Episode 1 Gardeners' World


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Come on.

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Hello. Welcome back to a new series of Gardeners' World.

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And on a day like today,

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with the sun shining

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and flowers appearing from every corner,

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you can actually sense spring coursing through your veins.

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It's a wonderful time of year.

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And this is a special year for us, too,

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because not only do we have many more one-hour programmes

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that we will fill with lots of gardeners and gardening,

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but also, it's our 50th anniversary.

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So, an awful lot to celebrate.

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It's great to be back,

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the dogs seem to be happy,

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the sun is shining.

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Let's get going.

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On tonight's programme, we catch up with Adam Frost,

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who, last summer, fulfilled a long-held dream

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to visit Packwood House in Warwickshire

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to see its spectacular herbaceous borders.

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And in the first of a new series,

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Carol celebrates some of our horticultural heroes,

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beginning with Beth Chatto,

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whose pioneering approach to planting

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has been hugely influential.

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It's been a long winter,

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but it's also been quite a busy one for us, here at Longmeadow,

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and we've done one or two really quite big things.

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I suppose the most dramatic was that we were visited by

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tree surgeons to take down seven trees.

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And whilst that's made a big difference,

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it hasn't left a big hole.

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The garden, I think, is the better for it.

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We took a line of four trees down there,

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so the mound will get more light,

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and we took three out of the copse,

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and the reason for that was both to let more light into the Jewel Garden

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and also increase the airflow, to tackle fungal problems

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that we were beginning to get

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so, hopefully, everything will improve.

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There have been a lot of changes in the garden

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but by far the biggest and most dramatic

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is through here.

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Now, this area we called the Box Ball Yard,

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and if you've not seen it before,

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it used to have 64 magnificent pebbles made out of box.

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But in recent years,

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that beauty became very tarnished

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by box blight, and looked increasingly tattered

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and brown and 'orrible.

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So, we've ripped them all out, and they've all been burned.

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At the same time, we took out what was a par terre here,

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made out of box, which also had box blight,

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and we've taken out four large Portuguese laurels

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and a big pair of holly hedges against that wall.

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The plan is to enlarge the area in the middle

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and make it an eating area

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with a barbecue, have some pleach lines there and here,

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so this is a separate space,

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but it will open out onto what will be a big new herb garden.

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And finally,

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on a shady east-facing wall,

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I want to prove that you really can have magnificent climbers,

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even in a quite unlikely position.

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Now, talking of climbers, in the Cottage Garden,

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which hasn't undergone much change,

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there are climbers that need attention right now.

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The Cottage Garden has been planted with a lot of different clematis,

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but all along the back here,

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they are of a certain type,

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which are romantically known as group three clematis,

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and what that means is they are late-flowering.

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Those that flower in spring, like a Montana, are group one.

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The group two are the great big flowers

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you get in May and June,

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and the late-flowering ones,

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like Viticella, don't produce any flowers at all before June.

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But they can go on flowering with small flowers

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right into autumn, and that's what these do.

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Now, because they are late-flowering,

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you can prune them really hard now, in March.

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And they are producing masses of growth,

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and you can see that this one here,

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all this is last year's growth.

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And there are lots of new shoots appearing,

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and they will carry this year's crop.

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So, at the very least, we went to reduce all that excess,

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but in fact, to get a nice, healthy batch of growth,

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clothed with flowers from the base right the way up,

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you have to be more ruthless than that.

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Take your secateurs and be bold!

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Cut right down.

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And that can actually go to the compost heap

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because, although it's very dry, it will shred.

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I'm going to remove the supports

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and get some new bean sticks,

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because these have been in for about four years,

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and I always use those for kindling for the fire,

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so nothing gets wasted.

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There we go.

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Don't be put off or worried if it seems to be

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a mass of twigs rising up out the ground.

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Just a tiny little bud is all you need for new life.

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Now, putting together a mixture of plants is, of course,

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the great creative pleasure that you get in any garden.

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We saw last year Adam Frost slowly start to work on his

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brand-new garden in Lincolnshire,

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and this year, part of that process will be creating

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a new herbaceous border.

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But last summer, he went to the National Trust's Packwood House

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in Warwickshire to get inspiration.

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I'm feeling a really lucky boy.

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It's early in the morning. I've been allowed into this place,

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Packwood House, which is a garden that I've wanted to see

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for absolutely ages.

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It's just me, birds,

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a few sheep in the background,

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and I get to actually soak this garden up

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for the next couple of hours before the public come in.

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Packwood is a restored Tudor farmhouse

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and, for me, a real jewel in the National Trust crown.

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It's famous for its iconic yew topiary,

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but also its long herbaceous borders.

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A visitor in the 1920s described it as a house to dream of

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and a garden to dream in, and do you know? I couldn't agree more.

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This place truly is magical.

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I walked in and you'll think I'm barking mad but, actually,

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I got goose bumps.

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There was a physical reaction to this garden,

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and I think why is it fired off a load of memories.

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The first thing I'm doing is walking along a herbaceous border

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and there's a yucca pops up.

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It reminds me of my nan, 1970s. Very sort of retro.

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But, actually, in this context, looks absolutely stunning.

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It's worked in there with things like verbena,

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and the herbaceous bring it alive and turn it into

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a completely different animal. I mean, this place, for me,

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is absolutely stacked out with inspiration that I can take home.

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Mick Evans is the head gardener.

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He's been here at Packwood for 17 years

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and has been responsible for developing

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the contemporary mingled planting style.

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Originally, the planting, when I came here,

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was known as "the mingled style",

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which was a style described by a well-known Victorian garden writer,

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John Claudius Loudon,

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as small groups of plants singularly planted,

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repeating themselves throughout the whole length of the border

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in a kind of a rhythm, a pattern.

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The style of planting at Packwood evolved to meet the demands

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of the longer opening season.

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By introducing structural and textural planting into the borders,

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not only has Mick made the mingled style more contemporary,

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but plants like yucca and phormium work really well over winter.

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So we'll have our sort of stalwart herbaceous plants -

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achillea, heliopsis, heleniums, those sorts of plants,

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and they show off these wonderful, tender perennials.

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So they create their own structure as well, then, the herbaceous,

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as they go through? Yes. Cos if you're repeating everything,

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there is that kind of coherence.

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It's easy to read, if you see what I mean.

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It's a rhythm. It's like musical, isn't it? It is. It's the rhythm.

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And then, after that, you said you put through half-hardy.

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We'll use a lot of salvias. I mean, I'm a great fan of salvias.

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And the intensity of colour,

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working so well against these kind of lovely greens...

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It's mingled in with tithonia.

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And the other thing as well that stands out for me

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is leaf shape. Difference in size of leaves,

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again, just helps to create the kind of depth

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and a different feel to the whole planting.

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Otherwise, if everything is just all about colour,

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sometimes that can be a little bit monotonous.

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What's so clever about the borders

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is the plant palette really complements the architecture.

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The overall effect is one that creates borders and plantings

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that work in total harmony with the buildings and surroundings.

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I love just to have five minutes stood somewhere in a garden.

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I think...I just want to ask the head gardener,

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where would you come and stand in this garden?

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Oddly enough, about right here, actually.

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Cos it's about the best viewing point.

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The one in front of you right now is looking over the sunken garden

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and then beyond to the yellow border

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and then to the range of buildings beyond that,

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and the harmony of the brickwork and those colours,

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using yellows and blues, works really well in one sort of view.

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Then if you come on a diagonal and you look towards the house,

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then beyond that, we borrow a bit of the garden outside.

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We've got this lovely copper beech.

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So you're borrowing that landscape, bringing it back into this space.

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That's it. We've got these big black rosettes on the aeoniums,

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and of course the copper beech is equally as black,

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and it just creates this wonderful cohesive unit.

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Someone else could just borrow next door's tree.

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I think that's a cracking little tip.

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You've been here 17 years. Yeah. You thinking of leaving, or...?

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No, I'm jealously guarding this place. Yeah, I thought you might be.

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Do you know what? I'd happily come and work here every day.

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The place has sort of blown me away. I'm glad to hear it.

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RAIN FALLS

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Come on.

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The very best borders have that element,

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where every plant, every individual flower, is in its place.

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Dancing together.

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It's lovely to see summer sunshine and summer flowers,

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but spring sunshine has disappeared.

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It has been replaced by wet and grey and it's turned a bit chilly,

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so I'm going indoors.

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As it happens, I've got work to do in here.

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Cos I haven't yet pruned this vine.

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This is Black Hamburgh, a delicious dessert grape.

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It's actually planted outside the greenhouse,

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but I'm training it inside.

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And convention has always had it, sometimes quite fiercely,

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that you must prune a vine in December and January

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and if you leave it too late, it'll bleed to death.

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And I always believed that, and pruned it rigidly

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round about New Year.

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But last year I went and visited Sarah Bell,

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at the National Collection of Vines,

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and she was very clear about this. She said that's an old wives' tale.

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You can go on pruning until the first buds start to break,

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and it certainly will do no harm

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to prune your vine now, in March,

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although I would recommend it was something you did

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sooner rather than later. So I'm going to prune this today.

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The key thing to remember about vines

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is that it's the new growth that provides the fruit.

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So what I want to do

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is to cut back all side shoots from these rods and thin them a bit,

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because last year, I made the classic mistake

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of everybody who starts to grow a vine,

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is I had too many grapes.

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And what you must go for is quality, with a dessert grape,

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not quantity.

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Far better to have 20 or 30 beautiful bunches of grapes

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than 200 rather dodgy ones.

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You might have to move, Nige. I'm sorry.

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But you don't have to go out in the wet.

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Right. Here we go. Out here.

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What I'm aiming for is no more than two bunches of grapes per rod.

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And the fact that I'm pruning now, in March, is not a problem.

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And in fact there's all kinds of pruning "laws"

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that if you can't disregard, you can certainly bend.

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For example, roses, you can prune as late as May.

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They'll just flower a little bit later.

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I often don't prune my buddleia till April

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because if it's cold and miserable in March,

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there's nothing gained.

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So don't be frightened, keep it simple,

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and just remember that what you prune back to is structure

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and all the new growth will bear the fruit.

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Come on, let's go.

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This is when having a potting shed is a luxury.

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Now, this is our 50th anniversary year,

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and to celebrate it, amongst other things - because believe you me,

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we intend to party hard all year -

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we are looking for our golden jubilee plant.

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This is the plant that's had

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the biggest impact on gardens or gardening

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since Gardeners' World started 50 years ago.

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Not necessarily our favourite one or the one that we like most,

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but the one that has really changed the way we garden.

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And over the course of the next few weeks

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all of us here at Gardeners' World, all the presenters,

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will be making the case for the plant that they think

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has had most impact.

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And then we shall ask you to select one of those plants

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that we've all had our view on.

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And the result will be announced at our big anniversary bash

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at Gardeners' World Live in June.

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So I'm going to set the ball running,

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and I have chosen bedding plants.

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You have to think what it was like 50 years ago.

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Three things happened that changed gardening for ever.

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The first was the advent of the garden centre.

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The second thing was the spread of the car.

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And the third thing was that garden centres were open on a Sunday.

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But there were no other shops open on a Sunday,

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so you'd get in your car, fill your boots,

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come home and plant it out.

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And bedding has always been bright, it's colourful, it's cheerful.

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On a day like today, when it's grey and wet and cold,

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we can get some bedding plants and brighten the whole place up.

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And you can see, here, we've got pansies, we've got primulas,

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their colours go from rich

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to frankly outrageously garish. Doesn't matter.

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Whatever you want, you can have, and I love them.

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So I'm going to plant up a couple of pots,

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I'm going to put some compost in the bottom, peat-free,

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mixed with a bit of drainage material and leaf mould.

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And I'm going to pot these up with this.

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This is Primula Gold-laced.

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It's got a kind of elegance and delicacy that I like.

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So that can go in there. And like all primulas,

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it does best in light shade,

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cool - doesn't like to be burnt by hot sun -

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and be kept fairly moist.

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And that's a pretty good start.

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As well as plants, inevitably people, gardeners,

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have influenced and had a huge impact

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on the way we garden at home.

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We've all got our own horticultural heroes.

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But some stand head and shoulders above all the rest,

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and over the coming weeks, Carol Klein will be meeting some of them.

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And she starts with perhaps our greatest living gardener of all -

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Beth Chatto.

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Beth Chatto was born in 1923.

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Her career started here in Essex,

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and since then, she's gone on to become one of the most celebrated

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and influential gardeners in the entire world.

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In 1960, Beth and her husband Andrew built a house near Colchester

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on a huge plot of land that didn't look too promising -

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covered in brambles and with both boggy and dry areas.

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But Beth embraced the conditions

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and created a garden using plants that thrived in these environments.

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In doing so, she pioneered a new approach to gardening.

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It's a philosophy that's informed her entire gardening life and had

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a huge influence on the way most of us garden.

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It's quite simply, "Right plant, right place."

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Beth, when you first came here with Andrew,

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didn't you feel hugely daunted by the task in front of you?

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Well, no, I don't think so because I think I have learnt to take

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things a step at a time. I never imagined it becoming like this.

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I couldn't imagine it looking like this in 50 years' time,

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in the same way that now,

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we can't imagine what it's going to look like in another 50 years.

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So you weren't put off by the actual...by the brambles or the

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sort of conditions here? No, fortunately I did have a staff.

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I'd just started a nursery and I'd got good people helping me.

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Everybody was enthusiastic.

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It must be one of the most oft-quoted phrases in

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horticulture, in gardening, but "right plant, right place".

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Did you ever imagine that your idea, this concept,

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would take hold in the way it is and so many people would use it

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as a kind of mantra for their garden?

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Well, I am thankful that they have.

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I hope they understand what it means.

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It doesn't just necessarily mean planting a climber on a wall.

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It does mean planting something in the conditions to which,

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by nature, it was intended.

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In other words, shade-loving plants in the shade,

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damp plants in soil that doesn't dry out, etc.

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One of the things that always strikes me is that far from seeing

0:20:250:20:28

these places as problematic, you actually see them as an opportunity.

0:20:280:20:34

Absolutely, they are.

0:20:340:20:35

They are an opportunity to turn them from being a problem into one

0:20:350:20:39

of the showpieces, if you like, of the garden,

0:20:390:20:42

whether it is a hot, dry gravel garden up there or whether it is a

0:20:420:20:46

boggy garden down here or whether it is a shady woodland.

0:20:460:20:51

David Ward has been working with Beth for more than 30 years.

0:20:540:20:58

So, how big is the whole area of the garden, David?

0:21:010:21:05

The gardens are about six acres.

0:21:050:21:07

The gravel garden was planted up in spring '91, '92,

0:21:070:21:11

that sort of area.

0:21:110:21:12

Beth had always wanted to find somewhere to grow all her

0:21:120:21:15

drought-loving plants, which she had amassed quite a collection of.

0:21:150:21:18

Being in this area, driest part of the country, East Anglia, of course.

0:21:180:21:22

It was on a trip to New Zealand with Christopher Lloyd,

0:21:220:21:26

they went out for a picnic and they had a picnic by a dried-up riverbed,

0:21:260:21:31

a sort of ravine, and Beth remembered this image in her head.

0:21:310:21:35

That was what she based this design on.

0:21:350:21:38

So, in actual fact, you have never watered this gravel garden?

0:21:380:21:41

The idea, really, was to find plants that were suitable to survive

0:21:410:21:45

in somebody's front garden with

0:21:450:21:46

no watering, and that's what we wanted to do here. We never water.

0:21:460:21:50

We were tempted, we had a couple of dry years.

0:21:500:21:53

We were worried the plants were going to die because

0:21:530:21:55

they were shrivelling up.

0:21:550:21:57

But now we know that is their mechanism, just sit there and

0:21:570:22:00

survive, wait until it cools down and does rain.

0:22:000:22:02

Would you say that your philosophy to gardening

0:22:020:22:04

has changed through working with Beth?

0:22:040:22:06

As Beth always says, she could never really understand why people

0:22:060:22:09

found it so different because, to her, it was common sense.

0:22:090:22:13

Put shade-loving plants together,

0:22:130:22:15

your dry-loving and moisture-loving plants together.

0:22:150:22:18

Right plant, right place.

0:22:180:22:20

I'm very conscious of the fact that I have got a lot more space here.

0:22:280:22:32

The average garden today is pitifully small

0:22:320:22:35

but you can grow, for example,

0:22:350:22:38

snowdrops or hostas or all of these things in small areas.

0:22:380:22:45

People have got hot, baked front gardens where they can have

0:22:450:22:50

lovely silvery-grey plants, or they have got dark, shady back places

0:22:500:22:54

where they can grow hostas and ferns and things like that.

0:22:540:22:59

It's fun, turning what could be a problem into an advantage.

0:22:590:23:03

Have you always found gardening fun?

0:23:030:23:05

You always seem to be happy in your garden.

0:23:050:23:08

Yes, it is life-giving. It is life-giving. It is.

0:23:080:23:13

You have been awarded the OBE, the Victoria Medal of Honour,

0:23:150:23:19

doctorates here, there and everywhere. Ten Chelsea gold medals.

0:23:190:23:24

I am grateful for them.

0:23:240:23:25

But they don't keep me living, you know,

0:23:250:23:27

they give me a kick now and again but you forget about them, really.

0:23:270:23:31

It is the achieving which is the fun, more than the achievement.

0:23:320:23:37

I can't get up every morning and feel

0:23:370:23:39

a lot better because I have got an OBE!

0:23:390:23:42

But you can get up in the morning and feel better when you see

0:23:440:23:48

your garden? Absolutely, yes, I can.

0:23:480:23:51

I am very grateful, even today, when I'm not really terribly fit,

0:23:510:23:55

but that I can come out, see it and talk to you.

0:23:550:24:00

And so are we. Good.

0:24:000:24:01

I have had the pleasure of meeting Beth

0:24:140:24:17

a number of times and visiting her garden.

0:24:170:24:19

Every time, I come away just filled with ideas and plans and

0:24:190:24:24

refer to her books all the time.

0:24:240:24:26

She is certainly a giant amongst gardeners.

0:24:260:24:29

Obviously her main point of finding a place where plants will be

0:24:300:24:34

completely at home is always applicable but at the moment

0:24:340:24:38

in the garden, this is a plant that applies to more than anything else.

0:24:380:24:42

It is one of the fabulous black Ballard's strains

0:24:420:24:45

of Oriental hybrid hellebores. Look at it.

0:24:450:24:49

But planting it here in these borders,

0:24:500:24:52

I finally found out exactly what these hellebores like,

0:24:520:24:55

which is some shade but some sun.

0:24:550:24:59

Plenty of moisture but not waterlogged.

0:24:590:25:02

Here, when we have cut down some of the trees,

0:25:020:25:04

we let a little bit more light in, but there is shade.

0:25:040:25:07

It is quite heavy soil. They love it. However, if hellebores

0:25:070:25:12

aren't your thing or you don't want to add them to your garden,

0:25:120:25:15

here's some jobs you can be doing this weekend.

0:25:150:25:17

The best way to plant or increase your snowdrops is to move

0:25:230:25:28

them now, just after flowering.

0:25:280:25:30

Find a good clump, dig it up, don't try and break it into

0:25:300:25:35

individual bulbs but divide it into sections.

0:25:350:25:38

Re-plant a section into the original hole and then take the extra

0:25:380:25:43

piece or pieces and create a new clump to spread them.

0:25:430:25:47

Even though for many of us the soil in our vegetable gardens and

0:25:500:25:53

allotments is too wet and too cold,

0:25:530:25:56

you can begin preparation for this year's harvest.

0:25:560:26:01

I'm sowing some broad beans into plugs.

0:26:010:26:05

Put them somewhere sheltered, and it doesn't have to be warm,

0:26:050:26:08

and they will germinate and be ready to plant out in about

0:26:080:26:11

a month's time when the ground has warmed up.

0:26:110:26:14

Unlike summer-fruiting varieties which produce their fruit on

0:26:170:26:21

the previous year's canes,

0:26:210:26:22

autumn-fruiting raspberries all bear their harvest on new shoots.

0:26:220:26:28

This means that all of last year's growth can be cut

0:26:280:26:32

right to the ground and cleared away.

0:26:320:26:34

The weather today has been typically March.

0:26:410:26:45

We have had lovely sunshine, horrible cold rain and now

0:26:450:26:50

it's sort of brightening up and feeling quite mild.

0:26:500:26:53

So let's see what the weather has in store for us gardeners this weekend.

0:26:530:26:57

Let's see what's on the cards for a spot of gardening this weekend.

0:27:070:27:10

A couple of points, Saturday's a good day,

0:27:100:27:13

a dry day at least for most of us.

0:27:130:27:16

Rain will arrive on Sunday, and then Sunday night,

0:27:160:27:20

it is going to turn chilly, even a frost around in some

0:27:200:27:23

western areas of the UK.

0:27:230:27:24

So here is the weather for the short-term.

0:27:240:27:27

We have got a little bit of rain, not a lot, maybe crossing

0:27:270:27:30

northern parts of England, but really, most of Scotland

0:27:300:27:32

and Northern Ireland, the bulk of England and Wales

0:27:320:27:35

enjoying fine weather, warm and sunny in the south.

0:27:350:27:38

We could see the temperatures up to 18 degrees on Saturday,

0:27:380:27:42

and then this is what happens as we head into Sunday -

0:27:420:27:48

All of this,

0:27:480:27:49

I don't think we will see a lot of rain, but it certainly will turn

0:27:490:27:52

damp in our gardens and some of that rain will hang round right

0:27:520:27:55

into the afternoon, particularly in the eastern areas,

0:27:550:27:57

Late in the day we will see some sunshine in the west and that cooler

0:27:570:28:01

air arrives so that means that Sunday night turns chilly,

0:28:010:28:03

and we could see pockets of frost anywhere here.

0:28:030:28:03

to visit Packwood House in Warwickshire

0:28:040:28:05

You can see the wood pile behind me

0:28:110:28:14

is what happened to the trees being cut down.

0:28:140:28:16

They will keep us warm next winter.

0:28:160:28:19

I have got big plans here for the orchard, real transformation.

0:28:190:28:22

But that'll have to wait because we have run out of time for this week.

0:28:220:28:27

But I will see you back here at Longmeadow at the same time

0:28:270:28:31

next week. Until then, bye-bye. Come on.

0:28:310:28:35

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