Episode 3 Gardeners' World

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World.

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox and, of course,

that means that we've now got more day than night.

Over the next few months,

everything about spring just gets better and better.

It's actually a very good time to be dividing snowdrops.

They've finished flowering, but they're still in the green,

they're still full of life and vigour. So when you lift a clump,

just pull it apart like that and replant them.

Next January, they will flower better than they would have done

if you'd left them where they were.

Come on.

Why, Nigel, is my ball in there?

Nigel is working on the theory

that if you plant a nice slimy little tennis ball,

it may go forth and multiply!

It hasn't worked yet, Nige!

This week, Carol is starting a major new project,

helping a young couple turn their empty patch into a beautiful garden.

We've got a year, haven't we?

You can do so much in there,

and I really feel we can transform the place.

Joe is in Northumberland,

meeting a gardener who's made a stunning garden,

despite having to deal with the extremes of hot, dry summers,

and bitterly cold winters.

I think that you can make a garden anywhere, whatever the conditions,

providing you look at the native plants that grow round about.

Yeah, I can see why you moved here and did it, it's absolutely stunning.

We meet a Cotswold grower

whose boyhood enthusiasm for bees and butterflies

has led him to amass Buddleja in all their fabulous forms.

When butterflies come into the garden,

they're actually looking for a nectar source.

They're sort of on a pub crawl.

They come here for the beer festival!

This pot should be giving me

some spring colour,

with tulips coming through

which will flower in a few weeks' time

and plenty of colour underneath.

As you can see, there's absolutely nothing,

and the reason is, I forgot.

I could, and should have planted tulips as late as January. I didn't.

But the situation can be salvaged.

You can still get spring colour into your containers as late as now.

The basis of the best spring colour, I think, comes from violas.

Not a grand plant or fancy, but the colours can be so sumptuous.

Look at these beautiful rich velvety tones.

Because this display is only going to be here

for about six to eight weeks,

we don't need a lot of very rich soil.

I'm just propping up what was already in here,

as much as anything else, to raise the level.

Then when it comes to the summer and autumn planting,

all this soil will go and be replaced to give it new goodness.

The centrepiece is the Euphorbia Amygdaloides,

which is a variety called Efanthia,

which I haven't grown before,

but these are all fairly similar. What they have is this

good, strong russet colour

with the intensity of Euphorbia.

No other plant gives you that electricity,

particularly in April.

So that can go in the middle, like that.

It's not going to get much bigger over the next few weeks.

I thought of adding Heuchera, entirely for the foliage.

This is a variety called Mahogany.

I think it's just purple-y,

magenta-y enough to compliment the colours I want from the violas.

We'll pop that in there.

With large pots like this, threes work very well

because it gives room for a variety of plants,

but it also gives it a rhythm.

That will go here.

Because I want an instant hit of colour,

I am going to cram every available space.

There is no attempt to let plants grow into the space.

This has got to work from the minute I plant it

until the middle of May - by which time, it can be exhausted.

It doesn't matter. It's a sprint, not a marathon.

We'll just open that out...

and we'll just start to plant them in and around.

Violas and pansies - the same family, but pansies are bigger...

and blousier, to an extent, but I'm not looking for subtlety.

I want strength of colour and a little bit of drama.

Perfect for this mix.

I think that's looking good now.

It will get better over the next few weeks, but the truth is,

this is instant gardening, and none the worse for it.

But Carol is embarking on a project which is the exact opposite.

She will be guiding a couple, over the next year,

on the development of their garden.

They know what they want, but they don't know how to get there.

Dan and Dominique bought their first home together three years ago.

With internal renovations over, it's time to tackle the garden.

It's north facing and there's 150 square metres.

It's your average UK back garden.

It's pretty much a blank canvas.

This is the year we're going to try and sort out

the mud plain, as we're calling it.

This is it. This summer, we're going to get the garden fixed.

The gardens I loved when I was little

were the ones that were completely wild, like cottagey gardens.

It would be great if this was just a riot of colours,

textures and height.

We'd like some lawn, so we could sit out and have a picnic and play.

Dan and Dominique have made a start,

with some raised beds and some chickens.

But they've got no idea where to turn next.

This is their first garden.

They want it to be a place where they can grow food,

enjoy beautiful flowers,

relax with their daughter, and entertain.

So I'm going to spend the year helping them out.

We're hoping that Carol

will bring knowledge of how we make the most of plants,

which plants are going to work well together,

so we would love to think we were up and running

by the end of this season.

Their garden is already split into three main areas -

a patio, an area perfect for a lawn, and a veg plot.

I can't wait to get stuck in with them!

Hello! I'm Carol.

-Dan.

-Hi.

-And you're Dominique?

-Yeah, Dom.

Hiya...

And this is your veg patch?

Yeah. This is it at the moment.

-Is that a big priority for you, growing your own food?

-Absolutely.

-Definitely.

-We get eggs regularly,

but we've never really utilised the raised beds all through the season.

We have one hit in the summer and that's it,

then it's like this for the rest of the time.

Raised beds are perfect for small spaces.

I know that this summer, with careful planning,

these veg beds will be much more productive.

But the other areas will be more of a challenge.

Come and show me the rest of your garden.

The middle section is where Dan and Dom want to create their lawn.

It's also the place for them to indulge in flowers.

The thing is, when you're taking on a new garden,

you need to really find out about soil.

It's always going to be a compromise and sometimes, if you're lucky,

a joining together of what you can grow and what you want to grow.

So you've got quite heavy clay soil, by the look of it.

It's liable to be alkaline.

Does that push us down a certain type of plant?

Well, if it is alkaline, you're not going to be able to grow

masses of rhododendrons and azaleas,

and anyway, they wouldn't go here.

They wouldn't look right, would they? As you look around,

you've got this little green tapestry

beginning to emerge, but a lot of it is weeds.

Their country name is Pilewort.

You can see why it gets its name.

Every single one of these

will make a totally fresh plant,

so really, we need to get rid of them.

That's true of any perennial weed,

and a perennial weed is one that will just come up

year after year after year.

Dan and Dominique have their work cut out digging up those weeds

if we're to lay a lawn next time I come.

Meanwhile, I've spotted a plant that could be rejuvenated.

At our wedding, we had our table names

as herbs, and at the end,

a good friend of ours gathered them up

and gave them back as a wedding present in a lovely planter.

I think you could resurrect it. Let's get rid of the moss first of all.

You're going to bend these little branches down,

but then if we pile some of this soil, which is loam-based,

and it's much more the sort of thing that this would love,

so I've just got the ends of these protruding.

But it's still going to try and fling itself up,

so if we just weight those little branches down with a stone.

And we can do it with all of them, actually, right the way round here.

And you should get new plants growing on each of these branches.

So that's your first bit of propagating. Your first new plants!

-And I think you need a nursery bed.

-Yeah?

Somewhere you can divide stuff, push it in, yeah?

Shall we go and have a look?

I brought you some snowdrops, so we'd be able to do that too.

Because anything you get given, anything you want to divide,

any seedlings you want to plant out,

they'll just increase in size in here.

This nursery bed will be a true investment

for the future of Dan and Dom's garden.

It's the first step for them to get growing.

It'll be very interesting to see how their garden develops

over the coming year.

Well, let's see how the pond is looking after its winter.

It's been full of frogs, so the wildlife is good.

But at this stage of the year,

the important thing is to do a bit of spring cleaning.

The water is still cold, even if the days are warm,

so it's a bit early to be planting anything.

Wait till the water doesn't feel cold to the touch.

And believe you me, that feels freezing!

The really important thing at this stage is to get rid of

all the dead material, because it will rot down

and make the nutrient levels in the water too rich.

And that feeds the algae.

And then there's a whole series of problems.

I don't know if you can see, but we've got a lot of leaves

on the bottom here.

Urgh, look at that gunk!

That's exactly what you don't want in a pond - decomposing vegetation.

It's fine to be cleaning them even if you've got frogspawn,

because at the moment, it's in clumps and you can see it,

and it doesn't mind being moved, as long as you're just gentle.

I've got Water Mint

and Water Forget-me-not, which is spreading very well,

and that's good for wildlife, but a little too well.

So by weeding it back,

I'm creating scope for more to grow

and leaving some more open water.

Rather than take this to the compost heap, where it will eventually go,

I'm going to tip it out by the side of the pond for a day or so,

and that's to let all the little creatures go back into the water,

and they will. And it is actually teeming with life.

There's a dragonfly larvae.

Now, you can have a garden pond of almost any size in any garden,

and they add a kind of calmness and balance to a garden.

But Joe has been visiting a series of gardens

that are working with extremes.

And this week, he's in Northumberland, looking at a garden

facing huge challenges.

Hot, dry summers and bone-chilling winters.

Northumberland has the most extreme climate.

And here, in this hidden valley, the weather plays

particularly harsh tricks,

which makes gardening all the more challenging.

But look at this - huge borders mainly built up of perennials

in drifts and blocks, tiering up and combining beautifully together.

Now, this is a frost hollow.

It can get to more than ten degrees lower here than the surrounding area.

It's a real geographical cold spot,

which makes this garden even more impressive.

Garden writer Susie White and her husband, David Oakley,

have been developing their garden here over the last three years.

But the conditions have proved tough,

even for an experienced plantswoman like Susie.

Susie, how extreme is the weather here? How cold does it get?

It's pretty extreme.

It can be minus 18, we've known it in the winter,

and plus 30 in the summer, so that's almost

-a 50-degree swing...

-Yeah.

..which really makes it difficult for plants.

-So do you get a lot of snow here?

-Yes, we get quite a lot of snow.

We've been snowed in for two weeks, that's the most.

Because we're in the bottom of the valley, the cold air runs down

the hillsides and collects in the bottom,

making it really icy in winter.

-And did you know that before you started to garden here?

-Well, I did have an idea,

but actually, the amount took me by surprise.

-It looks great.

-It's beautiful.

You can plant on quite a big scale here.

These borders are enormous.

I wanted to have the feeling of an exploded meadow, so that

it fits in with the local meadows and didn't look out of place.

I have to make sure it's meticulously weeded in March,

and then it's sort of set for the summer.

And once the plants have grown up, it means that they prevent

the light getting in to a lot of weed seeds.

-So you're actually planting really densely together.

-Very.

Are there any other advantages of that?

Well, it prevents water loss off the soil, so in a place that gets

-so hot in the summer, that's very, very helpful.

-Yeah.

That's interesting that you pack the plants tighter to retain moisture.

You'd have thought that they'll be taking all the moisture

-out of the soil.

-Well, I suppose they are feeding on the moisture,

-but they're preventing water loss and evaporation from the soil.

-Yeah.

And they're shading,

so they're actually keeping the soil a bit cooler.

Susie's also cleverly designed her planting

to work almost like a calendar,

moving through from early summer to late autumn.

I had hot colours at the front, fading to cooler colours

at the back, to increase the sense of space.

-Yeah, it's a good trick, that, isn't it?

-To make it feel larger.

So I literally just, you know, painted with the plants.

Yeah, you just had lots and lots of plants.

That must have been really good fun.

And very free, like painting on a canvas.

How do you go about choosing the right plants? Is it trial and error?

I looked at the plants that were growing in local meadows

and then chose cultivated varieties of those,

as well as lots of native plants, so they are tough.

-There's the Angel's fishing rods...

-Yeah.

..which I never thought I'd be able to grow in this frost hollow,

but they're surviving happily.

I'm restricted by the amount of

types of thyme I can grow. There's one thyme, though,

that has done really well,

and that's Thymus longicaulis. I've put it on either side of

the path to the greenhouse.

And it's spread in this huge mat,

so that's lovely.

Now, what would your advice be to someone who faces challenges like this?

You can't get away from the fact that you need to work hard,

but I think that you can make a garden anywhere,

whatever the conditions,

providing you look at the native plants that grow round about

and try not to force a square peg into a round hole.

-Yeah, I can see why you moved here and did it. It's absolutely stunning.

-Thank you.

We've had some absolutely fantastic spring weather, and these warm days

mean that these tender plants, that I've been protecting all winter,

are growing well.

And, of course, it's a good idea to put them outside.

But a word of warning -

if you get good weather at this time of year during the day,

it tends to mean cold nights.

And the difference in temperature can be about 20 degrees or more,

and this poor tender growth is not yet hardened off.

It's not equipped to deal with that kind of temperature shift.

So if you're putting plants outside,

have some protection to hand. Horticultural fleece is ideal.

You could use old net curtains.

Anything that can breathe,

but will form a layer of warm air around the plant.

And all you have to do, if you feel the chill coming on

in the evening, is just wrap around the plant, like this fuchsia.

If it's going to be windy, just tie it loosely

with a piece of twine. That's enough protection

to allow that new growth to harden off

and, in a few weeks' time, you won't have to worry about it.

Now, you may not have any tender plants to protect,

but here are some jobs you can be doing this weekend.

Slugs love a juicy young seedling

and can rip through a whole tray of them in a matter of hours.

If you set beer traps by pouring beer into a container or two

and setting these amongst the plants,

the slugs will always go for the beer and drown.

It's tempting to hang on to every last seedling,

but now's the time to be ruthless and thin them,

so that they are evenly spread,

and each individual has plenty of room to develop.

And if you're growing in plugs or soil blocks,

take them down to one healthy plant per unit.

You'll get better plants as a result

and save yourself a lot of time and trouble later on.

Although the ground is beginning to warm up, and you can start

sowing salad crops now, they will germinate and develop slowly.

But if you put out young plants -

and if you haven't raised any yourself, you can buy these -

they will develop more quickly.

Space them about six inches apart

and then protect them from the cold with fleece or a cloche,

and they'll give you a harvest while your seed-sown ones are developing.

I'm going to prune my Buddlejas.

And the reason for doing this is not just to promote new flowers -

because this is Buddleja davidii,

which flowers on new growth -

but also to keep the shape.

If you leave it, it gets bigger and bigger

and the flowers remain taller and taller, higher and higher up,

and down below, it's shaded out and you just get this rather woody,

untidy, scrubby shape.

So we keep a good shape and have new flowers.

About ten years ago, I would have advised

pruning it right down to the bottom buds

and keeping it really compact so it was all new growth,

but increasingly, I feel that it's better to just take off

about a half, or a maximum of two thirds of Buddlejas.

That keeps them bigger

and also takes away competition for light from surrounding plants.

Now, when you're pruning, the same rules apply to Buddleja

as anything else, which is that the weakest growth is cut hardest.

So here, we've got a really weak stem next to a really strong one.

So the strong one, I'll just take off there and there.

But the weak one,

I'll take off right down at the bottom.

There we go.

Now, I've got quite a few Buddlejas here at Longmeadow,

ranging in colour from pure white

through to a lovely rich, intense purple.

But Andrew Bullock, in The Cotswolds, has got hundreds of them.

I think my sort of interest in Buddlejas goes back to

when I was a child. Coming home from school, in my grandparents' garden,

every July, August, this sort of plant would appear

and then these wonderful creatures would land on it

which, of course, were butterflies.

For anyone who's interested in wildlife, then this plant

is a bit of a must, really.

When butterflies come in to the garden,

they're actually looking for a nectar source.

So you can think of it that they're sort of on a pub crawl.

Each butterfly's going looking for nectar

and when they come in here, they can have a drink,

they can go to another garden, get another drink, they can top up.

So if you've all got Buddlejas in your garden, the butterflies

can do the pub crawl, then they can come here for the beer festival.

What they're trying to do, particularly in late summer,

is build up for hibernation.

We have all the hibernating British butterflies here.

We have Peacock, Tortoiseshell,

Comma, butterflies that hibernate.

We've got about 30 species, but over 100 cultivars.

I think it's about 127.

The spectrum of colours for Buddlejas is quite large.

You can have white, all shades of blue, from a very pale blue,

deep blue, into purple.

There's some nice sort of pinks into maroon,

and then the weyeriana Buddleja

produces a lovely yellow plant

later in the summer, and also,

a creamy apricot colour.

So there's quite a good pallet.

This is one of my favourites. It's shire blue.

It was one we bred here about ten years ago.

I like it because it's got really large creamy blue panicles

and really good grey foliage.

It's a nice one to have the back of a border, as it can give you

good height. Or you can prune it lower and bring it more forward.

I tend to prune Buddlejas April time.

Some people like to do it at the end of winter, in February, March,

but I find if you do that, then the Buddlejas bloom in July.

By doing them a little bit later, say April,

they then tend to bloom in August.

That's the best time for attracting the butterflies.

If you've got two or three Buddlejas,

why not stagger the pruning?

A good thing to keep the Buddleja blooming is to keep deadheading it.

If you're very clever, you can keep Buddlejas flowering from July

right through to October.

Where you've got a triangle of flowers

and the two smaller ones either side haven't flowered yet

or are just coming into flower and the one in the centre has gone over,

take the centre one out, then the energy goes into the two side ones.

Or if the whole head has gone over, take the whole head off

and then the plant will carry on flowering elsewhere.

I feel that everybody should have at least one Buddleja in their garden.

They're beautiful things,

they're good to teach children about wildlife.

I mean, let's face it, if it wasn't for a Buddleja

back when I was a child, I may not be here now.

What we must do is fill our gardens with nectar-attracting plants,

then we can do our bit for future generations, so they can enjoy

these wonderful jewels of the air, which is what we have here today.

If you want to see Andrew's collection,

you can get the details of the opening times,

as well as any other details of today's programme

from our website.

I really like that tip of leaving some pruning

as late as mid April,

to get the best flowering when the butterflies need it most.

Come on, you old softie. Come on. Let's move this.

It's already been a fabulous year for rhubarb.

We pick rhubarb and I eat it on Christmas Day.

And what you see here is the third picking.

When you're collecting rhubarb, don't use a knife, but pull it.

You just take a stem, hold at the bottom and tear it off.

Rhubarb has a delicious astringency.

There's no pudding better than a hot rhubarb crumble.

The crumble itself - just slightly gooey, it's soaking up the juices.

Absolutely delicious, maybe with a little bit of cream.

Well, that is it for today.

Next week, we're on half an hour later, at nine o'clock,

after Lambing Live. So join me here at Longmeadow

next Friday, at nine o'clock.

See you then. Bye-bye.