Episode 3 Gardeners' World


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Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World.

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Yesterday was the Spring Equinox and, of course,

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

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Over the next few months,

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everything about spring just gets better and better.

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

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

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

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just pull it apart like that and replant them.

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

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if you'd left them where they were.

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Come on.

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Why, Nigel, is my ball in there?

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Nigel is working on the theory

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that if you plant a nice slimy little tennis ball,

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it may go forth and multiply!

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It hasn't worked yet, Nige!

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This week, Carol is starting a major new project,

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

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

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You can do so much in there,

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and I really feel we can transform the place.

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Joe is in Northumberland,

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meeting a gardener who's made a stunning garden,

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

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and bitterly cold winters.

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

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

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

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We meet a Cotswold grower

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whose boyhood enthusiasm for bees and butterflies

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

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When butterflies come into the garden,

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they're actually looking for a nectar source.

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They're sort of on a pub crawl.

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They come here for the beer festival!

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This pot should be giving me

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some spring colour,

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with tulips coming through

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which will flower in a few weeks' time

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and plenty of colour underneath.

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As you can see, there's absolutely nothing,

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and the reason is, I forgot.

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

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But the situation can be salvaged.

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

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

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

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Look at these beautiful rich velvety tones.

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Because this display is only going to be here

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for about six to eight weeks,

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

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

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as much as anything else, to raise the level.

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Then when it comes to the summer and autumn planting,

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

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The centrepiece is the Euphorbia Amygdaloides,

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which is a variety called Efanthia,

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which I haven't grown before,

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

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good, strong russet colour

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with the intensity of Euphorbia.

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No other plant gives you that electricity,

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particularly in April.

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So that can go in the middle, like that.

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

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I thought of adding Heuchera, entirely for the foliage.

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This is a variety called Mahogany.

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I think it's just purple-y,

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

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We'll pop that in there.

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With large pots like this, threes work very well

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because it gives room for a variety of plants,

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but it also gives it a rhythm.

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That will go here.

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Because I want an instant hit of colour,

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I am going to cram every available space.

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

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This has got to work from the minute I plant it

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

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

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We'll just open that out...

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

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

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

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

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Perfect for this mix.

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I think that's looking good now.

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

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

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

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

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on the development of their garden.

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

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

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

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

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It's your average UK back garden.

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It's pretty much a blank canvas.

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

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the mud plain, as we're calling it.

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

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The gardens I loved when I was little

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

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

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textures and height.

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

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Dan and Dominique have made a start,

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with some raised beds and some chickens.

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

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This is their first garden.

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

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enjoy beautiful flowers,

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relax with their daughter, and entertain.

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

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We're hoping that Carol

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

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which plants are going to work well together,

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so we would love to think we were up and running

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by the end of this season.

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Their garden is already split into three main areas -

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

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

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Hello! I'm Carol.

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-Dan.

-Hi.

-And you're Dominique?

-Yeah, Dom.

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Hiya...

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And this is your veg patch?

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Yeah. This is it at the moment.

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

-Absolutely.

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-Definitely.

-We get eggs regularly,

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

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

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

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Raised beds are perfect for small spaces.

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I know that this summer, with careful planning,

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these veg beds will be much more productive.

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But the other areas will be more of a challenge.

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Come and show me the rest of your garden.

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

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

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

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you need to really find out about soil.

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

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

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

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It's liable to be alkaline.

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Does that push us down a certain type of plant?

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

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masses of rhododendrons and azaleas,

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and anyway, they wouldn't go here.

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

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you've got this little green tapestry

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

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Their country name is Pilewort.

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You can see why it gets its name.

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Every single one of these

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will make a totally fresh plant,

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so really, we need to get rid of them.

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That's true of any perennial weed,

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and a perennial weed is one that will just come up

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year after year after year.

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

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

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

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At our wedding, we had our table names

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as herbs, and at the end,

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a good friend of ours gathered them up

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

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

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You're going to bend these little branches down,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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-And I think you need a nursery bed.

-Yeah?

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

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Shall we go and have a look?

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

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

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any seedlings you want to plant out,

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they'll just increase in size in here.

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This nursery bed will be a true investment

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for the future of Dan and Dom's garden.

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

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

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over the coming year.

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

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

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But at this stage of the year,

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

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

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

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

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And believe you me, that feels freezing!

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

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all the dead material, because it will rot down

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and make the nutrient levels in the water too rich.

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And that feeds the algae.

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And then there's a whole series of problems.

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

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on the bottom here.

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Urgh, look at that gunk!

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

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

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

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

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I've got Water Mint

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

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

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So by weeding it back,

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I'm creating scope for more to grow

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and leaving some more open water.

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

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

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

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

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There's a dragonfly larvae.

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

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

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But Joe has been visiting a series of gardens

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that are working with extremes.

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

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facing huge challenges.

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Hot, dry summers and bone-chilling winters.

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Northumberland has the most extreme climate.

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And here, in this hidden valley, the weather plays

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particularly harsh tricks,

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which makes gardening all the more challenging.

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

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

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Now, this is a frost hollow.

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

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It's a real geographical cold spot,

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which makes this garden even more impressive.

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Garden writer Susie White and her husband, David Oakley,

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

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But the conditions have proved tough,

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even for an experienced plantswoman like Susie.

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

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It's pretty extreme.

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

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

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-a 50-degree swing...

-Yeah.

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..which really makes it difficult for plants.

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-So do you get a lot of snow here?

-Yes, we get quite a lot of snow.

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

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

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the hillsides and collects in the bottom,

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making it really icy in winter.

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

-Well, I did have an idea,

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but actually, the amount took me by surprise.

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-It looks great.

-It's beautiful.

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You can plant on quite a big scale here.

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These borders are enormous.

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

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

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

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

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

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the light getting in to a lot of weed seeds.

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-So you're actually planting really densely together.

-Very.

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Are there any other advantages of that?

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

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

-Yeah.

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

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

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-out of the soil.

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

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

-Yeah.

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And they're shading,

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

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Susie's also cleverly designed her planting

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to work almost like a calendar,

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moving through from early summer to late autumn.

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

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at the back, to increase the sense of space.

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

-To make it feel larger.

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

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Yeah, you just had lots and lots of plants.

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That must have been really good fun.

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And very free, like painting on a canvas.

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

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I looked at the plants that were growing in local meadows

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and then chose cultivated varieties of those,

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

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

-Yeah.

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

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but they're surviving happily.

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I'm restricted by the amount of

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

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that has done really well,

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

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the path to the greenhouse.

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And it's spread in this huge mat,

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so that's lovely.

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

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

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but I think that you can make a garden anywhere,

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whatever the conditions,

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providing you look at the native plants that grow round about

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

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

-Thank you.

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

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

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are growing well.

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

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But a word of warning -

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

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it tends to mean cold nights.

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

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and this poor tender growth is not yet hardened off.

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

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So if you're putting plants outside,

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have some protection to hand. Horticultural fleece is ideal.

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You could use old net curtains.

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Anything that can breathe,

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

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

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

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

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with a piece of twine. That's enough protection

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to allow that new growth to harden off

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

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

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

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Slugs love a juicy young seedling

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

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

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and setting these amongst the plants,

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the slugs will always go for the beer and drown.

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

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

0:20:190:20:23

so that they are evenly spread,

0:20:230:20:25

and each individual has plenty of room to develop.

0:20:250:20:29

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

0:20:290:20:32

take them down to one healthy plant per unit.

0:20:320:20:35

You'll get better plants as a result

0:20:350:20:38

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

0:20:380:20:41

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

0:20:480:20:50

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

0:20:500:20:55

But if you put out young plants -

0:20:560:20:59

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

0:20:590:21:03

they will develop more quickly.

0:21:030:21:05

Space them about six inches apart

0:21:050:21:07

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

0:21:070:21:11

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

0:21:110:21:16

I'm going to prune my Buddlejas.

0:21:210:21:24

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

0:21:250:21:31

because this is Buddleja davidii,

0:21:310:21:33

which flowers on new growth -

0:21:330:21:36

but also to keep the shape.

0:21:360:21:38

If you leave it, it gets bigger and bigger

0:21:380:21:40

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

0:21:400:21:43

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

0:21:430:21:47

untidy, scrubby shape.

0:21:470:21:49

So we keep a good shape and have new flowers.

0:21:490:21:53

About ten years ago, I would have advised

0:21:530:21:56

pruning it right down to the bottom buds

0:21:560:21:59

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

0:21:590:22:02

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

0:22:020:22:06

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

0:22:060:22:10

That keeps them bigger

0:22:100:22:12

and also takes away competition for light from surrounding plants.

0:22:120:22:17

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

0:22:170:22:19

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

0:22:190:22:25

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

0:22:250:22:28

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

0:22:280:22:35

But the weak one,

0:22:370:22:38

I'll take off right down at the bottom.

0:22:380:22:40

There we go.

0:22:440:22:46

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

0:22:480:22:51

ranging in colour from pure white

0:22:510:22:53

through to a lovely rich, intense purple.

0:22:530:22:56

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

0:22:560:23:02

I think my sort of interest in Buddlejas goes back to

0:23:080:23:12

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

0:23:120:23:16

every July, August, this sort of plant would appear

0:23:160:23:19

and then these wonderful creatures would land on it

0:23:190:23:22

which, of course, were butterflies.

0:23:220:23:25

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

0:23:360:23:39

is a bit of a must, really.

0:23:390:23:42

When butterflies come in to the garden,

0:23:450:23:47

they're actually looking for a nectar source.

0:23:470:23:49

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

0:23:490:23:52

Each butterfly's going looking for nectar

0:23:520:23:55

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

0:23:550:23:57

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

0:23:570:24:01

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

0:24:010:24:03

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

0:24:030:24:07

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

0:24:070:24:10

is build up for hibernation.

0:24:100:24:12

We have all the hibernating British butterflies here.

0:24:120:24:14

We have Peacock, Tortoiseshell,

0:24:140:24:18

Comma, butterflies that hibernate.

0:24:180:24:21

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

0:24:270:24:30

I think it's about 127.

0:24:300:24:32

The spectrum of colours for Buddlejas is quite large.

0:24:370:24:40

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

0:24:400:24:43

deep blue, into purple.

0:24:430:24:46

There's some nice sort of pinks into maroon,

0:24:460:24:49

and then the weyeriana Buddleja

0:24:490:24:51

produces a lovely yellow plant

0:24:510:24:52

later in the summer, and also,

0:24:520:24:55

a creamy apricot colour.

0:24:550:24:57

So there's quite a good pallet.

0:24:570:24:59

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

0:25:070:25:09

It was one we bred here about ten years ago.

0:25:090:25:13

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

0:25:130:25:16

and really good grey foliage.

0:25:160:25:19

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

0:25:190:25:22

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

0:25:220:25:25

I tend to prune Buddlejas April time.

0:25:250:25:28

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

0:25:280:25:31

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

0:25:310:25:35

By doing them a little bit later, say April,

0:25:350:25:37

they then tend to bloom in August.

0:25:370:25:40

That's the best time for attracting the butterflies.

0:25:400:25:44

If you've got two or three Buddlejas,

0:25:440:25:45

why not stagger the pruning?

0:25:450:25:47

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

0:25:520:25:56

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

0:25:590:26:02

right through to October.

0:26:020:26:04

Where you've got a triangle of flowers

0:26:040:26:06

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

0:26:060:26:08

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

0:26:080:26:11

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

0:26:110:26:14

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

0:26:140:26:17

and then the plant will carry on flowering elsewhere.

0:26:170:26:20

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

0:26:310:26:34

They're beautiful things,

0:26:340:26:36

they're good to teach children about wildlife.

0:26:360:26:38

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

0:26:380:26:41

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

0:26:410:26:43

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

0:26:430:26:46

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

0:26:460:26:49

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

0:26:490:26:53

If you want to see Andrew's collection,

0:26:590:27:02

you can get the details of the opening times,

0:27:020:27:04

as well as any other details of today's programme

0:27:040:27:07

from our website.

0:27:070:27:09

I really like that tip of leaving some pruning

0:27:090:27:12

as late as mid April,

0:27:120:27:14

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

0:27:140:27:19

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

0:27:190:27:22

It's already been a fabulous year for rhubarb.

0:27:370:27:41

We pick rhubarb and I eat it on Christmas Day.

0:27:410:27:44

And what you see here is the third picking.

0:27:440:27:49

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

0:27:490:27:54

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

0:27:540:27:58

Rhubarb has a delicious astringency.

0:28:000:28:03

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

0:28:030:28:07

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

0:28:070:28:11

Absolutely delicious, maybe with a little bit of cream.

0:28:110:28:15

Well, that is it for today.

0:28:150:28:18

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

0:28:180:28:22

after Lambing Live. So join me here at Longmeadow

0:28:220:28:26

next Friday, at nine o'clock.

0:28:260:28:29

See you then. Bye-bye.

0:28:290:28:31

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