Episode 16 Gardeners' World


Episode 16

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Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

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I always feel that July is the start of the harvest season.

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And, of course, that means lovely vegetables from the garden,

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but also don't neglect the flowers.

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I try and, every few days, cut some roses,

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just from whatever is out.

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In the hot sun, that won't last more than a day.

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But if I take it inside into a cool room,

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that will give me an extra 24 hours of pleasure.

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'This week, I'll be continuing to develop the wildlife meadow

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'that I sowed last year.

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'Joe gets an exclusive behind-the-scenes

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'tour of the private gardens at Eton College,

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'where Prince William and Harry went to school.'

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It's like a secret garden in here.

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I came through the gate and what a beautiful space!

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It's a centre of excellence for education, isn't it,

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so we try and do that in the gardens.

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Carol is looking at the wildlife that is

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so beneficial for our gardens.

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This week, she's dipping below the surface

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of a garden pond.

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What's actually important for the creatures that live in here

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isn't the species of plant,

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but it's the variety of structure and shape,

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because each one of these will then create a different niche or habitat,

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if you like, that particular types of insect will prefer.

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Go on.

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Go on.

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Every year, I try and plan it

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so I have new potatoes on my birthday,

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which is at the beginning of July.

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Now is the time to see if they're ready.

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You can tell if potatoes are likely to be ready

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by a number of things.

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The first is, they must flower.

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And these have flowered and finished flowering,

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so I would expect there to be tubers.

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The second is, as a pretty good guide,

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the first earlies take three months,

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main crop four months

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and second earlies somewhere in between.

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So, this is Charlotte,

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which is a second early.

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Oh, look at that.

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Now, I challenge anybody,

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it doesn't matter how many years you've gardened,

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doesn't that make your heart sing?

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If they're wet or damp,

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leave them on the surface of the ground to dry off.

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But these are actually pretty dry,

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so they don't need it.

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There we go.

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A little bit of green on that.

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The green is poisonous, of course.

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You shouldn't eat that.

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Charlotte is a variety that I've come to love.

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It is a French variety,

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slightly waxy and they're really good

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just plain boiled,

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eaten either with some butter or olive oil

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and plenty of salt and pepper.

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It's worth taking some trouble to get every last little one out

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the ground, because the chances are they will grow new plants next year.

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That might sound like plants for free, but there are two downsides.

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One is that you grow potatoes on a rotation.

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So they'll be growing up through a different crop next year.

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And two, potatoes can accumulate viruses.

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So, it's not a bad idea to buy fresh every year

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from a reputable grower.

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Right, that's enough potatoes to keep the Don household

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going for the next few days.

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The rest can stay in the ground.

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Over here, I've got some courgettes.

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And courgettes have done really well so far this summer.

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I wouldn't want a courgette any bigger than that

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and I'm very happy to take them quite a bit smaller.

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This is a variety called Black Beauty.

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Obviously, the more you pick,

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the more that will grow.

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And, of course, you can eat the flowers on the end, too.

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There's a delicious dish,

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which is to deep-fry them in a very light batter

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and stuff them with a soft cheese.

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So you have this hot, deep-fried flower

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and then the warm cheese and then that sort of melts through it

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and it's slightly crispy.

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It's absolutely delicious.

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These are vegetables ready for eating now,

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but I want to clear a bed so I can plant out some veg

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that will give me a harvest later on in the year.

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This looks pretty scruffy by now. It's rocket.

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Sowed it on the 1st of February, planted it out in March

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and we've been eating it since mid-March.

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You can see that it's producing more flowers and leaves now.

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That's not a terrible thing,

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because rocket flowers, like courgette flowers,

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are very good to eat.

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But it's a law of diminishing returns.

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So, pull up the plants...

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There is already a lot of organic material in this raised bed,

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but it's a good idea, every time you clear a crop,

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to add a thin layer of compost.

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And that just recharges it.

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I'm going to plant some sweetcorn.

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It needs a sunny position

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and good, rich soil.

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And I'm going to space it quite widely apart in a grid.

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And the grid is really important.

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That's because sweetcorn

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pollinates via the wind.

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The wind blows the pollen from plant to plant.

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If you have them in a grid,

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it doesn't matter which direction the wind is coming from,

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they will all catch it at some point

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and they will all be pollinated.

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Now, those are in the ground and will be quite happy and need

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no attention at all, but they'll grow slowly.

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But I can use the space.

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And a really good companion crop...

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are courgettes.

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Because they will share the same growing conditions

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of sun and nice, rich soil,

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but provide their fruits before they get shaded out by the sweetcorn.

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And I'll just fit four plants in here.

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Nicely spaced out, so they can spread.

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You could plant lettuces or anything that will give you

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a quick harvest in amongst the slower growing sweetcorn.

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And it's not too late to directly sow

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courgette seeds or sweetcorn, cos the soil is warm.

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But it will depend on nice, warm weather for

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the rest of summer for them to grow fast and to ripen.

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This is all very practical.

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But over the last few weeks,

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Joe has been looking at the beautiful decorative gardens

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that lie behind some of our more famous institutions -

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often gardens which people rarely get the opportunity to see.

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And, a few weeks ago, he went to a school,

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but not just any old school.

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Eton is probably the most famous public school in the world.

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It has a long list of distinguished former pupils,

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including 19 British Prime Ministers

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and the future king Prince William and his brother Prince Harry.

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'The college was founded by Henry VI more than 500 years ago.'

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Today, the grounds cover 900 acres,

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including numerous sports pitches...

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..and several private gardens.

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These hidden gems are only open to the public

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one day a year for the National Gardens Scheme.

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The job of keeping these gardens looking at their best

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falls to head gardener Michael Long and his team.

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-Hi, Michael. Lovely to meet you.

-And you.

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It's like a secret garden in here.

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I came through the gate and... What a beautiful space.

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It is, it's fantastic, isn't it?

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This is the headmaster's garden.

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It's only for use by the headmaster.

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The pupils don't get to come in here.

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So, you've been involved in the design of this garden.

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Why have you designed like this?

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Basically, the headmaster's wife likes flower arranging.

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She does it in the house and in the chapel.

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And the idea is to cut the flowers from the garden.

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We try to make it a bit of a cutting garden.

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It's a centre of excellence for education, isn't it,

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so we'd like to try and do that in the gardens.

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So, which one of these gardens is your favourite?

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Luxmoore's, the island garden.

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Put the tools down.

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-Wow, this is a beautiful bridge, isn't it?

-It is, isn't it?

-Stunning.

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-So, this is the River Thames?

-Yes.

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OK. You'd never know it.

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Beautiful.

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Welcome to Luxmoore's island.

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It's a very exotic name, isn't it? Why is it called that?

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The garden was originally started by Mr Luxmoore,

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who was a housemaster at Eton.

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He taught here for about 50 years in the 1800s.

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Why is it your favourite?

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I think, partly, it's so different to the other gardens,

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because they're quite formal and this one is very informal.

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And it's just so peaceful

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and you can come over here and if everything's quiet,

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you could be anywhere.

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-So are the pupils allowed onto the island?

-Yes, they are.

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The older boys are allowed on the island,

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for study, quiet time.

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And the younger boys can come on with a tutor to do private lessons.

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Does this garden have a specific planting palette?

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There is a book called Luxmoore Letters

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which we've looked through and we have picked out

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plants that Mr Luxmoore used.

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So, we use similar plants to those.

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There's things like Hemerocallis,

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roses, irises.

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So traditional English garden plants, really.

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Yeah, a lot of these plants have been here quite a while.

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In a way, you're gardening in a snapshot in time.

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Do you feel a real responsibility?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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This garden's hopefully going to be here another 100+ years.

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We've got to look after it for

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the next generation of gardeners to take over.

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Eton hasn't just educated British royalty.

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Members of royal families from around the world have come here -

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including, many years ago, the King of Siam,

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who donated money which was used to build another garden,

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which feels quite different from the others.

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This is beautiful, this garden.

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I love the sunken nature of it.

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This was originally done in 1929,

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but it's recently been redesigned.

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-You can tell it's got a slightly modern edge to the planting.

-Yes.

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But a lot of harmony. It looks fantastic, I have to say.

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It's nice. They're all small beds

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so you can get to everything quite easily.

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That, the iris and the catmint

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and the hesperis with the cow parsley.

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That is beautiful!

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It's very nice and, I mean, it's the one everybody sees.

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This is the one garden that everybody walks past and sees.

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-Because, yeah, the public can walk past here.

-Yes.

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'Another garden is for the use of the Provost,

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'who is officially in charge of the college and appointed by the Crown.'

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This is my first time ever in these gardens.

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I think it's fantastic that you open them to the public

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on a Yellow Book day.

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We love to see the public here,

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because we're proud of what the gardeners do.

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It's lovely to see people coming through,

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real experts, a lot of them, talking in horticultural Latin,

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which I'm afraid is beyond me.

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THEY LAUGH

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They're incredibly lucky, the boys here,

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to have this beautiful surroundings.

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And the fact is that we do seem to produce

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a steady stream of good gardeners.

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So some of it gets into their minds, I think.

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And a lot of them do appreciate just the sheer beauty

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and the luck they have to be in these surroundings.

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The gardens will be open again next year,

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so maybe that's a date to put in your diary.

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Now, the garden that I'm making here

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on what we call The Mound is very different.

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This was a rubbish heap for nearly quarter of a century.

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And, last year, we thought we would sort it out and try

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and make a wild flower meadow.

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And that's work in progress.

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But it is at last coming along.

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And the theme of this piece of the garden is to encourage

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as many wild and indigenous plants as we possibly can.

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And it certainly is beginning to look a bit wild.

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But this was sown just about a year ago.

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It may look like the sort of growth you get on a rubbish heap

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or by the side of a road,

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but, actually, there's

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a lot of really interesting stuff in that.

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Now, the seed mix

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that I sowed in the middle of last July

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contained grasses, which are here,

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and although they've been bashed by rain,

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they've established and grown quite strongly,

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but they also had some wild flowers in it,

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like these clovers

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which have come through.

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The Silene, both the white Silene and the pink.

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And Viper's bugloss was in the mix.

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You can see here.

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And this will seed, in turn,

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and then spread.

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A wild flower meadow needs careful tending.

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Needs gardening.

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You do need to let the plants that you want to keep seed

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and to make sure the plants that you don't want to keep don't seed.

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This dock here is developing seeds and I don't want those to spread so

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I can put the hoe down at the base of the plant and jab in like that.

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That cuts it off at the roots, I can pull it out and importantly,

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the seeds won't spread and germinate.

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This plant here is hemlock.

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It's poisonous, really quite poisonous and you can tell it,

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it's got these lovely white Umbelliferae flowers

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and then the very distinctive purple blodgy stem.

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If you have got it, I'd wear gloves when you handle it.

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So we'll just chop that out like that

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and I will collect that up with gloves.

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Here we have a sow thistle and they can be a bit of a weed.

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So I'm going to chop that out.

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There we go.

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And I'll gather that up.

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There you go.

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Out you come.

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This is the meadow's second summer and each year,

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after the grasses and wild flowers have set seed,

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it must be cut down and all the mown material taken away.

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This will reduce the nutrients for the grasses

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and allow the wild flowers to compete

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and gradually, over the years, to thrive.

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This is one of those weeding jobs that I really like

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because it gives you a chance to get in and enjoy the garden,

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to see it up close and from the inside rather than always

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looking on it from the outside.

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And it's something to do slowly,

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something I'll probably spend another half hour or so doing.

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But even if you haven't got any weeding jobs to do,

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here's some other things to get on with this weekend.

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If you grow chives,

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they may well not be looking very good at the moment.

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However, you can easily rejuvenate them

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by cutting them back hard to the ground.

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Give them a really good soak,

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and within days, you'll have a fresh flush of foliage.

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By now, your autumn fruiting raspberries

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should have sent up plenty of new shoots.

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But before they become top heavy,

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it's a good time to support them.

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Put some stakes securely into the ground,

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and stretch string between them, which will keep the canes upright

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and make them much easier to pick.

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So far, it's been a wonderful year for clematis

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and they've really enjoyed the wet winter and spring.

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But this has resulted in a lot of extra lush growth

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and it's a good idea to gather them up now and tie them in

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to any support to give them extra protection against summer storms.

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Increasingly, more and more of us are learning to appreciate

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both the wildlife we see in our gardens

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and the value that they add to the health of our gardens.

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And over the coming few weeks,

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Carol is going to be looking at the various creatures that we can

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share our back yards with and the best ways of enticing them in.

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In sunny borders and in shady corners,

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under rocks and amongst the trees and leaves, live a myriad

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of creatures, part of an intricate chain to which we all belong.

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I want to find out what this means to us,

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our plants and the sanctuaries we call our gardens.

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In Britain, we've created more than 2.5 million garden ponds.

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Water plays a very significant part in the designs that we love,

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but what more does it contribute, other than its visual appeal?

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Steve Head is a zoologist who, for the last 15 years, has been

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developing and studying his garden pond to attract wildlife.

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It's incredibly beautiful, but what are the real reasons

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for having a wildlife pond in your own garden?

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Well, I think you want a pond in your garden

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because it's such a source of life in the garden,

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because so many specific insects like the pond, need the pond,

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but then there's all the other creatures that will make

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use of it, including some quite unexpected ones.

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Bees on a hot day, a honey bee hive needs litres of water to keep

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the hive cool and air-conditioned, to evaporate.

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When you think of a wildlife pond,

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immediately you think about native plants

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and yet you've got lots of plants that are ornamental, haven't you?

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-Non-native.

-Yeah, things like the Astilbe are in there

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because they're just so extraordinarily colourful.

0:19:120:19:16

But we've got some native species in here as well.

0:19:160:19:19

There's the lovely thing, bogbean, in here.

0:19:190:19:21

It has an extraordinary triple-leaf,

0:19:210:19:23

but the most gorgeous little delicate white flower...

0:19:230:19:25

and the Veronica beyond.

0:19:250:19:27

But what's actually important for the creatures that live in here

0:19:270:19:30

isn't the species of plant but it's the variety of structure and shape,

0:19:300:19:34

because each one will have its own shape of stem,

0:19:340:19:36

its own shape of leaves, its own shape of roots particularly.

0:19:360:19:40

And each one of these will then create a different niche or

0:19:400:19:43

a habitat, if you like, particular types of insect will prefer.

0:19:430:19:47

To look at the intricate habitats that lie beneath,

0:19:490:19:52

we're using a special camera to glimpse a newt's-eye view

0:19:520:19:56

of the underwater landscape.

0:19:560:19:58

Oh, that's an extraordinary shot,

0:20:010:20:03

going in under the surface and you can see the submerged leaves

0:20:030:20:07

and there's a root there appearing at the bottom.

0:20:070:20:09

When we look around,

0:20:090:20:10

it sort of emphasises just how much structure there is underwater there.

0:20:100:20:14

So if you're starting a pond,

0:20:140:20:16

how does all this life get in there in the first place?

0:20:160:20:20

Insect life comes in of its own accord almost immediately

0:20:200:20:25

and it's remarkable how many plants will come in just on the legs

0:20:250:20:29

of birds, you know, seeds and so on coming in that way.

0:20:290:20:32

-Oh, there's a snail, can you see it?

-Oh, yes, there we are.

0:20:320:20:34

Of course, that's a snail which is confined to the pond, it doesn't

0:20:340:20:38

come out and eat your cabbages so it's completely safe in the garden.

0:20:380:20:41

But, you know, everything else that we get in the pond,

0:20:410:20:44

like the newts and the frogs and the toads, even, are tremendous

0:20:440:20:48

predators of those unfortunate things like slugs which we all love to hate.

0:20:480:20:52

What we could do now is see if we can find some of the creatures

0:20:560:20:59

we've been talking about so we can look at them a bit more clearly.

0:20:590:21:02

-Let's have a look at what we've got.

-Let's see what we've got in here.

0:21:070:21:10

Got quite a few bits and pieces.

0:21:110:21:13

I think the star in many ways is that caddisfly larva,

0:21:130:21:16

or rather we're not actually seeing the larva which is hiding away

0:21:160:21:20

inside this case which is made out of little, tiny dead shells

0:21:200:21:23

and bits of vegetation glued together.

0:21:230:21:25

You can actually see snails' shells, can't you?

0:21:250:21:27

Yes and of course we've got lots and lots and lots of snails in here.

0:21:270:21:31

Snails live close to the surface, don't they?

0:21:310:21:34

And they hoover everything up?

0:21:340:21:36

You even see them actually upside down, feeding off the surface

0:21:360:21:39

layer and generally keeping the pond really clean.

0:21:390:21:43

But the most, the MOST handsome things in here are the newts.

0:21:430:21:46

Yeah, these are the common newt.

0:21:460:21:48

Newts have got a fascinating life cycle.

0:21:500:21:53

What happens is that they come into the pond sort of February or

0:21:530:21:57

March and they mate and then the female lays her eggs,

0:21:570:22:00

one at a time generally, on a little bit of flat pond weed

0:22:000:22:03

which they then fold over to protect it.

0:22:030:22:05

And when the eggs hatch, they turn into an extraordinary tadpole thing

0:22:050:22:09

and it's got external gills

0:22:090:22:11

and they'll live as a tadpole usually for six months or so

0:22:110:22:15

and then they lose these gills, they become air-breathing

0:22:150:22:18

and they climb out of the pond

0:22:180:22:20

and they stay out of the pond for anything up to two years,

0:22:200:22:22

feeding completely as if they were terrestrial animals.

0:22:220:22:26

Then, of course, when they're ready,

0:22:260:22:28

as the first warm days occur in late winter, early spring,

0:22:280:22:31

back they come to the pond and they start the life cycle over again.

0:22:310:22:35

We've got something else in here which I particularly like

0:22:360:22:39

-and that's this wonderful, big dragonfly larva here.

-Yeah.

0:22:390:22:42

This is the tiger of the pond world.

0:22:420:22:45

They're significant predators on just about everything else in the pond.

0:22:450:22:48

Where are their eggs laid?

0:22:480:22:49

The females lay their eggs directly into the water at the top

0:22:490:22:53

of the water and they hatch out to make little tiny nymphs

0:22:530:22:58

and they grow up, they shed their skin several times

0:22:580:23:01

-until they get to this sort of size...

-How long does that take?

0:23:010:23:04

Well, it can take six months or, depending on the weather

0:23:040:23:06

and again the species, it can take actually anything up to five years.

0:23:060:23:10

And when they're ready,

0:23:100:23:11

they then crawl through the water surface off a steep stem

0:23:110:23:15

and they break the skin over the back

0:23:150:23:17

and after this, a really quite ugly, strange-looking aquatic animal

0:23:170:23:21

bursts forth, an adult dragonfly

0:23:210:23:24

and they have to pause while they inflate the wings and get ready

0:23:240:23:26

but within an hour, they'll be off, flying into the sunshine.

0:23:260:23:30

I think the thing is, even if you've got a really tiny garden,

0:23:380:23:41

-you can still have water in it, can't you?

-Yes, you can.

0:23:410:23:45

And both the wildlife and us

0:23:450:23:47

can really rejoice in this beautiful habitat we've created.

0:23:470:23:51

And isn't it just gorgeous?

0:23:510:23:53

There's no question that adding the pond to Longmeadow

0:24:080:24:13

has dramatically increased the wildlife

0:24:130:24:15

and the pond is bound to make your garden healthier and much richer.

0:24:150:24:21

Now, I've been contacted by Tracey from Yorkshire and she says,

0:24:240:24:28

"Dear Monty, I was given a quince tree for my birthday

0:24:280:24:31

"and I planted it last autumn and it was doing really well.

0:24:310:24:34

"However, over the last few weeks, it's developed nasty brown spots

0:24:340:24:38

"all over the leaves and is now looking very sorry for itself.

0:24:380:24:42

"Do you know what it could be, and can it be rescued?"

0:24:420:24:45

And the answer to both is yes.

0:24:450:24:47

Now, this is quince leaf blight

0:24:470:24:50

and I've got it on my own quinces on the other side of the pond.

0:24:500:24:54

It starts out as rather browny red blotches but then spread

0:24:540:24:59

and become black.

0:24:590:25:01

The leaves quite often then turn yellow

0:25:010:25:03

and fall off but actually, it's not a total disaster. The trees recover.

0:25:030:25:08

Next year, there's no guarantee they will get it

0:25:080:25:11

and they will give you a really good crop of quinces.

0:25:110:25:13

But collect up all the leaves and burn them.

0:25:130:25:16

We've had a very wet, mild winter and spring

0:25:160:25:19

and this has encouraged the fungus that causes the blight.

0:25:190:25:22

It's also encouraged powdery mildew

0:25:220:25:25

and my quinces on the other side of the pond have got both.

0:25:250:25:28

This quince has got a really clear case of leaf blight.

0:25:350:25:41

The leaves are splotched with brown and they're starting to crisp

0:25:410:25:46

and die back and these will fall.

0:25:460:25:50

But this one isn't too bad, I'm not too worried about it,

0:25:500:25:54

but I've got four quinces here and one of them is much worse.

0:25:540:25:58

Now, the blight and mildew won't kill my quince trees

0:25:590:26:03

but to reduce the spread of the fungi,

0:26:030:26:05

I've decided to take the drastic action of cutting down

0:26:050:26:09

the worst affected one, which will help the remaining three.

0:26:090:26:12

Now, this one in particular is really bad.

0:26:150:26:19

I've planned to take it out.

0:26:190:26:22

That will let ventilation in, air, a little bit more rain, light...

0:26:220:26:27

And just take that off...

0:26:270:26:29

Look at the combination of blight and mildew on that.

0:26:370:26:40

The mildew is a powdery, felted covering on the underneath

0:26:400:26:44

of the leaf and the blight is there, too.

0:26:440:26:48

If you're cutting down any tree, do it slowly, bit by bit,

0:26:520:26:58

a really sharp saw and just take control of the operation.

0:26:580:27:03

Don't hack at it and then hope it falls where you want it to.

0:27:030:27:07

One quince less in my life.

0:27:290:27:32

Now, I could dig out the stump but I don't think there's any need.

0:27:320:27:37

I'll plant around the roots and chop through them.

0:27:370:27:39

And whilst it's sad, it's done well,

0:27:390:27:44

I've eaten of the quinces

0:27:440:27:46

and hopefully everything else will do better.

0:27:460:27:50

That's part of the cycle of the garden.

0:27:500:27:52

But that's it for this week.

0:27:540:27:57

Next week, we're still at nine o'clock

0:27:570:27:59

because we follow the athletics but before then,

0:27:590:28:03

Rachel, Carol, Joe and myself

0:28:030:28:05

will all be at Hampton Court Flower Show,

0:28:050:28:07

we've got three programmes coming from there

0:28:070:28:09

and I'll join you here, back at Longmeadow, next Friday night.

0:28:090:28:13

Till then, bye-bye.

0:28:140:28:16

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