Episode 9 Gardeners' World


Episode 9

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Off we go, come on. Through you go. Come on, Nell.

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Good girl.

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Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World.

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We haven't really had a look at the Dry Garden this year,

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but at this moment - and it only lasts for a week or so -

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it's got a lovely, easy flow.

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And the colours pick up from the honesty, to the Recreado tulips,

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and that incredible, electric lime-green of the euphorbias.

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And then the other greens, which, of course, as May progresses,

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everything is filling out,

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growing with the textures from the greys to the deep, rich greens.

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And when you bear in mind that this bit of garden has by far

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the worst soil in the whole of Longmeadow, it shows that

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sometimes you don't have to do very much to make a garden lovely.

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You can just stand back and enjoy it doing its thing.

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This week, we pay our second visit to probably the most

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famous of all British gardens - Sissinghurst, in Kent -

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to find out how the team is getting on as they work to reconnect

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the garden with the original vision

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of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.

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I think Sissinghurst really was one of the gardens,

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post-war, that really taught people how to garden again.

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How nice they could be,

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how they could be part of and enhance your life.

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And in the first of a new series of films,

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Carol looks at finding the right plant for the right place.

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I've come to deepest Devon to have a look at hedges, banks,

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to give us lots of clues about what we can grow around our boundaries.

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And I shall be planting out my sweet peas in the Cottage Garden,

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and my purple podded peas in the new Vegetable Garden.

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This is the Mound.

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And we call it the Mound because, over the years,

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we've mounded up all our spoil.

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Building rubble, hardcore, the soil from the pond and,

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a few years ago, we shaped it and formed it and, very slowly,

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we've worked out what we want to do with it.

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Now, this level is all about containers,

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and everything is chosen, primarily, for its fragrance.

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So, for example, these are scented-leaf pelargoniums.

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The lemon verbena.

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Just touch the leaf as you go by, and that intense lemony smell.

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Of course, this is somewhere to come and sit.

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And actually it's where I'll put the clematis

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that I bought at Malvern.

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This Lunar Lass comes from New Zealand, has got fragrant flowers.

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It doesn't grow very fast.

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So what I'm going to do is pot it up, put it up on a block

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and have it hanging down.

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And by the way, if you do buy one of these,

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it likes a little better drainage than most clematis.

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This needs good compost, but also added grit,

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so it doesn't get too wet. And also, because it's in a pot,

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I'll be able to protect it in winter if I have to.

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It's not as hardy as some clematis.

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So much for this level.

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But then, when we go up...

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..we come to the temple of scent.

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Just done this in the last few weeks.

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Chestnut posts sunk two feet in the ground,

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a few bean sticks over the top for shade, and then the idea is

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to have climbers climbing up each of the posts, that will smother it all.

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So we'll be able to sit here, surrounded by scent.

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I want all of these to be evening scents.

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So the colour scheme reflects that.

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White, creams, pale yellows.

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These are colours that are more visible at night,

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so therefore they attract evening pollinators,

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so the plant is pulsing out scent to bring them in.

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Hopefully, we can have the benefit of that.

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Right, let's get planting.

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I've got a really good honeysuckle.

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This is a variety that's new to me - it's called Scentsation,

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with exceptionally good fragrance.

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I'm going to plant this round the back of the support,

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so it just has a little bit of shade.

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But it is important, if you're making a scented garden of any kind,

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not to get carried away with scent.

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You need to focus - just the same as if you were doing colour.

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Whereas if you just have a mass of scents, it's like emptying

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perfume bottles all into a pot and saying, "Well, smell that."

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So try and select what you like, and limit your choices.

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You don't want to be bombarded by conflicting fragrance.

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But we will pop this chap in the ground.

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Nice roots.

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And plant it very simply. This soil is good.

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I've added a little bit of garden compost, and

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when it's all planted up, I'm going to mulch it with mushroom compost.

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So that's the time when it'll have a little bit of feed.

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But no need to do any more than just plonk it in the ground

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and, obviously, give it a really good soak.

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So that'll be trained up, and I'll tie that in,

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and it'll quickly grow up that post.

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And the next thing I want to put in is a peony.

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And she's more than any old peony, she's a Duchesse.

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Duchesse is a lovely, white, strong peony.

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When you're planting peonies, herbaceous peonies, that is,

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the important thing is to give them good soil...

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..and to make sure they don't dry out.

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And you want to plant them a little bit deep, but not too deep.

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Gently take it out the pot...

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In we go, little one. There you are.

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So I've got the top of the plant about an inch below the soil.

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And I'll mulch this,

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which will both keep the moisture in and also cover it over.

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We pull that round.

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I've firmed it down.

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And I'm going to give that a good soak.

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Peonies, to get a good start, mustn't dry out.

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And if you mulch it, don't mulch over the crown.

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Mulch around it, but don't bury that crown.

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And not only do they look good, but they can smell wonderful too.

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Now it's time to return for our second visit to Sissinghurst,

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and the head gardener, Troy Scott Smith,

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is returning it to the true spirit that was

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created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson

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when they made the garden in the middle of the 20th century.

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I think Sissinghurst really was one of the gardens, post-war,

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that really taught people how to garden again.

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What gardens could be.

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How nice they could be, how they could be part of

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and enhance your life.

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It was the combination of their two talents as well

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which made the garden, their two characters,

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so Harold, the classicist and the more logical thinker,

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versus the Bohemian life force of Vita

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really made this garden what it was.

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The formal lines and the soft planting very easily go together.

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It feels effortless.

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We've been working on this Revitalising Vita project

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for two or three years now.

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Sissinghurst is a very successful, popular garden -

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we have 200,000 visitors - but at its heart,

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I just felt there was something that wasn't quite right at Sissinghurst.

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I think, for me, it's not a single thing that has happened,

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it's a series of interventions, of changes,

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mostly as a result of increasing visitor numbers.

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And so, where we used to have grass paths in Vita's time,

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now those paths are paved with York stone.

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Where roses hung over paths and sprawled down from trees,

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they've now slightly been pruned back off the paths.

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So it's those kind of changes which we're now trying to address.

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So here we are, within the Nuttery at Sissinghurst,

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and when you compare it with the White Garden or the Rose Garden,

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it's not so obvious as a set-piece room.

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But it's really important in the story of the creation of the garden,

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because when Harold writes in his diary,

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he writes about walking around Sissinghurst, and feeling really,

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is this the right space, the right place for them to buy?

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Then they walked outside and around a corner, they stumbled across

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what they call this Nut Plat,

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and then Harold writes, "That settled it."

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It was also quite important, because it was one of the first

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spaces that they started to plant out.

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They went out into the woods, they saw the wild primroses growing.

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They selected some of the more cultivated forms, the polyanthus,

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and they started slowly to plant them through the Nuttery here.

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So this whole area very quickly became carpeted with great

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swathes of polyanthus, looking amazing.

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Here, she let her colour sensibilities just rip.

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So then, the polyanthus, after around 30 years, it became obvious,

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I think, to Vita and to Harold,

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that they weren't as happy or as healthy as they used to be.

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It's common with many plants, really,

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where you just grow one plant in the same soil for a long time -

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the soil just gets a bit fed up.

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It means it's a struggle for that plant to grow.

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It was actually a number of years later that the Trust finally

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decided to just do without them

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in a big decision at Sissinghurst, to take away something that many

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people had loved, and that Vita and Harold had put in.

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Last year, we planted some little areas of polyanthus back here,

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just really to give them a chance to see if they thrive

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or to see if they still turn up their noses.

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And so far, you can see here, they seem very happy.

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So, of all Sissinghurst's garden rooms,

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the White Garden was the last one that Vita and Harold created.

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And it was their idea to do something really special

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for the Festival of Britain.

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Here in the White Garden, they created this space,

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I think, really, of magical, epic triumph.

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It's so easy to just call it the White Garden here but, actually,

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Vita and Harold called it the Grey, Green and White Garden.

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And that's much more interesting, actually,

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because white is quite a simple colour,

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and much nicer to use it in reference with the greys

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and the greens of the foliage. We understand that, actually,

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the colour white, for Vita, was quite a significant colour.

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She loved the idea of a barn owl,

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this white bird floating across the garden.

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It's a colour she actually excluded in other parts of the garden.

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And she didn't choose to use it

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until they started to make the White Garden here.

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She talks a lot about soft mounds of grey, of artemisia,

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with the spikes coming through, perhaps eremurus,

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and also flower colours which are just off-white,

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so it could be very soft yellow or maybe just a hint of pink,

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and that actually makes the garden

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that much more interesting and multilayered.

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It's important just to do as much of the research as

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we can to understand, really, what was the garden like?

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These box hedges, these were all, a couple of years ago,

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all the same height. We've started to reduce the hedges here.

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So we've cut the hedges shorter.

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We reference the structural hedges of the garden's past.

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This is the last of the quince trees that we're planting.

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We're putting these in as a substitute to the almond trees.

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I think the almonds struggled here in the White Garden.

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It's quite a cold garden, north facing,

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so there's quite a cold draught which comes through.

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And I think, ultimately, that, with our cold, heavy clay soil,

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was just too much for them.

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So we think the quince will be a better,

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more longer-lasting tree, really,

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but give a similar effect to the almonds.

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Simply try and backfill with this improved soil,

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with a little bit of compost.

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I will, of course, be staking this tree later as well.

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We often think, my colleagues, what would Vita have planted?

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And it's very difficult to say.

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Would she have arrived at the same decision?

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I think you would, as a gardener. You adapt to the garden.

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I'm pretty confident that Vita would approve.

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I like the fact that Troy referred to the White Garden as being

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a White, Green and Grey Garden, because that's the secret.

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White flowers can be really quite hard.

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They don't give a lot, they're difficult.

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Whereas as soon as you add as much green as possible -

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in all its various shades and hues -

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then the white flowers come alive.

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The Writing Garden - which is a white garden -

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wasn't, in fact, based on Sissinghurst.

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It was inspired by cow parsley.

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But I've learned so much from the White Garden at Sissinghurst.

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I would say, if you visit a garden that you like,

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try and deconstruct it.

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Try and work out what they've done and how they've done it,

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and then you can use that in your own garden.

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Come on.

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Nigel.

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Although we've had some really hot weather over the last week,

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April was really cold and wet here.

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And I made these beds, but the soil was nowhere near ready.

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However, I think now these beds are ready for planting.

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These are purple podded peas.

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A variety called Blauwschokker.

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Rich purple pods and then green peas inside.

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I've grown them in root trainers,

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because all legumes have nice, long roots,

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and the longer and straighter the roots can be, the happier they are.

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They're ready to go - they're growing down through the cracks.

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Put that in there.

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And space them out, about six inches apart.

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Peas like a sunny, cool position.

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That's the reason why they're grown in spring and early summer.

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By July, August, it's got too hot and too dry for them,

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although there's plenty of time to sow them now.

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You don't really sow peas after midsummer.

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Once you've planted peas, or if you've sown them as soon

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as they appear - it is important to stake them

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and to provide them some support, because they've got tendrils

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and they climb and they twine, and if you don't provide support,

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they'll do all that amongst each other

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and they get horribly tangled. Traditionally, you use pea sticks.

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So any good, strong prunings that you have that are nice

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and bushy... Or, failing that, chicken wire does very well,

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supported by posts, or netting of any kind.

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Just something that's strong enough to take the weight of the peas and

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have lots of nooks and crannies and twiggy bits

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that they can climb into.

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The only tip, really, when you're putting these in is

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angle them inwards, so that they meet at the top.

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And that way, they both support each other,

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and also, the peas find it easier to grow up.

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My soil is pretty wet, and those peas were well watered,

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so I probably don't need to water those in.

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But if you have any doubt, give them a good soak

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when you plant or sow them.

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Then you shouldn't need to water them until they flower.

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Then it is important to give them a really good soak,

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so they form good pods.

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Peas are easy to grow as long as it doesn't get too hot

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and they've got plenty of light.

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But we all have places in the garden which are awkward.

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Carol is beginning a new series - identifying those problem places

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and coming up with perfect plant solutions.

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And this week, she starts out with those borders, banks and boundaries

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that can be really hard to find the best plants for.

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Most of our gardens have shade.

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Full sun.

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They can be wet,

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dry,

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windy,

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which means we have the opportunity

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to grow a wide variety of beautiful plants.

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But if we want our plants to thrive and flourish,

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we need to choose the right plant for the right place.

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Almost all of us have boundaries in our gardens.

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Sometimes they're fences, hedges, walls.

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But what to grow in and around them and, very often, up them?

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Often, the area at the base of hedges, walls,

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fences in our gardens can cause problems.

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It can be wet, dry, it can be sunny or shady.

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And sometimes it's really awkward to think about which plants

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are going to grow there.

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I've come to deepest Devon to have a look at hedges, banks,

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to see what kind of plants really love living here

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to give us lots of clues about what WE can grow around our boundaries.

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Although these plants share the same conditions, each of them

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has evolved in its individual way to cope with them.

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Just imagine you're a plant living in this sort of situation.

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What do you have to put up with?

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Well, sometimes you're bathed in hot sunshine

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but on the very same day, you might be plunged into dense shade.

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In the winter, these banks will be running with water.

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And yet, later on in the summer -

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especially when the canopy comes out overhead -

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you'll be in drought conditions.

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But these parts can cope with all of that. How do they do it?

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They all have different strategies.

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Look at this little plant.

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This is...

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It's one of our native cranesbills,

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and it makes these dense mats of leaves.

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If you could see underneath this plant,

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you'd find that the roots are tiny, fibrous.

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They can spread themselves out under the leaf litter

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and gather in enough nutrients to support the whole plant.

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It would be unthinkable to be looking at Devon hedgerows

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without talking about primroses.

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And here they are, in all their glory.

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They seed themselves right down the bank.

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And then, when each one turns into a really big clump,

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they just spread outwards from the centre,

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leaving the old, woody bits right in the middle.

0:20:360:20:40

In our gardens, we have to help them along.

0:20:400:20:43

We need to dig them up and divide them.

0:20:430:20:46

But in nature, they can do it for themselves.

0:20:460:20:50

If these plants are happy growing here in the wild,

0:20:530:20:56

then there's a good chance that plants with similar characteristics

0:20:560:21:00

will grow happily in the same sort of conditions in our gardens.

0:21:000:21:05

How about this for a boundary and a half?

0:21:100:21:13

They're not the same plants that we saw in the hedgerow,

0:21:130:21:16

but they've got lots and lots of similarities.

0:21:160:21:19

Around the edge of the path, you've got periwinkle.

0:21:190:21:22

You can put periwinkle anywhere at all and it'll thrive.

0:21:220:21:25

If you're looking for plants for your boundaries,

0:21:290:21:32

there are loads to choose from.

0:21:320:21:34

Devon's famous for its ferns.

0:21:360:21:39

But this one's from Japan.

0:21:390:21:41

It's...

0:21:410:21:43

All ferns make a fibrous root mat,

0:21:450:21:48

so they're very accommodating.

0:21:480:21:50

You can grow them even in really thin soil.

0:21:500:21:53

If you've got a hotspot,

0:21:570:21:59

why not go for one of the perennial wallflowers?

0:21:590:22:02

The most popular is...

0:22:020:22:05

Here in the lee of these walls, there are these big beds.

0:22:100:22:15

The soil is really poor.

0:22:150:22:17

Sometimes, in the winter, it might be wet through.

0:22:170:22:20

And then, when the leaves come out in the canopy overhead,

0:22:200:22:25

the whole place is plunged into dense shade.

0:22:250:22:29

But they can tolerate it. Not only tolerate it, they can thrive in it.

0:22:290:22:34

I love this mixture of the dicentra and the forget-me-not.

0:22:340:22:38

The dicentra is from the States,

0:22:380:22:41

and here it is with a European plant, this little myosotis,

0:22:410:22:45

which has flung itself out everywhere.

0:22:450:22:49

The dicentra grows by sending runners and colonising the ground.

0:22:490:22:53

And the forget-me-not has this beautiful touch.

0:22:530:22:56

You can always be certain that when a plant seeds itself,

0:22:560:23:00

it's the right plant in the right place.

0:23:000:23:04

Of course, plants do have a habit of seeding themselves

0:23:130:23:16

where you don't want them,

0:23:160:23:18

growing perfectly in the cracks of the paving or out of a wall,

0:23:180:23:21

or in a bed that's the wrong colour.

0:23:210:23:23

And then here, in the Wildlife Garden, I let things seed.

0:23:230:23:28

This bed is full of self-seeded plants, half of them weeds,

0:23:280:23:34

but perfect for wildlife. And to be honest, I like the way it looks.

0:23:340:23:38

Come on, dogs.

0:23:400:23:41

Ferns might be very common.

0:23:500:23:53

This is Dryopteris filix-mas, which you see all over the place.

0:23:530:23:57

But have you ever really seen anything look more exotic than that?

0:23:570:24:02

You feel that this could be on a coral reef

0:24:020:24:05

or a deep seabed or in a jungle in Borneo.

0:24:050:24:08

What do you think, Nell?

0:24:080:24:10

And I love the combination of a sort of

0:24:100:24:13

seahorse head with octopus tentacles.

0:24:130:24:16

It's absolutely exquisite.

0:24:160:24:18

Come on.

0:24:190:24:20

It's time to plant out sweet peas.

0:24:420:24:44

Sweet peas are not truly tender.

0:24:440:24:46

They can take some frost.

0:24:460:24:48

But I find if you plant them out too early, they don't grow.

0:24:480:24:51

If they don't grow, they become easy bait for slugs.

0:24:510:24:56

And what we really want is nice, fast growth so that...

0:24:560:25:00

..they become strong, healthy plants.

0:25:020:25:05

This is a variety called Painted Lady,

0:25:050:25:08

one of the really old, original sweet peas.

0:25:080:25:11

Goes back to the early 18th century.

0:25:110:25:13

When you're planting sweet peas, you need some sort of support,

0:25:130:25:17

and they really do like moisture-retentive soil.

0:25:170:25:21

So if you've got very sandy or thin soil,

0:25:210:25:24

dig a hole in between the supports and put in a bucket of manure

0:25:240:25:30

or compost or soil-improver, and then mix your soil back in.

0:25:300:25:35

Other than that, having sowed these two or three to a pot,

0:25:360:25:41

I just plant them out, one pot per supporting stick.

0:25:410:25:46

If you're buying sweet peas, sometimes you find as many

0:25:460:25:51

as a dozen different plants growing in a single pot.

0:25:510:25:55

If that's the case, I like to take them out the pot and break them up,

0:25:550:25:59

because if you have 12 weedy little plants,

0:25:590:26:02

you won't get 12 times as many flowers.

0:26:020:26:05

Good, strong plants will produce more flowers than lots of weak ones.

0:26:050:26:11

As they grow, they will need tying in for about the first six weeks.

0:26:110:26:15

Thereafter they're strong enough to support themselves.

0:26:150:26:18

But what is essential - unlike the peas -

0:26:180:26:21

is to give them a really good watering in.

0:26:210:26:24

Even if you've already planted your sweet peas

0:26:330:26:36

or, for some strange reason, you don't want to plant sweet peas,

0:26:360:26:41

there is some jobs you CAN do this weekend.

0:26:410:26:44

Few of us have time to keep on top of the garden all the time,

0:26:460:26:51

but a good trick is to focus on the edges.

0:26:510:26:53

Clip the verges of your paths or lawns,

0:26:530:26:58

and immediately everything all around them looks more cared for.

0:26:580:27:01

It's not too late to sow pumpkins and squashes,

0:27:040:27:08

although it's something you should get on with.

0:27:080:27:10

If you have already sowed them, don't be tempted to plant them out.

0:27:100:27:14

But you can pot of them on.

0:27:140:27:16

Put them in a larger part with a nice, rich compost,

0:27:160:27:19

and keep them warm and well watered

0:27:190:27:22

until the nights are warm enough to put them in their growing position.

0:27:220:27:26

Tulips are dying back fast.

0:27:280:27:30

But don't cut back the stems or the foliage,

0:27:300:27:32

let them die back slowly so the goodness goes into the bulb.

0:27:320:27:36

However, you should nip off the seedheads, they break very easily,

0:27:360:27:40

and this stops the energy going into new plants,

0:27:400:27:44

so it all goes back into the bulb for next year's flower.

0:27:440:27:48

Of course, this is the blossomiest time of year,

0:27:580:28:03

just when the flowers on the trees

0:28:030:28:06

are matching the foliage as it appears,

0:28:060:28:10

and it only takes a strong wind

0:28:100:28:12

or a really hot day or a really wet day,

0:28:120:28:14

and it all comes tumbling and spattering down.

0:28:140:28:17

We wait all winter for these few bright, brief days,

0:28:170:28:22

so don't waste a precious second of it.

0:28:220:28:25

Don't be too busy to stop and just relish the moment.

0:28:260:28:30

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

0:28:300:28:33

Till then, bye-bye.

0:28:330:28:36

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