0:00:03 > 0:00:10Whenever I'm looking for new ideas, odd though it may seem, I turn to Britain's great historic gardens.
0:00:10 > 0:00:16And there are four in particular that I can always rely on to fire my imagination.
0:00:16 > 0:00:23These are the gardens that have inspired me, and which affect the way I garden at home.
0:00:23 > 0:00:29They're a perfect example of the evolution of garden design, but in many ways every bit as
0:00:29 > 0:00:34relevant today as they were in the centuries when they were first made.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41In this series, I'm uncovering the secrets of these gardens,
0:00:41 > 0:00:44to show how they directly affect our own backyards.
0:00:47 > 0:00:55And there's one garden that, for me, typifies the bold and eccentric ideas of the Victorian gardeners.
0:00:55 > 0:00:56Quite bonkers.
0:00:56 > 0:01:01I'll reveal how it's extravagant design, filled to the brim
0:01:01 > 0:01:06with exotic plants, continues to influence legions of gardeners.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09This is traditional carpet bedding but with a 21st century twist.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14They reckon that this is a thousand years old.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And I'll be taking to the soil myself, showing you how,
0:01:17 > 0:01:23with a little help from the 19th century, your garden can be transformed.
0:01:23 > 0:01:29And that really rather flat display suddenly become a bank of colour.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33So join me at Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37as I reveal the greatest gardening show-offs of them all...
0:01:37 > 0:01:39the Victorians.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09Today, technology, science and research are such an important
0:02:09 > 0:02:13part of the way that we garden, we tend to think we invented them.
0:02:13 > 0:02:19But it was the Victorians who kick-started the technological revolution.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25The Victorians were obsessed with knowledge and status
0:02:25 > 0:02:30and wanted their gardens to reflect their wisdom and their wealth.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Size mattered.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35Ambition was everything.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38And the more exotic the better.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46And Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire is a fine example of Victorian one-upmanship.
0:02:46 > 0:02:51Where else would you find an avenue of Wellingtonias,
0:02:51 > 0:03:01a gilded water buffalo, an Egyptian tomb and a Scottish glen in the same garden?
0:03:01 > 0:03:05It's big. It's bold. It's bling.
0:03:05 > 0:03:11A salute to the Victorian spirit of empire, showcasing flora and fauna
0:03:11 > 0:03:15from as far afield as Egypt and China.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Victoriana might be out of fashion, but you'll be amazed at just how
0:03:19 > 0:03:22much it influences the way we garden today.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31Biddulph Grange was the brainchild of James Bateman, who designed and built it with money he'd inherited
0:03:31 > 0:03:34from his grandfather's coal and engineering business.
0:03:34 > 0:03:41He and his wife Maria, both passionate gardeners, moved here in 1871.
0:03:41 > 0:03:48They built a large mansion, and set about designing a series of themed gardens.
0:03:48 > 0:03:56The result is a global journey that takes you through Italy to Scotland, through China to Egypt.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02It's their passion for strange plants from far-flung lands
0:04:02 > 0:04:05that is a Victorian legacy that remains with us today.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15Today, many of the common plants that we see in our gardens
0:04:15 > 0:04:18first came to our shores in the Victorian period.
0:04:19 > 0:04:26This was the time of exploration and discovery, when the hero of the day was the plant hunter who
0:04:26 > 0:04:34travelled the globe risking life and limb to bring back rare, never before seen specimens.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38From his position as Head of Exploration at the Royal Horticultural Society,
0:04:38 > 0:04:44Bateman could employ these plant hunters as agents of his own grand scheme for Biddulph.
0:04:48 > 0:04:55Head gardener Peter Clarke has been lucky enough to witness Bateman's vision come to maturity.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Peter, how must Bateman have felt when he saw these plants appearing in his garden for the first time?
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Things that nobody in Britain had ever set eyes on before.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05I think it must have been excitement,
0:05:05 > 0:05:09the pleasure of having this thing that nobody else had got.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13I mean, look at that wonderful thing there, the bamboo.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17Just think - the wonder of having that in your garden.
0:05:17 > 0:05:22Some of the stuff came in as seed, and you were growing them, and suddenly you'd realise...
0:05:22 > 0:05:24- Not knowing what would come up.- No.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27These Japanese maple must be among the oldest in the country.
0:05:27 > 0:05:29They are.
0:05:29 > 0:05:35And the great big larch we've got here, the golden larch, that is the oldest one in the country.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38But at that time it was a tiny little plant.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43They're actually in their prime, and they've still got lots and lots
0:05:43 > 0:05:48of life to go, and he never saw that but we are getting that pleasure.
0:05:48 > 0:05:52What was his secret of getting things to grow well?
0:05:52 > 0:05:55This was actually a big wide open space until he
0:05:55 > 0:06:01created all this and mounded it up to create this lovely microclimate.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05It was a really important because we're in cold Staffordshire and it
0:06:05 > 0:06:08was really, really hard to grow some of these things in the cold.
0:06:08 > 0:06:14So he created this microclimate by building these great rocky outcrops to provide shelter, putting a good
0:06:14 > 0:06:20shelter belt almost all the way round here, so the air just sat and allowed these things to come up.
0:06:24 > 0:06:30Species that we now consider commonplace were rare novelties back then.
0:06:30 > 0:06:35The intrepid hunters brought us the Hosta from northeast Asia.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39The glorious Fire Bush from Chile.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46The Shalom from North America.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48And the Snowball Bush from Japan.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54But plant hunting also had its darker side.
0:06:54 > 0:07:01Nobody knew just how these plants from all over the world would behave when they were brought back home.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05And some of them turned out to be monsters.
0:07:05 > 0:07:10Rhododendron Ponticum, invasive, with toxic roots,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14and a host for the now deadly Sudden Oak Death.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17Plants like this, we realise now,
0:07:17 > 0:07:21are most certainly better kept... Out!
0:07:22 > 0:07:27But the rarest and most prized plant of all was the orchid.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31Orchids appealed to the Victorian sensibilities.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35They were difficult to acquire and a huge challenge to grow.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38It's a love affair that continues to this day,
0:07:38 > 0:07:43with easier to grow orchids being Britain's best selling pot plants.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45I love orchids.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48I have at least a couple flowering in my sitting room.
0:07:48 > 0:07:56They're easy to grow, they last for months on end, but to Victorians, they were rarer than hen's teeth.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Pearls beyond price.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02And Bateman was passionate about them.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04Even in his 20s, he was one of the world's
0:08:04 > 0:08:10most respected orchidologists, and had the finest collection of Guatemalan orchids in Britain.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16Orchid hunting became a cut-throat business, where whole species were
0:08:16 > 0:08:23wiped out, forests cleared, to gather this enigmatic bloom.
0:08:23 > 0:08:29One plant hunter Thomas Colley, was engaged by Bateman to search for an orchid in British Guiana,
0:08:29 > 0:08:33and knowing a rival was hot on his heels, he set to work
0:08:33 > 0:08:39and stripped the tree, determined not to give the others a chance.
0:08:39 > 0:08:46Going to such lengths, it's ironic that the only orchids left today at Biddulph are native and grow wild.
0:08:51 > 0:08:58Tom Hart Dyke is a 21st century plant hunter who shares Bateman's love of the orchid.
0:09:00 > 0:09:07He too has brought the world to his garden at Lullingstone Castle in Kent.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09This is the world garden, and this is where I've got
0:09:09 > 0:09:13a quite good selection of hardy orchids from all over the world.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16And the idea is to show you where things originally come from
0:09:16 > 0:09:19in the miniature land masses and who introduced them.
0:09:21 > 0:09:27For Tom, studying them in the wild is the best way to learn how to cultivate the orchid.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32They are the largest family of flowering plants on our planet.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Every single continent, you've got the orchid family on, except for Antarctica.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38Some grow under ice within the Arctic Circle.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42And it's the variety of flower colour, it's their exotic look,
0:09:42 > 0:09:50their rarity, the challenging places that they grow, and when you do find them, it's fantastic.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55And this one here, is actually a hybrid, originally from Table Mountain in South Africa.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59It's a disa or desa uniflora.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01It's a real sod of an orchid to grow.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03It requires rain water.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07The hard water here with all the chalk in it would kill it.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11A sort of acidic mix, slightly peaty mix as well.
0:10:11 > 0:10:12I've never flowered this before.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17It's been two or three years waiting for it to flower, and it's only come out in the last couple of days.
0:10:17 > 0:10:23The secret of his success is following in the footsteps of the Victorian plant hunters.
0:10:23 > 0:10:32But Tom's quest to see orchids in the wild has led him to some of the most dangerous places in the world.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36On a journey into the Colombian jungle, he was kidnapped, beaten
0:10:36 > 0:10:39and held under threat of execution for nine months.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43His parents presumed him dead.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48For the Victorians it was a lucrative trade that led them to take risks.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52But for Tom, it's something more fundamental.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54I have green blood cells.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56My heart is pumping chlorophyll around me.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00I think it becomes an addiction, trying to find things in the wild.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05And here we have one of my most exciting orchids, Encyclia pentotis.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08But it's no ordinary orchid.
0:11:08 > 0:11:13This is one of the family that I was looking for whilst being in captivity and whilst I was
0:11:13 > 0:11:17travelling in that area after being kidnapped.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21Tom had never had much success flowering this variety
0:11:21 > 0:11:25until he'd made that ill-fated trip to its natural habitat in Colombia.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29And you can read all the books that you want, you simply can't beat seeing things in the wild.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32I've flowered this more in the last five, six years than I
0:11:32 > 0:11:36ever have before, because I've seen the perfect drainage that they need.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41In comes the rain, batters the shrubs with pouring torrential rain.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44And within ten minutes, there is not a cloud in the sky,
0:11:44 > 0:11:50blue skies and the sun bearing down on this plant, dries it literally to a crisp within half an hour.
0:11:50 > 0:11:55So in cultivation, if you let them dry out between the watering, it's hugely helpful.
0:11:56 > 0:12:03While many tropical orchids may be fussy plants to nurture indoors, there are over 50 native varieties
0:12:03 > 0:12:06that grow wild here and enjoy our climate.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09So it's not surprising that Tom grows some of
0:12:09 > 0:12:13his most prized orchids in the coldest part of his garden.
0:12:13 > 0:12:21And it's here, for me, that this is the most exciting hardy orchid that we've got growing at Lullingstone.
0:12:21 > 0:12:23This is from two plants four years ago.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26They are amazing, how they've spread.
0:12:26 > 0:12:31Bletilla striata, known also as the hyacinth orchid or the windowsill orchid,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34which is a misleading name because they are hardy outdoor orchids.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39Here in the more purple form with their deep purply-pink centres
0:12:39 > 0:12:42and lighter creamer upper part of the lip or labellum here.
0:12:42 > 0:12:49Very attractive. And this form, in more of a whitish alba form, as you can see, with a lovely pink purplish
0:12:49 > 0:12:58lip at the end, are really, really easy to grow in pots, on the patio, rockeries, they're excellent.
0:12:58 > 0:13:04What I would say is not direct all-day baking sunshine. A bit of light shade.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07It's a woodland plant, after all, from Japan.
0:13:07 > 0:13:13So, hardy orchids can be just as exacting as their tropical cousins.
0:13:17 > 0:13:23They're not always divas of the plant world, but you do need to make orchids feel at home.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26That means recreating the conditions they're used to.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38There's no reason why you shouldn't grow our hardy native orchids in your garden, provided
0:13:38 > 0:13:41that you get them from a nursery and don't take them from the wild.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45But quite a lot of them, the marsh orchids, demand moisture at
0:13:45 > 0:13:49the roots, rather than that dry soil that's prevalent in so many gardens.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53These beautiful little drumsticks here won't come up where
0:13:53 > 0:13:58it's really dusty, they just need a constant supply of water.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02Not a pond, but somewhere that's perhaps just a little bit boggy.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05In common with all kinds of other good garden plants.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09Those primulas there, Primula vialii, are a classic for damp
0:14:09 > 0:14:17earth, as is Lobelia cardinalis and Astilbes, they just crisp up and go brown if it's dry.
0:14:17 > 0:14:23Ferns, like the shuttlecock fern, Matteuccia, that also likes it damp.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25There's a way round it if you're on dry earth.
0:14:25 > 0:14:31It means digging a little bit of a hole, perhaps a foot deep, a shallow bowl, if you like,
0:14:31 > 0:14:35and lining it with what I'm sitting on. Pond liner.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42Just spread this right over the bottom of the hole.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46I've took the trouble of cutting it to shape, so it just goes up the sides.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50In every hole, there's a lower end.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52You seldom get them level.
0:14:52 > 0:14:58And in the lower end, although we want this to be boggy, we don't want it to have standing water.
0:14:58 > 0:14:59It's not a pool.
0:14:59 > 0:15:04So get a garden fork, and on the lower end,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07my ditch is sloping in that direction, stab it,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10just to make drainage holes.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12You don't need too many of them.
0:15:15 > 0:15:20And when you've done that, to prevent them being blocked up, gravel.
0:15:29 > 0:15:37Now, the majority of this area, when it's filled back in, will hang on to moisture, but not excessively.
0:15:37 > 0:15:43When it starts to rise, it will seep out of those holes, creating the perfect conditions
0:15:43 > 0:15:50for plants that just like their feet to be a little bit damp, as though they've got wellies with a hole in.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53What I need to do now is to get all the soil I took out back in
0:15:53 > 0:15:57and to mix it with some organic matter to make it really spongy.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05There's nothing worse than pond liner showing.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08So make sure you cover it up.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12And what I'm going to do here, just to remind myself
0:16:12 > 0:16:18where this boggy area is, is to arrange logs around it.
0:16:18 > 0:16:24These'll get delightfully covered in moss, and also help hide that liner,
0:16:24 > 0:16:26and they just make it look a bit more natural,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29especially with one or two plants around them.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31You don't have to circle it.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35But a few of them around the edge, especially when the plants go in,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38will just make it look a bit more of a featurette.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40Now I can place my plants.
0:16:46 > 0:16:53The orchids, being the special and the choice plants, I'm going to sort of run down the middle.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57A bit like a little river. Some of these have gone over now.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01If you get them in while their seed heads are forming, the seeds can
0:17:01 > 0:17:05sow themselves and extend the colony as the years go by.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12Right.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Just got to get them in now.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31I'm top dressing this with bark now, just to give it a better
0:17:31 > 0:17:35appearance, but also help stop the water evaporating from it.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38And it's important when you dress with bark to do it thick enough.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41A good inch, inch and a half, but to be a bit careful about how
0:17:41 > 0:17:46you put it around the plants, with just a bit of delicacy, otherwise they get swamped.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Give them a really good initial watering in,
0:17:55 > 0:18:01to make sure that, quite literally, they do have a bit of a reservoir of moisture down below.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05And keep coming back to them with the hosepipe in prolonged dry periods.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08But a good shower of rain will help fill up this little reservoir,
0:18:08 > 0:18:15and keep all your moisture-loving plants, and your native orchids, in really good health.
0:18:27 > 0:18:35There were over 250 plant genera introduced to Britain in the 19th century.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39But bringing these plants to our shores wasn't an easy task.
0:18:39 > 0:18:45The solution came from one of the unsung heroes of the Victorian era.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48His name is Nathaniel Ward.
0:18:48 > 0:18:54Ward lived in the East End of London, a sooty, grimy place back then, where nothing much would grow.
0:18:54 > 0:19:00One day, Ward was endeavouring to get the chrysalis of a moth to hatch in a glass jar.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05The moth didn't hatch, but several grasses and ferns did.
0:19:06 > 0:19:12He cogitated, he reasoned, he experimented,
0:19:12 > 0:19:18and eventually, he came up with this, the Wardian Case, which
0:19:18 > 0:19:24ensured the safe transportation of plants from all over the world back to Blighty.
0:19:26 > 0:19:32This little glass and wooden box transformed the garden as we know it today.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36Thousands of rare plant species that would have previously died
0:19:36 > 0:19:40travelled back to Britain in this revolutionary way.
0:19:40 > 0:19:48The first were ferns, and Biddulph's Scottish glen garden is home to more than 20 different species.
0:19:48 > 0:19:53Back then, this plant we take for granted today had cult status.
0:19:53 > 0:19:59Bateman created a microclimate perfect for their cultivation.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04Following the success of growing ferns outside, the Victorians began to experiment
0:20:04 > 0:20:11with growing them indoors, and so began a trend that would change our approach to gardening.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14We began to grow under glass.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25It really kicked off with the repeal of the glass tax in 1843.
0:20:25 > 0:20:32Some of the biggest greenhouses in the country were constructed at this time. The bigger the better.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37The godfather of the greenhouse as we know it today was Joseph Paxton.
0:20:37 > 0:20:43His creations charmed Queen Victoria into calling him, "A very clever little man".
0:20:44 > 0:20:51James Bateman wasn't going to be left behind and rose to the challenge of growing under glass.
0:20:52 > 0:20:59That's not to say that all this enthusiastic experimentation didn't have its fair share of disasters.
0:20:59 > 0:21:05Here at Biddulph, Bateman tried growing rhododendrons under glass, and burnt the lot of them.
0:21:08 > 0:21:13But it was the challenge of growing ferns that really caught the Victorian imagination.
0:21:15 > 0:21:21These mysterious plants from faraway lands had a magical quality for the Victorians.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26So they designed special glass houses solely for their propagation.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29Of course Bateman had to have one.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33Sadly, the Fernery at Biddulph no longer exists.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36In fact, very few remain today.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43But on the Scottish island of Bute, there is a restored fernery, that shows just how
0:21:43 > 0:21:47passionate the Victorians were about growing under glass.
0:21:51 > 0:21:58Graham Alcorn's family maintain the fernery according to the original inventory of 1879.
0:21:58 > 0:22:04Its construction shows the Victorians' remarkable technical expertise.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06There's no heating in here whatsoever.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10A lot of ferneries are buildings above ground, this one they dug down
0:22:10 > 0:22:14into the ground, and then put the glass roof over the top.
0:22:14 > 0:22:17And because it's below ground, it insulates it that bit more.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20We can get minus four temperatures outside
0:22:20 > 0:22:24and normally it would stay probably three degrees above freezing in here.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27This was an ingenious protected environment,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30where they could experiment with the positioning of the ferns.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34Some liked it hot and some liked it cold.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38This Culcita here, it can quite happily stand a good lot of heat
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and light, so they'd probably get put up near the top of the glass.
0:22:41 > 0:22:45On the terrace here, they'd probably like it a little bit cooler.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49This is the royal fern and they can quite happily grow in water.
0:22:49 > 0:22:54You know, they'll stand all the moisture you can give them. They don't like a dry atmosphere.
0:22:54 > 0:23:00The biggest challenge is probably, of growing ferns under glass here, is probably just keeping them watered,
0:23:00 > 0:23:02Keeping the moisture in the place.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05When the sun comes through, there's a lot of evaporation.
0:23:05 > 0:23:10The ferns need quite a bit of feeding as well, to keep them nice and green and lush.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15In the past I suppose the Victorians would have probably used blood, fish and bone or something similar.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19And today we use chemical fertilisers, osmocote,
0:23:19 > 0:23:23which are slow release fertilisers, which will feed for the whole growing season.
0:23:23 > 0:23:28The Victorians had a lust for ferns that were different.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32A lot of people see ferns and think they're just that typical fern frond.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Well, you've got other ones, like this Asplenium here,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38where the frond is completely different.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Some of the young fronds come out and they're red and different colours.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44So it's not all just green.
0:23:44 > 0:23:49This one here, from Japan, a Blechnum, and the fertile fronds,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52looks like kind of a centipede, basically.
0:23:52 > 0:23:58Even with the native species, it was the lure of the extraordinary that inspired them.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01In the past, ferns were kind of treated as
0:24:01 > 0:24:04mystical plants, because they didn't know how they propagated themselves.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08They were trying to find the fern seed and could never find it,
0:24:08 > 0:24:11and it was only in the 1800s they realised it was the spores
0:24:11 > 0:24:15and they found out how they actually reproduced themselves.
0:24:15 > 0:24:23When restoration began in 1995, one surviving fern from the fernery's heyday was discovered in the rubble.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26It now takes pride of place.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29It's called Todea barbara.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33There was only about three fronds left on it and it was just hanging onto life.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36And once they got the place re-roofed, it's just come away.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39It's absolutely loving the environment again.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41They reckon that this is a thousand years old.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46This is what they reckoned in 1879 when the Gardeners Chronicle came and visited the place.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48So it's a mighty old fern.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Thousand-year-old ferns in huge glasshouses
0:24:53 > 0:25:00were all very well for the rich, but the middle class family also wanted a piece of the horticultural action.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04The conservatory became the latest status symbol.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10Unlike a greenhouse, it was an extension of the home.
0:25:10 > 0:25:15For the Victorians, it was less about serious cultivation, and more about display.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24Maybe there's something to be said for keeping up appearances
0:25:24 > 0:25:27and bringing a little colour back to the conservatory.
0:25:34 > 0:25:42The Victorians were masters of display, and what they wanted in their conservatories was impact.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45They wanted you to walk in, escape the worries of the world, and
0:25:45 > 0:25:50be faced with a display that would quite simply, in Victorian terms, knock your socks off.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53You know, we're quite staid nowadays in what we do.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57We have staging in our greenhouses, like this.
0:25:57 > 0:26:02We arrange our plants on them, generally tallest at the back, shortest at the front.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06And although it's pretty, it's a mere shadow of what the Victorians did.
0:26:06 > 0:26:12And the way they did it was incredibly simple but hugely effective.
0:26:18 > 0:26:23I just think, in a modern home, when there's precious little foliage,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26how nice it is to have a bank of colour to look at.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29It is ridiculously simple.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34Flower pots upended supporting these boards.
0:26:34 > 0:26:41But suddenly, from being quite flat, this will lift the display and give it much more impact.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49Geraniums, or Pelargoniums, as they're popularly known,
0:26:49 > 0:26:54were absolute stalwarts of the Victorian conservatory,
0:26:54 > 0:27:00both the zonal kind and these regals here.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03And they loved their colourful foliage.
0:27:03 > 0:27:09This is Iresine with its bloodstained leaves.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12And a lot of these would have been temporary, a dahlia in a pot that
0:27:12 > 0:27:16could go in while it was doing well, and before it got too big.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Fuchsias they absolutely adored.
0:27:22 > 0:27:27What they hadn't got were lovely things like the Cape Figwort, Phygelius,
0:27:27 > 0:27:34which has got much more popular and a much greater variety recently.
0:27:34 > 0:27:41And along the front, things like Begonia rex, enjoying the shadows down the front.
0:27:41 > 0:27:49The trick of this kind of staging is to make sure that each row masks the pots of the row behind it.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53And that way, in this day and age, it doesn't matter if you've got
0:27:53 > 0:27:55plastic pots, and even if they're black, because they
0:27:55 > 0:28:01sink into the shadows, as long as the ones along the front here, that you do see, are terracotta.
0:28:01 > 0:28:07And that really rather flat display that was, has suddenly become
0:28:07 > 0:28:09a bank of colour, and if your guests,
0:28:09 > 0:28:14when they walk round the corner and see that, don't go "Wow",
0:28:14 > 0:28:15I'm a Dutchman.
0:28:22 > 0:28:28The Victorians loved display, and this China garden at Biddulph
0:28:28 > 0:28:31is, quite literally, a story in a teacup.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34Remember all those willow pattern tea sets?
0:28:34 > 0:28:41Here we have a gigantic stage set and all the characters are plants from the Far East.
0:28:44 > 0:28:50And no garden in Britain reflects this sense of statement or theatre as much as Biddulph.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55It was a wonderful way for Bateman to show off his knowledge of the world.
0:28:57 > 0:29:04Egypt garden, too, has a sense of melodrama and theatre, its path flanked by Egyptian artefacts,
0:29:04 > 0:29:09probably picked up, or at least inspired, by the Great Exhibition of 1851.
0:29:09 > 0:29:15And it leads you to an eerie passageway underneath a pyramid of clipped yew.
0:29:19 > 0:29:25Mind you, this entire construction is not without a sense of humour.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38Because you come out of Egypt, through a Cheshire cottage.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41It's quite bonkers.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45Love it or hate it, the Victorians started the "mock" tradition.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49Back then, it was Tudor cottages, temples and sphinxes.
0:29:49 > 0:29:55Today, it's fake Grecian urns and pillars.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59While it was a forward-looking era, it also looked back nostalgically
0:29:59 > 0:30:03to the formality of the past, taking old garden design ideas
0:30:03 > 0:30:06and giving them a Victorian twist.
0:30:07 > 0:30:13The Victorians were determined to put a bit of architectural formality back into gardens.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16To them, the garden was a work of art,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19never to be confused with nature.
0:30:19 > 0:30:25So they took the old parterre and planted it up with funky monkey puzzles.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29And on a stepped Italian terrace,
0:30:29 > 0:30:34they gave us that lasting Victorian legacy...
0:30:34 > 0:30:36bedding out.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41Tender greenhouse-raised flowers adorned the newly-revived
0:30:41 > 0:30:44parterres and beds of these Italianate gardens.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48It didn't matter that they were seasonal throwaway plants -
0:30:48 > 0:30:50display was all that mattered.
0:30:50 > 0:30:55But the Victorians wanted more from their beds, so they went on to
0:30:55 > 0:30:59create a feature that would dominate our gardens. Carpet bedding.
0:31:06 > 0:31:12Glasshouse technology had led to an explosion in low-growing bedding plants
0:31:12 > 0:31:14in a huge variety of colours.
0:31:14 > 0:31:19This choice gave the Victorian gardener the scope to create geometric patterns and emblems.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24So began a craze that still endures today.
0:31:28 > 0:31:34At Biddulph, we see carpet bedding scaled down to fit in with the intricate Italianate style.
0:31:34 > 0:31:38The design and plants used are as they were in Bateman's time.
0:31:38 > 0:31:44Peter Clarke has faithfully maintained the garden according to the original plans.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47- Well, Peter, you can't get more Victorian.- Oh, no, you can't.
0:31:47 > 0:31:53This is quite fun, actually, this little area, the geometric parterre.
0:31:53 > 0:31:55- These are lovely, aren't they? - Little echeverias?- Yeah.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58What triggered carpet bedding?
0:31:58 > 0:32:02Well, I think it was the head gardener
0:32:02 > 0:32:05wanting to do lots of elaborate designs and things like that,
0:32:05 > 0:32:11and there were the glasshouses that started to come in, so you could actually grow a lot more exotics and
0:32:11 > 0:32:16- things that you can actually make a nice carpet with.- It was tapestried stitching, wasn't it?
0:32:16 > 0:32:20Yeah, it was, cos you could have lots of fun. Lots of different designs.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Here we've got a little petal, but you could be a bit more elaborate.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26You could have somebody's coat of arms.
0:32:26 > 0:32:30So it was the fact you had the equipment to do it, but also it was showing off.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34It was. As a Victorian, you wanted to have the best, and all the nice plants were coming in.
0:32:34 > 0:32:39And then presumably it became competitive. Head gardeners trying to outdo one another.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44In the winter you would be doing elaborate drawings on a bit of paper and you would keep it
0:32:44 > 0:32:47a secret, you wouldn't tell the guy down the road,
0:32:47 > 0:32:50because you wanted to have the best of everything.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54But you must have needed a huge amount of plants and staff to look after them.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57Well, you did. I mean, if you had miles of -
0:32:57 > 0:32:59which they did - of carpet bedding.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02Can you imagine doing that whole walk full of it?
0:33:02 > 0:33:06The other thing is, you've got to clip these and keep them nice and neat.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08You've got your sheep shears there.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12Now, people come and watch you doing that, they think you must have lost your sheep.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16Yes. Just look how neat it becomes when you're doing it.
0:33:16 > 0:33:18I'm going to get stuck in here.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23'The Victorian gardener might have spent months toiling over his carpet bedding design,
0:33:23 > 0:33:25'but it was worth it.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28'It was the horticultural sensation of the age.'
0:33:28 > 0:33:33You know what they say is the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut?
0:33:33 > 0:33:35- Oh, I don't know.- Two weeks!
0:33:35 > 0:33:36It'll be fine in a couple of hours.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39Well, we'll be doing this in two weeks.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42Do you want to come back? You've done a really good job there.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48At Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire,
0:33:48 > 0:33:53they've found a modern labour-saving way of recreating the splendour of Victorian carpet bedding.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58This is traditional carpet bedding, but with a 21st-century twist.
0:33:58 > 0:34:03Basically, what happens is, we send a design off to the nursery,
0:34:03 > 0:34:06they actually put it onto a computer,
0:34:06 > 0:34:09and the plants then become pixels where they can manipulate them.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13And that's why we can do these fantastic designs and it's almost instant.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17The Victorians would have actually drawn the design on the bed itself,
0:34:17 > 0:34:20using sand and string and things like that.
0:34:20 > 0:34:25Once they were happy with the design, then it would probably take about eight gardeners the best part
0:34:25 > 0:34:30of a week to actually plant this, whereas, with this method, because it's all done on computer
0:34:30 > 0:34:33and it comes flat packed, for want of a better word,
0:34:33 > 0:34:37four people can lay this bed in less than a day.
0:34:37 > 0:34:43They're planting more than 10,000 plants here, over 72 square metres.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47And the designs were inspired by an exhibition of buttons on display in the house.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50Traditional carpet bedding is a really flat medium,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53but because we're depicting buttons, I wanted a bit of height
0:34:53 > 0:34:56amongst the planting, to sort of bring out the bevel-ness of the buttons.
0:34:56 > 0:35:00And we've used things like this ophiopogon, which is a black grass,
0:35:00 > 0:35:03which isn't traditionally a carpet bedding plant,
0:35:03 > 0:35:04to give it a bit of height.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08And sedum, the gold mound, that will mound up quite nicely.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12Kleinias, which are quite upright, a little bit like dead man's fingers.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15So it begins to become almost 3D bedding.
0:35:15 > 0:35:20Waddesdon shows us 21st-century carpet bedding on an impressive scale.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27But in a domestic garden in Haywards Heath, West Sussex,
0:35:27 > 0:35:30designer Tony Smith is experimenting
0:35:30 > 0:35:33with an unconventional type of carpet bedding.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37What I tend to do in my garden is to use it as a laboratory
0:35:37 > 0:35:39to try out lots of different ideas.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43Carpet bedding doesn't have to be predictable.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47And Tony proves this, using a plant that might surprise you.
0:35:47 > 0:35:49Lettuces.
0:35:49 > 0:35:524.3 million lettuces.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56What we've done here is to sow seed onto a bed of compost,
0:35:56 > 0:36:01rather than going to the expense of growing them in pots in the nursery,
0:36:01 > 0:36:05covered it with fleece to keep the birds off for four or five days until
0:36:05 > 0:36:09it's germinated, and then taken the fleece off,
0:36:09 > 0:36:12kept it watered, and we've created this carpet.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15All we've done is to sow two types of lettuce.
0:36:15 > 0:36:20Salad bowl, which is the vivid green, and lolla rossa, the Italian red.
0:36:20 > 0:36:26I haven't found any other type of plant that will give this vivid, lush, vibrant green.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30There's something about this that's so alive and so fresh.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33What I've done is paint the trees black,
0:36:33 > 0:36:37put an edge to the gravel in black.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41It brings out the vividness of the green far more and you get a much more impressive effect.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45So it's really playing with contrast, is what we're doing.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49One great thing about using lettuce as an ornamental is that you can harvest it and eat it.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53And these are cut-and-come-again lettuces, so we can cut these,
0:36:53 > 0:36:57use the lettuce, and in a week's time it will have grown again and we've got some more.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04Whether it's with flowers or vegetables,
0:37:04 > 0:37:09the problem with carpet bedding is that it's an annual display.
0:37:09 > 0:37:15So how do you create a fantastic feature without the bother of replacing it each year?
0:37:19 > 0:37:26You can do a perennial kind of carpet bed, except this isn't so much carpet as shag pile.
0:37:26 > 0:37:31It's higher. What I've done here is made a circular bed in the lawn,
0:37:31 > 0:37:35cut it out with a peg in the middle and this stick marking the radius,
0:37:35 > 0:37:39scratching it out, cutting the turf out, and then digging it over,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43working in plenty of organic matter, so it's well enriched.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47It would have been quite impoverished, the grass having been on the top of it.
0:37:47 > 0:37:51It's now prepared and I can put my plants in. What am I going to use?
0:37:51 > 0:37:56Well, I thought I' d go for that lovely old tried-and-tested scheme of purple and grey.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00The purple comes from the Heucheras, with these lovely frothy flowers.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04The grey is from the lavenders. And there's this wonderful
0:38:04 > 0:38:08purple and blue penstemon called Heavenly Blue.
0:38:08 > 0:38:12In the centre, I'm going to use this, a cordyline -
0:38:12 > 0:38:14a Torbay or cabbage palm.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16Hardy in all but the most severe of winters.
0:38:16 > 0:38:21And with that in the centre of my bed, it will eventually come up
0:38:21 > 0:38:22on a taller stem, a single trunk,
0:38:22 > 0:38:25and that'll give this even more height.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29The nicest thing now is that I can just arrange my plants.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31This is the bit I like the best.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44This is a dwarf lavender
0:38:44 > 0:38:47called Hidcote, which doesn't come up too high.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50Some of them are really tall and floppy, so Hidcote, Munstead,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54something like that, will stay quite low.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57And because these are perennials and not annuals,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01I'm still putting them fairly close, but you don't need to get them quite
0:39:01 > 0:39:04so jam-packed together, because they will spread out even more.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08Now, you could say, "Gosh, this must be costing an awful lot of money".
0:39:08 > 0:39:10All these plants here you can propagate yourself from
0:39:10 > 0:39:14cuttings and make your bed when you've built up a bit of stock.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17You can also plant slightly more thinly than I am doing now because
0:39:17 > 0:39:20they will then eventually cover it. They'll take slightly longer.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27So with it all laid out,
0:39:27 > 0:39:29all I have to do now is plant.
0:39:29 > 0:39:33And I am wondering if it's all going to get very nicely watered in.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36Thunder.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43This Heuchera's called Obsidian.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45It's a lovely rich purple.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49There are now dozens, nay, hundreds of Heucheras,
0:39:49 > 0:39:52bred in Oregon, in the States.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54They all look very, very similar.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58It makes you wonder if they've got nothing better to do, doesn't it?
0:39:58 > 0:40:00It's very pretty.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06I'm arranging the penstemons like sort of spokes,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08so it divides it up into quarters
0:40:08 > 0:40:11and then there's a little dot of a Heuchera
0:40:11 > 0:40:14down in the bottom of each triangle of lavender.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18I quite like that. It appeals to my Victorian instinct.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25The great thing about this perennial bed is that you get the benefit
0:40:25 > 0:40:27of a design motif but at half the cost
0:40:27 > 0:40:30and the maintenance of a traditional carpet bedding display.
0:40:30 > 0:40:35The colours are less brash and showy than the Victorians might have liked.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39But I think they're more elegant and understated for today's garden.
0:40:42 > 0:40:43As we can see at Biddulph,
0:40:43 > 0:40:48the Victorians took the idea of display in the garden to its limit.
0:40:48 > 0:40:51But they didn't stop at flowers.
0:40:51 > 0:40:59Britain's landscape was about to change forever, as trees from the New World were introduced.
0:40:59 > 0:41:06Bateman created a pinetum here, to show off his new and exciting specimens.
0:41:06 > 0:41:12Garden historian Anne Jennings explains the Victorian contribution to our woodland.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15Anne, we tend to think of the Victorians as giving us shrubberies.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17But they gave us so much more.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20They gave us so much more, and they gave us these giants,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23the conifers, the evergreen wonders of the plant world.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27So, pinetums, then - collections of pine, spruces and firs -
0:41:27 > 0:41:29they were a Victorian invention?
0:41:29 > 0:41:34Well, if you think back to the 18th century, we were an island full of deciduous trees.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38It wasn't until the north east of America was really explored
0:41:38 > 0:41:43for plants that we started to see the arrival of conifers.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46Why did Bateman plant them on these enormous mounds?
0:41:46 > 0:41:47I think there are various reasons.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51A lot of the Victorian planting at this period is about displaying
0:41:51 > 0:41:54individual plants for their beauty, as an individual specimen.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58It was elevated, it was set off against the sky, and you
0:41:58 > 0:42:03could look intimately at this really complex beautiful network of roots.
0:42:03 > 0:42:04Wonderful. And, of course,
0:42:04 > 0:42:08here is a conifer which typifies the Victorian era.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11It's named after one of their greatest heroes, or it was.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14Wellingtonia. Named after the Duke of Wellington.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19It has this wonderful soft, springy, spongy bark,
0:42:19 > 0:42:22- almost like insulation, isn't it? - It's lovely. It's so tactile.
0:42:22 > 0:42:27And I think when you see something like a Wellingtonia, you're reminded about the vision
0:42:27 > 0:42:29of these great garden makers of the Victorian period,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32because they, after all, were planting young saplings,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35- newly introduced plants... - About that big, I suppose.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39..grown from seed, planting it here, and how privileged are we, 150 years
0:42:39 > 0:42:44later, to see this tree is all its glory with this amazing stature?
0:42:44 > 0:42:46What they also did was change the look of our gardens
0:42:46 > 0:42:49by getting us used to planting conifers and evergreens.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53Hedges in gardens all over the country now - even Leyland cypress
0:42:53 > 0:42:57- is, in a way, an indirect legacy of the Victorians, isn't it?- Yeah.
0:42:57 > 0:43:01And, of course, all of these great gardens ultimately fed through to
0:43:01 > 0:43:05the middle classes and, in later periods, into suburban and urban gardens.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09And we've learned how to use conifers in the smallest settings, haven't we?
0:43:09 > 0:43:11Clipping them to hedges.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14But it's still lovely to come and see one like this.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17A giant of the forest in all its grandeur.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19Beautiful.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29To the Victorians, wealth, taste and acceptability
0:43:29 > 0:43:34were not measured just by your flower garden and your orchid house,
0:43:34 > 0:43:39but also by the quality of your asparagus and your grapes.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42There was a quiet revolution going on in the kitchen garden,
0:43:42 > 0:43:47with competitive head gardeners vying with each other for size
0:43:47 > 0:43:50and elaborateness of structure. There's a lovely little book,
0:43:50 > 0:43:54Kitchen And Flower Gardening For Pleasure And Profit,
0:43:54 > 0:43:57which shows that they didn't do it all themselves.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59"Almost an equal amount of pleasure is derived
0:43:59 > 0:44:04"from seeing the results arise from well-ordered instructions
0:44:04 > 0:44:09"given to subordinates, as if they were literally the work of your own hands".
0:44:09 > 0:44:13You see, that's what they had in those days...staff.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19Bateman had an extensive kitchen garden, but it was away from his
0:44:19 > 0:44:23showpiece grounds in Biddulph, and sadly no longer exists.
0:44:23 > 0:44:26But when it comes to putting fine food on the table,
0:44:26 > 0:44:32the Victorians left an indelible mark on the way we grow our vegetables.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41The productive gardens at Heligan in Cornwall
0:44:41 > 0:44:45operate in much the same way as they would have done in Bateman's day.
0:44:45 > 0:44:51Garden supervisor Nicola Bradley heads up a team of nine gardeners.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55It's quite unique at Heligan, in the sense that we're very similar
0:44:55 > 0:44:58to the amount of staff they would have had in the Victorian period.
0:44:58 > 0:45:03It's very labour intensive to keep the ground weed-free, to keep
0:45:03 > 0:45:06the ground cultivated to the highest possible standard.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09Remember, it was all done by hand.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12So if we see caterpillar eggs on cabbages, you know,
0:45:12 > 0:45:15we go through them very thoroughly and squash them.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19And incredibly time-consuming jobs, training the fruit trees,
0:45:19 > 0:45:23you know, washing the trees down in the wintertime
0:45:23 > 0:45:27with a toothbrush and soft soap and all of these things!
0:45:27 > 0:45:32You need a lot of members of staff to achieve that.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35But it wasn't just about manpower.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40One of the secrets of the Victorian success was the layout of the garden.
0:45:40 > 0:45:46It's very much about precision, regimentation, neat hedges.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49But it's not just about aesthetics.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52It does have a practical reason behind it.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56You're allowing the plants the maximum space to grow to
0:45:56 > 0:46:01their full potential and produce the best possible crop you can.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05Necessity drove innovation.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11They refined the system of crop rotation to get as much value out of the ground as possible.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Of course, one of the most important things
0:46:14 > 0:46:20for the Victorian kitchen garden was to produce food all year round.
0:46:20 > 0:46:26So they had to create lots of ingenious ways of prolonging the growing season.
0:46:26 > 0:46:33Classic is sea kale and rhubarb, in the lovely terracotta forcing pots.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36You could use individual little lantern lights to cover salad crops
0:46:36 > 0:46:42earlier on in the season, just giving them that little bit of extra warmth.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47And in the burgeoning Industrial Age, there was no stopping the Victorians.
0:46:47 > 0:46:51Technological advances meant that the Victorians could start heating
0:46:51 > 0:46:57their glasshouses using hot water systems that were powered by boilers.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00So you can see all these lovely pipes running through here,
0:47:00 > 0:47:05which just meant they could extend the season and start heating the glasshouses
0:47:05 > 0:47:09much earlier on in the year and providing the temperatures that they needed.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15Within the heated glasshouse, they went to extreme lengths
0:47:15 > 0:47:18to create flawless fruit to impress their guests.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23They had the knowledge to understand how to nurture a plant.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28So if you look in the melon house, you'll see they've got beautifully-made individual
0:47:28 > 0:47:34little nets, melon nets, which support the plant as it grows, so it doesn't come away from the stem.
0:47:34 > 0:47:40Obsession with perfection set a precedent for our exacting standards today.
0:47:40 > 0:47:46There's nothing worse than having something at a table that wasn't at its perfect best.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50And that brings us to the cucumber straightener.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53The cucumbers hang from wires.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57This would have been tied just below an immature cucumber,
0:47:57 > 0:48:01and as it grew and developed, you get a lovely straight cucumber.
0:48:01 > 0:48:04The only thing you need to be aware of is to keep a close eye on it,
0:48:04 > 0:48:08because obviously if it swells to a huge size and you don't harvest it in time,
0:48:08 > 0:48:10it's going to get stuck in your tube.
0:48:13 > 0:48:15But their quest for excellence
0:48:15 > 0:48:18had some seriously unpleasant consequences.
0:48:18 > 0:48:24These fumigators were nicknamed "widow makers", unfortunately,
0:48:24 > 0:48:26because obviously the chemicals that they were spraying -
0:48:26 > 0:48:31things like arsenic and nicotine - were all incredibly poisonous.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36And I think the average life expectancy of a gardener back in that time
0:48:36 > 0:48:40was probably not much beyond, you know, their late 30s, 40s.
0:48:42 > 0:48:49Heligan shows us how Victorian invention gave us the kitchen garden as we know it today.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53But 19th-century technology had its limitations.
0:48:53 > 0:48:59Today's kitchen gardeners are finding ways to improve on ideas introduced by the Victorians.
0:48:59 > 0:49:06At first glance, this garden at Tresillian House in Cornwall brims with Victorian charm.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09But appearances can be deceptive.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14This is a real Victorian garden,
0:49:14 > 0:49:19and I've just added a little secret or two of my own
0:49:19 > 0:49:24to make it what it is - something very special.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29Head gardener John Harris has a secret.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34We do not water a single thing in this garden.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40He actually combines Victorian with modern and ancient principles
0:49:40 > 0:49:43to grow his produce in a completely radical way.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46We work in harmony
0:49:46 > 0:49:49with the four quarters of the moon.
0:49:49 > 0:49:53It's an ancient practice known as lunar gardening.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57He sows on a new moon, and harvests on a full moon,
0:49:57 > 0:50:01the theory being the gravitational pull of the moon
0:50:01 > 0:50:04draws moisture into the roots of the plants.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07Look at that, mouth-watering.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11And that is full of taste and juice.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15Add to this ancient practice the Victorian principle of good
0:50:15 > 0:50:19soil preparation, and John has found his plants have thrived.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Preparation of soil is like baking a cake.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25If you get the ingredients right,
0:50:25 > 0:50:28you'll end up with crops like we've got here.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32If you dig down here, that is beautiful, look.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35But we've done the preparation in the winter.
0:50:35 > 0:50:40All our humus and our compost, which is acting as a sponge.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45The Victorians were fanatical in their watering regimes,
0:50:45 > 0:50:47and wildlife was seen as a menace.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51John has a more contemporary philosophy.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54The Victorians were absolutely control freaks.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57There wasn't a bird allowed in the garden.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59We now do the opposite.
0:50:59 > 0:51:01Take, for instance, these sunflowers.
0:51:01 > 0:51:07We put them in to attract birds into the garden, so the birds come in and feed off the seed head.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10But while they're in, they'll eat the insects.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14Contrary to the Victorian way of dealing with pests,
0:51:14 > 0:51:21John prefers the 21st-century principle of organic gardening without the use of pesticides.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24He uses companion planting instead.
0:51:24 > 0:51:26We put marigolds next to our potatoes.
0:51:26 > 0:51:32The marigolds attract the hoverfly, which in turn will eat the blackfly.
0:51:32 > 0:51:38John's garden shows that you can combine ancient wisdom with modern sensibilities
0:51:38 > 0:51:42and still enjoy the splendour of the Victorian kitchen garden.
0:51:42 > 0:51:47If ever there was heaven on earth, then this is heaven.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52Whether it's tried-and-tested techniques of the Victorians,
0:51:52 > 0:51:55or the expertise of a modern kitchen gardener,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58the choice of growing methods can be overwhelming.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01So if you're creating your first vegetable patch,
0:52:01 > 0:52:03then it's good to go back to basics.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09Well, you may raise an eyebrow
0:52:09 > 0:52:13when it comes to planting and sowing according to the phases of the moon.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18But nobody can dispute the value of organic matter when it comes to growing veg.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22This stuff is the fount of all goodness.
0:52:22 > 0:52:26Wonderfully succulent - almost like fruit cake.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29It holds onto moisture like a sponge when it's in the soil.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33But the time to get it in is in autumn, so that it can break down slightly during the winter,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37and when it comes to sowing time, all that goodness and that
0:52:37 > 0:52:41moisture-retentive capacity will be there to enable your vegetables
0:52:41 > 0:52:43to grow a darn sight better.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49If rich soil is the first secret of success,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52then the second secret has to be timing.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55It's not worth putting little delicate seeds into the ground
0:52:55 > 0:52:59when it's cold, when it's wet, when it's inhospitable.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02The old gardeners used to do several tricks.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06They'd see, first of all, when weed seeds were beginning to germinate in
0:53:06 > 0:53:09spring, and then they'd regard the soil as being warm enough.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13If they weren't sure, they'd do the test that you used to do with baby and bathwater.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17Just see if it feels warm to your elbow, and in extreme cases quite
0:53:17 > 0:53:23a few years ago, and I've never used it, is to drop your trousers and sit with your naked bottom on the soil.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27And if you go, "Oh, that's cold!", it's too cold for seeds.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30I think perhaps the elbow is preferable.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33And then when it comes to sowing your crops,
0:53:33 > 0:53:37only sow it in quantities that you can use it.
0:53:37 > 0:53:38Lettuce, for instance -
0:53:38 > 0:53:41there's a great temptation to sow an entire 20-foot row.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45Well, unless you're a family of rabbits, you don't need that many.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48Sow three feet of row at a time.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50Taut line between two sticks,
0:53:50 > 0:53:54stand on it with your feet to keep it firm.
0:53:54 > 0:54:01And then with the corner of a Dutch hoe, lightly flick out
0:54:01 > 0:54:06the earth alongside the line, your feet keeping it taut as you go.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10Now, that will do, about a yard or a metre, for one sowing.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13The depth of the drill depends on the size of the seed.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16That's about a quarter to a half an inch deep,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19which is absolutely fine for lettuces.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22Tip them into your hand,
0:54:22 > 0:54:25and then take a pinch
0:54:25 > 0:54:29and just lightly trickle them in.
0:54:29 > 0:54:34Ideally, you're trying to let the seeds fall about half an inch apart, if you can.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37That way, they won't be quite so competitive
0:54:37 > 0:54:39when they start to germinate.
0:54:39 > 0:54:43Put the rest back in the packet quite carefully
0:54:43 > 0:54:47and then flick over the drill
0:54:47 > 0:54:51with your fingers, and there they are, sown.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54Now, if the soil is very much on the dry side,
0:54:54 > 0:54:57there's another trick you can use.
0:54:57 > 0:55:03When you've taken your drill out with the side of the hoe, like that,
0:55:03 > 0:55:07you can use a watering can to run along the bottom of that drill.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11Now, this is far better than trying to water the seeds in
0:55:11 > 0:55:14once they've been sown, because you displace them.
0:55:14 > 0:55:16You can now sow your seeds on the top of that.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20They're in contact with the moisture and when you flick, the dry soil
0:55:20 > 0:55:23will absorb the moisture and keep them snug.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26Of course, there are various old wives' tales for different crops.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29Parsley, for instance - always sow it on Good Friday.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33That's the only time it doesn't go nine times to the devil before it germinates.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36And the other thing about being able to grow good parsley
0:55:36 > 0:55:40is that they say the wife wears the trousers if it comes up well.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42No comment.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47The value of crop rotation has been recognised for centuries,
0:55:47 > 0:55:50but you don't need a complicated system.
0:55:50 > 0:55:56Just make sure you don't grow the same crop in the same place two years running.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59That way, you won't get a build-up of pests and diseases.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03And as soon as you can, utilise any spare piece of soil.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07Potato tops here, cut down in July to avoid potato blight,
0:56:07 > 0:56:10and in between the rows and the ridges
0:56:10 > 0:56:13you've got sweetcorn planted, which will come to maturity later.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16As soon as any ground is vacant, fill it.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20These lettuces were sown in tiny pots three or four weeks ago,
0:56:20 > 0:56:24and have now been put in where another crop has already been harvested.
0:56:24 > 0:56:30This successional cropping is very important on the veg patch.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34That three feet of lettuce being sown one week, three foot the next
0:56:34 > 0:56:37week, will keep them coming right the way through the year.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41But the one secret of success is moisture.
0:56:41 > 0:56:46John, who sows by the phases of the moon, might manage to get away without watering.
0:56:46 > 0:56:51Most of us don't, and a lot of crops will bolt and run to seed.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54Keep all your veg well supplied with water,
0:56:54 > 0:56:58and you'll have a patch that'll keep cropping from early summer
0:56:58 > 0:57:00right the way through to winter.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08Biddulph is a living testament to the sheer range of ideas
0:57:08 > 0:57:11that poured into the Victorian garden.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16Whether it's the grand statement of carpet bedding, the delights of growing under glass,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21planting exotics, or the humble vegetable patch,
0:57:21 > 0:57:26look beyond the brazen displays and you'll find a hive of ideas
0:57:26 > 0:57:28that can be applied to any garden.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31As the century drew to a close,
0:57:31 > 0:57:35it was inevitable that there'd be a backlash against elaborate
0:57:35 > 0:57:40Victorian style and a desire for more naturalistic planting.
0:57:40 > 0:57:46But it's impossible to ignore the influence of our 19th-century ancestors.
0:57:46 > 0:57:50It's thanks to gardens like Biddulph that we have a taste for the exotic,
0:57:50 > 0:57:55a thirst for invention, and a love of bright colour.
0:57:55 > 0:57:58Well, we all like to show off now and again, don't we?
0:58:04 > 0:58:09Join me next time, when my journey across 400 years of design
0:58:09 > 0:58:12brings me into the 20th century.
0:58:12 > 0:58:17I'll reveal the secrets of a garden that I believe is the most beautiful
0:58:17 > 0:58:19and influential of the modern age.
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:42 > 0:58:45E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk