- il y a 6 heures
Watch Gardeners World, Season 59 Episode 29 on Dailymotion (2026).
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00:14Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30The autumn flowers, though, are beautiful. This is a ridgeron annuus, and it's really tall, but catching the sun and
00:38the dew on the petals, it's really stunning.
00:40Another autumn flower, though, is the asters, and here there are some asters that need a little bit of attention.
00:47Come on, mate.
00:55At the top of this rill, hidden amongst the euphorbia, is a white wood aster.
01:01You can see it here.
01:03And it's not done hugely well in this position because it's baked by the sun here, as you can see.
01:07So the best thing at this time of year, now the autumn is definitely here, is to move plants around
01:12that aren't happy where they are.
01:27It might seem a little bit ruthless to cut these down when they're still trying to flower,
01:32but actually if you're moving anything, it's always best to take a lot of the top growth off.
01:36It's autumn now, so it's about the time that we would traditionally be cutting a lot of things back anyway.
01:42But if you imagine that this plant is still trying to put all of its energy into producing leaves and
01:48flowers,
01:49and through these leaves it loses a lot of moisture.
01:51But if you cut that off, it stops the plant doing that, so that when you then pull it out
01:55by the roots,
01:56it can put all of its energy into producing new roots for the last bit of the season,
02:00rather than keep trying to flower and definitely losing a lot of moisture.
02:10The main aim with any of this type of digging is to get as much of the roots intact as
02:16possible,
02:17so that you're minimising the stress on the plant, especially if you're moving it because it's already stressed.
02:28Hopefully one clean cut gets us in, there we go, and that is one bunch.
02:40Okay, so there you go, you can see new growths on this, it's a really healthy clump.
02:46With a good dollop of compost, that should grow away really nicely for next year,
02:51and you'll have a whole new aster.
03:21What I have here,
03:22Et ici, c'est un autre aster que je vais faire dans cette bête.
03:28C'est un petit peu comme ça, c'est un petit peu comme ça,
03:31et c'est un petit peu comme Dollingeria ombulata,
03:34mais la plupart des gens n'ont juste appelé l'aster.
03:39Il faut voir vraiment, vraiment bien.
03:42C'est un peu plus haut sur le banc.
03:52Applaudissements
04:04J'ai pris les rouses un peu pour donner l'ont de retour en plus d'un et de retour.
04:12J'ai l'air de l'eau quand il ne va pas, mais à ce moment,
04:14cette année, on aura pas de régulier,
04:18et elles vont être absolument bon.
04:20Et par les plantées en 9 cm pots, donc beaucoup plus de petits pots,
04:24elles vont se produire très rapidement.
04:27Il y a des plantes que vous voulez investir dans des specimens
04:30parce qu'ils font longtemps, mais ce n'est pas une des plantes.
04:33Ce n'est pas une des plantes.
04:33Ce n'est pas une des plantes qui vont se produire rapidement et se produire.
04:38Il y a eu.
04:39Qu'est-ce que tu penses de ça, Rua ?
04:42Je ne pense pas qu'il est très impressionante.
04:45Est-ce que tu ?
04:47Right, next one.
04:58When you are rejigging any beds in the autumn,
05:00it's a really good time to also think about other times of the year.
05:04Now's the perfect time for planting spring bulbs, spring flowers as well,
05:09ornamental grasses that will come into their own next autumn too,
05:12so the plants that are mingling with these
05:14because it's not ever just about one moment and one space.
05:18It's always about this changing and evolving area throughout the season.
05:23So just think about it all now because it's the perfect time to address it.
05:29Now all these plants will hopefully absolutely love it here.
05:31If you choose the right plant for the space you have in your garden,
05:34that's the key to success.
05:35But it's not all sunshine.
05:37And there are some incredible plants that do love shade,
05:41as Jamie found out when he visited Hever Castle in Kent.
05:48It's lovely basking in a bit of sunshine.
05:52And there are so many plants that adore exactly that.
05:55but if you throw a bit of shade into the mix,
06:00you can grow a much wider variety of plants.
06:06Tune into the subtleties of shade
06:09and you'll discover a spectacular realm of interest and opportunity.
06:16Best of all, shade is found in every garden.
06:20Admittedly, some more than others.
06:27This area is bathed in shade.
06:29And isn't it gorgeous?
06:39This garden demonstrates that shade isn't one single hue.
06:43From dancing light through a deciduous canopy
06:47to deep shade throughout most of the day.
06:50There is a whole palette to explore.
06:56Each of these shady conditions supports different plants.
07:00And understanding the different conditions
07:02is the key to successful shady gardening.
07:16When choosing what plants to use in shady conditions,
07:20one of the most important aspects to consider
07:23is how good your soil is at drainage.
07:29We have a very wet, damp soil
07:33that's not draining very well at all.
07:36This is damp, shady conditions.
07:39And this is a brilliant example
07:42of a curated selection of plants
07:44that adore these conditions.
07:46We've got the dramatic large leaves of the hosta.
07:49We have these beads of water
07:52that are collecting on the foliage.
07:54And then down here, almost a little reservoir
07:57that's collected in the lip of the leaf.
08:00We've got the foliage of the regercia
08:03that contrasts beautifully against the hosta,
08:06but also has these feather duster-like flower heads
08:10that sort of just spike up above it.
08:12Just on the edge is a little drift
08:16of the brightest yellow primulas.
08:19They're smile-inducing.
08:20You can't look at a primula
08:21and not just beam with happiness.
08:23They're beautiful.
08:31If damp shade offers opportunities,
08:33dry shade is often regarded
08:35as one of the toughest challenges in gardening.
08:41Fundamentally, plants need two things.
08:43They need light and they need water.
08:45And what these oak trees here are doing
08:48is depriving these plants of a lot of light,
08:51so creating shade,
08:53but then also sucking all the moisture out of the soil
08:56to create this really dry, tough ground.
09:00There are, though, some plants that don't just survive
09:04in these conditions, but thrive in them.
09:06These are the toughest of the plant world.
09:10We've got Brunnera here,
09:11which has just finished flowering,
09:13but even its foliage is lovely
09:14and will spread across the ground
09:15and lock in as much moisture as it can.
09:18Coringa Shoma with these almost sycamore-like leaves
09:21that in the next few months
09:22will have butter yellow, pale yellow flowers.
09:26This is Gelinia trifoliata.
09:28I've always used it in sort of cottage garden situations.
09:32And I think this is proof that it's very versatile,
09:35very reliable,
09:36and will reward you with this smothering
09:39of star-shaped white flowers.
09:41For months on end,
09:43you can grow some really exciting,
09:46unusual plants in these conditions.
09:48And this is the most perfect example of this.
09:51This is Mechanopsis Barneys Blue.
09:53I always feel a little bit star-struck
09:56whenever I see one of these.
09:57I think they are one of the most beautiful plants
10:00you could ever possibly grow.
10:13No matter whether you're in dry shade or wet shade,
10:18shade provides an opportunity to play with foliage
10:22and it's brilliant as a foil.
10:24It provides texture and rhythm
10:26and can hold the space completely,
10:29especially when you plant plants into large groups
10:31like they've done here with these hostas
10:33and Hakana Chloa.
10:34We've got the large leaf of this hosta
10:37which has adapted over time to try and absorb
10:40as much sunlight as possible,
10:43growing alongside this Hakana Chloa.
10:47and that's got these long thin strands of foliage
10:50that are again trying to get as much sunlight
10:53for photosynthesis to grow and feed themselves.
10:56But from a design perspective,
10:58all of this interest,
11:00this beacon of glowing light from these grasses
11:03that bounce all the way along here,
11:05the depth and the drama of the hostas,
11:07sometimes all you need is foliage.
11:11But perhaps the best thing about shade
11:14is if you do want a big splash of colour,
11:17you can even have that too.
11:24Often when I'm thinking of colour in a shady area,
11:27I'm thinking of bluebells, of snowdrops, of camellias
11:30and rhododendrons,
11:31plants that would typically flower in spring
11:33or earlier in the season before the trees get their leaves
11:37and so they've got maximum sunlight.
11:38But actually, you can have colour in a shady garden
11:42all year round.
11:43And here, this riot, this kaleidoscope
11:46of bright oranges from the trollises,
11:49the regal purple of the iris,
11:51this soft pink of the digitalis,
11:54the astrantias, the purple,
11:56the white of the senolothium,
11:57it's illuminating this bank.
12:00It's joyful.
12:07If you have a shady corner in your garden,
12:10you don't need to neglect it or fight it.
12:13Use it as a sanctuary
12:15and fill it with colour and texture and foliage and joy.
12:42That did look like an incredibly beautiful space.
12:45And as Jamie says, the variety of plants that you can grow in shade
12:49is so much more than you might imagine.
12:54Right.
12:55All right.
13:11Hello, Alison.
13:12Hi.
13:13I have some plants for you.
13:14It's very exciting.
13:17Always.
13:20So, most people, when they grow vegetables,
13:23grow them in straight lines.
13:25Mm-hmm.
13:25But you prefer not to do that.
13:27Yeah, I tend to grow things in more of a sort of intermingling matrix now,
13:33partly because it's easier to have the soil covered.
13:37And I think, you know, growing in rows is partly to make the weeding easier.
13:43But I think if you've got the soil covered with lots of different plants,
13:48then, you know, you're not having to sort of think about that.
13:50You're not having to weed so much.
13:52I suppose because then you're seeing your veg bed as a habitat,
13:56not just as a productive space, because it can be both things at once.
14:01Yeah, absolutely.
14:01It can be an ecosystem.
14:03Yeah, definitely.
14:05Do you find you still get big weeds, the sorts of things that you would want to get out of
14:09the bed?
14:09There were some weeds that come up, but I might just leave them be,
14:13because, of course, they are feeding the soil through their living roots,
14:17but I might decide to deadhead them so that they don't seed through the bed.
14:22Mm-hmm.
14:22It's quite radical, really, Alison.
14:24Is it?
14:25I think it is.
14:26I think even...
14:26I really like the idea of it, and I garden in a very similar way,
14:29but even I would pull out a stinging nettle if it was coming up in the middle of my veg
14:33bed.
14:33Yeah.
14:34But I think it's good.
14:35I'm not sure I would tolerate a stinging nettle.
14:37I would draw the line at certain things.
14:40There are limits.
14:41Yeah, definitely.
14:53There appears to be an obstacle in the bed I was about to plant.
14:56Wherever you clear soil, if the sun's baked on it, you can guarantee a lurcher will lay on it.
15:02But, unfortunately, Rua, it's time to plant this, so could you please move, Rua?
15:09Come on.
15:11Sorry.
15:19Guaranteed.
15:21Yeah, there we go.
15:23Come on out of the way.
15:25Silly dog.
15:27Thank you.
15:29Okay.
15:30So, this bed is going to be filled with perennial vegetables.
15:36Now, perennial vegetables like rhubarb and asparagus have been around for an awfully long time,
15:41and people are used to growing them.
15:42But there are more unusual perennial vegetables that aren't so common and aren't so frequently grown,
15:48but are really, really, really useful, especially if you haven't got loads of time.
15:52I have an allotment that has half of it full of perennial veg, and it requires basically no maintenance.
15:58You can harvest a lot of them all year round, and they create a habitat.
16:02So, you have things like beetles and mice, unfortunately, in there, which do eat the strawberries.
16:07But it makes for a really nice way of growing productive plants in a more low-maintenance and flowerbed-y
16:14way.
16:16In a hot summer, annual veg need a lot of water and feeding.
16:20You have to sow the seeds, prick them out, pop them on, harden them off, put them in the ground,
16:25and then keep them watered throughout the whole growing season.
16:28Now, if you're busy like me in the summer, that can be a little bit of a task.
16:33You find yourself going down the allotment at 9pm just to get the watering done.
16:37Whereas perennial veg, because they have years for their roots to grow down deeper into the soil,
16:41they can access reserves of water and nutrient that annuals simply won't find.
16:48This is a walking onion, so it will throw up a spike.
16:53You can use the leaves, but it will throw up a spike with a bulb on the top,
16:57and there'll be little bulbils on the top of that flower that will then flop down, land on the ground,
17:02and then regrow from wherever they hit the floor.
17:05So that's why it's called walking, because you plant it in one place,
17:08and then it moves around year after year. That's a good one.
17:13Now this one, this is Turkish rocket. You can see it's a really beautiful plant.
17:18I think there is often aesthetic merit in, well actually in all vegetables,
17:22but maybe potentially more so in perennials.
17:27So this is a lovely plant, and you can eat the leaves when they're very young.
17:30They're slightly furry, so I wouldn't eat them when they're older and tougher.
17:34But young leaves, and also you can eat the flowers when they flower as well.
17:38Spikes of yellow flowers on these plants.
17:42Generally speaking, if you're growing annual veg, once it starts to bolt or flower,
17:46you pull it out of the ground and you replace it with something else.
17:49Whereas perennials, you can let them flower. It's part of their annual cycle,
17:53which means you can collect the seed from them and often propagate from seed.
17:56Perennial kales take really well from cutting. So often with perennial veg,
18:01you find that you just need to buy one or two plants.
18:04And then from there on, you'll always have a supply of more.
18:07And once you get passionate about them, you'll just share them with all your friends and family
18:11and bore the hind legs off them when you talk about your vegetables.
18:15Well, I do anyway.
18:17There we go.
18:19Because these are perennial, just as with planting up a herbaceous border,
18:23once you've planted these, they're kind of in for the long haul.
18:27They'll grow and spread and get bigger.
18:29You just need to maintain them a little bit, cut them back if they need it.
18:32Harvest them whenever you want to eat them.
18:35But that's it. Once it's done, it's done.
18:41Now we went to visit a garden in Wiltshire,
18:43where one couple have decided to share their beds and borders
18:46with more than just the wildlife.
18:48And we all know how that feels, don't we Rua?
18:59It is a bit eccentric.
19:04But it makes us very happy.
19:10When we got married, you didn't ask that catch all question, did you?
19:16Is there anything else I should know?
19:19Trains.
19:20Trains.
19:21Little trains.
19:22Little trains.
19:23Little trains.
19:28I mean, I'll give you, it is a bit bonkers.
19:31So when I first said to Bella, you know, darling,
19:36what would I think be great in this garden is a model railway.
19:41Really?
19:41And...
19:41Really?
19:44Crashed and burned.
19:46But having crashed and burned...
19:49You regrouped.
19:49I mean, I regrouped.
19:53So what are we going to do about this?
19:54I thought, okay, well, let's put it somewhere where I basically
19:56don't have to look at it.
19:57Yes.
19:58And then I realised there was a little sort of patch down over a hill.
20:02Nettle infested.
20:03Nettle infested.
20:04And I thought, I'll send him down there.
20:06And you kind of strimmed it off and started building a railway.
20:10And I thought, oh, I can't look at that.
20:13So then I had to do a whole garden to hide it.
20:17It's actually one of my favourite bits of the garden, though.
20:22The planting is all designed to play kind of hide-and-seek with the trains.
20:26So as a train comes along, it's going...
20:30A bit fast.
20:30A bit fast, according to my husband.
20:32But then what we're trying to do is get it so that it'll disappear behind the plant.
20:37So we've got some very bold planting here.
20:40There's some really big grasses.
20:41There's Calamogrostis calphirstera.
20:43There's a big millennia.
20:45This very red persicaria.
20:48I think it's called fire dance.
20:51But as the trains come through, they do just look gorgeous.
20:56Coming through the planting.
20:58Disappearing.
20:59But you can still hear them.
21:00Can you hear that little ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch?
21:03And it goes around past all the annual seed mix down there.
21:07Those yellow daisy heads are looking fab.
21:13I mean, this is a bit of garden I had just ignored up until then.
21:17But my initial desire to hide the trains, I admit, has given way to a desire to frame the trains.
21:24It is your design of this garden and the way it's evolved coming up with this backdrop for these trains.
21:33It's what it's all about really.
21:35So, I love it.
21:40I'm Bella Hoare and I've been lucky enough to live in this amazing house now for 25 years.
21:49So, when I first came here and no garden at all.
21:52I had a brick wall and a beach hedge and nothing else.
21:56And also no clue.
21:57I had no idea what I was doing.
21:58I didn't know a petunia from a pelargonium.
22:01And then you came along.
22:02In about 2010.
22:032010.
22:04Johnny come lately.
22:06I started growing dahlias to exhibit in our village show.
22:09And then you start getting the magazines.
22:11Then you start getting the books.
22:12Then you start visiting gardens.
22:14Before you know it, you're digging up all the lawns.
22:17And, yeah, you've become a rather obsessive nerdy type.
22:21The main garden is really kind of wrapped around the house.
22:25And we're just sitting on the side of a hill, looking over a valley.
22:28So, views are really important.
22:30Then as you come round, here you've got the patch of lawn.
22:34That's my only patch of lawn left.
22:35And it is a bit of a breathing space.
22:38And then there's a big curved board, as we call it, which is in front of the lovely old Victorian
22:42wall.
22:43And that's a pretty classic herbaceous board.
22:47But it's all about the summer impact.
22:54My first bed was, like, 70 centimetres deep.
22:56And then it was a metre deep.
22:58The current iteration is about four metres deep.
23:01But there is a little secret pass that runs through the middle,
23:04which does make it easier for access.
23:05But it also means you can get into the planting, which I always like.
23:10Here, and again, at the end of the bed,
23:12I've got a plant called a cotinus, commonly known as a smoke bush.
23:16But here, actually, I pretty much sacrificed the smoke, which is the flowers, by coppicing it.
23:22It's really all about the foliage colour.
23:24And for me, all the different colours look so good against that purple.
23:29And then in the autumn, you get amazing autumn colour.
23:31It's actually, if you look at the leaves, they're just starting to turn, that really scarlet colour.
23:36The reason I have so many of these basically white plants through here is that this border, in the afternoon,
23:43is in deep shade.
23:45Which means that, actually, all of these blue plants basically disappear from the house.
23:51You just can't see them at all.
23:52But the white plants really glow.
23:56And it's a wonderful effect of looking and seeing all of those plants kind of like moon-like in that
24:03sort of gloom.
24:04The cosmos purity, which you can see kind of particularly at the back there, I really love the way it's
24:10a really statuesque plant.
24:11It comes to kind of head high.
24:13And I like that sense that in one year you get a plant of that scale just from tiny little
24:18seeds.
24:27I've got a brilliant gardener, Jack Lutterbuck, and he actually propagates the plants.
24:34He's got encyclopaedic knowledge of plants.
24:39He's able to really engage with what I'm trying to achieve in the garden and help me deliver that.
24:55The garden is both a place I go to breathe and restore and kind of renew my energy.
25:05It's an intellectual challenge.
25:09And it's just beautiful.
25:14I think the garden is part of our DNA.
25:19It is part of our very being.
25:21I can't imagine my life now without the garden.
25:25But it would be better with a bigger train set.
25:28Just saying.
25:50I know a lot of people that would agree with you there, Johnny.
25:52But I think I will stick to the plants.
25:56Won't we, Ru?
25:57Right, now what I'm going to plant here are some garlic bulbs.
26:00It's the perfect time to get them in the ground because they need a cold winter to get them splitting
26:04and forming lovely healthy bulbs for next year.
26:08And they like a free draining compost, so I'm going to mix a bit of grit with compost.
26:22You can also grow garlic in the ground if you have a naturally free draining soil.
26:26But if you haven't or if you don't have the space then you can grow them in a pot.
26:30Just make sure you add some grit to make sure there is good drainage and they're not sitting in water.
26:51There we go.
26:52Now I'm actually mixing new compost with some old compost that was in this pot.
26:57There may be a few little weed seeds in here, but they should be easy to differentiate from the garlic
27:02which grows up very straight like a bulb.
27:06There.
27:07A good surface.
27:08And now the garlic itself.
27:10So this is a bulb that's specifically been bought for the garden, not for eating.
27:16So this is bred to survive very well outdoors in the UK.
27:21And it's been vetted for all sorts of diseases to make sure it's not carrying any viruses or bacteria.
27:27So this will be a really good bulb and hopefully perform incredibly well.
27:30It's worth investing in a proper garden garlic.
27:35So then you take the individual cloves and you plant them.
27:40And hopefully each one should grow up to be a big bulb made of multiple cloves.
27:47Planting them about three inches down, covering them up and about five, six inches apart.
28:00And then by next summer, sort of any time between June and August, I would expect to be harvesting these.
28:05The key sign to look for is when the lower leaves turn brown or yellow, then you know they're probably
28:10ready.
28:11And at that point, stop watering them for a couple of weeks.
28:14Let them dry out and then they will store better when you do come to harvest them.
28:19And what I would do is actually sow some seeds of things like quick salad crops like mustard and lettuce
28:24onto the top of this,
28:25just in case you get one more harvest before the winter.
28:28But otherwise, leave it until the summer and that should do.
28:48Sometimes growing any vegetables is knowing exactly when to harvest, which is the challenge.
28:53Now with runner beans, if you've let them get like this, they are not wasted.
28:58Now we mostly pick them when they're green, chop them up and cook them.
29:01But like this, you can dry them and store them all winter.
29:04Then you just need to soak them, soften them up a couple of days in water,
29:07and then you can cook them and use them instead of kidney beans or chickpeas, all those sorts of things.
29:15There we go. It's not a bad harvest actually.
29:31And there they are. Lovely, beautiful, almost black seeds.
29:39A little handful, you can see the shine on them.
29:42They're really, really stunning.
29:45Now they are a little bit, I can feel now that I've harvested them, a slight little bit of moisture
29:50still in there.
29:51So I'll spread them out on a tray and put them into the greenhouse to fully dry out before taking
29:56them in.
29:57And what I'm going to do is put some of these aside to store them and save them for sowing
30:03next year.
30:04Because this is a heritage variety, it's called Black Rhonda, which means that you can reuse the seed and grow
30:09them again next year.
30:11And they should come true to the form.
30:13But the rest, once they're fully dried, will go into a jar, go into the kitchen cupboards and be used
30:19throughout the winter.
30:23This is such a sensory job, just the cracking of the pod and then the tactility of those seeds in
30:30your hand and then the sound as they land on the tray.
30:33It's so amazing.
30:35But there are so many sounds around us in the garden.
30:37And Ashley went to Dartington Estate to really explore the sounds around us.
30:57For me, walking into a garden is like walking into a magical world.
31:02A world full of colour, texture and fragrance.
31:08But what about sounds?
31:17I'm standing here listening to all the wonderful garden noises.
31:21But what if there was more to hear?
31:28What if we could enter into the hidden internal world of the plants we love and listen?
31:35Every living thing on earth creates electrical signals.
31:39In animals, they enable movement, perception, even thought.
31:44But they are just as important in plants, sending messages between roots and leaves, activating photosynthesis, flowering and all their
31:55other vital functions.
31:56And today, these secret signals passing through the plants in our gardens can be turned into sounds we can actually
32:04hear.
32:06Jason Sing is a sound artist turning bioelectricity into music.
32:14Jason!
32:15Hey Ashley!
32:16Hey!
32:16What have you got going on here?
32:17Well, I've got a laptop and a biofeedback device, which is a machine that allows us to connect up to
32:26our wonderful chard here.
32:27This process is called biosonification, where you're taking a living thing and then you're attaching a technology to it that
32:35listens to its biofeedback, its electrical signals from inside it, and then it converts that into music.
32:41This chard is looking really happy, so I'm expecting some good sounds from it.
32:44OK, amazing!
32:45Well, let's have a listen, see what happens.
32:47OK, here we go.
32:49Oh, wow.
32:53Oh, wow.
33:05The software Jason is using on the chard is set to a particular musical key.
33:14But it is the chard's own electrical signals which are selecting the order of the notes and the tempo, how
33:22it ascends or descends.
33:28Jason is providing the instruments, but the chard is playing them.
33:36Oh, that's beautiful.
33:37It makes me feel a bit emotional for you now.
33:39I can see it in your face!
33:40It's so nice!
33:42To hear the plant, like, in that form, it's quite a spiritual experience.
33:51Here in the chard, I immediately want to reach out and touch it, and I feel like it's almost like
33:56shaking a hand, you know?
33:57Like, it's speaking to me, I want to say hello back.
34:00This effect does happen to a lot of people.
34:02Some people have wept, and I've done projects in the past working with young people where they're like,
34:07Oh, do you know what? I knew that this thing is a living thing, but now that I hear it
34:11as a musical thing, I feel like I've got a really different connection with it.
34:17Jason's grandparents were plant healers, collecting and using herbs for medicine.
34:22Today, as an artist, Jason is moving on that family tradition, inviting plants to be experienced in new ways.
34:32I've got the tingles. Literally, my hand, my hair's like standing, I've got goosebumps.
34:37That's wonderful. Wow.
34:38For me, this is a whole new window into the horticultural world and the natural world itself.
34:53Wow, there's some cool stuff in here.
34:56This is a red banana and settee.
34:58Shall we see what it sounds like? Yeah, let's hook it up.
35:00All right.
35:06In the greenhouse, Jason has switched the software to a different musical key.
35:12Mysterious. It is.
35:16But what experiments like this are revealing is that the signals plants send
35:21vary according to their life cycle, the time of day or night, and in response to their environment.
35:29I'm seeing a lot of white fly coming off of this.
35:32So I'm wondering if the pests that are attacking it are giving it a bit of a sinister vibe.
35:38Okay, Jason. Next. Yes.
35:40Let's hope for something a bit of cheerier.
35:42We've got this green pepper at the front here.
35:44Oh, I love peppers. Do you? Yeah.
35:46These are doing amazing. Look at them.
35:48Let's see what happens here then. All right.
35:49Let's see what happens here.
36:07I feel like the wind is definitely having an effect on it.
36:10It definitely does.
36:10Lots of different things affect how the plants respond.
36:14They could be predators, pollinators, if it's been raining, humidity, touch.
36:27In recent years, science has opened our eyes to the ways in which plants communicate, exchange nutrients with soil bacteria
36:35and fungi, and interact with pollinators.
36:39But to actually tune into this world is really humbling.
36:49Well, I'm really excited for you to see this incredible tree.
36:53Wow.
36:54This is the yew.
36:54I love it. I love it. I just want to reach out and touch it. It's so gnarly. It's got
36:58so much character.
37:00It's been dated to about 1,500 years old.
37:02Oh, my gosh.
37:03And just the thought of the things that it's experienced over that period of time.
37:08Yeah.
37:08Of everyone who's come and gone, and how this landscape has all changed, and here it is living, breathing, doing
37:14its thing.
37:15It makes me feel kind of emotional, actually.
37:20And I think it puts into perspective how small we are, but in a good way.
37:27Like, this tree summarises life, how life continues after we're gone.
37:33It feels like a very big spirit energy, this tree.
37:38And I know we can't hear it talk, but the next best thing is hearing it sing to us.
37:43Sing to us. Yeah, excellent. Shall we do that?
37:45I'm excited to hear it. Yeah, yeah.
37:46Awesome.
38:19And I love that sound. I'm imagining all the creatures living inside this tree.
38:23The invertebrates living in the dead wood and all those nooks and crannies and those little tinkling sounds.
38:29This is reminding me of how they would be running around inside there.
38:34So you must walk around and find inspiration everywhere.
38:37I would want to attach these to everything I come in contact with.
38:40It's truly, like, incredible to be able to witness music being created in a place that is already full of
38:47sound.
38:48And it's something that I feel very honoured that I'm able to do that.
38:51Gardening is all about collaboration.
38:54And you think about music.
38:56That's a collaboration of different instruments, different sounds coming together to create something beautiful.
39:01And that's what gardening is.
39:02It's working with nature, not controlling it, but letting it express itself and being the conductor of that in a
39:09way.
39:10So this has really resonated with me on a whole new level.
39:14And I don't think I'll ever see or hear plants in the same way ever again.
39:19It's been really fantastic. Thank you.
39:22Thank you.
39:38I've just watched a lot of fun.
39:40I know that you've got to be able to see if you're the person you've a little bit wide.
39:40I'm so happy to see how it's been pushed for you.
39:40But it's not all about you, I've been to the person you've seen from the person you've seen before.
39:40You've been to the person you've seen from the person you've seen before.
39:43Well, I know you've been to be able to be able to see them before.
39:44And she's lost your parents on it.
39:50The other lovely thing about all seasons is the scent of plants, often overlooked but never to be underestimated.
39:57The whole sensory experience of gardening, if you tune into it, is such a lovely thing.
40:03Now, this is a salvia with scented foliage, really beautiful flowers.
40:08This one's called strawberries and cream, peachy coloured flowers.
40:11It's lovely and Alison planted it in the ground earlier this spring because she wasn't sure if we'd have a
40:17hot summer
40:17and lucky she did because we did, and so it needed less watering because plants in pots always need more.
40:24It's done very, very well, but because it's in the ground, sometimes a lot of these salvias don't always make
40:30it through the winter
40:31and it's clay soil here so it can get quite soggy.
40:33So it's always best to try to propagate them now at this end of the year just so you have
40:39emergency replacement plants if you need them.
40:43Now, this one I'm going to take some cuttings of.
40:46You want some non-flowering stems.
40:54The thing about taking cuttings is you always want to have too many rather than too few
40:58because you never know that they're going to necessarily strike.
41:02And all the sorts of plants that you want to take cuttings from in the autumn,
41:05the semi-hardy, not-quite-hardy plants like salvias, lots of herbs, things that can get too wet over the
41:12winter will need a gritty compost.
41:14Just a 50-50 mix of grit compost in that.
41:21There we go.
41:22So, snip off just below a leaf node
41:27and then remove all the lower leaves.
41:34You're going to want to dip it
41:37so you're not damaging the stem as you push it into the soil.
41:40There it goes.
41:43So, there's a couple or a few nodes under the surface of the compost there,
41:49each of which have the potential to change from leaves into roots
41:54because it's at the nodes where all those hormones are concentrated.
41:59There we go.
42:04And then hopefully I'll have plenty next spring.
42:09What some people do is pinch out the very tip.
42:14I'm always mixed about whether or not to,
42:16but can you see that one is actually the beginning is of what might be a flower.
42:20I will pinch it out.
42:26As with all cuttings, water is key to success.
42:29You can see
42:31this is beginning already to go a little bit floppy.
42:33So, the sooner you get them into the compost, the better.
42:37Give them a water
42:38either with a very gentle rose from above
42:42or in a bath so that they soak up from below.
42:46And then make sure you keep them fairly moist until they root.
42:50That doesn't mean wet.
42:52If they get too wet, they are sensitive to it
42:54and they can actually rot.
42:56So, it's always, always that balance.
42:58But if they dry out,
43:00the leaves will lose all of their moisture
43:03and all of that goodness,
43:05which is going down to promote root growth,
43:08is lost and they will usually die at that point.
43:12They will need to be indoors for the winter
43:14because they're very delicate at this stage.
43:17But just keep them out of direct sunlight.
43:19So, if you put them on a windowsill,
43:21make it a north-facing one
43:22so they're not getting too baked
43:24because they haven't got any roots yet
43:25to take up extra moisture.
43:26So, you really want to prevent moisture loss
43:29from the leaf if you can.
43:30But there is another really good way
43:31of propagating salvias.
43:37This is a salvia microfiller called Seropitose.
43:41It's a completely different colour.
43:43It's very beautiful.
43:45But I think it would be even nicer
43:47if there were more of them in the bed.
43:48So, I'm going to propagate this one too.
43:50But this time, using a technique called layering.
43:53So, layering, you're still getting a plant
43:55to put on new roots along the stem.
43:57But rather than detaching it from the main plant,
44:00you just lay it onto bare soil.
44:02And that means that you can keep the flowers on
44:04because it's still got the roots
44:05that are going to feed the plant
44:07and enable it to continue flowering.
44:09And then you just have to hold that down
44:10so it stays in contact with the soil
44:12for the whole winter.
44:15Now, I've got a little U-shaped nail here
44:17to do that with.
44:18You could use a bit of bent coat hanger
44:20or you could even use a pebble
44:22that's heavy enough to hold it down
44:23but not too heavy that it crushes the stem.
44:26That's going to stay in place
44:27and then at that point
44:29where there's contact with soil
44:30roots will form.
44:32In the spring, you can snip the stem off
44:35dig out those roots and pot it up
44:37and that is a whole new plant.
44:39They should cope perfectly well with most winters.
44:46Now, salvias do tend to come
44:48from the warmer parts of the world
44:49but we can grow them here in our gardens
44:51more and more now.
44:52and you don't have to always travel the world
44:55to experience really exotic plants
44:58as Jill and Brian in Matlock prove.
45:08Cactus plants are just so different
45:10from anything else
45:11and they're fascinating.
45:12I first saw them when I was
45:14on holiday in Scarborough
45:16I bought six plants
45:17I would have been
45:19ten or eleven
45:21And the nursery was set up in 1956
45:24and it was in his mum's back garden
45:27It's kept me out of mischief
45:29all these years
45:30Oh, I don't know that I'd say that
45:36I'm Jill, this is Brian
45:38and this is Abbeybrook Cactus Nursery
45:41in Derbyshire
45:48What's the difference between a cactus
45:50and a succulent?
45:51A succulent is any plant
45:53that stores water
45:54in its stems
45:55or its leaves usually.
45:57A cactus is one family of succulents
45:59and they mainly come from North America
46:01and South America
46:02and they tend to look
46:05with rather fat stems
46:06like this one here
46:07and have spikes on them as well.
46:11All cacti have their spines
46:13which come out in a tuft
46:15from what's called an areola
46:16This is a Gymnocollisium
46:18a cactus which has very prominent areola
46:22with the spines that you can see
46:24come out from the tip of the areola
46:27in a tuft.
46:33At the peak of the nursery
46:35we probably had something like
46:375 million plants
46:38Currently we've probably got
46:41perhaps 5,000 plants
46:43but it's still quite a lot
46:48You've always been interested in cacti
46:50haven't you?
46:52They certainly have since I knew you
46:53and I first got to know you
46:55in about 1964
46:57We were in this park
46:59and there was a little greenhouse
47:01and they've got some cacti
47:03I was trying to impress you
47:05and I said
47:05Oh look they've got some apunteas
47:08and you sort of took a step back
47:11and you said
47:12Are you interested in cacti then?
47:21The nursery is most famous for these plants here which are called lithops or living stones
47:28Lithops are found in South Africa and Namibia
47:32particularly in the very driest regions
47:35where they live they get virtually no rainfall at all
47:40When you see them they just look like two pebbles in the ground
47:45but those are actually the flat tops of the leaves
47:48Because when you're looking for them in the wild
47:52and they're not flowering
47:53you have great difficulty discerning where they are
47:57I mean they're completely camouflaged
48:00I mean if the rocks are pink
48:02the lithops plants are pink
48:04if the rocks are green
48:06the lithops are green
48:07and this is because otherwise
48:09they'd get eaten by rodents
48:12or squirrels
48:14baboons
48:19Brian's been studying lithops for over 40 years
48:23he did a master's degree and wrote a thesis
48:28Brian is one of the world experts
48:31I would agree with that
48:33He's not backward and coming forward are you?
48:36He never have been
48:40The plants that we've got here
48:42form the national collection of lithops
48:46When I'm no longer here
48:49the collection can be passed on
48:52to somebody else
48:55as a national collection
48:57their future will be ensured
49:00I'm getting chuffed
49:08Lithops are endangered species
49:11Unfortunately there are some unscrupulous people
49:15who just still think it's acceptable
49:18to go and dig plants up out of the wild
49:21I think we were the first cactus nursery
49:24to say that we will not deal
49:27in field collected plants
49:33Lithops have yellow or white flowers
49:36in September or October
49:38and after they've been pollinated
49:41they set seed
49:42and they produce capsules
49:44then the capsule opens
49:46whenever it rains
49:47but it may not rain very often
49:49but fortunately the seeds remain viable
49:52in the capsules for many years
49:55so the plant's ideally adapted
49:58to growing in an environment
50:00where it might only have rain
50:02once every five or six years
50:04So what I'm going to do now
50:05is spray this plant with water
50:07and you'll be able to watch the lobes of the capsule open
50:12I hope
50:15You can see the lobes of the capsule unfolding
50:19one by one
50:20You can see all the seeds there in the middle
50:23waiting to be splashed out
50:30We've got another national collection
50:32as well as the Lithops
50:34and these are the Echinopsis hybrids
50:37Brian's created over the last 50 or 60 years
50:41The flowers are large and trumpet shaped
50:44and they flower from the spring
50:47right through to late summer
50:50even into the autumn
50:51but the individual flowers only last for a single day
50:55so what you see here will be gone tomorrow
50:59but then there'll be another lot coming
51:08Well now we've been here for 70 years
51:11we've downsized a lot
51:13we've donated a number of plants to universities
51:17and they've gone to very good homes
51:19and I think we can carry on doing that
51:22for the next, I don't know
51:245, 10 years
51:25however long people want to come here
51:28and as long as we can still do it
51:32Well I'm just 90 next year
51:35Well that's alright
51:37you're a youngster, yeah
51:58I think that's lovely
51:59sharing your plants with universities for research
52:02and goes to show that our gardens may be small
52:04but they can have really far-reaching impacts
52:12Now I only have a small garden myself
52:14but there is no reason why you can't have a little bit of wild flower
52:19but if anyone has ever tried
52:21to sow wild flower seeds in a lawn
52:23you'll find it's nearly impossible
52:25to get them to germinate
52:27but there is a bit of a miracle cure for that
52:29and it's called yellow rattle
52:41I'm just moving this haystack
52:42in the hope that underneath here
52:44I find some bare soil
52:45where this has been sat for quite a few weeks
53:02Many of our lawns this year
53:03have really suffered in the dry weather
53:05and you may find you have patches in the grass
53:07a bit like this one over here
53:09which although a lot of the lawn has greened up
53:12it may have never quite recovered
53:14if that's the case
53:15this is the perfect time to re-seed any lawns with grass seed
53:19but before you reach straight for the grass seed
53:21and you're looking to add a bit of wildflower meadow
53:26it's definitely the yellow rattle that you're going to need
53:31So yellow rattle is a wildflower
53:33so called because when the seed heads dry
53:35it sounds like a rattle
53:37and what it does is it's a parasite that feeds off the grass
53:40it will attach itself to the roots and steal all of the nutrients
53:44which weakens the grass itself
53:47and as that has less space
53:48there's more soil around it
53:51where other wildflower seed can then make soil contact and germinate
53:56So I'll just spread this around
53:58and where I've raked this
54:00there's now loads of bare soil here
54:02so hopefully that's exactly what it needs
54:04in order for germination to happen
54:05and at this time of year it's perfect
54:08because A this doesn't have very long viability
54:11so it will need sowing at the end of the season
54:14so if you buy it, sow it in the autumn
54:16but B this will sit dormant for the winter
54:19because it needs a cold period
54:21of quite a while before it will germinate
54:24If you were sowing other flower seeds like poppies
54:27you might want to just cover them with fleece
54:30or something like that
54:30to stop birds from being able to come down and eat them
54:33because that can be another reason why things
54:35don't come up when you've sowed them
54:37because they've actually been nibbled by the wildlife
54:39Now you could do this on a really small patch
54:41if you only have a small lawn
54:42but you want a section of it to be wildflower
54:45just weaken that section and keep mowing the rest
54:48or if you have a patch that's maybe gravelly
54:50or just soily it can also work really well
54:52and you won't need to do the yellow rattle
54:54because you won't have that competition of the grass
54:57but it's a really good thing even on a small space
55:00for bringing in lots and lots of lovely flowers
55:02but here are some other things that you can be doing this weekend
55:22Berries like blackberries, wineberries, tayberries, loganberries
55:26and summer fruiting raspberries produce their fruit on last year's growth
55:33so when they finish fruiting cut back those spent stems right to the ground
55:38leaving this year's growth to provide next year's harvest
55:49Ideally climbing roses should be pruned during dormancy in the winter months
55:55However, if you have long unruly stems
55:57that are in danger of being snapped in strong winds
56:00it's a good idea to tie them in now
56:03It also helps to tie in before the stems become too rigid
56:16Mint can be thuggish and out-compete plants in the garden
56:19and often spread into gravel paths
56:23By digging some up and planting it in a pot
56:26you can not only create more space in the borders for other plants
56:30but also if you bring the pot indoors
56:32give yourself the potential of fresh green leaves to harvest through the autumn
56:38and there's an added bonus
56:40and there's an added bonus
56:53You get a lovely cup of mint tea to enjoy at the end
57:00let's get a little bit of the new roasted green leaves
57:03I don't like to keep a little of the very edible
57:10As you can see, let's go ahead and leave.
57:12This is my first view of the expanding flower
57:12is a pretty light plant
57:12because I can't even see it
57:12I don't think it's a nice bit
57:13and it's a nice little bit
57:14at the top of the summer
57:15as you can go ahead and take lots of these areas
57:15you can see it
57:27Je vais te déduquer ce cosmos, mais avant de faire ça, je ne peux pas voir ces
57:31rires sans juste collecter et save un peu pour s'enverter à l'année prochaine.
57:38Je vais juste mettre en l'enveloppe, je vais te déduquer et s'enverter de la chaff,
57:44mais je n'ai pas une bonne collection de seeds ici.
57:48C'est une belle plante pour les pollinateurs, ils adorent les flowers et ça signifie des déduquer
57:53parce que les plus vous déduquer ces, elles vont continuer et flowerer et elles vont jusqu'à l'enveloppe
57:58jusqu'à l'enveloppe, ce qui va te déduquer, parce qu'ils n'ont pas seulement à l'année prochaine.
58:02Mais j'ai mon sauvage, donc je peux re-souer plus en l'année prochaine.
58:07Mais en même temps, je pense que c'est juste vraiment worth enjoying l'automne
58:11whilst c'est ici avec nous.
58:12J'ai regardé à la Tithonia, c'est la Dahlia, c'est beau et c'est abundant.
58:18Et je pense que parfois c'est nice juste à être dans ces moments et à l'enveloppe
58:23et à l'enveloppe, c'est ici.
58:28Alors, c'est tout pour moi aujourd'hui.
58:31Mais Monty est là-bas à Longmeadow, donc à l'enveloppe.
58:35So, goodbye.