink daffodil.
35:15The public loved them, and they were the most widely grown and most popular daffodil for about 90 years.
35:23Are they later flowering?
35:25Yes.
35:26Absolutely, they are.
35:28Sarah Backhouse created narcissists that would flower early, through to ones which would flower right the way through to mid
35:37-May.
35:38These will be flowering in our garden, and they are fabulous at that time of year.
35:42They come up and look like glorious fireworks.
35:50These days, there is some irritation that Sarah's most famous flower is called Mrs R. O. Backhouse, which is mostly
36:01Robert's name.
36:02But that was normal for the time, and her husband fully acknowledged his wife's prowess.
36:12In a letter, after her death, Robert made it clear exactly where the genius lay.
36:22He wrote, I hope to continue to care for her beautiful flowers.
36:27But I fear the supply of new varieties will cease.
36:31I just know that she would be delighted to know that several generations later, a female relation would be keeping
36:41her legacy alive.
37:02I love the fact that Mrs R. O. Backhouse was discovered just down the road from here, in Herefordshire.
37:10And I'm sure there's probably more lurking around the country somewhere, and the RHS would love to know if you
37:17have her in your garden.
37:18So there's Mrs R. O. Backhouse, and a couple of others.
37:21There's Mrs William Copeland, and also one called Sussex Bonfire.
37:25Those three are very rare, but they probably are out there, and could be in your back garden.
37:32So if you think you've got them, or one of them, go to our website, and it will tell you
37:36how you can let the RHS know, and then what to do about it.
37:42Come on, Ned.
37:48Now, should I throw the ball?
37:51Go on, off you go.
37:54At this time of year, of course, we all want colour, whether it be rare, exotic, unusual colour, or even
38:00just the brightness, the freshness of green on a lovely sunny spring day.
38:05But actually, if you've got a shady garden, or a shady corner, you can still make something that is really
38:13beautiful, and use colour to do it.
38:30I've got here the ingredients for what I think will be a really good display.
38:36Nice big pot, crop to put in the bottom, and then your compost mix is worth taking trouble over.
38:44You can just use peat-free compost you buy, and that will work sort of 80%, 85% as well
38:51as a mix.
38:51But the plants I've chosen, which are ferns and fuchsias, like an open, loose mix.
38:57So I've added leaf mould.
39:00If you haven't got leaf mould, you know, just think of something, maybe a bit of coir.
39:04I've added a little bit of sieve compost, and that has made a mix that is nice and loose, and
39:09the roots will get down in there and be cool.
39:11So, half fill the pot.
39:20Now we'll start with the fern.
39:22It's Arthurium nipponicum rebbeauti.
39:25And this Arthurium is special because the leaves have colour.
39:31They are suffused with a sort of grey, silvery stain, and this beautiful burgundy sort of central stem going down
39:40the frond and going out into the side fronds.
39:43It does not like being dry, so wherever you put this pot, you've got to have access to water and
39:48remember to water it at least weekly.
39:50I'm going to plant my centrepiece towards the back.
39:54If you're going to go see round the pot, obviously it needs to go in the middle.
39:58And the old saying that you have a pillar, a filler and a spiller works pretty well, but this has
40:04to class as the pillar.
40:05And so we'll take it out of the pot and position it like that.
40:12Now a little bit more around it.
40:17But that leaves plenty of space for the next addition.
40:22Now my filler is a fuchsia called Annabelle.
40:26Annabelle, very well known fuchsia, got lovely, very pale flowers.
40:31It's a bushy plant and fairly upright.
40:33In fact, you quite often see Annabelle grown as a standard.
40:35So it's got one central stem and then a circular top.
40:39The one thing to remember about fuchsias is they do need good drainage.
40:42They don't like to be too wet.
40:44So if I'm watering the fern a lot, I must make sure there's drainage.
40:47So they're not sitting in soggy compost.
40:49So that goes in the middle ground like that.
40:58And like this, I've got three.
41:03And then a little bit more compost in the front.
41:08And now I've got my foreground for the spiller.
41:11And this is another fuchsia called Harry Grey.
41:14This is the palest of pinks that will spill in profusion
41:19over the edge of the pot.
41:22These plants are very dry, so I'm going to have to give them a good soak.
41:26OK, I'm just filling around them.
41:30The final thing to do is put it in position and water it.
41:43And that can go down in front of this pot, which, of course, is also geared for shade.
41:48And actually, even in midsummer, this only gets about four hours of sun, but this will survive and thrive.
41:55I'm confident about that.
41:56Now, the next thing to do is to water.
41:59And that really is important.
42:08It will take a month or so before the fuchsias start to flower.
42:13The great thing is that these will look at their best when other things are failing.
42:18So they should look good in the summer and really at their best in September and October.
42:25Come on, Ed.
42:27Come on.
42:30Good boy.
42:44Well, the RHS Chelsea Flair Show is getting closer.
42:47And I know that everybody involved, whatever they're doing, they will be working around the clock to make sure that
42:55on the big day, things are as perfect as they possibly can be.
42:59And we went to visit a nursery, growing enormous trees that look as though they're completely natural in the show
43:07garden.
43:07And Elliot Barden, the majestic trees, showed us around.
43:13I've always been into horticulture.
43:15It's been my dream job from day one, but I really refined my interest for trees while I was studying
43:21at Kew.
43:21And linking that with my love of production of plants meant that I could only really work at a tree
43:27nursery.
43:28The trees are important for the landscape because of all the ecosystem services that they provide.
43:33Things like wind dissipation, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, habitat creation, all of those sorts of things.
43:40But at the same time, they're important for the human element as well, because of things like social health and
43:46mental wellbeing.
43:47A lot of studies have been brought in that horticulture can be healing and it can be good for the
43:52mind.
43:56Tree selection is really important.
43:58My three guidelines would be select the right species in the right place and for the right reason.
44:04There's many aspects that you need to consider, such as ultimate size and space, but more importantly, how the tree
44:11is going to adapt to climate shifts.
44:14So there's a lot of research been done and there's some studies that are suggesting London's going to have the
44:19climate of Barcelona by 2050, possibly Azerbaijan by 2100.
44:24And a lot of our British native trees are simply not going to be resilient to those climates in that
44:30era.
44:31So that's when we need to start looking at perhaps some exotics that are going to fill the space where
44:36the natives are leaving, but also provide the same ecosystem and biodiversity benefits.
44:42Non-natives are referred to as exotics and there's somewhere between 3600 and 4000 varieties in cultivation compared to our
44:51native tree species range, which is somewhere between 30 and 35 species.
44:57So to have that diversity in the treescape will enable them to be resilient.
45:06I joined the Royal Botanic Gardens Cue in 2013, fresh out of school, and it was a steep learning curve.
45:12Cue is somewhere that you always have some connection.
45:15And today we're working together, looking at scientific research and how that can be put to best use in the
45:22commercial trade.
45:24It traps that moisture on the fine hair, which cools the leaf down.
45:28My name's Kevin Martin. I'm head of the tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Cue.
45:32So I'm really trying to understand what the landscape is going to look like in a hundred years time.
45:37So with the research that I do specialising in urban trees, it's critically important that we get the commercial nurseries
45:43on board.
45:44Because I can do research and I can find some of the most fantastic trees that are going to be
45:48more resilient to our future climate.
45:53When we think about selecting trees, we have to really stop and think deeply now.
45:59We can't just select trees on horticultural merit, what the tree looks like, so its bark, the colour of its
46:04leaves.
46:04What we need to start thinking deeply about is the function.
46:08We're looking at cooling. We're looking at shade. We're looking at rain interception.
46:13They're the questions we need to ask ourselves now, not just what that tree looks like.
46:18Chelsea's going to be so important because when we think about trees and when we think about selecting trees, we
46:24need a cultural change.
46:26And that's the biggest thing. And where else are you going to be able to start that conversation about cultural
46:31change than at Chelsea?
46:35So Kevin, these are the possible selected trees for our Chelsea stand here.
46:40Start with this Circus canadensis forest pansy with a beautiful purple leaf. It's got some flowers on.
46:46Great. They're a really standout tree. Very well suited, especially for those urban dry environments.
46:53And that's what we needed to try to explain. Just because they're resilient trees doesn't necessarily mean they're boring.
47:03So next we have Taxodium distichum, which is famous for thriving in swampy, wet conditions.
47:10If we're having an area that's prone for flooding, for instance, these are the trees we need to start looking
47:15at.
47:15And they're just really good, ornamental trees, but they have a purpose now.
47:23One of the last trees to talk about is Sorbus Olingensis olympic flame, which has lots of benefits in terms
47:30of climate resilience
47:31and benefits towards other species.
47:33It's got that spring flower. It's really important for our pollinators.
47:37And then we've got that food source for the birds when the berries come out.
47:40And again, look at that for a stunning architectural tree, but yet it's still providing other services.
47:45And that's what makes trees like this so stunning to have in our gardens.
47:51The trees we plant today, they're going to see a different world in a hundred years time.
47:58The climate is going to be very different. The growing conditions are going to be very different.
48:01So that's really the scale that we're working in.
48:03And it's critically important we get that message out there now, because by planting trees, we can then help with
48:09climate mitigation.
48:12And trees are going to be one of the main backbones of this mitigation as we go forward for the
48:17next few decades.
48:19So, Kevin, it's been really hard overall selecting trees for Chelsea, which not only look special and pleasing for people
48:26to see,
48:26but also have some of these traits we've been talking about.
48:30So overall, I hope we've done a good job, but the proof will be in the pudding when it comes
48:36to judging.
48:36It will do. Yeah, it'll be all down to the judges.
49:07I think this idea of having to choose trees in response to climate change is something we're all having to
49:14wrap our heads around.
49:15And it's actually quite a big ask, because we've grown up with trees as such a significant part of our
49:21culture in literature, in art, in poetry.
49:25The shapes and outlines and features of our native trees are such an important part of our lives.
49:32But to change that, well, it may be interesting, but it's going to be quite demanding.
49:38But at the same time, we don't have to abandon a lot of the trees that we love.
49:42And this year has been a brilliant year for blossom.
49:46And the crab apples. This is a crab apple called Everest.
49:49And it's such a joy to have that blossomy week with these white flowers floating above the paradise garden.
49:57And then they fall like confetti and the year moves on.
50:01But for that one week, it is paradise indeed.
50:21OK, come on.
50:25Now, are you going to help me cut the time? Are you? Are you?
50:30I think it's probably not a good idea, OK?
50:32What would you like to? Look, it smells delicious.
50:36Stop showing off.
50:38Right.
50:39This is thyme. Common thyme.
50:42And like all Mediterranean herbs, it doesn't really want to grow here at Longmeadow,
50:46which is why I've got it growing in a pot.
50:49But thyme and all Mediterranean herbs have this tendency to become very woody.
50:54And so the answer, if you're growing it for the kitchen, is to trim it hard now
50:59till you get a new flush of leaves.
51:01So that's what I'm going to do here.
51:02Certainly start off by cutting off all the really old, bare growth like that.
51:11And go hard.
51:15When you're cutting back, any plant really, but certainly these Mediterranean herbs,
51:20as long as you cut back to something, in other words, there's fresh new growth below your cutting point,
51:27it'll regrow.
51:28Whereas if you cut just into old wood and just leave a bare stem, the chances are it won't regrow.
51:34And that applies to lavender, to rosemary, to sage and thyme equally.
51:40It will look a little bit sort of cropped for a week or two, but it will grow back.
51:57These plants probably will only serve this year, and then they'll be irretrievable.
52:02And we'll have to start again.
52:04And I think probably with time you have to think of replacing it at least every three years,
52:09if not every other year.
52:10So I've trimmed this back.
52:13But I'm also going to sow some seed, so that I know next year and the year after,
52:18I can replace these plants and lots of others beside it.
52:33When you're sowing the seed, just as growing the plant, just remember where it comes from.
52:37It needs poor soil and lots of drainage.
52:41So don't add any garden compost to your seed mix, there's no need to do that.
52:46But do add some extra drainage if you possibly can.
52:49And it could be sand, it could be grit, vermiculite, anything just to loosen it up.
52:54So I've added vermiculite to a coir-based compost.
53:01Just level it out.
53:05Now, thyme seed is pretty small.
53:09So if you see the seed here, there we go.
53:15Now each one of those, of course, is a potential plant.
53:17And the fact that they're brown and the compost is brown means you can't see where you've sown.
53:21But just try and sprinkle it as evenly as you can.
53:28The main thing to do is to avoid grouping in any one area,
53:31because the seedlings and the ultimate plant will do much better
53:36if they have a decent amount of room from the outset.
53:40Now, I'm not compacting this.
53:43All I'm doing is just making sure that the seeds have good contact with the compost.
53:48With most seeds, I would then cover that with either some more compost or some vermiculite.
53:53But thyme seedlings need light in which to germinate.
53:58So leave them.
53:59Leave them open like that.
54:02Label them.
54:04This is just straightforward thyme.
54:07Now, if I watered that from above, however gently I did it,
54:12there is a slight risk that it will move the little tiny seeds to the edge of the container.
54:19So much better to water it from below.
54:26So just have a shallow tray.
54:29Pop it in.
54:30And leave it until you can see the compost staining with the water.
54:36Drain it.
54:36Put it somewhere bright.
54:39OK.
54:40That's a job which will bear harvest sometime in the future.
54:43But here are some jobs for this weekend.
54:58When your tulips have finished flowering, snap off the seed heads.
55:03This is a very satisfying thing to do because they come off easily.
55:06Don't cut back the stem and lead the leaves.
55:09But this means that all the goodness, instead of going into making seeds,
55:13will go back into the bulb for next year's flower.
55:22If you grow tree ferns and have protected them over winter,
55:26now it's safe to unwrap them.
55:28Release the fronds.
55:29If they're looking raggedy, you can cut these right back
55:31because they'll soon be replaced.
55:33But on the other hand, if they're still looking good, leave them for a while.
55:36In either case, it's really important to give them a good soak.
55:40And tree ferns have many of their roots on the trunk.
55:44And this is what you need to keep moist.
55:46So soak the fronds and the trunk rather than the roots in the ground.
55:58It's time to sow sweet corn.
56:01Either use a three-inch pot, sowing two seeds to a pot
56:04and then removing the weakest of the two seedlings,
56:07or one to a plug.
56:09But do make sure it is the deepest plug that you can find.
56:13Press them gently into the compost, cover them over,
56:16and then water them well.
56:17And do so from above, because with that depth of compost,
56:21they don't soak up so well.
56:23Put them somewhere warm to germinate.
56:26The heat is important, but if they're warm enough,
56:29the seedlings should appear in a week or so.
56:58I want to finish, if not on a high note,
57:01a low one which I hope actually makes everybody feel a bit better,
57:05because I'm going to finish with a disaster.
57:08The garden's looking lovely.
57:09We work really hard to make it look as good as possible,
57:13but still things go wrong, and it happens to all of us.
57:17And here we have, in the cottage garden, a rose,
57:21or at least it was a rose, called Ypsilanti,
57:25a Gallica rose, beautiful flowers,
57:27and like most Gallicas, seemingly just able to cope with anything.
57:33But this has got hit by fire blight.
57:36And fire blight is a bacterial infection
57:38which looks as though it's been blowtorched,
57:40hence the name, fire blight.
57:42All the rose family are prone to it,
57:44and we've got it in the garden, and it's never going to go away.
57:47But because of our very wet, warm winters, that makes it worse.
57:51So there's not much you can do about it.
57:53What I will do with this is cut it back, burn the offending stems,
57:58dig out the roots, and burn those too.
58:00If you can't burn them, then pack them up
58:03and get them taken away to the council tip.
58:05And I won't replant into it till the autumn.
58:08When everything is clear, I will then clean out the soil a little bit
58:12and put another rose in that is less prone to fire blight.
58:16But for the moment, it's just a pity.
58:20Nevertheless, everything else in the garden is looking wonderful.
58:25Next week, we're going to join Joe and Rachel
58:28at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival.
58:32And I will see you back here at Longmeadow in a couple of weeks' time.
58:36So until then, bye-bye.
59:02Bye-bye.
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