Episode 16 Gardeners' World

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

And it's holiday time, it's high summer,

and tonight we've got a 60-minute programme to celebrate that fact.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, the best way of enjoying this time of year

is simply to get outside into the garden.

At this time of year, salvias are one of the stars of the garden

and with such a wide variety, there's bound to be one that catches your eye.

I like to think that I know my onions, but actually,

my crop has turned into a bit of a disaster.

Joe is heading off to Newby Hall

to marvel at one of the most amazing borders in Europe.

Each side is 140 metres long,

so in total we've got 280 metres of herbaceous planting.

Now that's a lot of plants.

We find out from the curator at RHS Wisley,

the perfect way to prune wisteria.

And Carol is at her home with ideas for freshening up our borders

to keep them looking fantastic for the rest of summer.

Then she's off to the big city to discover some hidden gardens

for you to visit, all just for the price of a travel card.

The whole thing is so carefully conceived,

and yet it's a place to lose yourself.

Now, the dry garden

is happily baking away in the summer sunshine,

and that's good for a lot of the plants that are here,

but none more so than bearded irises.

But, of course, they've done their thing, they're long gone.

You can see I've got a clump of them here

with these lovely glaucous leaves,

They are one of the most spectacular spring flowers. I love them.

I love their voluptuousness and the intensity of colour.

Where the rest of spring is slowly and charmingly

easing into the year, these just flower out with incredible passion.

But they're getting a bit congested

and now is a really good time to lift irises, divide them

and replant them, and that way,

they'll flower much better next year.

And this is very, very, stony, dry soil,

and they're completely happy in it.

So if you're planting bearded irises,

give them as much sunshine as you can and don't worry about rich soil.

Drainage is the key thing. Irises have a big rhizome

which stores the goodness but underneath that are the roots.

So when you lift them,

you want to make sure you don't damage the roots.

There we go. Right.

Let's pull that out.

Right.

There we go.

That's a good clump of irises.

We can break that up and make new plants.

People think of the rhizomes as the roots, they're not.

The roots are underneath. So if I get my knife...

Actually, this is coming off now in my hand.

Right. There's a good plant.

We can see it's got healthy leaves, it's young,

it's got good swollen rhizomes,

and then the roots underneath, coming down.

That's a nice new plant.

That clump has given me 13 separate plants.

Enough for three new vigorous groups,

or clumps,

but before that, I must find a space to put them.

Now, the dry garden is deliberately allowed to fill itself up

with self-seeded plants.

One of the side-effects of letting things seed themselves,

which we do willingly, is that occasionally something takes over

and dominates everything else, and this year, it's Honesty.

which is a lovely plant and I want it in this border,

but not quite to the extent that we've got it.

And this area here is perfect for putting in the iris,

and this is a really good time of year for editing your beds.

You can see the size, the shape and the colour of what you'd like them to be.

Actually, a lot of plants will move surprisingly easily.

Let's get a bucket.

I can move these, I don't need to throw them away,

I can just rehouse them.

There you go.

Put that in there.

And if you haven't got anywhere to put plants, of course,

you can give them to friends,

take them to a car-boot sale, give them to charity.

Don't just consign them to the compost heap automatically.

Right, that's given me a nice space

which I can immediately fill with my irises.

I want to position these so that this rhizome

gets as much sunshine as possible so they want to be facing that way.

There's south, so the sun will hit them all day.

And if I put that in there like that,

I'm just burying the roots but keeping the rhizome above ground...

..like that.

Now, one of the things that you'll notice if you do that,

there's hardly any anchorage at all

and the weight of the leaves is already leaning that back

so it's a good idea to cut the leaves back, right back like that.

That also means that these roots that have been ripped up

out of the ground, however carefully you've dug them, and are damaged,

have less to do and then you get that harmony of the leaves

feeding the rhizomes and the roots, and the roots feeding the leaves

and the plant will get its own balance.

Now, this is a job that is a good idea to get on with,

because you can do it as early as the beginning of July

and now we're getting into August,

it's something that if you get it in the ground,

it gives them a decent enough time

to develop new roots before winter comes.

The garden is pretty much as good as it's going to get

at this time of the year, and I think the most important thing to do is just enjoy it.

There's not a lot you can do to change things anyway

but what you can do is important, and I love that fingertip approach

that's necessary now, rather than the big hands-on stuff

that is appropriate at other times of the year.

And it's just that kind of gardening that Carol has been doing

down at Glebe Cottage.

It's at this time of year that the garden's at its peak,

everything's burgeoning, flowers are looking wonderful.

At the moment, this border's having a bit of a lull.

It's been magnificent with geraniums,

it's going to be again with all these asters

and phlox to take over, but at the moment,

the plant that your eye immediately goes to

is this veronicastrum.

It's magnificent.

But even its performance is being marred slightly

by the presence of all these Cirsium heads.

This has been beautiful, this big, crimson thistle,

but right now, it's rather tatty.

And people would say, "It's the thistle,

"why don't you leave the seed heads?

"The birds will come and feast on them."

But they won't, because there's no seed in there.

And what's more, on wet days, the whole thing

looks positively soggy.

So what I want to do is take these stems down,

right to the ground, there's no point faffing about,

taking bits off here and there, cos that stem has finished flowering

so if I take decisive action and cut it right back to the ground

and just get rid of it, that's going to mean

this plant will put all its energy into producing some new flower stems

which, with a bit of luck, should start to appear in September or so.

Also, you can shear the foliage if you want to as well,

but I think that just cutting these stems is all that's needed now.

And if you think that's drastic,

wait till you see what I am going to do to these poppies.

Now, these are oriental poppies

and they've been beautiful, great, big, opulent blooms.

But I'm not just going to cut those flower stems down,

I'm going to take my shears,

and I am going to shear the lot right to the ground, everything,

old foliage, tatty new foliage,

flower stems, everything, just...

..absolutely straight across there.

And within a matter of weeks,

this poppy's going to rise like a phoenix from the ground.

There'll be a whole brand new set of leaves, lovely fresh foliage,

which is going to fill this rather big gap.

'And that's quite a lot of herbage,'

but this is never going to look good.

'But this will. Some water, possibly a little bit of feed,'

and the whole thing will be as good as new.

Freshened up for the rest of the summer.

'Helping other plants maintain their performance needn't be so brutal.

'Many plants, especially those with a branching habit like Cosmos,

'or those who carry their blooms in trusses, like many roses,

'can make fresh displays for months.

'Dead-heading is all-important.

Removing spent flowers means plants devote all their energy into flower production.

'What's more, the fresh new flowers

'are unmarred by anything dead or dying.'

All over this yellow and blue garden,

I indulge myself in daylilies, and this latest one to open is Hyperion,

and I love the yellow ones, cos all of them have got a gorgeous scent,

but I don't need any tools for this at all.

Just to make these look pristine,

just break these dead flowers gently.

They almost sort of fall off.

And I don't want to nip into that flower head,

because I think that's ugly.

I think that structure there is just so beautiful

with these new buds coming on, too.

And this is part of it, really, where those spent flowers have been,

so I just go over the whole thing,

and it is the sort of job you need to do daily,

because they're what they say they are,

each flower only lasts for a day.

But to appreciate those green buds

and these big open lemon trumpets,

what a difference it makes just to clean these old flowers off.

Whilst you're on a garden housekeeping mission,

attending to a few little jobs can make a big difference.

'Trim off the brown flowers from Alchemilla mollis

'to leave the beautiful lime-green froth behind.

'If you don't want them to seed everywhere,

'then take the shears to them later when all the flowers have faded.

'Simply removing any dead stems freshens up the whole picture,

'and it gives up-and-coming plants a real opportunity to shine.'

These buds are looking a bit more spruced now.

There's still plenty to do,

but the Astrantia 'Roma' that were standing in pots all along this path,

I've decided to take out and replace it with this lovely little Viola cornuta 'Alba'.

It's a charming plant, this, and just from one plant,

I've managed to make loads of them.

And they'll go on flowering for ages and ages

and bring a real bit of sparkle to the border.

There's still so much happening here.

The Acanthus is just majestic at the moment,

but I think putting these little white Violas all along the path

is going to move this whole border into the next phase.

This is all destined for the compost heap.

And what you have is a typical mix of the sort of thing that any garden's going to get,

which is fairly dry material,

which is quite hard and almost woody,

and then leaves that are tough, mixed up with very, very wet grass.

Look at that, you can squeeze the moisture out of that.

Let me show you what the compost is like that we finish with here.

This is the final bay.

This heap has been made up from the compost

that we've accumulated since Easter.

And you can see that that's nice.

Good to handle.

So I want to turn this barrel-load in to that nice compost

as quickly as I can,

and the absolute central secret of making compost is to turn it.

I need to get in there and get dirty.

Quite important when you do this

just to let some air get into it to throw it up.

You can see the steam that's coming out,

and that heat, it's an incredible furnace of animal activity

converting dying life into this rich, vital material.

This garden absolutely depends on its fertility

and its health, on good compost.

I always feel that any gardener that finds the need to go to a gym

is probably not turning their compost enough,

because it's hard work!

Here you are, it didn't take long.

Nice little bit of exercise.

Now, if that looks like too much work,

and not worth the result, just bear two things in mind.

One, you don't have to do it on this scale.

You make it in a dustbin, just empty the dustbin out,

tip the dustbin over, and put it back in

and you're doing exactly the same as what I've done here.

And two, turning it dramatically speeds up the process.

You could have a lovely, rich,

sweet-smelling compost by the autumn.

That is the secret of making really good compost.

Onions, or at least the edible Allium family,

are amongst the oldest of all crops grown by man,

and certainly one of the most universal.

There's not a society in this world

that doesn't grow an onion if they can,

and they're pretty easy to grow.

And the ones that I've got here, which are shallots, garlics, onions,

are doing very well, but I want to plant out some more,

which are leeks.

And if you've got leeks, it's worth getting on with it,

because we're getting to the end of the leek-planting season.

So I'll prepare this piece of ground to put them in.

By the way, this rake has got a double front to it.

I've only had it this year, and it's very good.

It's called a hand hoe, and I can recommend it.

I've grown my leek seedlings in pots and in plugs,

although traditionally they were always grown on a seedbed outside

and you can do that very well.

This is a variety called Carentan,

and I'm going to plant these in the traditional method,

which is to use a dibber.

Just make a hole at about six inch spacing...

..along a line or a board.

Inevitably, the hole back-fills a little,

but that doesn't matter too much in the first instant.

You take your leek seedlings,

and you can see these have got good roots,

break them open, and put a seedling in each hole.

There you are.

Nice, good root system, healthy young plant.

But obviously a leek will grow to really quite a monstrous size,

though they don't have to to eat them.

When you put them in a hole, just pop them in,

swizzle them round, and leave them in,

don't backfill them.

This way is certainly the best technique

if you want nice big leaks...

..because they grow to expand out into the hole,

and because they're in a hole underground, they blanch them,

so you get a good white stem, which is sweeter.

And then, when you plant them,

instead of firming round and getting the soil up around the necks,

you simply water them in.

So much for the conventional method.

And I could fill the whole of this space with leeks like that.

But there's another way of growing them,

and I tend to use this method much more,

which is to grow them in root trainers,

or deep plugs, like this,

and then plant the whole caboodle out in one go.

Just make a hole, and pop it in.

And the reason for that is that nobody ever eats just one leek.

You dig up two, three, four, more,

so if you have a clump growing together, you dig up the clump.

And that's it.

Very easy, you just take what you need as you go along,

and these I plant with a trowel

and just pop them in the ground as normal.

Both techniques have their pros and cons.

Individual holes, you get a bigger leek.

If you plant them in groups, there's less handling.

They both taste just as good.

And they'll be ready to eat from autumn

right through the winter to next spring.

However, I've got other alliums that are ready to harvest now.

You know garlic is ready to harvest

when the leaves turn yellow, and also when it starts to seed.

You can see here that every stem is setting a flower bud.

You could cut those off if the leaves were perfectly green and flush, but they're not.

The signs are that whatever is on the ground won't get any better,

and to be honest, I don't know what this crop's going to be like.

But there's only one way of finding out - dig it up.

The key to harvesting garlic is to dig it, don't pull it.

If you pull it, you risk damaging the roots.

There we go. There's a bulb underground.

Two together.

I want to keep as many of those roots intact as possible

because if I break the place where they touch the bulb,

they won't store nearly so well.

Let's put that down.

They're not huge.

But the critical thing is that they've formed into separate cloves.

Sometimes you'll find that bulbs will be solid.

There'll be just one large clove.

Usually that's because they've gone in the ground too late.

They haven't had enough cold weather.

There's two there.

To store these, I want to dry them as thoroughly as possible.

Best place to dry garlic is in the soil where they're grown.

And if it's a really sunny week, that's the easiest way to do it.

But if there's any risk of rain,

it's worth bringing them in undercover.

If you've got a greenhouse, that's really good.

It makes the greenhouse smell beautifully garlicky.

Otherwise put them on racks indoors.

Shallots, onions - they're looking good.

They'll be ready in a few weeks. Garlic, very happy with.

Leeks in the ground,

so far everything rosy in the onion garden.

Except if you come down to the ornamental veg garden,

things are not looking so good.

These are the same onions grown at the same time, in the same way

as the ones in the top vegetable garden.

They're a complete disaster.

The problem is actually in the soil. This is onion white rot.

You can see that it completely inhibits the growth of the onions.

In fact, the onions themselves are perfectly edible

as long as they're firm.

Dig up some shallots, I'll just reach in, take these here.

They come out of the ground, the roots are completely rotted away.

There, you can see on that one it's very clear.

There's a white fungus.

That's at the base of the bulb, where the roots join the plate.

The roots rot, and because the roots rot,

the top growth rots back, dies back,

and therefore the bulb can't grow.

And if I cut that in two...

..without cutting my fingers off...

..you'll see that it's completely healthy.

You can eat that, no problem at all. Just cut out any of this fungus.

It won't do you any harm. It's clearly really bad news.

This is not good.

It means I can't grow garlic, onions, shallots or leeks

in the whole of this vegetable garden.

The good news is that alliums are the only plants to be affected.

So I can grow anything else in this plot. That's what I'll do.

I'll clear this, keep the bulbs that I can eat and use them up,

burn the rest of the material rather than compost it,

and plant it up and try and make the best of the bad situation.

So the first thing to do is just clear these away.

I've got two containers,

one for those onions and shallots that I can eat

and one for the rubbish.

Like that.

I need to keep this bed onion-free for at least five years.

But the good news is there are plenty of other things

I can plant straightaway in the bed -

kale, spring cabbage,

any of the lettuces or French beans will all go well.

I'll just freshen it up with a little compost before planting.

All these little bits and pieces I'll burn,

but we'll eat all those.

This kind of job is hardly glamorous, but it has to be done.

But Joe has got himself a really good gig this week.

He's visiting Newby Hall.

I know it's good because I've been there.

Something of a landmark here at Newby

are these huge herbaceous borders.

They're the longest in Europe.

Each side is 140 metres long,

so in total we've got 280 metres of herbaceous planting.

Now that's a lot of plants.

They were first laid out in the 1930s by Major Compton.

The formal hedges both enclose the long vista

and act as a windbreak to create the ideal conditions

for all these herbaceous plants to thrive.

This is a classic herbaceous border,

the way it's been planted in blocks,

all looking like the plants are holding each other up anyway.

But it's a very exciting plant combination, too.

We've got geranium patricia here spilling over the path,

this vertical accident of this loosestrife

spiking its way through there,

and then we move into the more sort of gold colours, the oranges,

day lily at the front, heleniums, and then tiering up

to the eupatorium at the back, which looks like it's holding itself up

but actually there's some very clever black netting

been staked all through the back of this border

where the taller plants have grown through it

and are now being supported.

And right now in late July they look particularly splendid,

pretty much as perfect as herbaceous borders can be.

Well, you'd think so anyway. But actually their days are numbered.

'Come this autumn, a major restoration project gets underway

'that will see these borders change dramatically.'

'Mark Jackson, head gardener, has been here for 20 years.'

Now, the big question not only on my lips

but surely on all the visitors to this garden is why?

Why do you want to rip up these beautiful borders

and start all over again?

They look amazing.

All borders need renovation

to some degree or other, lifting and dividing.

-Nothing stands still, obviously.

-Exactly.

Many of the plants are at that stage

where there's quite a lot of work required.

There's also an aspirational side, if you like.

We believe we can make this border even better than it is now.

Also, there's the personal side.

This is a family home and we have a new generation.

-They want to stamp their mark?

-They will do, yes.

How different are the new borders going to be to what we see here?

We want to bring

a slightly more modern feel to it without going too far.

There'll certainly be some colours that may disappear

to allow new introductions.

There's so many good plants out there.

Which ones? You can tell me. Which ones are going?

the geum Princess Juliana

is probably one that we're going to lose and we'll be moving.

Right, Princess Juliana is gone. Yeah, yeah, OK. No oranges.

The achillea filipendulina,

the gold plate, we'll probably take out as well.

OK, no oranges, no yellows.

We'll use yellows, but softer yellows.

Is there a naturalistic feel you're aiming for?

They're more sort of muted, more natural colours, nothing too garish.

I think it will soften to some degree.

The polemonium sonias bluebell, which is a Carol Klein plant...

-That's going to stay?

-He's safe.

Carol, you're all right.

Yes, that is one of your favourites, the polemonium.

At the moment it's daunting, it is challenging.

I am a little apprehensive.

We're sticking our heads above a parapet, and if we get it wrong,

both the family and the visitors will let us know.

'Of course, gardeners are really just custodians of a piece of land

'for a certain amount of time.

'Those borders are going to take years

'to develop to look really mature.'

But in here there's a garden that changes year on year.

'Here at Newby Hall they call it the autumn garden.

'But right now it's a salvia collection that's stealing the show.'

So salvias are loving and protected micro-climate in this walled garden.

Loads of colour and loads more to come right through the autumn.

How many have you packed into this small space?

There are 40 varieties, 45 varieties of salvia.

There's been 1,000 plants planted in the garden this year.

And do you replant the garden every year?

We do it every year.

We can't run the risk of them not being hardy enough to come through the winter.

-So it's like a bedding scheme, really?

-It is like a bedding scheme.

Do you come up with a plan? How do you go about planting it all out?

I don't come up with a plan, well, not on paper. I come up with a plan in my head.

You look at the colour associations.

I know what they look like,

I know how tall they're going to grow,

so it's all up here. It's all up here.

It certainly works because they do partner other very well, don't they?

They look really nice with variations in height and colour.

If you don't have all this space and you can't grow 45 different varieties of salvias,

which ones would you recommend, ones that you couldn't live without? Show me the good ones.

Wow.

This has got an incredible colour, hasn't it? So intense.

That's salvia microphylla, Cerro Potosi,

which is such a vibrant, vibrant pink.

It's a very good height as well, actually.

Yeah, it's a good height, good colour, one of my favourite.

It's got scented foliage.

-Yeah, it does.

-Yeah, I like that. I suppose it's not to everybody's taste, but I like it.

You get used to it when you're working with them all the time.

Some really good blues, aren't there?

Yeah, we have got the salvia uliginosa which will grow up to five or six feet.

It's a really good back-of-the-border plant.

You can use it a bit like verbena bonariensis, where you can grow plants round and through it.

You can see through it.

-There's one called Newby Hall, isn't there?

-Yes, just around this corner.

It's not such a bright red but it was bred by Jamie Compton.

-We feel we ought to grow it.

-What's this blue one?

-We're not quite sure.

-But it's too good a colour for us not to be growing it!

-Fair enough.

-We'll figure out what it's called eventually.

-Caught you out!

Yes, yes.

If you think you can name this mystery salvia,

the Newby Hall gardeners can be contacted via our website.

JAZZY FLUTE INTERLUDE

I'm clearing away poppies from these borders. Not all of them,

-because the poppy heads themselves are

-so

-architecturally beautiful

and I want to keep those into winter and then the birds will eat them and the seeds will drop

and that will stimulate new growth. Some I've marked.

I've marked that with a piece of string because the colours are particularly good

and we'll harvest those seeds.

But I want a bit of space, and by pulling them up, that's exactly what I get.

At first it looks a bit empty and chaotic,

but in any border, certainly in mid-summer, an empty space

is an opportunity for a new plant, particularly those that respond to warmth,

those that come from near the tropics. I've been raising them in the greenhouse on the cold frames.

Just as at Newby Hall, one of my favourites are salvias, a whole mass of them,

but a few of them work very well in the dual garden.

In fact, there's one I've had for ages that I want to show you.

I've treasured this Salvia guaranitica for over 15 years now.

I renew it by taking cuttings every summer. I know the thought of taking cuttings can put people off.

But in fact, it's incredibly easy.

With salvias, you're looking for side shoots. If you grow tomatoes

you're familiar with the side shoots that you remove.

You can see on this plant there's a side shoot.

Between the leaf and the stem, a shoot growing off

about 50-60 degrees. As long as it doesn't have a flower on the end

it will make a really good cutting. I'll just snip that off.

There.

Pop that straight in the bag.

The bag just conserves the moisture, stops it drying out too fast.

We'll take another one while we're about it.

Actually, I saw yet another one. I snip in at the base like that.

We'll put that in. This is a good time of year to take salvia cuttings.

In the next couple of months, because it'll be producing lots of side shoots,

they'll root easily, the plant will get established, you can then over winter it

and next spring you'll have good, strong plants ready to go in the garden after last frost.

Then you're away. That will produce more material and you'll never need to buy salvia again.

And you can have dozens of them.

The whole process is simple but there are a few things to remember.

First, use a compost that's very free-draining. I've got some mixed up here with lots of grit.

If in doubt at all, add more grit.

I'll just do one at a time.

If I left all those leaves on, they'd lose moisture quicker than they can develop roots to feed it back again.

So the first thing to do is take the leaves off. A sharp knife is very useful.

Cut that cleanly there and there. I'm going to leave two leaves,

and that's a good rule for all cuttings.

We've got two leaves like that.

These are nodes where the leaves join.

With salvias you can take inter-nodal cuttings,

which means cut them anywhere.

We're going to do a nice, clean cut, like that.

We've got a clean end. Cutting seems to take much more readily

if they go between the pot and soil rather than directly into the soil.

Just ease it in, don't force it. We don't want to damage the cut end

which is where the roots will come from.

Where we have leaves like that...

actually, those two big leaves could come off.

Got a clean end there.

Put that one in over here.

This is it. There's no magic. I'm not using years of experience or skill.

Anybody could do this. Take that off there. I think we'll lose that leaf.

And that leaf. We'll reduce the size of those.

If you think there's too much foliage,

cut that and that in half, and it will lose less moisture. That's all we're doing.

Cut that there.

Push that in.

Next, water it thoroughly and put it somewhere which isn't in direct sunlight,

because it might get too dry, but with sunshine.

Plenty of light but some protection to keep it fairly moist.

It doesn't mean soaking it with a watering can,

just that the air needs to be quite moist. Number of ways of doing that.

You can put a polythene bag around it.

The danger is you can have too much moisture and condensation.

But it's very useful if you're going away. Or you can mist it with a mister two or three times a day

and that will be adequate and will take.

As it is, I put all my cuttings in the greenhouse.

These cuttings that I took in spring will make a good show in this space.

Salvia guarnitica does like fairly rich, heavy soil.

Most salvias like good drainage.

As long as they get full sun there are very few soils they won't grow in.

If you plant in groups, odd numbers, tend to look more natural,

immediately you can use small plants to create a big impression.

And you can get a big impact in the border,

and if you've got plants, you can do it with 11 or 13,

and it's really dramatic. And it all comes from little cuttings.

As well as Salvia guarnitica, there are dozens of other beautiful salvias,

and here are a few you can grow at home.

Cambridge Blue is one of my favourites.

The flowers are an incredible colour

and it looks just as good in a pot or a border.

Indigo Spires is rather taller, reaching about four to five foot,

and will flower constantly from June to November.

Salvia oxyphora can take some tracking down, but it's worth the effort,

because its crimson, furry flowers are beautifully scented and irresistible for insects.

Still to come, Carol is visiting gardens in central London,

where she's found some real gems. And the best thing is that

they are all free.

And here at Longmeadow,

I'll be tasting my first tomato of the season.

I get a lot of letters, asking about pruning in general,

and a surprising amount of them

about pruning wisteria specifically.

I've got a batch of e-mails at the moment.

Wisteria always seems to cause problems in some form or other.

For example, Denise Sowden,

you've written and said that you have a white wisteria - at least,

you think it's going to be white - which you bought and has grown

perfectly well for the last four years, but it's never flowered.

So is there anything you can do to encourage it to flower?

Jim Nuttall, you've written saying you have an amethyst wisteria,

and it's flowered from day one.

The problem is, you don't know how to prune it.

So, we thought we'd go to RHS Wisley and find the best way

to prune wisteria to get maximum flowering,

and who better to tell us that

than the top man, the curator, Colin Crosbie.

Wisteria's one of the most wonderful

and beautiful of all-flowering climbers.

I love them because they've got masses of flowers

for a short period of time in the spring,

and then the scent is just to die for.

They're truly, truly magnificent.

Wisteria's a member of the pea family,

and they originate from Japan and China.

They grow really well in our gardens.

However, for some gardeners, they can be quite frustrating.

One of the most frequently-asked questions we have

in Wisley Garden is, how do you prune wisterias to encourage flowering?

It's actually very simple, and happens in two stages.

The first stage is the summer pruning to remove all these long,

vigorous growths that you see at the present moment.

What you have to do is actually count six buds

from where the old wood is, and that's where you make your cut.

It sounds very harsh, but it's not. Here I am, I'm counting six buds.

One, two, three, four, five, six. And then pruning.

This actually helps to encourage the flower-bud initiation.

This is a job that you might need to do two or three times during

the summer months, cos all the shoots that you've pruned,

they won't re-grow, but you might find other shoots that suddenly start growing.

So, two or three times during the summer,

whenever you see these long, leggy growths,

just give it a haircut, pruning back to the six buds.

With the pruning, I always start at the bottom

and work my way up to the top of the plant.

Once you've finished the summer pruning,

then the next stage of the pruning is to come back in late January,

early February time, and all these little spurs of branches that

you've pruned back to six buds, you then prune back to two buds.

So, in January, February time, you come back to two buds.

They'll be really fat and juicy,

and that's them swelling up as flower buds.

Most people are used to seeing wisterias

growing against walls and up houses.

However, in small gardens, you can train them up a wooden post,

and this gives you a standard wisteria.

Wonderful when it's covered in flowers,

and it's treated and pruned in exactly the same way.

Now, if you really want to encourage your wisteria to flower well,

you feed it with a high-potash fertiliser during the summer months,

cos this encourages flowers.

You don't want to use a nitrogen fertiliser,

cos this'll just give you lots of long, fleshy growth.

It's important when choosing a wisteria that you go for

a named plant which has been grafted.

The graft is very obvious at the bottom of the plant.

Sometimes you will still see

a little bit of the rubber tape round about it.

These are more likely to flower from a younger age in the garden.

Unnamed or seedling varieties of wisteria,

you could wait sometimes 20 years until they flower.

I confess, I've been itching to pick some of these tomatoes

over the last week, but I've left them

just so we can celebrate doing the first harvest.

They are ready.

These are part of the grafted tomatoes that I grew as a trial.

Planted these out. We've got some grafted

and some non-grafted from the same varieties,

so as well as seeing how they're growing,

I want to see how they taste, too.

This is a variety called Conchita.

This one here, which is grafted, and then this one, which is non-grafted.

Noticeably thinner, but the same sort of height,

and seems to have the same amount of fruit.

So superficially, there's no real noticeable difference

at this stage in the year between grafted and non-grafted.

But I suppose the important thing is to do the taste test.

So, if I pick one here from a grafted fruit,

and we've got a non-grafted in my right hand.

These are both Conchita.

To look at, you can see no difference whatsoever.

Let's have a bite into the grafted.

Mmm! Juicy.

The first thing I'd say is that a tomato eaten warm

in the greenhouse, straight off the vine, fantastic.

You should never chill tomatoes. That tastes really good.

OK, now the non-grafted.

That's ungrafted, and it's slightly less sweet, slightly more acidic.

Actually, it's got a little bit more flavour,

but a little bit more tartness with it.

Clearly, this is a matter of personal taste.

It could just be that the grafted one is a little bit further ahead.

Really, what you've got to consider is,

we paid 9.99 for three grafted plants.

9.99 will buy you three packets of seed,

which would give you a minimum of 30 plants.

I have to say, in my opinion,

there's not ten times the difference.

In other words, it's not worth it.

But it's lovely, they're both lovely.

Picking your own produce is always deeply satisfying.

These tomatoes, despite coming in every shape and size,

will taste delicious.

Whilst at this time of year there is so much to enjoy

in our own gardens, it's also the perfect time

to get out and visit others.

Carol has been doing just that.

She's chosen the unlikely destination of central London.

In London, the parks and gardens are a green refuge from the stress

and clamour of the city streets.

But for the keen gardener who wants to do more than find somewhere

to eat their sandwiches, where should they go?

First stop, Regent's Park.

These formal bedding schemes in Regent's Park really do

represent the pinnacle of this kind of art.

Even at the height of the popularity of such schemes

during the Victorian era,

these would have won accolade after accolade.

And do you know, whatever your taste in horticulture,

when you see something done with this amount of finesse

and magnificence, you just have to admit it's brilliant.

Also in Regent's Park is the garden of St John's Lodge,

sometimes known as the secret garden.

Obviously, I'm not going to tell you where it is,

but I'll give you a clue - head for the park's Inner Circle.

The house is private, but since 1994,

the garden's been open to the public.

It's laid out in line with the lodge and has all the elements

you'd associate with

a quintessential English formal garden.

Strong geometry contrasts with soft planting.

Clipped hedges, arches and paths lead the eye to benches and statues.

Over in Hyde Park, near to Knightsbridge tube station,

is one of the city's newest and most temporary gardens.

And it couldn't be more of a contrast.

This black monolith is the Serpentine Gallery's new Pavilion.

Designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

Inside, shielded by a corridor, is the courtyard.

And in the centre, a garden designed by the renowned Piet Oudolf.

In previous years, this Pavilion space has been

used as an opportunity

by architects to display their talents, to show what they can do.

But this year, it's a bit different.

It's very much a collaboration between the architect

and the gardener.

It's wonderfully successful.

As soon as you come in here,

this great black structure separates you from the outside world.

And the garden itself, it's such an entity. It's a painting.

The colour palette here is restrained, it's simple,

and the darkness of the whole structure is picked up

in the stems of the Eupatorium and these glorious monardas.

The whole thing is so carefully conceived,

and yet it's a place to lose yourself.

It's a different sort of reality.

If the Pavilion is as modern as can be,

my next destination positively oozes history.

A short walk from Monument tube

is the church of St Dunstan's-in-the-East.

It was bombed during the Blitz, with only the tower

and a few walls surviving.

In the 1960s, it was decided not to rebuild it,

but to open it as a garden.

Today, hydrangeas and ornamental vines clothe the walls,

while figs, ferns and magnolias grow around the nave.

The juxtaposition of growth and decay makes for

the most atmospheric of spaces.

Near Temple tube station is the Inner Temple,

where hundreds of barristers have their chambers.

Tucked in one corner is a very surprising courtyard.

In an enclosed space like this, what would you expect to find?

Formality, tradition, boxed balls, perhaps, and straight lines.

But not a bit of it.

Instead of that, you're greeted by this incredibly modern garden,

where a few simple plants are allowed to be themselves,

seed themselves and head for the sky.

It's a daring solution to challenges lots of city gardeners face.

Low rainfall, bright sun bouncing off the buildings and poor soil.

I love it.

But the main attraction at the Inner Temple is its three-acre garden.

Down on the lawn are some beautiful old trees.

London planes, mulberries,

and one of my favourites, this stunning chitalpa.

At the top of the garden are new borders, island beds,

brimming with annuals,

and some of the best you're likely to see anywhere.

The planting is soft, romantic, feminine,

and yet completely original.

It has this dreamlike quality,

in complete contrast to the solidity of the buildings that surround it.

And it's not just barristers who can enjoy this beautiful place.

It's you and me too.

If you're planning a visit to London,

the Inner Temple Gardens are open to the public weekdays only,

between 12 and three, but may be closed for special events.

Regent's Park and St Dunstan's are open all year,

though St Dunstan's is closed for three days over Christmas.

Finally, the Serpentine Pavilion will be in Hyde Park

until 16th October, and it's open every day from ten until six.

Here are some other gardens outside London that are also free.

The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh is world renowned

for its vast collection of plants,

and with over 70 acres of garden to explore,

there is always something to see.

Sheffield Botanical Gardens are well worth a visit, too,

and their borders look amazing at this time of year.

And if you're on holiday down in Devon,

why not call in at the University of Exeter?

Streatham Campus is an unexpected treat.

For more details, go to our website.

Have a look at this.

You know how, often, when you buy parsley or any other herb in

a pot, if you look at it carefully, you'll see

it's lots of little seedlings, none of which are very big.

But if you grow it yourself, this is what it should be like.

It should be a big plant, and if you rummage in there,

you can see the individual plants are really quite substantial,

and they have a deep taproot.

It's a member of the carrot family, and it wants to be substantial.

The advantage of that is you can make lots of cuttings

and it grows back, it'll last for months and months.

And you can be generous with it.

You can take yourself a really... decent clump of parsley, and you can

make pesto with it, you can do all sorts, and it looks lovely.

Now is a really good time to sow parsley, and if you plant it

out in September, it will last all winter, into next spring.

And there are lots of other jobs

that we could be getting on with this weekend.

Now is the best time to make new strawberry plants from old.

They're throwing out runners very vigorously,

and if you follow the runner from the parent,

you come to a plantlet.

Peg this first plantlet down.

You can either do this over the soil or fill a pot with compost

and peg it onto the compost.

After about three weeks, this will have developed vigorous roots

of its own, and it can be cut free from the parent

and provide you with a new plant to replenish your stock.

With the warm, wet weather, weeds are growing really fast,

and to keep your paths clear,

you can use the traditional old knife method.

This is thorough, but time consuming.

Strimming has an instant effect, and is quicker,

but the weeds also return quickly.

Or there's my favourite method. Burning will kill the top growth,

weaken the roots

and keep the weeds at bay for a month or more.

Dahlias are starting to look magnificent,

but unfortunately, earwigs think they taste rather good, too.

The best way to deter them is to provide a resting place for

the earwigs during the day, because they're nocturnal.

If you set up an upside-down pot on a bamboo cane

and fill the pot with straw, the earwigs will go in at dawn

and you can come along and remove them, along with the straw,

and take them as far away from your dahlias as possible.

But don't kill them, cos they do a lot of good,

particularly eating aphids.

Hopefully, that'll prove irresistible to any passing earwigs.

And that's it for tonight's programme.

I'm afraid we shan't be back next week,

because it's the athletics, but join me here at Longmeadow

in two weeks' time at the normal hour of 8.30.

Until then, goodbye.

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