Episode 24 Gardeners' World

'Gardeners' World has been extended to an hour,

'and over the next seven weeks,

'we shall be exploring traditional ideas with a surprising twist...'

I like a rockery where the rocks take centre stage.

'..taking it to the extreme...'

Never before have I used a winch to get a shrub up.

'..getting a feel for the exotic...'

I'm instantly getting the impression we're in for a treat.

'..looking for inspiration...'

Gardening is grown-ups going outside to play.

That, to me, is exactly what it is.

'..and offering tips and advice...'

So there's some real challenges in this border

but, in fact, there's some really, really easy solutions.

'..to help you get the best from your garden.'

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

Now, this time of year has all kinds of riches.

But I guess above all, it is the season of fruit.

Fruit of every kind from apples and pears and plums and gages,

there are fruits of every kind.

But amongst my favourite at this point are the crab apples.

I planted this tree about 25 years ago, it's never got very big,

but it does carry a lovely burden of bejewelled fruits.

Small, getting richer in colour as the month progresses,

and then they make delicious crab apple jelly.

Someone said to me the other day

that they'd never eaten crab apple jelly.

Well, there's a treat in store.

It is beautiful.

On tonight's programme,

we join Carol as she visits RHS Rosemoor in Devon,

where she is celebrating the rose family.

It's absolutely fascinating to see the diversity of different flowers

and different leaves.

Adam is sketching plans for his country garden.

That sort of idea of maybe using architecture

initially to inspire the shapes of the garden.

And Flo Headlam has got a few tricks

to help transform a small urban garden.

So I'm not going to plant at ground level,

I'm going to plant up, and I've got a cunning solution.

And I'm going to be planting my very first mulberry in the orchard,

as well as pruning roses and we've got the rest of the team

visiting a wide range of gardens around the country.

I've got a whole load of wallflowers, grown from seed,

which are doing very nicely in plugs, but I want to plant them out,

because if you have a plant in a plug,

there's always a moment at which it can only get worse.

And if you have a plug like that,

you've got a nice filigree of roots on the outside

but it's not wrapping around, it hasn't exhausted the nutrients,

so that's a very healthy young plant.

But I'd like to be at least twice as big when I plant it out

sometime around the middle or end of October.

Now, the only way to do that is either pot it on into a pot

or, much easier, plant it out into the garden where it can grow on

until I'm ready to put it in its final position.

And the only place in the veg garden which is suitable is here.

Now, this was a brassica bed.

Nellie, why do you always have to fight?

We were peaceful, we were calm. PLAYFUL GROWLING

You're not listening. There we go.

And wallflowers are brassicas.

Now, you don't normally follow in the rotation

of the vegetable garden brassica with brassica.

It normally goes legume, brassica, roots.

So, next year, I'd expect to grow carrots and parsnips in here

but there'll be no harm in just popping the wallflowers in

for a month, six weeks.

They're visiting, they're lodgers in this piece of ground.

Right, it's hot.

If I put my jacket down, Nel, will you lie quietly?

Go on, lie down.

So we'll take the net off, and this has been here against the pigeons.

Pigeon population has either increased dramatically

or else they've discovered that I grow nice food for them

and they've all latched onto it.

Now, these are summer cabbages, but some of them are still good.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

That's cleared the ground,

I just now need to fork it over lightly.

I'm not digging it as such, I'm just loosening it.

There's no question that brassicas do respond well

to a good dressing of compost when you plant them,

which means that these wallflowers would also respond as a brassica,

so I'm going to get a little bit of garden compost

and work it into the soil just to give them a boost,

because what I'm looking for is maximum size.

And although the small ones will grow and survive

and get bigger in time,

you always get a better display simply on the size of plant.

It wouldn't be a compost heap without bottle tops

and bits of wrapping and packaging.

I'm surprised we haven't got a teaspoon, kitchen knife.

That ring you lost three years ago

and suddenly, mysteriously pops up on the compost heap.

If you don't want to, there's no need to dig that in.

That will work very effectively as a mulch

because the bacteria in the fungi will get into the soil

without any help from you whatsoever.

You can see there are worms wriggling in there,

they will work it in, the rain will wash it in.

That will very quickly incorporate into the soil,

so I'll just leave that and plant through them.

Right, we can start planting.

I've got two types of wallflower,

I've got Cloth of Gold, which, as the name suggests, is gold,

and Blood Red.

These are Blood Red.

So...

Blood Red is a lovely rich carmine,

and in spring, in April, you get that intensity of colour,

looks really good with orange tulips,

with yellow and, of course, on top of that, if that wasn't enough,

there's the most beautiful, sweet honey fragrance.

I remember one year, the first year I did it,

I grew them in The Long Walk and they were going down

and you couldn't really smell them from distance,

but as you crossed it,

it was like diving into a fragrant pool.

You were suddenly bathed in this wonderful scent.

And as you left, it remained just like a memory.

Lovely experience.

Now, it's time to join Carol

as she returns with her series on plant families

at RHS Rosemoor in Devon.

And this week, she's looking at the rose family.

There are over 400 plant families, with more than 300,000 species.

Family Rosaceae contains more than 2,500 species.

When you gather together members of the rose family,

it's absolutely fascinating to see the diversity

of different flowers and different leaves.

But there are striking similarities too.

If you look at a typical rose,

it's got five petals.

Go onto the strawberry, five petals too.

The potentilla,

this gorgeous gillenia too,

although they're a completely different shape

but it's still got five petals.

And another characteristic that a lot of them have in common

is when you look at these flowers, inside is a cluster,

a positive pompom of these stamens,

each of them with an anther and each anther loaded with pollen.

All the rose family make masses of pollen

but they make no nectar at all.

So it's these big, bright flowers

that bring in the insects in the first place.

Another way to garner clues about who belongs to the rose family

is to look at the leaves.

They're almost always alternate.

In other words, instead of being opposite one another,

they're on the other side of the stem and a bit further up.

And if you look at the leaves of this physocarpus,

you can see another factor that lots of members of the rose family

have in common.

They've got this serrated, toothed edge to them.

That's true of this

and most of these other examples here.

You'd hardly believe that this was a member of the rose family,

but it is.

The Rosaceae family includes many shrubs,

such as potentilla, prunus and pyracantha,

and several valuable herbaceous perennials, including geums.

Geum is a real garden stalwart

and they're a huge boon in any garden that can offer them

moist, fertile soil and shade from strong sun.

The family Rosaceae is blessed with all manner of really special,

exquisite trees, like this gorgeous example here.

This is a hawthorn,

but it doesn't look at all like the hawthorns

we're used to seeing in our hedgerows.

It's got these big, shiny leaves, and the berries are big

and there are lots and lots of them.

And in autumn, they're going to become the most delightful colour,

pink and crimson.

And this is yet another member of the same family.

It's a crab apple.

At first sight it looks nothing like one.

We're used to crab apples being big fruit, but here,

they're tiny, and they're preceded in the spring

by dainty white flowers

that absolutely smother the branches.

All these trees are fully mature, so you can imagine being able to

accommodate them in any small garden.

The Rosaceae family takes its name from one

of our most familiar plants - the rose.

Every year, all around the world,

millions of roses are propagated, usually from budding or grafting,

but you can make your own new roses just from taking stem cuttings.

Grab some material.

The top shoots are the very best and the best time of year is right now,

although you can take cuttings right the way through

from late spring into the autumn.

But at this moment, they're bendy but they're not soft,

so they're ideal. Sort of semi-ripe wood.

Take your cutting, cut very carefully with a knife or secateurs

right under a leaf and remove these bottom leaves.

This is a bit tall but I'm going to take out this apical growth anyway,

just that top little shoot.

That means that when the cutting roots, it will tend to grow sideways

and that's just what you want, a nice bushy plant.

And then, you can use anything to do this,

but round the side of a...

a clay pot for preference.

Clay pots are great because they're porous,

so the cutting is never sitting in soggy compost.

Push your cutting down, right to the side,

until that bottom leaf is actually level with the soil.

You want to make sure that the cuttings don't touch each other

if possible.

And again, insert it so that that is parallel.

So three in that pot, I think, it's fine, it's adequate.

And then once I've done that, I'm going to cover the top of this

with grit to retain moisture,

to ensure that weeds don't grow on the top

and to make sure that it doesn't rot.

Water it really well and then put it into a nice bright place,

but out of direct sun.

After a matter of weeks,

if you take them at this time of year,

you should get decent rooted cuttings like this

and it's at that stage that you can pot them on individually.

And then, this time next year,

you can put your new roses out into the garden.

I started planting roses here in the cottage garden a few years ago,

and in particular, two years ago, I planted 32 new roses.

Now, last year they were very small.

This year, they've throw up like this one

This is William Lobb, a moss rose,

a huge great shoot and then the ones on the left,

which are about three or four years older, are now very vigorous.

And it's quite common when you plant new roses to have

erratic, irregular growth.

And now, in September, is a really good time to both prune new roses

so they get into some sort of shape, and also establish shrub roses.

Don't worry about summer pruning or winter pruning

or provoking growth of restricting growth or anything like that,

just get it into shape.

So if we take that stem there of this rose

and just cut that back,

immediately the bush is starting to feel roughly

the sort of shape I want. So likewise...

back here, we've got some that are getting a little bit tall

and I want them to spread a little bit more so we can just...

tip them back.

This is a gallica,

one of my favourite roses of all, called Charles de Mills,

which has a flower that is a lovely cherry, rich pinky red.

And it looks as though a knife has cleanly sliced it in half,

like cutting an orange in half,

so the petals are completely open and exposed.

It's a fabulous rose.

So I want it to be in as good shape as possible

to bear its flowers next year.

This one can be cut right back...

to there.

And...

I'm holding that as gently as a man can hold a thorn

without it sinking deep into his flesh.

That couldn't be more bristly if it tried.

If you've got more established roses, like the ones in these beds

which are now four years old, this time of year,

the best way to treat them is get a pair of shears

or even some hedge cutters and just trim them evenly.

Just clip it over neatly

so it's a neat shape.

This is an alba called cuisse de nymphe.

A nymph's thigh.

It's a glorious flower and tough too.

This plant will take a lot of hacking about.

This is all the pruning it needs in order to give you

a really good display.

Whereas most roses do their flowering in summer,

there are some that are remontant, they come back,

and the English roses are particularly good for that.

They flower gloriously in June and July

and then take a bit of a break in August, but now,

in September, they're coming back with a second flush

and will go on flowering well into autumn.

I've got three here I particularly like.

This is Crown Princess Margareta

and it's as near to apricot as I've got in this garden.

These beautiful flowers. But my absolute favourite is this one.

It's called the Pilgrim.

It's flush with touches of raspberry before it opens out

into this beautiful, tightly crinkled display

of delicate pale lemon.

And...

also has a glorious scent.

It's a really good rose and this will go on flowering

for at least another month, if not two.

Most of the fruits at this time of year are members of the rose family,

apples and pears, but also plums and greengages

and damsons, some of my favourite fruits.

And whilst a lot of us have these trees as individuals in our garden,

plum orchards are becoming increasingly rare,

whereas they used to be very common,

particularly in the area around Worcester and Worcestershire.

And we went to visit one of the few surviving ones

which is being conserved by a group of volunteers and experts.

This orchard is mainly centred around Pershore Yellow Egg

and Purple Pershores.

They were probably planted early 1950s

when there was still a call for plums,

particularly in the Birmingham markets

and down to London,

but sadly, the plum industry here was on the wane by then.

The heyday was really late 1800s,

beginning of the 1900s.

I was always interested in growing crops

because my father was in farming, he was a farm foreman in Essex

and his family had been involved in fruit growing in Suffolk,

but since retirement and getting involved with conservation,

bringing the two together is something quite new for me

and quite fascinating as well.

'Gary Farmer is the project manager

'for the Vale Landscape Heritage Trust.

'We often meet up to discuss fruit projects

'because the trust as a whole has nearly 100 acres of old orchards,

'one way or another.'

So with this tree in particular then, John,

what sort of pruning are we going for?

The ideal shape really for the amateur to do from now on really

is this A-shape or Christmas tree-shaped tree.

It's easier to manage and doesn't take up so much space either.

In this situation, because our pickers have to pick from the floor,

we're going to have to go for the open-centre tree shape

that traditionally has been grown on here.

One of the problems with the open centre tree,

if it's got a lot of growth in the centre, very little light

gets in to initiate the flowers and so the only flowers that we find

and fruit eventually are on the end of the branches.

Right, we use a saw that has been sterilised before using and cleaned.

I'm going to cut out this very strong one up the centre first.

OK.

Now, I'm cutting at a slight angle

so that we get run-off of water if necessary in the future.

Now at this point,

people are undecided whether they should paint the cut or not.

If you suddenly find rain is threatening, then it's worthwhile

painting that cut, particularly as it's quite a large one.

You can use a proprietary pruning paint to stop the ingress of things

like bacterial canker, but you do need to do the painting

within half an hour of making the cut

so that you actually keep the spores out.

So we're here today picking plums.

The people you see round about are volunteers

and they've been picking all day.

Quite a hot day.

But this is a reasonable crop here.

We're getting a good-sized plum.

We're picking something like

60, 80 trays.

It's quite a fruity smelling house at this time of year.

Well, I think any household that's fruity is a good household.

At this time of year, there's so much to choose from,

but my guess is that not many people will be harvesting these.

This is a mulberry.

Oh!

It's a really intense taste.

Fabulous fruit. Makes fantastic jam, and also the tree

is one of the most beautiful garden trees you can grow.

The one thing I would say about this fruit,

is nothing stains like a mulberry.

And probably my lips are all red having eaten that one there.

So I want to plant one here in the orchard

and it's the first mulberry tree I will ever have grown.

I've often sat beneath them, I've coveted the fruit,

but always in other people's gardens.

They are very typical of Jacobean gardens,

because James I wanted to start the silk industry,

so ordered a million mulberry trees

to be planted in every county town in the land.

An edict went out to his lord lieutenants.

One slight problem was that the mulberry trees that they planted

were this - Morus nigra.

Not Morus alba.

And Morus alba is the one that the silk worm eats

and this just produces the berries,

hence the demise of the British silk industry before it even began.

But never mind! The legacy are beautiful trees.

Now, any tree that you're planting, whether it's in a pot like that

or bare root, you need a nice big, bare space around it.

The best way to help a young tree on its way is to remove

all competition for moisture and nutrients.

And grass and weeds will always

take the available water and food first

and then the tree will struggle.

Then, when the tree is mature, you let the grass

come up round it again and that slows it down.

This is a variety called Chelsea, sometimes known as King James.

And traditionally, mulberry trees weren't planted by digging

big holes and loosening the soil and anything like that.

They simply took a branch the thickness of an ankle

and five foot tall,

and hammered it like a post into moist ground in winter.

And the tree grew.

Now, I'm going to add a little bit of biochar.

This is mycorrhizal fungi mixed up with charcoal.

Really good for giving trees and shrubs a start in life.

So we take that out. It's a nice healthy plant.

And we'll put that in there.

Yeah, that's about the right height. That's good.

And when you're adding mycorrhizae or biochar,

you do need to spread it directly onto the roots.

Place that there, nice in the centre.

Now I'm going around now firming this in really well.

And that is absolutely vital.

Starting from the outside.

And I'll stake it.

You can either put it upright like that or - and it's better -

at an angle pointing into the prevailing wind.

Now, the prevailing wind here comes from over there, so westerly,

and it blows this way.

So I want to put the stake in about like that.

That's pretty secure.

Now, when you tie a tree in,

be sure to keep the trunk away from the stake so it doesn't rub.

Don't tie it too tight.

Movement like that is absolutely fine because that will

strengthen the trunk and give it more flexibility, and always,

even if it's wet, give a new tree a good soak.

Two or three gallons.

So you water it and then finally mulch it.

And mulch it well.

So you put all the goodness on top of the soil, not underneath it.

You don't need to mulch with your very best compost.

Anything that's going to keep in the moisture and suppress the weeds

is worth doing, so bark chips, even gravel is better than nothing.

Still to come...

..Nick Macer is in London visiting a hidden exotic treasure...

Oh, my goodness!

So this is the tropical oasis I've heard so much about. This is it.

..and we pay a visit to Torquay,

where a combination of a kind Devon climate

and a quirky use of space has transformed a suburban garden.

And we're into another part of the garden again.

Yes, we are heading towards the Italianate area now. Blimey!

This place is a TARDIS, isn't it?

Now, this tree is a very welcome addition to what is becoming

an established orchard.

But 25 years ago, when we first came here, there was nothing.

There was just an empty field.

So I know exactly that mixture of excitement and slight trepidation

that Adam Frost is feeling

as he tackles his new garden in Lincolnshire.

He introduced us to the plot last week, and now,

he presents some of his plans.

May is that wonderful time of year when the garden really starts

to come to life and our gardens feel fresh and renewed.

It's just a few weeks since we moved in

and so things feel really exciting, like a brand-new beginning.

So I just want to give you some idea

of how the house sits within the garden.

I suppose where I'm standing now, I'd call the main family garden.

It wraps itself around the house

and has a south and a west-facing aspect.

In this garden area, I've got a formal bed of roses

and a wonderful old pergola

that's covered in rambling and climbing roses.

There's a large lawn and also a small west-facing terrace,

and the wall is covered in scented climbers.

And, of course, I've got that beautiful old wisteria.

So adjacent to the family garden,

I have what every gardener

dreams of - a walled garden.

And its boundaries run all the way

along the front drive.

This wonderful space has two borders -

one facing west

and one facing south.

It also features a large lawn

and a small orchard.

And then the other side has this fantastic woodland

that more or less wraps its way all the way round the property.

Then just on the other side of the drive as you approach the house,

I've got another lovely little walled space

which is going to be my veg garden.

We've still only been in our new home for a matter of weeks,

so it's early days for the veg garden, but work has begun.

We've scraped the weeds and the top growth and cleared the site,

and my next job is to come up with a detailed design.

One big thing when you stand down the sort of bottom end

of this garden is actually you look back at the house,

at these lovely little Georgian detail windows.

This sort of idea of maybe using architecture initially to inspire

the shapes of the garden.

And remember, everything that designs off the house,

all those first set of hard materials and pathways,

that's your sort of last connection with the architecture of your house,

and that really sort of sets the platforms and the connection

with your wider garden, so a great place to start.

And as I said, this is not to scale at the moment,

so this is just pouring out ideas on a piece of paper. So what do I want?

I want a greenhouse because actually I want somewhere that I can

grow veggies all the way through and I want to put that maybe

in the centre of the garden

so that that gets really good light levels.

So I know that actually down here...

..is the east, and up the top there is west, which is really important,

you know, where that sun rises, where it sets.

Greenhouse is going to get good light all day long.

Maybe the cooking area sits in up here.

So that sits next to the greenhouse.

Cold frames is another thing that I want.

You know, to sort of harden stuff off, grow seeds...

Get stuff ready for the next year.

So what else do I want from this space?

I like the idea of actually building some hotbeds, you know.

The idea that I can grow veggies sort of going into the back end

of the year, or even, you know, after Christmas.

Even maybe next year, we might grow some melons,

so that would be a nice big raised bed.

Maybe I need some height somewhere else.

At Barnsdale, Geoff used to grow asparagus, you know, in raised beds

because you're on a clay soil and they love that free draining soil,

so maybe it would be lovely to have a raised asparagus bed.

So I'm sort of keeping the ideas nice and free and following.

Maybe there's some planting up above the greenhouse.

And there you go.

Look down on it, you know, it's a series of simple shapes.

All right, you can talk about design in much more detail,

but in its simplest form, looking down,

garden design is about space, but it's about shapes.

Just have some fun.

But there is one feature in my garden that definitely

doesn't need redesigning.

This wisteria did not disappoint.

The flowers were absolutely stunning.

I mean, the scent was fantastic.

It's like I've had to be drawn here every day just to have

five minutes and actually just enjoy it.

And maybe that's what we don't do enough of sometimes

is just enjoy our gardens.

I think it's the whole season with wisteria.

You know, now it's gone onto that really sort of lush green growth

that looks beautiful.

It just gives you a warm feeling.

Just trying to keep these beautiful old yew domes going.

Actually brought them from the other house,

but just giving them a bit of liquid feed.

I moved them a bit late and they're really starting to suffer,

but I think, if I get them through the summer, they'll be all right.

The thing that's really bugging me is this front garden.

I was coming home from work, pulling in, and there was like this

sea of gravel that went all the way up to the house.

This beautiful old house and it looks sort of slightly uncared for,

which is actually how I feel about a lot of front gardens in the UK.

I just feel like they are a missed opportunity.

So much of this country has covered up its front gardens

with cars and paving.

And actually, do you know what? When you arrive at somebody's house,

the first thing you see, even before you go in their front door,

is their front garden, and what an opportunity,

not only for us, but for the streetscape, for wildlife.

You know, you could really do something amazing

in your front gardens. Anyway, rant over!

Back to my front garden which has ended up really being

designed around the taxus domes.

Every single Chelsea garden that I've ever built,

I've always wanted to take something home,

just a little memento and they become memories.

And these become like members of the family.

And actually, it's not normally the way that I design.

Normally, everything goes on paper, but because these little beauties

had to go in the ground, these have started to drive the other ideas

for the design, which now is really starting to formulate in my head.

Whilst Adam is developing his beautiful country garden,

Flo Headlam has been visiting urban spaces in her series

on greening Great Britain.

Today, I'm in the heart of Bristol in Bedminster to visit a surprising

and inspiring inner-city space that undergone a dramatic transformation.

Hi, Steve. Hi, I'm Flo. Hi, Flo. Hi.

Welcome to Windmill Hill City Farm car park.

It's not a car park now. What's the transformation?

Well, I started work here about five years ago as chief exec

and got a little bit fed up walking through

a flat tarmac expanse to get to what should be a city farm.

And so I had a chat with local people and some trustees and said,

"How about we green this space up?"

So tell me, how did you build the garden?

Well, we started with some big ideas

about what we wanted the space to be.

So we had the staff team involved and then loads and loads

of volunteers, and there were so many people from the community

that came in to help us make this space. Fantastic.

And it's such a pleasure to see it every day,

evolving with all that help.

The garden makes the most of the different conditions

the old car park has to offer.

Under the canopy of two beautiful old cherry trees is a shady scheme.

On the other sunnier side, there is a rock garden

full of small plants all chosen to attract pollinators.

So, in here, you can see we've sempervivum there.

Yes. We've got some thyme...

Ooh, yes, just let me...

That's what you want to. Just smell it. Yeah, gorgeous.

Really nice kind of sensory kind of aspects to, it and then

we've got edible bits as well, so you can see the strawberries...

Wild strawberries. ..that we've got round the edge.

There's one here. May I? Please do, help yourself.

It's very much a people's garden, this.

You know, we want people to come and get into it and be involved in it.

What I really like about this garden

is that everyone's worked really hard

to transform what was a big, tarmac car park

into a thing of beauty.

The solution here was to build raised beds using railway sleepers.

That's fine if you've got a car park,

but what if you've got a tiny grey space that's aching for some green?

Well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

This is a small urban garden where space is a premium,

so I'm not going to plant at ground level, I'm going to plant up.

And I've got a cunning solution.

I've got these funky vertical planters, and the great thing

about these planters is you can hang them on walls,

you can hang them on trellises. So I've got two.

I'm going to put the first one here.

And then the second one I think I'll stagger.

That looks good.

I'm happy with that.

And now I'm ready to plant up.

So what I like to do, and I'm sure many of you do as well,

is to mock up your composition before you make your final decision,

so I'm just going to pop the plants in and just move them around

to see what I'm happy with.

So the plants I'm using here, they are loving full sun.

They'll thrive really well here.

I particularly love this acaena.

It's called copper carpet and just that beautiful sort of dark

purple brown against this vibrant yellow I think is just wonderful.

We've got ivy, which as it grows is going to trail, and dianthus

which, you know, are alpine flowers and just love,

love sun and free draining soil.

Look at that shocking pink against that shocking yellow. Fantastic.

I love that combination.

Yes, that's it.

It's time to add the compost.

I'm adding water-retaining granules to help conserve moisture.

And as a final stage, give them a good old watering.

There, job done.

There's no question that just a little bit of colour and life

improves the quality of everybody's lives.

Passers-by, people who live there, everybody benefits.

Now, I don't know if my herbs, Mediterranean herbs,

are benefiting from our wet weather.

Remember, last winter was phenomenally wet.

It rained here all winter, and although these raised beds

have got very good drainage, my rosemary has suffered.

And there's a dieback here.

This is very familiar.

It's probably a kind of phytophthora,

a fungal problem caused by damp.

Not just damp in the soil, which rosemaries hate,

but also damp in the atmosphere.

These plans are wet day-in, day-out.

They store the damp, and of course, the fungus loves that.

So what I've got in the habit of doing is taking rosemary cuttings

regularly and growing new plants and just accepting

I'm going to have to replace plants most years.

Luckily, rosemary cuttings are very simple

and now is the perfect time to take them.

Now, what you're looking for is nice, straight new growth.

It's got a little bit of bendiness

but also firm enough so that it's not going

to just flop as soon as you cut it.

So we're looking for growth like that. That's perfect.

This time of year, September, is perfect for box cuttings,

for rosemary, lavender, you can take thyme cuttings...

But it doesn't matter what they are, it doesn't matter how tough they are

or how easy they are to take as cuttings, treat them with respect.

So have a polythene bag, pop them in, and that will mean that

the moisture loss is reduced. Fold it over and then don't hang about.

Once you've cut your material,

try and convert that into a cutting in a pot as quickly as you can.

Now, before you open the polythene bag,

prepare a really good, gritty cutting mix with a compost.

Mix 50-50 either with horticultural grit

or something like perlite and vermiculite.

What you're looking for is very free drainage indeed.

This is particularly the case for a Mediterranean herb like rosemary,

but all cuttings take better if the drainage is free.

And if you take out a suitable cutting...

Now what you don't want is all that foliage.

Because having cut this plant, it is essentially dying.

So we need to put it on life resuscitation.

So we strip off these lower leaves.

It's reducing the demands that are made upon it, and cut it

ideally just below a leaf node, but don't be too precious about that.

And then put it in the edge of the pot, right down.

Very similar to the way Carol took her rose cuttings.

And you put them round the edge of the pot

because it loses moisture less quickly.

It just makes them dry out less

and that really is what the race is about.

If you can develop roots before the plants dries out, it'll survive.

Put a bit of grit on there.

Water that, put it somewhere where it is light but not burning hot,

keep it reasonably moist, keep the air moist,

but don't have to soak it.

Those will root in about a month's time.

What I do is leave them in this over winter

and then pop them on next spring,

and by this time next year, they're nice healthy plants.

And there you are.

Cuttings that everybody can take.

And here are some other jobs that everybody can do too.

The worst pest for vegetable growers across the land

at this time of year is the cabbage white butterfly.

The butterfly itself is charming,

but it's caterpillars can devastate

any member of the brassica family.

The best way to deal with them is to check each plant,

turning over the leaves

and simply remove any caterpillars that you find.

If, like me, you sowed root vegetables about a month ago,

it's important to thin them carefully,

leaving an inch or two between each plant,

to give them a chance to grow nice and strong before winter comes.

This is not a new job, but it is very timely and that is to deadhead.

If you deadhead now any flowers that are faded or spent,

you will extend your flowering season well into autumn.

Now, inevitably,

the plants we choose to grow and our gardens say a lot about ourselves.

Head gardener Jane Moore has been to a distinctly quirky garden

in Torquay with a very creative use of space.

Goodness me, Graham, I can hardly find you, in this jungle!

Hello, Jane.

Graham left his native Lancashire and came south seeking the sunshine

when he was 21, and he's never looked back.

His garden's changed beyond all recognition

since he bought the house in 1980.

You've got so many plants packed in here, haven't you?

Hundreds of tropical plants, as well.

Hundreds and hundreds, I should think, yeah.

This is a lantana. It's a subtropical plant.

I believe it is from the southern hemisphere.

We grow lots of them in the garden.

That's a cracking abutilon over your shoulder, there.

Yes. Look at that one. It's called Tiger Eye.

Oh, isn't it lovely? Yes.

What a little beauty.

Here we are.

This is the blue iochroma.

Oh, they just dropped... Oh, there's one. Yes.

Beautiful blue bells, yes.

Really nice, sort of, lavender blue.

I love this solanum, the variegation,

and big blue flowers.

Yes, it's a fabulous variety.

I love the way you let them just scramble around,

cos they really don't like being trained, do they? No.

They like to scramble.

Oh, gosh, you've got some very interesting things, haven't you?

It's a proper jungle out here. Yes.

How did you get interested in gardening?

Cos you've got some very interesting plants, here.

A real plantaholic's garden, you've got, here.

Well, when I left school, I did two years' horticulture

and then I went into engineering.

Right. And then I came to Torquay in the early '70s,

fell in love with Torbay.

Yeah - well, it is a bit of a plantsman's area,

actually, this, as well, isn't it?

Because of the lovely, balmy temperatures that you get here, yes.

Got a lovely microclimate I've created

by letting the hedges grow very tall.

But what's fuelled your interest in the tropical plants?

Because you could?

Because you could, here? That's right.

So you open for the Yellow Book, don't you,

the National Garden scheme?

Yes, and this year, we had 123 guests on our best day.

That is a lot of tea and cake! It's a lot of tea and cake.

As well as 6 water features, 14 seating areas

and countless home-made sculptures,

there are two greenhouses, two compost heaps,

26 water butts, and a duck pen, concealed amongst the foliage.

And we're into another part of the garden, again!

We are heading towards the Italianate area, now.

Blimey - this place is a TARDIS, isn't it?

It is - going past a very productive fig.

Oh, yes. Is that...? And a kiwi fruit.

We had 600 in the best year.

My goodness! And we've got photographs to prove it.

Wow! What on earth do you do with 600 kiwi fruit?

We store them in the garage

and we eat them from November through to April.

Follow the winding path. Lead the way, lead the way.

Graham, I just love this garden. It is such a plantsman's paradise.

But it's also got a great sense of humour.

Yes. I think gardening should be fun. I agree.

We've just come through the African area, there,

past the bog and under the plum tree.

And here we are.

I think this is the most spectacular piece of our garden.

It's lovely. Yes. Golden bamboos.

This garden is less a garden tour -

it's more of an adventure, really, isn't it? Yes.

It's such a different mood to elsewhere in the garden, isn't it?

Yes. Fantastic.

Here, we have a topiary swan.

Oh, that lovely - this one's in flight, isn't it?

Yes, yes. Really nice.

And here, we have the teahouse. A lovely area.

Got to try this out for size. Yes. I feel more serene.

I'll tell you what is missing, though -

a Japanese cherry, of course.

I think one of the lovely, arching Japanese cherries

would really lend itself.

Right. That is a very good idea.

If you can find a space for it, that is, cos I'm not sure you can!

Yes, well, I guess where there's a will, there's a way. Yes.

In the second part of this series on exotic Britain,

Nick Macer is in London, visiting a garden

that is as far removed from the hurly-burly of city life

as could be imagined.

I'm in Islington, north London,

deep within the heart of the urban heat island.

This is something created by people, buildings, traffic.

It raises the temperature of London

to a few degrees above the surrounding countryside,

and it allows all manner of things to be grown here

that you couldn't otherwise grow.

I have come to see an exotic courtyard

and, I hear, a Mexican-themed roof garden.

Hi. Hi, Nick. Hi, David.

Good to see you. Nice to see you, too.

Wow! Oh, my goodness.

So, this is the tropical oasis

I've heard so much about. This is it.

I am loving this view down here - such a tropical feel.

Yes - the idea is for it to be as little like London as possible.

Bananas overhead?

Yes - there are two bananas that are cold-hardy enough

to grow in London, and I've got both of them.

This is... These are basjoo,

and this is Musa sikkimensis.

I used to grow these in the ground, here,

but they need an enormous amount of water,

and this garden has an issue with drought

and I have found that, every few years,

they'd need to be moved because they are exhausting the soil.

So now I keep them in pots and if it gets super, super cold,

I can just cut them down a bit and pull them indoors,

until the freeze ends.

You can just sort of see, as the leaf turns up,

gradually, the most extraordinary colour of pale red violet.

I've managed to get some photos of that,

when the leaf is just unfurling,

and it's almost purple with the sun behind it.

It looks absolutely amazing. Mm... Beautiful.

What I love, David, what I really love,

is that you haven't just used classic exotic plants,

like trachycarpus, musa,

but you are using equally good foliage plants,

like hellebores, pulmonarias, and they look great.

Well, I tend to use my eyes for these things,

rather than take, sort of, rigid positions

about what is exotic and what's not.

I find there are quite a lot of traditional plants,

particularly the hellebores, and some varieties of Persicaria,

that look good with the architecturally exotic

and if they look right, I don't mind.

So, David, this looks like a shadier, drier end of the garden.

Well, it is now. When I started,

this was actually the sunny end of the garden

and I planted a Phoenix date palm.

It was originally intended as a space filler,

cos I didn't think it would be hardy.

But it rapidly turned into a, sort of, six-metre wide,

nearly five-metre tall monster, with a half-metre trunk.

I mean, I wouldn't be without it,

but it's completely changed the microclimate

down at this end of the garden.

So it is clearly a tough site. What have you got growing?

Well, there are a few different types of Persicaria,

which is quite invasive.

But in this kind of level of dryness,

invasive starts to be a bit welcome - it survives.

Behind us, we have got a totally different look of plant.

This is Begonia luxurians, which...

Arguably, might be hardy in London, if I were to pile a huge heap

of mulch on it, but I keep that in pots,

I plunge the pots in spring, lift them and take them indoors

for frosty periods, because I like to keep the framework

and keep it growing.

It is great to see such a wide diversity of plants

growing in such...what would appear to be such a difficult habitat

at this end of the garden.

I just keep trying different stuff

and the stuff that works and looks right,

I do more of, basically.

Wow! The roof.

That is considerably different, isn't it?

What a contrast from down below, the tropical jungle,

up to this sunny, rocky, open hillside.

You have Mexico, here, with the Agaves.

Rosemary, Cistus, from the Mediterranean.

A lot of Mediterranean.

Aloes from South Africa. That's right.

What do you put your success down to? Um...

Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, I think.

A lot of the plants on this roof are selected

because they actually quite like growing in very shallow soil,

restricted conditions.

Not only the Agaves, but things like rosemary,

which seem to pick the most free-draining, gravelly

and least hospitable parts of the roof.

The advantage of having the very shallow soil

is that plants that don't like winter wet,

they might get wet for a while in winter,

but because there is so little soil, they dry out quickly

and because this bit of the garden, this bit of the green roof,

is on the quite a steep slope and is the sunniest bit,

this is where I have tended to concentrate the xerophytes,

the plants that like dry conditions and dry soil.

This is Agave filifera.

This has been up here for about 15 years, I think.

I trial different types

of Agave up here.

And then we had a huge, long freeze,

that many gardeners will remember, in 2010.

It taught me which three of them were hardy,

cos I lost all the rest.

The Mediterranean shrubs, particularly,

I've discovered that this family, this tribe of cistus,

they just love it up here.

I think it's not dissimilar to where they grow in habitat,

which is, sort of, cracks in the sides of mountains,

fighting their roots into the rocks and things.

The biggest and, probably, most successful one is this one,

Cistus x dansereaui Decumbens.

It is forming itself into a very large shrub

and just starting to block my path, now.

I think I'm going to have to relocate my path,

because the cistus comes first.

I have been deeply inspired by your roof garden, especially, David.

I love what you have created, here.

I'd love to create one myself, one day.

I will come down and help you with it. Thank you.

I do think that the key to inner-city gardens is fantasy.

Something that you go in

and then you are transported to another world.

As well as fruitfulness, September is the month of leaving,

and there is no departure that saddens me more every year

than the swallows.

They're there, massing, swirling around -

sometimes hundreds at a time.

I know what they are doing -

they're fattening themselves up, getting ready to go.

And some time in the next week or so,

suddenly, there will be an absence.

And that's it, and then you just have to wait

until that fabulous day,

sometimes around the second week of April,

when the first one, tired, comes back.

The mound is still blooming.

The sweet peas are still in absolute full flow.

I pick them every week, and they just keep coming back and,

of course, tobacco plants are getting bigger and bigger.

The crucial thing at this time of year is the pears are ripening.

Pears have to be picked before they are properly ripe,

so you need to test them every day.

I'm keeping an eye on them - they're not ready yet,

but they will be soon.

But not today, because that's it,

and we will be back here at Longmeadow

for another one-hour programme next week.

Until then, bye-bye.

Now, who is going to have the ball? Is it going to be Nellie, or Nige?

Go on... You go! Go on, there's a good girl.

Come on.

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