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Gardeners World - Season 59 - Episode 04
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00:21Right now, come on. Good boy.
00:41Hello. Welcome to an Easter gardener's world. And it's that first moment in the year for
00:53many people when you can get outside and really appreciate the garden as something to offer
00:58you delight, rather than a series of jobs that need to be done. And the cottage garden
01:04here at Longmeadow is beginning to be delightful. It's just starting to show its colours, but
01:10those colours are very much geared towards pastels, obviously pinks, and then lilacs and
01:17mauves. And, when I can get it, my favourite colour of all in the garden, which is apricot.
01:26Now, there are very, very few flowers that are naturally apricot. They tend to be bred
01:32from a combination of pink and orange. Sometimes you have too much pink, sometimes too much orange,
01:38and occasionally they just hit the sweet spot, but then another one of the same variety doesn't.
01:44It's my obsession. But it is good fun working on a colour theme. And what I have here is a
01:51geom. This is geom Mai Tai. It's from the cocktail series. It's not true apricot, but it's touched
01:58with it. It's got a base of a soft yellow and then flushed with a very orangey pink. The cocktail
02:06series
02:06are particularly low, so great for the front of a border or in a pot, but they flower from, depending
02:12where you are, mid-April right the way through till June. And if you keep deadheading, they will keep
02:17on flowering.
02:20That one has got flowers on it. When you're buying a plant from a garden centre, tend to
02:25those that don't have flowers on it, because it's used up the energy of the plant to produce
02:30flowers, and you want that energy going into your garden. So check out the flowers, make
02:34sure it's the colour you want, and then choose plants that are not yet flowering.
02:41OK, we can get one in here, and I think another over here. Right, that will do for this bit.
02:47Now the foxgloves, I want to plant those now because they're bare root. And if you're moving
02:51plants in the garden, move them quickly. The quicker you move them, the less they'll mind
02:55being moved.
03:01I've got here some foxgloves called Apricot Delight. Never grown it before. I've grown from
03:06seed. They look as though they could be wonderful. And foxgloves are either a biannual or a short
03:12lived perennial. And what that means is they will not flower in their first year. They
03:17flower in their second year. And some won't flower again. They'll set seed and die back.
03:22Quite a few will reappear the next year, maybe even as many as four years. But by and large,
03:28their best performance is in the year after sowing.
03:34Right, I'm going to get this in the ground. And these are in the ground.
03:52It's brilliant planting weather. Over Easter is a really good time. Perfect for herbaceous
03:59perennials, or biannuals, or even annuals for that matter. Get them in the ground because
04:04the sooner the roots can get in, the better they're going to cope with summer heat. And
04:08this relates to geoms in particular, because geoms are a plant that really don't like to
04:13be dry. They do their best in moisture-retentive ground. So that's not a bog. They're not a
04:18water plant, but they're not good in very light sand or pure chalk or anything like that.
04:23But they really like soil that can retain moisture. And of course, you can always improve the
04:30water retention of your soil by adding organic matter.
04:40Now, Ashley went down to Leonard's Lee Garden in West Sussex to celebrate spring by looking
04:47at it in detail.
04:54For me, early spring carries a quiet magic. The natural world is awakening, and there's
05:00a thrilling sense of possibility in the air. Color is returning, buds are swelling, and plant
05:08life unfolds a little more each day. The garden may seem calm, but that stillness can be deceptive.
05:16There's a world of excitement waiting if you just slow down and look closely.
05:29Magnolias are the real stars of early spring. While most trees wait for their leaves to appear
05:36before flowering, with magnolias, the flowers come first.
05:41I've just noticed this. This is Magnolia Leonard Messel, and it's a really delicate form of
05:48magnolia. There's so many different varieties. What I love about this one is it's got this
05:52two-tone color to the petals. The outside a lot more of a pastel pink, and the inside this
05:58lovely pale pink. So when you're looking at it from different angles, you get those different
06:02colors. When you look really closely at the buds, you can see they're really fuzzy. They're, they're almost
06:07like little rabbit feet. And this fur actually protects them from cold weather, meaning that
06:12they can flower earlier in the year. Magnolia flowers are monoecious, and this means that both
06:18male and female reproductive organs are on the same plant. Magnolias evolved nearly 100 million
06:25years ago when bees didn't exist and dinosaurs still roamed the earth. So they relied on beetles to
06:31pollinate them. So lots of magnolias have robust anthers and stigmas to support these large insects.
06:37And you can see this in some of these flowers here. They're almost like plastic. They're so tough.
06:43Once you start to notice the little details like these buds, you realize that the garden is full
06:48of the promise of spring.
07:01Wow. This is Katsura tree, or Circe de Filma japonicum. Also sometimes called the toffee apple tree
07:09because it has this really sugary scent when the leaves drop in autumn. But I've never noticed the flowers
07:14before, and they're like little flames or tentacles. These are the male flowers of this tree.
07:19There's such a small window of opportunity to see this, so I feel really lucky to be here
07:24just at the right time.
07:33This area of the garden is famous for its rhododendrons, many of which are hybrids that were bred here
07:39more than a century ago.
07:41And this one is just starting to show its full color.
07:44But if you look closely, you can see the different stages we're at now.
07:48So you've got the closed bud here,
07:50and you can tell it's a flower bud because it's really fat and juicy.
07:53And it also has these really beautiful scales.
07:56Some rhododendron buds have a sticky resin,
07:59and this helps to protect it from insect attack and also from any wet weather.
08:04On this one, you can see the flower petals just emerging,
08:07and this is beautiful in its own right. They look like little tongues to me.
08:10And then these ones are in full color now,
08:12and that just shows how you've got these stages,
08:15this progression of flowering on this plant.
08:30This is a great example of layering in the garden.
08:34You've got your large shrubs and trees like this pieris above me,
08:37and it's been crown lifted,
08:39so it opens up opportunity for planting underneath.
08:42So you have your second layer of smaller shrubs and herbaceous plants
08:46like these beautiful hellebores, which are in full flower now.
08:49So it provides that early season color and interest.
08:52And then you've got ground cover like this pakisandra here,
08:55which provides a lovely foliage for the forest floor.
08:58And this is something you can apply to any garden.
09:01It doesn't matter what size you've got.
09:02You could even do it in a container.
09:04So you could have a large shrub with smaller filler plants like hellebores,
09:08and then something that trails like vinca.
09:11It's a great way to make the most of your space.
09:14And it also means that when these early flowering plants are finished,
09:18you still have all that texture to see throughout the year.
09:30Some shrubs really come into their own in early spring,
09:34when color and fragrance can still be a little thin on the ground.
09:39One of my favorites is this.
09:41It's Edgeworthia chrysantha grandiflora,
09:44and it has these amazing ball-shaped flowers.
09:47The flowers also appear before the leaves,
09:49so it means that they really stand out, and it packs such a powerful scent.
09:53And this acts as a signal.
09:55Insects are waking up from hibernation this time of year,
09:57so by putting this scent out there,
09:59it says, I'm open for business.
10:00Come and get some nectar.
10:04Planting nectar-rich plants
10:06doesn't just give you a beautiful garden,
10:08but it also gives wildlife a head start.
10:12Over here, we have Coriolopsis porciflora,
10:14and it has these delicate pendant-like yellow flowers,
10:17which look like little lanterns.
10:19The great thing about this is you could have it in a small garden.
10:22It stays compact,
10:23and it has this really nice arching habit to it.
10:26If you want to prune your spring flowering shrubs,
10:29the best time to do it is straight after they finish flowering
10:31because they soon start to produce the growth
10:34that will have next year's flowers on.
10:42Once you tune into the season,
10:44the signs of spring are everywhere.
10:47I've just spotted this,
10:48and it's a emerging leaf bud.
10:51And I can tell this because they are very narrow,
10:53and you can just make out the little fingers
10:55of the emerging leaves.
10:57And this one has emerged a bit more,
10:59and you can see this beautiful pink hue that it has.
11:02It's a type of chestnut,
11:05and it will also flower later in the year.
11:07But now, we can appreciate the foliage.
11:10Spotting signs like these is a great way to read your garden,
11:13and it gives you an idea of things to come.
11:28These lakes are stunningly beautiful,
11:31and in these cooler temperatures,
11:32the surface of the water is calmer,
11:34and it creates this mirrored effect.
11:37I can see the trees reflected in the surface
11:39and also the golden hues of the daffodils in the distance.
11:45It's something you could even try at home.
11:47You don't need a massive lake.
11:48You could have your own container with water in it
11:50to reflect angles from your garden.
11:54It's a great way to add a sense of serene calm into your space.
12:11The soundscape is a huge part of spring for me,
12:14and if you listen closely,
12:16it tells a story.
12:17The garden is waking up again,
12:19and we too are part of that quiet renewal.
12:27Simply spending time outdoors
12:29and noticing those small changes
12:31can be surprisingly restorative.
12:33Spring is such a short season,
12:35but that's what makes it so special.
12:37It's a reminder to slow down,
12:39notice the changes,
12:40and really savour the season,
12:42because before you know it, it's past.
13:06The thing that I love about spring
13:08more than any other season
13:10is that it has shifts and changes
13:12over at least two if not three months.
13:15There's an awful lot going on.
13:16And one of the things at the moment on the mound
13:18that really appeals to me is this.
13:20It's a Forsythia.
13:22Now, Forsythia is as common as muck.
13:24I mean, there must be hundreds of thousands
13:26if not millions of them around the country.
13:28But this particular one is a bit more unusual.
13:32It's Forsythia suspensa nimens.
13:35And I've chosen it because it's got this pale yellow
13:38and this quite loose structure and form
13:40and works perfectly with the daffodils
13:43that we have here on the mound.
13:45Now, this combination will only last a week at the most
13:47and then it'll move on
13:49and other things will take their place.
13:51And I think that's the joy of spring.
14:00What?
14:05Okay?
14:07Good boy.
14:08Come on.
14:16Come on.
14:18Come on.
14:29I've added a bit of compost to this raised bed because I'm about to plant up a bed for
14:36cut flowers and I'm adding in some ranunculus, ranunculus asiaticus or sometimes called the
14:42Persian buttercup but unlike the buttercups you see in fields with open simple petals
14:47these have a mass of petals that form a kind of globe these will flower hopefully from about
14:56the end of May into June planted in December and then kept in the greenhouse and gradually
15:03hardened off or you could plant the tubers now and they would flower later in summer
15:14I'm going to space these out about six inches apart and the thing about cut flowers is that
15:20you can plant them closer together than you otherwise would in the border there are two
15:24reasons for that one they're not going to be there for as long and two you want the stems
15:30to grow tall you almost want to force them up so you get decent stumbling choose a spot that's
15:38relatively shady and soil that is well drained but enriched the thing to remember when you're growing
15:56ranunculus is that they're half hardy so if you live in a very sheltered area that hardly ever gets frost
16:02and
16:03if it does it's just a touch of it they may well overwinter and they're perennial and they will come
16:09back but anywhere that reliably gets two or three degrees of frost or more they're very unlikely to
16:18survive that so treat them as annuals I will need to water these in it's really important that this time
16:37of year water everything you plant thoroughly I will also have to have a bit of fleece handy for the
16:44next
16:44month just in case we get some late frost which we can do here and a bit of fleece covering
16:50them
16:50overnight should be enough so that bed is sorted the two back beds have got tulips in them and these
16:57are
16:57tulips that I'm trialing and the ones I like and maybe only one or two I will then order more
17:03next year
17:03and they can graduate for the garden proper now this bed last autumn I sowed with hardy annuals
17:12particularly amy amy magus and amy visnaga and a bit of wild carrot however we had a really cold snap
17:20for a few days in November followed by one of the wettest winters ever and I'm afraid that did for
17:26them
17:26because if that wasn't enough we've had a mass of rabbits this winter and rabbits love amy more than
17:33anything else so we lost a lot doesn't matter I've now got a free bed and I want to use
17:38it for cut
17:39flowers again and I'm going to sow scabious I love scabious it makes a brilliant cut flower makes a
17:44brilliant border flower and I love the dark colors now I've got a variety here called black knight which
17:50is really deep rich burgundy speckled with white put them into your hand probably best not to do
17:59this on a windy day and just sprinkle thinly I'll show you a tip for sowing any kind of seed
18:11outside
18:12in the garden that I was shown when I was a boy and it works draw a drill with your
18:19hand and sow your
18:22seeds and then just simply put your thumb and your fingers either side of the drill and run down
18:29either side of it like that and it pushes the soil up over the seeds works a treat now I
18:37grow cut flowers
18:37in these few special beds and they're brilliant for the house however you don't need special beds
18:43just to pick a small bunch of flowers from your garden is an utter joy but for some people it's
18:49more
18:49than a joy it becomes transformative it changes their lives and I think that's absolutely the case for
18:55Hattie Colvin and we went to visit her at her home in Carmarthenshire flowers are a passion of mine
19:06and I think the more I grow the more obsessed I become I don't think I'll ever have enough just
19:16seeing something go from nothing through to a huge display of wondrous color I think is just something
19:24really special my name's Hattie and this is my flower farm in Clondilo Wales
19:39I'm unapologetically in love with flowers I could not be without dahlias so this flower is one of my
19:49favorites I can never pick an actual favorite it's called dunage or dunay depending on how you pronounce
19:56it it's a pom-pom variety I love the kind of intensity of the pink color on the very small
20:03sort
20:03of ball-shaped form and the incredible formation of petals the pom-pom shape is better for cutting
20:09because they tend to have a bit of a longer vase life cut at the right stage you cut before
20:15the center
20:15opens and then it'll last a lot longer this one is preference preference is incredibly prolific
20:29it does need quite a lot of food and nutrition mostly because it produces so many flowers it just
20:36gets a bit tired by the end of the season if you don't keep it topped up so our soil
20:42here is very clay
20:43so I spend a lot of time making sure the soil is looked after and I use lots of different
20:51types
20:51of farmyard manure to mulch the beds every time I plant I make sure that I replenish some of the
20:58goodness back into the soil when I start seedlings I use a seaweed feed as well when they're in their
21:07trays again just to make sure that they have a really great start to life and I find that keeping
21:13the
21:13plants as healthy as they can possibly be means that they're more resistant to pests
21:26I used to live and work in London as an accountant I did get a lot of joy out of
21:31what I did but it
21:32wasn't for me my partner was in Wales and I felt very much the pull towards being here in somewhere
21:39that was back to nature and slower paced I was commuting back and forwards to London and so had
21:48a lot of thinking time in the car I had a few dahlias I found them just so exciting and
21:56loved all the
21:58different shapes and the colors and the kind of flounciness and I decided that I wanted more dahlias so
22:05that kind of formed the idea for oh what if I could grow cut flowers in three years I've ended
22:14up with 27 20
22:17metre beds and polytunnels as well so yeah it escalated fairly quickly
22:29you don't need a huge amount of space to get started with a cutting garden and actually if
22:35you choose carefully what you grow you could have quite a few vases of flowers throughout the summer
22:41to enjoy so I very quickly learned in my journey of growing that some flowers are much easier to grow
22:51than others one that is generally pretty steadfast is cosmos it comes in some really beautiful shades
22:59it's easy to germinate and then they're fairly indestructible I find this is a really good
23:07example of a cosmos that's actually been pollinated already by the bees so you see it's gone quite fuzzy
23:14on the inside and that sadly means that I can't use it as a cut flower because it won't really
23:20last and
23:21it'll drop its petals but it does mean that the bees have had a lovely time
23:33scabius are a really lovely cut flower they're very generous with how many stems you get
23:40this is called black knight and I did once have somebody ask me if I could give them the flower
23:45with the hundreds and thousands on it because it's got the white little sprinkles on the top
23:50you also get these lovely seed heads which you can either dry or actually use in an arrangement as well
24:04for anybody that's thinking about starting up their own cutting garden I'd probably recommend
24:09snapdragons I think they're really majestic looking and always have a really amazing scent
24:16a perennial option I would definitely go for a geom something like totally tangerine which is lovely
24:21beautiful colour and it actually keeps flowering from may slows down as it gets to later in the summer but
24:28you do still keep getting flowers and I think obviously you'd have to have some dahlias
24:37as a flower grower you're very much hailed as living the dream and wafting about in the field with a
24:44truck and a floaty dress gathering flowers one thing that I have definitely learned is doing this is a tough
24:53tough job all of the critters want to get to your flowers before you do the weather wants to destroy
24:59things it is not all glamour
25:09when I'm arranging with flowers I would tend to find something in the field that does really inspire
25:15me to want to show that off and then everything else kind of gets built around that I just slowly
25:25keep building the bouquet I want different heights I've already got some scented pelargonium this is a
25:33lemon basil and some pennycrest thalaspe to add some green some different textures with different
25:39foliages and also that is a delightful smell there is definitely a huge sense of pride when you're
25:49working with flowers that you've grown yourself and seeing them all kind of come together like little
25:55friends and having a little flower party I'm going to try and add this one in it's quite nice and
26:01upward facing which this variety isn't normally this feels like a really really lovely representation
26:11of what's flowering right now in the field it's all of my favorite color palettes
26:25it feels like a huge privilege to get to do what I do for a living
26:30I often find it really hard to believe that my slightly random dream that came to me on the motorway
26:38is actually now a very beautiful reality
27:19I think it's really encouraging that there are more and more people like Hattie that are local that have got
27:25a wide variety of really interesting plants something I would suggest we all support
27:29Now it's easter and traditionally the main easter job in the garden was planting potatoes
27:36you get your potatoes in the ground now first early should be ready to harvest around about june
27:41second early is july a main crop in the early autumn
27:47there's a variety called charlotte it's a second early and these have chitted and you can see look that's a
27:54really good example of a chitted potato you get this knobbly growth and it speeds up the growth and
28:01therefore the harvest now how you grow them depends on how much space you've got if you've got plenty of
28:07space you've got an allotment it's a brilliant idea to dig a furrow or a trench put them in the
28:12bottom and then
28:13heat the soil back up to make a ridge over them if you're shorter space or you're growing in raised
28:18beds
28:19like I am it couldn't be easier all you do is simply make a hole stick them in with the
28:26chitted
28:27shoot at the top you want to bury it ideally its own depth below the ground
28:41I get three across here give it at least a foot or so if you're growing them in a raised
28:45bed you can
28:45grow them much closer together than you would in rows potatoes really respond to feeding
28:54so if you've got any compost or any manure anything any soil improver it's really worth
29:02adding to the soil and that will definitely increase the harvest
29:11here here here no ned come here come here look put it good boy
29:22break over to cover them
29:28hopefully when i come to harvest them
29:32we shall have a whole mass of new potatoes and for ned a whole mass of new balls to harvest
29:39come
29:40july at least that's what he thinks right i'm going to use this ground because nothing will appear
29:50for a few weeks time but i'm going to grow a catch crop and the fastest growing crop to grow
29:56at this time
29:57a year is radish and radish will germinate within a week and be ready to harvest within six weeks before
30:04they get crowded out by the foliage of potatoes broadcast over the surface it just means sprinkle
30:12them widely try and do it reasonably evenly
30:19put the rake over them again to slightly lightly cover them
30:30i've got these extra sea potatoes but i'm not going to waste them because i want to grow some in
30:33pots
30:41this is a recycled container you can see i've drawn holes in the bottom you need peat-free compost
30:49put it in the bottom not right full up
30:55that will do to start with what you need is at most three and to be honest two will be
31:04plenty in
31:04there but the truth is three wouldn't give me any bigger harvest the more you put in the smaller
31:11potatoes you'll get and that should produce you between about 10 and 20 potatoes enough for a couple of
31:20meals a treat just cover them up put a little bit over the top of them don't fill it to
31:27the top as
31:28the new growth comes fill on top of it that means roots will grow from the stems and you'll get
31:34more
31:35potatoes keep it well watered make sure it's not sitting in a puddle so maybe lift it a little bit
31:40off
31:40the ground and if you can give it a little bit of shelter they'll grow even better and this is
31:45a
31:45perfect way to grow potatoes if you're very short of space
31:51the beauty of this of course is that you can grow potatoes whether you want them as a treat or
31:57just
31:57because you like spuds even if you've got very limited space now we went to see tom stimpson i don't
32:05know if he grows potatoes but i do know that everything else he grows is in pots
32:15when you get home from work it's quite nice to unwind out of the garden surrounded by nature
32:20and beautiful flowers just perfect
32:28hi i'm tom and this is my small town garden in ely in cambridgeshire and it's all about pots
32:44i think very often there's a misconception that if you have a small space you should have just small
32:49pots and that's not true it's amazing how many pots you can fit into a relatively tiny tiny space
32:58one of my favorite things to do is build up displays of of pots on tabletops and i've got four
33:05or five
33:05tabletops that i sort of rotate and use in different areas of the garden at different times of the year
33:13so i do that by looking at the size of the pots the shapes of them so some taller terracotta
33:19some squat
33:20ones and then some little tiny ones as well to slot in amongst the bigger ones because that means you
33:27can create great floral displays and a little bit of structure and drama
33:39this is muscari armeniacum which is a muscari i grow every single year it's super reliable easy
33:49to grow and i love the intensity of the blue color they require minimal water bulbs on the
33:56whole tend to prefer it to be on the dry side so planted it in the autumn into really free
34:01draining
34:02compost once we get into february green shoots start to appear and then with a little bit of
34:07sunshine once we get into march an eruption of blue one of the ways to keep your pots of muscari
34:13flowering
34:13longer is to deadhead and it's really important not just to pinch here but to pinch right down at the
34:20base remove the stem just discard it and you'll find that will encourage all the flower buds to keep
34:26coming and for it to flower for a longer period of time
34:38so growing in pots is really straightforward so it all starts with what's at the bottom of the pot first
34:45so to make sure you've got some crocs and i then put a small layer of grit just over that
34:51then it's
34:52about the potting medium so i use a peat free general purpose potting compost nothing too fancy
34:58but i'll always add a little bit of grit so if i'm using it for pots of bulbs like this
35:03one here
35:03i will probably add around 60 percent compost to 40 percent grit and i think that's absolutely key
35:12because the importance of drainage for the bulbs is so important and you'll have much better results
35:18if the compost can remain just moist rather than sodden for other varieties of plants violas primulas
35:25i won't add so much grit probably about just 10 percent just to aid that drainage a little bit
35:30but they're much more tolerant to to wet conditions and then as we get into them growing in the spring
35:36is when you tend to look at the moisture levels a little bit more closely and then as things start
35:41to grow and start to bud up i'll then start a twice fortnightly feed with some liquid seaweed just to
35:47give
35:48a little bit of goodness back into the compost and support the the flowers
36:04so this is ifian and a variety called alberto castile i have to say they're one of my new faves
36:11flowers i just love them they have this wonderful sort of grass-like foliage and i love the chaos of
36:17the
36:17stems really how they grow in whichever way they choose really and i love the fact that they move
36:24and sway in the breeze and one of my absolute favorite things about it is the reverse of the
36:30petals have a gorgeous stripe down the reverse at each flower petal
36:43it's important to raise the pod off the table as otherwise when it rains the compost just remains wet
36:49it never drains away totally it just there's always a little puddle of water underneath the bottom of
36:55the pot i found over the years one of the best things to use is just tile spaces so when
37:02you place
37:03your pot on them you can't see them but it just allows a few millimeters of air between the surface
37:09of the table in the bottom of the pot and it just means the water can drain away and that's
37:13the one way
37:14i get them through the winter this is a variety of narcissi called polar hunter a relatively new
37:29variety but rapidly becoming one of my my favorite ones to grow it has the wonderful fruity fragrance
37:36quite unlike any other scented variety of narcissi and it's a beautiful color it starts off a limey
37:44cream color as it opens and then gradually fades to a creamy white i very often cut a few stems
37:51and
37:52just have by the side of my bed because i love waking up to the the gorgeous scent in the
37:56morning
37:57it's a brilliant one for pots but to give it a little bit of extra support i just add a
38:02few hazel
38:02twigs in i love doing that because it looks natural it's absolutely gorgeous what do you say
38:07to people who don't like defodils they should go and get a life
38:16so as we come into mid-spring i start to think about what's going in the pots for the summer
38:22and a key variety for me are dahlias i absolutely love them they're brilliant for providing color
38:28from mid-summer through to the first frost so great value
38:33the tubers are nice and big so i'm planting into quite a big pot if your tubers are a little
38:38bit
38:38smaller so they're fresh stock then i'd probably say plant them in a three litre size pot and get
38:43them to grow and shoot in there before planting out into a bigger pot or into the border peat-free
38:50compost i've added a bit of grit for extra drainage and it's important with dahlias that the crown sits
38:56just above the soil surface pots for me are a key element to to my gardening life when you have
39:05a
39:06small space and if you love plants pots are essential to add interest drama impact color abundance
39:38like tom i grow masses of spring bulbs in pots this time of year mainly full of narcissi and tulips
39:47and the great thing about them is you have these splashes of color that you can move around and
39:52assemble and by the way if you've not seen this daffodil before it's called rip van winkle with
39:57this great sort of splay of flower which is a little bit heavy for the stem so it's not so
40:03much drooping
40:04as sprawling in an elegant way and certainly looks fantastic when grown in a pot like this and it's not
40:13just spring bulbs that look good we've got bay here with rosemary i've got pots in shady areas with ivy
40:20and ferns right across the year and right across the garden there's always a place for pot
40:34go on
40:42aha you got it you got it
40:56now this was where we had soft root until this winter because i've brought into here
41:03most of the yew cuttings that i took about 10 years ago the reason i took the yew cuttings were
41:10partly to
41:10replace the box that got box blight and i wanted an evergreen dense hedge and partly because you makes
41:18wonderful topiary and i love topiary so this gives me the raw material for hedges and topiary and even
41:25clip shrubs which i've got in the woodland border and if you had to buy them they're really expensive
41:31so to grow your own is saving you a lot of money it's really interesting and i think good fun
41:37this is a yew cutting i took certainly no more than 10 years ago but you can see it's got
41:42a lovely straight
41:43stem and this lends itself to a standard the standard is anything that is grown on a bare clean straight
41:49trunk it could be a ball it could be a box it could be a dancing bear or a kangaroo
41:58to create a standard the first thing i'm going to do is clean off that trunk
42:08i want it to be a ball on an upright and i want that to be the bottom of the
42:12ball and that's the top
42:15so the first thing i do is take this top off
42:22obviously that doesn't look anything like a globe but these shoots here these little ones as they grow
42:30out then we get the outside and the harder we clip the final shape the denser it will be and
42:36it
42:36doesn't matter if it's empty on the inside which it will be because the light will be stopped actually
42:41that's not bad to begin with so the next stage for that is to put into a pot or into
42:46the ground give it
42:47light feed it and encourage it to grow
42:54you along with box and holly regenerates from old wood so you can cut it back as hard as you
43:02like
43:02and it will regrow successfully now i've chosen this because it wouldn't be hard to make this into a ball
43:09and you can see because other plants have been around it it's even started to grow inwards a bit
43:13so rather than cut it back very hard i'm going to use shears and clip it
43:26in this case i don't need to go right back to the old wood because the basic shape is there
43:39right you can see that i've put all these into bags plants in a bag will keep perfectly well
43:44but for growing things on they either have to be in the ground or in a pot
43:49you want a pot that's big enough for it to grow into so something like that really good drainage holes
43:56you is tough you will take light you will take shade it'll grow in almost any soil although it's
44:02happiest in lime so if you've got chalk or limestone that's great but it will not take sitting in damp
44:11it must drain so this is a very very gritty mix so we'll put this in here like that
44:24take this out okay that's good there
44:40now those roots aren't anchored in the pot and all those tiny little new roots will break
44:46if it moves so we need to put a cane in there like that and throughout the rest of this
44:52year
44:53this will need watering and feeding weekly but in order to get really good topiary shape it does need light
45:04this should create the shape i want in about three to five years and it will get better and better
45:12now going to one of your gardens it belongs to the driscoll family and they live in cheshire
45:20hi i'm owen i'm emily and i'm leo welcome to our garden in macclesfield it's a relatively small space
45:28maybe 10 by 5 meters and enclosed by tall fences and rows of terrace housing with young kids it was
45:35a place
45:36to play and have fun as the kids got older and i got the bug for gardening it increasingly became
45:42a
45:42place for flowers and color though it was still a little untidy we paid attention to making space for
45:50wildlife creating lots of interest for emily and leo we have a little wildlife pond it has shallow edges
45:57to allow any animals that might fall in to climb out we have been impressed by the variety of different
46:03visitors to our garden
46:11but there was one visitor that we never thought we'd see in our garden with it being all fenced up
46:16and barricaded by rows of houses
46:21then one night he spotted this on our security camera at the front of our house
46:28a hedgehog could get round the back to the garden
46:34dad made a couple of openings in the fence
46:38one day this summer in the middle of the day we saw this we didn't know what he was doing
46:47turns out it was building a nest
46:52there was more than one hedgehog in the nest which meant hoglets we started putting our hedgehog food
47:01in a feeding station to keep the cats from eating it
47:11we think they appreciate it
47:18we hope you enjoyed your visit to our garden too
47:21we hope you
47:48However exciting it is to have hedgehogs in the garden, and it is, it's fantastic.
47:53Hedgehogs are very much nocturnal animals, so if you see them during the day, and if
47:58they're feeding and drinking during the day, it normally is indication that they are in
48:02distress. And last summer we saw a lot of that because it was so hot and dry. So ideally put
48:08out food and water at dusk, and it should be gone by the morning. Okay, at this time of year
48:15we sow
48:16a lot of seeds, they germinate, and then the next stage of the process is pricking out. And what I
48:22thought I'd do is make it really clear what pricking out is, why you do it, and when you do
48:28it. First
48:30thing is, what it is, is you take a seedling and you move it on to the next stage. Because
48:35if you have a mass of seedlings in a seed tray like this, these are tythonias, they're all competing for
48:40space and nutrition, and they would never develop into good plants. Now pricking out shouldn't take
48:47place until you can see the true leaves. So when a seed germinates, it produces what's called a seed
48:56leaf. And you can see here, this is a tray of cosmos. These very strappy leaves look absolutely
49:03nothing like cosmos. They are just to give the plant enough energy for the roots to develop. Once
49:10the roots have got established, you then get the next stage, which is a true leaf. And if you look
49:16very closely, you can see the true leaves are just beginning to appear. And even when they're tiny,
49:23absolutely minute, they look like the parent leaves. You can see it actually better here
49:28on this parsley. The difference between the seed leaves, which are here, which basically are strappy
49:35and simple. And the true leaf, which looks like a flat leaf parsley, is there. Finally, tythonia,
49:42you've got these spatulate seed leaves, and then the pointed parent leaf. And again, it means it's got
49:50roots. So these two trays are ready for pricking out, and that one is not. So you need something to
49:56put
49:56them in, and you need something to carefully tease them out with. In the past, I've used a pen knife,
50:02I've used a pencil, whatever works. Take hold of the seedling by a leaf. Never hold it by the stem.
50:11It's very easy to crush it or break it. Whereas if you damage the leaf, it can grow another one.
50:18There
50:18you go. It's got quite a good root system. It's always quite a surprise that they have so many roots.
50:26Now, I've prepared individual plugs for this, and I'm just going to pop that in there like that. I'm not
50:32going to brutally press it down, and it means that each individual seedling gets a real chance to grow.
50:40Now, what I'm pricking them out into is a compost mix that has a little bit more goodness in it
50:45than
50:46the seed mix. You could just use a peat-free compost on its own. I tend to add some sieved
50:51garden compost,
50:52a little bit of leaf mold, and some sieved garden soil. Not a lot, no more than about five percent
50:59of
50:59the mix. But the bacteria and the fungi in that will start interacting with the roots. So when I
51:05plant it out into my garden, already there is that symbiosis between the two, and they tend to grow away
51:12better. Sometimes, say, for example, with tomatoes, I prick out into a small pot straight away, because
51:19they're going to be quite big plants, and they grow fast. But there is no perfect way, as long as
51:24each
51:24individual seedling has room to develop into a nice strong plant. Don't try and rush it. Regard it as
51:33something that is part of the process of the life of the plant, and you are almost privileged to be
51:39part of that too. And to me, that's the essence of gardening. That's really what gardening is all about.
52:10I know a lot of people get confused about pruning hydrangeas. The most common type of hydrangea that
52:19you see is hydrangea macrophylla, with mop heads, great big round heads, or lace caps, which are more
52:26open, with masses of petals, but with always a touch of elegance. Now this is a lace cap variety, called
52:34lanarth white, and will give you a display from late summer into autumn. Now the first thing is, do not
52:41prune off the spent flowers in autumn, because they trap warmer air inside, and they just slightly protect
52:48the plant, particularly in very early spring, from frost. But now we're coming to April, as soon as you
52:54get vigorous new growth, you can prune them back. So at very least, take off the spent flowers from last
53:02year.
53:04However, it's not a bad idea, while you're doing this, to take a look and say, okay, am I happy
53:09with it?
53:09I'm happy with the shape, the size. For example, this here is growing out over the border, and I don't
53:16really want that, so I'm going to cut it back. Now when you're pruning this type of hydrangea, go right
53:23back in, and prune at the base, and that will encourage new shoots to grow. So to remove this, I'm
53:29going to go in here,
53:37I'm going to go in here, and I'm going to go in here.
53:37Young wood will be vigorous, healthy, and produce more flowers, but remove no more than a third of
53:45the plant, taking the oldest growth when you do. And if you do that every year,
53:52hydrangea, it will renew itself over three years. So none of them will be more than four years old.
54:00So that's the first type of hydrangea, but to make life complicated, there's another kind.
54:07And we'll go and prune those now.
54:19Now, having pruned a lace cap, this is a very different type of hydrangea. The first thing you'll
54:27notice, there are no flowers on it. The second thing is, the growth is very different. It's vigorous,
54:31it's upright, you've got different coloured stems, and this is a hydrangea paniculata.
54:37Now, one of the features of hydrangea paniculata, and there are a number of different varieties,
54:43is that all the flowers are produced on growth that has happened this growing year. So for example,
54:52these seemingly new shoots, the sort of burgundy coloured red ones, are last year's growth.
54:58And the woody growth is previous years. I planted this about 10 years ago. Some of this
55:03could be 10 years old. So nothing that you see will carry any flowers at all this year.
55:10So I'm going to prune this back to a framework, which is pretty much the old growth.
55:21Unlike the lace caps and the mop heads, which are fundamentally rounded or flattened,
55:26these are conical. They look like a squirty ice cream put into a cone. And also, unlike the lace caps
55:34and
55:34the mop heads, which are very particular about the pH of the soil, paniculatas will stay white,
55:41whatever the soil, and they're very forgiving. So they're great.
55:51The new growth will come from these points. They'll grow out here, and we'll have these wonderful
55:59ice cream cones of flower from August onwards. Well, that was very simple. Didn't take long,
56:06but it's a good job. And here are some good jobs for you this weekend.
56:21Everybody loves sunflowers, and they're a great plant to grow with children.
56:27Now's a good time to start them. They're big seeds, so can go into a pot rather than a seed
56:32tray.
56:33I use two seeds per pot, simply pressing them into the compost, and then remove the weaker of the
56:41two, which guarantees I have one really healthy plant. They need to be watered and then go somewhere
56:48warm to germinate. Easter is a really good time to get out any garden furniture made out of wood
57:02and give it a once-over. If it's not painted, consider giving it a coat of linseed oil to protect
57:09it.
57:09And if it is painted, rub it down, remove any loose or flaking paint, and then give it a fresh
57:15coat,
57:15and it will be ready for those long summer evenings.
57:24Now is a very good moment to divide herbaceous perennials, because they've started to grow
57:31and will recover quickly from any movement. I'm going to split this hosta into two,
57:37lift it out the ground, simply chop it with a spade, replant half,
57:42and that gives me another fresh plant to add elsewhere.
57:58Good boy. No, come on. Well, I'm afraid that's it for today, but it's Easter. Easter, when we can all
58:06get out into the garden,
58:07maybe go and visit a lovely garden, see friends, and just this sense of the garden and spring to come
58:15and summer to follow opening out in front of us. But for the moment, that's all from Longweather,
58:21and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
58:23...
58:39...
58:41...
58:42...
58:43Bye!
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