Episode 13 Gardeners' World

TRAIN RUMBLES IN DISTANCE

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

Now, there's only one word to describe the garden

at this time of year, and that's lush.

With all the rain we've had and the mildness,

and even the occasional sunshine,

everything has grown hugely, and that lushness is lovely.

But...it's swamping a lot of things

and now it's time to start cutting back.

This weekend it's also Gardeners' World Live in Birmingham, and that's

a great opportunity to get ideas and find some wonderful plants.

In answer to some of your e-mails, Carol is looking for good

plant combinations that will work in difficult areas of the garden.

Eryngiums will cope with mountainside and seaside alike.

They've got spectacular flowers

and they really give a bit of drama to your dry, sunny situation.

Joe is looking at how different designers have taken the same brief

to produce very different show gardens.

It's about retailing and design, and it can make or break your garden.

And I've decided to abandon my asparagus

and replace it with brassica.

And as well as that bombshell,

I shall be planting up some large pots

to give me colour right through into winter.

First I need to thin out and cut back these Jewel Garden borders.

We want to keep the display going from April

right through into November, if it's a good autumn,

and that will involve introducing new plants.

And you've got to make space for that.

And also we've got a bit of a strange weed problem here.

This Allium 'Purple Sensation' has taken over

and is growing everywhere.

And I very often pull up about half of them to stop them seeding,

which is a kind of shame, because the seed heads can look lovely,

and alliums will seed prolifically.

Which, of course, for the first few years is fantastic,

because you're getting more plants, but you've got to be

very careful for what you wish, because it can become a problem.

And this year I'm actually going to dig out a lot of the bulbs.

Because they're just getting too dominant.

Can you see that?

You've got this orange stain

and it's terrible for staining your clothes.

So be careful. Really difficult to wash out.

And also I shall be cutting back this geranium.

The ratio of flowers to growth is diminishing

and not giving enough return.

So we get in there...

Cut that off.

When you're cutting back geraniums in particular,

but any herbaceous plant you want to regrow, and this

applies to the Oriental poppies in particular, cut back hard.

Go right to the ground.

That will let light and air in

and the regrowth will be nice and vigorous

and will come back surprisingly fast.

Now, if I get a fork...

..and gently tease into the ground -

not too vigorously, I'm not double digging it,

I'm just seeing if I can get some of the allium bulbs out.

These can dry and sit and be planted in September or even October

without any problem at all, in another part of the garden.

We cleared the other side of the path a day or two ago,

so that is now ready for planting.

When you're topping up a border,

you need to start with the big plants first.

So this is a Gladioli 'Plum Tart'

and the bulbs have been planted in a deep-water aquatic basket,

and the beauty of that is the roots can grow through the holes

into the ground and then, when winter comes, the whole thing

can be lifted and put into storage so that they won't get frosted.

Gladiola is relatively tender and I'm going to put that there,

because the flowers, which have got a lovely plum,

burgundy sort of colour,

will rise about that height,

so above the hedge, and they need to be fairly near the front.

This is Zinnia 'Scarlet Red'.

Zinnias will go on flowering

from July right into autumn, if you

keep deadheading them, and they like heat and plenty of sunshine.

So that can go in there. We can put them in groups.

Maybe groups of three.

You notice I'm not planting any.

I'm not going to plant anything until I'm certain that

it's in the right place in relationship to everything else.

This cosmos is 'Orange Cosmea'.

Lovely rich colour, a real essential Jewel Garden plant.

Now, there's no point in putting a plant like this,

which will only grow about two foot tall,

in the middle of the border. So the taller stuff in the middle

and then you add the smaller annuals in amongst them.

Now, this is all familiar stuff in the sense that these are plants

I've grown in these borders for years and years and I love them.

And I like just tweaking them

and altering them slightly with a few additions, but basically

it's the same idea every year, and none the worse for that.

However at Gardeners' World Live this year,

Joe is looking at the show gardens,

particularly at the hard landscaping,

to get fresh ideas and new inspiration.

Gardeners' World Live is a showcase for up-and-coming designers,

and from what I've seen so far they've certainly not let us down.

From the outlandish to the conventional,

there are design elements here for everyone,

and this year there's a particular group of gardens

that have really caught my eye.

These gardens form part of an ambitious project called

Metamorphosis - A Design Journey,

headed up by the highly acclaimed garden designer Roger Platts.

Roger often sits on the judging panel at Gardeners' World Live

but this year has set four emerging designers a unique challenge.

Roger, how does this competition work?

It's all about creating a show garden, for the first time

for these designers,

and with a limited range of materials.

They've all been given the same materials to work with.

So how did you choose which materials you were going to give them?

There's quite a lot of grey paving and grey walling here.

There is, and interestingly I suppose I'm a little bit known for

doing a more traditional style of gardens.

I wanted to give them materials which they could do something,

perhaps, a little more contemporary.

The interesting thing is, they've all done different things.

They've used the materials but used them in all different ways.

And every garden's got to have a water feature designed into it.

That's a bit mean, isn't it?

They're the hardest part of the garden to get right.

Maybe that's why I put it in. It was a bit mean of me.

And I think they've learnt a lot from that

and now in the wider world

they should we creating much better-quality water features.

So, it's a great opportunity for these designers, then?

It's been a wonderful opportunity to create a garden for show

and they've just thrown their heart and soul into it.

I think it's been a wonderful success.

MUSIC WITH A LATIN`AMERICAN FEEL

It's really interesting to see how designers have used pretty much

the same materials to create very different gardens.

This is a very formal space, drawing the eye right through the middle

towards the large water feature at the back, and I like

the sense of humour that the water's pouring into the buckets there.

As far as the paving material is concerned,

I'd like to see a little bit more contrast, maybe chop it all up,

create more interest, but I do like the vibrancy of the planting here.

RESTFUL ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC

This garden has a very strong rectilinear design.

You can see the rectangles all interlocking in planned form,

but also I like the way that actually it steps up towards the back,

good use of levels, and that boundary really does enclose the space.

But one thing I just wish it had was more height in the planting

here in the foreground, because that would give a nice

sense of enclosure to the garden as a whole and from here increase

the depth of field and actually make it feel bigger than it really is.

MUSIC WITH WARMER POP TONE

Out of all the four gardens,

this one has put the whole garden on the diagonal,

drawing the eye over into the far corner,

and it gives a very different dynamic feel to the space as a whole.

And I also like the sempervivums planted in lines.

What they've done here is cut the clay pipes,

which are an ingredient which they have to use,

sunk them into the gravel and planted in there,

and that breaks up the line between the paving and the gravel itself,

and gets some plants into the middle of the space, too.

But I wish this garden had one more thing -

another purple hazel planted right here.

At the moment, there's two of them, the eye bounces between them.

With three, it'll create a lovely flow as it goes round and round.

PACIER SPANISH STYLE ROCK GUITAR

This is the garden that won the competition.

It's designed by Jo Jemmison, and she's done a fantastic job

for this design of this tiny 6m by 6m garden.

These spaces really are very small.

It starts off with this pathway which

already shows ingenuity and innovation to me,

because she just laid the paving slightly apart,

put a bit of gravel between the two. It's great for drainage

and also starts a lovely rhythm that runs through the garden,

all the way through this paving and then up through the wall.

Just by raking out the grout on a horizontal axis,

it gives a nice visual flow to the garden.

Then when you think about putting a wall in,

think about the height of them as well.

Here she's done a great job.

She's brought it up to perfect seating height

and it's got this really nice timber coping on the top

and I can't see how it's been fixed. No signs of any screws or anything.

Really nice attention to detail.

From here, I'm right next to the water feature,

which has been brought right up to eye level on the boundary.

I'm not just seeing a blank wall there.

What I really like about this is this garden feels as if it's in 3-D,

so she's created lots of different levels right up to the back here,

it tiers up, a real sense of volume as well,

and that's why this garden won it.

It just goes to show that hard landscaping isn't just about

paving, walling and boundaries. There's so much more to it than that,

and it's about detailing and design,

and it can make or break your garden.

BIRDSONG

Well, that is the last asparagus I shall cut from this bed.

I planted it April 2011, but then we had a horrible summer that year,

the asparagus didn't grow very well.

We've had the coldest spring last year,

and it just hasn't taken off and because asparagus lasts so long,

if it starts badly, it's unlikely to get better.

So I'm cutting my losses - I'm digging it up.

And next spring I'll make a new asparagus bed

in one of the raised beds, and the virtue of that is,

it'll have extra-good drainage.

I feel really bad about this.

I feel like I'm destroying something that might come good

but I know it's the right decision.

See, look - do you see how those roots are rotten?

They're all shredded. They look like they've been crushed.

And that's because they're too wet.

I think this is the right thing to do.

And next year, in a raised bed,

I'll really make sure the drainage is good

and it's not shaded at all.

But the ground is perfectly good for lots of other vegetables

and for the moment, I've got some brassicas

that will love this rich soil.

Root rock and a large cabbage

or purple sprouting broccoli can cause a lot of damage

so you want really firm roots and if the soil is firm,

they have to work their way in and it anchors them.

So always treat a brassica bed as though it was a lawn

and tread it over, like this, and then rake it lightly.

It's a little bit wet and sticky for this at the moment,

but we'll get away with it, I think.

Right, let's get them in the ground.

This is romanesco,

which I always think of as somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower,

with usually the pointed head,

and they can be bigger than purple sprouting broccoli

but smaller than a cauliflower

and the best way to eat them, I think,

is very similar to broccoli - I would lightly boil them,

heat up some garlic and some chilli in a pan with oil

and then toss the romanesco in that, and they're very good.

Dig a deep hole. Plant them nice and deep with some of the stem buried,

like that, and then really aggressively firm them in.

This is important. You won't damage the roots at all

and if they start life firm,

they will grow good and straight and they won't be damaged by wind.

Spacing wants to be about 18 inches.

I nowadays tend to plant closer than the books will tell you to do.

That's because I'd rather have more repeat pickings of smaller plants.

If you want a show plant or you've got masses of people to feed,

space it further apart - you'll get bigger plants.

In an effort to make the asparagus grow better,

I've been mulching this for the last few years

with an enormous amount of compost,

and brassicas love that.

So give them plenty of food.

This is the perfect moment to be planting out

all your winter brassica,

but even if you don't grow cabbages or romanesco,

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

At this time of year,

lily beetles are indulging their voracious appetites,

munching through your favourite lilies

and any members of the fritillary family.

They're bright-red, so easy to see,

but at the slightest sense of movement they drop off the plant

and lie on their backs and are almost impossible to find

on the ground. So creep up on them whilst they're otherwise engaged

and grab them and then dispose of them as you feel fit.

To keep your roses flowering as long possible,

it's important to deadhead them regularly.

Don't just pull the spent flowers off

but cut back to a side shoot, and this will promote fresh growth

with more flowers.

In a rainy year like this one,

it's quite common for roses to ball,

which means that the outer petals get wet

and then dry out slightly and trap the flower and stop it opening.

Gently tease it apart with your fingers

and often you can rescue the flower

and it will open in front of your eyes.

BLACKBIRD SINGS

Blackbirds have a habit of eating strawberries before they're ripe

and the only way to stop them is to put some netting up

so they can't get at through it.

It doesn't have to be a permanent structure -

some posts or canes with the netting stretched over it

will do the job properly,

but do make sure that the netting is stretched taught

otherwise the birds can get wrapped up

and tangled in loose shrouds.

Now, this is a group of plants that I never thought that I would grow,

and I set off to the Malvern Spring Festival

with no intention of buying carnivorous plants,

but saw them growing there and sort of fell in love with them.

I thought they were incredibly interesting and very practical

because they need no looking after at all.

All you have to do is stand them in some rainwater,

and they catch insects for me in the greenhouse,

so they're beautiful, they're fascinating and they're useful

and I never would have got them if I hadn't been to Malvern this spring.

And that, I think, is one of the delights of going to flower shows.

You set out with a shopping list of what you're likely to buy

and suddenly, you're hit over the head with something new,

something you'd never thought of.

Carol has gone to Gardeners' World Live

looking for planting combinations that would look great

in otherwise tricky areas of the garden.

Every week we get loads of letters and e-mails from people

who've got particularly problematic patches in their gardens.

Well, I want to find solutions to some of those problems

and where better to do it than at Gardeners' World Live?

The question we're asked more than any other is,

what can I grow in shade?

Now, Emma Truman's letter is typical.

She's got one border that's in dense shade.

What can she grow there?

Well, most of us have got shade in our gardens,

for at least part of the time.

Think of your own borders.

For part of the day they are plunged into shade.

Foxgloves are the archetypal solution for just that sort of a place.

That's where they put themselves in nature - they love to grow

in hedgerows on the edge of woodland so they are just ideal.

In spring, shade is never a problem, there are so many

springtime plants that love shady places.

But come the summer it's a bit more difficult.

Well, how about this for a solution?

This handsome...

..is perfect in a shady spot.

And if you want something even more exotic why not go for this...

But, if like Emma, you've got somewhere that's shady

all the day through then there are

still loads of solutions.

On the stand there's this glorious new...

..and it's ideal for anybody's shady spot.

Sometimes it's the soil itself that's seen as the problem.

And I suppose the most problematic kind of soil is seen as being

heavy clay.

I garden on clay myself and so does one of our viewers,

John Dickson, who's written to tell us about his new garden -

full of heavy clay.

Well, one famous garden that had heavy clay was Barnsdale,

home to Gardeners' World for many years and home of

Geoff Hamilton.

He had a marvellous success story there and his son,

Nick Hamilton, continues his legacy with spectacular results.

I reckon he's the bloke to talk to!

Nick, roses feature largely on your stand and they love clay,

don't they?

They do absolutely love it and certainly at Barnsdale on heavy clay

they do fantastically well there.

And when you see wild roses, invariably they are growing

in amongst grasses and other herbaceous plants so that's

ideal in the garden. Absolutely. They can grow all these

fantastic plants. Things like the achillea that we've got over there.

They flower all summer long and the potentilla just keeps going

and going and going, you can't ask for better than that.

They do, potentilla is the same family as roses, isn't it?

Exactly. It's lovely. Do you love clay? Given the choice

I would pick clay every day of the week.

Yeah, me too, thanks ever so much.

Sometimes a beautiful view comes with its own problems.

Gillian Edwards lives in Snowdonia and she's written to us

to ask what on earth she can grow in her windswept, exposed site,

very close to the sea.

Well, there's so many things, as long as you bear in mind that

you want plants that are specially adapted to that sort of situation.

On this stand there are loads of examples.

There's a little spurge here.

This is Euphorbia cyparissias.

Right now it makes this lovely sort of swinging thread right

through the stand. Later it will have bright, lime green flowers

that will bring in the insects from far and wide.

Marry it with something like this little white daisy...

Providing it's not soaking wet during the winter

then it will survive happily

and flower for months on end.

Something really spectacular, eryngiums will cope with

mountainside and seaside alike.

They've got spectacular flowers and they really give

a bit of drama to your dry, sunny situation.

Aren't we lucky in Britain? We garden in all sorts of conditions,

all sorts of different situations but providing we always

bear in mind one principle - choosing plants that are going

to love the sort of conditions that we can offer them,

we really can't go wrong. The moral of the story is -

go with the flow, choose the right plant for the right place.

BEES BUZZ

Now, the show goes on till Sunday night. In fact,

I'll be there all day Sunday, so you can come and see me,

and if you want any details about times and how to get there,

then you can go to our website and find all the information there.

Now, the big pots that I put in the four centres

of the Jewel Garden have done their stuff for this year.

They serve very well through winter and into spring,

and now they're dying back. I need to revamp them.

This is a good time to refresh all containers

to take you for the rest of the summer.

And big pots are quite tricky to plant up,

and the secret is to make a statement.

Really go for it, and to do that,

you need to choose plants that have the panache

to not only make one statement,

but to go on making it right through into autumn.

I do think that if you're using a large pot,

it should be based around a centrepiece

that is big and dramatic. It needs height,

ideally at least as high as the pot itself.

I'm using a canna called Wyoming.

And this has got really nice, chocolate-coloured

veined foliage, which will mix in with the background and also,

superb bright orange flowers.

Of course, I haven't bought this.

I've had this plant for years, kept it over winter,

and just grown it on in the greenhouse for the last month or so

and hardened it off, so it's ready to go outside.

And the idea is to recycle as much as possible.

So there is the centrepiece like that.

Cannas are hungry, thirsty plants -

you can't really overwater or overfeed them.

The biggest mistake is to let them get too dry.

Now, around the outside, I want to have some dahlias.

This is an orange dahlia called 'David Howard'.

It has a really lovely orange flower with just a touch of apricot to it.

There were go. Three 'David Howard'.

See, I already think that's starting to look good,

and of course, they're crammed in far too tight

in conventional spacing teams. But that doesn't matter.

We want to maximise the effect from this one pot.

If I'm happy with that, I'll take these out of the pot.

And these are plants that I've had for a number of years,

and there's no reason why I can't have them for quite a few more

years yet, and take cuttings from them to make new plants.

It's absolutely essential if you want a big, dramatic display

from a big container, to give it the nourishment it needs.

Lots of goodness.

Next step is to have something that will trail a little bit,

and I've got nasturtiums, and this is a trailing mix, grown from seed.

Now, the only thing that one has to worry about with nasturtiums

is that they get a little bit vigorous at the expense of flowers.

Traditionally, if you wanted nasturtiums to flower really well,

you potted them up into the sweepings of the potting shed floor,

i.e., practically dust.

This is going into a strong compost,

but because it's being shared by other, more vigorous plants,

it should restrict the growth of the nasturtium

enough to promote flowering.

And then there, right against the edge.

And the final element of the mix, which is a rich, red flower,

a dianthus, and this particular one is an unnamed variety,

bought from a petrol station.

And that red will add a little bit of richness to the base

to stop it getting too orange and chocolate.

And the last piece of advice I think I'd give is,

when you're planting up a big container,

it can feel like the choices are limitless.

Work out what you want and stick to it.

Don't try and chuck a bit of everything in,

and if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter.

Next time, you've learned something.

Now, talking of next time, that's it for this week,

but I'll see you back here at Longmeadow

at the same time next Friday. Till then, bye-bye.

BIRDSONG

What's the hardest thing about being a foster parent?

You're constantly trying to build the elusive trust.

It's like a big old question mark in your heart.

I just try and do the best I can for them while they're with me.

Join Lorraine Pascale as she looks at stories of fostering...

I wasn't happy at all, but now I am. ..including her own.

Nice to know finally where I came to the world.

To know that you've grown up and had such a successful life is lovely.