Episode 26 Gardeners' World

This way. Good boy!

It's time to start preparing the garden for winter.

Giving your plants some care and attention now

will get them off to a flying start next spring.

Carol visits a garden packed with tropical plants, and finds out

how these exotic specimens are nursed through the very coldest weather.

-So you're going to cut it?

-Yes!

-Oh, no, you do it!

And I visit Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens in South Africa,

where many of our favourite garden plants originate.

And seeing them growing in their natural habitat

is the best guide to making them feel at home in our own gardens.

Hello.

You know, it's really hard on a lovely October's day

to put yourself in a winter mindset,

but I'm doing that today

because there are plants that I want to protect from winter

and also make sure that they go into next spring at their very best.

Up. Good boy.

Now, it's a game, he jumps on the table easily.

About a year ago, he jumped up on this table with fuchsias on it,

wagged his tail enthusiastically

and just swept them all to the floor,

and I lost a great chunk of one of the two that we had at the time.

Anyway, I salvaged that, made some cuttings

and now, a year later, I've got five extra little plants.

But, I have to confess, the fuchsias have done really badly this year,

it's been very odd for them.

They didn't start to flower at all until the end of August,

when normally they're finishing by the end of August.

and now they're getting going.

Not terribly spectacularly, but at least they've got some flowers.

And just about now

is when I'm thinking of bringing them in under cover

because they need protection from the worst of the frost.

In fact, an awful lot of things need gathering in now in the garden,

particularly in pots, before the weather gets too bad,

because there's that terrible moment when you come down in the morning,

everything's white with frost

and you realise you've definitely lost some plants.

So, prevention, rather than cure.

Those are your cuttings, let's take them to the greenhouse.

Come on, you come, too. Come on.

What I would really like is a conservatory so I could enjoy

flowers like fuchsias as long as they're at their very best,

but I haven't got one,

so a greenhouse has to be the next best thing.

I do have a heater,

because the idea is to keep it above five all the time.

And the best way to keep it slightly warm, or rather, not cold,

is to insulate it, and that's what I'm going to do today.

And I'm using bubble wrap.

It was actually invented - believe it or not - as wallpaper.

And then, for reasons hard to fathom,

nobody seemed to be using it on their walls.

So, they thought of using it as insulation for greenhouses,

and that genuinely was its first application.

And, of course, the beauty of bubble wrap,

apart from the lovely sound it makes when you pop it,

is that it lets light through as well as keeping heat in.

The idea is to create a pattern, like a clothes pattern.

So, you put the pieces up in their relevant places each autumn,

take them down each spring, store them over summer,

then just pull them out and reuse them the following year.

The secret of this is to get high-quality sticky tape,

two-inch sticky tape.

If you get cheaper gaffer tape, it'll do the job,

but it won't stay stuck, and then you come down

on a January morning and find the whole lot

has collapsed in on itself.

Although this might seem like very elaborate measures

to protect plants,

we don't grow many tender plants here that Longmeadow.

Our winters are either too cold or too wet for many to thrive.

However, I know that there are parts of the country

where you can grow a much wider range of plants,

and Carol has been to Camberwell in South London to visit a garden

that relishes in growing as many tropical plants as possible.

I've travelled to bustling South London to meet Clive Pankhurst

who's nurtured his tropical garden for the last five years.

With the days shortening and cooler weather around the corner,

I'm here to see how he maintains his exotic collection

through the ravages of winter.

-Hiya, Clive.

-Hi, Carol.

You couldn't be anywhere but in the heart of London, could you?

Certainly not from the sound of it.

-Building works, planes...

-Trains passing by - the lot!

But the look of it, you know,

I felt like I needed my machete when I came in here,

but it looks so wonderful.

-Oh, thank you.

-It's just so beautiful.

But look at these fabulous leaves, isn't that dramatic?

It's so pretty, isn't it? It's all from seeds sown in the spring.

-This is Ricinus communis, yes?

-Yes.

-Castor oil plant.

Zanzi Palm is the other name for it.

-Zanzi Palm, yes.

-Oh, right!

And so beautiful with the Solanum, I think.

It's a lovely contrast, this is a kangaroo apple.

-Solanum laciniatum, isn't it?

-Indeed, yes.

So, related to tomato.

It's a tender perennial but when the frosts come

it'll all be down to the ground, nothing left.

It's about saving the seed and taking some insurance and cuttings.

We treat it as a bedding plant, really.

-Yeah, big bedding plant!

-Very big, yes.

So, no chance of protecting it, but you can start it again next year.

Absolutely.

I really feel like I should be wearing a pith helmet!

Well, how about this?

That is just out of this world.

Doesn't it look so perfectly at home and happy?

I think they have such beautiful leaves,

and a really jungly kind of feel.

It's a very hardy plant.

This came to me from my mother-in-law's neighbours from Grimsby

and if it can survive in Grimsby it can survive anywhere, really.

-You don't get much harder than that!

-Well, exactly.

-And as a corner piece it's just perfect, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I've got lots of other hardy plants with that kind of jungle feel,

-so come on through the undergrowth.

-Thank you very much.

This is Clerodendrum bungei, isn't it?

What a name, yes.

It's gorgeous, but what a plant, it's spectacular, isn't it?

And if you see the flowers, beautiful flowers, as well.

Oh! It's magnificent.

And people used to reckon this was tender,

but it's perfectly hardy, isn't it?

If it was very cold it'd be cut back to the ground and come again,

but I just tidy it up every year and it's OK.

And what an association with this lovely Arundo donax.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful plant,

I think a lot of woodwind instruments get their reeds from here, traditionally.

-The ancient Egyptians used to wrap their dead in the leaves...

-Really?!

-And now it's a biofuel, so...

-How do you know that?!

You're not telling me you leave it out?

Oh, yes, it does really well here.

We don't do any type of protection and it just comes up every year.

We just cut it back to the ground and all this is this year.

I think that's proof positive that it's not only a question of geographic area

when it comes to deciding what's tender, what's hardy,

but it's also assessing the microclimate

within your garden, isn't it?

Absolutely, yeah. It's key to understanding your plants.

And it's Clive's deep understanding of his garden

that makes it so successful.

It's exceptionally well sheltered with its own microclimate,

meaning that, unlike in most parts of the country,

Clive doesn't need to protect the crowns of his tree ferns with straw.

But he's taken cuttings from his salvias to make sure

that even if a sharp frost wipes out the parent plants,

he's got replacements for next year.

-That's what you call a truly tender plant, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Which banana is it?

-It's Musa sikkimensis.

I grow both Musa sikkimensis and basjoo,

and I find basjoo's quite hardy here,

but sikkimensis you really need to dig out.

-Can I give you a hand with it?

-Absolutely, use your muscle.

I've got the posh spade!

I suppose the thing is with anything that's truly tender -

you've just got to dig it out of the ground.

Oh, absolutely, and keep it somewhere frost-free.

But then the treatment for this,

because it's going to keep some stem, is that you have got to

make sure that the stem's protected, too, isn't it?

Absolutely, that's the key thing.

-So you're going to cut it?

-Yes!

Oh, no! You do it!

It's too much responsibility!

We're going to give it a hat,

to give it a little bit of extra protection

-You've done this before, haven't you?

-Once or twice!

So you'll do exactly the same thing

with your Musa basjoo,

which is much, much hardier, but it'll stay in the ground.

Absolutely. We'll probably give it a bit of a wigwam as well,

-for a little bit of extra protection.

-Right.

-It's got to suffer out there, and shiver.

-It has.

-So what shall we do next?

-We fleece it.

-Right.

-Got it there.

-That's enough, isn't it?

-Safe now.

-Yeah.

Well, having wrapped the greenhouse for winter,

these should now be completely snug

and probably go on flowering for weeks.

I think one of the really interesting points there,

was that the microclimate of your garden can change dramatically

even just in a few yards, it certainly does here.

So if you don't have a greenhouse

it could be just enough to move a plant

a few yards to a more sheltered spot.

And that will get it through winter.

Right. They'll be fine all winter.

Now, while we're in the greenhouse, have a look at this.

These are the sweet peas that I sowed just last week.

And look, they're all coming up, all germinated,

so that's a really good start,

and augurs well for next summer.

Now, the dahlias are looking really good, and it would be quite wrong

to try and take action now to keep them protected over winter.

I should enjoy the flowers until the last minute,

when frost strikes and blackens them.

Not least because the tubers will go on growing until that moment,

and the bigger the tubers are this autumn,

the better the flowers will be next year.

So, I'll keep these outside, until they get frosted,

and if that's Christmas time, so be it.

However, this Canna has nothing left to offer.

In fact, it didn't have much to offer, all summer.

It's been hopeless. It hated the cold weather.

This is Canna 'Durban', and it should be at least twice the size,

it should still be flowering now in October.

Poor thing has given up, doesn't like it, wants to go home.

If I dig it up now, and get the rhizome out

we can protect it and then give it a better chance next year.

I'm just gently easing it out, so I don't damage the rhizome.

There we go.

Up you come. There we are.

Now, do you see, it's hardly grown out of the pot it was in, actually,

but these are the roots coming off it.

That's a new shoot, that's come up,

but that's pretty much all the growth it's done all summer.

So, let's put that in the wheelbarrow.

That goes in there.

This rather sorry-looking specimen is a Eucomis,

and the top has come off, and all those seeds can be kept.

You see, in there, lots and lots of little seeds.

I'm going to put that to one side

before we do anything else at all.

Pop that down there.

Now...

that has grown from a bulb.

It's a South African plant.

They like wet summers, and in fact,

our fairly heavy soil has been good for them,

even though it's been fairly dry this year.

It's a bulb, and it needs lifting.

Now, if I get in under there...

I've planted it quite deep. There we go.

Now, you can see it's got a root system coming from it.

If I break that up, there's the bulb.

There we go.

By lifting it, I'm protecting it from two possible dangers,

the first is very cold weather, like in last November and December,

and also, a wet winter, which it will hate.

ROBIN TRILLS

Now, I've got another South African plant here.

This is Galtonia.

Galtonia candicans,

which is a bulb.

And if the drainage is really good, and it's not too cold,

can happily stay in the ground and come back year after year.

It's done really well this summer -

wonderful, white flowers, worked really well with the Hostas.

There's one or two little ones still on there,

and that's been flowering since July.

However, I daren't leave it in the ground here, because it's too wet,

even if it's not too cold.

This is the damp garden - it's been a jolly dry damp garden all summer

but I can't bank on that all winter, so that's coming up too.

You see, it's a tiny little bulb,

when you see the size of the flower.

Now, it is as important to store things

in the manner to which they're accustomed, as it is to grow them.

In the case of cannas, they like to be damp.

So it's important not to let them dry out over winter.

The first thing to do is to cut them back.

So, cut off the top growth...

Shake off all loose soil.

Then pack them into spent potting compost, or I use leaf mold.

You can fill a pot with as many different rhizomes as you like,

as long as they're all the same variety

and you've labelled them clearly.

Water them lightly, so they're not wet but slightly moist.

Put them somewhere cool and dark,

and check them every month to make sure it's not drying out.

In the case of Eucomis,

you need to do the opposite.

Cut off the flower spike, and then pot them up

into a very free-draining compost.

Keep them cool and dry.

The same goes for Galtonias.

Cut off the flower spike,

put them in a pot,

and then just keep them dry, is the key thing.

Of course, whilst I'm putting these to bed here,

in their native South Africa,

both the Galtonia and Eucomis are just getting going.

I was in South Africa a few weeks ago,

and whilst I was there,

I went to Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens,

specifically to see some plants

that I grow here at Longmeadow

in their natural environment.

Kirstenbosch is in a stunning location,

rising high onto the eastern slopes of Table Mountain.

It was created nearly 100 years ago

to preserve the native flora of South Africa,

and especially those from the Cape.

It was the first botanic garden in the world

dedicated entirely to native plants.

So, everything here is literally at home.

Although there are thousands of species native to South Africa,

certainly the most iconic is the Protea, or the pin cushion.

At this time of year - in their spring, our autumn -

you see them on the hillside of the fynbos, the mountain scrub.

And some of them have the most amazing way

of reproducing themselves.

They produce big seeds, like Smarties, with a coating.

That coating is irresistible to one ant that lives on the fynbos.

It takes a seed, and takes it back down underground to its nest,

where it eats it,

and then leaves the seed itself, and there the seed waits,

sometimes for up to ten years, until the next big fire.

And the fire triggers germination.

So you have this incredible,

delicate interweaving

between every single element of the ecosystem,

which results in this stupendous flower.

Now, we can't grow Proteas in our own garden,

but there a couple of plants that I want to show you

that we can and do grow.

But the result is very different to here in their natural habitat.

The first is this, Leonotis leonurus.

I grow it in my garden as an annual

for these gorgeous orange flowers.

And I plant it as a seed in April, put it out in June, July,

and by August, it's 6-8ft tall,

with a mass of flower and not many leaves.

Then the first frost kills it stone dead,

and we start again next year from seed.

Here, it's a woody shrub.

This is just one fairly small plant,

completely different to that precious plant

that I nurture back at home.

This is a plant that will be familiar

to lots of UK gardeners for its leaves.

It's called Melianthus major.

But I'll bet not many in the UK will have a plant

that will throw up so many of these flower spikes.

When you see it at home like this,

you realise that what we're growing is a shadow of what it could be.

The climate of the Cape, and especially the extra heat,

are the key to these plants growing so differently.

Summer is long, hot and very dry

and winter is short, mild and reliably rainy.

The weather in their brief spring is variable,

but can often still be wet.

And it's this extra moisture that helps to produce

the amazing displays of colour.

The main reason I came to Cape Town at this time of year

is so I could catch the incredible spring flowers.

They don't last very long here.

And these behind me -

Arctotis, Ursinia, Senecio -

come from the desert.

They only flower when it rains, which can be every few years.

Here at Kirstenbosch, they water regularly, so they flower regularly,

and back at home, we can grow them,

but it's worth remembering where they come from.

They need really good drainage - think of the desert -

and maximum sunshine.

Perhaps the most familiar of all South African plants

are Pelargoniums.

Whilst we grow a wide range here in Britain,

at Kirstenbosch, they have the parents of our commercial varieties,

and these grow quite differently in their native environment.

It is extraordinary to see just how exuberant

these Pelargoniums can be -

this is a scented leaf variety.

And it is positively romping

like an overgrown shrub, through this border.

It just shows you

that what they relish is heat.

We mollycoddle ours and nurse them and grow them in pots,

and we get huge pleasure from them.

But they're always struggling, really.

And perhaps the lesson we can learn

is that to get the very best from our Pelargoniums,

we should grow them in conservatories or greenhouses,

if we've got them.

This is fruticosum, which is creating

these elegant, billowy mounds around the stone,

rather like heather,

and throwing up delicate flowers,

floating above very, very finely cut leaves.

Seeing it like this, makes me first of all just want to have it at home.

I'd love to have this growing in a pot. it won't look like this,

I can't possibly create this effect, but in a pot,

I can get the essence of what I'm seeing here at Kirstenbosch.

These are not the same Pelargonium.

This is a scented leaf type called Old Spice.

But this summer, Pelargoniums haven't done well, it's been too cold.

In fact, they're growing better now

than they have done through July, August and September.

But they're coming to the end of their time -

I need to get them under cover before it gets cold.

I'll probably leave these out for a little bit longer, and risk it,

but I'll take one in, and before I protect it, I'll take some cuttings.

That way I've got insurance -

even if there's a radically hard frost overnight,

I've still got the plant, and some offspring, for next year.

The great thing about Pelargoniums is

they take really easily from cuttings.

So you can afford to be quite cavalier about it.

However, there is one tip you do need to observe.

If you cut between a leaf and a stem,

the chances of it rooting are much, much less than if you get in here.

So if you see, these are breaking off from its stem.

So if I cut in under there,

I've then potentially got about half a dozen cuttings from it.

But you needn't worry, you know this is going to work, more or less,

so you don't have to be too anxious about the process.

Just get in there, do a cut... There we go.

Put that to one side.

And here we have the basis for

one, two, three, four... five cuttings,

and we can take it from there.

I could either cut these with a sharp knife,

but what works just as well is to break them off -

just pull them off like that,

and you get a tiny heel, with a little bit of the stem there.

That tends to aid rooting with any plant.

Now, I've got a mixture here for cuttings.

This is my normal potting mix,

which has got some grit in it, but extra grit.

Mix it up so it's really, really well-drained.

They'll root much easier as a result.

So Mix that up like that -

I need a dibber...

Then, down the edge of the pot -

and they will root the better as a result.

And you can take these any time from spring right through till now.

And I shall certainly take some more cuttings

from the Pelargoniums I keep in the greenhouse,

next April, May, as they start to grow.

And that way, we'll build up.

And you just have this wonderful abundance.

That's that a little job done.

And here are a few other jobs

that you can do this weekend.

Mediterranean plants hate sitting in cold, wet soil over winter.

So improve their drainage by raising containers up on chucks.

This will also save the pot, because in really cold weather,

the soil will freeze, expand and break the pot.

Given sufficient heat,

chillies will go on growing successfully into the new year.

But harvest ripe fruit when they're ready,

otherwise they will inhibit the production of fresh flowers.

Then when you've picked them, y can either eat them fresh,

or dry them to store them for future consumption.

If you need an example of how odd a growing year it is,

you could hardly do better than this pumpkin.

Here we have a completely voluptuous flower,

with a fruit forming behind it, in the middle of October!

It should look like this at the beginning of August.

But because it was so cold, they've really done badly.

However, the tripods have been a good thing. I'd do this again.

Growing squashes and pumpkins up a tripod

is a good way to do grow them if you're short of space.

However, if I leave that, that's never going to form a ripe fruit,

it's too late in the year.

So I'm just going to harvest what I have managed to grow

and then ripen them off,

so at least I can store and eat the meagre bounty

of my pumpkin harvest.

When you harvest them, leave a stem,

because they will store much better with the stem on.

The best plan is to put them in some sunshine

so the skins can thicken, and that way they'll store better.

Well, there's no question -

this is the most miserable pumpkin harvest I've ever had.

Never mind, win some, lose some -

there's always next year.

And there's next week, when I'll be back here at eight o'clock.

So join me then. Bye-bye.

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