Episode 17 Gardeners' World

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

The first thing I do when I go round the garden is go to

the greenhouses and open them up.

This time of year, of course,

everything's changing practically overnight.

We've got grapes coming,

not ripe yet but certainly swelling out, tomatoes...

Haven't picked my first one but that is going to be a matter of days.

The chillies are coming through and this year,

aubergines are doing well. This is a variety called Black Pearl.

They are in the same family as tomatoes,

so if you can grow a tomato you can effectively grow an aubergine.

And a healthy plant can produce up to half a dozen

really decent aubergines.

And you know it's ripe when the skin is still really shining,

it feels firm but has a little bit of give to it,

it's not rock hard.

And cut it off with plenty of stem, like that,

and there you have a really good fruit which will be delicious.

And that is a good way to start any day.

Last month, Joe Swift visited the Savill Garden in Windsor Great Park

to discover the inspiration behind the design

of the very modern rose garden.

I wanted to try and get people feeling as if they were in

a meadow of roses.

-A meadow of roses?

-A meadow of roses.

-A meadow...

I've never heard of a meadow of roses before.

-Quite cool idea, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is a cool idea.

And we also visited a flower farm in South Gloucestershire to meet

a woman who is passionate about cultivating organic cut flowers.

British cut flowers are spectacular.

They smell, they have variety and from the seed-sowing

to the end product is just an amazing process.

And I shall be sowing turnips and swedes for winter as well as

taking penstemon cuttings of the flower garden.

Come on, dogs.

It's just at this point in the year when the really rich colours

here in the Jewel Garden start to dominate.

You have the wonderful Crocosmia Lucifer, these intense dahlias like

Arabian Night and the clematis, which have been fabulous this year.

There's almost too many.

They're spilling and toppling and falling in

a great waterfall of flower.

And some plants are a little bit more delicate.

This is one of my favourite geraniums. This is Ann Folkard.

And a few weeks ago I was saying cut back geraniums to get a second

flowering, but not Ann Folkard because she starts to flower

in June and just goes on and on right into autumn.

And it's almost a climber - it sprawls and spreads and will

lean on other plants without in any way suffocating them.

Sown flowers work their way through them and the whole thing

becomes a lovely tangle of colour.

Not all plants, though, can sustain the same amount of flowering.

The delphiniums have had their day and they're just setting seed.

The thing to do is to cut them back hard and hope that we get

a second flowering later on towards the beginning of autumn.

Of course, this time of year, getting into the border is

tip-toeing through a minefield of plants.

Here's the delphinium, which is nearly all stem.

So cut out right at the base.

Now, as well as clearing out slightly fading plants

and the seed heads, I'm also creating a bit of space.

Now, this poor buddleia has got completely bullied out

by a delphinium and if the banana hits its stride,

if we get a little bit of warmth, that will double in size.

And who'd have thought that you'd have roses growing entwined

with bananas?

Now, the Jewel Garden in particular,

and in fact the whole of Longmeadow, is intended to be organised chaos.

I want to create the impression that the whole thing is about to

go berserk but is just holding still for a moment.

But not all gardens are like that and in fact,

we think of rose gardens,

the old-fashioned, formal rose garden,

as being regimented and weed-free and strictly organised.

It doesn't have to be like that, though,

and Joe has been to Savill Garden in Windsor Great Park

to see roses grown in a very modern manner.

The rose is the most iconic of flowers.

It comes in a huge range of colours, different flower forms,

and of course...

It's got the most delicious of scents too.

It's impossible not to love them.

We've a rich tradition of planting roses with formality and

precision in parterres and long mixed herbaceous borders.

But as a garden designer, what really intrigues me is,

can a rose garden be reimagined?

Here in the Savill Garden of Windsor Great Park,

a modern rose garden designed by Andrew Wilson

has been winning lots of design accolades since its official

opening by the Queen in 2010.

Well, Andrew, this is certainly a very contemporary rose garden

and the scent is overwhelming.

I'd always wanted to get my hands on a rose garden because most of

the rose gardens I go to are just horrible.

Oh, no, say what you think!

I also think, you know, what's the best bit about them?

The flowers and the perfume,

and so we set about trying to emphasise those two main elements.

A traditional rose garden you expect to be very geometric and

very linear, somehow, and you've totally thrown that out the window.

We wanted it to feel like a dance, really,

that you came in and you were walking through these different

crescents and sweeps, and so you get different colour combinations.

It makes the whole thing much more dynamic.

I wanted to try and get people feeling as if they were in

-a meadow of roses.

-A meadow of roses?

A meadow of roses.

I've never heard of a meadow of roses before.

-It's quite a cool idea, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is a cool idea.

What strikes me is that on plan, the design really...

It is like this vortex vision, the strong colours and then

fading out to the yellows and the paler whites.

But when you're in it, actually, it looks and feels very different.

The separation of the arcs, or crescents,

by pathways, brings air and light in between the different layers

and so you're getting this sense of separation rather than just

-a sort of blancmange of everything mixing together.

-Yeah.

But when you walk up onto the pathway,

you return to this sort of aerial view and you're starting to

get the sense of how the plan form works.

We wanted people to have a conversation,

that somebody might have taken the route down,

somebody else might have taken the route up,

and then you're comparing notes or maybe you're drawn then to go up.

And the idea was to maybe create a space where people drink in

the perfume, look back across where they've been...

-Take a photo of each other.

-Take a photo, have a chat.

-Yeah.

Sometimes you'll get people singing My Heart Will Go On from the end

of the walkway and I just think that's great, you know.

Now, Andrew has applied some really good garden design principles

in this garden, especially when it comes to the planting.

I know how tempting it is to put one of everything in a border,

but here he's shown to get a contemporary feel

in a space you have to plant boldly and in quantity.

And when it comes to plant selection, with roses,

there are so many different varieties out there.

Think about what you want and what you want it to do for you.

Here we've got Claire Austin.

It's got a wonderful scent, it's repeat flowering,

it's got a gorgeous flower

and incredibly lush, green foliage. A really great plant.

Now, as well as roses,

the only two plants in this garden are the ewe hedges,

which create structure and also a view in and out because

they've got gaps in them, and some ornamental grasses.

And you think, wow, ornamental grasses and roses -

that's a strange plant association. But actually, it works really well.

So we've got these spokes of melinia that lead you out.

And of course they'll flower, they'll bring wonderful autumn hues

to the garden and extend the interest

right through into the winter.

But just like the roses, they've been planted boldly,

they've been planted with conviction,

and that's why they work so well.

This is a rose experience and that's what Andrew as a designer

set out to do, and I think he's achieved it wholeheartedly.

I have to say, I like roses however they come, whether individually,

in a great meadow, sprawling, poised -

can't have enough of them.

But I've never been to Savill Garden and I want to and so should you.

Go and see it for yourself.

It's open every day and you can get all the details from our website.

I think it's been a good year, generally, in the vegetable garden,

but with one or two exceptions, and carrots are definitely one of them.

This - tada! - is my carrot bed.

Last year had very good carrots.

This year, as you can see, very, very poor results,

mainly through bad germination.

I think that is because we had such a cold April

and I sowed them a bit too early.

And so what I suggest you do if you've got

a bad crop like this is use the space for something else.

In fact, I can pull these up and just see how they are.

Very small.

Still got that lovely carroty smell, though.

So I'll cut my losses and next year, resist the temptation to sow

my carrots too early and wait till mid May or even in till June.

However, now is a really good time to sow

a very different kind of root crop.

This bed had chard in it over all last winter and this summer,

but was bolting and going to seed at every opportunity.

So I pulled it up, added a little bit of compost,

and it's ready to go.

What I wanted to sow in here are some turnip and kohlrabi.

These are members of the brassica family.

They are close cousins to cabbages

and cauliflowers and need to be part of the same rotation.

So they are ideal, for example,

to follow legumes such as beans or peas.

And kohlrabi, the first one, is essentially an autumn crop.

You can get green kohlrabi,

which is sown in spring for a spring and summer harvest,

and purple kohlrabi, which is a little bit hardier,

which is a good idea to sow now.

You will be harvesting this in September, October

and perhaps even up to Christmas if it's not too cold.

Kohlrabi are a slightly unusual vegetable because the bit you eat

is actually above ground and unlike swede or turnip,

you eat them raw and they're crispy and fresh.

So in fact, in many ways,

they're more like a radish than a conventional root crop.

Very simple.

Make a drill and as always, sow thinly.

And so just sprinkle them along.

Now, this is a crop that are much better sown direct.

No need to sow them in seed trays and prick them out,

get them in the soil where they are to grow.

Cover that over like that.

Now, for the next root vegetable, I don't need to worry about

hardiness because it's turnip, and I love turnips.

Grown certainly no bigger than a tennis ball and actually

a really nice golf ball size,

and they have a slightly bitter side to them.

They're rather like chicory.

So they're cooked and then glazed with butter and brown sugar.

Really, really delicious and perhaps undervalued.

One of the problems that you do get with turnips,

as you do with rocket and radish, is flea beetle.

The beetle punches a hole in the leaf and then the leaf reacts

by forming a callus around the hole,

and you can have as many as 10 or 20 holes on each leaf.

I'm afraid there isn't much you can do about it, but what you can do is

water them well, thin them so the plants are healthy and strong,

and keep them weeded.

If you have a strong plant, that's the best defence.

I've still got some swede seeds to sow, but I think I'll put

those where the carrots failed so spectacularly.

I'll prepare the ground and then sow those later.

That'll give me three good new root crops - the kohlrabi, ready about

September-October,

the turnips from about October through till February, and

then the swede, which is really hardy, through till next spring.

I don't need to water these seeds in because it's been showery,

it looks like it's going to shower again today,

and the soil is good and moist.

If it's very dry when you sow them, give them a good soak,

and if we get a hot, dry spell, then they will need watering once a week.

But on the whole, these are tough plants and will grow well without

much attendance at all other than, of course, keeping them well weeded.

Oh, that's a nice little bonus. Come on.

Come on. Come on, Nigel.

Where's your bone?

The planting on the mound is mainly focused on fragrance and

there's no plant with such an evocative scent,

or even such a strong one, as the lily.

This is the Regal lily and it's absolutely at its best now.

These were planted as bulbs in spring but most people buy

lilies as cut flowers, and the vast majority of our cut flowers

are actually imported and come from overseas.

However, we went to South Gloucestershire to visit

a cut flower grower who not only produces

a wide range of flowers but also does so organically.

We've got just under four acres here.

We grow British cut flowers organically.

Perennials, bulbs, biennials and annuals.

It gives us a good spread and a good buffer zone in case any

species fail.

At the moment, we're only providing 10% of the cut flower

industry from within Britain, so there's 90% that we're importing.

So we've got a massive opportunity as British growers to take

a bit of that market share back.

When we lay out our planting areas,

we do it in a bed system and we like to do a rotation.

Rotation is an essential part of making sure you're not

building up soil-born pests and diseases and it's particularly

important in organic horticulture because we don't use pesticides.

We believe in, if you're growing really good,

strong plants and you've got good soil,

they will cope with a certain amount of pests and disease.

And it's all about keeping that balance. If you don't have

any pests, you don't also get the beneficial insects.

So it's about a holistic system, really.

Our key slug removers are chickens - that helps

a lot - and the wood chip is quite dry,

all the wood chip around our beds, and that really helps, as well.

We are also a training workplace for people with disabilities and

support needs.

From people with autism, Asperger's, people with Down's syndrome,

people with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety - a big range.

And the people who come here, they're not united by their

disability, it's actually the horticulture that unites them.

I came here when I wasn't very well.

Luckily, I've got a lot better and the people, you know,

they're really fantastic people cos quite a lot of them have been

through similar things, so we talk through it and that sort of thing.

It is therapy, really, and then...

And the gardening's very therapeutic, you know?

You definitely get a buzz when you see things starting to grow

that you've planted. I don't ever not want to come to work. I love it.

The actual stages of growing cut flowers are very accessible

to the people we work with here.

Somebody with autism or Asperger's syndrome is excellent at seed

sewing. They are very careful and quality is important for us.

Alex works with us three days a week.

He was a trainee here originally and he does seed sewing almost

every day and keeps all our continuity up.

So he's continually sewing things

like cornflowers, nigella, larkspur...

So as they go over in the field,

we've got another lot of plants to replace them.

So in order to ensure that you've got a good stem length and

a good vase life,

it all depends upon the variety you've sewn in the first place.

And it's really important that if you're buying cut flower seed,

you look at the height.

But you need at least 45cm stem length to be able to cut it.

We normally cut the flowers first thing in the morning when it's cool.

So we have to find the flower that we want to cut and follow the

stem right down, and then we gently cut on a joint cos that

plant will regenerate from that joint and produce another flower.

I'm stripping the flowers down,

taking all the foliage off below the water line because the foliage

in the water will cause bacteria and that reduces the vase life.

Most of them are probably about five to seven days, so it's quite good.

There's a lot of interest now in people having their own

cutting patches.

I think people are wanting to grow their own and it's moved from

vegetable growing to flower growing.

People get worried that they haven't got enough space,

but, actually, with the right varieties, you can have, you

know, a good jug of flowers in your house all through the summer months.

You need to have probably five different species at one time,

but of different flower shapes.

You need some prominent flowers like a zinnia with some Veronica

spike or some gypsophila that adds a little bit of filler.

And then you want a couple of foliages, as well.

It could be the Moluccella, the Bells of Ireland, the Nicotiana,

the Lime Green, but you need to have them flowering at the same

time for it to work, or you've got a fairly scant vase, really.

There is something extra about growing cut flowers.

From the seed-sewing to the end product is just an amazing process.

It's absolutely right that you don't need a huge space to grow

a lot of cut flowers. Now, I'm developing the cut flower beds here.

I've got gladioli, which are just about to come out.

These nigella, white, spidery flowers,

and the buds are just poised.

A little bit of heat and boof - they'll go.

Ammi, this is Ammi visnaga, which is slightly more domed-headed.

That is going strong and will continue to flower for

another six weeks.

And tobacco plants, of course, really beginning to kick in.

But this will all look much better in a few weeks'

time and we can really start to harvest it.

I have actually prepared another bed where I want to extend the

range of cut flowers that we've got here.

I cleared the last batch of vegetables, in fact,

it was mainly parsley we had on here, the other day.

So this is now for cut flowers.

It's a slightly awkward time of year for new planting.

It's a little early to sow hardy annuals for next year,

certainly too early to put in spring bulbs, but I want to begin

this bed with some perennials, so they will live here permanently.

I'm going to start that process with some cuttings.

Oh, go on.

To take cuttings from any plant, you need really good, fresh,

healthy growth that doesn't have a flower bud.

I've got two penstemons here.

This is Raven. Lovely, rich, purple plum colour.

And you can see that's a flowering stem and this one has got

a bud on it. So these stems are no good for cuttings.

But if you take a plant like that,

which doesn't look as promising, it's perfect for taking

cuttings because all these stems are nice and strong and fresh.

They're new but they've hardened off a bit,

so we talk about semi-ripe cuttings, and they will be perfect material.

When you're taking penstemon cuttings, and penstemons really

are quite easy, you want, really, about two to three inches long.

So I'm cutting just above a pair of flower buds.

One...

two...

And that's a nice straight one.

..three.

You need a sharp knife.

First thing to do is to cut off the lower leaves,

and, in fact, the next set of leaves, like that.

I've got a cutting mix which has got really good drainage.

It's a mixture, actually,

of coir, leaf mould and plenty of grit.

Now, these are a little long so I'm going to cut them down.

I'm going to cut them just below the node there.

And that can go in around the edge.

I've taken hundred of penstemon cuttings and they take very well.

They're a good one to start with if you've never taken cuttings before.

And the reason why you put them against the edge of the pot

is because they dry out a little less quickly.

Now, actually,

there's probably a little bit too much foliage on that

because, of course, the cutting will transpire and if there are

no roots to feed back into it, it will just gradually lose

moisture, wilt, and die.

We need some foliage, but not too much,

and one way of doing it is just halve a larger leaf like that.

That now will be fine.

That one will go in the middle and I'm actually going to just take

these back a bit.

Next thing to do is to place this somewhere warm, but not in

blistering sunshine, and keep it moist but not sodden,

and you can do that a number of ways.

Obviously, water it,

but then you need to either mist it two or three times a day with

a hand mister, which is very effective,

or you could put it in a propagator which has got a closed lid

and that keeps the condensation in,

or if you're very fancy, you can have a mist propagator.

But this time of year, these will take very quickly.

A very good reason to take penstemon cuttings in particular is

that here at Longmeadow, with our wet, heavy soil,

they don't over-winter well, so by taking cuttings,

I'm ensuring new plants exactly like the parent,

and that just keeps the supply, whatever the weather.

Right, that's one job done. Now it's your turn.

Here's some jobs for the weekend.

Tomato plants are growing strongly and forming fruit, and to help

them ripen, it's a good idea to start to remove leaves.

Begin this process at the bottom,

taking off all foliage up to the first unripe truss.

Most potting composts have limited nutrients and a large container

packed with plants will have exhausted them by this time of year.

So as well as watering regularly,

it's also important to feed them with a high-potash fertiliser.

Tomato feed, liquid seaweed or home-made comfrey is ideal.

At Longmeadow we do this once a week on a Friday - Feeding Friday.

Now that my morello cherries have finished fruiting, it's time

to prune and train them, and this applies to any fan-trained fruit.

Tie in any new shoots that you want to keep as part of the

structure and then remove everything else, especially those shoots

growing outwards, and cut them right back to a pair of leaves.

What you should be left with is a neat, clean outline of a fan.

A plant that I really look forward to

at this time of year is the Ligularia przewalskii.

It's difficult to pronounce and almost impossible to spell

but very, very easy to appreciate and enjoy.

You've got these yellow spires of flower on black stems and it

shines out of the shadows. Now, the shadows are important.

Give it some shade and nice wet feet - it will grow in bog if need be

- and it loves it.

Well, that's it for today.

I'll see you back here at Longmeadow at the same time next week,

8:30pm on Wednesday on BBC Two.

Till then, bye-bye.

You've got the seat. Where am I going to sit?