Episode 15 Gardeners' World

Hello! Welcome back to Gardeners' World.

It's been four weeks, and during that time it has rained

and it's rained,

and then when it finished raining, it rained some more.

It's been the most appalling summer so far,

but funnily enough, the garden hasn't suffered too much.

Here at Longmeadow, everything has grown. Lots of flowers.

Look at the dahlias, for example. You'd think they need more heat

but they seem to be quite comfortable.

So not anything to be too gloomy about,

but quite a lot of work to do,

and the garden's hitting that stage

which is getting fuller and the richness comes with that fullness,

and then goes right through August and September.

So a lot to do at this point

to get ready to enjoy the rest of summer.

Carol will be celebrating one of the most versatile

and loved of all plant families - the geranium.

It's difficult to go wrong with geraniums.

They just associate themselves so beautifully with other plants.

And Rachel goes back to visit her novice gardeners

at the Didcot army barracks

to see how the community garden there is flowering.

Oh, wow! Ha, look at that!

There's nothing more exciting

than a brand-new garden just beginning to emerge.

And I'll be in the wall garden revamping it and planting it up

so it'll look at its best right into autumn.

And I'll also be sowing veg that will carry me through summer,

as far as possible to the first frost.

BIRDSONG

One of the bits of the garden that's giving me the most pleasure

at the moment is actually one of the least colourful -

it's the grass borders which I planted up just over a year ago,

and they were very sparse

and really nothing much happened last year.

But, boy, it's all happened this year.

And the combination of the different textures

like the Miscanthus, and then you've got the Stipas

with their lovely oaten heads

and the Verbascum's coming up through there.

We've got the Knautia floating through,

the Cephalaria, which is growing enormously tall -

all these different textures, that's the key to it,

are working together and just seem to be having a whale of a time.

It's extraordinary how plants can be enjoying themselves,

and, as a gardener, I did nothing, just stand back and enjoy it myself.

Now, there are lots of good things happening in the wall garden,

so let's be positive.

Fabulous lilies and a general sense of

sort of summer energy coming through.

But, I have to qualify that by saying, the roses,

which should be doing their stuff now, have had a dreadful summer.

The thing to do is to tidy them up. Just go around

and deadhead what needs it and you'll find it's almost everything.

You cut it off and you're not left with very much.

For these old roses, they won't reflower, or, if they do,

it won't be until September and then not very much.

If you've got hybrid teas or floribunda

then it's worth paying lots of attention and they'll keep going,

but I'm afraid for me here in the wall garden,

the roses have not been a success and that is that.

However, let's be positive,

because there's lots you can do, lots you can do now,

to make this part of the garden,

and any part of the garden, look great later in the year.

For example, the sweet rocket,

which was so important in May

and was bright and fresh, is over.

It's a biennial, these are the seedpods.

It's not going to do anything else this year.

I'm going to take most of it out, clear some space,

do a bit of cutting back,

but not destroy the general feel of the garden.

This housekeeping will create the opportunity for new plants,

which will then put on their display later on in summer.

You notice some of these... I'm cutting some, I'm pulling.

There's a bit of regrowth

on some of the sweet rocket which might produce flowers

later in the year, so it's really a question of what's suitable.

That foxglove can come out.

It's like hand weeding.

Actually getting in a border,

you get the feel of it and see where the spaces are

and where they're not, which is equally important.

With a plant like the geraniums,

you can see that they've finished flowering.

If you cut hard at the base - don't leave half the plant,

cut the whole thing down to the ground - that will get light

and air in and it's actually amazing how quickly geraniums regrow.

Of course, this extreme growth,

which has been wet for weeks,

is absolutely ideal for harbouring slugs and snails,

particularly slugs.

We've been inundated with people saying how bad it's been

and what's the best way to deal with them.

So if you've got any particular method that's failsafe,

contact us through our gardening dilemmas.

Otherwise, if you want to find out all the various ways

of approaching the slug and snail problem, go to our website.

Removing dead and congested plants

creates space to replenish and refresh the border.

The plants that I've got to fill these gaps

are all half-hardy annuals.

Half-hardy annuals just simply means it's not frost-resistant.

So these have been grown from seed under glass

and are now ready to go out. And you could buy these anywhere.

So we've got Nicotiana sylvestris.

And this is the enormous tobacco plant

and in the right soil will grow about six foot tall

with these lovely, great, long,

dreadlock-like white trumpets of flower

which smell sort of musty and musky and oily,

especially at night when they've baked in the sun.

We've got two types of cleome -

'Cherry Queen' and 'White Queen'.

Cleome, the spider plant

which has this mad head,

is a bit spiny. It will grow about four or five foot tall,

and, again, just keep flowering.

And the flowers are produced as it goes up

so you don't need to deadhead it. It just keeps coming.

And, finally, Cosmos 'Purity' -

very well-known plant. Rightly so, it's a cracker.

White daisies that again will keep going

until the first frost, so all good-value plants.

I can put a tobacco plant in there

and I'll put some cosmos nearer the front,

and, as for planting, there's no mystery.

You make a hole, you put them in.

You plant them so that that level is about there

and you just gently firm the soil around them,

give them a good soak and let them get on with it.

At this time of year, there's no problem, because it is warming up,

there's plenty of moisture in the ground, they will grow.

These Nicotiana have actually been potted on.

Because the weather was bad, we couldn't plant them out,

therefore they were outgrowing their pots. The big plants

have big root systems, so they've gone into bigger pots.

But it does mean that they're really nice, big, healthy plants.

Obviously, this kind of planting is a slow process.

You want to take your time, and considerate it and move things around,

and it's all part of a long rhythm of planting.

It sometimes can be evaluated over years,

but Rachel has been involved with a project that has been begun

and will see its fruition within one growing season.

That's at Didcot army barracks with a group of first-time gardeners

who've been making a cut flower garden.

She's been back to see how they're getting on.

I must say, I'm really keen to see

how the garden here at Didcot is progressing.

It's been more than four months now since they started work

and the idea is really to enhance the lives, not only of servicemen

here on the barracks, but their families too.

The bare brown plot was sown with annuals

so they would see results quickly and have plants flowering this year.

But they've had the worst weather to contend with

and plants have been slow to get going.

Well, they say mighty oaks from little acorns grow

and it's been about two months since the first seedlings here

started poking out through the soil,

so let's see how they're getting on.

Oh, wow! Ha, look at that!

You see, there is nothing more exciting than a brand-new garden

just beginning to emerge.

Here you are! Hello!

-ALL:

-Hi!

-You ought to be congratulated.

I'm so impressed by what's going on over there, it's fantastic.

-We've got flowers!

-Yeah, you've got flowers! It works!

-Have you enjoyed it?

-Yeah, we've had a lovely time.

It's been real good fun.

Hard work as well, or not too bad?

A lot more work than we thought it would be, but it's nice to learn.

It looks very verdant, lots of green. So we'll go and see that

everything's flowering properly as well, it's not just leaves.

But I think it's great. Let's go and have a look.

-Bring babies, children. All hands on deck!

-Come on, then.

Fraser, are you coming too? Come on then, Fraser.

Right, where shall we start?

There are dahlias at the back. Let's go and have a look at those.

Right, dahlias, what do you think of these, then? Are you happy with them?

Well, they've kind of not grown there,

and they've all grown that side!

What's quite interesting is now that these big trees are fully in leaf,

you can see how far that leaf canopy comes out

and dahlias need really hot, sunny weather.

So although they look fantastic cos there's lots of leaf

and they're very tall, in fact what's happened is that

they've really desperately been searching for some light

and I'd be very surprised if you get any flowers from that.

You might, but they'll be pretty scrawny.

These ones don't look quite so impressive

and you've also got a bit of slug damage on them.

But I think you've a better chance of getting more flower

-there later in the summer.

-Yeah.

-Mmm-hmm.

It's not all bad news, though. We can try to rescue some of them.

I get Amy to cut back the large, leggy dahlias to encourage new side shoots

and although the new stems will be smaller and stockier,

with some strong sunshine they might just straighten up and produce flowers.

Just look how beautiful all this is. Fantastic growth on it.

I had noticed in there you've got some black fly there.

They tend to cluster around these top soft parts at the very tips

and they suck the sap, and that means they can distort the growth

and, in fact, they can spread virus that way as well.

So with a small infestation like this I would just go round

and just brush them off, pull them off.

Just always keep an eye open when you're out in the garden.

The sweet peas have been relishing the wet weather recently

and are romping away.

But stray stems need a bit of encouragement

to make them grow skywards.

I think what's nice about this is I love cut flowers in the house,

but I'm very much a lilies, tulips kind of person and I think

this has broadened my mind a bit as to what other things you can have.

Lots of plants are starting to flower.

The honeywort, Cerinthe major,

is already putting on a show,

and to keep it flowering throughout the summer we cut back a few stems

and give it a foliar feed to ensure new growth remains strong and sturdy.

Well, our novice gardeners are doing incredibly well.

I think they're really beginning to get the hang of it now.

They're getting the gardening bug and they've worked so hard.

I'm very impressed, I must say.

And, yes, we've got a few things in flower,

but I can't wait to see their faces when it really gets going.

Now, most of us have had a fairly difficult time of it trying to grow veg.

It's been a struggle.

My biggest disaster, without question, are the carrots.

Pretty pathetic.

However, it's not too late to sew another batch of carrots

and that's what I'm going to do.

The important thing is not to try and hang on to the shreds

and tatters of the original crop. This has had it.

What I will do is just lift and see what's in there...

See, a magnificent specimen. Such a shame.

These were cosmic purple.

Would have been nice if we had had a crop of purple carrots

because carrots don't have to be orange.

The original ones were purple and white.

And orange ones were only introduced in the 17th century.

What's happened is all this rain on this heavy soil has compacted it.

And that now... See, look at that. I can take a handful of that

and it's just clay, and that's not good for carrots.

So I shall dig the whole thing over, loosen it up and lighten it.

Right, I just want to put this to the record.

This is the sum total of my carrot crop for summer 2012.

Right, that isn't perfect. I mean, it's slightly wet,

slightly claggy, but I think it's more important to get

the seeds in than to wait for perfect conditions,

cos in this summer I don't think they're ever going to come.

But the soil has now got air,

and, as a result, it's really important to stay off it.

Now, I've got two varieties here - Autumn King and Flyaway.

I'm going to sew Autumn King first.

Carrot seeds are small and each carrot wants to be spaced,

ideally, about an inch or two apart.

It's just a question of sprinkling them

as evenly as you can between the boards.

That's it.

Now, that was a rescue mission.

Now for something a little bit more pro-active

because now is the time to plant our leeks.

I do stress that actually now is the time to sew

or plant an awful lot of things.

If you've had a disaster in your veg garden,

you can re-do almost anything.

And if you haven't grown any veg at all yet, doesn't matter.

Lots you can do and get a harvest

in late August and September and October.

I'm going to plant out my leeks.

Now, I sewed these earlier on in spring

but you can buy leek plants from garden centres

so you're not going to miss out if you haven't sewn any.

Two ways to do this - either plant them out in modules or pots like this.

You can see I sewed them in a deep pot

so you've got a nice strong root system. I'll show you that.

There we go. You can see the roots starting to pile up

and coil up at the bottom of the pot.

Certainly time to put them out.

And so that, if it's planted out in one unit, when I dig it up

I dig them up as a unit and although the plants will be smaller,

they'll be perfectly tasty and very easy to manage,

and I do that quite a lot.

Or I can break it up and plant each one as a bare root seedling

and I think that's what I'm going to do here.

Now, when I've planted out all my leeks,

I'm going to sew some French beans.

And French beans are perfect for sewing now.

They like heat and like to grow away strongly,

and I bet if you've sewn them a few months ago,

they'll be sitting there looking very unhappy.

Put them in the ground now, they'll grow fast

and you'll have a really good harvest in September,

IF we get some sun, but that's beyond our control.

I'll tell you a plant that has done really well this year,

despite the rain, is the geranium.

And Carol is celebrating the wild geranium

as well as all the wonderful cottage garden varieties

in a visit to East Lambrook Manor in Somerset.

Once upon a time this was the site of two collieries.

Since their closure in 1869, Mother Nature's stepped in,

covering the landscape in a host of plants.

Over 160 different species have established themselves here

and are among them are several species of geranium.

Most of us have one or two geraniums in our gardens

but this is one of the wild antecedents of those geraniums.

It's Geranium pratense

and it's surely one of our most beautiful wildflowers.

Pratense means "of meadows" and it used to be a plant of hay meadows,

growing alongside grasses and other beautiful perennial flowers.

Geoffrey Grigson, the well-known botanist, described it as,

"Haunting the verges like an encampment of gypsies."

And that has the pure romance of this plant.

It's called meadow cranesbill.

And that's because of the shape of its seed heads

which resemble the head and the beak of a crane.

"Geranos" is the Greek for a crane.

And most geraniums have five simple petals.

And on the back is this lovely star-shaped calyx.

Sometimes you can even see it through their translucent petals.

This is the sort of picture that we'd all love to emulate,

but you could never recreate anything just as beautiful as this.

Plants woman and author Margery Fish famously said,

"When in doubt, plant a geranium,"

and that's exactly what she did.

Margery Fish moved to East Lambrook Manor

just before the Second World War and set to work.

She created a garden which, to this day,

remains THE iconic cottage garden.

Head gardener Mark Stainer has worked here since 1975.

He knows every inch of the place.

Geraniums are very important to this garden.

She started collecting geraniums way back in the 1940s.

As a novice gardener, she would have been thrilled

how they could split up and distributed around the garden,

-filling nooks and crannies.

-Isn't that 'Mrs Kendall Clark?'

-It is.

It's a seedling. These have just seeded.

I haven't planted these. They've just arrived there.

I often think this is the presence of Mrs Fish in the garden.

You don't see her, but she's here,

filling in parts that she would like to see filled.

And Mrs Fish collected geraniums all her life,

she wrote about them enthusiastically in her books,

and it's through her writings that she's inspired so many people

in their love of geraniums.

-Including me.

-Including you, yes, absolutely.

The beauty of geraniums

is the foliage blends in with any herbaceous border

and the flowers seem to combine well with any colour scheme.

I think if you've got a new border, plant a few geraniums in,

and very shortly you've got that air of permanence.

Geraniums come from all over the Northern Hemisphere,

from the Far East, right through Asia and Europe and across to America.

And they've evolved with different sorts of habitats

so you find geraniums that do brilliantly well in shade

and some that are completely at home out in baking sun.

Now, down here in the ditch garden, one geranium is really predominant.

It's in complete control.

This is Geranium oxonianum.

It'll grow in dense shade or out in full sun.

But when it gets above its station,

you can take the secateurs or the shears to it

and just chop it down to the ground.

Within a few weeks, the foliage will be back

and after that, it will flower again with gay abandon.

I've never met this lovely geranium before today.

This is one called 'Tiny Monster'.

It's one of a brand-new range of hybrids

that have been developed during the last 15 or 20 years.

And it's a geranium that adores a sunny position.

Its parents are Geranium sanguineum, the 'Bloody Cranesbill'

and Geranium psilostemon.

It's got this really endearing habit of lolloping forwards

and making these great bit clouds of foliage

smothered in big magenta flowers.

When Margery Fish started using geraniums,

her repertoire would have been very limited.

But she would have loved some of the wonderful new cultivars and selections

that are available today.

This dark-leafed form of pratense wouldn't have been around then.

But she would have honed in on it

and probably used it in just the same sort of way.

Doesn't it look lovely

contrasting with these straight spikes of the Sisyrinchium

and these bright ones here?

I think the reason we gardeners love geraniums so much

is they're so amenable and they just associate themselves

so beautifully with other plants.

I think, really, it's difficult to go wrong with geraniums.

This is the conclusion of a trial that I began in spring.

Last year's new potatoes were very disappointing. They grew sort of OK,

but the taste was non-existent and they broke up when they were cooked.

And that was a result of too much cold, too little water,

and irregular water.

This year, the growing conditions have been different.

But I really wanted to see which was the best new potato,

both for crop, health, and also, most importantly, for taste.

So I'm digging a selection from each of the six varieties I've grown.

I'm going to taste them later on.

Now, while I'm doing this,

here are some other jobs you can do this weekend.

It's been a tough year for tomatoes.

But there's every chance of green tomatoes ripening

as soon as we get some sun.

But to help this, remove the lower leaves from each plant,

up to the second truss of tomatoes.

This means the lowest truss will get maximum sun and air

which will speed up ripening

and also reduce the risk of fungal diseases.

Because of the rain that we've had,

there's a huge amount of lush growth

and this means that most plants need supporting.

Check any supports you have and reinforce them where necessary.

And if they're a really tall plant, like this Onopordum,

give it a strong stake,

because they're not going to get any smaller,

and we're almost certain to have some high winds.

Beaded irises can become rather congested

and it's a good idea to lift the rhizomes

and divide them every three or four years.

When you lift them, be careful not to damage the roots.

Break the rhizomes or cut them into separate pieces

and replant spaced out.

Leave the rhizome on the surface so it can bake,

and next year, they will flower with renewed vigour.

Come on, you, you can have your tasting in a minute. You jump up there.

I dug two plants' worth of potatoes

from each of the six varieties of new potatoes.

You can see straight away huge difference in quantity and shape.

On Sharpe's Express, a pretty good harvest from that.

Pretty regular size. A bit of scab, but they've all got that this year.

On International Kidney, a pathetic return from two plants.

And yet look at Duke of York. That's a real bumper crop. So that's good.

Winston - they're enormous! That's a new potato, and, yet...

I know, look at that, that's like a ball.

A new potato as big as any baker.

We've got Foremost, very scabby, and then Swift, another tiny crop.

I've cooked them exactly the same way -

just boiled simply in water - and tried to cut them the same size.

And you can see Sharpes Express has broken up completely.

International Kidney held its shape well.

Duke of York - another one that's almost blown apart.

Winston is looking very good.

Foremost, the skin's come off,

and Swift, the skin's come off a little bit.

So, again, big differences.

The critical thing is the taste test.

So I'm going to do this for you.

Flowery.

Not great.

There's big variation in the mouth,

as there does seem to be in the soil, ranging from very dry,

almost powdery, to the quite buttery, almost watery, texture.

Swift is the most conventional texture of a new potato.

I quite like the way that Winston has a soft melting texture,

but none of them are outstanding on taste,

which I think I'll put down to the amount of rain we've had.

But they'll all get eaten and they'll all get enjoyed.

And I would like to hear from you.

If you've tried new potatoes, a number of varieties,

let us know how you got on,

both in the ground and also when you ate them.

I'll be back next week. I'll see you then. Bye-bye.

Do you want a potato? No? Try one of these.

Wait.

Is that good?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd