Episode 2 Gardeners' World

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World on the most beautiful spring day,

here at Long Meadow.

These crocuses are not just looking really good, they are new.

I have not seen them before.

We planted them two years ago and last spring

we had that terrible cold weather,

and then the rabbits came in and ate the lot.

So this year they've come as a gift.

There is always that thing with bulbs.

You know what you want from them but you plant them with a lot of hope,

and by the time they grow,

you have almost forgotten that they are there.

Nige, come on.

This week, Carol continues her look at her favourite garden plants

and the people who devote their lives to them,

with a celebration of cyclamen.

-Do you love them?

-I don't know how I would live without them!

We shall also be visiting a plantsman in Yorkshire,

who has a passion for sweet peas, to see how he breeds new varieties.

Stick the stigma into there, and tap.

Fold it all back together, and hey presto, we have got a cross.

Joe continues to explore gardens

in the most challenging of locations,

with a trip to the rocky, windswept coast of North Cornwall.

If you were to take that hedge away

the garden would disappear in 12 months.

It would just be covered with salt, it would turn black

and that would be the end of your garden.

And I am going to have to take drastic action and say goodbye

to old friends that have shaped this garden over the last 15 years.

But before we look at disasters, let's do something positive,

because it is time to sow sweet peas.

You can sow them in tubes and root trainers,

and various different ways.

But over the years I have found that getting small pots,

these are three-inch pots,

and sowing a batch in each pot that gets planted out whole, works ideal.

And three is about right. These are hungry, thirsty plants.

Not seed compost, general-purpose compost is fine,

but if you can add a little bit of sieved soil,

or sieved garden compost, so much the better.

Because the roots will start to engage with the bacteria

and the fungi in the soil from the very beginning

and they will grow better when you transplant them.

Now, the sweet peas themselves.

There are many, many different types

of sweet peas you have to choose from,

and you grow them all the same.

I have got here Black Knight, Wonderful, rich, deep purple.

There used to be a feeling that they had to be soaked,

nicked with a pen knife,

I have found that there is no need to do any of that at all.

They will germinate perfectly well.

Just pop three per pot.

Those four pots are going to make a wigwam.

So we push them in there, lightly sprinkle

a little bit of soil over the top...

..and now these go into a protective place to germinate.

It does not have to have direct heat,

a windowsill is absolutely fine, or a porch.

And then as soon as the seedlings are established,

put them outside in a sheltered place.

They will grow harder and stronger and they will adapt quicker

when you plant them out.

There we are. The first batch of this year's sweet peas.

It is one of those plants that stirs some people

to a lifetime of devotion.

I think Andrew Bean in Yorkshire would class himself as one.

Not only does he grow sweet peas but he breeds them.

I have always been interested in hybridising,

I've got marbled sweet peas, striped sweet peas, flaked sweet peas,

and I have got one bi-colour tucked away somewhere as well.

So, the whole aim is to get something different.

When hybridising, what we want is a flower that is not pollinated.

Well, this one here, pull this down, I think this one will be all right.

It's pollen sacs are intact. That is fine, that is OK.

So, we need to cut those off. So, this is the hard bit. Right.

I'm going to go, trim, nicely, we have exposed the stigma, right,

now what we need is something to put onto that.

We are aiming for a blue marble. So we want a marble flower or two.

I'm going to have to go and get some flowers. Won't be a minute.

So we want something that has got pollen already shattered,

usually about three quarters.

That'll do nicely.

So we're going to take that one, so we take the pollen from here,

don't say any marriage vows,

we're just going to pull the wings back on that, like that,

and just stick the stigma into there, and tap.

Like that. A little bit of pollen on there.

Next, what we do is put it back together again.

Bring it back, this is the hard bit.

Right, and then fold it all back together, like that,

and hey presto, we have got a cross.

I am the gardener of the family, right, so I do most of the gardening.

I think my wife would have liked more a proper sort of garden

with nice paths and things like that.

We negotiated the patio, and she has now got a top patio,

I have got my sweet pea pots, it is a merging of the two!

Right, well, one way of saving seed,

especially in a hybridiser's garden,

is, you need to get the seed to dry off.

And we use tights.

Tights are very good for drying off seed.

I use different coloured ones as well,

so that I don't get the seed mixed up.

We just put the seed pods in here

when they are ready for picking off,

you then get a big amount of seed in here,

and as they dry out, you go along and you give them

a little squeeze like this, on all these tights, the pods explode,

the seed ends up in the toe, and when you want it, you cut the toe off,

and drop it into a seed tray, here,

and then we hand-sort the seed.

The thing that really grabs me

are the different colours that you can achieve.

This is a flake.

You very rarely get flakes on the market. There are stripes here.

There is a mass of different colours that you can go at.

You can go for red on cream. Nobody has got red on cream.

The ultimate is the yellow.

But I will leave that up to the genetic engineering

to get that one, definitely!

This sunshine has brought the frogs out.

And the pond is heaving with them, I counted about 30 in here.

It does show that if you can bring a pond into a garden,

it does not matter how small,

it attracts wildlife better than anything else.

Now, time to get on.

Here's some jobs you can do in your garden this weekend.

Epimediums are a charming but shy woodland flower.

And to enjoy them at their best you cut away last year's foliage.

This will let light and air in

and reveal the flowers in all their glory.

It is time to sow tomatoes.

I like to sow another batch later in the month.

You can either use a seed tray,

scattering the seed thinly onto the compost.

Or sow the seeds individually into plugs.

The advantage of the seed tray, it is quick but you will need to

transplant the seedlings as soon as they are big enough to handle.

Whereas those in the plugs need less handling

and develop a better root system before they are potted up.

Either way, put your seeds in a warm place to germinate.

Broad beans can be delicious if picked young

and are one of the easiest vegetables to grow.

As soon as the ground can be worked, they can be sown direct.

Either in double rows about 9-12 inches apart, leaving two-three

feet between the rows so you can walk down and harvest them.

Or, if you're growing them in a raised bed like I do,

they can be planted in a grid with each seed nine inches apart.

I would expect to see those appear in about three weeks' time.

But I did sow some last October. These are Aquadulce.

Aquadulce are by far the best for an autumn sowing.

You can see they've grown well. The advantage of sowing

in autumn is that you establish strong plants for the beginning

of spring, so when the weather does warm up they are ahead

and you get an earlier crop. The disadvantage is that they

are prone to mice and slugs and to the vagaries of the weather.

But it will be interesting to see which gives us the best harvest.

To add to the mix, I did a sowing at the end of January

and have grown these in the greenhouse.

When they are hardened off in about a week's time,

I will plant them where this kale is.

So I will have three lots and I can do a comparison between the three.

The point, of course, is not so much the size of the harvest

but the timing, which is going to give me

those first delicious baby beans at the end of spring?

One job that I must get on with here is to repair some wind

damage to this Irish yew.

You can see that it is leaning over and I need to straighten it up.

And then put a couple of stakes either side and hold it nice

and securely, probably with some hosepipe.

That won't damage the plant in any way

and will allow a little bit of movement.

But it does need to be rigid because you can see that the

roots have been ripped up quite close to the trunk.

So hold it straight until the roots establish.

That will be in three or four years.

We get lots of wind here at Longmeadow

but I know they are nothing compared to the winds that batter the garden

that Joe has been visiting on the north Cornish coast.

With its colourful, lush and very varied planting, it is

hard to believe that this garden is perched on the top

of a headland in north Cornwall.

It is a very still day today

but this spot would put the fear into the bravest of gardeners.

Gardening here at the mercy of the elements is a real test.

Gale force, salt laden winds are not the gardener's friend.

But it didn't discourage David Eyles.

First impressions make it clear,

he has managed to create a space on the edge of the Atlantic which

encompasses an amazing array of planting styles.

You've got separate areas, you've got pretty classic herbaceous

borders, you've got your cottage garden and a dry garden.

I don't like going into a garden and somebody opening a door

and saying, here's the garden and you can see the whole thing.

I think a garden invites you to go in

and see what is round the next corner.

And if you restrict yourself to just one type of gardening

then that is all you do.

This is my dry garden which we call the Beth Chatto Garden cos

I read her book called The Dry Garden.

It seemed to be the sort of thing that would

suit our sort of conditions.

A lot of people think of Cornwall as wet and damp conditions.

This is unbelievably dry up here.

If you stood here in the middle of November with a Cornish gale,

you would agree with the former.

But in the summer, because it is so light and sandy, because it

is blown onshore over eons of time, the rain just goes straight through.

I have to say, the combination of plants is great. I love the Crocosmia

with the Achilleas over there.

The upright forms of the Cordylines and the Stipa over there.

You have got a real eye for putting plants together.

I think the eye needs shape more than colour.

There is one crucial design element,

without which this entire garden would not be possible.

Someone once told me that if you live on the north

coast of Cornwall, you can either have a view or a garden.

So we decided on the garden.

And if you're going to garden where we are, the first thing you

have got to do is provide yourself with some shelter.

I heard that, in fact,

one thing you must not do is put up a solid obstruction for the wind.

We get winds up to 70 or 80mph in the wintertime and if you put

up a wall, the wind will vortex over it and create more problems.

So you have got to filter the wind.

That means you have got to find a hedge which will stand,

not only the strength of the wind but also the salt.

And so we did some research into various forms of hedging

and we ended up with Olearia traversii, which is

a New Zealand plant which has become adapted to the salt environment.

That is tried and tested, the Olearia, isn't it?

On a day like this, it's as if there is no wind,

what are you talking about?!

Only three days without wind and you have chosen one of them!

Normally the wind would just sweep right through.

if you were to take that hedge away,

the garden would disappear in 12 months.

It would just be covered with salt, it would

turn black and that would be the end of your garden.

It is not a luxury, it is absolutely essential.

As you say, it now creates a particular environment within to

grow a much wider variety of plants and that is what it is all about.

It is quite amazing and a testament to David's ingenuity,

that even in a location as exposed as this, he has managed to create

an exotic garden.

This is incredible, it shows what a microclimate you have created

here because you have some really exotic plants.

We started with the rockery.

It is the only time we have actually done any designing.

We laid out on a piece of paper the sort of shape we would like

and this is the result. It is a joy.

A lot of people have tried

and failed to create a garden in extreme conditions.

What would your advice be to them?

The most important thing is to do research.

You really do need to first know what soil you have got,

then you need to know from which direction the weather is coming

and indeed where the sun is, if it ever shines.

The reason why most of the Cornish gardens are on the south

coast is because they are sheltered from the Atlantic salt winds.

I choose to live in a place where I have got the salt winds so I then

had to take steps in order to create the right sort of environment.

-It didn't stop you.

-It didn't stop me but then I am an awkward bugger!

David Eyles' garden apparently withstood

the ferocious storms that it was battered with earlier this year

so the hedge was obviously

doing its work. And you can go and see the garden for yourself.

It is open under the National Garden Scheme

and the details of times and dates can be found on our website.

I am putting this down because I have got to perform some surgery.

Here at Longmeadow we have a really bad case of box blight.

I mentioned this last year. In fact, we first noticed it two years ago.

And I cut out the affected parts

and hoped that it wouldn't reappear but it has.

The weather we have had is

ideal for the spreading of blight which is a fungus.

You can notice it on your box by these chocolate brown

splodges that appear on the leaves. And it can hit the plant in days.

You see bare patches and you open it out

and there is all this musty dead foliage.

The news is not good, I am afraid. Box blight has no cure.

There is nothing you can do short of cutting out the affected

areas and hoping the regrowth doesn't get hit.

If I did that to these hedges, they would just look ridiculous.

All these hedges that I have had here for 14, 15 years which defined

the garden, which were the heart and soul of the garden, now have to go.

So this is the end of an era.

I'll put that on the top one. You can see all these leaves

could have spores on them that will spread.

It's got really bad here

and I think that we may well lose all the box in the garden.

But I can't stress too highly the need for hygiene.

So this saw is now infected with box blight, potentially.

So before I use it on or near any other box

I should sterilise it.

That goes for any cutting implements.

Gather up as much of the fallen foliage as you possibly can.

Try and resist brushing past it with clothes or with dogs,

this is why it's so difficult in a garden.

In the UK, box blight is on the increase.

but there are things that you can do

to minimise the risk of infection in your garden.

Only trim box when you know there's a dry week ahead,

because spores can be carried by the rain

and open wounds are more easily infected.

Don't wet the leaves when watering, point the water at the roots,

and always keep plants well ventilated.

I clearly remember the day I planted this hedge

and put in these little cuttings that I'd grown.

And, of course, in that 15 years, my children have grown up,

our lives have changed

and it's all bound up with this garden we've made.

And so taking it out is not just removing a few plants,

it's the end of a whole slice of my life.

But you have to accept that everything changes,

you can't hold things back,

and good gardening means going with it.

And as I'm doing this I can see, for a start,

the grass borders opening out look better,

they're going to love that light and air coming in,

and I had planned to put in another hedge along here,

I'm thinking actually it'd probably be a good idea to leave it open.

So, immediately something positive is coming out of it.

Of course, I'm just cutting these off

flush with the ground at the moment,

but if I leave them, they'll re-grow.

And the chances of them being re-infected

are about 99%,

because there'll be spores in the ground for up to five years.

So the next stage will be to dig out the roots

and then I can replant something if I want to.

Well, this is all very sad,

but at this time of year there is so much to celebrate,

and Carol is doing exactly that with cyclamen.

Across the British Isles

there are dedicated plants people

who've helped shape what we see and grow in our own gardens.

People like Vic Aspland,

who's a trustee of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens,

home to the most wonderful collection of hardy cyclamen.

With their propeller-like flowers,

from deepest magenta to brightest white,

it's easy to see how these plants evoke deep passion in gardeners.

Vic has been devoted to them for over 40 years.

It all began in 1972.

I don't know why, but I ordered a couple of packets of cyclamen seed

and the results were wonderful,

so I started ordering more.

And then in 1978

I heard that a cyclamen society had been formed.

-Yeah.

-And I immediately joined.

And from there, well, shall we say, it was all downhill.

All uphill, wasn't it?

With more and more cyclamen, and so it's continued.

And you're President, aren't you, of the Cyclamen Society?

I am President, yeah. See, I'm always getting into trouble.

As president of the society,

Vic has helped promote cyclamen research worldwide,

affording us a better understanding

of this much-loved plant in our UK gardens.

I've now been on five expeditions

with the Cyclamen Society

to study plants in the wild.

If you see the conditions in which a plant actually grows,

that gives you a really good handle on how to grow it

and cultivation in your own garden.

Let's have a look at your pictures.

-This is a trip to Turkey in late February.

-Oh!

-Look at that!

-The ground there is frozen

and yet there are Cyclamen coum growing perfectly well.

You wouldn't think any plant could survive at all,

and yet, remarkably, they do.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Although cyclamen do tend to grow in limestone areas in the wild,

we found that in the garden

the pH of your soil hardly matters at all.

You give them soil, they'll grow in it.

Do you love them?

I don't know how I'd live without them.

THEY LAUGH

All those places that Vic visited,

the Cyclamen coum would sow themselves around

and there'd be infinite variation in them.

All cyclamen open their seed pods at the same stage

and at that stage the starch in those seeds turns to sugar

and it brings in ants from miles around.

In they come, and they carry off these seeds in every direction.

It's a really good insurance policy

to make sure that those seedlings come up

way away from the mother plant

so there's a wide distribution and everybody can survive.

If you want to do it yourself,

you don't want to wait for the ants, it's not reliable enough,

but what you can do is get your own seed

and you just get a pot of gritty compost

and sow it onto the surface of that.

Then put some grit over the top,

cos this just helps the drainage

and ensures that the seeds are in intimate contact with that compost.

Water it well, stand it outside, and then forget about it,

and eventually they'll come into flower

and you'll see exactly what you've got.

Look at the variety there,

the variation in the leaf and the flower colour,

and that's the huge joy of sowing cyclamen from seed.

You put your seed in, but you have no idea what you're going to get

until one day, finally, they flower.

Nigel Hopes cares for the cyclamen collection

here at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Like Vic, he's been hit by cycla-mania.

He's championing a rare new hybrid

that's just come on to the market.

I hear you're the next generation of cyclamen fanciers.

I suppose you could call me that, yeah.

The thing I love about them is,

it's so nice to have something flowering

in January, February, March,

when there's not all that else happening.

-The flowers are like little nodding faces.

-Yeah.

-They're just beautiful.

But there've been lots of new developments, haven't there?

-Lots of new selections made.

-There have been. Erm...

This one in particular's called 'Ashwood Snowflake'.

Pure white, dark stems,

and that leaf is just out of this world.

It's absolutely fantastic, isn't it? I mean, you can imagine

how well that will show up in the garden.

Yeah. So, new, exciting - love for cyclamen goes on and on.

Well, this box is not going on for ever,

because the best way to get rid of box blight is to burn it.

Now, of course, not everybody either wants or can have a bonfire.

So, if you can't burn it...

put it for collection by the council,

or take it to them, so they can compost it.

By the way, don't try and compost it yourself,

because council compost heaps develop a really hot centre

and that will kill the spores,

whereas a domestic compost heap never gets hot enough -

don't risk it, because you'll just re-infect the garden again.

Well, that's the end of the box,

and the end of tonight's programme too.

But, of course, unlike the box,

we'll be back next week at the same time here at Longmeadow.

So, join us then. Bye-bye.

If you were watching last week,

you may well have noticed that we had a technical hitch

and that meant that you couldn't fully enjoy

Joe Swift's visit to the beautiful Bog Garden in Wales.

But if you'd like to view it, you can do so now,

by going to: bbc.co.uk/gardenersworld