Episode 11 Gardeners' World

BIRDSONG

Hello, welcome to Gardener's World.

Now, right at the end of May,

when we can still cling on to the last shreds of spring,

but with summer to come, is I think the best moment of the year.

The Jewel Garden is taking on its summer clothes.

The intensity of the colour from the Allium 'Purple Sensation'

and the mauve-blue of the Iris sibirica

against the electric yellow-green of the

hops and the Sambucus

and the Euphorbia, and the other splashes of colour coming through.

All that is signalling that summer is coming.

Of course what it means is that the spring flowers are largely done.

And I will be moving the tulips on and replacing them

with flowers for later on in the year.

Whilst I'm nursing an injured knee

and undertaking light duties at home, Carol is out

and about paying a return visit to our inexperienced gardeners

Dan and Dom and helping them to create a delicious

and productive vegetable plot.

Before you know where you are you'll be out here picking stuff

all the time and eating it in your beautiful cottage garden.

What could be nicer?

Carrie Thomas has the national collection of Aquilegias

and we visit her garden in Swansea to celebrate this glorious flower.

There's no end to the variations.

I think for the rest of my life I will still be enamoured of them

because there is always something new to chase after.

And you don't need a garden to make a dramatic floral statement.

When we started the first set of baskets on the ground level

people started noticing and we went from there to the chimney tops.

And I shall be reviewing my home garden

and adding in some more favourites.

Throughout April this pot was flowing with three tulips,

'Ballerina', 'Cairo' and 'Burgundy', but they're all done now.

What they now need to do is to slowly die back so all

the goodness can go into the bulb hopefully for next year's flower.

And also we are tying up an expensive and nice pot.

So I want to take these out and replace them.

So I can lift the whole thing out. They may just pull out.

I don't think they will. I'll have to lever them out. This is a tricky part of the process.

But if you try and work them

out of the pot without damaging any of the top growth -

it's really important that this is allowed to die back naturally.

And if it gets a good baking in the sun, if we have weather like

we do today, that's the best way to ensure good tulips for next year.

There they go. And you can see there's a lot of root on that.

I'm going to put those in there and that's a good bulb.

You can see the little bulbules either side.

Those little ones will not produce any flowers next year,

but will get bigger over a period of two, three or four years.

So these go in the pot and I've got a plan for those later on.

Now this lovely pot is free and not tied up till next spring

so we empty it completely out into there and basically start again.

What I'm going to plant in there are dahlias.

This is 'Arabian Night'.

You want a nice big strong plant and a big display.

The soil I'm using for dahlias is very different to the soil

I was using for tulips.

Tulips love really good drainage and they don't need much,

if any, nutrition. It's all in the bulb.

So that had a lot of grit in it.

Dahlias on the other hand like a much richer soil.

This is our home-made potting compost

and it's 30 percent sieved garden compost, so it's rich.

It doesn't matter what you're growing, it is important if you're changing

from a spring to a summer display in a container to change the soil.

Because even if it's the same kind of plant the compost will be exhausted.

This is a plant that I've grown from cuttings,

and I keep my dahlias for years and years. I'm going to put

that in just below the surface level and then we just pack around it.

I'm using dahlias, but there are lots of other plants that you

could, and I have used, for the same effect.

Lilies do really well in pots.

Really it's a question of maximising the value

and use of a lovely terracotta pot.

Whilst it's been occupied by one display there is another

coming along in a much cheaper, less glamorous pot.

And that will now stay and occupy this space until November,

and of course November is when we plant tulips,

so the cycle just keeps going round and round.

And you can use that with containers with a whole

range of plants. It's a form of bedding.

Now we have a garden and the bedding is part of the display,

but Gerry O'Brien in West London doesn't have a garden.

But he does have a fantastic display composed entirely of bedding plants.

'I have been a landlord for 30 years. And it's been a wonderful time.

'It really has been my life.'

I'm from a lovely village at home in Ireland in County Clare.

We're lucky I suppose, we grew up in the countryside.

We had one field and it was always a meadow.

And that was just glorious.

The bees, butterflies and all that.

And I thought, "It would be lovely to have a little bit of this

"here in London.

"I'm going to get some plants, some hanging baskets, just to give it a little bit of colour."

I wish I had a real garden.

I wish I had some grass under my feet that I could feel,

but I think this makes up for it in a big way. Yes.

Love begonias and there's about three different types there, the pink,

the yellow

and the orange.

And then we have the sophenia, petunia.

We have the lobelia.

And the fuschia, I love fuschia as well.

You see them together and it just gives you a lift.

It really does, every time I look up and look at them, it just,

it just does something to you. Yes.

When we started the first set of baskets on the ground level,

people started noticing and I thought, isn't that lovely?

Then you look up a little bit further and you say,

well, I think there's room for another lot.

And we went from there to the chimney tops.

HE LAUGHS

You can't go any further than that!

I'm always looking to see if there's any spot,

anything, we can put an extra pot or a window box or a hanging basket.

I really don't think there's any space left. There really isn't!

HE LAUGHS

'We have the conservatory downstairs

'and that used to be just an old garage.

'And I've got about 200 hanging plants in there.

'Mostly ivies and ferns, hanging, because they survive better.

'We go to the garden as such, outdoor,

'so we've got the garden indoors, you know.'

We have to water twice at night time,

about midnight, one o'clock in the morning and again at five in the morning

before the sun comes up and gets at them.

And then we have to go on to the chimney tops with our hose.

When you water, you smell...

You get, it's a fantastic feeling, it really is. It's just glorious.

Well, we've won some great awards over the years.

We've won the Brighter Kensington and Chelsea Scheme, 11 years running.

We've won London in Bloom.

London in Bloom, three years.

It's terrific, isn't it, to get recognition for what we do?

I have to say that I LOVE the exuberance of Jerry's display.

It's a kind of celebration of life and the more of it, the merrier.

Now, you can see I've dug a trench, opened out the clump of tulips

and spread them out along.

And it's really important to give them

a sunny spot with good drainage.

Tulips come from sun-soaked, mountainous hillsides in Turkey

and that whole Central Asia area.

And whilst they can be covered with snow in winter,

which then melts and gives them water,

they are baked by really hot sun in summer.

So, maximum sunshine, maximum drainage

and if you've got any doubt about how much drainage to put in,

put in more.

And then next March and April, they'll start to come up

and flower and give you cut flowers for the house.

You're not wasting anything.

Neither the terracotta pot, the bulbs, or even spare bits of ground.

Now, these tulips

and all the other cut flowers that I will add in throughout the summer

are growing cheek by jowl with vegetables and shrubs

and trees and climbers, and that's all part of the cottage garden mix

and I think that gives it real charm.

But this week on our visit to Dan and Dominique,

which she's been doing all year and will continue right through to the end of the growing season,

Carol is focusing just on vegetables.

Dan and Dom have spent the past few months working hard

to create their dream family garden.

And at the centre of their plan was an area to relax.

Last time I was here,

we created cottage-style borders around the lawn.

Since then, Dan and Dom have been out and about,

gathering together their favourite veg plants and seeds

and getting the frames of their raised beds ready.

And today, we're going to fill them.

Today, it's all about veg.

-It's looking phenomenal. It really is.

-Good.

The chickens were here before. We've left the gravel.

Will that be a problem with anything we're growing?

Not at all. Gravel's going to provide drainage.

I'm glad that you followed my suggestion,

made these paths nice and wide, because access is all-important.

So, last year when you had your raised beds,

you filled them full of compost.

It seemed like the easiest way to do it.

Which is what a lot of people do, but of course, this year?

Yes, we have taken your advice.

We've gone and got what looks like an enormous amount of topsoil.

The whole advantage of topsoil, as opposed to that

bought in compost is that it's alive.

So all those micro-organisms, all those worms, will get to work

and really make your soil fertile.

It'll go on, then, year after year. You've also got some muck.

Yes, we've got a few bags left over from doing the borders.

Before we decide what to fill with water, what are you going to

-grow? Because different crops need different conditions.

-Leeks.

-Beetroot.

-Yeah. Carrots - we've always done before.

All those rooty things, the carrots, the beetroot,

parsnips perhaps, all those kind of things love good

free-draining soil but they don't want high fertility.

They don't want fresh muck anywhere near them

because it makes the roots fork.

So what else? The usual stalwarts to my mind are courgettes.

-Yeah, definitely.

-Two plants will give you ample yield.

-They need high fertility so lots of muck underneath them.

-OK.

For salads and onions, these two beds are going to need some

muck in underneath and then loads of that really good topsoil.

So all that remains is to start filling these beds up.

-So, after you.

-OK.

-Great stuff.

Each raised bed will have at least 70% topsoil.

This will keep its structure as it contains clay and rock.

Compost is made purely from organic material.

Recycling theirs from last year will lighten the mix.

'For some of the hungrier crops,

'we're getting a good helping of manure.'

Phoar! Lovely stuff!

'And making sure it's all mixed together before planting.'

So this is your really fertile bed.

Brilliant, loads of muck underneath and this lovely substantial topsoil.

The first courgette.

-Just bung it down. Firm it in where the edge of the pot was.

-Yeah.

What you can do is make a little burrow like that, so that

when you water, all the water is going to go down into the roots.

-OK.

-This is your climbing bean,

so it is coming right at the back here.

I'm going to put four in.

The whole idea is verticality!

We'll make use of this space as well.

I'm going to plant these quite deep because these are fairly big beans.

Whereas your lovely little ones can go along there.

Not too deep because it's only a little seed.

-Bob's your uncle. Onto roots...

-Right.

# ..my vegetables

# I'm gonna chow down my vegetables

# I love you most of all...

# My favourite vegetables. #

So, perfect position for carrots, full sun,

lovely free-draining soil and no muck.

I like sowing my carrots two little rows at a time.

When you come to thinning out,

you want to do it with as little disturbance as possible

because carrots smell and carrot fly can zoom in.

Once you get them in your carrots, that's it. You've had it.

In a couple of weeks you'll see them germinate.

About that time you can start thinking about sowing another couple of growths.

So, a couple of these double rows of carrots,

they are going to be enough for us for the year?

-It depends how much you love carrots.

-Depends how many we eat.

-Yeah, it does. I love salads. Can we do those?

-Yeah.

I've brought you these few plants of rocket that I grow in modules,

just to start you off. Perhaps put them on one of these edges.

With salads it's hugely important to keep on sowing

because you don't want big old plants,

you want nice fresh stuff all the time.

Planting distances aren't crucial.

You can mix flowers in, put in marigolds,

anything that's nice and open

and will attract pollinators for things that need it.

Before you know where you are, the whole garden will be flowering,

fruiting. You'll be out here picking stuff all the time

and eating it in your beautiful cottage garden.

-What could be nicer?!

-Sounds great. Yeah!

Dan and Dom's veg plot promises to be a productive and beautiful space.

Something that will give the entire family enjoyment

and nourishment throughout the year.

Sewing and harvesting regularly will ensure it plays an important

role in their family garden.

I realise that if you haven't done much before,

vegetable growing can seem daunting,

but don't be put off because now is a really good time to start

growing veg, even if you've never done it before.

Sow some seed and you'll have a delicious harvest before very long.

Even if you're not growing vegetables at all,

here are some jobs that you can be getting on with this weekend.

Now Chelsea Flower Show has finished for another year,

it's time for the Chelsea chop.

This means cutting back clumps of summer flowering herbaceous

perennials by between a third and a half,

which will stagger and spread their flowering

season as well as giving you extra texture and varying heights.

Cordon tomatoes should be pruned regularly now by pinching out the

side shoots that grow very vigorously on the angle between

the main stem and the leaves.

By doing this you're concentrating the plant's energy

into the trusses of fruit which are slowly beginning to develop.

At this time of year, a lot of us have a mass of seedlings ready to go

in the garden, but the garden isn't necessarily ready to receive them.

Don't let them get pot bound.

Take them out of the plug or pot

and check to see the roots are not too constricted and nicely formed.

Pop them on into a larger container,

it doesn't have to be too big,

just enough room to let them grow on for another few weeks.

Then, when the garden is ready, you can plant them out where you want.

There's certainly no room to add many more plants at the moment

here in the Jewel Garden.

But spaces will appear and the plants will be ready as and

when they do.

But for the moment who would want to replace these lovely aquilegias?

This really is a beautiful and intense purple.

They do crossbreed terribly easily so a pink one which shouldn't be

here in the Jewel Garden has popped up, but I haven't got the heart

to remove it.

That's what aquilegias do. They pop up all over the garden.

Wherever possible, we leave them and let them do their thing.

They are very easy to grow in any soil and in almost any condition.

But Carrie Thomas in Swansea is much more disciplined about her

aquilegias because she has a passion for them

and breeds dozens of beautiful new varieties.

I'm Carrie Thomas

and I've got the national collections of aquilegias in the UK.

I've been collecting since I started gardening.

But particularly the last 20 years,

I've really gone in for all of the different types of cultivars

and that culminated in having enough to have the national collection.

I just love the daintiness of the flower, the way it is put together.

Very different and very extraordinary.

Aquilegia probably comes from aquila in Latin for eagle.

And it's said that it's probably to do with the spurs

and hooks on them, which look rather like the talons of an eagle.

Of course the common name, Granny's Bonnet, is easy enough to understand.

Our native Columbine comes from dove.

It actually looks like a circle of five doves in the flower.

Aquilegias are found in just about all of the Northern

hemisphere, from Japan to North America, and the good

news about aquilegias is that they couldn't care less where they grow.

They are very easy in any type of soil as long as there is not

standing water in the winter.

Perhaps best of all, they're slug proof.

The bumblebees here are pretty cheeky.

They can't be bothered going in the business end if there's a shortcut.

This one has bitten a hole through this spur and look

at that, they're getting the nectar directly from the end of the spur.

For somebody that likes breeding, aquilegias are a gift

because not only will just about all of the cultivars mix

and match quite happily, between them,

but you can get the species to interbreed and that is quite unusual.

I've got several ultimate goals when I am hybridising.

In this case I want to get more yellow into these double forums.

Sometimes I may go for the height of the plants,

whether that's high or low. I might go for scent.

I might go for the different coloured leaves we can have.

First of all I have to choose the right mother plant.

So if I use this one, definitely no pollen on it

so I can just start to tease away the petals. We don't need those.

That's for attracting the bees.

And we're going to be doing the bees' jobs for them.

Then I need to take off all of the stamens,

the male part of the flower.

When I've done that, what I'm left with is the female part.

But I'm ready now to choose the father plant and when I've got

that pollen, I need to transfer it onto the female parts of this planet.

This is where I'm just going to dabble the ends of the stigmas -

the female part - into the pollen.

That's beautiful.

When this seed is set, then I need to go around and collect it.

This is the result of seed from about 30 different parent plants,

and from this I select the ones that I'm going to keep

and the ones I want to breed from, and the ones that perhaps I've got

enough of and I'm willing to let go.

I rather like this one.

I've got a nice strong yellow, plenty of petals.

I rather like all of these long spurs coming out of the back.

Yep, I reckon this one is going to go back into my collection.

So I'll definitely be keeping this one.

There is no end to the variations.

I think for the rest of my life I will still be enamoured of them

because there will always be something new.

Always something new to chase after.

I do warn that if you get drawn into aquilegias, you may never stop

and I don't think I ever will either.

BLACKBIRD SINGS

Obviously aquilegias are at their very best now

and Carrie's garden is open this weekend and for the next two weeks.

So if you can get down there, do go and visit and get inspired.

All the details are to be found on our website.

In the Jewel Garden, the allium flowers are looking fantastic.

That's what we grow them for.

But here in the herb garden, another allium is Elephant garlic.

We grow it because it's got these huge bulbs,

which are very subtle and delicious.

What's noticeable is they are now developing flower heads.

This is a bad idea.

You want to remove any flower heads on garlic because the plant

will take the energy away from the bulb and put it into the seed.

We can salvage the bulbs by cutting off

the flower heads before they develop too much.

In an ideal world you won't harvest garlic until the leaves really

start to turn yellow and die back, very similar to the tulips.

The herb garden here, which was only made last year and is

based around four raised beds,

has changed our growing of herbs at Longmeadow dramatically.

We've always had trouble with Mediterranean herbs, it is

very wet, heavy, cold soil.

In winter, thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram have struggled

and often died.

Now with these raised beds, which have got a huge amount of grit,

stone and terracotta to improve the drainage in them, they are thriving.

The thyme bed is fantastic. We've never had such good thyme.

In this bed I did have parsley,

and now I'm going to plant out two of my favourite herbs.

The first is French tarragon. You get French or Russian tarragon.

French tarragon is the one to grow if you're cooking with it.

The taste is infinitely better. It is wonderful with chicken or fish.

But it's not hardy.

So I dig it up and bring it into the greenhouse in winter.

Once it starts to grow back and has been hardened off,

it can go out into the bed. Simply plant it in

good, well-drained soil in a sunny position.

It's sitting in cold wet soil which does most damage to

Mediterranean herbs. Plant that in the ground.

That will grow nice and big and give us plenty of material to cook with.

This is Lemon verbena and it has such a lemony fragrance.

Just a few leaves with boiling water poured on it

and you have a refreshing, delicious tea.

So we plant that next to the tarragon.

That'll be brought in in winter as well.

Of course if you live in the south and it's warm and sheltered,

you may well be able to grow these plants over winter.

But if like me, you have heavy, wet, poorly drained soil,

and it can get pretty cold here then it's not worth the risk.

Take it in and protect it over winter and then plant it out once

the risk of frost has passed.

Also, because it's been growing inside,

you've got really nice strong growth.

It makes fabulous tea.

That's it for this week. Hopefully next week I'll be a bit more mobile.

And because it's the 70th anniversary of D-Day,

there are special programmes

and we are on at the later time of nine o'clock.

I'll see you then. Bye-bye.