Episode 22 Gardeners' World

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners' World.

Today is the Autumn Equinox.

Which means we have exactly the same amount of day and night,

meaning that from tomorrow things start to tick slowly towards winter.

Time is getting shorter,

and there's just a slight sense that we need to get on with things.

Come on, Nige! Don't look at me like that, come on!

This is the best time to plant out biennials

for great display next year.

So this week, I'm putting in some foxgloves that I've grown from seed.

Carol is at Glebe Cottage,

with ideas on how to fill an empty border for free.

Well, I'm going to start off by growing loads of stuff from seed.

Much of which is ready to collect right now.

And Rachel visits a garden in Berkshire which proves

that roses are often at their very best

when they're at their most natural.

This is a classic combination growing around

and through an apple tree,

wonderful, milky-white flowers.

Oh, it's sensational.

Good boy.

Put that to one side.

A month ago I sowed some green manure - Hungarian grazing rye.

And this is it. It's come up well,

despite being rather cold.

Although it's a little sparse there's nothing to worry about,

because what I'm really interested in is the root growth,

which will be forming a good web underneath the soil, bulking it up,

adding organic matter,

and also providing a cover above the ground to stop weeds growing.

So that's fine and set for the winter.

What I want to sow now are some onions

that will grow steadily over the winter

and then give me an early crop next year.

First of all, I think I need to rake that over.

We had potatoes in here which I lifted.

These were Charlotte and they've been good.

But when I lifted the potatoes, I added compost and forked it over

and although it's rather dry, that's good soil.

Now overwintering onions are sometimes called Japanese onions.

Because a lot of them have Japanese varieties.

I've got a couple of varieties I have grown before, are reliable

and I like the taste of, and taste is always the important thing.

I've got two varieties, a white onion called Radar.

Good, really tough, but quite a delicate taste

which I like very much, and also Electric Red.

Red onions add colour, glamour and they tend to be slightly sweeter.

The best thing to do is just dib holes...

about four or five inches apart.

Obviously the wider apart they are, the bigger the bulb.

And I don't like onions too big - a tennis ball is perfectly big enough.

Just do a row along there.

These will be ready for harvesting about June or early July,

so just a month or six weeks ahead of main crop.

But the theory is that you store your main crop now,

and they will last you through to about April or May,

and then these follow on in succession.

Now there's very little else to do,

but do keep an eye on them, because birds come along

and see this thing wriggling up, and they pull at it.

And it's quite common to come down in the morning

and find them scattered around, and that is birds.

And the best way to counter that is to cover them with fleece

and weigh them down, until you see good green shoots,

which means the roots have grown and anchored into the soil.

But it doesn't always happen, so I won't fleece them straight away.

Now, you dib a hole to put it in, because there's a basal plate

that the roots grow from, and if you just ram it into the soil

and almost screw into the ground

there's a real danger of damaging that and affecting root growth.

I quite often use my finger instead of a dibber,

although you could argue that my fingers were made for dibbing.

Now, I'm watering these in

just to make sure that the soil, which is very dry,

firms around the bulbs.

So I'm using a rose rather than a direct jet

which will just knock the bulbs out of the holes.

Right. That's the job done.

And nothing else to do now except to keep them weeded.

Now I set my carrots here back in April and broadcast them,

and the reason for broadcasting was so I didn't have to thin.

And the reason I didn't want to thin was that attracts carrot fly.

It didn't stop them, but if you just dig them up when you need them,

the risk of getting damaged by carrot fly is much less

and they've been a good crop this year.

We've been eating them for the last couple of months.

These are not award-winning, but they're a good size

and very tasty this year. And that's what I grow them for.

There for the kitchen, not for the show bench.

Now, above all, this is a season of harvest,

but there are things we can be planning for next year.

And down at Glebe Cottage, Carol is showing us

how to fill empty spaces for free.

There are very few opportunities at Glebe Cottage

to do some completely new planting.

I mean, we've been in the garden now

for more than 30 years and it's pretty well-established.

But we've built these new raised beds

that sort of tumble down the hillside.

There are four of them altogether.

And they are presenting this opportunity

to plant all manner of wonderful things.

But the whole backbone of these beds is going to be formed from plants

I'll propagate myself from the rest of the garden.

And I'm going to begin that process by growing loads of stuff from seed.

And some of it I'm collecting today.

Well, it's not exactly the perfect day for collecting seeds.

What you want is a really dry, warm, sunny day.

And preferably still too, but nonetheless

this is my last chance to gather seed of this glorious dark red astrantia.

It is one of my favourite perennials anyway,

but this crimson one is really a particular favourite.

Now here the whole thing's gone brown,

and it's probably just about dry enough to collect.

So what I'm going to do is snip it very, very carefully.

Put it into my paper bag.

Oh...don't want to lose ONE seed!

And now I hope the seeds will just fall into the bag

and I'll be able to sow them straight away.

Well, these are such precious things, I've got everything ready here,

and first of all I want to discover just what's in here.

Now, a lot of people would just save their astrantia seed

and sow it the following spring, but I invariably sow it immediately,

because you're in with two chances.

Occasionally, it will germinate for you straight away.

Sometimes, after a few weeks, you just know it's not going to work.

But don't despair.

I just put the seed tray outside

to experience really severe cold and leave it there all winter,

because it's the cold that actually breaks the dormancy.

So all I'm going to do is cover the seeds with a bit of grit,

no compost at all.

I'll label that, and then I'll water it,

and instead of watering it from above,

which will swish that seed all over the place,

I'll let it imbibe some water

from shoving it in a washing-up bowl or something like that.

And just imagine how many seedlings I'm going to have

to enhance these beds.

Now another plant that I'm so anxious to get into these beds

is Hesperis matronalis -

sweet rocket, dame's violet.

It's got all these vernacular names that allude to its beautiful perfume.

And I've got a particularly fine plant this year.

It was...oh, just scrumptious.

And it was so prolific that instead of picking each stem individually

when it went to seed, I just took my shears and took the lot down.

It's going to give me, I know, absolutely masses of seed.

Collect your seed at the very point at which it's thoroughly dry,

and if it would work in nature,

it's almost certainly going to work for you.

Now, I'm going to sow this lot, and by the spring I'll have small plants.

And I can start to decide just where I'm going to plant it.

Hesperis is a short-lived perennial. You'll get a few years out of it.

Some people treat it as a biennial.

I'm also going to include lashings of hardy annuals.

I love plants like nigella and calendula,

and their seeds are just ready for collection.

And because they're hardy annuals,

I don't have to wait until the spring to sow them.

I can sow them directly into these beds later on this autumn,

and that means that they'll establish really well,

and they'll make good, strong plants and flower much earlier next year.

As well as hardy annuals,

there are lots of half-hardy annuals to collect.

This cosmos has just been out of this world.

I sowed it quite early this year, February or March.

What I'm going to do, instead of randomly taking any old seed heads,

is select the plant that I think has got the most beautiful flowers.

Although I'm not guaranteed exactly the same flowers next year,

I'm in with a fighting chance if I collect things from here.

I'm going to dry them in a paper bag.

It needs to be cool, it needs to be dark,

so I know that these flowers are going to grace those new beds.

I won't see any bare soil at all, because in-between all my perennials

and all the other things that are going in there,

I'm going to have great clouds of this lovely, lovely flower.

There is a huge satisfaction in raising any plant from seed

and if you collect it yourself, that tops everything.

Everything in this bay has been grown from seed

and everything in the cold frames, either seed or cuttings.

Some of it will be planted next spring

and we'll look after it over the winter,

but some of it, like these foxgloves,

are ready to go out into the garden now.

I'm putting these foxgloves here, in the walled garden.

This is north-facing so it's fairly shady,

although it actually gets light in the afternoon, early morning.

Foxgloves are woodland plants.

This is a variety called Sutton's Apricot.

I'm always looking for apricot flowers,

because it's a tricky colour.

That balance between orange and pink

when it's dead right is lovely, but very often gets a bit muddy.

However, these should be good

and they exactly fit in with the palette of the walled garden,

which is all pastels and soft colours.

Planting them couldn't be easier. I've planted a little group here.

Just make a hole, there's a bit of allium coming up, there.

You can see, that's got a good root system.

It's been grown in a compost with plenty of leaf mould added,

which replicates the whole woodland environment they are happiest in.

And just pop that in, like that. Put one back here.

These should flower next May and June

and all winter, they'll just sit there.

The whole point about biennials

is that you sow the seed immediately after flowering,

which in this case is sort of May, June time.

They develop foliage and good root system,

and wait and bide their time over winter. The soil is now still warm,

so in autumn the roots are still growing. Next spring,

when the light starts to increase and the soil warms up,

they can grow vigorously from a head start.

And these should be nice and tall, about three to four foot tall,

lots of flowers and lots of seed,

and then the process will start again.

OK. What I intend to do is spread these around the whole garden,

rather than just have them in one piece.

But I have got other biennials I want to add in here too.

The second biennial I'm planting is the Verbascum 'Polarsommer'.

This has great, grey, felted leaves, and a marvellous spire of flower,

covered in little yellow flowers, and that combination

will work perfectly in here with the other pastel colours.

The final biennial I'm adding to the walled garden is onopordum.

This giant thistle is one of the most statuesque plants

that you can ever grow.

It has milky, glaucous foliage,

and then purple flowers

carried up to 12 feet high.

What I'm looking to do, as well as work in height and groupings,

is get the colour right.

All the colours in the walled garden are pastels,

dominated by the roses, and everything works off that.

That's fine if your roses flower,

but this one here, Felicite Perpetue, I planted in spring

and it didn't produce any flowers at all.

It didn't grow very well

because it was so cold and dry throughout May and June here.

However, it's picked up.

We've got some stems here, that's seven foot tall,

and I can train that in and tie it in before winter,

so it doesn't blow around, and hopefully next spring

it will grow, and then we'll get good flowers next summer.

In general, my roses at Long Meadow

haven't been at their best this year.

However, Rachel's been to a garden

where the roses have been glorious all summer long.

I see a lot of rose gardens, but this one is just a little bit special,

because there's none of that really managed formality.

Here, the roses have room to breathe.

They can romp up into trees and tumble over walls.

And best of all, they look completely at home in this environment.

Fiona Ambler has created this garden over 16 years,

but was lucky enough to inherit an orchard

and some beautiful brick and flint walls,

creating a wonderful backdrop for roses.

I started on the garden bit by bit, really.

We levelled a bit and built a wall,

and planted a few more flowers and a rose.

The first rose I planted was called Compassion.

I remember my mother saying, "Are you going to plant any roses?"

I said, "There's just one I really like, I shall put Compassion in."

She's never stopped teasing me since,

because I must have planted 300 since then.

What is it now that you've put in so many roses,

that you look for when you put in a rose?

I'm very clean on the ramblers and the climbers,

because we've got a lot of old apple trees in the old orchard.

Anyone that looks good not just once in the year, but through the year.

The spinosissima, the Scotch Burnet roses, are very good,

because the leaves always look good.

They have hips in the autumn and as a plus, they sucker,

so your clump of roses will get forever bigger,

which, to me, is always a plus.

I'm interested in how other people put roses together.

Here, for example, you've got this county rose.

Which county is this one?

-That's Hertfordshire.

-And, of course, Bonica

on the other side, the paler pink,

-which is also a very good hedging rose.

-Yes, absolutely.

What made you combine those two?

The thinking is to get the right height and shape

to fill the space that you've got.

The second thing is to make sure the colours blend in together.

The flowers are the shortest bit of the year,

so the shape of the shrub, the colour of the leaves

have all got to look good together.

This doesn't feel like a rose garden so much as a garden full of roses,

all used to great effect in lots of different ways.

Fiona takes all the stuffiness out of roses

by combining them with perennials and grasses

to create a scene as soft and naturalistic as a wild flower meadow.

Not many of us have room for a big, rambling rose in the garden

but this is a classic combination -

growing a rambler through an apple tree.

They're both members of the rosaceae family.

This one's called Astra Desmond, wonderful milky white flowers.

You'd get first

the blossom from the apple,

then the fruits, then this incredible display.

They flower only once in the year, but when it does,

oh, it's sensational.

'Roses don't always spring to mind when it comes to hedging,

'but used informally, many make very good hedges, both high and low,

'with flowers, hips and thorns to deter unwelcome visitors.'

I must say this pink is really earning its keep in the garden,

isn't it? Which one is this?

This is Apple Blossom.

Appropriately, as we're in an orchard.

It's fantastic with the clematis, this viticella

growing through it as well.

-Is that something you do quite a lot?

-Yes.

The viticella fit well into roses

and they're flowering at the same time quite often.

The great thing with viticellas is,

because you prune them hard at the start of the year and take off

this top growth. They're easy to prune. A perfect companion.

That's right. On the whole, a smaller flowered clematis

look better with roses. The large flowered ones

make more of a show on their own, don't they?

This is absolutely beautiful.

Fiona makes the very best of her roses of every type.

I think the garden shows what versatile plants they are,

even in this very naturalistic setting.

The message seems to be, choose the right plant for the right place

and then let them do their thing.

I do so agree with that general philosophy.

If a plant is happy it will always look beautiful

and a beautiful rose is as lovely as anything the garden can offer.

I think this Rosa 'Complicata' has been happy cos it's looked good.

I pruned it last March, let light and air into it,

and it's responded with a mass of its lovely, single, pink flowers.

And now we've got good hips

that'll look better for a month or two before they fade.

Now there's a subsidiary result of the pruning

which are these very vigorous new growths

that will bear next year's flowers.

They also have another role,

to provide cuttings from which I can make new plants.

If you want to make a rose garden,

producing your own plants from cuttings is cost free

and really not difficult at all.

They respond well to it. These would be hardwood cuttings.

The easiest way to take these is to take a really long stem.

The one I've grabbed is a good one, not too thin.

I'm going to cut right down in the bottom there.

Get in here.

Cut there. I'll take one more while I'm about it.

There's a nice on at the back.

There we go.

That can come out.

Right.

Ow, just pricked myself! Never mind. That's roses.

Now we'll make these into cuttings.

What you're looking for is material about the thickness of a pencil.

You can use normal prunings.

There's nothing special about this

other than it's fresh, new growth that's hardened off.

Hardening off means that this growth at the top,

which has happened in the last month or so,

is too soft. If you can bend it, it won't make a good hardwood cutting.

We'll take the tops off, probably down to there,

and that can go.

Then I'm going to cut this into about six to eight inch lengths.

The bottom of the cutting's always straight and the top's at an angle.

I cut below a bud. If I cut there...

..that's one bottom.

And cut above a bud at an angle. Just there.

Cut straight bottom, above there. That's two.

Straight underneath there and above there. I've got three out of that.

Then strip the leaves off. Those leaves come off like that.

I actually just strip that off.

So what I've got is a straight stem with a flat bottom

and a sloping top.

Two reasons for doing a sloping top.

The first is so you know it's the top

because if you jiggle it around and get it upside-down,

at least you know you won't put it in the wrong way round.

And also, if it gets very wet, the water won't sit on the bud

and possibly rot it. It'll run off like a sloping roof.

Now, unless you're going to do this very, very quickly, as I am,

you should just pop them into a glass of water

and keep them nice and fresh.

I'm just going to make a little slit trench along here.

And it is literally just like that.

This is a little, tiny nursery bed and if you are going to propagate,

whether it be from seed or cuttings or division,

it's very useful to have a corner of the garden where you can put plants

to grow them on.

OK, there we go.

And I'm going to add a little grit along the bottom.

All cuttings root better with good drainage. I'll just pop some grit...

Sharp sand will do the job as well.

There we go.

And then space them out at about six-inch intervals.

Now remember, that's the bottom, that's the top.

So up against the edge.

And in fact with hardwood cuttings, a 50% success rate is good.

The residue of prickles are there

so every time I push down, I'm getting spiked!

And then all we do is pull this back.

And you can see why I made the trench as it is,

because it's so easy to pull back along there.

Pull back there.

And just gently firm them down around them.

Like that.

Label it, water it and then just keep it weeded.

Now, the roots won't start to form until next spring.

But next October,

I could have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven

new Rosa 'Complicata' plants.

A reasonable size that have cost me, what, ten minutes of my time?

Here are some other jobs that you can do this weekend.

'This is the best to plant bulbs in containers

'as well as out into the ground.

'I'm putting daffodils, this is a variety called Tete-a-tete,

'on a layer of gritty compost. And I cover them up

'and put a layer of crocus. These are Crocus tomassinianus.

'And then cover those up.

'The crocus will flower first in February and March,

'and as they die back, the daffodils will push past them

'to flower gloriously in April.

'Now is the perfect time

'to scratch your lawn.

'I'm using a rake designed specifically for the job

'but a wire rake will do just as well,

'and whatever you use,

'give it a really vigorous scratch,

'and this will take away all dead grass and moss

'and let in water, light and air.

'It will look rough for a week or two but next spring,

'the grass will grow back all the better. And if you do it now,

'you won't do it any damage before winter comes.'

It's been a difficult year for tomatoes. Not really enough sun.

However, the grafted tomatoes

that I've grown down this end of the greenhouse

have been very prolific. I will say that for them.

Now, this is part of an experiment that we're doing,

which is the difference between grafted and non-grafted tomatoes.

If you've grown grafted tomatoes and have any thoughts or observations,

we really would like to hear from you. If you go to our website,

and through our "gardening dilemmas" email address,

contact us with whatever experiences you have,

we can share them all together in a few weeks' time.

Now, I'm away next week so we shan't be at Long Meadow.

However, there will be Gardeners' World at its normal time,

and it's a special programme with the rest of the team

coming from the RHS gardens around the country.

And then we're back here in a fortnight's time.

So, see you then. Bye-bye.

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