Episode 19 Gardeners' World

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World. And the Bank Holiday weekend

is traditionally the time when you can really tackle something,

and get on with those jobs that you don't really have time to finish during a normal weekend.

But what I would say is -

don't be too busy. Use this opportunity to revel in

the last of the best of summer.

Heavy soil can make a wild-flower meadow tricky. But this week,

I'll be selecting flowering plants

that compete with even the most vigorous grasses.

Carol is off to the Welsh valleys

to share veg-growing tips on an allotment with an ex-mining community.

And they don't have to grow leeks?

No, they don't. They're not compulsory!

We ask plant-hunter Tom Hart Dyke to seek out some exotic plants

that will survive our winters.

So peaceful!

Although not all of them will need a cuddle to ward off the cold.

This is one of my favourite bits of the garden, yet, in many ways,

it's the least gardened of the whole of Long Meadow. It's got

this hut in, which is where I come and write on a nice day,

and it's private, it's secluded, and it's got real charm.

I like this piece of garden because of the way it feels.

Some spaces just have the right vibe. It's to do with proportion and space.

The tulips in April are followed in May by cow parsley,

and the grass grows straight and tall.

But by July, it is starting to lose its freshness.

Although I think it's lovely, I would like more flowering plants,

so I'm planning to make a wild-flower meadow here.

But the first thing I've got to do, whatever happens, is cut this grass and clear it away.

It's really important if you cut long grass at this time of year

not to leave it lying as a mulch on the ground, because all that will happen is that it will suppress

all the delicate plants and grasses, you'll get bare patches,

and next year, you'll have thuggish weeds and the coarsest grass.

That will lose that light, ethereal quality that makes it so beautiful

in spring and early summer. Get that on there.

Now, having cut this, raked it, cleared it, I can leave it.

The problem I have in here is we don't really have any wild flowers.

I've got a few bulbs I put in, but not much else,

because the ground is so rich and heavy. Conventional wisdom says

you can't have a wild-flower meadow with rich soil.

You need low nutrients so that the grass doesn't take over.

But it can be done. You can just do it round a tree,

or in a corner of the garden where you want it to look natural

and be fresh, yet also have flowers. And that's what I'm going to do here.

I'm going to make, essentially, a wet wild-flower meadow.

'And talking of wet, it's beginning to look like rain...'

Nigel! Come on!

'..so I think I'll go indoors for a bit.'

These are the Salvia guaranitica that I took as cuttings

four weeks ago now, and they've grown really strongly and well.

I took nearly all the leaves off, so all this foliage is new

and they're turning a bit yellow, so they're exhausting the nutrients they've got in the pots,

so it's time to pot them on. When you take a cutting, you use a really gritty mixture,

but that's a bit short on nutrients, so they will need pecking up.

Now, you can see, look at that, fabulous root system.

All those roots have grown in the last few weeks,

so those are healthy new plants.

Three new plants for, what? Five minutes' work, if that.

I'm going to just break that open... like that. That's the one.

See all that grit falling out.

And then gently tease those apart, like that,

keeping as many roots on as possible. There we go.

Now, it is miraculous that it's grown those roots,

and a little bit of grass too, entirely on its own.

And that's cost absolutely nothing.

And with cuttings, you can produce hundreds and hundreds of plants

from your own garden for no cost,

hardly any time or trouble, and you don't need any kit either.

So I'll pot these up into a slightly richer mix.

Salvia guaranitica actually does pretty well in heavier conditions than a lot of Salvias.

So this is a mix with some homemade compost

and a bit of pearlite for drainage. So we'll put that in there.

And these will grow on now until next spring.

So they get nice strong plants. In fact, I'll be able to take cuttings from these

about next February/March, and in that process, that will clip them back and make them more compact,

then they'll regrow and I'll plant them out after the last frost.

So that will become a really big, strong plant in the garden for next summer. Right,

these seven will now go back in the greenhouse,

I'll keep them well watered. And as long as they're warm enough,

they'll go on growing almost till Christmas,

because they respond to heat, rather than light.

Outside in the garden here at Long Meadow,

we can get frost as late as early June and as early as September.

So it's quite tricky. We have to watch things really from now and protect them to a degree.

But down at the South coast, just 100 or so miles further south, it's much, much better.

And Tom Hart Dyke has been to the gardens at Abbotsbury, on the Dorset coast,

where they have an amazing collection of exotic plants.

'As a plant-nut teenager with no driving licence,

'there was only one way to get to the gardens I wanted to see - by push-bike.'

So in 1995, I cycled for two days to get from my home in Kent

to Abbotsbury in Dorset.

This is my first and most lasting memory of these wonderful, wonderful gardens.

This is the...

It's from North Iran and Georgia.

And look at the light streaming through this expanding crown.

Catkins just dangling down from the top.

It screams, "Touch me."

It's so tactile, with the high knobbly knees here

and this wonderful deeply fissured bark lower down.

And just a little mini hug here gives you an idea of how round

the girth is on this tree. And...so peaceful.

And also, a peck for good measure.

My horticultural socks have been knocked completely and utterly sideways.

This is the oldest part of the Abbotsbury garden,

the old kitchen garden, going back to 1765.

And look at the difference now, with this tropical cottage garden effect

that's been created here. Some of the finest and oldest Trachycarpus fortunei in the country.

We're looking at 200-year-old examples. And look in front of me, the Agapanthus from South Africa,

the Cannas from South America, the Cosmos from Central Mexico.

And behind me here, we've got, from Brazil,

Verbena bonariensis, in this sort of bedding planting scheme

that's been created here.

A really good selection of plants in the main entrance to the garden.

The gardening team here are blessed with the most amazing climate.

Who better to tell me about the secrets of the gardens?

The wonderful creator, Steve Griffith, has been working here for 20 years.

You inspired me at a young age, Steve. At 19,

I came here to see this garden and because of seeing your fantastic place with a wide range of plants,

you inspired me to go abroad because to me, coming to Abbotsbury, I saw

all corners of the globe in just a few acres.

One thing I've always wanted to ask you is...

you've got a lovely microclimate here, English Channel's just a few steps away,

but what have you done to increase the range of plants that grow here?

Well, getting the microclimate right is really important.

We have to fill the holes from the shelter belt that got damaged in the big storm in 1990,

so we did lots of tree planting.

We've got a range of home oak trees, which keep the leaves on in the winter

and they trap warm air and stop radiation frost coming in,

keeping it a bit warmer, just a few degrees.

And, of course, we generally have more average hours of sunshine

on this part of the coast, which gives us a long growing season,

and the plants tend to harden off and ripen off for the coming winter,

and it all combines to create a magnificent microclimate.

Do you use the knowledge of where these plants originally grow

to improve your husbandry here at Abbotsbury, to have this wonderful range of plants?

Well, yeah, of course.

I mean, if I see something, perhaps, from the Himalayas and China

that grows in a warm, temperate forest with lots of humidity and moisture,

then I'll put it right down the bottom of the valley,

where it is a bit like that.

Plants from the Southern hemisphere - Australia, New Zealand -

will be on a more open site, gets the sun on it all day.

So you use the topography of the land in the garden

to find the right place for the plant.

Now, Steve, there's so much stuff here that grabs my horticultural eyes,

but I have to say this, to me, is an old friend.

I saw this two years ago in Bolivia - Fuchsia boliviana.

To 25 feet tall

on these wonderful, wonderful sloping cliffs in the Amazon.

Where did you get yours from?

Ours was a cutting off a...

From a friend that had it as a house plant, basically.

-A different story, then!

-Yes. Not quite as exciting.

Not quite exciting.

Now, the key thing for me to ask you is that...

Is that in the ground?

Is that lifted during the winter months?

That one's been out for two winters, well wrapped up, protected.

No damage at all?

Oh, yeah, the top's been burnt off

and a lot of that is this year's growth. So it has been hammered. But, er...

But it's flowering on this year's wood,

so you could say it doesn't matter that it gets burnt at the top.

I always take insurance cuttings

and have a few plants under glass for the winter, should we lose it.

So it's a matter of keeping the balance right, just in case.

There are many plants here in the garden

that I haven't seen actually in the wild.

The most exciting one for me today that I've discovered

is this plant, the Giant Busy Lizzie.

From North Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda,

it is a hardy - to minus 10 to 12 degrees Celsius - plant,

in part-shade to full sun with good drainage.

Everybody should be growing this splendid plant.

Look at the stems on this. I hear this is one of your favourite plants here.

Well, it is. I've been collecting bamboos for quite a few years now

and to see them start to mature is fantastic.

Look here at his mottling on these new leafy bracts.

It is really ornamental.

It is and it's amazing to think that this is all

this season's growth, so it's grown, what?

Three, four metres already

and it's still got another few metres to go yet.

But bear in mind, this is a deep soil,

which is full of moisture and leaf litter.

In most gardens, it would be smaller and slower-growing, is that right?

I think it... Yeah, if you provide the good growing conditions

and work in some manure or something and keep the ground moist, it'll keep on putting on good growth.

In a long, hot summer, they'll put up huge canes.

It takes time to build up maturity and then they'll start to go for it.

When you close your eyes and you hear the rustling of the leaves,

you expect a panda to fly past you.

It just really does transport you to the other part of the world.

It's brilliant.

Yet again, 16 years since I was here as a teenager,

this garden has inspired me.

And it's taught me one basic thing -

research your plants' cultural needs and your garden will blossom.

It has been astonishingly dry here all August.

But nevertheless, the beans are doing fine.

They like lots of water,

so I put plenty of compost underneath them.

We've been picking them for ages, they're producing lots of flowers, and with any luck

they'll go on producing lovely, long beans right into November.

The onions are pretty much dry now.

They've been on the rack for three, four weeks

and you can tell that when the tops are dried right back, that's ready.

Now, we don't plait these.

We'll cut the roots off, cut the tops off,

chuck 'em in a basket and hang them up and they'll store all winter.

Now, the ground they came from, I've put in French beans

and I've got empty ground here.

But you can't always fill ground at this time of year with more vegetables.

There's only so much rocket for winter salad

that you can sow and eat.

And yet you don't necessarily want to leave it empty,

because if we have a mild winter, that will fill up with weeds

and that's just more work.

So this is the perfect moment to sow green manure.

And I've got some Hungarian grazing rye,

which I'll put in the end here, where the Charlotte potatoes were.

Now, green manure works on the principle of growing a crop

which feeds the soil rather than you.

Because the roots work into the ground and give organic matter

and the top growth can either go on the compost heap

or be cut, wilted and dug back into the soil.

You leave it for a few weeks and then you sow onto that.

And the plant that you sow

takes goodness from the decomposing green manure.

Also, Hungarian grazing rye is brilliant for breaking up heavy ground.

And this, which has not had as much compost as other parts, is ideal.

You can see it's fairly rough ground.

Now, some people like to sow it in rows, which you can do.

Personally, I think you just can broadcast it...

..and it'll come up.

And as with most things, don't sow it too thickly.

Just sprinkle it on...

..and each seed produces quite a robust plant.

And the great thing about it, it has very dense, fibrous roots.

And they get in there and they break the soil up

and they add a really good bulk of organic material.

And weeds don't get a look in. They won't have a chance.

And it really is as simple as that.

And by feeding the soil,

it's a very modest investment for a huge payback.

Next year, that will benefit as much as if I had dug it deeply

and put on a load of manure.

This site is in its first year

and as a veg plot goes, it's not bad -

I'm pleased, pleased with the way it's gone. But it will get better.

And anyway, as a vegetable grower, you're always learning.

I've been doing it for ages now and yet,

every year, there's something new that changes the way I go about it.

One of the good things - one of the many good things -

about allotments is that you have other people around you

that can share knowledge.

And they have a real community spirit about their veg growing.

And Carol has been to a community in the South Welsh valleys

that has fantastic allotments.

Abertillery in Wales once had a thriving mining community.

But as the mining industry began to dwindle during '80s,

for some people in this town,

their allotments became both a focus and an escape.

The Bishop Street Allotments, sat amongst the old workers' houses,

are still tended by some of those miners.

Today, the glut of awards for this site is testimony

to the gardening skills of some of the miners and other people

who grow this produce on this beautiful site.

Every allotment has a star performer.

And on this site, it's Jack Davies.

Your plot is phenomenal.

Yeah. Not doing bad at all, really.

Even if I say so myself!

I'm sure everybody does!

In fact, I know everybody does,

cos haven't you won Best Plot in the whole allotments?

Quite a few times, yeah. I have, yeah.

Yeah, well, it's magnificent, it truly is.

How long have you been here?

I'd say 20, 20-plus years.

Right.

And when you came, was it all sorted and everything straightened out?

Oh, no. I had to put a lot of hard work in.

-I double-dug it from the top to the bottom.

-Yeah.

And renewed it well and I haven't looked back since.

-These I recognised straight away. Carrots.

-That's right.

And they're up in the air.

I put them up in the air because they do advocate that the carrot fly will not go, er...

-higher than 18 inches.

-Yeah, that's what they say.

That's what they say, but I've done it a couple of years

and it works well.

Can we have a look, then?

Cos they're pretty thickly-sown, aren't they?

Oh, I just chuck the packet in, you know?

-What? A whole packet?

-Yeah, just spread them out, like.

So you use some of them thin...

I like them young like this, you know?

They're good eating then, like.

You can't beat that on your plate.

Oh, that's beautiful. So clean and fresh and, as you say...

-There's no carrot fly there at all.

-None whatsoever.

-I think those might have to come home with me, don't you?

-Well, why not?

Jack's not the only gardener on these allotments

to have picked up a trick or two.

Kath Chivers grows totally organically

and has a beautiful, naturalistic plot,

where she loves to experiment with different ways of growing.

You've got a strange sort of heap of straw

in the middle of your allotment!

Oh, yeah. That's the last two years as well, I do my potatoes under straw.

First of all I do just a little trench, about two inches,

put the straw on it, then lay the potatoes

and put the straw on top, about a foot, foot and a half,

and I just let it grow on its own

because the moisture is always there underneath.

The straw keeps it wet all the time.

So is there no earthing up? You don't have to...

-No, nothing at all.

-And what's your crop like?

The ones I had this year, they were huge. Huge potatoes, yeah!

I'll tell you what, Kath, it's a very, very happy allotment.

Oh, thank you very much.

Karen Beckerton and her dad are only 12 months into their new plot,

but they're already reaping its rewards.

Dad was poorly a little while back.

He had a stroke, so we decided that a bit of exercise,

-a bit of fresh air...

-Yeah.

..and a new hobby for both of us and we're both really enjoying it.

Well, I think you've done brilliantly,

but I know you've got this idea, which is just so innovative.

-Where did you get it?

-That's right, a bit of recycling.

Take an old milk carton, and the line is even there to cut round.

Cut it away, turn the bit upside down,

and then you've got a little hole here

so that you can put water into the reservoir at the bottom.

What a brilliant idea that is!

There you go, and you can even hang that up.

You could, couldn't you? On the side of your shed, decorate that.

So do you notice any difference between the men's plots and the women's?

Yes, the men plant more formally in straight rows.

-Yeah, and ours are crooked!

-LAUGHTER

What makes the Bishop Street Allotments so special?

I think it's camaraderie, the friendship.

We're all together, we involve new people as soon as they come on.

And for people who are just starting up,

it must be wonderful to have the benefit of all your experience.

Well, we get all the help of the experience, you know.

I think that encourages new people to come in.

There's nothing worse than not being accepted.

They're accepted as soon as they come in and we don't get leavers.

And they don't have to grow leeks!

-LAUGHTER

-No, they don't. It's not compulsory!

This place really epitomises what allotment life is all about -

it's about history, passion,

it's about being close to the earth,

and it's about being amongst friends and sharing.

Now that I've raked up all the grass,

this wet flower meadow is ready to be planted up.

Although it's as dry as a bone now,

this ground is actually really rather heavy and damp.

A conventional wild-flower meadow wouldn't work here at all

because the grass grows too strongly,

so what I'm doing is choosing my plants carefully

so they can cope with the muscularity of the grass as it develops.

I'm starting with primroses, which are underneath the apple tree.

Primroses like woodland

and hedgerow, so a little bit of shade, a little bit damp.

And they will grow and flower

before the grass gets established in about March, April time.

So I'm putting a drift under here.

You can use plugs like I've got here.

You get these in trays and they look like a mass,

but each one is an individual plant that's been grown on,

it's got a nice root system.

The advantage of this is it costs pence, not pounds,

and also they're very easy to plant. Just simply, with a trowel,

make a slit...if you can in this hard ground, and just wedge them in.

Just take that one out, pop that in and that'll be fine.

So it's very quick to build up multiple plants.

I want to establish a clump of meadowsweet here on this side,

because this is damper. We've got the shade of the hedge,

you can see moss on the ground, which implies dampness.

Now, at the moment, it looks insignificant,

just a little plug like that growing,

but meadowsweet or Filipendula

will grow five to six feet tall in the right conditions,

so easily able to cope with the most robust grass around it.

The danger is it's a bit robust itself,

so I'll just put a few little clumps around this area

and be prepared to weed it out if need be.

As it grows, it develops quite woody stems

and those carry great plumes, white plumes of flower.

Very distinctive and very strong.

You can buy wild flowers from some garden centres.

Otherwise, you can find plenty of specialist suppliers online.

And this... is the Devil's-bit scabious,

and it's called the Devil's-bit scabious

because it was used for all kinds of ailments.

The roots were made into concoctions for coughs and colds

and all manner of things, and it was said that the Devil

was so jealous of its healing powers that he bit off a root,

and like all scabious, it has dense little tuffets of flower.

There's a temptation to squeeze these plugs in to fit the hole,

but that'll just damage the roots,

so I'll make a larger hole there, pop that in.

Now, I'm aware that this is just a start

and there'll be bulbs to add and more plants,

and this will evolve with a little bit of attention and care

over the next two or even three years.

But that, that's the fun of it.

It's a project and that's what gardening's all about.

However, if your focus is much more on this weekend,

here are some jobs to be doing right now.

At this time of year,

one's carefully grown brassicas can be ravaged

by the brutal depredations of the cabbage white caterpillar.

This comes in two forms, the large or the small -

the large, which is yellow and black,

and the small, which is deceptively green

and merges into the background of an otherwise healthy leaf.

You have to remove them before they remove all the foliage.

The best way to do it is just to go round every day

and pick them off by hand.

What you do with them after that is up to you.

Dahlias are one of the stars of the garden,

but to keep them flowering as long as possible,

it is important to deadhead them, practically daily.

When the flowers have finished, they form a conical, pointed bud,

and that's what you should cut off. If the bud is round and plump,

then it's a flower that's yet to open, so obviously leave that on.

If in doubt, wait a few days, but keep checking them.

The more you deadhead, the more they will flower.

All citrus plants

will produce flowers and fruit right round the year,

so they need constant attention, but they don't like being overwatered.

The solution is to give them a liquid feed at this time of year,

once a fortnight.

One high in potash is best, like comfrey or liquid seaweed.

That feeding can then be tailed back as we go into winter.

A job I probably should have done by now is to cut this marjoram.

We've got the yellow and the green marjoram.

Because, to get the best of the new growth for herbs,

you need to cut it regularly and not let it flower.

However, the bees LOVE the flowers,

so by leaving them on we've had a mass of insects.

If you remember, I planted up this basin here

with herbs to give a little mini herb garden

and it's done very well on the whole.

What I am going to do now is to cut this back.

Particularly thyme, if you want to keep harvesting it,

which you can do right into winter,

you want soft new growth,

otherwise you get woody bits in your soups and stews

and that's not so good.

So, as it finishes flowering,

just take its topknot

and cut across...like that.

Now, when you're cutting back thyme, you can't cut into old, dry wood.

It won't regenerate.

So the rule of thumb is cut back TO some growth,

however small it is, and then it will regrow from that point.

That's only a little job, but I've got lots else to be getting on with,

but no more time,

so I'll see you back here at Longmeadow

at the same time next week. Till then, bye-bye.

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