Episode 1 Gardeners' World

Come on.

Hello. Welcome back to a new series of Gardeners' World.

Well, I guess we're still reeling a little after that terrible winter.

Here at Longmeadow we've been under water for weeks on end,

we've been battered by the winds,

and at times it really has felt like the house is going to blow down

and the garden will be washed away

and disappear over the watery horizon.

But we've come through it.

It's been very mild despite the vile weather,

so everything is growing well and we've got a whole year's gardening ahead of us.

This year, as usual, I'm joined by Carol,

Rachel and Joe.

Carol will be meeting people and plants

that have helped shape British gardening.

Crocus, of course, one of the gems of early spring,

and this week Carol is meeting one of the country's leading experts.

Some people say they're rather blowsy

but they do make a spectacular show.

-They're bold.

-Bold, that's a better word.

Over the next few weeks, Joe will be looking at gardens

that thrive despite their extreme locations.

He's starting in Pembrokeshire to get tips on how to garden

in soil that is sodden all the year round.

-It's so dramatic.

-It's primal. Bog is a very primal condition.

And Rachel visits a fabulous rose garden,

home to over 5,000 different varieties, the perfect place

to see how our taste in roses has changed over the years.

In this garden I fell in love with the rose.

In January and February it was impossible

to do much gardening for weeks on end

but before Christmas I did make one big change

and that has opened up a whole new set of possibilities.

For the last 20 years, there's been a hornbeam hedge

running down along the length of the Spring Garden,

turning it into a long, narrow triangle.

Now this has looked great in spring

but it meant that by May and certainly June,

it was a very shaded, dark part of the garden

that more or less sat unvisited,

certainly without anything to show right through the rest of summer.

Now, I've taken that hedge out

and what this means is not only does the light pour in right away

and the shape of the garden has changed,

but it also gives me a whole new range of planting opportunities

because by taking the hedge out,

I've revealed a strip all along its lee,

which really had almost nothing in it at all.

Now, I've got some pulmonaria here,

one of those modest spring plants that's never going to be a star,

but is always playing a really valuable supporting role.

This is 'Blue Ensign'. You can see

that's a rich, good blue

and blue is the rarest colour in the garden

so you want to find it out and use it.

What you'll find very commonly in pulmonaria,

and I've got some back here,

is you get pink and blue on the same plant.

They will start a pinky colour and then turn blue.

But they hybridise all the time

so that you can end up with rather muddy colours,

so by adding a really strong blue,

I'm adding a jolt of colour back in and getting some energy.

It's one of the easiest plants you could possibly grow.

It's not a native.

It comes from central European woodland

but has been grown in this country

since medieval times as a medicinal plant.

Called lungwort, and it's called lungwort

because if you look at the foliage,

its mottled display, people thought it looked like lungs

so they would boil it up and take it for asthma or bronchitis.

I wouldn't try that myself.

And all it needs to thrive is a bit of shade

and some reasonable moisture in the soil.

And although this has opened out,

there's still a little bit of shade here all the year round

and 'Blue Ensign' as a variety is better adapted than some other pulmonarias

to being in full sun so there will be no problem here at all.

Just pop it in the ground there.

There she goes.

The most noticeable problem that you get with pulmonarias

is a white mould that covers the foliage if they get too dry.

If they do get mouldy, just cut off the foliage,

and I like to do that anyway round about the beginning of June.

Cut them right back to the ground so you get fresh new foliage,

and that tends not to get mouldy at all.

And then I cut them back again in November

so that they start their growth in spring absolutely from a basal point.

Now this one doesn't come true from seed.

But you can divide it very easily,

so you can keep your stock by dividing the plants

or occasionally buying new ones as I have done here.

They're not an expensive plant

and one of those ones that are no trouble.

They just spread themselves around

and you can rather take them for granted

like so many other plants that appear at this time of year -

the crocus and the snowdrops,

the pulmonarias and euphorbias coming through.

This series, Carol is going to be visiting gardens

and talking to gardeners where they don't take their plants for granted,

where they specialise in a plant and devote their lives to them.

You know that winter's on its way out

as the grass begins to sparkle with the joyous flowers of crocus.

As the sun begins to shine,

they open their petals wide to embrace its warming rays.

EA Bowles' gardens at Myddelton House

are the historic home for crocus in the British Isles.

I'm meeting Brian Mathew here,

devotee of these early spring delights

and one of the world's if not THE world's leading authorities.

He published his seminal work on the plant, named simply The Crocus,

which has since become a Bible to gardeners and botanists alike.

I suppose it took about ten years in all of travelling around,

looking at them, putting the whole thing together

and borrowing thousands of specimens from all the European herbaria.

-That's what you call a monumental task, isn't it?

-Yes.

I found one dried specimen in a herbarium, which said

on Mount Bermion, which is northern Greece,

by the last melting snow patch, and so I thought,

"I've got to go and see that."

The car I had at the time was a Mini Traveller so I drove in a few days

and 1,700 miles down to northern Greece and there it was.

-You'd found it!

-Round the edge of this last little snow patch.

So what is it about something like this that you love so much?

Well, I'm a gardener as well and there's nothing much more beautiful

than that and graceful, is there?

Of course botanically they've got so many different characters

and that's what really fires me up.

Another interesting thing about them

is that the seed pod sits down under ground

and it'll shoot up on a stalk

and wave about in the air and distribute the seed.

Because of Brian's work,

plant breeders have so much more information at their command

and we gardeners have come to know so many crocus species and cultivars

to help us choose plants that are just right for our gardens.

I think one of the most enchanting, magical things about crocus

is that they all close up when it's dark and open up in the sunshine.

Things like snowdrops dangle their flowers,

which means that when it's pouring with rain,

their pollen is preserved inside,

whereas crocuses facing upwards in a wine glass shape

would just fill up with water

so they've got to have a mechanism to open and close.

-Is it light that triggers that?

-It's not wholly light.

Light has warmth in it and it's warmth that does it.

How do you differentiate between them when it comes to growing them in your garden?

For garden crocuses,

you would really pick out tommasinianus

if you want a really early one. That comes from the Balkans

and it grows in semi-shade

underneath deciduous trees and shrubs,

so we treat it the same way in gardens.

We plant it in the shade.

So between shrubs, under trees, behind your wheelie bin?

Perfect, yes.

And then vernus, which comes later.

Vernus is a plant of alpine meadows and so in gardens

it's ideal for planting in grass,

which is why you see so much of it around in parks.

Some people say they're rather blowsy

-but they do make a spectacular show.

-They're bold.

Bold, that's a better word.

But what differentiates chrysanthus?

They're plants of open, stony hillsides,

sunny places where they'll dry out in the summer.

So that's really a third major group

which are great for a different situation in the garden.

So you can fall in love with your favourite chrysanthus

-and plant it in a sunny place?

-That's right.

Many wonderful chrysanthus hybrids are available.

Two of my favourites can be seen here in the gardens.

Cream Beauty is a delightful, delicate crocus.

Snow Bunting is a hugely popular and robust flower

that has markings on the outside

that look handpainted, almost like birds' feathers.

Crocus come from such a vast area and they grow in all sorts of situations

that we're all bound to be able to find something that suits our gardens perfectly,

whether we want to grow them in grass,

mingle them with spring beauties, or simply put them into pots

where we can study their exquisite and intricate patterns and forms.

It's thanks to all that work and devotion over so many years

that we're able to know so much about the genus

and to grow them so successfully in our own gardens.

This part of the garden is called the damp garden

because it does often flood.

But it's never flooded so much or for so long as it did this winter.

There were times when literally, as far as the eye could see,

was just a sheet of water.

The garden felt like a half submerged island in a vast lake.

I know for a lot of people, this is a distressing and alarming experience

but because we've had it happen over the years, two or three or four times a year,

it doesn't worry us.

But there is a real danger if it stays too long,

that plants will suffer.

In my experience, as long as a flood doesn't last for more than ten days,

nothing suffers at all.

You'll end up with everything looking rather saturated

and a horrible slime everywhere but the rain washes that off.

What I would say is if you've been flooded, do nothing.

Don't panic, take stock and see what grows back.

I think you'll find that almost everything will.

Also consider what you could plant that could use that opportunity,

plants that relish the flooding.

In here for example, we've deliberately chosen plants like loosestrife

which will really be happy in the wettest of conditions.

Like the primulas.

The candelabra primulas in particular.

They don't seem to mind if they're permanently wet,

even though they will grow quite well

in relatively dry conditions too,

so a very adaptable plant.

Lysimachia, this is Lysimachia ciliata here,

which really grows strongly in wet conditions.

In other words, if our weather

is going to get warmer and wetter in winters

and these extreme events do seem likely,

it's an opportunity to grow all those plants that need the wetness and will thrive in it.

This year, Joe is visiting a series of gardens that have been made despite extreme conditions.

The first one he visits is a wet garden in Pembrokeshire.

The wild coastal valleys of West Wales owe their verdant beauty

to some of the wettest weather in Britain.

In the shadow of the Preseli Hills here,

you don't have to look too far for evidence of rain.

This damp, squelchy ground is hardly inspiring

but this garden shows just what can be achieved.

Christina Shand came here 17 years ago

and has been working on the garden ever since.

Christina, how wet is it here?

The weather is extraordinarily changeable.

I do describe this place as being between a bog and a hard rock!

We have a high rainfall and it is challenging.

But that's what I love about gardening.

You try things out

and then you make horrendous mistakes

but you learn from it all the time.

-That is the joy.

-I'm intrigued to find out more.

It certainly is changeable weather around here, that's for sure.

It's absolutely chucking it down at the moment!

This border, it is gorgeous. I love it, it is tropical, it's exotic.

-Is the soil damp under there, too?

-That is pretty wet.

That's what they call a surface well.

There are quite a lot of them in Pembrokeshire.

When I first made the bed, I wanted to plant wisteria on the front here.

I broke out the concrete and it kept filling up with water

so I thought, "Right, I can't have my wisteria."

So you went for this instead?

I went for boggy bed and put the down pipe into it as well.

OK, which makes it even wetter when it rains,

so all the water is ending up in this planting area.

What stays in here permanently? I'm guessing the colocasia gets moved?

Yes, that does, and the cannas and the dahlias.

What stays in here, it's the ferns.

There is a banana, which I wrap up a bit.

How do you find out about what grows best in those beds?

Trial and error, really.

If you put something in and it does well, you'll grow more of it?

Yes, it tells me itself. Like the thalictrum.

Various things are starting to seed themselves around.

I suddenly think, "I can grow things other people can't grow

"because they haven't got enough moisture in the soil."

I learned to try and take advantage of that.

There's one section of the garden Christina tells me

presented her with a particularly difficult challenge.

But also, an exciting opportunity.

I've always wanted a sunken garden.

I love sunken gardens, I like coming down and as I come down,

the plants get taller, so I'm getting enveloped and overwhelmed in them.

I see what you mean! In fact, it's a jungle in here.

I started a two-tier planting system.

I started bringing in rocks first of all, making planting pockets,

filling them up with topsoil and raising them up.

Once I got the astilbes out of the immediate bog and the gunnera, they were happy.

So you're basically building a structure, raising them up above ground

and they can get their roots down a bit,

-permanently wet but not too wet.

-Yes.

Then other plans are straight into the bog like the primulas.

They struggled to begin with but then the self-seeding ones were happy.

-Plants find their own levels.

-How do you manage this area now?

It's so densely planted.

Do you manage it or do you just let them all battle it out for themselves?

I am more and more inclined to let it have its own volition, this garden.

I like the way it's taken on a life of its own.

It's absolutely fantastic. It's so dramatic.

It's primal. Bog is a very primal condition.

The plants reflect that enormously.

A lot of gardeners might get the fear

when faced with boggy conditions but you've turned it around.

Everybody wants plants that grow in that classic free-draning, moisture-retentive soil.

Hey, what about trying other difficult conditions

and finding out, getting to know the plants and what they will take and what they won't.

I really like the way that Christina hasn't just managed to make a garden in a tricky spot,

but has made a beautiful, inspiring garden.

You can go and see it.

It's open from Easter through until September

and you'll find all the details on our website.

It shows that although people like me

will go on about making perfect soil,

and that is an ideal, you don't have to have it.

You can make a wonderful garden in almost any conditions.

Whatever your conditions,

here are some jobs you can get on with this weekend.

Chilies and peppers are slow to germinate

so they should be one of the first seeds you sow in spring.

Scatter the seeds thinly on a seed tray of compost.

Because they need a temperature

of at least 20 degrees centigrade to germinate,

put them somewhere warm.

March is the ideal time to prune late-flowering clematis

and these are the ones, like Clematis viticella,

that produce their flowers in July, August and on into autumn.

If you leave them unpruned, the flowers grow increasingly higher

and higher up the plant.

So, cut hard, reducing it down to one or two buds above the ground.

This will stimulate vigorous new growth, which will carry this year's flowers.

It's a good idea to chit first and second early potatoes

to give you that lovely harvest of new potatoes in summer.

If you leave potatoes in a dark place,

they will produce long, translucent shoots.

Chitting them means putting them in a bright, sunny position in an open tray

and as long as it's frost free, the shoots will remain compact and green so that when you plant them,

they grow with extra vigour and this is what gives you an earlier crop.

Now is a really good time to plant roses.

You can see they're starting to put shoots on because it's been so mild

but the idea is to get them in the ground before they start to grow so the roots can get settled,

get established and they will support the new growth a lot better.

I planted these last autumn.

They're all yellow. This one is called the Pilgrim.

It's got wonderful ruffled yellow petals, a slight touch of pink,

and a really good fragrance.

I do strongly recommend that after you plant any rose,

really give it a hard prune and the reason for that,

is to stimulate growth from the base of the plant.

That way, it starts out as it means to continue, a nice, well-structured plant.

After that, with a shrub rose like this,

you only need to prune to tidy it up.

These are three roses that I planted a year ago.

They grew really well last summer but they have grown irregularly

and this is very normal when you first plant roses.

It doesn't matter what kind.

They never quite make the shape you want until you establish that.

You can see how that we've got some really strong growth and yet,

very limited stems, too.

The biggest mistake is to cut the strongest growth back hardest.

When you prune in winter, that stimulates growth.

If we want to get a nice, even shape,

then we have to cut the weakest growth hardest.

The harder you cut, the stronger the regrowth.

So, we have a weak growth here next to a much more vigorous one.

I just take about a third off this and cut that there.

But reduce this one right down,

and I would expect the stems to balance out

and by this time next year,

to have a nice, evenly-shaped shrub, which I can then just trim.

There are lots of different types of roses and man has relished them all across the centuries.

Last summer, Rachel went to the Garden of the Rose in St Albans

to look at their long history.

I've been coming to this garden, probably all my life.

In this garden, I fell in love with the rose.

The sheer diversity of roses on display here is extraordinary.

I think it's the perfect place to come to learn more about changing fashions in roses

over the last 50 years or so.

In the first half of the 20th century,

most gardens would have had these old classic roses

with divine names like Damasks, Albas, Portlands and of course these glorious Gallicas.

Most flower only once, very fleetingly, so the hunt was on

for new repeat flowering varieties that were better suited to modern gardens.

# There'll be bluebirds over

# The white cliffs of Dover... #

We've always bred roses,

even during the dark days of the Second World War.

Towards the end of that period, there came a new rose,

named to express the optimism for the future.

It's called Peace and probably the most famous rose in the world.

It's a perfect example of a hybrid tea,

tightly coiled buds that then swirl open into an explosion of petals.

They were bred to repeat flower and had a huge colour range.

Many became garden celebrities in their own right.

Names like Blue Moon and Grandpa Dixon.

Thanks to roses like these,

there was a huge boom in the popularity of roses in the 1950s.

In one single year, there were 40 to 50 million sold, which is extraordinary.

I think, for many people of that generation,

the hybrid tea is still their idea of what a rose should be.

Alongside the hybrid teas,

another dynasty of roses came to dominate our gardens.

This time, the floribundas. It was all about floriferousness.

Lots and lots of flowers here in clusters.

I have such affection for this particular rose

because it was one of my dad's favourites.

# Life would be a dream

# If only all my precious plans would come true

# If you would let me spend my whole life loving you

# Life would be a dream, sweetheart... #

From the '50s, the hybrid teas and floribundas reigned supreme.

But in the 1970s,

roses took a bit of a knock with the advent of garden centres

because people wanted something that looked good straightaway in a pot,

and rose sales literally halved.

But this was the answer, patio roses.

They're compact, healthy and they repeat flower.

Masses of blooms all summer long.

For me, many patio roses lacked one key characteristic that makes a great rose, fragrance.

But by the 1980s and '90s, tastes were changing

and people wanted roses that combined the romance, the form of old roses,

with good disease resistance, good shape, repeat flowering, and perfume.

A great example in a rose I grow at home is Golden Celebration.

Nowadays, roses are among the most diverse

and versatile of all garden plants.

I'm sure we're never going to tire of trying to find the next big thing.

So, what does the future hold?

Well, who knows, but watch this space.

Seeing all those roses does make you yearn for summer but it will come.

It will come soon

and to make sure that your roses produce as many flowers as possible,

the final process in preparing them is to give them a good mulch.

When you prune a rose, you're taking away potential goodness for the roots

until it grows more foliage.

Give it a little boost and the best thing you can possibly do is

simply mulch it with any organic material.

Garden compost is the very best of all

but you could use mushroom compost or even woodchips.

As long as they're well rotted down.

What this will do is protect the moisture in the soil...

..stop any weeds growing, which will compete and take nutrients,

and also provide more feed for the plant.

That's all you need to do for the rest of the year. That's it.

That's it for this week, too.

I'll be back next week at the same time.

See you then. Bye-bye.