- 2 hours ago
The Beechgrove Garden - Season 48 Episode 4
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Short filmTranscript
00:14Hello and welcome to Beechgrove garden just outside Aberdeen. The warmer weather is doing
00:19its work in the garden and so are we. Coming up George is planting a Scottish classic in the
00:26fruit cage. I'm growing up in the vertical garden. Back to basics on beating the weeds and how to give
00:37your seeds the start they need. But before all of that it is the time of year where we look
00:46at some
00:46of the major projects in the garden and we have quite a big job on our hands here don't we?
00:50Well
00:51we have. I mean this is the grass and gravel garden and this was planted around about year 2000 and
00:58that was a time when grasses were very much in vogue because they added to the landscape they
01:03gave you movement. I guess as well they're really low maintenance aren't they I mean this is 20 years
01:08later that we're back in here and really great for xeriscaping so low water maintenance gardens too.
01:14But what is happening now is they've just kind of gone beyond the pale that they're just getting
01:21a bit old and tired like a lot of us so we've got to decide what we want to do
01:26hence the flags right
01:28yep if it gets a flag in it it's coming out okay for example we've got two plants here that
01:33one
01:34and that one these are both Callum agrostes so one of them's got to go out I would keep bits
01:39of that
01:40and I would take that out so what do I do with my flag put your flag in it okay
01:44put the flag in it
01:46right so this one here you see this one I would keep maybe a couple of those yep and the
01:51rest of
01:52them well I'm going to just take out put a flag in it okay put a flag in there I'll
01:56put a flag in
01:57this one I know that we're supposed to plant in threes we are but I think they're getting too close
02:01together I'd get rid of two I would yep go on that's it so that's that there now we've got
02:09a
02:09duplication just as we had with the Callum agrostes we've got this one here China Chloa conspicua
02:14that's it there as well what are you going to do oh well we do we like to plant in
02:19threes but I think
02:21this needs to be the star of the show over here so I would get rid of this right okay
02:25got a flag in
02:26them yeah the other thing which we put into the garden at the same time because it has linear foliage
02:33it's got this tall slender foliage where Mount Brice is now these are South African plants they come up
02:38with an orange flower some with yellow flowers we had a whole range of them we'd use them in a
02:43little trial area and we put them in here I don't know if they fit no I don't think they
02:49fit and I
02:50what I would like to do is to get rid of all of those okay we could give them to
02:55friends if we want
02:57or we can put them in the area for the dead hedges you know where that is yeah I think
03:01that'd be
03:02wonderful it would be a good idea because they can then spread to the heart's content in there
03:05and it's low maintenance as well so put a label in that and I'll do the same here
03:11there you are right do you like dilemmas you like dilemmas what are we going to do with the
03:16bird leaves can I wave a white flag at this one but the thing is that if we get rid
03:22of them then
03:22we get rid of something which is very interesting in this garden in the whole of Beats Grove garden
03:28at the end of the season when we get lots of butterflies on them we don't have big plants like
03:32this
03:32elsewhere in the garden so if we could propagate from those and then plant them somewhere else
03:37the youngsters somewhere else that would be the ideal thing so I would suggest we leave them for
03:42maybe a couple of years while we grow young ones if we take a lot of these things out we're
03:48going
03:48to create a lot of space that might be a good thing well I think so because the whole point
03:53is to
03:54let the wind in and to let them breathe and really sort of billow around and do their thing right
03:58yeah because if they're too tight what happens is that they blow against one another you don't
04:03actually get the full the full effect now it's time for some handy hints
04:14doesn't this look magnificent this is Trillium chloropetalum which comes from
04:19Northwest America and it's a woodland plant and enjoys growing in the shade now if you remember
04:24in August last year I took seed of this and I sowed it and I sowed it in this tray
04:30here and if you look
04:32very carefully you think there's nothing coming up there are the seeds there see that the seeds are
04:38still there because they will lie there and put the root down and then the following year that's them
04:44there they've put up the shoot so the moral of the story here is and the handy hint for this
04:50week is
04:50never throw away a pot of Trillium's one year after sowing
04:59now is the perfect time to be potting up our dahlia tubers to get them ready for the summer
05:04so what we need is some nice free draining compost we need quite a small pot that'll keep them quite
05:11restricted and nice and warm and we also need our tubers so to begin we're just going to put in
05:17a wee bit of compost down into the bottom of the pot lifting our tubers now what we're going to
05:24do is
05:24just pop them in now we want them to be quite high we don't want to dig them in too
05:28deep so they're just
05:29going to go in like that and we're just going to backfill so all we're going to do with these
05:35afterwards is put them in a nice sunny spot and hopefully in the next few weeks once the risk of
05:41frost has passed they can go outside
05:56the fruit cage at beachgrove has been very productive over the years but you know the
06:00one thing that has been missing although we've got a whole variety of fruit the one thing missing
06:04has been raspberries we tried them a number of years ago and they didn't really do terribly well
06:09so they've been missing from the whole fruit cage here so well this year we're going to plant some
06:15new ones now what was in this bed before were black currants so they stretched all the way along
06:21we've taken them all out because we've got other black currants elsewhere and we've cultivated the soil
06:26we've added organic matter to it and now we're going to plant some new raspberries we've got two
06:32different sorts because that's what we grow in gardens normally we grow autumn fruiting ones and we grow
06:39summer fruiting ones and the ones that i'm going to show you first of all are the autumn fruiting
06:45ones and this is the variety sky remember please when you go to the garden center to buy raspberries
06:53you'll get them in a bundle and they often come wrapped in black polythene when you get them home
07:00take that black polythene off get the roots exposed and put the roots in a bucket of water to get
07:05them to
07:06rehydrate so that the plant is full of water when you plant it and that gives it its best chance
07:11of growing anyway what i had here was raspberries which have taken out the bundle and that's them
07:17down in the corner here it's very important to give them as much of a good start as possible so
07:22this is mycorrhizal fungi which you put around the edge of the hole so when we fill in with the
07:28soil
07:29that what happens is that the whole plant then the roots of the plant gets covered in the soil and
07:34the mycorrhizal fungi and then on the top of this soil here we're going to put some balanced
07:40fertilizer on that and that's it so we're now ready to put the the plant in can i show you
07:47the roots of
07:48these there we are these have not been exposed so these are roots which are still quite moist and the
07:55idea is to get them into the soil as quickly as possible what you'll hope to find are these little
08:01shoots which are coming up there right these little shoots that are there are the canes which will be
08:06produced and will fruit this autumn that's what you've got to preserve don't knock these off and
08:12think that there's some weed or other because they're not so we'll put that in there i'll just
08:16put them in loosely just now and then i'll show you what i'm going to do right with this then
08:23if i plant
08:25this one in the middle here first see there's what we've got now what i want to do is to
08:29be able
08:29to get this root collar here planted just about level with the soil that goes in like that
08:42so that's it planted you see that's that's it's as simple as that and if you want to go even
08:48further
08:50get your foot on it and make sure that the roots are in proper contact with the soil that's it
08:58this one here same idea lift that up
09:05it's pushing the soil in round about and firming it okay planting autumn raspberries or pruning back
09:15autumn raspberries at this time of year what you can do is that you can take the tops off now
09:22this is all
09:24growing up at the top here but if i take that off there right what that means is that's going
09:30to
09:30force the buds further down to grow and especially those buds that are underground so if i just take
09:36these back we often used to talk about the fact that you would take them off at knee height
09:42well my knees are a wee bit taller than that but there you go that's it done like that do
09:47the whole
09:47thing all the way along i'll prune these ones back and then the summer fruiting ones which are along
09:53there will be planted in exactly the same way when you're buying things from the nursery and garden
10:01center think about where they came from originally raspberries are a woodland plant they grow at the edge
10:09of woodland they like soil which is full of organic matter they like semi-shade very often and they
10:16are things which require treatment in the autumn to prune them back to get them to regrow the following
10:24year so don't just leave them make sure that you cultivate them properly and in autumn fruiting ones
10:30make sure that you preserve these little shoots which are going to come up through the ground
10:46so from raspberry kings to my vertical garden now you may remember last year that i was growing up
10:53instead of out using purpose-built and also pallet planters this year i wanted to show you something
10:59slightly different so i'm challenging myself to growing only up to 50 centimeters from my fence
11:06here and the first thing i'm going to show you is this asian pear variety shin seki it's a bit
11:14of an
11:15unusual pear but i'm hoping will produce some really really nice yellow really crisp fruits which will be
11:22lovely in years to come now the thing with this variety is that it has been grafted onto this
11:29pyrus betulifolia rootstock which is great for this location because not only is it disease resistant
11:35but it also has great frost and cool temperature tolerance which will make it great for us up here
11:42in aberdeen so with this what i'm going to do is get it in the hole and i'm going to
11:47espalier it to keep
11:48it nice and tight against that fence i'm not going to let it grow out too far this way but
11:54that will just be
11:55trained over the season and into next year as well just to keep it nice and tight against the fence
12:00over here what i'm going to be doing i have this big planter and what i'm going to do with
12:06it first
12:06is plant this star jasmine now you might be wondering why i'm planting a star jasmine when this is all
12:11about
12:12produce but it has a couple of benefits so first of all because it's very very big really really tall
12:19i'm going to grow it up here and create a lovely canopy and this will create this quite nice cozy
12:25little space that will give us winter interest as well because it's evergreen but not only that and
12:32this is where the real benefit comes in is that it has loads and loads of flushes of white really
12:37fragrant flowers so it'll be beautiful smells for us but also we'll draw in all those pollinators that i'm
12:43going to need particularly for some of my fruit trees and other bits and bobs that i'm going to
12:48be growing now the first thing i'm going to do with it is apply some mycorrhiza now we talk about
12:53mycorrhiza quite a lot so i thought it'd be useful for you to understand what it is and why we
12:58use it
12:58so essentially what it's referring to is this mutually beneficial relationship between fungi and plants
13:05and by applying this to the root systems the fungus will actually penetrate into the plants itself
13:11and create this really extensive network of what is called hyphae and what that will then do is allow
13:18the plant to draw up all of the nutrients and all of the water from that fungal root system into
13:24the
13:25plant but what the fungus gets in return is some sugars from the plant now for us as gardeners the
13:30other great thing about it is that we'll be able to reduce down the amount of fertilizer that we use
13:35which
13:35at the moment is getting more expensive and it's going to get even more expensive with everything that's
13:40going on in the world now there's a couple of things to bear in mind with it though the first
13:43is that you will not get these mycorrhizal relationships with brassicas so it's one of
13:48those conundrums in the horticultural world so if you are growing cabbages and things like that
13:53then mycorrhiza won't really do you any benefit so let's get on to applying so just lifting my pot
14:00lifting out rustling up the roots just a little bit to encourage that growth i'm going to do just a
14:08bit of a sprinkling application it is a bit dusty so just bear in mind your wind direction
14:14and then in the pole it goes get this nicely firmed in and i'm aiming for a bit of an
14:19angle
14:20just to encourage it growing towards the fence and upwards
14:27and after a bit of a water i think that will come on quite nicely now the weather is warming
14:33up
14:33and our plants are growing like mad but so are the weeds they are everywhere at the moment so we're
14:38over to colin crosby who is going to give you a guide on how to take them out in back
14:42to basics
14:55and here i am back in the garden and i've been away for a few weeks and my goodness we've
15:00gone from
15:00winter into spring and there's one thing that grows faster than anything in the garden and that's weeds
15:06so i need to get rid of all these weeds that are coming up because there's the old saying one
15:11year
15:12seeding seven years weeding and i want to avoid that as much as i can there's a number of tools
15:18you
15:18could use the border fork but i actually think in this occasion my handheld little weeding device
15:24it's almost like a small handheld onion hole this is what i'm going to use but i've got to be
15:30careful
15:30because i've got the heleniums i planted last year that i grew from cuttings and i don't want to damage
15:36them so here goes there's a great range of weeds we've got hairy bitterscress we've got milky thistle
15:43we've got the epilobium the annual fireweed that's coming up here and all of these have to come out
15:49and you can see how i'm just going underneath the surface pulling them out and actually picking them up
15:56and putting them into my bucket this is a really therapeutic job when you're doing it and so
16:03important because if you can get on top of the weeding at this time of year you'll be on top
16:08of
16:08the weeding for the rest of the gardening season now occasionally in the garden you get weeds that have
16:19got long tap roots such as dandelions and docks and here i've got a great specimen of a dock which
16:25is in here now if i was to use this handheld weeding tool and take the top of it off
16:30the root system
16:31would regrow again what i need to do with this is actually get the tap root right out of it
16:37so i'm
16:37going to use the border fork i need to go down in and just slowly slowly you can see it
16:44really has a deep
16:46root let's see how it goes that looks better and there we go there's the long tap root that you
16:54get from
16:54the docks and from dandelions and if i was to leave a tiny little bit like that in there it
17:00would regrow
17:00and i'd be digging it out again at the end of the summer i'm just going to throw it again
17:05in the box
17:06there great to get out of the way
17:18now if you remember last summer i was looking at this corner of the garden from up there
17:23and i realized i need more of this purple ligularia brit marie crawford but what it means i need to
17:30lift
17:31and divide the purple ligularia to fill this space you have to remember a garden is like an unfinished
17:37painting you always want to make changes to improve it now to dig out the brit marie crawford
17:45get the spade round about to loosen the root system
17:53so there's one clump you see i'm shaking the soil off it it's a great time of year in the
18:02spring
18:02to be lifting and dividing perennials now you can see in my hand there there is like a clump
18:10of plants in there that's certainly going to be one so just going to get the
18:16uh the garden knife in and split through it got quite a woody root system in the center there
18:24but i want to get as many plants as i possibly can so there we go there's one plant and
18:33if i'm careful
18:34look at that i've got two plants out of there so what i'm going to do is get my border
18:42fork
18:43and just start digging over the soil it's going to go all the way to the front so you can
18:53see it's
18:53almost like tickling it i want to fill in the holes at the back where the clumps came out of
19:02and that is me ready for replanting
19:11lots of moisture in the ground at the present moment so absolutely perfect for planting
19:18so you can see where it was in the ground and it's old level that's where i want to plant
19:24it now
19:24and in it goes firming it round whenever you plant always give it a good firm just to stop birds
19:34or
19:34anything pulling them out this will be a mass of purple foliage and daisy flowers probably won't look
19:41at its best this year but next year when it settles down it will just look wonderful
20:00at the start of the series ryan gave a back to basics guide on sowing seed for veg and salad
20:07crops
20:08but some seeds do need a wee bit of extra attention and treatment to ensure that really good germination
20:15really kick start them off and the reason for that is really when you look here you can see with
20:22this brassica we've got really inconsistent germination we've got a couple of cells that
20:26there's nothing growing in at all and we've got some that are much smaller than the others so with
20:31a wee bit of treatment these might have been more consistent so what do we mean by treatment well
20:38we're really looking at that mimicking of nature and there's a bunch of different ways that we can do
20:43it so the first of which i've got some lupin seeds here and what we can do with these
20:47is soak them kind of overnight 12 hours or so will do a really good job what it does is
20:53it just softens
20:54the seed coat that means that when you sew them they should germinate that wee bit quicker and much
21:01more consistently because they've all had the same amount of water for the same amount of time and it
21:05just gets them on their way now another option that we have as well is what is called scarification
21:11so this is just a kind of a mechanical sort of rubbing and it's breaking down that seed coat
21:18again just to help the water absorb up into the seed coat consistently so to do this we have some
21:26morning glory here and this seed's actually quite helpful because it has this wee point that we can grab
21:32on to and it can be a bit tricky so bear with me if they go pinging off everywhere so
21:37we'll just grab it
21:38like this like that we've got some sandpaper a nail file will do just as good as well and we're
21:45just
21:45going to take the seed and give it a wee bit of a rub give it a few at a
21:50time and we're just looking
21:51for that seed coat to break down and that's absolutely perfect and what that'll do is it'll just let all
21:58the water soak in breaks down that coat that's very very hard and otherwise could take a really long
22:03time to germinate now next what we have over here is echinacea so echinacea is something that you can get
22:08at the garden centers just now and they may have been treated before you buy them but we want to
22:15just be sure and what echinacea need is a cold stratification so this is a period of cold mimicking
22:21winter so what i would recommend with those is that you pop them in the fridge for a couple of
22:26weeks
22:26before you sew them and then when you sew them put them in a nice warm space and that just
22:31tells them
22:31that spring is here wake up and start to germinate now finally we have something that needs surface
22:39sewing so this is a eucalyptus seed now these are itsy bitsy so let me just get these out for
22:46you
22:46here and just show you these now what do we mean by surface sewing well it is literally just sewing
22:52on
22:53the surface and why do we do it so really the science behind it is that these seeds have a
23:01pigment
23:01in the seed coat called phytochrome and what that phytochrome does is it absorbs all of the sunlight
23:06and it just tells the seed now is the time to germinate it breaks that dormancy that is existing
23:12within the seed at the moment so if we were to sew these too deeply they may not germinate at
23:18all or
23:18they might just take a wee bit longer so to do that we're literally just gonna sew them on the
23:23top
23:24just like this nice and gently placed and with that you could add a wee bit of vermiculite just to
23:32stop them from blowing away and then what we're going to do is we're going to bottom water them so
23:37basal irrigate and that'll just let the water soak up through the compost and not disrupt the seeds on
23:43the top too much you could give them a wee mist just to help them kind of settle in
23:48but we don't want to let them bury deep because then you know that kind of defeats the purpose
23:53of that surface sewing because they need that light to germinate so what i'd recommend is just
23:58do a wee bit of research if you're really interested in buying certain seeds absolutely go for it but
24:04just look up what do they need to really get them on their way and kick start them so you
24:08have a really
24:20successful summer
24:21right what are we going to do today what is the man up to now well we're going to be
24:25taking some
24:26cuttings off a fig if you're down south at the moment you'll find that the figs have got leaves on
24:31them and that's just a wee bit too late to take cuttings up here in uh beach grove near aberdeen
24:38we've got a cooler climate and as you can see some of the figs have not even produced any growth
24:43at
24:43all there's no leaves or anything showing on so that is an ideal time to take the cuttings and taking
24:49a
24:49cutting of this is quite simple straight across at the base right so you cut the cutting straight at the
24:53base and then you go up what about six inches maybe 150 millimeters and then you cut at an angle
24:59and why do you do that so that if you drop this when you pick it up you know exactly
25:05which way the
25:06cutting has got to go in when you insert it into the compost the slanted bits at the top and
25:11the
25:11flat bit is at the bottom now the idea is that what we're going to do here at beetsgrove is
25:17that
25:17we're going to produce a standard fig so that'll be one which grows as a straight stem and then has
25:24a bushy top a bit like these lollipop roses that you get and things like that so that's what we're
25:30after but in order to get them to that stage i need to root a number of cuttings first so
25:36that's why
25:36we've made the cuttings next thing is to think about the environment that we're going to put them in so
25:41we've got just an ordinary just an ordinary potting compost it doesn't need to be terribly fancy
25:47my my theory is that if we have something which will hold the cutting upright and has moisture in
25:53it then it will allow the things to root as long as we put it into the right sort of
25:57environment
25:58so what i've got here look at that there's an old lemonade bottle and what i'm going to do here
26:02is
26:02there's the flat end of the cutting there's the pointed end that gets inserted in there
26:08and i'll just firm that in like that and then i'll give that some water don't worry about it i'll
26:13give
26:13some water that gets put gets covered up with the other side of the the bottle and that will be
26:19left
26:19like that once this water will be left like that possibly for you know right up until about july or
26:25august when we hope that it will have sprouted into growth and be ready to separate out and pot on
26:31and in order to make sure that we get enough because sometimes horticulture can be a bit of a
26:36nuisance and you don't just get all the results you want i've got another series of cuttings and
26:41they're going into this pot here i'm just going to put them around the edge just reasonably close
26:47into the edge and that one goes in there so there's enough here and if i just firm that down
26:53there
26:54we go and in this case in this instance that'll give it a little bit of water so that
27:02we get the cuttings in close contact with the compass then that's important
27:08if we don't do that there'll be air pockets between the cutting and the compass then that
27:13means that it won't it won't root it'll just dry out so what do we do next put a lid
27:19on it as they
27:19say put a lid on it george there you are and we've got a little vent on the top of
27:24that
27:25well you maybe don't have one of these at home but you might have a big plastic bag and a
27:29big
27:29plastic bag over the top of that will just serve the same purpose it creates an environment which
27:35allows the cuttings to stop losing excessive water and it keeps that area moist and that helps the
27:42cuttings from drying out because now it's a race between life and death these have got to produce
27:47roots before they dry out and desiccate
27:56well that's all from us for now yes next week brian and kirstie are here and kirstie is
28:03growing a crop of hops to see how they'll do this far north wow and also brian is going to
28:10be here in
28:10the rain garden that he set up last year yeah and we're off to callum's allotment in leaving so a
28:16busy program it certainly will be it really will but remember you can catch us on iplayer and we have
28:21hints and tips on social media too yeah all there so in the brilliant sunshine bye for now bye
28:43so
28:48so
28:55you
28:56you
28:56you
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