Episode 19 Gardeners' World

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners' World.

This time of year,

I always spend some time every day deadheading,

because not only does it enable the plant to regenerate better

than anything else,

keep deadheading any flowers that are past their best,

and new ones will keep coming.

Also, it is a way of getting close to your garden.

Of becoming intimate.

Of looking at detail rather than just thinking about the

bigger picture all the time, and I really enjoy that.

And thirdly, nothing is wasted.

It all goes on the compost heap.

This week, we meet Jenny Morgan,

who started entering her sweet peas into competition just last year,

and we have been to find out how she prepares for a big show.

What they will be looking for

is having four blooms very close together.

They like the petals presented all forward.

I call it just dressing them up a bit.

It's 20 years now since the death of Geoff Hamilton,

the great and much-loved presenter of Gardeners' World.

Adam Frost began his horticultural career working with Geoff

at his garden at Barnsdale,

so we asked him to go back there to celebrate Geoff's legacy.

If there was one thing that I really remember Geoff for,

it was the way that he used to go off, get inspiration and then come

home and show you how to do something on the cheap.

And this, for me, the Artisan's Cottage Garden,

encapsulates everything that he was about.

And I shall be celebrating cannas,

and giving you the secrets of how to make perfect garden compost.

Come along.

This is a rambler rose, Felicite et Perpetue,

and it's coming to the end of what was a lovely display,

and ramblers, as opposed to climbers,

tend to have masses of small flowers that only flower once,

very often June through to the end of July, and then that's it.

And the other differential from climbers is that they produce

their flowers on last year's growth.

So what is growing now will produce next year's flowers,

whereas most climbers you prune in spring

and the new growth bears the blooms.

Now, if you're growing it up into a tree, I would leave it.

Don't try and prune it. It doesn't need it.

But if, like here, you're scrambling it up a wall or a shed,

this clearly is getting in the way. It's a bit thorny.

So the first thing I need to do is to tidy it up for human access,

and then I need to think about what's best for the plant.

Now, when you do prune a rambler,

it's a good idea to go right

down to the base of the plant and remove the whole stem.

So, come in here and cut that. Right, that's gone.

And by cutting it hard, you will stimulate new shoots.

Agh! I should have worn gloves.

Now, already, I've got a bit more space here,

so that... Ow! ..is going to be trained underneath...

I don't like wearing gloves, actually. I feel clumsy.

I'm pretty clumsy at the best of times, but if I wear gloves,

it feels like I'm wearing diving boots on my hands.

If you are training a rambler up a pergola, or a support,

what you tend to do is train it in spirals, to get as

much growth as possible in, and then prune away all the excess.

With this, I want it to look natural.

I want it to look as though it's just scrambling and falling

all over the hut.

Right, that we may want to keep, so we're keeping that in control,

I'm going up.

With a rambling rose, in particular, what you're looking for is

a tracery covering the support, or the surface that you want to hide.

And what you want to avoid is an overlap of whippy branches,

and sometimes you can have a layer of two, three, four

or five branches almost on top of each other.

So, the idea up here is to space them out as best as possible,

and if I can't space them out, prune them out.

And as for the dead flowers, they do look

a bit unsightly at this stage, but they will be followed by hips,

so I would advise, don't be tempted to prune off the spent flowers.

They will fall very quickly and be replaced by hips

that will look glorious come September and October.

So it's a question now of doing a bit of untangling.

I think that's enough.

It is always a trade-off between making something look natural

and artless, and yet controlling it so that it doesn't scratch you

as you walk past, or overwhelm the support that it is on.

Now, you will see wonderful rambling roses at flower shows,

but they don't attract that kind of obsessive,

competitive showmanship that some plants do. Dahlias. Vegetables.

Sweet peas. Particularly sweet peas, for some reason.

And we went to meet Jenny Morgan in Abergavenny, who started showing

her sweet peas just a year ago and already is doing very well.

My father always had a row of sweet peas

in the vegetable garden at home.

He always thought his runner beans pollinated better if he had

a row of sweet peas for the bees. I just love them.

I love the perfume, I love all the different colours,

and somebody once told me that, "You're not growing flowers,

"you're a growing bunches of smiles."

In the garden, we've got seven rows of sweet peas, which are grown

on the cordon method. There are six different colours.

We've got some dwarf sweet peas and we've got some

semi-dwarf sweet peas in pots, and we have got some annuals,

which are grown up on an arch, like a hedge.

I was talked into entering the Royal Welsh Show

in the amateur section in 2012.

I ended up, I won first prize,

so I was very pleased with that and did it again last year

in the open class,

and I won the three-vase class and I won the bronze medal,

so I was very pleased.

We've got the Royal Welsh Show next week. I'll pick in the morning.

I'll pick everything I've got and then do an elimination process,

really. I'll start at the first class that I really want to go for

and work my way down until I've got nothing left.

The maintenance we do for cordon varieties is to take

one single stem up the cane.

It gives a lot of strength in a plant by taking the side

shoot out and then this tendril that comes off, I'll snip that off,

because if it goes too far,

you will find that it will just tangle round the next bloom

and probably make the stem a little bit crooked.

They are fed once a week with, like, a tomato food.

We don't need to water them on a daily basis.

The preparation of the soil helps,

because we get a lot of farmyard manure into it,

which means that it does retain the water.

To tie our sweet peas, I use a taping machine.

It is so much easier than using all the wire clips.

We just sort of bring the stem to the back of the cane,

put the tape around and just clip it round.

This stem wouldn't look very good in the vase because it

wouldn't stand straight, so what we will do is, when we pick that,

we'll straighten the stem.

There is an art to that which Lewis is very good at, so then it would

be a straight stem like that, which would look perfect in the vase.

What they are looking for is having four blooms very close together.

They like the petals presented all forward.

I call it just dressing them up a bit.

Because the sweet peas took over more here,

we decided that we would put our name down for an allotment.

That has given us a chance to grow all our veg

plus another four rows of sweet peas.

The allotment gives us a backup and, obviously, it is different soil,

so we're just sort of seeing how they do there, compared to here.

I'm really pleased with the allotment sweet peas at the moment.

They've really come into their own in the last fortnight,

mainly because they were later, so they have not been through

the bad weather that we've had early on in the season.

This is Gardeners' Jubilee,

the sweet pea that was bred by Andrew Bean.

I like it because it really is a pure white,

and it's quite hard to get a pure white without any blemishes on it.

It's all formed together,

and I think it looks nice with the dark green stem.

I think I will be taking these to the Royal Welsh.

I've just find this, it is actually called Just Jenny.

It's got five blooms on it,

but it's had a little bit of damage on the petals,

probably from the wind and the heavy shower we had the other day.

The blemishes are just on the edge and, because of the dark colour,

it'll just show the whiter edges, where the damage is.

This is Apricot Queen. It's one of the perfect blooms,

because it has no blemishes from the wind,

the watermarks, and it is all facing forward.

A long, thick stem. That should look good.

I'm very pleased with the amount of blooms I've got here

so, if the weather is kind to us,

I think we're going to have a good week next week at the Royal Welsh.

Fingers crossed!

Jenny did really well.

Again, she came second in four different categories at the

Royal Welsh show. Now, if sweet peas are quintessentially

gentle English plants,

cannas are robust, not to say rumbustious,

South American plants.

If cannas could dance, they'd do the samba.

And I love them and use them a lot here in the Jewel Garden,

because they do give you this wonderfully intense foliage,

but the canna, given a little bit of heat, will reliably flower.

This canna is called Wyoming.

Really nice, rich foliage - that is reason enough to grow it -

but the flowers are fantastic, too.

Can you see how the flowers are forming,

almost on top of each other?

A succession growing from the gap of the old one, with the stem,

so that, as one fades, another will appear above it,

which is a good reason never to deadhead them.

You can pull the petals off, if you want.

Gently take that off, like that, to tidy it up, and to flower,

they need at least five and often seven leaves per stem.

If you haven't got enough leaves, you won't get flowers,

and they way to get more leaves is to feed them.

Lots of compost - manure if you've got it, liquid, seaweed,

a tomato feed - they'll love it,

and they'll grow nice and strongly,

and then they'll give you lots of flowers.

Now, you can grow these almost in any soil,

but did you know that you can also grow a lot of cannas in water, too?

Whilst almost any canna can be potted up and put

in four to six inches of water - and it will be quite happy for

a summer - a few have evolved to thrive in water.

Water is their natural habitat, and they stem from one type,

which is Canna glauca, and that's the clue to what they look like.

I've got one here, called Erebus.

And they have these very grey-blue leaves with pink flowers,

and the flowers are distinctly spidery,

compared to some of the other cannas.

But, of course, they make fantastically dramatic plants

for a pond, and they're very easy to grow.

What you do need is an aquatic planter.

You buy these and they have holes in the side,

and that's because the roots need to get out into the water.

And I've got here soil which is from our turf stack.

Heavy, clay-based garden soil is ideal.

Now, if you don't have heavy clay soil, and it's sandy or light,

then use aquatic compost.

Now, if I open this up...

..you can see I've got three plants there.

And they are vigorous,

so they need quite a lot of space. So we will just pop that there...

..pack some soil around it,

and then the third one can go in at the end.

If you've got fish in your pond,

you should put a layer of pebbles or gravel on top, and that will stop

the fish nosing in and disturbing the soil. Right...

That's the plants dressed and ready to go. Now it's my turn.

Now, in theory, all I have to do is just plonk this in the water.

In practice, this slopes a bit,

so I want to go in and find myself a good spot first.

Here we go.

When you are planting an aquatic canna,

you don't want to bury it too deep.

It wants to be about six inches, so that no leaves are below water,

just the stem.

There you go.

Now, this will grow nice and big, stand out above the hostas,

and be completely at home here in the water.

What you do have to do is bring it in once the first frosts come.

Once you see the leaves touched by frost, lift it out the water,

keep it damp, because the rhizomes must be kept damp and,

of course, they mustn't freeze, so in a frost-free place.

Now, if you're making an organic garden, a pond is essential,

because it helps balance the wildlife.

That's the whole secret of organics, is a really healthy,

holistic garden, and one of the men who most influenced me

about organics generally, and about gardening specifically,

was the late, great Geoff Hamilton.

Now, Geoff died 20 years ago,

and he was a great influence on so many of us

but in particular on Adam Frost, because Adam had one of his first

gardening jobs at Barnsdale, under Geoff's tutelage.

So, on this 20th anniversary of his death,

Adam has gone back to where he started out

his horticultural career.

Could you imagine at 21 years old getting a job for Geoff Hamilton -

presenter on Gardeners' World - at Barnsdale Gardens?

And I can remember the first day that I turned up for work,

and I was actually shaking.

I was totally in awe of this man that I used to watch on

a Friday night, and the way that he used to inspire a nation

to garden and, looking back,

to think the effect that he has had on my life is absolutely amazing.

I worked behind the scenes with Geoff and his team at Barnsdale

during the years that he presented Gardeners' World, and he really

encouraged me to pursue a career in horticulture and landscape design.

If there was one thing that I really remember Geoff for,

it was the way that he used to go off, get inspiration and then come

home and show you how to do something on the cheap.

For me, that's what gardening is all about - getting out,

having a go and sometimes making something out of nothing.

And this, you know, for me, the Artisan's Cottage Garden,

encapsulates everything that he was about.

We've got things in the corner, like his compost beehives.

So many people remember those.

And the thyme table - this lovely little table

with thyme planted in it.

But also, the plants that he loved.

He'd see a space in a border and say, "Put something in there,"

and you'd say, "I'm not sure it will go in there."

"No, no, that'll be all right, that'll be all right!"

And that's the way he gardened,

so the borders more or less looked like they were exploding.

And the plants that he loved were good-value plants.

Hard-working plants.

Plants that maybe would grow in more than one condition.

He always wanted to save you just those few quid.

And those ideas, where did they come from?

I mean, look at this. A ballcock on an obelisk.

When would you look inside the top of your toilet and actually

decide that that was going to look great on top of an obelisk?

Fantastic idea.

This garden really has got atmosphere. It has got a soul to it.

You get this presence that, actually, you know,

Geoff could be around any corner.

Through my time working at Barnsdale,

I became close to the family, but especially

Nick Hamilton, Geoff's son, who I have stayed mates with for years.

-Hello, mate.

-Hello, Adam.

-How are you? All right?

-Yeah, great.

Just give me a hand finish planting these, could you?

-So, cor, this takes me back, this garden.

-Yeah, 20 years ago.

Yeah, the coir rock. Wow. I tell you what,

these old rocks look good but don't you remember

when he actually did it?

We thought he had gone absolutely barking mad.

Well, he was of an age, wasn't he?

For the past few months,

I've is being experimenting with artificial rock.

To be fair, the first ones, when they came out,

they looked more like cowpats, didn't they?

They wouldn't have looked amiss in the field next door, would they?

But, I mean, there was a serious side to why he did it.

This was all driven to basically stop limestone pavements

getting ripped up and destroying acres and acres of natural habitat.

That was the important thing.

It wasn't so much the limestone, it was the habitat that that created.

-Yeah, yeah.

-He was so many years ahead of his time,

and just a fantastic visionary.

I mean, looking back, I think, in reality,

maybe I took a little bit of what we were doing for granted,

but I wouldn't be doing what I am doing today if I hadn't had

spent the time I spent here,

-so I've got to thank him for that, haven't I?

-Yeah.

Geoff's influences and ideas are clear

in all the different themed gardens,

but there's one I'm particularly fond of.

Do you know, I'm really proud of this garden.

This was actually the last garden I ever did with Geoff

and it was in '96.

It was a reclaimed garden for Gardeners' World Live.

And he trusted me to design it.

He came up with the concept of reclaim - typical Geoff, really -

before reclaim was even trendy.

So we went off to visit some yards and we found things like

these old railings and a big old piece of timber

that came out of the ship that we made into a seat.

And then inside there, he heard about hot-water tanks

and how maybe you could re-use those.

And in the end we got an artist to come up with an idea

using old copper tanks.

He threw all those ideas in and just said,

"Adam, get on with it, go and design it."

And we did and we went to the show.

And it won best design in show.

And I remember him coming up to me and putting his arm around me

and just saying, "Well done, boy."

For someone in their early 20s, unbelievable feeling.

And looking back -

how he trusted me!

Which is special, really - really, really special.

My television debut was helping Geoff plant a big acer

in the Town Paradise garden.

And it's always a place at Barnsdale that I like to return to.

I think, emotionally, today,

this garden has taken me absolutely everywhere.

And if you look up there,

that's the acer that I planted 20 years ago.

It's still here doing its thing.

In the world we live today, we're looking for that moment of peace.

Everything's 300mph.

And Geoff believed you could have

that paradise outside your back door.

And I agree, and I think that, not only that,

but how we live with nature, how our grey spaces become greener

and how we connect the next generation is incredibly important.

And I suppose he's left me with that.

I think Geoff would be, in a sense, looking down

and be proud of the legacy he's left behind.

You can visit Barnsdale.

It's open every day and if you're an RHS member, you'll get in free.

Now, I said that a pond is really important

to a healthy organic garden.

And if a pond is a good,

then an effective compost heap is absolutely essential.

I'll accept that this isn't the most glamorous or beautiful part

of Longmeadow. But it is the most important.

A good supply of compost is what keeps this garden going.

It's the single most beneficial thing

that you can add to your garden.

And making it is really easy if you follow a few set of rules.

The first thing is the raw material that you use.

And you can see this bay where we just chuck everything

is largely, at the moment, garden waste,

but we put all our kitchen waste in here,

anything that has grown in the garden can come on here.

We try and get a balance between what's called green waste -

and the most perfect example of that are grass clippings -

and brown, and the best example of that are dried stems.

These are classic brown compostable materials. Very high in carbon.

And they're very slow to rot down.

But they're important.

Cardboard is a really good source of brown material. Newspaper.

Egg boxes are brilliant for compost.

If you've got any perennial weeds, like ground elder,

cooch grass, bindweed,

don't put the roots in your compost heap.

And when you've got some together, you need to chop it up.

Now, that is an absolute key to good compost.

You can use whatever you like. We've actually got a big shredder.

But an old mower is brilliant.

Anything to try and break it up and increase the surface area.

But then, when you've done that, you can go on to the next stage.

The chopped material comes into this first bay and just mounds up.

And it is important that it's all mixed up well.

It hasn't become what we recognise as compost,

but bacteria is eating it and digesting it.

So this builds up, and when it's full,

we turn all of that into here.

Now, you can see, it's becoming wet and squidgy and horrible.

For a lot of people - and smells pretty horrible too -

a lot of people, that's the compost they make.

And that's because it's anaerobic - it hasn't got enough air in there.

And the bacteria can't work.

So, turning that is going to be very, very important.

And that will stay in there, at this time of year,

for no more than five weeks.

In winter, it could be as long as five months.

So, when it's turned again,

it's starting to look a bit more like compost.

You could put this round trees and shrubs and it'll be fine,

but that will stay.

And before it gets turned again... to here.

And what you have now...

is lovely, sweet-smelling - and it does smell sweet - clean compost.

It's nice to handle and it's ready for use.

And if I firtle in there and pull it up,

I probably can find some worms

that don't like to be too near the surface.

If I come in here...

Right, there they are.

You see, these are the brandling worms

that love this stage of the compost.

They're particularly red.

You only find them in the compost heap,

you won't find them in the ground,

and again, they digest it, and that's how you make compost.

Now, we've got a lot of space and we make a lot of compost,

and it's really important, but you can do it on a small scale.

You need at least two containers. Bins will do fine.

You need to mix up your material and chop it up as much as possible.

And that will do the job perfectly well.

And go on doing it until it feels nice.

Now, I hope that inspires you to start making compost

or to turn your compost.

But, as well as that,

here are one two other things you can do this weekend.

If, like me, you harvested your garlic about a month ago,

they should now be ready for storage.

I find the easiest way is to cut off all the top growth,

leaving just a stub.

Clean off the roots and any dirt that remains on them.

And then store them in an open basket,

somewhere with good ventilation,

which is cool and rather dark.

This way, they keep well into next year.

Keep an eye on your blackcurrants.

And be sure to harvest them now

before they ripen and fall, which can happen very quickly.

And then, either simply reduce them to a rich, musky sauce

that is perfect with ice cream or yoghurt,

or as a central ingredient

in the most wonderful dessert ever devised -

summer pudding.

Come on.

My sweet peas are not prize-winning.

But they give a huge amount of satisfaction,

both in the garden and in a vase in the house.

And of course, if you're going on holiday,

pick them all and give them away.

Now, that is the end of today's programme.

I'll see you back here at Longmeadow next Friday. Until then, bye-bye.