Episode 17 Gardeners' World

Good boy.

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

I love the way that the dahlias are starting to come out

and you get this rhythm of colour regularly moving down in their pots,

which then contrasts against the more anarchic colour

in the borders here in the garden.

Of course, the bulk of the plants here at Longmeadow

are grown in borders. But containers are really important

and never more so than at this time of year.

This week, whatever you grow in your pots, be it ornate or edible,

I've got tips to keep them flourishing all summer long.

It's wonderful.

Carol helps new gardeners Dan and Dom in Stroud

make the most of their patio.

I think this is just looking brilliant.

And we visit one gardener who has containers to thank

for a whole new passion in her life.

If I didn't have containers and raised beds and pots in my garden

I wouldn't be able to do it all.

I think containers are definitely the way to go.

Come on, come with me.

One of the great things about pots is the choice it gives you.

So, for example, here in the top greenhouse we've now got

a permanent display of decorative plants based on pelargoniums.

Now, for years and years we've grown pelargoniums here at Longmeadow,

stored them in the winter in the greenhouse to protect them,

and then put them outside as soon as the weather is good enough.

And the display varies hugely depending on the weather.

But now that they can stay in the greenhouse,

the display is fantastic. It's consistent.

And because they're South African plants,

they like lots of light, they'll cope with heat perfectly well,

and then they just perform and perform.

Whereas underneath the staging in the corner, the streptocarpus -

also South African -

but liking very different conditions to the pelargonium.

They like warmth, moist shade.

And tucked in under the staging, out of the sun,

they're completely happy.

And because we've got them in pots we can adapt their conditions.

So by using containers and pots really well

you can expand the choices in your garden.

Of course, not all the plants that spend their winter in the greenhouse

spend their summer there, too. It means that we can bring them out

and so you have the citrus, the lemons and the oranges.

The same with lavender. In fact, two types of lavender -

the Lavender 'Angustifolia' is quite hardy,

and that will cope with the cold here but not the wet.

Whereas the Lavender 'Stoechas', that is a bit more tender,

and needs to come in.

There are times when containers form a kind of protective,

practical role.

This mint is grown in a galvanised container. Doing very well.

But the main purpose of the container here is not for the mint.

It's to protect other plants cos mint is a thug.

There are a couple of considerations

if you've got anything in any kind of pot.

The first is watering and the second is feeding.

Now, stashed away, because it smells so vile,

is...some comfrey feed

and some nettle feed that I made a month ago.

And I made these by stuffing the buckets full of nettles in one

and comfrey in the other and topping them up with water

and leaving them to decompose.

Nettle feed is high in nitrogen, which is very good for encouraging

a leafy strong plant in the beginning of the year.

But comfrey feed is high in potassium, which is fantastic

for encouraging the development of flowers and fruits.

So, once you've got your strong plant,

then you want the maximum number of flowers which will become fruits

and that's where the comfrey feed comes in.

We'll put the nettle feed to one side for the moment.

And concentrate on the comfrey.

So, we need to dilute this.

And I've got a watering can here.

If you're feeding once a week, 20:1 is plenty strong enough.

Give it a stir.

And get in out the rain to water your plants.

I'm going to give these chillies...

a feed like that.

And the reason why these are nice healthy plants is because

they've had a weekly nettle feed from April through to mid-June.

But now with the flowers here and the fruits forming,

they're ready for comfrey. And likewise the tomatoes.

Now, obviously, this applies to any plant in a container

that's bearing fruit of any kind.

If you don't make your own, you can buy very good proprietary

tomato feeds which are good general purpose for all fruits.

And liquid seaweed is very good, too.

For both watering and feeding it's better to use rain water if you can.

Certain plants, like camellias or carnivorous plants,

really must be watered with rain water.

That means collecting it. Water butts are great.

Open containers like this old cattle trough have the great advantage

that you can dip into them.

And it means that you can fill a fairly large watering can

in the time it takes to turn a tap on.

Carol has been visiting Dan and Dom over the course of this year,

helping them out as they develop their new garden.

And this week she's guiding them

in growing plants in containers on their new patio.

Dan and Dom have spent the past few months working hard

to create a lovely family garden.

With the summer in full swing, it's blooming.

Their veg patch, which we tackled on my last visit, is flourishing,

and they've been enjoying the fruits of their labour.

One of the final areas to tackle is the patio next to the house.

Dan's made a brilliant start, fixing the walls,

making beds with sleepers, and creating a deck.

But with a party imminent, they want it to look its best,

so I've taken Dan to the garden centre to get some seasonal colour.

Because today we're going to be planting summer pots.

-I think this terrace is just looking brilliant.

-I know, it looks good.

Just like everybody's patios or terraces you've got one area

that's in sun most of the day,

and you've got definite defined shade.

So I think it's a great idea if we plant these pots

so they're appropriate. Let's have something like this big pot here...

as the centrepiece of your sunny bit. Right, let's get cracking.

Now, this is sort of multipurpose compost.

It's only got to last for the summer

and it's got enough nutrients to do that.

So let's start with a canna. Loves the sun.

Everything should be just under the surface of the pot.

Don't plant things deep down here

cos they can't see the light or anything.

Now, dahlias are fabulous plants.

They're from Mexico, so they're tropical.

One of the things you must remember to do is dead head.

Keep on doing that all the time. You get masses more flowers.

And then if you've got something to fill in,

how about these osteospermums around the edge?

-So we can put even more in then?

-Oh, cram it all in.

-Oh, wow, yeah.

But you want something that's draping over the side.

Now, this lantana, you see it all over the Canary Isles.

The flowers on these are absolutely stunning.

When you're creating a pot like this there's a certain element

of flowering arranging.

And how about coleus? This is a plant you grow for its foliage.

It'll do equally well in sun or shade.

So it's a plant that we could use in your shady pot as well.

We'll give this a really good drench when we've finished everything.

-Shall we do the shade now?

-Yeah, yeah.

These are new pots and they're terracotta but they've been soaked

thoroughly and it's really vital that you do that.

Because they're porous, if you haven't soaked them,

they'll pull all the water out of your compost and plants.

-Choose something for your centrepiece.

-Coleus in the middle.

-It's fantastic.

-That one's been well watered. I've got the pot.

More compost around the edge. I've got some over here.

All these plants are things that are going to thrive in the shade.

They'll flourish, in fact.

I mean, there are a limited number of plants you can use in shade.

Begonias are a really good choice.

I'm angling this out a bit, is that right?

-Oh, it's perfect.

-Yeah?

-Yes.

And I think this nicotiana would go brilliantly well with it. Do you?

-Yeah.

-And they hardly need pressing in cos the level's just about right.

-We need a trailer now, don't we?

-Yeah.

There are all sorts of things you could use.

You could have ivy or fuchsias are really great shade plants.

-I like the colours of the bacopa.

-You can already see their habits,

so they're going to drop themselves right over the top of your pots.

-I think that looks pretty good, don't you?

-That's great.

And it'll just go on improving.

-Are you going to stand it down on your...

-Yeah.

-..gravel. Ready?

-I think you really do need little groups of pots.

-A cluster.

-A cluster, a colony.

-If you're going to do more pots, I'll probably go

and start firing up the pizza oven.

Earlier in the year we rescued a thyme.

We layered a few little pieces, too, and now we want to see

if they've succeeded.

It's done brilliantly, it really has. It's flowered like mad.

But I want to see what's happened underneath here.

Look, these little layers really look like they've worked.

Look at that. Really good root system. That's fantastic.

I think you ought to pot these up. But don't you think it'd be nice

-if we just fill this with different herbs?

-That would be lovely.

We're going to top all this up with this.

It's just your topsoil. It's not particularly rich.

Obvious choices are things like lavender.

Lovely.

And that's a sage. Now, this is the one that's ideal for his pizza.

-It's marjoram.

-Lovely.

-The only other thing was a camomile.

-Yeah.

It should be a nice random kind of arrangement,

so it just looks like a chunk of Mediterranean hillside.

-Think we better go and get ready for this party.

-We better.

Shall we take a bit of marjoram with us?

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Now that Dan and Dom's garden is a growing success,

the thing to do is to plan for the future.

And that's just what we're going to be doing next time.

Any food that you grow yourself always tastes better than

anything you can buy. And you don't need a garden to do that.

If you use a container you can grow something to eat on a window sill,

in a porch, roof garden, balcony perfectly well.

All you need is a container of some kind with drainage holes.

Drainage holes are absolutely essential.

Get some compost.

Just a normal peat-free compost will do the job perfectly well,

you don't need to add anything special to it.

Spread it smooth.

Then buy a packet of salad seeds.

You can either use a cut and come again variety,

or you can get mixes. This is a mix called salad bowl.

And it's a variety of leaves.

And sprinkle them on the surface.

Now, the key to this is don't be tempted to sow too thickly.

So, one packet of seeds like this will do ten bowls of that size.

And ideally you'd run two or three bowls

and sow them at two-week intervals.

And you could keep these going for months,

as long as you keep them watered and give them plenty of light.

That's it. The easiest gardening you'll ever do.

Now, even if you don't grow salad in bowls,

here's some jobs you can be doing this weekend.

Sweet peas can produce a steady flow of fresh flowers all summer

if you prevent them from going to seed.

The best way to do this is to cut them all regularly.

I've found about ten days is ideal.

And if you miss a few, remove the seed pods as soon as you see them.

Heavy rain, let alone summer storms, can wreak havoc in a border.

So check your supports, adding new ones where you think necessary.

I use home-made metal ones but anything will do the job,

as long as you follow the golden rule to provide support

BEFORE the plant needs rescuing.

It's time to cut your losses on autumn-sown broad beans.

Pull up the plants and harvest whatever pods you have

and this will create space for another crop to follow them.

Brassicas are ideal

because they enjoy the nitrogen left in the soil by the beans.

Come on, Nige.

This area of the garden, which used to be our dumping ground,

has been redeveloped, so we've got

an embryonic wildflower meadow on the top layer,

which is coming into being, and made a terrace.

And I've moved the big pots that used to be in the Jewel Garden

along the front and now it's time to plant them up.

Now, obviously,

we've put a hard surface on this area as a place to sit.

It's a sun trap.

But, also, it means that it's brilliant for pots of all kinds.

Now, these big pots need a big statement.

And I want to use them for topiary.

And the plant that I've chosen for all four

is perhaps a little bit unusual.

Hawthorn is a native

that is used by the thousands of miles as agricultural hedging.

I don't think it's really appreciated enough

as a garden plant. It has endless virtues.

It's got lovely flowers in spring,

it's got superb berries in autumn.

It's very, very easy to grow, very adaptable. It's cheap to buy.

Birds love it. Insects love it.

It can be clipped tight as a hedge

or I'm going to clip it as topiary.

So I think it'll be the perfect plant for these pots.

I'm going to use soil, partly to give it bulk,

partly to save using expensive composts, which are only accessed

by the top 12 inches or so of the feeding roots.

And also because hawthorn will be very happy

in good Herefordshire soil.

You could just buy a peat-free general-purpose compost

and that would be fine for the first few months.

But, if it's permanent planting,

buy a John Innes No 3 type compost.

If you can, add a little bit extra -

leaf mould, garden compost and a bit of grit -

and that will help the texture and the nutrition.

And, as with any plant where the roots are growing up inside the pot,

just gently tease them.

You're not try to pull them out,

what you are doing is breaking them to stimulate new growth.

Before I add any more,

I'm going to add the companion plants

that I'm going to plant underneath it.

And I've decided - keeping with the wildflower meadow theme,

and keeping with native plants -

to add a grass.

This is one of the most common grasses in the British Isles.

It's called Deschampsia 'Cespitosa'.

And I've grown it from seed.

So if I just put four around each of these four hawthorns,

they'll soon fill out.

What I like about this is I'm going to make a dramatic display

and the tree is about the cheapest tree of this size

you could possibly buy and the plants underneath...

pence.

If you under plant it, to a certain extent,

you're taking nutrients and water away from the main plant.

I think, as long as you're prepared to water it regularly

and perhaps feed it, that's not something to worry about.

Of course, the next thing to do is give these a really good soak

and they will need watering regularly

for the rest of their lives.

But it won't take long with these hawthorns

to get the mushroom shape I want,

that's a mushroom sitting on a bare, clean trunk.

Now I guess that when people are planting up pots,

whatever they're putting in them,

the first consideration is just that they're beautiful,

and they want them to look as attractive as possible.

But, as Niki Preston shows us in her garden in Peterborough,

whatever your needs, they have incredible flexibility, too.

I'm passionate about my garden.

I'm definitely a flower girl - bright colours. I love pink.

I'll put any colours together.

At the moment, I think the favourite thing for me is the alstroemerias,

cos they've really done well this year.

The orange lily, the vibrant colour of that is incredible.

I've always loved fuchsias,

I just love the way they look like little ballet dancers.

And the dianthus, cos they just smell gorgeous.

The other things that I really love are the echiums,

which I lovingly cared for for four years

and that's the first time they've flowered.

Gardening for me is very new.

James and I, my husband, we moved here four years ago.

It was the first house we bought together

and the garden was much bigger

than both of us had ever had before anyway

but it was very green, quite uninspiring.

James really wasn't that bothered,

so I had to take up that challenge and just learn fast

and get to grips with it and everything has led on from there.

Being in the garden makes me feel normal.

It's a rubbish word to use, I can't think of any other way of doing it.

Your garden doesn't judge you, your garden doesn't look at you and go,

oh, you look a bit strange.

I can just be me and I can lose myself completely in the garden

and I don't have to worry about not having hands and fingers

the same as everybody else.

Having a disability definitely makes gardening harder,

it definitely makes it harder, but it makes you more inventive as well.

The trowels and forks that I have are actually children's sized ones

so they are lighter but they are proper tools,

they are not the little plastic ones that break.

I am quite resourceful and I don't let anything faze me, definitely not.

This rose bed is definitely my favourite rose bed

because I can reach all the way around it, I don't have to stretch

too far, because although this arm is longer than this one,

I have to be able to reach with both hands

because I do everything with two hands.

I can't garden at ground level

because I can't get off the floor.

If I didn't have containers and raised beds

and pots in my garden, I wouldn't be able to do it at all.

James and I work really well as a team in the garden.

He doesn't mind following me around and just picking up after me

as I'm flinging stuff as I go!

He concentrates on all the bigger things that I couldn't do,

like mowing the lawn, digging things if they need to be dug,

building the raised beds for me, carrying the compost bags

and I concentrate on where the plants are going to go.

I'm so impressed with what Nicky has managed to do

and what she has turned this garden into since we moved in.

It is difficult to put it into words really how impressed

I am with what she has achieved.

I think the raised beds have given us both a greater enjoyment

of gardening because it makes everything so much easier.

It makes gardening a joy, not a chore.

There's nothing I like more than when Nicky comes up with a problem

and we can both sit down together and work out how we can solve this

and then by hook or by crook, we usually get to where we want to be.

I love hanging baskets in the garden

because they're really a good injection of colour,

and really brighten everything up on the patio,

but with James working away during the week, I couldn't water them.

I can't lift t a watering can, and they would just wilt and die.

Then we came up with this solution for the watering system

in the trolley with a water pressure.

I just have to press the button down and it pretty much does it for me.

The biggest thing that gardening has given me that I never ever thought

would be a new job really, becoming a garden writer for several magazines.

It has just given me a whole new lease of life,

to be able to write about the thing that I really love.

When I end up in a wheelchair, which will definitely happen,

there's no two ways about that, we will just adapt the garden to cope.

I will never stop gardening,

because it just gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Having a disability does make it difficult

but you just have to give it a little bit of thought.

If I can garden with two fingers, I think anybody can garden with 10!

Come on, come on!

Nicky showing you there that whatever your circumstances,

you can make a beautiful garden,

especially if you use containers

in a really creative way.

It's funny it's raining because actually,

I want to do some potting in the pond,

although not necessarily in the pouring rain.

To do that, you use a particular type of pot.

Most pots, especially the lovely terracotta pots,

are designed to look beautiful.

An aquatic pot is designed not to be seen

and has a particular function,

which is to let the water in from the outside

and to let roots out, so it's a basket essentially.

When you are planting any aquatic plant, whether it is a marginal

or a deep water one, you need to use aquatic compost.

Normal garden compost will not do the job.

I have a little bit left over here and its main feature is,

it's very low in nutrients.

I've got a ranunculus here, Ranunculus 'flammula',

which you can see has got small buttercup flowers

that will spread in a very loose way

and will work well in a wildlife pond.

It is a marginal plant so it will sit just under the water.

The reason why you use a low nutrient compost

is because you don't want to increase the general nutritional

level of the pond,

because the plants that will flourish most will be the weeds,

which, in the pond's case, mean that the surface can be coated in weed

and you get all sorts of problems.

Most aquatic plants get all the nutrients they need

from the water alone.

So the compost, the soil, is solely acting to anchor the roots.

You can see I have a bare root plant here.

When you buy a bare root plant, it is worth just checking

to see that there is no weed attached to it.

The easiest way to do that is just rinse it under a tap.

Then just bury them.

Right, this needs soaking outside and planting outside.

There is a theme here, I am going to get wet.

I am wet already.

I am going in a pond. I might as well do it!

I've filled this trug with water from the pond

and all I have to do is just soak this in it for a few minutes

so that it is really saturated before I plant it.

Right, that should have absorbed enough water to hold it in place.

The soil has really compacted down, which means that it gives me room

to put a layer of grit over the top,

which will just hold it in place.

The grit stops the soil floating away

and effectively polluting the water.

So, all I have to do is just plonk it in the water.

Right, this is all slippery and the chances of falling in are high.

I'm going to pop this down, just lower it into the water

so it sits on the bottom.

That will grow and spread not very far, about a foot,

two foot at the most.

Of course, all the plants in the pond here,

every single one is in a container.

This is a container garden just as much as if it was on a patio.

It looks as natural and established

as though it had grown itself out of the soil and the water.

Well, that's it for this week.

We shan't be back next week because the Proms are on.

But I will be here at Longmeadow at the normal time in two weeks.

So, see you in a couple of weeks, goodbye!