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Gardeners World - Season 59 - Episode 01
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00:23This video is brought to you by the
00:37Come on.
00:52Hello, and welcome back to a new season of Gardener's World.
00:55And welcome back to Longmeadow.
00:57After a very long, wet and grey winter here,
01:02suddenly the garden is positively bursting out into spring.
01:07The daffodils here in the orchard have all started flowering just in the last few days.
01:11These are the wild narcissi that I first planted a quarter of a century ago,
01:16and they're still bringing me joy every single year.
01:20I've made other more recent changes.
01:22This winter I added some big hornbeam balls in amongst the apple trees,
01:26and I'll talk more about those another day.
01:28But there are lots of changes and lots of things to be getting on with.
01:53All right, let's do it.
02:00You can get the Gerard G
02:01One of the first big jobs of the gardening year for me,
02:03particularly when the sun is shining and you raise a feeling
02:06that we're moving away from winter,
02:08is to cut back the grasses in the grass border.
02:12So the grasses look really good from June right through
02:17till at least the new year, and that's the magic of them.
02:20Because when the rest of the garden is dying back from September onwards,
02:24the grass borders are looking brilliant.
02:25And at the same time, they're giving brilliant cover
02:29for a whole range of wild animals.
02:32I found hedgehogs hibernating in the grass borders
02:35and mice of all kinds, let alone all the invertebrates,
02:39ladybirds and beetles and one thing or another.
02:40So very good for wildlife, looks great in the garden
02:43and really easy on the gardener.
02:46Very, very low maintenance.
02:48But it is important that this time of year,
02:51you do the one big thing, which is to cut them all back,
02:54except for the evergreen grasses.
02:57Now, if you have evergreen grasses like this, steeper.
03:00This is steeper gigantia.
03:02Just run your hand through and tease out any dead material,
03:06but put on some gloves, because the green can be very sharp.
03:10Ow, you see, I cut myself then.
03:12You've got to be a bit careful.
03:13So put on a pair of good stout gloves,
03:16staunch the flow of blood and off you go.
03:19But most of these grasses are deciduous,
03:22can be cut hard back to the ground,
03:24and you either do it with a pair of shears,
03:26or I have done it before with a hedge cutter,
03:28which works perfectly well.
03:29And the time to do it is once you see the new growth,
03:33which can be early February.
03:35You don't want to do it when the new growth gets too long,
03:37because you don't want to cut that back.
03:50So, this is a Miscanthus.
03:52And you can see the flower heads are still on.
03:55Relatively small, because it was so incredibly dry last summer.
03:58Miscanthus are very tough.
03:59They'll grow in almost any conditions,
04:01but they need a little bit more water than they got last summer.
04:04No new growth at the bottom,
04:05so I can just get in there and cut like that.
04:10I cut to the ground,
04:12clear it away and take it to the compost heap.
04:15Another way of doing it is called chop and drop.
04:18So you can do it with grasses,
04:20you can do it with any plant that's got dead stems
04:22still standing in winter, like this Rebecca.
04:25And what you do is instead of cutting at the base
04:27and then clearing it away,
04:28you just cut it bit by bit down
04:31and let the pieces fall wherever they may.
04:35And they stay on the ground as a mulch.
04:39But I'm going to finish this and clear it all away
04:42because there is another stage I want to go through.
04:44I want to weed it,
04:46because this is the big opportunity to do that.
04:48And then when I'm happy with weeding,
04:50I want to mulch it.
04:51But first,
04:53we're going to go from a garden which has been here now
04:56for over 30 years,
04:57to a brand new garden,
05:00or at least a brand new plot,
05:02and a very excited Adam.
05:14See that?
05:15That is one very excited face.
05:18I am like a kid in a sweet shop.
05:21I have a new garden to play with.
05:23October we moved in,
05:25and to be fair,
05:26it looked a lot better then
05:29than it does now.
05:33It's amazing, isn't it?
05:35How much mess you can make with a digger.
05:38It's 20 metres wide
05:40by about 50 metres long.
05:43The first job was to get the space measured up
05:47and down on paper
05:49so that I have an actual scale plan to work with.
05:53What I've done is divided it into basically four spaces.
05:59The first one really, I suppose,
06:01let's call it the family garden.
06:03You know, it connects back with the house.
06:05I'll wrap that around with planting
06:07and then there'll be a lovely little raised pool
06:09that sits on that side.
06:12And then a nice, big, simple lawn.
06:14And you can see,
06:15I've started to add these trees
06:17going through the space.
06:19Big borders, each side.
06:21Nice, simple area
06:23for the dogs and the family.
06:27Right, so now we're off down the garden path.
06:30There's going to be a little brick edge
06:31all the way along here.
06:34We'll get halfway down the path
06:35and then we're just going to have a little seating area.
06:38Maybe two little rockers
06:40and what this will benefit from
06:43is the sunset, which is over there.
06:45So it's going to be incredible
06:46just looking over the planting
06:48and then into the distance.
06:50And then we'll carry on that journey.
06:52And then at the moment, I've got to jump down.
06:55Boom!
06:56So, I'm now what?
06:59My knee height.
07:00So you're talking about sort of two foot down.
07:02So about 600.
07:04But this is a good place to explain
07:06how the garden was when I got here.
07:09If you imagine, it was just a slope
07:10that disappeared to that water.
07:13That water over there is flooding off the field.
07:16The river runs along the bottom
07:17and then when it does burst its banks,
07:20it comes into the space.
07:21So what I've done
07:22is I've created this sort of series of terraces.
07:25So if the water eventually does come in,
07:27it will push it all that way
07:30and it won't come into the garden.
07:31You are now though,
07:33you're in the herb garden.
07:34So we're talking herbs, fruit,
07:37maybe the occasional little veg.
07:38But I am stood in my,
07:40what will be eventually,
07:42my new greenhouse.
07:43Really simple space,
07:44but very, very immersive.
07:46You know, when you're going to be
07:47in the planting here.
07:52A few weeks ago,
07:54I actually started work
07:56and prepared the ground
07:58for some bare root hedging.
08:01The hedges I'm going to use
08:03to obviously either side of the garden,
08:05but then also to divide the garden,
08:07a hornbeam.
08:08So conditions-wise,
08:10where I live,
08:11you know,
08:11east side of the country,
08:13so actually summers can be very, very dry.
08:15But then at winter,
08:17down at that river
08:18and you can see where that water's holding,
08:19and that could well be wet,
08:20down at the end of the garden.
08:22And hornbeam are a good tree,
08:25because they'll deal
08:26with so many conditions.
08:28So when it comes to actually
08:29looking after these
08:30as they grow and mature,
08:32I'll choose the height
08:33that I want first of all,
08:34but then I'm going to keep them
08:36quite crisp and clean.
08:38And not only will that then
08:40work either side of the garden,
08:42but also as I divide the spaces
08:44and break the areas up,
08:46it becomes the backdrop,
08:47you know,
08:48for the soft,
08:49bellowy planting.
08:51They say the best time
08:52to plant a tree was yesterday,
08:55and I've already made a start.
08:58Trees will be integral to the garden,
09:00and getting them in the ground
09:02in the right place early on is vital.
09:05So that line is 90 degrees to the house,
09:09but what this allows me to do
09:11is start to set out
09:13the final few trees for this space.
09:30I talk about soil being the most important thing
09:35in the garden.
09:38This was an old farm yard.
09:40So in places, literally,
09:42old stones and bricks.
09:51Hey, get the jacket off.
09:54I'm digging a hole,
09:56it's probably twice the size of the root ball.
09:58And I'm not talking about depth,
10:00just talking about width.
10:01The fact actually that it's a square hole
10:04is important as well.
10:06If you imagine clay soil,
10:09you dig a hole that's just slightly bigger
10:12than your root ball,
10:13your container,
10:15you slot it in,
10:16your roots start to go,
10:18and they go round and round in a circle.
10:21You know?
10:21By doing this,
10:22as the roots get out,
10:23they'll get to the corner,
10:24and then ultimately,
10:26they'll take themselves out
10:27and they will cement the tree into the ground.
10:31Interestingly,
10:32in the tree world now,
10:33there's lots of conversation
10:35about whether you should put
10:37any compost,
10:38well-rotted manure
10:39in the bottom of the hole.
10:41Partly because
10:43what you want to do
10:44is you want that tree to work hard.
10:46You know?
10:47You want that tree
10:48to put on good,
10:50young, fibrous root.
10:51And if I make that area
10:55too much of a happy place,
10:57what you'll find
10:58is the roots won't go searching.
11:00And that's what we want.
11:02It's interesting,
11:02when you're sort of choosing trees,
11:04I think a lot of the time
11:05we're sucked into
11:07the tree that we really want.
11:08You know,
11:09whether it's a silver birch,
11:10whether it's a ginkgo,
11:11and then we work out
11:12where to put it.
11:13Whereas this itself
11:15is a nut.
11:16It's a hazelnut.
11:17And this will be beautiful
11:18because it will sit
11:19at the end of the border.
11:19I can control that growth,
11:21but also there's going to be
11:22a path that comes
11:23across the bottom
11:24of the garden.
11:25And this will sit
11:25at the end of that path.
11:27Why I've gone for multi-stem,
11:29actually,
11:29because it will be
11:30slightly smaller.
11:31So it's going to sit
11:32in the border
11:33so I could leave it
11:34four or five years
11:35and then I could coppice it
11:36back to the ground.
11:37So let's get it in.
11:39It's covered
11:40and wrapped in hessian.
11:41You don't have to take that off.
11:42It's biodegradable.
11:43So that will just break down.
11:45I am going to do,
11:46before I start planting,
11:48I'm just going to free
11:50this tree.
11:51So,
11:52I've got the face
11:53where I want it.
11:55We can start filling in.
11:58I just heal that in.
12:01Water it in,
12:02but I won't give it too much
12:03at the moment.
12:05What you'll remember
12:05is any new tree,
12:07you know,
12:07you're planting
12:08over the winter,
12:10going into March.
12:10the further you get into the season,
12:14the more water that plant
12:16is going to need.
12:17So I will make sure
12:18right through the year,
12:19I'm out here
12:20and I'm checking these trees
12:23every day.
12:25I think there's something magical
12:28about planting trees.
12:30So I've put an awful lot of thought
12:32into exactly where they're going.
12:35And when I plant and plan,
12:37it tends to be one tree gets placed
12:40and the other trees are driven
12:42from that tree.
12:43And that was a ginkgo.
12:45The ginkgo,
12:46which is a beautiful tree,
12:47but it needs space.
12:48That will sit as a stand-alone focal point.
12:51But all the time I'm building,
12:53I'm thinking about shapes and forms.
12:56And also,
12:56the beautiful thing about it,
12:58in reality as well,
12:59is you're not just planting for you
13:01and the family.
13:02You could well be planting
13:03for another generation.
13:14Look at that.
13:16Can you imagine
13:17the first time I saw this
13:20at the end of the garden?
13:22I mean,
13:22I've created gardens
13:24for lots of people
13:25literally all over the world
13:27and also at home for my family.
13:30But this has got to be
13:33the most exciting garden
13:34I have ever created.
13:37And it's just lovely
13:38that I'm going to be able
13:39to take you with me.
14:05I can remember that excitement
14:08when I first came here.
14:10That sense of
14:11of creating something. And look at me here, 36 years later, I'm still doing it. So, can't wait
14:18to see how that develops. What I'm doing here is much more prosaic. Having cut back the grasses,
14:26cleared everything away, that's gone to the compost heap. I've used the opportunity just to have a
14:30bit of a weed through. Now this is couch grass. It's a really successful plant. And once it gets
14:37established, it takes over. And couch grass is something that will work its way into the
14:42roots of other plants. That's its real problem in a border. If it works its way into perennials
14:47or shrubs, let alone into hedges, it's almost impossible to get out. And it's quite brittle.
14:53So if you leave any little bit of it in the ground, it will reproduce. So we try and take
14:58out as much of that and burn it. Don't put it on the compost heap. And I've got a nettle
15:04in here. Now, I'm avoiding getting stung because nettles in spring sting like nothing else. But
15:15what you can see are these very characteristic yellow roots. And it's the yellow that gives
15:20them away. Now, with nettles, if you cut the top off, that can go into the compost heap.
15:25But the roots of nettles, of couch grass and bindweed, burn them and then put the ash on the
15:31compost heap. And if you can't have a fire, then put them into green waste. But there you
15:36are, a glorious nettle, not wanted in this part of the garden. It's worth pointing out
15:41that we do keep nettles on the fringe of the garden, because they're brilliant for caterpillars.
15:46So don't regard them as always being a weed. It's just the wrong plant in the wrong place.
15:52Then it becomes a weed.
15:54Now, here on the grass borders, I'm going to mulch with pine bark. And I use it especially
16:02here on the grass borders for two reasons. Because it is slightly acidic and low fertility. Because
16:09grasses don't like too much fertility. And our soil here is very fertile. So if I mulch this
16:18with farmyard manure, we get too much lush growth. And that's not good for grasses. So I'm just using
16:26this. We're keeping the moisture in. We're keeping the weeds down, but not enriching the soil too much.
16:32So it lasts a long time. So I only do this every other year. And also when it breaks down,
16:39it really
16:40lightens the heavy soil. It's a big mistake to mulch half-heartedly. If you're going to mulch at all,
16:48you really want to aim at two inches. Sort of four centimetres minimum. Because that is what you need
16:55to block the light and stop evaporation. Do it now. Do it in spring. That's partly because you can see
17:03where you're going. Don't mulch over the top of existing growth. And then the beauty of this stuff
17:09is you just use your hand. And that just goes round like that.
17:18Now we're going to Carmarthenshire to visit a garden owned by Bob and Ranvig Wallace, who are amateurs,
17:24but have a huge amount of knowledge and passion for a distinct group of plants.
17:37It's hard to believe that this all started when, as a four-year-old, I went into the local churchyard
17:42and picked all the tulips. I'll bet your grandma was upset. Then I joined the Alpine Garden Society,
17:48went to a couple of talks, and I think you came along and you were hooked as well.
17:54By that time we had a pretty small garden. Ranvig got interested in these small plants,
17:59alpines. So we thought, well, what better, small plants for a small garden?
18:03The collection has grown and grown over the last 50 years until it is what it is today.
18:16Since, what, the 1980s? Yes. We've been travelling widely all over the world,
18:22looking at bulbs in the wild. And it is absolutely phenomenal to see huge numbers of what are
18:28reckoned to be pretty rare species in cultivation, growing in vast numbers on mountain hillsides in
18:35Iran or in Uzbekistan or in Morocco or wherever. And also it gives you a lot of hints as to
18:41how to
18:42grow them, what conditions they need in cultivation when you see what they're coping with in the wild.
18:55All the greenhouses are absolutely full of plants in pots now, because we like to exhibit what we've
19:01got as well. Six greenhouses, two polytunnels. We've got the show on Saturday. Yes. I thought we
19:08might start thinking about some of the specials that we might have to take. How about that?
19:12Yeah, that's not bad, is it? Cyclamen pseudobirical. You remember going up into the wild in the
19:17Amarnas Mountains, where Turkey and Syria join? Yeah. Warm, quite humid woodland. This is a
19:23particularly good form, isn't it, with these dark pink flowers, although I do like the pale pink ones
19:27as well, I have to say. I like them all. This is the more common one in the wild, isn't
19:31it? Yes.
19:32The botanists had a real field day with that, didn't they, because they used to be Chionodoxa,
19:36and now they're scillers. And like all the bulbs, it responds well to a nice free draining compost,
19:42and a bit of care and attention when it's coming into growth. Easy, but spectacular. Yeah. Lovely.
19:48And we now need something a bit taller and a different colour. Maybe a yellow Narcissus would
19:52make the three look nice. Oh, I think I've got just the thing. I have to go to the other
19:56greenhouse to get it.
19:56Okay. Okay. Hurry up, then. How about that? That's looking good. That's a really nice hybrid,
20:10there. So this is a form of Narcissus triandrus, the angel's tears, because of the shape of the flower,
20:17with the corona hanging down, and these petals swept back like that. And it's a really elegant plant.
20:24So do you reckon that would go nicely with those two? I do, yes. Yeah. And I think it needs
20:30lifting up
20:31a little bit, so the flowers show above the two other ones in front.
20:39This is Irish Sindhpurs, which is actually a hybrid between two Turkish species. A big tall blue one,
20:47and a little tiny one about the sizes of these here. I think it might go to the show.
20:54It's a matter of what we think on Friday. We may even take it on Saturday and decide not to.
21:00Depends on
21:01the condition of the flowers. We've grown it for years, so we have to be very, very careful
21:06about watering, and to water just in the pot and not in the plant. And that's probably true of a
21:11lot
21:12of things, actually, that watering is the crucial thing. For example, this one, you see the leaves are
21:17forming a sort of a cup. And if you get water down into that cup, which in the world probably
21:22happens
21:22naturally, but the plant dries up very quickly. Here with the humidity that we have here in West Wales,
21:28it doesn't dry up. You get rots that go down into the bulb, and all of a sudden, the bulb's
21:34dead.
21:39All but my particular favourite is this one here, which is Corridalis maracandica. It occurs in two
21:47colour forms, one yellow and one purple. And as you can see, this one seems to be a mixture of
21:52the two,
21:52which makes it really appealing. The alpine house has got very good ventilation. You can see running
22:00down each side of the greenhouse, there are these louvre windows which are open all the time. The air
22:05still flows over the plants and keeps them healthy. These plants are definitely for greenhouse growth.
22:11They would be temperature hardy outside, but they certainly wouldn't be rain hardy. So there's no point
22:16to trying these out in the open garden. They just wouldn't survive.
22:21We're here in the middle of February. It's freezing cold outside. It's in low single figures. It's snowed
22:28overnight. You don't come into the greenhouse and see all sorts of things growing, flowering. There's
22:34loads and loads of colour in here. And of course, once you've got this big collection of plants,
22:39you want other people to see them. So what better way of exhibiting your plants than going to
22:45various Alpine Garden Society shows and putting them on the show bench?
22:49You mean you like to show off? Well, a little bit of that.
22:52And there's actually quite a bit of competition as well. So it's, you know, it's a lot of fun.
23:03It's been a very long day because we had to get up early to get here on time.
23:06We then had to unload the car with all the heavy boxes that we have to carry in. And then
23:11they all have to be
23:11placed on the benches. They have to be labelled, arranged in their classes, picked over to make
23:19sure there's no dead flowers or dead foliage. We just want to soak up the kind of excellence of
23:25horticulture, really, all these gorgeous plants, the sort of things that you never get to
23:28see anywhere else. There's some amazing plants here and just amazing examples and an opportunity
23:34to find new gems that we want to grow. You're into plants. And even if you're not, you might get
23:40into plants if you come to a place like this, because you'll see something and think, right,
23:44what is that? I want to grow it. How do you do it?
23:51It's such a fun day out. I mean, not only do you have all of these lovely people,
23:56you've got all of the nurseries and then you can come and see old friends, new friends.
24:03I'm very proud that I've managed to get thirds. This particular one is a Hepatica nobilis. And
24:08um, yeah, it's just, it opened out last night. So I was very, very chuffed that it was actually
24:14making it for the show. Basically, it's just tiny plants. I love them. I've received a first on one
24:21of my plants. It's a Ginospermum, which is in the Berberadesi family. Exciting. They bring intense
24:29colours through what can be quite a boring time of year. I think that's what I love about the shows.
24:34It brings the best of what's looking good at this time of year.
24:38Well, we got first with all of our Corridalis. These are all Corridalis with a big tuber under
24:44the ground, radiate out the stem. And if you don't try and block the growth of the stems
24:51horizontally, they all come up around the edge of the pot. So when we're potting them, we put in
24:55barriers to make them come up in the middle of the pot as well as around the edge. And that
25:00gives you a
25:00nice flat top. Otherwise, I mean, in the wild, you can often find a plant will be this much across,
25:08but there's a little tuber under the ground somewhere under a stone.
25:11Can I have an ice pack for my black-eyed bits?
25:15Our first show, I think, must have been 1972, when we were both students.
25:21And that's 54 years ago. Between us, we've been growing for more than a century, if you like.
25:27And we're still going strong.
25:50What do you think? What do you think?
25:52Up. Now don't go on the border. Good boy. Just stay there.
25:56One of the things that I increasingly respect is the way that there's this deep reservoir of knowledge
26:03amongst people who have devoted their lives to plants. And I think that's something that we should
26:08treasure. Now, I know that none of those experts would think that the spring garden here is
26:14particularly special because none of the plants are particularly special. But at this time of year,
26:19as we come into spring, it holds center stage here at Longmeadow. And now coming through are the
26:25hellebores and the snowflakes, the leucosium. You have the tetetet daffodils. And I can see that the
26:31imperial fritillaries are starting to grow. So this slither of Longmeadow is certainly the best thing in the garden.
26:39And then, by about mid-May, it's done its stuff. It's over until next year.
27:04Come on up.
27:24Right. What I'm setting up is a new framework
27:27to support a new batch of raspberries that I'm growing. This is a new plot near the greenhouse,
27:34near water. This is going to be our new soft fruit bed. We've got strawberries at that end.
27:37I've planted autumn fruiting raspberries. But what I'm planting today are summer fruiting raspberries.
27:44And these fruit on canes that are grown the previous year.
27:49So the ones I plant today won't give me any fruit until next summer.
27:54Now, if you're planting raspberries, and now is a good time to do it,
27:58and they're summer fruiting, they need support. It can be a trellis, it can be a fence,
28:03but I like this wire system. So, what I've got are wires attached to tensioners at either end.
28:13And this is quite important, because if you just loop the wire around, inevitably,
28:17it gets slacker, and then you can't tighten it. And you want the wires to be reasonably tight.
28:22So I just hook them onto there, and then tighten it up.
28:28And, by the way, these are eight-foot posts driven two foot into the ground,
28:32so I've got six foot of height. These could easily stay in position for 10, 15 years,
28:38and absolutely necessary to have into place before you start planting.
28:52Having walked all over the soil putting up the wires, I'm just loosening it.
29:03Now, these brown sticks will bear fruit, but they're two quite different varieties.
29:09There's Glen Ample, which is a trusted variety. I've grown it many times before.
29:15It's very disease-resistant. It copes very well with wet conditions compared to other raspberries,
29:21and is delicious. And that will crop from, sort of, the end of June to early August.
29:28And this is bare root, so that needs to go in the ground first.
29:32In a pot, looking very undistinguished, I've got Malling Admiral. And I've chosen this,
29:38although I've not grown it before, because it's disease-resistant,
29:41coping with all kinds of soil, and a delicious fruit.
29:45Now, you can see there are five stems in the pot. Those are five separate plants,
29:51and you need to space them out at least round about 18 inches apart.
29:56I'm not actually going to plant these now. I'm going to plant the bare root ones,
29:58because bare root plants, they're not in the pot, they're not in any compost,
30:02so you need to get them in the ground as quickly as you can, ideally the same day.
30:10Here are a bundle of bare root plants, and you can see there are the roots.
30:14Now, if it's going to be a slow process, have a bucket of water nearby and stick them in.
30:20Don't let the roots dry out, and that is really, really important.
30:24I'm not going to plant them in the ground, I'm going to plant them on the ground.
30:29So if I put that like that, I'm just going to bring the soil up around them.
30:40Raspberries have very shallow roots that grow sideways, not very deep,
30:44and they really hate sitting in very wet soil.
30:48However, if you've got free draining soil, that's fine. That's okay, you can plant them normally.
30:58I will water them in, and I will tie them, because by tying them,
31:03it gives them stability while the roots get established.
31:06Once the roots are established, these can then be cut back.
31:09Right, one more row of Glen Ample, then a couple of rows there,
31:12and I'll have four rows of summer fruiting raspberries,
31:16which will be ready to harvest in July 2027.
31:21There's forward planning for you.
31:27Now, Arit has been to Kew. Most of us go there and walk around and visit the glass houses
31:34and see the planting, and it's very much a sort of a public park,
31:38as well as one of the world's greatest botanic gardens.
31:40But she has been allowed behind doors that very few of us ever go through.
31:47Hidden deep within the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew,
31:50lies a world almost no one ever sees.
31:54Closed to visitors, this secret tropical nursery is a plant emergency room for some of the planet's
32:00rarest plants, and has become one of the most biodiverse corners on Earth.
32:05The work carried out here is a battle for survival, and every second counts.
32:11Behind these doors are over 10,000 plant species.
32:15Many of them are rare, threatened, or of vital conservation concern.
32:21But today, I've been given exclusive access to learn more about these critically endangered plants,
32:27and to meet the specialists that are working around the clock to save them.
32:35Within the nursery are an incredible 21 separate climatic zones split into four groups.
32:42It's orchids, temperate, moist tropics, and arid.
32:49Carlos Magdalena is a senior botanical horticulturalist.
32:53He is known for his remarkable success in bringing the world's most threatened plants back from the brink of extinction.
33:01Hello.
33:02Hey, Carlos.
33:04This is proper laboratory.
33:06I feel like I'm somewhere really sci-fi.
33:08What work are you doing here?
33:10Well, in this tank alone, there is about 50 different types of water lilies.
33:16We have also the smallest water lily in the world, which almost went extinct about a decade ago.
33:22So this is the smallest water lily in the world?
33:25Yeah.
33:25Why is it not in the wild? What happened to it going nearly extinct?
33:30The habitat where it grows is probably smaller than this tank.
33:34So it was a matter of time before something happened, you know?
33:38There was only four plants left, and they were here in queue, which was quite scary.
33:43Trying to grow the seedlings to maturity was almost impossible.
33:47Right.
33:48So I managed to come up with a way of cultivating these ones from seed.
33:52All you have to do is grow them very, very shallow.
33:55Yeah.
33:56So that when the seedling germinates, it touches the air.
33:59It's things like this that make a whole difference, right?
34:02From those four plants, we produce lots.
34:04We have here more than 100 now, but also we have sent them to many different places.
34:08There is growers in America, Asia, Africa, Europe, you name it.
34:12So it's very well secure out of the habitat.
34:15Saved by the bell, really.
34:17One of Carlos's biggest successes was the integral role he played in saving the plant known as Café Moron.
34:25Café Moron was thought to be extinct until a single surviving tree was spotted by a schoolboy
34:31in 1979 in its native island of Rodriguez in Mauritius.
34:37So this has had a real challenge, hasn't it? There's the real story behind it then?
34:43Yeah. It has taken us almost a whole century to work out how to save this.
34:48Wow.
34:49It was not seen in a while for more than 40 years.
34:52So then class specimen was found and then a cutting was flown to queue.
34:58Right.
34:59From that plant, we managed to root a plant.
35:02For more than 25 years, not a single seed was produced.
35:05And then even though we had many plants, they were all cloned because they were all from the same cutting.
35:10Yes.
35:10If you take a cutting, it's cloning the plant.
35:13And then it will carry the same problem that it flowers, but it doesn't produce seeds.
35:17And if you want to reintroduce the plant in the wild, you will need to have a plant
35:21which is able to reproduce by itself. There was plenty of chances for us to try new things.
35:28And then one day, bingo, I got a fruit with nice seeds.
35:33Which is incredible.
35:34Yeah.
35:35So you're the plant whisperer.
35:37You brought it back from extinction, near enough.
35:40That's amazing.
35:41Why is it so important to keep these plants on our planet?
35:46What would happen if we were to lose plants like this?
35:50Well, first of all, every species has kind of like a link with other species.
35:55So they're all part of our ecosystem.
35:58But more importantly for us humans, they are the main reason we can get medicines.
36:04Everything you eat comes from a plant or something that eats plants.
36:08And therefore, protecting plants is really essential and important to humankind.
36:13I think it's amazing work that's been done over a long time.
36:17So long may you continue to be keeping plants alive, Carlos.
36:22Thank you. Yeah.
36:26Globally, one of the world's most threatened plant groups are arid plants.
36:31Tough enough to survive deserts, they are now facing unprecedented danger
36:35and need urgent help.
36:38Tropical nursery manager Paul Rees is on a mission to save them.
36:42Paul, it's like being in a different world.
36:45All of these plants, what sort of challenges are they facing out in their own environment?
36:51The plants in this zone are species that come from very dry conditions.
36:56Often when we think of climate change, we think of a warming climate
36:59and we immediately think that arid plants are going to be able to cope with that.
37:04But often they're sort of living sort of at the extremes already.
37:07And if the conditions get hotter and drier, there's lots of pressures that cause problems.
37:11Some of them are very rare as well.
37:13So they'll only exist on one slope or one or two slopes within a region.
37:16And that has lots of implications where if they're overexploited or there's change in land use,
37:21species can go to endangered quite quickly.
37:23Is there anything particular that you've been working on recently?
37:26The plants we've got here in front of us, these are conophytums, succulent plants.
37:31They are endemic to the northwest of South Africa, into Namibia, and they sort of exist nowhere else naturally.
37:38When the conditions become hotter and drier in the spring, they start drying out and form these papery sheaths.
37:44So by midsummer, the plants all look like they're completely dead.
37:48And that's sort of extremely beneficial for the plants.
37:51In the deserts, there's a very high diversity of tortoise.
37:55And the tortoise will get all of their moisture during the dry season by eating plants.
37:59So if you as a conophytum look like you're dead, the tortoise ignores you and eats something else.
38:04So they're very, very interesting, well at least to me.
38:09This is one of the group that sort of captured the attention of people,
38:12which has led to over-exploitation in habitat, mainly through poaching.
38:17And species through these mass poaching events have gone to critically endangered, if not extinct overnight.
38:24Wow.
38:24And the estimate currently from that region is sort of about 1.9 million plants stolen from habitat since 2020.
38:31Our goal is to ensure we've got backup collections.
38:36Conserving a species where it's supposed to be is priority one.
38:39And then we're also looking to ensure that there's decent seed collections of very vulnerable species
38:43in our seed bank to try and reduce, if not stop, stop species from going extinct.
38:49What advice can you give to people in terms of when they're buying their house plants?
38:54It's fantastic in many ways.
38:55To see people growing plants is amazing.
38:58And more people interested in the natural world and more people growing plants is important.
39:04But I think understanding that when we are buying plants,
39:08we need to just make sure that we're buying them from places that are reputable.
39:14You can really feel the power of plants here.
39:18Their beauty, their resilience and their importance to all living things.
39:23The work going on behind the scenes here is all about passion meeting purpose, saving plants
39:29and safeguarding the diversity of these plants for future generations to come.
39:58I do know just how vital the work they do at Kew is.
40:04And it's a privilege to get a chance to see it in action.
40:08Much more upfront and available to all of us are the colours you get from flowering bulbs at this time
40:13of year.
40:14And every October and November, I make a real point of planting as many as I can into pots.
40:20And this is the result.
40:21We've got various daffodils, we've got hyacinth, the wonderful little iris, crocus.
40:27It lasts a few weeks and just as we come through a long winter, boy does it make your heart
40:35sing.
40:36Now, that's going full blast and hopefully that will keep going for a little bit longer.
40:41What I do need to do now is prepare for summer, particularly late summer.
40:46And what I've got in boxes are dahlias.
40:48And dahlias are an absolute essential plant for Longmeadow from the middle of July through till November.
40:59Now, these have been stored all winter in a dark place, wrapped in newspaper,
41:04which we've found is a really good way of keeping them at the right humidity levels.
41:09So, this is a variety called Rothsay reveler, which is a kind of raspberry ripple of a flower.
41:15And you can look, lovely tubers.
41:18Now, what I'm looking for here is to see if any have rotted, if they've got too dry,
41:24if the mice have been nibbling at them.
41:26Maybe there was a slug in there with them having a go.
41:28So, just check them over.
41:29Feel the tubers.
41:30Are they firm?
41:31If they're soft and squidgy, that's not good, and you need to cut them off.
41:35And fatter and the sort of more firm the tubers are, the more flowers they will produce.
41:40I have to say, that's a very nice group of tubers.
41:43So, at this stage, there are three things I can do.
41:47The first is to put them back into storage for another month,
41:52because it's too early to plant out dahlias yet.
41:54They're not frost-hardy, so I wouldn't plant these out until mid-April at the earliest.
41:59The second thing to do is to pot them up and grow them on in a frost-free place,
42:05but with light, so that when you plant them out, they've got growth a foot tall,
42:09and that will give you flowers about a month earlier.
42:11And we tend to do that with most of ours.
42:14And the third thing to do is exactly what I am going to do now.
42:17And that is to pot them up, but specifically to produce cuttings.
42:22Now, any old pot will do, as long as it's big enough.
42:25Recycle pots.
42:30Put some compost in.
42:34It doesn't have to be anything special, but it does have to have reasonable drainage.
42:42So, you might want to add a bit of perlite or grit.
42:48Now, let's get the level right.
42:50Yeah.
42:52When you plant dahlias in the garden, you want to plant them deep.
42:55And the deeper they are, the better they are protected from cold weather.
42:59When you're putting them in a pot, the cuttings are taken where they come from the tuber.
43:04So, if it's buried, you can't get at it.
43:05So, we'll put that like that in there, and then just put a little bit of soil around them,
43:14but not burying it completely.
43:22Right. The important thing is to give this heat, water, and light.
43:28And that will produce new growth.
43:30If you've got a windowsill above a radiator, that's absolutely fine.
43:34If you've got a greenhouse, that's better.
43:36And ideally, a heated mat in a greenhouse, and that's perfect.
43:42And the new growth will appear after about a week,
43:44and the cuttings will be ready when they're about sort of two to six inches long.
43:50And that's usually three to four weeks, and I'll do that with you when they're ready.
43:53If you're not worried about taking cuttings, then just put it somewhere frost-free and light,
43:58and you'll get growth ready to plant out round about the end of April.
44:05Now, we're going to a garden near Maidstone, in Kent, where Cathy Smythe and Gary Catamole
44:14have created an exotic paradise for their dogs.
44:25The tropical plants here transport you to another place,
44:29and it's so wonderful to just have that illusion of maybe you could be anywhere in the world.
44:35And that's all done by plants. They're really tactile. You can touch them. You can hug the
44:43Trachycarpus, which is a little bit weird, I know, but you know, sometimes I'll just give them a bit of
44:47a squeeze.
44:48And you don't tend to do that with cottage garden plants so much.
44:52We've never been to the tropical islands of anywhere, so it's nice to kind of drag it to rural England.
45:05In 2017, we applied to a doctor setter, and that's how Bowie came into our lives.
45:11He's a calm, beautiful, peaceful, joyful boy. After Bowie came along,
45:17we realised that we weren't going to stop there. Dotter is our ball of energy. She's just a delight.
45:25Then Melly, and then our baby Mojo. So now our little rescue family is complete.
45:32We wanted to give them a space that was just beautiful, considering they'd had troubled
45:38backgrounds. We didn't want to restrict them in any way. Before we knew it, we'd thrown
45:4410 tonnes of sand down, and we were calling it the Small Deeds.
45:51It's been a great space for the dogs to rehabilitate, and they've got their own little routines,
45:57places they like to go in the garden. Some of them feel comfortable going up higher,
46:01or they could bury down low, or they could just sniff around and really enjoy themselves.
46:07It fills your heart to see just how content and happy they are.
46:18This is where it all began in the Small Deeds, with one raised bed with a formium that was a
46:25gift
46:25from a friend who had moved and didn't want it anymore. So thank you Dawn. We call this formium
46:31Wavy Davey. Very, very resilient plant, very robust. It can take a bashing from the dogs.
46:38Fantastic. Love it. We also had our cordyline, which is up here. And this is a Torbay Dazzler,
46:45that we call Miss Tina Turner for obvious reasons, with the spiky groovy hair. She came home in the
46:52footwell of our car, but over the years has just shot up. And yeah, this is where it all began.
47:00A lot of the planting is quite sturdy, because the first thing we say is,
47:05can it take a bashing from the dogs? Don't normally assume that you can have
47:10four quite exuberant dogs and a wonderful space for yourself as well,
47:15and I think that we've actually proved that you can here.
47:23Kath is excellent at remembering the plants' names. I'm absolutely terrible.
47:27It's easier to remember the names of things when you genuinely have an interest and
47:31Gary is the... He... Plantus potus is what I can remember. Plantus potus.
47:40I absolutely adore this palm. Look at it. It's like it's having a really bad hair day.
47:47This is a Washingtonia, so it's a cross between a Robusta and a Filifera, and they call it a
47:55filibuster. So what you'd normally see these maybe out in Beverly Hills, they're called skyduster
47:59palms right up into the air. But unfortunately, they're not hardy for a severe winter. So as it
48:07is one of my ultimate favorites, if we do have a brutal winter, we'll build a cage for it and
48:12we'll
48:12protect it so it can just grow up to the sky.
48:17As the gardens evolved over the years, we've added more plants and they develop, you kind of
48:23grow fond of them in a weird way, so the plants become part of the family too.
48:33Look at this beautiful, hairy, fibrous trunk. I love it. I can't stop touching it. It's from the
48:39Trachycarpus family. It's a Fortunii. I like to make little pitter pockets out of the fiber here and then
48:47wedge a bromeliad in or an air plant or some succulents just to make it a little bit blingy,
48:54which is lovely. Then we have, same again, Trachycarpus family but this is our Wagnerianus.
49:02Easy to tell the difference because these palms are really quite stiff and they are more suited for
49:08windy areas. These are boys and this one's a girl and I know this one's a girl because you can
49:15see
49:15the seeds here. So once the seeds have matured, they'll fall and then over the years you'll find
49:21yourself with seedlings like we have here which are potentially lots of little palm trees which
49:29are actually crosses between a Fortunii and a Wagnerianus. Look how resilient these plants are
49:37because you think they're being stamped by the dogs day in, day out. They take all the frosts,
49:43they take any snow, super hardy.
49:51Because the garden was originally a car park with loads of hardcore, we have to get a groundbreaker
49:55in for any small plant. And every time I'll visit the nursery and I think,
50:00hmm, I really like that and you can see Gary's face just dropping because he knows that he's going
50:05to have to get the groundbreaker out and that's going to be fizzy hands for the next three weeks.
50:17So here we have the staple for every tropical style garden, I believe,
50:22which is the hardy banana, moussa bazdu. These guys add so much to a tropical garden. You look at
50:28the leaves, they're fantastic. They're like big sails waving in the wind. When the weather's bad and the
50:34winds come in and the rain hammers down, the leaves tear and shred and they look like gorgeous feathers,
50:40it's just something really magical. This one here has flowered this year. If you see up there,
50:47you can see the remnants of the flower and the tiny bananas, which aren't at all edible, but this will
50:52die. If I move this, you can kind of see it becoming a little bit fragile at the base. But
50:58the good news is
50:59that it will pop babies up, or pups as we call them. So we lose this one and then we
51:06have more replacing it.
51:14I get quite emotional when I think about the garden really because it's come a long way. It was designed
51:23for these guys here. They've come such a long way too. And it just gives so much joy.
51:30It's a dream come true to have these incredible animals with us in a lovely environment like this.
51:38Yes. We're so lucky. Very lucky.
51:41You're lucky.
52:09You're lucky.
52:22Come on.
52:43It's good to see another version of a dog garden.
52:46And you would like that, Ned.
52:48You would.
52:49To have that sort of exotic paradise within one garden, fabulous for people and fabulous
52:55for dogs.
52:56Now, I'm going to do a job which really needs doing fairly soon.
53:00It's cutting back late flowering clematis.
53:03These are group three clematis, as sometimes referred to, and all of them flower on new
53:08growth.
53:08And you can see the new growth.
53:09It's appearing.
53:10And if you don't cut them back, you get a lot of bare growth at the bottom of the plant
53:14and then a mass of new shoots at the top with the flowers on.
53:17But because they flower on new shoots, you can prune back all last year's growth, knowing
53:22there will be new growth to carry new flowers.
53:25And at the same time, it will encourage extra new growth, therefore extra flowers.
53:29So it's win-win.
53:37What I do with clematis that's growing in a border is I don't take it right to the ground.
53:41I take it about a foot or two above the ground so that the growth isn't competing with all
53:48this other growth that's going to come round them.
53:49However, if you've got this on an open fence or by a door, you can cut nice and low.
53:54Leave two buds.
53:57So if we take this tendril here, there's some buds there, buds there, and there, and there's
54:05some right down there.
54:06It just means if for any reason, one set of buds gets damaged or frosted or whatever
54:12it might be, you've got another.
54:14And then everything above it is now redundant and can be thrown away, even though there's
54:18new growth on there.
54:27Now, at this point, it's worth just inspecting your supports.
54:31And if in doubt, now is the time to change them.
54:34These have lasted about three or four years.
54:37That's all I expect from the hazel in the garden, particularly when it's been so wet.
54:42So, these can come out.
54:44Oh, yeah, that's broken.
54:46So it shows they needed doing.
54:47I mean, as a rule of thumb, if they break like that, they're no good.
54:51They're not going to be strong enough to hold the weight of a clematis.
54:54A big, strong clematis full of flower in August or September needs pretty stout support.
55:02However, you can put them against a trellis, you can put them against a wall, as long as
55:05they're reasonably strongly supported.
55:09The main thing when you're growing any clematis is they do not like to be dry.
55:14So if you're planting at this time of year, add a little bit of compost or actually any
55:20organic matter, not so much to feed it, but to soak up moisture and hold moisture.
55:29And I'm really pushing them in as hard as I can.
55:45Right, that's a good job done.
55:49And if you've got late flowering clematis, then I do recommend that you get on with it
55:53and do it as soon as possible.
55:55But if you haven't got any late flowering clematis, here are some other jobs that you
55:59can do this weekend.
56:13It's time to begin sowing tender annuals.
56:17This is something that I like to do in stages across the coming weeks.
56:21I'm beginning by sowing Tithonius, the Mexican sunflower, with their intense orange petals.
56:29Sprinkle the seed thinly on compost in a seed tray, cover them over, water them, ideally
56:35from below by sitting them in a tray, and then put them somewhere warm to germinate.
56:39And then, in a few weeks' time, the seedlings will emerge.
56:50Now that they've finished flowering but still got lush foliage, it's the perfect time to lift
56:55and move snowdrops.
56:56You can either spread an existing group by lifting them and dividing them and then replanting
57:00them locally, or take them to a new location and plant them there.
57:05Either way, they will scarcely notice they've been moved and they'll re-flower with renewed
57:10vigour.
57:20Chitting potatoes, particularly for first earlies, is the best way to get the earliest possible
57:27harvest.
57:28In principle, it simply means taking the seed potatoes and placing them on end in some kind
57:35of container, either an egg box or I'm using a seed tray, so that one shoot is exposed to
57:41light.
57:42Put them in a frost-free but sunny place, and that shoot will become knobbly and hard, but
57:48when you plant it, it'll be primed to burst into growth.
58:07I think Ned is quite relaxed.
58:11I sat down here for a minute, and two seconds later he was on my lap, and now he's flat
58:15out.
58:16But it has been a wonderful day.
58:18I can't tell you how nice it's been to spend the whole day outside in the sunshine.
58:23And looking forward to so much more, because of course, not only is the garden looking better
58:29every day, but there is quite a lot to do.
58:31And in the end, that combination of enjoying the garden and gardening is what makes it so
58:37special.
58:39But that's it for today, and I will see you back here at Longmeadow next time.
58:43So until then, bye-bye.
59:01Bye.
59:05Bye.
59:09Bye.
59:09Bye.
59:11Bye.
59:12Bye.
59:13Bye.
59:14Bye.
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