Episode 30 Gardeners' World

Gardeners' World is now an hour long.

We can celebrate even more wonderful gardens and have more tips to

keep your garden looking good throughout the whole year.

Hello and welcome to Gardeners' World.

Of course, this is the season of fruitfulness,

and no fruit is more sumptuous than the quince.

Quinces are a fruit just full of mystery and magic, as well

as being delicious.

One of my favourite stories about it is the fact that in

the 16th and 17th century, quinces were mashed up into a kind of paste

for curing baldness.

Probably gained because many quinces are covered with a tiny

little fluff.

Bald men would take this quincey paste and slap it on their

heads and leave it as a kind of quince mulch

to encourage hair growth.

I love the thought of all these Tudor and Jacobean men

walking the streets of London with what amounted to

a toupee made of jam on their heads.

A quince has a kind of floral fragrance that you can just

put in a room and it acts as a pomander.

Or if you add it to apples, one quince to about 20 apples,

it just infuses them with a delicacy that no apple has ever had.

And it makes marvellous jelly and membrillo,

which is a kind of set jelly you eat with cheese.

It is good eating, except for the fact that you have to cook it.

You can never, ever eat quince raw.

On tonight's programme, Frances Tophill is in Devon,

-where she has the results of her veg trial.

-This is nice and fresh.

-It is sweet, it is easy to eat.

-This is definitely the winner for me.

So everyone is agreed?

Carol is exploring autumn colour.

Look at this, it's all fresh colour.

It's like spring all over again, but it's autumn.

And I am visiting the garden of Lord and Lady Heseltine.

Do you actually garden together?

He is the master gardener, I am the slave labour.

That is a very unrepresentative view of the truth, if I may say so.

And I shall be planting strawberries and bringing in my bananas

for protection because it was jolly cold here this morning.

Still a few roses flowering here in the Cottage Garden.

The sunflower Vanilla Ice is going strong, no problem there at all.

My new cut flower beds have been pretty good,

I'd say about six out of ten.

Plants like this dahlia, Grenadier, were put in here because we

had lost the label, didn't know how it was going to flower.

If I had known it was Grenadier, I would have put it in

the Jewel Garden, because that is where it belongs.

It won't be coming back in here next year.

On this bed, we had more annuals.

Most of them have finished and been taken up.

The distophylla is still going, a little bit more flowering in that.

But I want to fill this empty space and I'll fill the whole bed

eventually with some bulbs for next spring.

The thing to bear in mind when you're making a cutting

garden, or cutting bed or patch of any kind, is that this is a crop.

This is not decorative in the garden in particular,

it is designed to be at its most decorative when harvested and

brought into the house.

Daffodils are easy-peasy.

The basic rule of all bulbs is to plant it at least its own

height below the soil.

It would certainly do

no harm to have twice its own height of soil above it.

So there, there and there. That will be the soil level.

That is quite a deep hole.

Obviously any daffodil with a reasonably long stem can be

grown as a cut flower.

I have chosen Pheasant's Eye because not only

do I like it, you've got this

white petal with this intense golden middle,

but also it is very fragrant.

Quite a few daffodils are fragrant so look out for them.

So we'll just take that out.

A decent-sized hole like that and pop it in.

When you're planting for cut flowers,

you want to plant closer together than you would normally.

So I will dig another hole here.

Like that.

Daffodils are pretty adaptable.

And pretty unfussy about where they grow.

In principle, like all bulbs, they like fairly good drainage.

They don't want to be too dry.

In practice, they will grow in most places as long as they get

some sunshine.

We'll get one more at the back.

Now, you can plant tulips in exactly the same way.

But for cut flowers,

there is another method which is very effective.

It is quite early for tulip planting. There's no panic.

Normally you are advised not to begin until after Bonfire Night,

till 6th November, and right through till Christmas is absolutely fine.

But that is because you want to avoid the risk of tulip fire,

and the fungi which causes tulip fire are killed off by cold.

So the idea is,

when you plant them in cold weather,

as they start to grow there is much less risk of them being affected.

But if you're not worried about that, and there has been

no evidence of tulip fire in this part of the garden ever,

then you can plant them in October.

I will start by digging a trench.

The secret of getting tulips with nice, long,

strong stems is to plant them as deep as you possibly can.

So choose a type,

like the Triumph series or the lily-flowered ones,

that aren't too early flowering,

because they tend to have shorter stems.

Nice, upright tulips with long, strong stems.

Then, in the bottom of the trench, add some grit.

And by adding grit to the bottom, I am ensuring that they'll

get good drainage and therefore will perform as well as they can.

And then we plant the bulbs directly onto the grit.

I've got a number here, I've got Queen of Night, got Ballerina.

I think Queen of Night makes the most fantastic cut flower.

When you're planting in this method,

you can plant much closer than you normally would.

We can put that like that. And that like that.

Like that.

Queen of Night is a really dark, dark tulip.

It's not black, because it's touched with hints of plum

that shine through the deep, rich purple. It is very late, too.

It won't start flowering until early-to-mid May.

I have had this flowering into June, if the weather is a bit cold in May.

So a late, very dramatic flower.

Now I just need to backfill that. Fill in there.

I do appreciate that growing cut flowers is not something that

everybody has space or even the inclination for.

But if you do, give it a go, because it is

a great way of bringing the garden indoors throughout the season.

Nick Bailey has been going round the country over the last few weeks,

giving more general help to gardens,

using his experience and skill to transform them from slightly

lost, unused spaces into an area that the whole family can enjoy.

This week he is in London.

I am here in Dulwich, my stamping ground.

I am visiting a little city garden which

has a lot to deliver from a small and tricky space.

This garden has been suppressed for years

by the shade of a large tree,

which has caused the turf to die out and all the plants to stretch.

But the tree's gone and it presents a fantastic opportunity

to bring the garden back to life.

In this far corner, there's a kids' play area.

It's looking a bit sad, it's quite dark as well, so I'm not going

to be able to grow anything in there, but I'm going to

put down a layer of mulch and improve the play space.

This bed, which was previously shaded out,

is now a great opportunity for growing fruit,

so I'm going to put some whitecurrants and redcurrants

in here, that the family can easily harvest.

And I'm going to replace this patchy lawn with brand-new turf,

refresh the whole area

and make a lovely space that the family can sit out in.

Just get this out of the way.

Now, for this play area I'm going to do three different things.

I'm going to put down a timber retaining edge.

Then I'm going to put down a geotextile, and that will stop

the weeds coming up. And then finally, some loose dry bark

that the kids can play on.

Now, this stuff is incredibly useful, it's a complete

barrier to weeds and it allows water to permeate through.

It does have one slight issue, in as much as it tends to shred

on the edges. So I tuck it underneath.

With the play area finished, it's now time to set to

on this newly light border, and it's the ideal place to grow fruit.

Now, this soil is surprisingly rich, given it's been under a tree,

so I really don't need to improve it to get the tayberry growing,

and it's quite rampant so it will quickly spread across

the fence and give lots of harvesting opportunities.

So that's the last of the fruit into this new fruit border,

but I also put something else in here -

Galium odoratum or woodruff. It's a fantastic little ground-cover

plant, beautiful little white flowers in spring,

and it doesn't mind growing in dappled shade.

So it will work brilliantly, almost as a mulch underneath these

berries just here. Now, the little alpine strawberries on the front

are absolutely fantastic for kids cos they keep cropping

and most of their fruit tends to be hidden by the foliage,

so they are not always stolen by the birds.

All of these plants have been really compromised by the shade in

the garden in the past and they are really beyond redemption.

So, this sad cherry is going to go.

I'm going to dig out the whole root of the tree here.

The reason for that is, the root stock at the base of the cherry

will start shooting up suckers if I leave it there

or cut it flat with the ground, so I'm going to get the whole lot out.

And actually, that's not the healthiest root, also,

it really wouldn't have been a good plant long-term.

So, I've finished off digging over the whole area

and there's two reasons for that. One - it makes the soil

nice and loose, so that I can rake out and end up with a decent

level surface to put the new turf on. And number two -

it means that the soil will be open,

so the new turf can root well into it.

So this not-so-fancy footwork is just a bit of a plot shuffle,

so I'm just compressing the soil down. It allows you to get rid of

any air pockets or divots in the soil, once you've done that initial

fork and rake over, and then once I've done my plot shuffle,

I'll do a final rake over which will have it ready for the turf to

go down.

Work backwards when you're raking, to ensure you have a level surface,

but when it comes to laying turf, you need to work forwards.

In other words, you are working on top of the turf

you've just laid, on boards, which help settle it in

and ensure a good connection with the turf roots and the soil.

So, as you can see, I'm laying the turf in a tessellated pattern,

a little bit like bricks. In other words, the turf is staggered

and that helps it stabilise and stops it moving around.

So, I'm just making sure that this turf is knitted together -

in other words, the soil is connecting with the soil

on the edge of the next piece of turf.

Well, that's not bad for a day's work.

So, down at the bottom there's now a decent play area for the kids,

lots of space and nice and safe down there.

Off to the side, the mini fruit garden is established

with the currants and strawberries.

And I've managed to get a decent patch of turf into the centre of

the garden that the family will be able to enjoy.

Alan Power has been going behind the scenes

with those managing our most prestigious gardens,

and in the last of his films, he is in County Down.

Having been head gardener for three years

here at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland,

it's a garden I truly fell in love with during my time

and I'm back here today to team up with the current head gardener,

Neil Porteous, to find out what happens behind the scenes

to look after these stunning gardens.

Neil has access to a wonderful archive of original plans

and designs, left by the garden's creator, Lady Londonderry,

which inform his work here every day.

There's just hints on the front of all of these books,

you know, whether it's Ward's field notes,

whether it's the little scribes on the back of the plans,

but Mount Stewart House and Gardens Exterior -

and I've spotted the Italian garden illuminated by night.

It's brilliant. This was done in 1934 for George V's

silver jubilee. These are beautiful, exotic flowering trees

like the South African pea tree, Psoralea pinnata,

-or the Japanese Sophora.

-Are you working towards this?

-This is the pinnacle, isn't it?

-This is what you're after, is it?

Yeah. These are her drawings, actually. She's the architect,

these are scale drawings, she's annotated them to give some

-of the hard landscaping details.

-Even the style of brickwork that

she was after. And it's just lovely to see the amount of information

that you've got available, that you can actually

put Edith back into the garden.

One of the most original features in the garden is the topiary,

inspired by Lady Londonderry's fascination with Irish mythology.

Jason up here is working on one of our more intricate pieces,

this is The Huntress. Most of the formation of these pieces

of topiary is actually tying the shoots of the yew and

stopping it, to make it sort of bush up.

And what you are really looking to do, eventually, is be able

to cut about a quarter of an inch round the frame...

-Right.

-..to get the basic shape.

-So it's not a hedge-cutter job?

No, no. Long-term, what we want for this is to put the figure,

the head of the figure back to how she was.

And she had a bit of hair and she had a sort of Robin Hood kind of

hat with a feather in it. So, eventually, you know,

we want to be able to add all of that detail in as well as the

bow and arrow and the quiver and all of that, you know.

-And have you told Jason this?

-Not yet, no.

No, better...better leave him.

Restoring the topiary to its former glory is just one

way of bringing the garden closer to Lady Londonderry's original vision.

Mount Stewart benefits from a warm microclimate, which enabled her

to include exotics from around the world in her planting schemes.

Staying faithful to her plans means Neil and his team have to

raise many unusual plants from seed.

So I've come up to the nursery at Mount Stewart to meet Alan,

the head propagator. Having the ability, the skills

and the facilities to propagate and look after the future

of the collection is absolutely fundamental

and I'm really excited to see it because none of it existed

when I was here as head gardener.

-This is where the magic happens.

-This is where the magic happens.

-The magic beach.

-Yeah, we built these cabinets

and it's all about generating a nice little microclimate.

We have a sand bed and under that we have a soil cable buried

-and they are about six inches apart.

-And that's giving the bottom heat

-to the plants?

-Bottom heat - 18 to 20 degrees.

-Yeah.

-The sand is important too, cos you can water that nicely

and then you get this nice sort of humid atmosphere

which is perfect for germinating seedlings.

We've plants from all over the world. Currently we are

working on a project growing plants from South Africa...

You just cannot buy these plants out in the trade,

so that's the importance of the nursery here,

to grow all these rare plants,

to build up the collection in Mount Stewart is really what we are about.

That's brilliant.

In this house,

everything is just ready to go out into the garden here now.

So this the final stage of what we've seen?

This is the final stage of production

and it's a lovely controlled environment here.

It's really exciting, this metrosideros here.

-We're well pleased with that plant.

-Nice.

That's grown from seed and that's about two and a half,

maybe three years' work, that.

Fantastic. Thank you for that.

-No problem.

-Right, I'm going to go and catch Neil, then.

-Very good.

Thanks, Alan. Cheers, all the best. Take care.

Planting this tree is another step

towards achieving Lady Londonderry's goal

of conserving some of the world's rarest plants.

Cracking. Good.

That's great. It's so nice to put something in the ground.

I know, and it's such a beautiful plant.

This is the Metrosideros excelsa, New Zealand Christmas tree,

and it's a beautiful, sheltered, sunny spot.

In July it'll be covered in this filamentous, beautiful red flowers.

It'll be just a picture.

I've been on quite a journey with you and your team today.

To see the records and the work that you've been doing,

learning about Mount Stewart and Lady Edith to...

The propagation is fantastic,

knowing that the collection is secure

and not just secure but developing rapidly for the future,

so hopefully we'll enjoy it for many years to come.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Well, certainly the topiary

puts my Nigel to shame. No, not you, this thing here, matey.

Haven't quite worked out how to get a bow and arrow in there,

but I will and I fully intend to have a ball made out of yew

inside the topiary Nigel's mouth

because that's where it belongs, isn't it?

Come on.

It was almost frosty this morning here at Longmeadow

and there was a real chill in the air.

Now, most plants can cope with that

down to about minus two, three, or four,

but there's one plant here in the Jewel Garden

that absolutely will not tolerate any cold at all.

This is the banana.

Ensete ventricosum Maurelii...

..and by any name, it is simply splendid.

But it just is not hardy,

so I need to lift it and preserve it.

And all this is this year's growth,

which means that I can cut it all off

in the knowledge that it will replace itself next year.

I have to say, it feels very vandalistic,

but I know I'm helping out.

If I just cut across like that, I can work my way through it.

This kind of destructive yet protective work is only necessary

for the ensete bananas, which are completely tender.

If you grow musa - Musa basjoo is the most common one -

you can leave them outside.

As long as you build some sort of protection,

a wigwam wrapped with fleece or packed with straw,

they should be OK, and of course the crucial thing,

the absolutely crucial thing,

is to remove it before it needs it, so when it isn't cold.

Isn't that just fantastic...

..as a beautiful piece of design?

That curve and line and the colour.

It does feel very hard to destroy it.

But then you just have to have faith

that it can recreate and recreate for years to come.

I could just cut across there and it would regrow,

but the reason I want to keep the stem tall is that next year,

new leaves will come from all the way up it,

so I will get more height, and eventually,

if the stem is up nice and high,

we'll get a really tall, dramatic display.

That one can come off. That's the top.

Last one.

Right, now I've got to dig it up.

Given what an enormous plant it is,

the roots are actually surprisingly small.

They are exceptionally thirsty and hungry plants,

so they like really rich soil, which is why they do well here.

And as much water as you can give them, almost literally.

Right, up we come.

There we go.

It's so wet. Come out now!

You're going to have to move, Nige.

They need to be stored

packed in something to protect the roots

and to allow them to grow,

because although we don't want the leaves to grow,

it will develop new roots over winter.

If we pull this there...

Stay there.

This is a mixture of ordinary potting compost

with 50% of leaf mould, and leaf mould is good

because it's very low in nutrition

but a really good texture for the roots to grow in

and it holds moisture quite well.

I want it to go into hibernation, really,

just to gently grow a little bit.

Ideally, if you can keep it between five and about 12 degrees,

it'll be healthy, but it won't grow.

Keep it fairly dry.

Just water it very lightly and check up on it,

put your hand into the compost

and if it feels dry, give it a little bit more water,

then gradually you introduce it to heat and light in about April,

so it's ready to plant out mid-May.

I'm going to put this in the tool shed,

because last year I kept it in the greenhouse

and it was too warm and it grew too much,

whereas the tool shed, although it's in the way, is absolutely perfect.

If I can lift it on my own.

Oi!

That's my banana put to bed for the winter,

but some gardens are just revving up now.

Carol has been to visit one of them.

Once upon a time, us gardeners would be thinking about tidying up,

cutting everything back at this time of year, but not here.

Here, it's all about plants reaching their peak.

Everything's a celebration.

You really feel it's all saying to you, "Let's have a party."

This place is a family affair.

Paul Picton's father came here after the Second World War

to manage the nursery,

which specialised in growing Michaelmas daisies.

Today, they're best known for housing the National Collection.

But as well as their asters,

they've got a wonderful array of herbaceous plants.

So this whole garden, really,

its emphasis is on this time of year, isn't it?

Yes, it is, absolutely, Carol.

It was originally designed to be a border

full of nothing but Michaelmas daisies,

but what we like to do now is to show people how they can associate

their Michaelmas daisies with lots of other autumn-flowering plants.

A lot of gardens are closing down now, aren't they?

People are saying, "Oh, it's time to cut the plants down,

"get indoors by the fire, put the crumpets on."

-But out here, look at it, it's all fresh colour.

-It is.

It's like spring all over again, but it's autumn.

If you've got a small garden, there are lots of lessons to learn here,

aren't there, about how you can bring this fabulous colour?

There are indeed.

The smaller the garden, the more important it is to make sure

-you have colour for every month of the year.

-And anybody could do it.

Easy, straightforward plants to grow.

The main thing to remember with them

is to keep them in a sunny situation.

-Very few like to grow in shady spots.

-Yes.

But there are all manner of plants through here, aren't there,

that people can use?

You know, you've got these whacks of goldenrod.

Those are some of my favourite things, really,

for mixing with the Michaelmas daisies in the autumn, goldenrods.

-Solidago.

-Yeah.

What's this one, Paul?

-It's fascinating.

-Believe it or not,

I know it looks old, like me,

but it's actually a new variety of autumn-flowering Michaelmas daisy.

-Is it?

-It's called Chilly Fingers.

Chilly Fingers!

It's a complete delight.

And it does look like you, it's terribly elegant.

And a bit ragged around the edges.

And what a wealth of plants there are here.

What wonderful texture and sculpture and scale.

In the background up here there's an enormous Eupatorium

looking down on the proceedings.

And then the dainty, twiggy growth of this

Althaea cannabina.

Their pink bulbs suspended from its branches and it's really

lovely and dainty.

And then there are masses and masses of asters.

And don't you just love the way this Ageratina altissima

'Chocolate' flows through the planting?

And this sweeps down to this wonderfully frivolous plant.

You just have to touch it with these soft inflorescences.

But in total contrast are these

big round solid pom poms of the Dahlia,

just finishing this piece of the border off.

It's magnificent.

What a kaleidoscope of colour.

The rich gold of Rudbeckia, Kniphofias and Bidens.

And the blues of Salvias and Aconites are so telling.

And if vivid, vibrant colours aren't your thing,

there are plenty of pretty pastels to choose from.

This is a Japanese anemone, Lady Gilmour.

And in the background,

the dainty arching pose of this Nicotiana really define combination.

So why do some plants leave it till now to come into flower?

It's all down to a process called photoperiodism,

which is simply the response that some organisms have

to changes in day length.

As nights get longer, it triggers these plants into flower,

which significantly increases their chances of being pollinated.

So just as we have been moaning the shorter days,

these plants joyously burst into flower in all their glory.

Whatever your taste, there are plants that can allow you to

express yourself in your garden right the way through the autumn.

Well, certainly my asters that I planted in here about a month ago,

specifically chosen for their ability

to flower in some slight shade,

are doing very nicely indeed.

Now, coming up in the programme.

Zephaniah Lindo looks at the mysteries

and the magic of fungi in the soil.

And we can take each of those fungal strands and join them together,

it would stretch all the way to the moon.

Frances Tophill gives us the results of the vegetable trials

that she's been conducting at RHS Rosemoor.

But first of all, we have a visit that I made a couple of weeks ago

to a garden that has been created from scratch over the last 40 years.

And its maker is better known for his role in government

than in the garden.

I met Lord and Lady Heseltine at Chelsea Flower Show this year.

Now, I knew that Lord Heseltine had created an arboretum,

but I didn't know the extent and depth of his passion

for gardening in general.

So when they kindly offered to show me around the garden

that they have both created over the last 40 years,

of course I jumped at the opportunity.

Now, when did you start gardening?

Well, I started... I suppose the first experience was when I went

away to school and the headmaster gave every new boy

a square yard of mud and a packet of Virginia stock seeds.

And I methodically covered and six weeks later

I had a sea of colour, and I was hooked.

And when did you come here?

Well, Ann and I came here in 1976 and when we came here we had

a lot of land, but it had not been gardened or cultivated or anything

like that and slowly we started trying to do something about it.

Over the past four decades, Lord Heseltine has created

a number of gardens across 70 acres of his estate.

They include several large expanses of water, a rill,

a trough garden and a wall garden, but he hasn't done this all alone.

Along with his team of gardeners,

all the work is a joint effort with his wife Lady Ann.

Has the wall garden always been a productive garden, a decorative one?

We wanted an aviary, we wanted a fruit garden,

we wanted a seating area and we wanted a herb garden.

So these four quartiles have got a central point.

We went off to Villandry,

which has to be one of the great world gardens, 12 acres.

And we thought we could replicate it here.

-Of course you could.

-Hence all the green.

Tell me about these pavilions, I suppose they are.

-We call them kiosks.

-OK.

Because that's what they call them in Turkey.

They have those similar things.

-We saw them in Istanbul, do you remember?

-Yeah.

So the whole thing from the beginning has been

a sort of hodgepodge of advice or inspiration from other gardeners.

Don't forget the elephants.

I went on a tour of India with the Furniture History Society

and came back having bought two enormous marble elephants.

And the problem is, they're much too big for the house,

so in the winter, I'm afraid, they're swathed like mummies.

Do you actually garden together?

-No.

-A bit.

-Sometimes.

If there's a huge bit of slashing down, we do it together.

He's the master gardener, I'm the slave labour.

No, that's a very unrepresentative view of the truth, if I may say so.

Do you have any real difference in tastes at all?

Is there a fault line which neither of you can really cross?

No, I mean, I'm colour-blind, I can't see red against green.

Ann has got a very good colour appreciation.

Ann will say, "That's nice," or, "That's not nice," or,

"You ought to do more of that," or whatever.

And then it falls to me to get on and get it done.

It sounds a silly question, but do you eat all your fruit and veg?

No. We do lots of things.

We do the bottling and freezing and chutney and jams and stuff,

but, you know, it's far more than we can possibly consume.

This is quite new.

Using this form for the pear on this background.

I mean, normally pears are on walls.

-Yeah.

-But they seem to be very happy with it.

It certainly looks healthy.

This is one enormous border.

I know you've broken it up into different sections.

How important are the borders to you?

I think that they're very important

because they are part of the changing pace.

You move from the water areas to the open places with big trees

and shrubberies.

-But then you want something that's a bit tarty.

-A bit of colour.

A bit colourful.

This guy, this Kniphofia is a star.

It's as if he knew you were coming.

So you are running a major garden on the scale with any of

the largest gardens in the country, really.

It's quite a thing, isn't it?

It's crazy.

Absolutely mad.

On an estate this size,

his and hers golf buggies are the preferred mode of transport.

We're off to the arboretum which contains over 3,000 different trees.

It's when you start an arboretum and deliberately planting trees

as a kind of collection...

You need an awful lot of imagination.

People think that and it goes with the same argument,

"You're only doing it for the future."

Of course future generations will benefit from it,

but if you're in your mid-40s, when you start, by the time you reach

your mature age, if we may be frank, you have got things you worship.

It's been 40 years. What's given you most pleasure over that time?

It must be just driving around and being surprised because

you see changes, things grow into each other,

they create a pattern that you didn't know existed,

they create colour combinations that you hadn't imagined.

And if you couple that with the incredible therapy

of closing the door and you move

into a world which is completely sort of...

absorbing and therapeutic...

But you know, it's ours, we do it.

We did it, and it's a huge privilege.

In the soil beneath our trees and woodlands and gardens

lives one of the largest organisms in the world,

and it is one of the gardener's best friends.

And Zephaniah Lindo travelled to Bangor in North Wales to meet

Professor Davey Jones to learn more about it.

Davey, you've brought us down to the woods today to show

me something really exciting.

Do you want to tell me what it is that we're going to see?

Yeah, so, today the plan is to look at some mycorrhizas.

They are what I would consider the life force of this woodland, really.

You know, we're quite used to seeing the trees,

but actually, associated with all those trees,

underneath the ground there's a massive network of this

fungal hyphae, and that's really what's keeping these trees

alive for most of the year, I think.

The tree is providing the fungus with carbon,

which allows it to grow.

In return, the fungus is bringing back all of the nutrients and

goodness from the decomposing organic matter and the litter

that's fallen off the trees and taking it back to the tree.

So in this environment, then, with there being so much of them,

how easy are they to find? You know, can you see them with the naked eye?

Well, why don't we just go and have a look now?

-So, let's see what we can see.

-OK. Yeah, cool.

So, if we just scrape away the soil surface, we should be able to

just see under here all of that dense, white mycorrhizal matter.

I mean, this is a perfect example here.

You can actually see the growing front.

Each of those little white strands,

that's just a dense mycorrhizal network, because the tree,

when it loses the leaves in the autumn,

it can take back most of the nutrients but not all of them,

so what the mycorrhiza does is basically takes the rest of

them back to the tree.

We can see the mycorrhiza in the patch there,

but in this sort of area, how much will there be?

So, if we, for example, take this area here,

we could take each of those mycorrhizal fungal strands and

join them together into, you know, a big rope.

We could anchor it here and it would stretch all the way to the moon.

Fascinating!

'So, that explains mycorrhizal fungi with regards to trees,

'but what about mycorrhiza in other garden plants?

'These plantains often grow as garden weeds,

'and their roots are packed with mycorrhizal fungi, but they're not

'visible to the naked eye,

'so we've taken a sample back to the lab to put under the microscope.'

What we can see here is actually... This is the root here,

the root surface, and these are the root hairs coming off,

normally into the soil. And this is the mycorrhizal hyphae coming out.

This is the one coming from the soil

into the docking station inside the root.

And then, when it finds a cell where it wants to exchange...

the goods, essentially,

it forms a hand-like structure inside the cell to exchange

nutrients one way and to get the sugar coming in the other way.

So it's not like a parasite.

Yeah, these organisms have evolved for millions of years to be

together, and the root's actually inviting the fungus into it,

because it knows that if it invites the right fungus into it,

ie the mycorrhizal fungus, in return for the sugar that it feeds

that fungus, it will get all of those nutrients back.

So they have formed a very intimate relationship.

'And it's a relationship we gardeners can take advantage of.

'You can use the fungus already present in your soil to

'benefit other plants in the garden.'

We've already had a look in the lab at some of the plantago,

the plantains, that we commonly find in the garden,

and they're incredibly mycorrhizal.

I mean, up to 90% of the root system is infected by the mycorrhiza.

And if we just take one of those out of the ground,

we can just chop up the soil and the roots that are contained in it...

and then mix it with some potting compost, for example,

with a slow-release fertiliser, preferably.

Something like bonemeal would be perfect for this,

because, at the end of the day,

what they want is somewhere nice to live, and it doesn't matter who...

..they get into bed with, essentially.

If they're getting carbon from the plants, or sugar,

which is what they want, they will hook up to any plant,

so it's all perfect for gardeners, really.

'Who would have thought that adding the roots of

'a weed to your compost could actually help the plants flourish?'

This strawberry bed gave a really good crop this summer. It was great.

And walking on it won't help, Nelly! But it's about three years old,

and it's standard practice to replace strawberries when

they reach three or four years.

And ideally, you do it in a rolling way so you replace a third or

a quarter of your stock every year.

And chuck away the old plants, because they accumulate viruses.

The slight complication is that you mustn't plant into ground that

has grown strawberries for at least three years and ideally about four.

So you need to have three or four different plots.

So I'm going to plant some more here...

which has never grown strawberries before.

And I've bought some bare-root plants.

You won't find these in most garden centres,

but they're very easy to get online.

And a bare-root strawberry doesn't look like much at all.

There you are. That is the plant.

Now, you want ground that is well drained but rich.

And don't plant them too close together.

These might be small plants,

but they need spacing at least 12 inches apart.

I will put three across a bed like this and then plant them in a grid.

That gives them room to develop.

One large plant will give you more fruit than two small ones.

And I'm going to add a little bit of mycorrhizal fungi.

I love the idea of chopping up the plantain roots.

And if you've got plantains in your lawn, there you are -

fabulous source of mycorrhiza.

So, we'll make a planting hole.

And, as with all mycorrhizal fungi, it's contact that is important.

So, the fungi must actually touch the roots to work.

So sprinkle some on the bottom of the hole and just

a little bit on the roots themselves.

So, direct contact, and then firm that round.

It's a bit of a fiddle adding the mycorrhizal fungi under each one,

but actually it does, apparently, especially with strawberries,

make a big difference.

And when you're planting them - obviously you've got nice roots -

you don't want to scrunch the roots up,

so make a deep enough hole for the roots to go in and try and

plant it so that the crown, which is there, is above soil level.

You don't want to expose the roots, so not too high,

and it's not buried. But just pull it round so it's like that.

This is Mara des Bois, which is a perpetual strawberry

so will crop from midsummer right through till now, really.

And the reason I've chosen Mara des Bois is because,

having grown them before, I know that they really have good taste.

And in the end, that's what counts

if you're growing something like strawberries. It's all about taste.

And Frances Tophill has been doing a test all summer on four

different vegetables -

beans, sweetcorn, cucumbers and tomatoes.

And today, she brings us the result of these months of work.

It's the final day of our trial here at RHS Rosemoor in Devon.

We've been growing beans, sweetcorn, cucumbers and tomatoes.

We've sown them all from seed, we've pricked them all out, we've planted

them all out and we've watered and fed them throughout the season.

And they've done exactly the same at RHS Harlow Carr in Yorkshire.

And today is our final harvest.

So we're going to compare them all for yield

and, more importantly, for their taste.

'It's been a good year for beans here at Rosemoor.

'All the varieties have done very well.

'Cobra is the best yielder down here,

'and up north it's violet podded. But it's all about taste.

'We've cooked the beans and drafted in the taste buds of

'some local allotmenteers.'

Sweet. I like the texture of that one. That's crunchy.

-So you like violet podded.

-Yes.

-And you like cobra.

-I think I would grow these.

-So you're going for helda.

I like this one.

-It's got texture, hasn't it?

-So you like the helda.

-Yes, I like helda.

-And I like that one.

-Cobra for you.

-Yes.

-So, which one's your favourite, then?

-This one.

-That's helda.

Interesting! Thank you very much!

'The helda just edges it with our allotment growers, but what

'do Francesco from RHS Harlow Carr and Pete from RHS Rosemoor think?'

-I do prefer the helda, though.

-I agree.

-Yes.

And actually speaking to other people,

that's the general favourite on taste so...

I'm going to be controversial and go with Cobra, I prefer Cobra.

-You like that best?

-Hm.

-Yeah, yeah.

The cucumbers in the colder conditions of Harlow Carr

have done surprisingly well for a traditionally tender crop.

But they've been outshone by the Rosemoor cucumbers

which have produced significantly more.

At both sites, Burpless Tasty Green are well ahead,

Marketmore coming second

and the unusual looking Crystal Apple bringing up the rear.

When it comes to flavour,

the heritage variety Marketmore is our clear favourite.

Despite its prickly appearance, it was incredibly sweet and tasty.

Sadly, all of the tomatoes here at Rosemoor had blight

and had to be destroyed.

Luckily, Harlow Carr escaped the dreaded disease.

Their best cropping tomato is Tumbler,

with Tumbling Tom Yellow second

and Hundreds and Thousands third.

Thank you for bringing your tomatoes down, Francesco,

cos of, you know, ours have got blight.

But interestingly, even though we got blight,

we actually had more weight here in Devon than you had in Yorkshire,

-didn't you?

-Yes.

-Actually, today, I like the yellow flavour...

-Mm-hm.

-..more.

I think I agree with you, yeah.

Yeah, I think the yellow one is the winner today.

Agreed, I think Tumbling Tom Yellow, interestingly,

from Yorkshire is tastier than the others.

Well, this is our last harvest, the sweetcorn.

And, Pete, it looks like it's doing really well down here.

Yeah, it has, it's done really good this year.

We've got lots of good cobs here

and this Mirai Picnic here that I'm picking now

has really picked up. If you remember when it was planted,

they were small little plants,

we didn't think they were going to do too well.

And how about you, Francesco?

-Sadly, we haven't had any yet.

-OK.

But I am confident we will get some in a couple of weeks' time.

But two weeks isn't so bad, I guess.

-No, I can wait that long.

-Yeah, fair enough.

Once the sweetcorn is harvested, it is carefully counted and recorded.

Mirai Picnic has come out tops,

Swift is second,

followed by Northern Extra Sweet.

So Mirai Picnic is winning the yield race,

let's see how it does in the taste test.

Yes, this is nice and fresh.

It's the sweetest, it's easiest to eat.

It's nice and juicy and sweet. This is definitely the winner for me.

So, a really clear winner, then? Everyone's agreed, Mirai Picnic?

-Yes, definitely.

-Definitely.

-Yeah.

I think that's everything sweetcorn should be.

-That is just, you know, delicious.

-Is there a winner?

-I'm tempted with Mirai Picnic.

-So am I.

That's what everyone else said too!

-It is delicious, isn't it?

-It is.

So, in terms of the north-south divide, what have you learned?

The south, we are ahead, we've got a much sort of earlier cropping time.

-Mm-hm.

-I think it's to fair to say

-we've probably got higher yields as well...

-Yeah.

-..in the south.

Completely agree with you,

warmer temperatures means the crops grow bigger quicker

and as a result, more productive.

-So kind of what you'd expect, really.

-Yes.

After tasting all of our crops, Helda beans,

Tumbling Tom Yellow tomatoes,

Marketmore cucumbers

and Mirai Picnic sweetcorn are the victors.

Well, it's not been the most scientific of experiments

but I've had a lot of fun doing this

and we'd love to know how you've got on too

so please let us know through the Facebook page.

There's no question that taste has got to be the arbiter

of the best vegetables to grow.

And with your strawberries, it is a good idea

to have some means of covering them because frost can lift them

and expose the roots.

So if they can be kept frost-free, they will develop much better.

I made this veg plot in April and it's been very productive

and you can see that it's set up for winter.

Nice chard growing, we've garlic growing on either side.

Broccoli, cabbages.

These artichokes grown from seed, which I sowed in March,

have grown strongly and will start cropping well next year.

What didn't crop so well were my pumpkins and squashes

but now is the time to pick them, however big they are.

And when you pick pumpkins or squashes,

you want to make sure that you don't damage the stem.

So pick them in a T.

So, if we take this Turk's Turban,

we do a cut there and a cut there.

So what you've got is a T-shape on top and we can take that off.

And the reason for that is it means that we don't leave a wound,

that will die back and leave a nice strong stem.

And what I have to do with them,

it's feeling nice and hard, it's just rather small,

is ripen them as much as possible.

So I put them in a sunny spot.

The reason why these didn't do very well

is because it was rather cold in July and August.

And it didn't really heat up till the second part of August

and September and that was too late.

There we go.

This one is a Green Hokkaido.

And that is my rather meagre harvest.

I can now take the foliage, put it on the compost heap,

dig the ground over, because it's heavy I'll dig it with a spade,

leave the clods nice and big and let the worms and the weather

break it down slowly over winter.

Now, I don't know about winter

but if you're thinking of this weekend, here are some jobs for you.

Unless you live somewhere very warm,

chances of your tomatoes ripening any more are minimal.

Better to cut your losses and harvest them.

Red ones can be stored by making them into sauce and freezing them

and green ones will ripen if you put them into a drawer with a banana.

Pull up the top growth, dig the beds over

and you can use the greenhouse either for storing tender plants

or growing winter veg.

Whether you've grown them yourself from seed or you're buying them,

now is the time to plant out wallflowers

and then the roots can get established

and they will grow away faster and stronger next spring.

If they're a little straggly,

pinch out the growing tips to create a nice strong, bushy plant.

And by the way, if you're planting them with tulips,

and they make a great combination,

always plant the wallflowers first and then the tulips in between.

Although most fig trees are still covered in fruit,

none of them, unfortunately, will ripen.

So you should remove all figs,

except for those smaller than a pea

because not only will the immature figs never ripen,

they will also inhibit the development of next year's crop.

It is important that after you've harvested your squashes

that you put them somewhere to ripen and the best thing to do

is simply put them on a table or a windowsill

with as much sun as possible

and leave them there until the weather turns.

But, of course, as much sun is possible means

there's got to be some sun in the first place.

So we'd better find out what the weather's going to be like

this weekend.

Hello! Come on, snish-snosh.

Well, that's it for today and also for this series.

But I'll be back here at Longmeadow next March

and most of our programmes next year will be a full hour long.

So have a really good winter and I'll see you again next spring.

Until then, bye-bye.

Come on, you lot. Come on, down you get. There's a good girl.

Come on, you. Down you go.

Come on.