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Episode 01
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Short filmTranscript
00:13Hello and welcome to the new series of Beech Grove Garden. It's been a long cold and wet winter but
00:21the garden is finally warming up so ahead of us we've got a great season of growing. So from
00:26beginner to expert we'll have something for you so stay with us for all types of
00:31gardening advice. Right well we better get started then here's what we've got
00:35coming up on the programme. Coming up some Easter planting and all you need is
00:42room for a container. It's time to get the tatties in, we show you how. We're off to
00:49Joppa for George's start to the season and some handy hints for jobs to do right now.
00:57Well Brian I think before we start the planning and the planting we really
01:01should as always talk about the season before and what's happened. Oh well I
01:05think it's good for any new viewers to the programme to understand that we are
01:09just outside Aberdeen. We've been gardening this area since 1978 and next year is
01:14going to be our 50th series. Yeah I've seen quite a few of them I think I've seen
01:18about 43 of them. But anyway so let's start with the winter. Unbelievable. Aberdeen made
01:24the news 21 consecutive days without any sunshine and in fact on record I think in
01:31Scotland since 1910 it's one of the 10th dullest winters that we've had. And then
01:36what about the rain? In Aberdeenshire it's also one of the top 10 wettest
01:41winters since 1837 so that's a lot of records there that it was a heck of a lot of rain
01:45so it's going to take a
01:47well to dry out and then what about the snow? Where do we stop? And I think this is
01:51interesting with the snow because I think it's very different for you where
01:54you garden. Yeah so I'm just at Perthshire I could look north and I see all the
01:59hills at the back of Blair, Gowdy etc covered in snow but we barely had a
02:03single thing yet I'm on the telly watching you guys I mean it must have been
02:06incredible. Well we were hibernating we couldn't get out I couldn't get the car out of the
02:09drive. So much snow and plant damage as well I mean there has been a bit of damage
02:13here in the garden. I know that beautiful juniper in the back of the garden but the
02:18habit of it the way it just sort of splays out and flat was just asking for
02:21the snow to sit on top of it and unfortunately with that heaviness it's
02:26basically just snapped a couple of branches so again you've kind of got to
02:29look at that now will it stay will it go? But at the same time let's be positive
02:33snow can actually be an insulator for plants it can protect them can't it? Yeah it's good.
02:37All these challenges us gardeners have to go through with the weather eh it's great fun though.
02:41And then talking about that I think it's about time we started off with some planting.
02:52You know Brian I think it wouldn't be Beech Row without us planting our tattoos I think it's
02:57really important isn't it? It's a tradition isn't it? Yeah and I think as well we need to talk about
03:01the weather conditions because you can be too early with planting. Yeah it's easy to get carried away
03:06I mean look at today I know it's got a cold wind but the sun's out there's a bit of
03:09warmth but listen the
03:11weather's so fickle we can even get snow tomorrow wouldn't surprise me so we've got to be careful.
03:16So temperature is one thing to maybe look for so a weathmometer and I'd be saying about sort of
03:21six degrees at least. Yeah and I would say for about a week not just the one night you've got
03:25to make
03:25sure it's steady now and then also the weeds I see they're starting to poke up as well. Yeah so
03:30that's a good sign to say yep we're okay but you know if there is a touch of frost I'm
03:34going to say
03:35the variety that you're planting a first early epicure it doesn't mind it does recover. I know
03:40this is a really good variety also known as air showers they love it down that part of the country
03:45but I just say a touch of frost they can take it but if you are worried we've got a
03:50bit of ground
03:50cover there you could always cover up your tatties during a spell of frost or wet weather as well
03:54tatties don't like that wet weather either. And that's a nice flowery potato isn't it whereas I've got a
03:58very modern new variety never grown it before have you Francis? No that's a new one for me. So meant
04:04to be really disease resistant as well so you know it avoids the blight but I mean having said that
04:09first early is mature quite early anyway and can avoid that. Yeah which is good and again good point
04:15to note as well now you also get second early tatties and you also get main crops so you're going
04:20to kind of stagger your planting over the next what month but that means you could get a crop of
04:25potatoes from late June early July right the way through the winter. So early is about 12 weeks
04:31main's what 17 18 weeks? A wee bit longer eh. Now the gardeners also with these first earlys have done
04:37a
04:37little bit of like chitting in other words sprouting them so they've left them in the light and that
04:43means with this little bit of growth we maybe can still get an earlier crop. I know they reckon
04:48sometimes up to about 10 days if all the conditions are correct so yeah it's a handy wee thing to
04:54do. Yeah and
04:54the other thing is to maybe look for what we call the rose end and you normally see that there
04:58are
04:58more little eyes in it. Although this is the modern variety I'm going more the traditional method
05:03we're taking out the trench and uh old money for me this dahlia stick that I marked up that is
05:1012
05:10inches or a foot apart. Well I'm going to plant the modern way and I'm going to plant mine maybe
05:1530
05:16centimetres apart and around about 15 centimetres deep and all I'm using is a trowel space them out over
05:21the line and then plant them in the ground. Well that's a very simple way to do it and especially
05:25if you've got good ground and then with this one you know using the draw hoe okay so look Brian
05:30I'm
05:31going to maybe push the soil like that but the best way to draw a hoe is to draw it
05:36to you isn't it?
05:37And this little tool this is going to come in handy as the summer goes on because we're going to
05:41want
05:41to earth our potatoes up and that's to protect them all the potatoes that grow over the summer so
05:46you're going to use this. Well earthing up you usually can get more tatties can't you? And also we like
05:51to plant in containers because I mean not everybody has a garden. No and this method is perfect you've
05:57only got a patio or a balcony you can plant totties in bags and okay you're not going to get
06:01a bigger
06:02crop is what you do in the ground but you can still get a good crop for a few meals.
06:05And it's your turn
06:06to do a wee bit of a trail this year. I know I know it's always been your thing but
06:09I've been reading up quite a bit lately and they say the closer you plant your tatties in the ground
06:15yeah or the more you put in a bag they say the smaller the potato is. I mean have you
06:20tried that before?
06:21Have you seen that? No I haven't I haven't seen that so you know I'm going for the traditional three
06:26in a bag that's normally what they recommend whereas how many are you going to go for? I'm going to
06:30go
06:31for five which is generally about the maximum that you would put in a bag so it'll be interesting to
06:34see
06:35come what early July just to see what the difference is. Okay so a little bit of compost in the
06:40bottom
06:40there's a slow release fertilizer all we've got to do is cover these up and then as they grow just
06:47like the ground you keep earthing them up. We've got an extra bag as well. Yes so as we were
06:52saying
06:53this is a very early variety. Now George's birthday is at the beginning of June so what we're hoping is
07:00Don't tell anyone. No and I'm sure he wouldn't want everybody to know it's his birthday early June
07:04but what we're hoping is we could have a bag of tatties ready for his birthday. Just I'm going to
07:08drop a hint I'd rather have a Porsche but if he wants a bag of tatties let's get my bag
07:12of tatties.
07:13And they're going to go undercover aren't they? They're going to have to have the warmth
07:16well watered we'll see what happens. Yeah so we're going to come back over the summer to see how our
07:22potatoes are getting on but for now I'm going to go to a part of the garden that's actually celebrating
07:28its 10th anniversary.
07:41So now we're in a part of the garden we call the stem bank and it's not an area that
07:45we're usually in
07:46because it's always looking at its best over the winter months when we're off air. But as you can
07:51still see we've got the crimsons, the oranges, the yellows and the greens of these winter stems.
07:56You can imagine how they're going to brighten up this spot on the greiest day over the winter months.
08:01Now there's two groups of plants that we're looking at here. The cornice these are the dogwoods we've got
08:07the wonderful midwinter fire here or the lovely crimson elegantissima at the back. And then also
08:14the willows and they get cracking stems as well but I like some of the unusual features you get from
08:20these.
08:20So look at the contorted stems here we have from the dragon's claw willow. Now both are perfect for
08:26growing in Scotland they can take pretty much all the toughest conditions that we can throw at them.
08:31The sea looks in particular like that wetter bit of ground and they can even take the salt spray from
08:36the sea air. Now to keep them looking this good there's a bit of maintenance that us gardeners have
08:42to do each year. We've got a couple of options if you don't want a big hole every year then
08:50what you're
08:50doing is you're looking for some of the thicker older stems so no more of a quarter of the plant
08:55and we're
08:56going to chop them as far down to the ground as you can possibly get. And then from there the
09:01new
09:02young vigorous shoots that are full of colour that's where they're going to emerge from. But
09:07there's no doubt to get the most striking display is you want to chop the whole plant down to the
09:12ground
09:12each year in a process called coppicing. So if we take a look at this plant here if we look
09:19at one of the
09:20previous cuts we're going to count one two buds and then you'll probably need a pair of loppers for this
09:28and you just give them a good chop down. And then you just go around the whole plant.
09:38And there you go. Simple as that but it's going to have a brilliant effect for us this time next
09:42year.
09:43Now don't just chuck these to waste they could go on your dead hedge but as you can see from
09:49the
09:49colourful bundle that we have here some of them have lovely thick supports there which will be perfect
09:55making little obelisks for plants to grow up over the summer. Or if you even do this job maybe late
10:00November early December you could be using these to make some lovely winter reefs. Time now for our
10:07first visit to George in Joppa. Joppa's in Edinburgh and like us it's been an offy wet winter but the
10:15weather is changing.
10:23Well hello and welcome to sunny Joppa on what is a bright shining spring day. Now since you were here
10:31last autumn a lot has been going on. I've got a lot to show you. It's a busy day.
10:45Over winter I looked at what was the old scree area here and over the years it's kind of
10:53deteriorated whether it's my fault or the plants I don't know. Anyway I thought well I think I'd like
10:59to change that. At the same time we were having the roof redone on the house and there was lots
11:04and
11:04lots of old slate available and I thought I know what I'll do. I will create a little crevice garden.
11:11So I dug everything up saved one or two of the plants that I could save. I added a lot
11:16of gravel to it
11:16and we can see the grit and gravel that's on the surface. And then after cultivating the soil all I
11:23needed to do was just to knock the slates in. Okay bruises them on the top maybe but that doesn't
11:29matter
11:30because what you're creating are these little crevices between the slates which then allow
11:36water to drain down to a greater depth. It doesn't just run off the top. So what was I going
11:43to plant?
11:44Well go off to your local nursery and see what alpines have got. Get a selection. Possibly go
11:50every month or something like that and get some that would be flowering at different times of the year.
11:57You know what it's like when you go to a nursery to select some alpines?
12:01It's like going to a sweetie shop and having all your pocket money to spend at the one time.
12:06And that's what it was like. So I got a reasonable selection and I've got things which are in flower
12:10at the moment like this polygala and that is one which is going to be put down the front where
12:16I can
12:16admire it there. I'm just going to set them out just now. A wee nod to Scotland. We've got
12:22Primula Scotica. Look at that. That's the Scottish native Primula and that will go near the willow because
12:28this willow was found in the Scottish Highlands as well. And then we've got a Saldanella. Look at that.
12:34Isn't that just a wonderful little flower? Look at that. Saldanella Spring Symphony. That's super here.
12:40Right. That's going in here. And then things like this. This is a Campanula which has yellow foliage
12:47but it's got blue flowers. It's called Dixon's Gold. Now this is a wee bit of a thug. So what
12:55will have
12:56to happen with this one is it's going to have to go somewhere where it can spread by itself and
13:01not
13:01come to any harm, not overtop other plants. And now something from Australia.
13:08This one has little yellow flowers. It's in the same family as the daisy. In New Zealand this would
13:15be called the vegetable sheep because they have these whitish mounds that they create. And shepherds
13:24and farmers used to think they'd left the sheep up the hill and go and investigate and find that it
13:28was
13:28just this plant. This one is Australis and it is one which has a wonderful honey scent like many of
13:36them
13:36do. So this has got to be put somewhere at the edge where it can be smelled every time you
13:42go past and
13:43that's again going to go down at the front. So if I reach over it's going to go right down
13:48into there.
13:50Now we're going to start planting. Much against my better judgment I'm going to take my gloves off. I don't
13:55really like working in the soil but we'll just do it for the benefit of education. Now what we're going
14:02to do here is that we're going to think about how the alpines would grow and what they need. So
14:07if we
14:07take this saxifrage here and we're going to plant it in this area here. What I want to do is
14:12take out a
14:14reasonable hole for it. Knock it out the pot carefully. Now when I put this in I've got to keep
14:24it
14:26just proud of the soil. See how that's sitting high. Now if I was planting bedding plants or something
14:32like that I would give you a row if you were doing it like that. But here I want it
14:36high so that when I
14:39then get my gravel I put that around the edge of the plant with a good layer of gravel around
14:47it
14:49and that keeps the water away from the neck of the plant. Now look at that it looks as though
14:56it's
14:56always been there and that's the idea you want to be planting it so that it looks natural when you're
15:01finished. And in these crevices like that all you need to do afterwards is just to
15:06you know fill in between. This acts as a mulch, it keeps moisture in and it also helps to prevent
15:13weeds growing. Now I did say that we had this nod to Scotland by producing this one here which is
15:20Primula scotica. Now that grows way up in the north of Scotland on Shetland on Orkney and then on the
15:27north
15:27coast. Its problem is it will flower, it will produce seed and then the little blighter has got the tendency
15:35to die out. So what you've got to remember to do is to save seed of it and sow that
15:40seed in the same
15:41area or close by so that you get a continuation of these wonderful little bird's eye flowers which
15:47you get on the Primula. Wonderful little thing. So that's it as you can see I've got plenty to be
15:54getting on with and you know what's exciting? I'll have to go back to the nursery and buy some more
15:59because there's plenty of space here so I'll get on with this.
16:19I'm just going to lift our clump of snowdrops here. Now it's maybe getting late in the season but if
16:24you've
16:25got snowdrops which still have the foliage on them then it's possible to do what I'm going to do now
16:30which is lift and split and replant and this is a variety here which I planted about four years ago
16:39and if I just ease these out
16:43we'll see what they're like inside so here we go just gently lift them up
16:50and give it a shake. What I want to do is just tease out these bulbs a bit. Now I
17:00can take them out to
17:01doubles or singles I mean I could do them too but I've taken them out like that into single bulbs
17:07keep the label there. I'll just lay them out on there and this can be done at any time when
17:14they are
17:15in flower really you could do it when they're in flower you can do it when they're just finished
17:19flowering. The thing is you see after a while the snowdrops become very congested because what they
17:25do is if you look at this one they split off see how that one is split off like that
17:33so that's what they do and that's what you're trying to increase them by. Okay so we've lifted the clump
17:39of
17:39snowdrops and what we're going to do now is to replant them in the same place because they don't
17:45have any disorders if you do that sort of thing not like some other plants and we're going to plant
17:50them in the what's called in the green. Now you can see here exactly how deep they've been before
17:57that's the bottom of the bulb there's the green coming through and they've been planted at somewhere
18:02around 50 to 60 millimetres deep so that's the depth that we're going to put them back in it
18:07and what will happen then is that that foliage will die back I'll need to stick the label into
18:12the place where they are because otherwise I'll have forgotten and I'll try and plant something
18:15else on top of them so they just go in to here you can plant them directly back into the
18:21into the soil
18:22or you could put them into pots and in that way you can wait and see where you want to
18:28plant them later
18:28on so there we go just planting them back into the same place that's him replanted so the thing to
18:37do
18:37is have a walk around the garden near early morning cup of coffee perhaps see if you've got any snowdrops
18:42that are congested they've still got their foliage on get the fork underneath them lift them up ease
18:47them spread them out a bit replant them that's the way
19:05well it's really good to see george in his garden and he's going to be here
19:08at beach grove in a couple of weeks time now easter weekend fantastic I think it's the time
19:14of year when you want to get out in your garden and have a few projects and here a very
19:19simple
19:19project is all about creating some easter containers for instant impact so my first one is really all
19:27about the spring bedding and using some bulbs and this I think is a beautiful dwarf daffodil the
19:34variety snipe it's got the reflex petals just absolutely beautiful and what I'm doing is I'm
19:40just going to plunge this in the pot because once it finishes flowering you could then quite easily
19:47take the pot out and then you can lift up the bulbs divide them once the foliage has died back
19:53and plant
19:53them in your garden when it comes to the spring bedding well I think you can't beat the range of
19:59colors in polyanthus and I don't know why but I associate easter with yellow I think it is so
20:05cheerful these are beautiful plants and I reckon I mean I'm not going to actually plant these I'm just
20:10going to place them at the moment I reckon I could probably get three of these around the edge of
20:18the
20:18narcissus there now do remember as well polyanthus a lot of people think of them as temporary plants
20:24but actually they're perennial so you know once they finish flowering there's nothing wrong with
20:29lifting those plants and popping them into a nursery bed so three of those and then pansies they're
20:36fantastic as well they flower and flower if you keep deadheading them you will actually probably get
20:42these flowering right into the summer and I think that's a nice contrast of the purple and yellow and
20:49then alongside that well I love the violas they're like little faces so I think what I'm going to do
20:56is go
20:56every other one I'll go the purple and then I will go the yellow and just keep going around like
21:05that and I think that is going to look so fantastic now that's more temporary but you could also think
21:13about planting up something a little bit more permanent and you know when it comes to containers
21:18yes you've got pots you've got window boxes you could even do a hanging basket and this time I'm going
21:23to go for
21:24bulbs and alpines but before I plant it up I think it's always worth talking a little bit about the
21:29compost that we're using and this is the gardeners mix because what we have is our own garden compost and
21:36that's two buckets of compost one of leaf mold which I love I mean that's got fantastic texture to it
21:43and we also have half a bucket of topsoil along with half a bucket of sharp sand so that kind
21:51of helps to
21:52open up the compost and then what we've done is added a little bit of slow release fertilizer
21:56to keep the plants going so tete-a-tete the daffodil this is a very popular variety it's nice and
22:05dwarf
22:06the most brilliant yellow and I'm going to set that in the middle and you'll notice this time yes I'm
22:13taking them out of the pots because I hope that these will spread and we'll have this container
22:19for at least two or three years I'm teasing out the roots as well that helps for them to spread
22:26in the
22:27compost and my last one and then you are spoilt for choice I think when it comes to alpines and
22:35this
22:35time my colour theme yes it's still the yellow but I'm going for a bit of white as well so
22:40we've got
22:41arabis lovely perfume I think that could sort of form on the end there then I think it's quite important
22:48to perhaps have a little bit of trailing and this is a time and you know if you use your
22:53fingers
22:54perfume fantastic then a little bit of splash of yellow we've got a perennial wallflower here
23:03and although it is perennial I'm going to say it's short-lived so it might last just maybe two or
23:07three years and then you can take cuttings and then another arabis but this time with the variegated
23:13foliage so we're still keeping that yellow or brecha I mean you get all colours with this but this is
23:20a
23:20white one it's florado white and that is going to trail over and then my final one is a mossy
23:28saxifrage loads
23:29and loads of flowers sort of cushion forming pop it in there and I'm hoping that this might last at
23:35least a couple of years maybe three years and then if the plants get too big well if you've got
23:41a garden
23:41you can pop them into the garden but you know I think there's definitely one thing missing here
23:45you know that I've got a sweet tooth and you've got to have a little bit of chocolate chocolate bunnies
23:52are okay and you know you could have an easter egg hunt couldn't you
24:09well Brian here we are a wee reminder that this area was the competition plots last year for our
24:15four presenters and they were a competitive lot weren't they they were it was great fun so we
24:20gave Kirstie the roof Callum and Lizzie they all got a plot each and basically the winner was the
24:25one that's plantings was the most successful simple as that absolutely and it was Callum that was winner
24:30wasn't it the winner is Callum
24:37and we gave him his trophy in the last program you can remember how modest and graceful he was when
24:42he
24:42accepted it he's going to have to hand it back now well and no pressure Callum so you know we're
24:47doing a different competition this year because last year it was all about growing vegetables
24:51and we've chosen the senses so four of the senses touch taste smell and sound and obviously what
24:59they're going to do is be planting up to the appeal of that particular sense i like it it's going
25:05to have
25:05to make them think isn't it yeah well i mean it might not just be about the plants i think
25:08there might
25:08be a few props there as well so it'd be interesting it is okay so we're going to decide now
25:14which sense
25:14each presenter gets so we're going to go in order here so the first one's lizzie would you like the
25:18honourable okay i'm going to have to close my eyes or i won't i won't look anyway let's dig down
25:24and the first label touch that's good okay next up we have kirstie taste oh she'll like that one
25:35ruth well it has to be smell or sound doesn't it sound well then we know what Callum's got hope
25:43so
25:44it's smell there you go i like it i wonder if they'll be happy i'm sure they will i'm pretty
25:50sure they've started the planning right now so it'll be good fun to see what they come up with
25:58now time for some handy hints multi-stemmed plants are becoming quite popular in design because they
26:05add a touch of naturalistic and sculptured look to the garden see over a single stemmed version of the
26:10plant now to buy a mature specimen it can be quite expensive but we can create our own by buying
26:17three
26:17younger smaller plants and grouping them together so i've got these white stemmed birches here i've
26:24got one a wee bit to the side one twisted it may look a bit obvious just now but in
26:29five years time
26:30you'll never notice the difference
26:36i think springtime is when you need to do a little bit of housekeeping with your houseplants
26:41now whether it's repotting maybe a bit of top dressing also a bit of propagation and feeding as
26:48well but when it comes to propagation now tradiscantias are one of the easiest all you need to do is
26:54look
26:54for a nice cutting and what i'm going to do is cut that just underneath what we call the node
27:01or where
27:01the leaf comes out i remove roughly a third to two thirds of the leaves and then literally pop it
27:10in water
27:11and these have been in water just for two weeks and look at the length of the roots already
27:17i've got three different varieties of tradiscantia here i'm going to leave them maybe for another week
27:22and then they'll get potted on and then the mother plant will just get discarded
27:32well that's just about us from the garden here it's been lovely filming with you today in the garden
27:37but this series you're going to be out on your travels again aren't you you're going to do a
27:40great tour of some scottish gardens i'm really looking forward to it brian and the first one
27:44has got a great roaded endering collection so you know this should be really good spring color early
27:50summer color but i am going to be back for the end of the series for back here in the
27:55garden to judge
27:56the competition and i'm really excited about that and also i think it's going to be a really good
28:01growing season yeah can't wait well next week in the garden i'm going to be joined by lizzie and
28:06she's going to be up at her situtory that we first saw last year and we'll also be paying a
28:11visit to
28:12colin crosby down in dumfries so we'll get to see his wonderful garden again and if you want to do
28:17some planning and planting for this season don't forget we've got the whole of last year's series
28:21on the iplayer which i hope you'll find useful and then look out for us on social media where we're
28:27going to be putting out some updates and jobs to do each week so from the two of us bye
28:33bye
28:52you
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