Episode 6 Gardeners' World

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World

and the most glorious spring day here at Long Meadow.

In my ornamental vegetable garden,

I will be showing you how veg can be as beautiful as they are delicious.

Euphorbias are so versatile, that there is virtually one

for every part of every garden.

Daffodils are now coming to an end, but Carol discovers

some older varieties that you can grow to extend the season.

Full of personality, look at the way they're just moving in the wind.

Rachel helps a gardener whose borders are in danger of being overwhelmed with shrubs.

It's not a thing of great beauty yet!

But it will be.

One of the many delights of this time of year is

the way that deciduous hedges are coming in to new leaf.

These are hornbeam, and we have masses of it

at Long Meadow. It does well in our soil.

It has brown leaves all winter, and then these fall off

because they are pushed aside by these new leaf buds

that are coming through and opening out.

In a few weeks' time, this will be a green wall of that incredible

lustrous green you get in May and at the end of April.

It frames what we call the cricket pitch,

which is a fanciful name, really, because we only once

had a cricket net up here where the children played,

but that hasn't been the case for ten years.

We let the grass grow long and we have put bulbs into it.

You can see there are daffodils nearly over,

we have had crocus and a few fritillaries.

That's what I want to increase today

because fritillaries do really well on our soil.

This is Fritillaria meleagris, which is the Snake's Head fritillary.

I bought these in flower from the internet

and you can see they are a delicate bundle.

To buy them in flower like that costs about £22 for 50

whereas to buy them as bulbs which you would plant in autumn

would be £25 for 100, so roughly twice the price.

The real advantage is that you can see what it looks like.

You can put them in now and plan the way that they look.

Also, you get that instant gratification, let's be honest.

It's nice to see results straightaway.

I'm planting them with a trowel, just chopping out the soil

and popping them gently in, and they are quite fragile things.

Snake's Head fritillaries will naturalise

and there are wonderful examples.

Magdalen College, Oxford, has a meadow full of fritillaries

and at Cricklade, there's fields of them

and they spread by seed and that is what I want to happen here.

But it's a slow process, probably not in my lifetime

will they become a great meadow, but they will spread gradually.

That's fine like that.

And...

..what they like is ground that doesn't dry out in summer.

They are from water meadows so that they flood in winter

and then they flower

and then the grass grows up and gets cut for hay

and the seed, of course, has fallen by then and it is spread on the ground

and the haymaking process spreads it.

In gardening terms, all that means is if you don't want long grass,

then don't plant bulbs into it

because if you cut the leaves off before they set seed

you will find that all your bulbs will disappear.

One of the things that I particularly like about fritillaries is that they extend the bulb season.

They're a link between the early spring bulbs

and then the great burgeoning of spring.

The daffodils here are almost over now

and were by the beginning of the month.

Increasingly modern varieties of daffodils tend to finish quickly,

but Carol has been to the Garden House in Devon

where they have a mass of extraordinary daffodils

and particularly some that are very good for extending the season.

Narcissus are synonymous with spring.

It is the Latin name for a genus of bulbs in the amaryllis family,

flowering mainly in the spring and native to Europe and North Africa.

Usually we call them daffodils and when those big, vibrant,

rich yellow flowers appear, we know spring has arrived.

Right now, though, many of them are coming to the end of their show.

But luckily, there is a whole range of old heritage varieties that are just coming into their prime.

Matt Bishop, curator of the Garden House in North Devon,

has a real passion for these very special daffodils.

These are a far cry from modern cultivars where

the breeding trend has been towards bigger, brighter, bolder plants.

These are a narcissus called Stella and these are subtle, their segments

twist and they've got an irregularity about them.

If you look across a whole clump,

between each flower, there is some variation in shape.

They're not all standardised, are they?

Not at all, and that really is part of their charm.

Full of personality, look at the way they are just moving in the wind.

It is just absolutely beautiful.

Heritage varieties are difficult to categorise.

They were generally grown before daffodils became really popular

and commonplace with commercial breeders,

who developed the shape and colours with which we are familiar today.

I think that Narcissus cyclamineus has to be my all-time favourite.

It is a very un-daffodil-like daffodil, isn't it?

But tremendously important because of its features.

Its swept-back, rather frightened-looking flowers -

the breeders have been trying to incorporate this feature

into their hybrids. They are

going over a bit, but are already fattening their seed capsules.

So lots of these are of self-sown?

They do, they seed around. We started with a small patch,

and we have ended up with a great drift.

It's difficult to buy as dry bulbs, isn't it, cos the bulbs are so tiny.

It is much better in many ways to buy them in pots

when they are in flower.

You can see what you've got

-and you stand a chance of getting your own seed.

-Exactly, yes.

Although it's true to say heritage varieties are unusual and special,

with a bit of determination, most of them can be tracked down.

Sulphur Phoenix is an antique daffodil with no trumpet.

It dates back at least to the 1800s.

I love its poise, its gentle colouring and the way in which

each petal is separate from the rest,

completely un-muddled.

If you love trumpet daffodils,

what could be more refined than Narcissus johnstonii?

Its deportment is impeccable

and its colour as pale as the best lemon souffle.

One of the most exciting parts of all this is creating your own daffodil,

crossing to different ones.

Taking chance out of the equation rather than just leaving it

to nature, you can have a go yourself and cross to parents that

you have picked out and hopefully they will inherit the features

you like from either parent.

First of all you have to have one growing.

Here is one I potted earlier, so I am going to

do the sacrilege bit, if you're a poor daffodil flower.

I am snipping off all of the segments from the outside

and that allows better access to the trumpet.

Now I am going to insert the scissors down the edge of the corona

and insert them just inside there like that

and snip all the way around.

-It's real surgery, isn't it?

-It is, a bit.

Now they are all exposed, what I'm going to do...

All those important sexual bits?

Yes, I am going to remove those anthers.

The anthers are the bits that bear the pollen?

Yeah. And by removing them before they have shed the pollen,

I am completely eliminating any chances of self-pollination.

So your stigma's there in the middle?

Yes, ready to receive pollen.

-Ready and waiting!

-Now we get down and dirty.

What we're going to do now is to

reveal the anthers which we're going to apply to the stigma.

Yank off this here and just get those anthers exposed

and the anthers are covered in nice, fluffy pollen.

We're going to apply the pollen to the stigma, and that is about it.

Right.

So you're going to wait for that seed capsule to form?

Yes and probably in about six to eight weeks, just as the leaves are

dying down, you will notice the seed capsule start to yellow.

They fatten and go inflated.

I pick it off, bring it indoors

and put it in a small container to actually collect the seed in

a place where you know it is and then sow it immediately.

When do you expect it to germinate?

Next spring,

and then possibly four or five years afterwards, the first flowers.

It can be well worth the wait?

Absolutely.

The Garden House is a truly wonderful garden.

Other great gardens where you can see spring bulbs

at their very best right now are

Coton Manor Gardens in Northampton...

..the Guy L Wilson Garden in Londonderry in Northern Ireland...

..and Abbey House Gardens in Wiltshire.

I think the best way to maintain a good display of daffodils

is to do nothing, don't deadhead them and

certainly don't cut the leaves back, let the bulbs develop,

let them seed themselves, and at the beginning of July,

you can clear them away, and that way they go on year after year.

These bulbs, the imperial fritillaries, have been threatening

to flower for weeks and they've got that particular

catty foxy smell.

Some people hate it, but I love it because I associate it

with the flowers, but now they are flowering,

and aren't they just amazing? The most dramatic plant we grow.

I love the erythronium with them, too.

I was up here last night till 8.45

pruning these limes, trying to get it done by today.

I didn't have time to clear up, but certainly, yesterday evening,

there were no tulips in the spring garden,

yet this morning, the West Point are starting to flower.

I love the way at this time of year, you turn your back for

five minutes and bang! Flowers everywhere.

The crab apple blossom has appeared just this morning - fantastic.

I am planting an avenue of artichokes

here in the ornamental vegetable garden.

This started out life as our veg patch and gradually over the years,

it's got more and more ornamental

but it's still a working vegetable garden

and for all the fastigiate yews and the box hedging,

these beds grow food and food that we like to eat.

And I like that, it's fine, because it's still very much

a working vegetable garden, but the only proviso is

it's to look good, so we're choosing our varieties

for ornamental value as well as taste.

It's not difficult, you're not having to make

many compromises, because so many vegetables look fantastic.

Think of ruby chard and purple podded peas and artichokes and

climbing beans and then you can put in sweet peas

and things like that, too.

By having them along here on either side, I have this ribbon

and I'm planting a particular variety, called Violetta di Chioggia

and these are the flowers.

Don't they look amazing?

Isn't that beautiful?

They taste really good, too, and I love artichokes.

So you've got the perfect combination, and it doesn't

matter what variety you choose,

if you're planting them, they do like rich, well-drained soil.

My soil has had 20 years of muck

and a little bit of magic to improve it and it was good to start with.

By the way, aren't these wrapped beautifully?

They come and they are wrapped up

in moss,

isn't that lovely?

Just take that off.

And I hardly need to dig, I could almost use my hands,

but I just turn the soil over, I don't add anything underneath them

because it is so rich, but if you have very sandy soil,

add plenty of goodness and if it is very heavy, you do need

to lighten it up, because they don't like sitting in cold, wet soil.

When I've have planted them all,

I'll water them all in and give them a mulch.

For the first year, I want them to concentrate on developing

strong roots, so they will throw up a stem with a large flower on it.

You should cut that off before it gets too big,

and if they do develop other flowers, which they will later on,

eat them small, don't let them get bigger than a golf-ball size

so that the roots get really strong, that means they will over-winter

much better, and next year you'll get a better harvest.

I think artichokes last what, three, four years,

and then you need to replace them,

but because there are so easy to propagate, that isn't a problem.

Whatever you do with your veg and however you grow them,

you'll have to deal with the same problems that we all have to do,

however common they may be.

One of the many e-mails and letters we got

in response to it our garden dilemmas was from Ian Purdy

and he says very simply, "How do you prevent carrot fly?"

Well as it happens, Ian, I will be sowing carrots next week,

so watch next week's programme and we will cover that.

But I have had many e-mails about shrubs.

And a couple about shrubs going out of control.

So, Rachel went along to see if she could help rein them back in.

She's off to meet Moyra Gardener who lives in Surrey.

BELL RINGS

-Hello, Moyra!

-Rachel!

Hi. Very nice to meet you too.

-Please come on in.

-Here to see the garden.

So how long have you been here?

Well, I came in September, so just six months.

I wanted a small house with a large garden. And here we are.

-And you succeeded!

-Yes. Yes.

But there are some issues I have got.

You don't have to be in a rush.

You have been here since September, so you've been through an autumn and

a winter, but you've not yet seen it in spring and summer.

So there might be things that perhaps don't look promising now but will be

beautiful and you might fall in love with them

and other things that don't work,

but I know there are areas you really want to tackle now.

Well, I have already made a start on this part of the border.

-I have taken out something I thought was dead.

-Right.

I have created some space, but I am not sure what to do next.

This doesn't look very good, rather ugly and in the way.

No. I agree with you completely.

This is a Choisya ternata,

which is a great workhorse of a plant,

but you have got one enormous one.

You've got this other one at the front.

It's in completely the wrong place because it is

right here at the front, so you will be forever hacking back at it

to try and keep it away from the edge of the grass.

-Yes.

-So that is something we could get rid of. Will we take that now?

-OK!

-Let's do it.

Whoa!

-Great. I'm just going to drag this off onto the lawn.

-OK.

This big choisya at the back, and that really is quite a mature thing.

-Yeah.

-It's sort of trying to take over.

This is just really encroaching here on the viburnums.

It's not giving this room to breathe,

so I think we should try and clear this back here.

Do it after flowering so you don't lose the flowers.

We'll lose a certain amount this year,

but you can see the little buds -

wait for those lovely flowers, and when they've finished,

-then you can do it.

-But I can take off some of this that's been frosted?

Yes, I would take that back now because it doesn't look great,

-particularly over on that side, I think.

-Right.

If I'm cutting down into the wood,

how far down can I go down into the old wood?

They are very forgiving, so you can cut them back very hard.

You could do it all in one go, but I think a better approach is to

do it over three years and take back a third of the oldest stems

each year, right down to base so it invigorates the plant

and sends up new growth.

Well, let's step back and have a look,

it's always a good plan before we go too far.

It's looking really much better now.

A really nice shape and I can see how this viburnum looks better in this context.

As a backdrop - certainly I don't want to lose it at the moment.

It's a good start, and look at this space we've created.

-Yeah.

-Lots of this, let's get rid of all of this.

Lovely room. Erm, to put in something more interesting

that's going to give me colour for a longer period of the year.

Exactly, so shall we put some perennials through the front?

-That would be exciting, yeah.

-Make it a bit less shrubby.

I saw you had these lovely big clumps of hemerocallis

and thought, we'll raid those and use some of them over there.

-Is this what I call day lily?

-Yes.

They go from pale yellows right through rich oranges

to burnt umber, those sort of colours. So, very nice.

If you get your spade, just push it in right through the middle.

That's it, there we go.

-I'll come down this side..

-Yes, come the other way.

And give it a good...

Will it go?

-Yes!

-Well done, excellent.

They are fibrous roots, but they're quite solid, those roots, as well.

No, no, that feels right.

Perfect. Go for it again.

-Yes!

-Oh, yeah... And this is the right time to divide them?

Yep, fine to move them now. You can do it in the autumn as well when they finish flowering,

but there's something about the vigour in their growth at this time of year.

They sort of want to grow, so I quite like moving them now.

So, Moira, we could've divided these up even smaller, but I think

if we keep them to fairly reasonable clumps, you're going to have

flower colour substantially this year without waiting too long.

OK. That's great.

-And I know that you've also been out spending, haven't you?

-Yes.

-Little spend.

Yes, I've indulged myself with some of those herbaceous plants in those

strong colours, reds and yellows and so on, that I really like.

This looks like a great selection.

I've even put some blue there.

That's veronica and achillea.

Gorgeous. So you've got yellows, things like the helenium there.

You've got rudbeckia and then an achillea.

Oh, this is terracotta. This I grow masses of.

It's fantastic.

It's got really dark, rusty red flowers.

As they age, they get paler.

I love that horizontal shape of the flowers, fantastic in a mixed bed.

-Good.

-You know what I was wondering?

Because these look like fairly

good plants, I'm just going to squeeze.

let's have a look at the rootball.

What we could do, actually,

-is get a couple of plants out of this as well.

-Oh, right.

Divide this. We'll double them up.

-Yeah. I like that idea.

-Just pull that now.

-Wow!

-OK?

-Yeah.

So again we can just bulk that up.

So that would make a really nice clump if we put four pieces together.

This is the really fun bit when we try and get

the combination of shapes, textures and colours just right.

-I think it's looking good, Moyra.

-I'm absolutely delighted.

I really love the way, even the leaves already, the lovely contrast,

the feathery and the silver and the bright green.

So, hmm, yeah, I'm really excited. It's going to be a great summer.

It looked to me as though Rachel was having a good time there.

Getting stuck in.

Now, this is the Wall Garden.

I was in here last week sowing some hardy annuals

and also repairing the grass.

Look, it seems to be taking well.

That's knitting, starting to grow.

Another week, I'll mow that and we'll be able

to tread on it absolutely as normal.

The Wall Garden is where we eat, where the children

have played as they've grown up.

I want to add some euphorbias.

There are so many different species of euphorbia.

There is certainly one you can put anywhere in your garden.

This is martinii "Tiny Tim"...

which doesn't get very big.

It probably grows, 12, 18, maybe two foot in our rich soil.

Which is fine, because it's in front of the rows, fairly near

the path - not too near because, as with all euphorbias,

it does have a sap that can irritate your skin.

If you've got sensitive skin, it's probably a good idea to wear gloves.

Now, you don't need to prepare the soil.

Martinii grows on any good free-draining fairly rich soil in

full-sun or part-shade, which pretty much fits this description.

This is west-facing.

I'll pop that in like that.

Of course, the point of euphorbias, particularly

at this time of year, is that they have that electric zing.

This is beautiful lime green.

Which no other plants quite gets the same.

These aren't the flowers, these are the bracts around the outside.

Now, that as a group will make a really good impact.

A group is always more effective than the same number of plants dotted about.

I'm going to make another group of these euphorbias here.

This is Euphorbia cyparissias "Fens Ruby".

You can see it's got this amazing

vivid lime green top and these pink, flush through

with tawny coloured stems.

Cyprissias is a euphorbia that grows well

in free-drained, very bright, sunny conditions.

I just want to show you while I'm here

about the sap,

because it is very spectacular.

If I cut a piece off, if I cut that out, you do see the latex.

That sappy latex there, that's bleeding out.

That's what will irritate your skin. If I got it on my horny old hands,

it wouldn't hurt at all,

but if I then rubbed my face or eyes, that would irritate it.

So if you get that on your skin

just wash it off with cold water straightaway.

If you want to take a cutting from euphorbias,

you can do, but dip them in charcoal.

That stops the bleeding and they will root quite easily.

Quite possible to take good cuttings from most euphorbias.

Right, I'll put that in the barrow. I'll stick that in the soil so

there's no risk of getting that on my skin and I'll plant these up.

While I'm putting these in the ground, here are some ideas for other jobs you can do this weekend.

If you have sweet peas ready to plant outside,

it should be safe to do so now,

especially if you live in the South or a sheltered area.

Put each at the base of the tripod, water them in well and pinch out

and pinch out growing tips to ensure a nice bushy plant.

If you haven't sown any seeds yet, it's not too late to do so if

you put the seeds directly into the soil at the base of each tripod.

Just over a month ago, I sowed some salad seeds

in the greenhouse to use the space before it gets filled with tomatoes.

Well, the job for the weekend is to enjoy it.

Pick them when they are very young,

cos they're not going to be there for long

and have a beautifully delicate salad.

I said that there are euphorbias for everywhere. In fact, it's one of

the largest genus in the world. There are over 2,000 species,

and into the Jewel Garden here, I'm adding

a suitably rich colour. This is Euphorbia wulfenii,

which is a sub species of Euphorbia characias.

As you can see, it's got these fabulous cymes as these are called -

these great towers of flower.

And a really beautiful, elegant,

grey-blue foliage.

That will go in there.

It lasts a long time.

It's not just a spring flower.

This will flower on into summer.

It gives structure to the border cos this will grow a full four, five foot tall.

And where you've got the space, it's a magnificent plant.

Quite long-lasting, and when the flowers have finished,

cut them back to the ground, cut them right back down,

and then that will throw up a new shoot which will flower

next year.

Because it does this constantly, you have a succession of flowering

shoots as well as the foliage, which looks great in autumn too.

Firm that in.

Now, the Jewel Garden is going to feature

at Gardeners' World Live in June,

where we will be making a show garden

that captures the essence of it.

It's not going to be a replica,

but hopefully it will get the spirit.

So if you come along to Gardeners' World Live,

then you can get a first-hand view of this Jewel Garden.

Right. That is going in there, and I've got another one of my favourite euphorbias over here.

This is Euphorbia griffithii "Fireglow".

You can see it's got this

incredible orange-pink inflorescence and pink stems.

We did have it for years

all over the Jewel Garden, and I thought last winter

had killed it, but look.

Just in the last few days, it's popped up out the hedge.

Obviously, the hedge has protected it.

It's coming out the side there. We've even got it

pulling out the side.

That's the sort of scale it can grow.

It'll come up like this, this great stems with their

pinky, ruby, coral-coloured glow.

Of course, it wants to flower with this fantastic fiery flame.

I'll keep that flame burning by adding some more griffithii into this part of the Jewel Garden.

Lots to do, no more time to do it in, I'm afraid. That's the end of today's programme.

But next week we've got an hour-long Easter programme.

It does start half an hour earlier.

Eight o'clock to nine o'clock here at Long Meadow.

So, join me then. Bye-bye.

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