Northamptonshire Garden Rescue

With her can-do attitude, love of simple gardens, and decades of

experience, Charlie Dimmock is one of Britain's best loved gardeners.

Looking good, boys!

But the new kids on the gardening block are the Rich brothers.

We want to be the brothers that change people's perceptions

of gardens.

Winners of multiple medals at the Chelsea Flower Show...

Amazing, isn't it?

..the boys have become known for their dramatic outdoor spaces.

Now, these two different generations of gardening are going head-to-head.

I know they've got a gold medal, but I can come up with a few ideas.

They're meeting frustrated garden owners across the country...

-Not a lot going on, is there?

-Not a lot!

I don't know what to do with it.

..and will each fetch them a design, based on their needs and budget.

That sounds amazing.

Doesn't look like it could be our garden.

-The winner...

-Charlie!

..brings their design to life.

-Hold on!

-Sweet as a nut!

-And the loser has to help them build it.

-Keep working, keep working, boys!

-Whoa, easy!

-This is what happens...

Just get on that, sometime today would be good!

..when different styles collide...

I think your brother's throwing the toys out of his pram.

Right, are we doing this?

..to turn garden dreams into reality.

Open your eyes.

It's lovely.

-Wow!

-Look at that.

Whoa! It's not our garden.

It's time for Charlie and the Rich brothers to find out today's

garden challenge.

Here we have Shona from Northampton, and the great thing about

this is she lives with four generations of her family.

-Wow!

-She's got her mother, her daughter,

and her granddaughter all under one roof.

Oh, I bet there's a few discussions sometimes, don't you?

-That's a very busy household.

-Yeah.

Shona, a finance administrator, lives with her daughter,

Lottie, her mother, Patricia, and also looks after

her granddaughter, Amelia, three days a week.

Shona would like a garden for the whole family to enjoy,

particularly her mother, Patricia.

And they have got a lovely garden. It is quite well-kept,

because there is a bit of a budding gardener in the family.

-Who's that, then?

-Mum.

-Oh, OK.

I've always been a keen gardener, but nowadays, I can't bend so much,

but I like to get out, do a little bit of pruning and pottering about.

That's my ideal day - pottering about in a nice garden.

Despite Patricia's enthusiasm,

the current garden is a far cry from what either her or her

daughter's idea of a pottering paradise might be.

The garden is in dire need of tender, loving care.

With me working and looking after my grandchild, the garden

has really not been loved, and of course, my mum

with her arthritis cannot get round to do the things that

she'd like to do, so it has sort of being left, really.

It looks like it's very bare, doesn't it? It's just lawn.

There is a lot of lawn, and you can't see that well from the photos,

but there is a slope leading from that patio into the garden.

In fact, the slope makes enjoying the garden

very difficult for Shona and her family.

Mowing can be quite a handful, really, but to have

a path through the garden to get to the top would be ideal.

-The main focus on the garden needs to be the slope.

-Yeah.

So whether we're eating into it to terrace it and make more usable

space, or terracing it back, putting some steps up to the top of the

-garden...

-Make it accessible.

-Yes, exactly.

Mother and daughter would like the designers to

tackle the treacherous patio as well.

I tend to trip over it as it is now,

and I can't afford to do any falling!

Because I wouldn't be able to get up again.

The patio looks quite mean as well, doesn't it, really?

I think it's probably more of a path than a patio.

It's quite unusable.

Also high on the priorities list is

a safe play area for little Amelia.

They're not too fussed on the design elements of it,

but it's just making it accessible and usable for all generations,

so for Mum and for Granddaughter, really, that safety side.

Quite a tricky brief, that, isn't it, to try and hit all of those?

To make the garden work for them all,

Shona and Patricia are prepared to dig deep into their savings.

Our budget for the garden is £5,000, and hopefully

that will give us our dreams

and make four generations really happy.

A healthy budget, then.

-Not too bad.

-Yeah, I'm pretty happy with that one.

Although they have £5,000 to play with,

the designers have a lot to consider here.

So without further ado they head to Northampton to meet the

family and see the garden for themselves.

While Charlie goes to find Shona in the garden...

..the brothers head inside to find out what Patricia

has in mind for the plot.

-Hello, lads.

-How are you?

-Do you mind if we have a seat?

-Yes, by all means.

-It's nice and cosy.

-It's nice to see you.

-Yeah.

How do you see yourself using the garden?

I like to sit outside and have meals outside in the summertime.

-Yeah.

-Breakfasts outside.

-The weather's usually good here.

-Yeah, definitely, yeah.

So one large space maybe that the whole family can enjoy.

Oh, yes.

That would be lovely, yes.

While Pat is after a communal garden, Shona seems to have

a slightly different idea about what she'd like to see.

Well, we want a garden where we can all use it at once,

or we can use it individually.

So if my daughter's here and she wants her friends around for

a barbecue, there's plenty of space and she can use it like that.

-But you haven't necessarily got to join in?

-No, definitely not!

-Definitely not.

-OK.

Something for your daughter to use with her mates.

And my mum to use. Something...

I had in mind maybe raised garden beds

so that she doesn't have to bend down and this sort of thing.

-So she can still potter and enjoy the garden?

-Yes.

Something that I can do which is easy to maintain

-because I'm not the gardener.

-Ah-ha.

And something for Amelia to play in and feel that she's safe.

Charlie and the boys have £5,000 to design a garden that each

member of the family can use, both separately and altogether.

It must include raised beds, a play area, and a safe patio.

Suddenly, the budget isn't looking quite so healthy.

They're going to have to be ingenious.

The designers compete against each other to come up with

a design that will work within the family's budget.

Patricia and Shona will then choose a winner.

And whoever loses will have to help the winner build the garden.

The £5,000 will be used to cover the cost of the materials for their

new garden while the labour will be supplied by Charlie,

the Rich brothers and their team of landscapers.

It's time for the designers to pitch their ideas.

There we are.

-Up the slope.

-Yes, it is, yes.

-There we go.

-Oh, it looks lovely.

The main issue here wasn't hard to notice - it's the slope.

-It certainly is.

-That's what we get paid to do. That's genius.

What we wanted to make sure is that we dug into that bank,

we retained it and we gave you a lot larger area to use.

-That would be good.

-Right, yes.

The boys are tackling the troublesome slope head-on by digging

into the lawn and creating three terraces, each retained by sleepers.

Now I have definitely zoned the garden, but it's going to be

very multipurpose zoning.

We've got this gently sloping path so that would sweep round up

to the sunny part of the garden.

Charlie has added a path to make the slope more manageable and

has tried to please both mother and daughter by giving each

family member their own area, as well as spaces to gather together.

I've popped in there a nice, big deck area to get that afternoon sun.

The boys have also added a deck but have incorporated

a mid-level seating area and a top deck where Amelia can play.

They also want to give Pat an area to herself to potter about in.

We've got three small raised planters on the patio and we

thought that maybe if you wanted you could have a small table and chairs

just by here so you're surrounded by some trees, shrubs and plants.

Right. That'll be nice.

Not to be outdone,

Charlie has also kept Pat's love of gardening in mind.

This area down here I've got some raised beds that will be

sort of what I would call perching height.

-Right.

-Lovely, yeah.

But staggered so that it doesn't look too chunky.

-OK.

-Yeah.

Charlie's included a modern, child-safe water feature and

a large play space for Amelia.

I thought it'd be really nice to make

a bit of an entranceway for her so this will be screened off

using clump-forming bamboos...

-Oh, right.

-..because play equipment's never that pretty.

-No.

-I have to say.

-That would screen it off.

-Yeah.

Then stepping stones - rather than just stepping stones through

I've laid it out as hopscotch.

Hopscotch, she'll like that, yes.

Then this will all be grass.

Shona and Patricia seem impressed, but can the brothers win them

over with their planting?

You've got some shrubs around here that we'd like to keep.

We'd like to introduce a few more, especially as you guys were saying

you like a lot of colour - flowers, something that brings in wildlife.

-Yes, it sounds good. It sounds really good.

-Brilliant.

-The patio bit...

-Yeah.

-Um...

-They're just the slabs as they are now

but, Pat, you did mention some of them are a bit uneven.

They're all uneven.

We would make sure they're all safe and no trip hazards.

-That'll be good. That would be really good.

-Yes.

Harry and David are going to relay the existing patio but Charlie's

going one better and is replacing the stones and enlarging the area.

So the patio area I've definitely extended it because it's

-a bit mean at the moment.

-It is, yes, very mean.

-So definitely pushing it out further in front of your patio doors.

-Yeah.

Yes, thank you very much.

Well, that's it.

The pitch is over. The designers have done all they can.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

It's now time for Shona and Patricia to choose between Charlie's

multipurpose zoning and the boys' terraced communal garden.

So what did you think about this one, then?

I like the steps and I like the entertaining area.

I like this bit in the middle.

-Yeah, that's nice.

-I thought it was really good.

We're dividing the garden into individual areas for the

different generations, so as you go up you get younger.

How about you, Charlie?

Yeah, well, I did end up with a big deck up here in the sunshine

and then I have got a zone for Amelia as well.

-Nice.

-Oh, perfect.

These are excellent, having a lower bed there and a water feature.

Amelia would really like that.

Yes, I'm impressed.

I'm impressed with both of them.

I think you're thinking the same as me?

Possibly, yes. Shall we go for it?

-Hello.

-Hello there.

-Hello.

-Right.

We've looked at both of them and the winner is...

Charlie!

-Well done.

-Thank you.

We thought your designs were brilliant, absolutely brilliant,

but we just in mind had Amelia and how we would like to use the garden.

Oh, good, I'm looking forward to doing that one.

Oh, dear. Harry's face says it all, but Charlie is thrilled.

She's going to have to win the boys around, though, because she'll

need their help to get all the elements of this garden finished.

It's the first day of the build

and with Charlie away tending to the finer details of her design,

it's up to the expert team of landscapers -

Leigh,

Andy,

Steve,

and Bowen to crack on with the monster task

of extending the patio to create Charlie's generous seating area.

But they haven't even cleared all the pots off the old patio before

they unearth a problem.

Oh, no.

-That's a bit naughty, isn't it?

-It's a bit rotten.

It's a big one. It's right out here, somewhere.

It's just a concrete manhole chamber.

It's basically for the run-off for the water from the gutters of

the house, come through all the way down to the drain.

But we didn't really know it was here so it's created

a little bit of a problem.

Let's get it cleared off and see what we can do.

We've lost him. He's got a man down.

Solving unforeseen problems like this will eat into the £5,000

budget that Charlie has already fully allocated to the design.

So whilst project manager Bowen hits the phone to try and source

a low-cost manhole cover...

No, I don't think we're going to be able to build around it

to get it to that size.

..the team cracks on with the patio so it won't cost them in time too.

-Hello, mate, look what I've got for you.

-Good lad.

See if that fits in there.

-Oh, like a glove on a chicken's leg.

-Beautiful.

By the time Charlie and her willing helpers Harry and David arrive,

they've made great progress.

The patio's laid, old shrubs that don't fit the new design have

been uprooted, and the base for the new decking has been built.

-It's a vigorous walk in the morning.

-I know.

-It'll get you geed up ready for all your jobs.

Oh, nice, some good ones today.

Yeah. This'll get you warm.

-So the first thing - take the turf off for the path.

-Lovely.

Nice sweep of a curve.

-All uphill?

-All uphill.

And then raised beds.

You've got to get those done because I have to get the water feature in.

-OK.

-That's quite key.

-You can get moving with the turf stripper.

-Lovely!

So off you go, boys.

That's your turf stripper there.

Oh! Push!

Get the angle right.

Look at this.

Wow! This is making a difference, isn't it?

Good work, guys.

-Are you all right?

-And the slabs are looking good.

Yeah, that's right.

Before they can think about firing up heavy machinery,

Harry and David need to mark out the shape of the path.

There we are.

The arc of the path is key to Charlie's design

since it will form the spine of the garden.

The boys must get it right.

Coming through, coming through.

-Look at this.

-We're coming through.

The use of the path already.

-How does it feel?

-That feels a nice curve, boys. Very good.

The turf has got to come up, you know.

-So, yeah.

-How are you feeling?

-I'm thinking might just take it a bit...

-A bit wider.

A bit wider cos at the moment, look.

You want to be able to walk up the garden path

holding hands and it's a bit too cosy at the moment.

Let me see. Be comfortable.

-Not too tight.

-How comfortable?

That's too... That is...

-A few drinks comfortable, or what?

-Hello!

Come on, in we go.

-About, yeah.

-Just a little.

-Perfect.

-Yeah, that's better.

You've got lovely warm hands.

You're not doing enough work. That's why you're not warm.

Spank your hand.

And the right one. Come on.

And now they're all happy with the shape, they can bring in one of

the big guns in the form of the turf cutter.

Turf cutters like this

start about £50 a day and it makes really light work

of what can be quite a tedious job.

-That was a good line, mate, well done.

-Yeah.

Right, on your way.

ENGINE REVS

THEY LAUGH

What's happening there?

ENGINE STOPS

A good tip when using a turf cutter is to cut all the turf first

before peeling off bits because if you start peeling off some

bits and the turf cutter gets on an angle,

and then you start cutting unevenly. So cut it all and then peel it up.

A good tip, when you start to roll it up, cut it into manageable sizes.

Don't try rolling and shifting large bits of turf.

Lengths that are maybe a metre, a metre and a half should be fine.

So this is going to be my hopscotch path,

leading to the kids' play area here

so there's going to be a bit of a climbing frame and a slide.

I'm literally going to lay the slabs straight onto a bit of soil and

sand, level with the lawn so that they can mow straight over it

and then in five years' time,

when they no longer want to play hopscotch,

they can just be lifted up, reseeded and it's going to be fine.

Back to lawn.

It's all well and good, getting rid of the turf, Charlie.

-Where's it going to go?

-Not here.

-That hole you dug there?

No, no, no, cos we've got the raised beds to fill.

-Yeah, down on the bottom.

-Fill in the raised beds.

I'm glad you've offered to do that job, well done!

I didn't, you see. I kept quiet.

You've learnt to be quiet when Charlie's, er...

Yeah, that's good.

Raised beds down there and don't forget there is

-a raised bed at the back of the deck, as well.

-OK.

-We'll go there first.

-Just walk round the garden

with the wheelbarrow. Take it back from where it came.

Recycling the turf is a great idea because getting rid of waste on

any building project, whether inside or out, can easily bump the cost up.

In a bid to give Shona the most she can get for her £5,000 budget,

Charlie has an idea to run past her.

-Shona, come and have a quick sit down and a quick chat.

-Right.

-What am I in for?

-It's not difficult, honest.

-OK.

-This area here is for your granddaughter, yeah?

-Right, yeah.

And we're going to have the curve of the bamboos hiding it.

There's going to be the play equipment there.

-I did have on the design an archway with planters.

-You did, yeah.

But I'm thinking of being a little bit more artistic and making

an artistic piece of trellis for climbers...

-Right.

-But it will be an entranceway, a fun entranceway.

I'm thinking.

This is going to be using, like, natural branches.

-Oh, right. That sounds a good idea.

-Yeah.

It's going to literally be

a frame with a door at, sort of, child height.

Basically when you're sat over on the deck you're going to see that.

-Mm-hm.

-A bit of a Hansel and Gretel type theme to it.

That sounds lovely.

She'd love that, yes, something different.

Harry and David have moved on to making the raised beds,

but Charlie, having secured the thumbs up from Shona for the gateway

to the new play area, now needs to source materials to make it.

You boys are very quiet. Concentrating, are we?

-Just digging a hole.

-Digging a hole.

What are you up to?

I'm just sculpting.

Very cool.

That sounds fun. What are you sculpting?

I'm going to make a very Hansel and Gretel entranceway

to the play area.

Oh, wow, that sounds fun.

Mmm. See, when you're boss you to get to do all the fun jobs.

When you're labourers you get to do the really boring stuff.

I don't get to do the fun things when I'm the boss.

Dave, let's do it.

Charlie's decided to use these new sleepers and that's going to

marry in with the slabs really nicely.

Beautiful. What we've done on the corner here, we've actually used

a brick joint so we've overlapped the joint of the timber and that's

going to make a stronger structure

and I also think it looks nice, as well.

Charlie needs an expert landscaper to help her with her big plan.

So you might think you've finished but over here the entranceway to

the play area is going to be doing something like this.

It's like a child's done it.

-Have you had your drawing pencils out?

-Yeah!

I don't want the doorway to be too tall so what that sort of height.

Four foot by two?

So if we can make a frame up - want some eaves

and a chimney off to the side, maybe that side or whatever.

-Window, sort of thing.

-Yeah, one or two.

There's some nice decking left so we'll make it out of decking and...

Yeah? And just concrete it in.

Put the frame into the floor so it's nice and solid

and then we can work off the frame.

Rustic, Hansel and Gretel.

We're using all that over there.

-Yeah, we can screw that to it.

-Yeah?

-Yeah, no problem.

Meanwhile, the brothers are cracking on with the path and pegging

in some shuttering to form the edges of the bound gravel surface.

These 4 x 1s are perfect for edging the path.

Because we're creating a curve,

what you can do, you can soak them overnight in water and that

will make them more flexible so you get more of an acute angle.

You can cut notches into the back of them and that will help them

as well, but because this angle isn't too bad,

we're just using them as they are and just pegging them as we go.

Good. One window.

Leigh and Charlie are moving on apace with the entrance to the play area

whilst Andy is finishing the ramp up to the decking area, which will

future proof access to that seating area for all the generations.

And David starts the Herculean task of bringing in the hard-core

for the base of that lovely curved path.

-Into that point.

-Yeah.

Just so that there's some lavender,

-there's a bay tree there to give it a little bit of height.

-Yeah.

Pat doesn't like sitting in full sun.

-The cat.

-Not the cat, Pat!

As in Postman.

CHARLIE SIGHS

Leigh's using natural ash prunings to clad the frame and make more of

a screen for the play area.

You can buy pea sticks similar to these.

They're a by-product of coppicing and are fantastic for creating

all sorts of structures for the garden.

So this is a bit of fun for Amelia but also it'll be

a really good place for Pat to, you know,

maybe put a bowl of water for the birds or some feeders on it.

Yeah, it's a bit different, isn't it?

Coppicing is a form of woodland management that

has been practised for thousands of years.

Essentially it's the harvesting of wooden poles by cutting off

growth from trees like hazel and willow down to the base

thus harvesting long poles.

This process is repeated every seven to 25 years,

depending on how thick and long you want your poles to be.

There are copses all over rural Britain and one coppice

worker, who was practised his trade for nearly 60 years,

is Alan Waters.

The ideal crop is a ten to 12 foot pole.

A rod.

That's what you're looking for.

The most common uses for coppiced hazel today are for making

hurdles for sheep and garden fencing, thatching spars and plant

supports for the garden, especially pea sticks for supporting

pea plants and bean poles as a frame for runner beans to climb up.

However, a skilled coppice worker like Alan can make these

practical objects into decorative sculptures for the garden.

Alan places seven long poles in a mould to make the correct

shape for the tepee

before tying it at the top.

Just trying to hold them.

Hazel is pliable, especially when warm,

so can be manipulated to make it rope-like.

You find a hole.

Poke it down

as far as you can and then hold it tight

so you can poke it down

and you pull it down.

Then to give climbing plants something to hold on to as

they grow up the support, Alan weaves more hazel through the frame.

By using a coppiced hazel, whether you grow anything up it or not,

or just use it for height in your garden,

it gives you something to look at.

And because it's made of natural materials,

it blends beautifully into the garden.

Which is why Charlie has chosen to use it on her quirky new

entrance to the play area in Northampton.

Out front, the plants have arrived and just in time because most of

the hard landscaping is finished and the raised beds are being

filled with compost ready to be planted up.

Meanwhile, it's Harry's turn with a wheelbarrow as

he brings in two tonnes of bound gravel to top the path.

We're putting down the self-binding gravel on this path and it's on

a slope so it's a great choice for that because it'll knit down

really tightly and have a lovely finish.

It'll also link really nicely in with the wood and the paving at

the bottom so overall it's going to unify the whole garden as one.

-Right, Charlie.

-Yo!

-I found these outside. Where do you want 'em?

Right, we need to replicate that curve

-coming around here. Yeah?

-Oh, OK.

Before David marks that out,

the chaps get the play equipment in so he can get the proportions right.

To mirror the arc of the path, Charlie's design has a row of

eight bamboos to edge the play area and they all need to be planted.

-Like that, yeah.

-OK, so the bed's kind of there, in a way.

OK, cool, I can start that then.

Then we follow it round, just into this?

-Into here, say, like that kind of curve?

-Yes.

The bamboo will provide an evergreen living screen that will sway

and rustle in the breeze.

But before there's any chance of that happening...

David needs to prepare the planting bed.

That's just the start of the planting,

there are 56 scented plants to go into the garden, too.

This is going to be our lovely, scented lavender walkway that

will bring you up into this sort of Mediterranean decking area.

We've got a bay tree for a bit of scent and for cooking.

We've got lavenders.

We have Steve who's fragrantly scented as well,

working away at the raised bed there, which is going to be for Pat

to potter in when she's sat up here,

if she does sit in the sun because she's not really keen on the sun.

That's really Pat's area down the bottom.

It's a bit tough going digging the soil.

It's going to be worth it, though,

because we are putting in a native birch, a betula,

and it is going to be positioned by the deck,

so it'll give a bit of height to this area

but also provide a nice bit of dappled shade.

As you can see, the roots are bare.

It's a bare root and that means we can plant it between...

Basically when the tree is dormant, so between the time when the

leaves fall off and the time when the leaves come back in spring.

That's great because it means it'll be half the price if you buy

a tree that has been grown in a container.

So that's a real plus.

Just to give the tree a really good head start, we're putting in

some good quality topsoil and then the original soil on top.

That's going to give it a bit of substance

and hold it firm in the hole.

When planting a tree, it's a good thing to look at

where the soil level is because that is where it has been dug out

at the nursery, so that's where you should plant it.

Halfway through backfilling the hole,

firm the soil down to get rid of any air pockets.

After planting,

water it thoroughly and keep watering regularly for the first year.

Also, because it hasn't got the root system to anchor it into the soil,

it's really important to post it.

It keeps it strong and firm and helps it grow.

Charlie, meanwhile, is planting up the raised beds near the house.

So this is going to be a lovely spring-raised bed.

I'm putting the hellebores up here because you sort of,

when they're at ground level, you sort of miss how beautiful

the flowers are and they're the type of flower that you

really want to look up into, so putting them in the raised bed,

when you're sat down there,

you'll be able to see the full beauty of them.

The addition of a spherical water feature will also provide

a relaxing soundtrack when the family are on the patio.

This water feature is a really straightforward simple kit.

It comes with a small reservoir.

This is slate effect. It's actually resin,

so it's very light to move around.

The tendency is, because the reservoir is circular, that you want

to put the pebbles or the gravel or the shale,

which is what we're using here, and follow that circle,

but it looks a bit odd

so what I'm going to do is blend

the shale in and around under the planting.

That way, it'll look a lot more natural

and it'll also help suppress quite a lot of the weeds

that could come up.

As for keeping the water clear, it's best to treat the water

straightaway, while it is clear, not when it's gone green.

It says just add two teaspoons,

so I'm just going to pop that one there

and then Shona will have to retreat it once every six weeks.

Safe for the birds, safe for children,

so this will be really quite a tactile area,

because we've got all the scented plants,

lavenders, thymes and rosemary.

We've got water that will give a nice,

gentle sound and Amelia can touch it quite safely and the birds

will come and bathe and drink, as well.

Now that the bed is prepared,

Harry and David can get on with planting the bamboos.

Charlie has chosen a variety that won't get too tall

and take over the plot.

Bamboo has something of a bad reputation for spreading like crazy

in the garden, but expert Bruce Jordan knows the difference

between the unruly species and the garden-worthy types.

One is the Pseudosasa,

the other one is a bamboo called Phyllostachys.

Neither of those have got a common name, so it's quite difficult,

but Pseudosasa was introduced by the Victorians

and is a real running bamboo,

will spread without worry across your garden, come up through tarmac.

Phyllostachys, on the other hand, is much calmer.

It can wander. I call it wandering.

It's not really hugely invasive, but it wanders around.

These wanderers send out runners, which are shoots just below

the surface of the soil.

Along their length, they sprout further shoots

and can quickly run amok.

Luckily, not all bamboos are badly behaved.

The best thing to do is to look at Fargesia bamboos.

They definitely will not run. They form clumps.

The clump can slowly get bigger, but it's a clump.

It won't send out any runners.

They will grow almost in deep shade where there is very little sun.

They will grow in the sun and they will grow in kind of half sun

and shade. Pretty much anywhere in the garden, you can grow a Fargesia.

And once you've selected the right bamboo for your garden,

they have so much to offer.

One of the great things about bamboo is they create an amazing atmosphere

in the garden.

This is their look pretty much 12 months of the year,

so they're always looking good, even in the middle of winter.

On a cold, frosty - even snowy - day,

you can come out, your bamboo is smiling.

Particularly ones with golden stems, they glow.

They glow on a grey, miserable day.

Charlie has wisely selected a Fargesia for Patricia and Shona,

which will keep itself to itself.

Now they're all in the ground, they're looking stunning.

To make the patio area more intimate,

Charlie has added an off-the-shelf flat pack pergola,

available at most garden centres,

but she's turning it into something special

by adding a beautiful climber.

So I'm just trailing this Clematis armandii up over the pergola.

It's evergreen, got lovely white scented flowers

and being evergreen,

this will always look as a nice archway into the garden.

As the last plants go in

and the final titivations are completed, this garden is finished.

Before they called the Garden Rescue team, Shona and Patricia's garden

was an unloved, neglected, featureless plot

on an unforgiving slope, not inviting

to any of the four generations that desperately wanted to use it.

Now it's had a £5,000 makeover and Charlie has spent every penny

creating inviting areas of the garden for each of them to enjoy.

She's spent £450 on a sinuous, bound-gravel path with

a gentle gradient to make getting to the top of the garden easier.

The decking area at the top of the garden was a big outlay

at £850, but it catches the late afternoon sun

and is the perfect place for a sundowner.

The play area, with its bespoke Hansel and Gretel entrance,

climbing frame and hopscotch will delight Amelia for hours.

So it was well worth the £500 price tag.

The patio has been relayed with Indian sandstone and extended

to be both usable and safe.

It's a sociable space now for all the family to use

and came in at a substantial £900.

The 143 plants and the child-safe water feature

totalled £1,100

and add life, texture and year-round interest to this garden.

Time to find out if Charlie has delivered.

-Come round here.

-Can't wait.

So you can open your eyes now.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Oh...

-Is that good?

-I love it.

Pat, you're quiet.

It's been a hard slog, but, by that reaction,

I think they absolutely love it.

-Makes it all worth it, doesn't it?

-It does, yeah.

No, I'm saying I love it.

-So you wanted a bigger entertainment space.

-We have, yes.

-You've got this big area here.

-This is the bit I really like along here.

Shall we wander up your...

You lead the way up your lavender walkway up to your hot seating area.

-Really nice.

-Pots out as well.

-So much to see.

-So all these lavenders will spill over.

-All my favourites.

-Yes.

-All my favourites.

-Oh, my goodness.

So it's a nice easy path to walk up. You've got two ways of getting up.

-You can either step up...

-I want to see everything.

Another raised bed for you, Mum.

That's perfect, just perfect.

Is that the bay we can put in the food?

Yes, but there's lots of herbs in this garden.

You've got bay, you've got sage, thyme, rosemary.

You've got the whole lot. It's overloaded with aromatic foliage.

Brilliant, brilliant.

Then, so that access is really easy, we've got a ramp.

-A ramp down there as well, Mum.

-All ready for my...

-Wheelchair.

I don't think you'll ever be in a wheelchair.

You've got too much get up and go, Pat.

-That's lovely. I love that path.

-It's a lovely colour, isn't it?

Sort of Mediterranean.

-Beautiful. I really like that.

-Absolutely gorgeous.

I'm thrilled to bits with this. Thrilled to bits, I am.

You can do all your gardening now, look at it.

I will have such a lovely summer this summer.

And then you've got the view of Amelia's area there.

That is fantastic. I'm glad you changed that.

-I'm really glad you've changed that.

-She's got a hopscotch as well.

Yeah, we got the hopscotch. We haven't tested it yet. Maybe later.

-So that's her little screened-off area.

-She will love that.

I love the bamboo.

And with the bamboo, I mean, it's clump forming, very slow growing.

If you don't want it to get really tall, you can cut it as a hedge.

I like it. I love that, yes.

But it sort of screens and it's not so obvious where the play area is.

And then we wander on down to your... Your shady patio area.

-These are my nice raised beds.

-Yes.

-Perfect, no bending now.

No, and I have to say, they are really nice just to sit on.

-They are just at that right height.

-They are, yes.

So even if you've not got the furniture out, you can just perch.

Sit on there, yes.

-Oh, that's wonderful. I love that.

-Nice sound, isn't it?

It is nice, really nice.

And the great thing about moving water, with these scented plants,

you know, your rosemary, this is Christmas box, the water will

pick that scent up so it will make this area even more scented.

-Of course, yes, that's beautiful.

-What colour is the clematis?

-It is a white one.

-That will be lovely up there.

-It is scented as well, evergreen.

-Yes, smells lovely.

-So pleased.

You can send your daughters up there with the barbecue and all her

mates and you're sat down here, nice and quiet.

Really thrilled with it, I am. I'm really thrilled. Excellent.

Shona and Patricia desperately wanted a garden they could relax and

potter about in and that all four generations of family would enjoy.

What's up here? Look.

£5,000 was a serious investment to get the garden of their dreams.

Do Shona and Patricia think their money was well spent?

Definitely good value for money. Definitely.

CHEERING

Well done, Amelia.