- 6 days ago
The Beechgrove Garden - Season 48 Episode 6
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Short filmTranscript
00:14Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. Here on a plot just outside Aberdeen we are planting for
00:19borders and cut flowers. Coming up, I'm planting perennials for height in a border. Lizzie is
00:29setting out in the Satoutere and an alpine trip to Edinburgh.
00:37To start with we're going to take our first look of the season to the 8x6 greenhouse. Now having a
00:43greenhouse can sometimes be seen as a bit of a luxury but I can tell you it's well worth the
00:47investment. You can extend the growing season at the beginning at the end of the years by growing
00:52your veg or you can even grow some tender plants that you cannae grow outside in your garden
00:57normally so they're well worth having a go. If you are looking to install one this year or if you're
01:02getting a chance to work with one you want to maximise the sunlight. So you see up in Beechgrove
01:07here we've got no buildings, no trees casting shade on the the glasshouse here. We do have a wee hedge
01:13at the back but that's doing an important job that's helping to filter the east wind and that's
01:18good at maybe giving the glasshouse a wee bit of protection and a handy wee hint if you're
01:22growing on a more exposed location. Now it's grey, it's cool here in Aberdeen today so I cannae
01:29wait to get inside where it's going to be a wee bit more cosier but as soon as that sun
01:33comes up
01:33the heat is just going to rise. So your sliding door is one way of regulating the temperature,
01:40letting in some cool air but you'll also see your glasshouse has a roof vent as well and as the
01:45heat
01:45rises you want to have this open to let that heat out and that's quite tricky when you're at your
01:50work for
01:50the day how you're going to get back and do that job. This one's quite a wee handy thing, this
01:54is an
01:55automated one so it's doing all the work for you. The plants in the greenhouse they're going to dry
02:00out a wee bit quicker than what your plants outside will if they're in containers so you want to have
02:05more access to to water. We've got our own wee water bucket attached here so we're harvesting the
02:11rainwater we can water all our plants with that and we've also got electricity in here so that means we
02:16can fit a wee heated propagator. We don't want to grow orchids in here where you need high temperatures
02:21but actually some of the plants in here if the temperature gets too low we can stick in a wee
02:25heater and it helps it keep it frost free. We've got some benches in here helps to stage our plants
02:31I like this wee bench that goes on top because we can get some trays and smaller plants in here
02:36and the flooring we've got a slab in the middle and a bit of gravel we've left this one side
02:42bare because
02:42that means we can grow as you can see our tomato plant this is the first one of the year
02:46that's in
02:46the ground but actually we could have left this as soil so you could be grown direct into the soil
02:51in the greenhouse as well so there's so much you can do so much fun you can have with a
02:55greenhouse
02:55and over this summer I'm going to show you just all the different things to create a touch of the
03:00exotic here in Aberdeen that what you can do with your greenhouse. But first of all we got these
03:06plants in a few weeks ago this is a new petunia that's on the market it's part of the Allegra
03:11collection and normally when I think of petunias they go in our containers or hanging baskets
03:15and they maybe hang down giving a wee bit of colour this one actually grows up the way it can
03:20go to
03:21about one and a half metres so really looking forward to seeing this one and you can also get a
03:25wee cut
03:26flower off it as well so hopefully Lizzie will be pleased too. But these things that were growing on
03:30if I have a close look now you can see that the roots are now starting to come out the
03:35drainage holes
03:36at the bottom so that's a good indication that they're ready to be potted on. Now if I tug at
03:40the plant
03:41it's not coming out if I pull at it I'm actually going to damage the plant bruise it maybe even
03:46kill it so get a couple of your fingers you put them either side of the neck and then just
03:52on the
03:53edge of your veg give it a couple of taps and there you go off the pot comes and you
03:58can see by this just
04:00how many roots are in that pot that this is now ready to be potted on. Now a few weeks
04:04ago Carol showed
04:06you a recipe for creating your own compost that we do here at Beechgrove Garden and I love the idea
04:12of that the fact that you can be sustainable you don't need to buy things in to be a gardener
04:16but
04:17I'm keen to see how well our compost actually does compared against a branded one so that's what we're
04:23going to have a bit of fun in the glasshouse here this year with but for now this is our
04:28own Beechgrove mix
04:29we're going to start with here so when you're looking to pot on you just put a wee bit of
04:33compost
04:33at the bottom for choosing the size of pot to pot onto I've got it in the middle
04:41and what you want is be able to just get a finger down the side of the plant you don't
04:45want too big
04:46a pot because it's just going to sit in the compost it's not going to do anything it's not going
04:49to grow
04:50and then just gently hold the foliage putting your compost down the side you don't have to jam it
04:59in with your fingers just gently firm it in and then a wee bit of compost at the top
05:06and there we go and these will stay in the glasshouse maybe for another couple of weeks
05:11it's still a wee bit of chilly outside so I want to give these the best chance that they possibly
05:15can
05:17so while I pot up Beechgrove's own compost I'm now going to continue and do this plant into the
05:23branded compost and we'll just come back over the season and just see how the two plants fare
05:27in their compost mixes now regular viewers to Beechgrove garden will know I'm a massive fan
05:33of alpines and that all came from getting to work amongst one of the best collections
05:37we have in the country at the royal botanic garden in Edinburgh
05:46one of the team who currently look after that collection made up of rare rock and alpine
05:51plants gathered from mountain ranges across the world is Sarah Powell who also trained at the botanic
06:02garden we're here today in our modern alpine house here in Edinburgh we are looking at our tufa wall
06:09tufa is a really porous type of limestone we have a particularly exceptional example our tufa is the
06:17largest in the UK and potentially in Europe it's actually protected in the UK so we've managed to
06:23source this from a waste source which was a motorway being built in Austria the reason we have such an
06:29unusual structure is so we can grow this exceptional range of plants which will only grow on vertical
06:35rock faces they require extremely porous substrate to grow in and extremely dry conditions you don't
06:44have to use tufa you can use any form of rock to create a similar structure in your garden or
06:49in a
06:49trough and you can use slate sandstone or even granite as long as you create the cracks and crevices
06:56that the plants require to protect themselves from the elements
07:07the joy of alpines is that you can create these really great little miniature worlds using any container
07:19as long as the container you're using has really great drainage and without drainage your plants
07:24will just get waterlogged and die for sure so today i'm using this trough and we use this horticultural
07:32material which i think is a windbreak but we use it to protect the drainage hole from getting clogged
07:38over time with just weather and watering you can use anything broken pots bigger rocks just to make sure
07:45that the hole is protected next i'm going to add in our horticultural mix so this is a really really
07:52loose really gritty well draining mix we use this for most of our alpines and i'm going to use it
07:59today
08:00you want roughly 70 drainage so grit and sand and then 30 of the sort of more loamy aspect of
08:07the mix
08:11so i'm going to put a few scoops to make sure that doesn't move
08:23and then i'm going to check where my rocks are going to go
08:39so the idea is you're trying to create little crevices and little micro habitats
08:46and so you can have a range of plants in this one little trough so because this this is sort
08:52of
08:53south facing this is all going to be quite hot so i'm going to try and plant some sort of
08:58sun loving
08:58plants on this side and then in around the back here there's a little bit more shade and that's enough
09:03shade
09:04for the plants that require a little bit more protection
09:13so you want to put in a little bit more potting mix than you think you'd need
09:19and because everything once it's watered down it'll sink so you want to try and make sure it stays quite
09:25full and i've done this quite quickly um we would spend a lot longer positioning um rocks and matching
09:32up striations and next i'm going to look at positioning of the plants so this is a little
09:38campanula it does a little kind of trailing mat forming um growth style so i'm going to pop this in
09:44the corner it likes sunlight it's a pink pinky purpley flowering plant and next i've got a sax
09:51um which i'm going to position here they don't mind sunlight so i'm going to have it fill in and
09:57around against this rock face at the back here this is a little physoplexus camosa one of my favorite
10:04flowering plants it's big kind of unusual structure purple kind of alien flowers and i pop it at the back
10:10here i've got some little gentian clusii these are bright blue i don't know if everyone knows a gentian
10:20they're really vibrant i'm gonna pop these in here they need a little bit more shade i've got a little
10:26daphne which is actually in flower i'm gonna try that in the corner there i've got edrianthus this is
10:33a really cool plant i might try and see if i can get it in under this overhang i've got
10:40a few more
10:41sacks so the sacks are quite good in these cracks i'm gonna pop this yellow on there and i've got
10:49this
10:49little white sacks it's a little ringii great so i'm happy with that now that i've got my plants in
11:00position we're gonna just start planting things up we're gonna use horticultural grit to um to give
11:27them some support once they're all planted up anyway and to prevent any um stem rot so i don't need
11:34it
11:34super tight right now
11:50so i'm reasonably happy with the positioning and the sort of spread of color there's like white purple
11:57yellow through to a different slightly darker purple pink more pink purple again yellowy orange
12:04yellow blue pink so it's quite a good spread so find any container with some really great drainage
12:10make sure you've got some really well draining potting mix choose any rocks or stones and things
12:18that you can get your hands on that are sourced responsibly and there's a really good range of
12:22plants choosing slightly easier ones to begin with and but the loss of plants is inevitable in alpines
12:27it happens to the best of us and so just go and give it a go
12:37well lizzie we're up at the new cut flower garden here at beech grove and i must admit i like
12:41cut
12:41flowers i'm glad we're doing this it's quite exciting for me yeah we were here a few weeks ago and
12:46we
12:46moved a couple of peonies well you moved the peony you did all the hard work i'm glad you noticed
12:52that
12:52thanks for saying that but it was good we wanted to dispel the myth that you can't move peonies you
12:57can move them as long as you put them back in the ground at the same level now we did
13:02a wee experiment
13:02a wee test here we did actually plant this one a wee bit deeper than you can see it's a
13:07wee bit
13:07further behind than this one which i would say is bang on true to form that's the stage it should
13:12be at
13:12but of course the proof's in the pudding will it flower or not well i'm really excited to see look
13:17at that look at that brian a lovely little bud so we've maybe got it right after all what i
13:22would
13:23say i'd maybe put a wee hooped support around that just to support the foliage the heavy flowers that
13:27we get oh definitely but you've got big ambitions for this place i like it yeah i'm really excited
13:32about this so we've got different sections and beds for different cut flowers so we've got bulbs
13:39and tubers over there we've got annuals we've got a bed for foliage and over here we're going to be
13:46looking at dried flowers and also seed heads because seed heads can be absolutely beautiful
13:53putting dead flowers in amongst a wedding bouquet you can't do that surely definitely i mean poppy
13:59seed heads nigella seed heads can be so beautiful and add something extra to bouquets looking forward to it
14:07right so these are annuals aren't they so we're going to be doing some direct sowing to the ground so
14:11we've prepared the ground or i should say the garden's team have prepared the ground
14:15they've dug it over removed any stones give it a wee for them and a rake level but i notice
14:22you've
14:22got your string lines out which is good we've got nice straight lines but you've gone east to west
14:26now normally we would go north to south so when the sun's going over the whole plant gets the full
14:32exposure to the sun yeah but i've done it because i'm i'm a bit greedy i want as many as
14:39i can squeeze
14:40in the bed as possible but it does take a little bit of extra planning because you do need to
14:45think
14:45about the flower height because you don't want things to be casting shadows onto smaller plants
14:51you want them to all get the same amount of sunlight so we've got the poppies and the zinnias right
14:57up at the
14:58end of the bed so it's not going to cast any shadow onto the the smaller annuals going further
15:05down and then you just do it just look at the seed packet for the the final heights and arrange
15:10it
15:10accordingly not every garden's the same you know not everything's black and white you've got to make
15:15these little tweaks but you can make it work can't you but i see you've got some young plants to
15:18go in
15:19the ground as well yeah we do now if you are going to direct sow or put out any little
15:24seedlings then do
15:26make sure and check your last frost state because you don't want any of your seedlings to die off
15:31or what you can do if there is a frost forecast you can just put a bit of fleece over
15:36just to give
15:37them a bit of protection but yeah we've got two types of limonium really love limonium because you'd
15:42be hard pressed to tell a fresh limonium from a dried one they keep their form and their colour beautifully
15:49but what i thought we might do is we might plant halfway along the string and then get some extra
15:55seeds on at the other side to get a little bit of succession like that idea keeps it flowing for
16:00long gary definitely
16:16so i'm back here in the competition polotz and this year some of the presenters have been tasked with
16:23growing things that appeal to a certain sense whether it be touch smell taste or sound and
16:30i'm really lucky i have got to touch now when i was planning out my border it's quite a really
16:38narrow space so again i like to draw things out to see how all the heights are going to work
16:45and all
16:45the different colours are going to meld together i wove these beautiful willow structures that add i think
16:52another dimension they were the willow that brian cut down a couple of weeks ago and i think that they
16:59just
17:00are a beautiful colour and really add something extra to this touch garden we've got this beautiful
17:08bronze fennel here that has really lovely feathery foliage and another feather grass which has a
17:15completely different texture that you just want to run your hands through it as well over here though
17:20we're adding a splash of colour with the echinacea we've got two different types we've got magnus and also
17:26fatal attraction now they create those beautiful pink blooms but also create lovely seed heads that are
17:35going to look good into september and right the way through autumn now over here another completely
17:42different texture is this hylo telephium we've got this rubbery almost oh you can hear it squeak as you
17:51run your thumb along it this one's called autumn joy creates these lovely domed shape flowers that are
17:59bright pink and again create lovely seed heads now i want to create a pathway right the way through this
18:07border with some stepping stones now wasn't quite sure how many that i was going to need and money is
18:15quite tight we're on a budget so what i've done is i've made some templates out of carpet now you
18:21could
18:21use cardboard or anything that you've got lying around the house but it does give you a really
18:27clear indication of how many you'd actually need and the spacing in between which will probably save you
18:35some money because you won't overspend on materials that you don't need now one of the last ones that
18:42we've got is this achillia it's called cloth of gold it gets up to about 1.2 meters tall and
18:51again has
18:52beautiful lovely yellow flowers that are going to offset with the willowspheres now i really hope carol is
19:00going to be impressed with all my efforts so far there's a few more bits and pieces to add to
19:07it
19:07just yet but you know callum just can't win again this year otherwise his head's probably going to
19:13swell to the size of that sphere now time for some handy hints yesterday it was so nice i was
19:28down to
19:28my t-shirt today i've got the thermal top back on could you imagine how these delicate plants are
19:32feeling after being in that cozy glass house for a few weeks if we were just to shove them straight
19:37outside so we want to acclimatize them to the weather we're going to do this for about a week i'm
19:42going
19:42to bring them outside during the day pop them back inside at night this is a process called hardening
19:48off fingers crossed weeks time good to go we can get them in the ground
19:54this year i'm experimenting with a different way of watering the tomatoes and i'm going to be using
20:00an oia now oias come in lots of different shapes and sizes and a true beach grove style i've made
20:06my
20:06own now what i've got is a porous terracotta pot that i have plugged the gap in with a cork
20:15to make sure
20:15that no water leaks out and how an oia works is that you bury it in with the crop that
20:24you want to
20:25water and when the soil around the pot is really dry water will seep out of the pot but if
20:34the soil
20:34is saturated then all the water will stay in the pot so that means that you don't need to be
20:40surface
20:41watering any of your plants all you need to do is come top up the pot and place the lid
20:48back on
20:49and that's it
20:57well it is a wonderful sunny afternoon here in the beach grove garden and this is one of the reasons
21:02why we designed a satutery just in this spot is because it is perfect for sitting out here
21:09and enjoying lovely sunny afternoons last time i was here i was planting a rambling rose which is
21:19called the all brighton rambler now i'm looking over there and i'm starting to see new shoots which is
21:25really exciting so soon it will hopefully climb up that fence another thing that i wanted to create in
21:32this area was a really strong scent that is just really beautiful to smell and i've added
21:39two different types of roses to achieve this we've got desdemona over here which is a really old rose
21:45scent which is going to be beautiful and we've got tranquility over there which is a light and fruity
21:50scent so hopefully when they are in bloom they'll create a wonderful scented area for us to relax in
21:57now there are a few things though that i am going to do this afternoon and that is going to
22:04be planting
22:05some perennials in and around the roses now i'm doing that for three different reasons
22:12so first of all the roses that are going to grow up they're going to flower in flushes so we
22:20want to
22:20create interest while the roses aren't in flower and a great way of doing that is to be adding things
22:27like salvia this one's called schneugel and it is a really white compact variety which is completely
22:36hardy it will grow to about 40 45 centimeters really nice height it's going to cover the bare stems
22:44of the roses and the roses will be able to flower on top creating a really nice effect
22:50the second reason is to create a weed suppression you don't want to spend all your time in the garden
22:57weeding so you can plant some napita things that are going to spread this one's called snowflake it
23:04will spread out to about 40 50 centimeters wide which is going to be really handy because you're not going
23:13to have to do all the hard work it's going to do the hard work for you the last reason
23:17is because they
23:19are great companion plants for the rose roses can be affected by aphids and they come and feast on
23:26all the lovely fresh new green growth they destroy the flower buds and make the leaves look really
23:32unsightly but planting salvia then the tapita and the scabious provide a habitat for things like lace
23:40wings and hoverflies to come and feed on and you really want to be attracting these pollinators into
23:47your garden because their larvae like to feast on aphids and this is then going to help protect
23:53your roses so it's good for the roses and good for your garden as well
24:04this is the zigzag border it was set up a few years ago to demonstrate alternatives to box as a
24:11low
24:11growing hedge now for years box has been used to frame plots in your garden or line hedges but
24:18unfortunately now it's under a two-pronged attack from pests and diseases the first one is the box blight
24:24and that can cause dieback in the stems and the other one's a caterpillar that could pretty much
24:28defoliate all your box hedging so we set out all these different alternatives we've got a good
24:34variety here i'm going to pick out cotoneaster cymonzii i quite like it because it seems to have that
24:40shape after you've trimmed it which kind of matches the formal look that you get from the box hedge
24:45but i must admit there's something about the purple foliage berberus
24:49and the orangey red of the spirea it just adds a wee bit of more colour and maybe gives you
24:54a
24:54something else to work with another dimension for your garden as well for the plants that you're
24:58going to plant alongside this and then that leads me on to the next part because i've kind of noticed
25:03that some of the plants that we put alongside our low-grown hedges they can cause issues too
25:08so they like said geranium which is a bit more open a bit more scraggy in the way it grows
25:13well
25:14sometimes the foliage flops onto the hedges and as you can see here it blocks out the sunlight onto the
25:20hedge it then creates all these little dead patches and during the winter months when these low-grown
25:25hedges they come into their own they add a wee bit of structure to their garden well these horrible
25:30little patches they're going to look ugly so we want to try and avoid that so for that reason i've
25:35picked out a few plants that grow a bit more upright in their habit at the top of the bed
25:40we've got aster
25:41ice-cool pink now this flowers at the end of summer beginning autumn i don't think there's a better
25:46genus of plants that goes well in that autumn light we've got a monarda here the beauty of cobblum
25:54now the one thing i like about these plants is the funky flowers that they produce and the bees love
25:59them as well i'm going to run down here for this one upitorium baby joe now one of its older
26:06relatives
26:07is called the joe pie weed and it grows about two meters tall this is a lot more compact version
26:12so i'm
26:13looking forward to seeing this one and both of them if you can get a handle on one of these
26:17and
26:17put them in your garden they're just a magnet for butterflies and then the last one i want to look
26:23at here because i think it just demonstrates perfectly what we're looking for this is phlox
26:29paniculata it's a white flower in one called david but look at these stems here look how strong
26:34and upright they are and that's just the kind of thing that we're looking out for
26:38now i've got a decent size plot here that i want to work with it's about two and a half
26:42meters by
26:43two and a half meters i don't want to over plant this border so when you're choosing a plant have
26:49a
26:49look at the label see how much it's going to spread and if you've got a situation like this maybe
26:53add on
26:54another 20 or 30 centimeters just to give us a wee buffer zone i think three is going to do
27:00there's no
27:01need to go for too many and then just evenly space them out in the border as i say just
27:07taking into
27:07consideration how much they spread and i know i've got them in this situation here but you can get
27:13other herbaceous perennials that maybe need some hoops to hold the foliage up or you've got to stick
27:18in a bamboo cane and you're doing a bit of tying in they're all brilliant things but if you just
27:23want
27:23something that's a bit more low maintenance then these are some of the plants for you
27:42well lizzie it's just a riot of color just now isn't it we've got the anemones the spring pea
27:48the premulas but it's rhododendron season so i'm going to pick out this one creeping jenny it's beautiful
27:53it's lovely well carol is out and about next week and she is visiting one of her favorite gardens which
28:01she's visited many times before and it is glenarn just outside hellensboro and it's renowned for its
28:07early summer color george and callum are going to be here at the garden next week they're going to be
28:12carrying out the first of the new plantings in the grass and gravel garden and they're going to be taking
28:17fuchsia cuttings and now remember we are on social media with handy hints and tips but if you've
28:23missed any of the shows so far it's all on bbc iplayer but from the two of us it's bye
28:29for now bye
28:34you
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