Wild Flowers and Front Gardens Great British Garden Revival

Britain has a long and proud gardening heritage.

And a passion for plants that goes back centuries.

But all is not well in our once green and pleasant land.

-Front gardens paved over.

-Our lawns lacklustre.

-And rare wild flowers on the brink of extinction.

-So, we need you...

-To help us...

-In our campaign...

-To help rediscover...

Our passion for gardening.

We're going to give you the best gardening tips.

Revealing British gardens that will quite simply take your breath away.

-It's time to plant.

-And prune.

-And sharpen your shears.

Let the great British garden revival begin.

On tonight's show,

Joe Swift champions the great British front garden.

But first, I'm on the wild flower revival campaign.

When I was a child, the countryside around where I was brought up

in north Hampshire was filled with wild flowers, all appearing

in their season, whether they be the first primroses, the violets,

the lanes and the fields were spangled with these lovely jewel-like flowers.

Now, that has nearly completely disappeared.

Over 98% of our wild flower meadows have gone.

They simply don't exist any more.

But I passionately believe that it's not too late.

Every gardener across the country can grow our beautiful native

wild flowers to support the rich

and varied ecosystem that our entire world depends on.

Join me, Monty Don, for the great British wild flower revival.

To get my revival underway,

I'll show you how to create your own beautiful wild flower meadow.

There. I've made my lawn looked dreadful.

'I try my hand at harvesting

'an ancient meadow in the traditional way.'

-Whoops, that's not good.

-He could be doing it better.

He could be doing it a lot better.

'And I get a privileged glimpse into the botanical

'equivalent of Fort Knox.'

This is the world's largest biodiversity hotspot,

-this room here.

-And I can tell you, hot it is not.

This is Pensthorpe,

over 650 acres of wildlife reserve in Norfolk.

And it has an incredible range of wild animals and plants,

so is the perfect place to begin my wild flower revival.

Meadows like these are a living remnant of what our countryside

used to look like.

During the Second World War,

the drive to produce more home-grown food meant that many of our meadows

were ploughed up for cereal crops, or fertilised for extra grass.

As a result, it is estimated that today only 2%

of our ancient meadows, with their lovely wild flowers, survive.

We can all play a role in bringing our wild flowers back,

but creating the right environment for them has its challenges.

The problem with a wild flower meadow is grass.

Where grass grows well, it tends to swamp everything else.

Luckily, there is one flower that can solve the problem of grass

at a stroke.

It's a kind of magic bullet.

It's called yellow rattle, because the seed heads,

which you can see here, rattle as you go through them.

And sometimes when you walk through a great sea of yellow rattle,

you have these maracas rattling away at your feet.

Yellow rattle is semi-parasitic on the roots of grass,

so it's taking the grass's vigour.

As a result, the grass never gets strong enough to suppress

either the rattle or other plants around it.

And because the grass is dying back, in the wake of the yellow rattle,

all kinds of other plants will come in.

And you develop very quickly a lovely wild flower meadow.

So, with yellow rattle as my secret weapon,

I'll show you a few other essential tips to ensure

success in establishing your own patch of glorious wild flowers.

It doesn't matter whether you're making a small area around a bench

or a great big meadow,

if you want to create an area of wild flowers,

you've got to impoverish the grass as much as possible.

So, here we have an area where the grass is looking pretty rough

anyway, which is great. Poor grass is fantastic.

Set your mower to its lowest level and scalp it.

Cut it so it's suffering.

And when it is on its knees, now is the time to give it a good kicking.

Now, it helps if you have a really strong rake,

because this means that you can really dig in.

Grass is a thug.

It gets into the soil and then bullies its way,

dominates its neighbours.

The point of this brutal exercise is not to let the grass dominate

early on in the process.

There.

I've made my lawn look dreadful.

But I want bare patches of soil, because that will allow

the wild flowers that I'm sowing a chance to establish.

If, secretly, you've always resented the tyranny of keeping

the perfect lawn, now is your moment.

Rip it up and sow some wild flowers

and you will have a beautiful wild flower meadow that will

look much nicer than the lawn for a lot less trouble.

I've got three sets of seeds here.

But the really important ingredient that

I must add to it is semi-parasitic yellow rattle.

So the yellow rattle starts my mix. This is a small scabious.

Small scabious is one of our most nectar-rich flowers, and will

attract a huge variety of moths and butterflies to your garden.

A little bit of hawkbit.

Rough hawkbit is a bright yellow daisy that has the ability to

regenerate and flower again even after close cutting.

And, finally, some knapweed.

Knapweeds are one of our longest flowering groups of wild flowers,

and will last into early autumn.

Now, you can see I've got hardly any seed in there.

There is no point in over sowing,

because all you'll be doing is having young plants competing with

each other for nutrients and water and light, and that won't help.

Once they are established, they will set their own seed,

so they will increase at a rate they can sustain.

When it comes to sowing, we will sow them thinly.

I'm not worried about an even distribution.

It doesn't matter if I have a little group of one thing or a clump.

Nature doesn't create a perfectly harmonised, co-ordinated look.

It's patchy.

What you now have to do is tread it in, because to get good

germination, you need direct contact between the seed and soil.

So, just tread over it. Like this.

Pushing the seed down against the soil.

And where it's fallen on grass, the rain will wash it down,

but we're just helping it on the way.

And in just a year or two, your mini meadow could look like this.

A tapestry of colourful wild flowers

and home to a rich diversity of wildlife.

The few remaining ancient meadows that still exist in the countryside

have taken hundreds of years to evolve,

and the only way we can increase them in the future

is by protecting them and re-establishing new ones.

Coach Road Field in East Sussex is one of our oldest meadows.

The estate manager Keith is one of a small but passionate

group of people across the UK who have taken up a Royal challenge.

Coronation Meadows is a project inspired by His Royal Highness,

the Prince of Wales.

He wanted to celebrate the 60 years of his mother's

reign by identifying and recognising 60 surviving ancient meadows,

so truly ancient land surviving with its species richness.

-And this is one of them?

-This is one of them.

It's been farmed totally traditionally

since anybody can remember.

When you say "species rich", what are you talking about?

There might be 250 different species in this field.

And when you start to think that each one of them will be

a host to something,

then you can see meadows really are the base of the conservation pyramid.

Coronation meadows like this one are a vital source of wild flower seeds

that will provide the blueprint for more and more meadows across the UK.

So, I'm joining volunteers and members of the Scything Association

to make hay while the sun shines.

You need to keep it on the ground on this kind of grass,

press it into the grass as well.

Nearly right.

On the ground, and even smaller steps than you were doing before.

Literally baby steps.

For millennia, hay was cut with scythes exactly like this.

Cutting and removing the grass is essential for keeping

the soil fertility low, which is the key to successful wild flowers.

Sorry, that's not good!

It may look easy, but there's more to this than meets the eye.

-He could be doing it better.

-He could be doing it a lot better!

Instead of standing with a mocking look on your face

watching my pathetic efforts! Why do you use a scythe?

I started scything

because I wanted a low carbon way of keeping grass down on my allotment.

And I got hooked.

When you get in the flow of it, it's amazing

and the grass just falls over like it's been unzipped from the ground.

I like the way that it's not invasive.

Insects have a chance to jump out of the way,

frogs and mice can scurry out of the way of the blade.

When you've got a great machine, everything is just gobbled up

and spat out.

And there are other merits to putting the brakes on now and again.

I've used strimmers and heavy machinery and noisy machinery

and I've been kitted up to the eyeballs. And it's not fun.

This, I absolutely love.

You feel what the ground is doing more.

You can feel how the blade is cutting through the grass.

With a machine, things like the wild flowers, you don't

-notice as much.

-For some of the volunteers here today,

the ancient skills of scything

have given them a fresh perspective on modern-day farming methods.

It's a great way of dealing with those areas that you couldn't

otherwise deal with.

It's those corners, they are the harbours that we've just got to

not just protect but increase somehow.

Rather than being turned and made into hay, this freshly cut

grass is loaded up and taken to a nearby recipient field.

That will spread the seed so that we can make a new meadow from that.

Just like the mini meadow that I sowed earlier,

it will take a few years to establish, but it will happen,

and add to our tiny stock

of beautiful meadows filled with flowers.

We are creating something that is not just beautiful, but a

really important seed bank,

something to pass on to future generations.

It's a very simple idea, but, boy, it's a powerful one too.

Back at Pensthorpe, many of the wild flower meadows have recently

been reclaimed and reseeded from unfertile farmland

under the watchful eye of the head warden, Ed Jones.

On the farm here,

we have recreated 50 acres of wild flower meadows by taking land,

poor land, out of production and sowing them with wild flowers.

So they are a really important part of the whole ecosystem.

Without the wild flowers,

we wouldn't have that huge array of wildlife here.

We wouldn't have as many bees, butterflies, dragonflies,

snakes, frogs.

It is like a little micro habitat here,

and therefore there is food for birds and mammals.

The more we can encourage the wild flowers,

the more wildlife comes into this area.

If you are inspired to do your bit

and champion your local wild flower meadows,

there are lots of common wild flowers that you can collect

as the seedheads mature in late summer.

With over 300 species of wild flowers here, there is

a huge variety for me to collect.

Here we are in September, and it is a subtle tapestry that is every

bit as beautiful as the intense colours you get in June or July.

I love it.

It shows you wild flowers can look good from early spring

well into autumn.

Of course, the dried seed heads are there to be collected.

This is knapweed.

It looks like a dried-up scruffy thing,

but in there we've got the seeds.

It's fine to collect a small amount of common species when found in

abundance, but always check and seek permission from the landowner first.

Devil's bit scabious is a stunning lilac nectar-rich wild flower

that prefers moisture, so it is thriving here in the meadow.

It is also the preferred food plant of the marsh fritillary butterfly.

Wild carrot, or Queen Anne's lace,

is another common beautiful British native.

As the flowers mature and turn to seed, the seed head closes

to provide a shelter for all sorts of insect life.

A very common but beautiful wild flower

is this bird's foot trefoil.

It's got these distinctive, really strong yellow flowers,

and they are called bird's foot trefoil

because look at the seed here. There is the seed head.

A very distinctive sort of hen's foot feature, these long pods

full of little seeds, just like peas in a pod.

However, most of us don't have the chance to collect our own seed.

But there are special seed merchants that will grow,

mix and supply an astonishing array for you.

The intensively farmed fields of Norfolk might seem

an unlikely place to find a specialist wild flower seed merchant,

but 33 years ago, botanist Donald Macintyre chose to pioneer

the farming of native British flowers for seed here.

What prompted your interest in wild flowers?

I've always been a country boy, and my mum too.

When I was a little lad, she used to take me for walks,

looking for wild flowers.

I can remember being a young boy of about five, my sister two,

sitting in a field just by the church where my parents got married.

It was full of flowers. Now they've all gone.

We cannot just eliminate all biodiversity from our environment

-and just grow food crops.

-And where do gardeners come into this?

Today, wild gardens provide a really rich habitat for invertebrates.

I think there's been some recent research which has

found the number of invertebrates found in gardens is greater

than found on normal farmland.

Every year, Donald grows up to 300 species of native flowers

and grasses.

These must be dried, sorted and cleaned before creating

recipes custom-made for your particular soil and situation,

as shown to me by the manager, Richard Brown.

-So just tip it on top?

-Yep.

Is that a particular group of grasses?

That is a selection of grasses for a clay soil.

Now we need diversity in terms of flowers.

What would it cost to do a load of seed like this?

The flowers are the expensive bit,

and the grass is relatively inexpensive.

-The total for this area is something like £8,000, of which...

-Sorry.

-£8,000? For a thing of seed like this?

-That's right.

But in terms of the number of seeds you're getting for that money,

there are millions and millions.

£20 will buy you a handful of seed mix sufficient to cover

an area the size of a tennis court, so it is actually fantastic value.

Once the base of wild grasses is raked out,

we're ready to add the wild flower seeds to the mix.

How do you select what is best to add to it in terms of the diversity?

We use the natural meadows, the few that are remaining, as our model,

because that is a community that works.

That gives us an idea what proportions we're aiming for.

Also, we've got to know how they behave on their own.

I call it the hare and tortoise model.

You've got some species like a daisy, which is a hare,

establishes very quickly and produces a result soon,

and a cowslip is the tortoise - goes very slowly, might take two or

three years to get there, but do a good result in the end and hang in.

What's particularly fascinating about watching this process of seeds

gathered from the field and got ready for delivery is how bespoke it is.

Every conceivable situation can have a seed mix precisely to suit it.

And of course the implication for us gardeners is whatever garden

you have, wherever it is, you can grow a wild flower mix.

You don't have to have a field to grow wild flowers.

Back at Pensthorpe, I want to show you the easiest way to

create your own wild flower meadow in a very modest space.

Whilst it would be lovely to have your own wild flower meadow

that you could scythe and gather the grass from, most of us

don't have that opportunity

and some of us don't have gardens at all.

Or very, very small ones.

But there's no reason

why you couldn't grow wild flowers in a container.

I've got an old tin bath here

with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage.

And I'm going to make a little meadow based upon chalk down land.

Chalk down land has perhaps the richest

number of species of wild flowers in the UK.

One of its characteristics is that it is very freely drained,

alkaline soil. So to mimic that, old smashed-up pots.

Polystyrene chips will do, anything that will improve drainage.

On top of it, I've even got some chalk limestone

to improve that quality of down land.

Now, this means that the roots will get down into alkaline soil.

They'll feel at home.

Now, on top of that, I'm putting some of the local topsoil.

And if you don't have any soil, you could use seed compost,

which is low in fertility.

If in doubt, mix it with some grit to lower fertility even more,

because these wild flowers have evolved

to thrive in poor conditions,

whereas their competitors - grass, docks, nettles - will romp.

And once they romp, then they suppress those lovely wild flowers.

Right. This is now ready for planting.

I've got a tray of plugs here,

all chosen for their suitability for chalk down land.

And a plug is called a plug because it's a plug of root and soil.

And it's a very convenient way to set plants going

which are already established. You don't have to worry about the seeds.

Now, this wild thyme...

still got that lovely, hot, summery aroma.

With a plug, all you have to do is make a hole with your finger

and pop it in. It's as easy as that.

So let's have a couple of wild thyme in there.

Now, for flowers, I've got some ox-eye daisies.

They can take over a little bit but they're pretty.

It's a mistake to plant them evenly.

You want to think in terms of groups.

These will spread and sort themselves out.

The field scabious, Knautia arvensis,

put a little group on this side.

Now, I've got a form of St John's wort here, Hypericum perforatum...

..which will give us a little bit of height.

All these, I stress, are designed to thrive in chalk down land.

But you can get plugs for lots of different types of situation.

Now, this is not a bedding scheme.

This will evolve and change, and some plants will die.

Others will take over and become too dominant,

but that's the nature of a meadow.

So all I've got to do now is just water it and leave it.

These plants are completely hardy,

they don't need any kind of protection, and they'll be fine.

Pensthorpe is an inspiring example

of how acres of wild flowers can be restored.

And shows that it is possible to turn the tide for our wild flowers

and drastically change the numbers in their favour.

A great meadow filled with flower is one of life's great joys.

But the really critical part is the seed.

Without those seeds, we can't possibly keep our wild flowers.

So not only is it important to look after them,

but we must treat them as precious,

because if we lose them, they're gone for ever.

Seeds are the ultimate time capsules,

and if we can safeguard our remaining wild flower seeds

for the future, then we can return acres of wild flower meadows

to our landscape.

That's exactly what the pioneering Kew's millennium seed bank

has been doing to secure the future of our British native plants.

This is Wakehurst Place, set in beautiful Sussex countryside.

Here they are collecting, or at least attempting to collect,

every single seed in the world.

In excess of 2 billion seeds are kept here.

And these, almost the entire UK population

of 1,300 native wild flower species, are meticulously logged.

This collection is incredibly valuable.

And it's stored under lock and key in an underground bunker

which I'm getting a rare opportunity to visit.

It's got overtones of James Bond, of a nuclear bunker.

Of a bank vault.

This is a place that is built to last.

There's an enormous slab of steel.

It's giving out this message that whatever is in inside here

is both very valuable and incredibly well protected.

Now, there are cold rooms leading off from here,

and they're really cold. Minus 20.

So I need to put on some protective clothing.

The Arctic temperature keeps insects and pathogens at bay

and prevents the seeds from germinating whilst in storage.

-Hello!

-Hello!

-Oh, it is cold in here!

-It is, yes.

-Chilly!

Janet Terry has been looking after the seed bank for the last 32 years.

Now, what I love, you walk in here

and this marvellous high-tech building, and all these resources,

and it's Kilner jars!

They've proved to be probably the best container

that we've managed to find to keep the seeds dry in the minus 20.

In this minus 20 temperature, these will keep for how long?

Some of them will live for hundreds of years.

Some of them will only live for tens of years.

Each one of these seeds holds the genetic blueprint

for a species of plant,

some of which are extremely rare and endangered in the outside world.

So, in this room, you have the entire UK native flora,

-bar one or two...

-Exactly.

-..in here.

-Yeah.

This is the world's largest biodiversity hotspot,

-this room here.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Just take that thought again.

This is the world's largest biodiversity hotspot, right here.

And I can tell you, hot it is not!

It's freezing!

In the last few years, this seed bank has helped to revive

five of Britain's most endangered species.

In this storage facility, I'm seeing the whole world of botany.

Forests, meadows, savannas,

jungles, gardens.

Stacked up in one place.

And when you start to think about the potential held in these vaults,

it's not only mind-boggling but deeply reassuring.

Wild flowers are staggeringly beautiful

but usually very undemanding to grow,

as well as providing a vital habitat for our native wildlife.

And once you start to grow them, you might find yourself getting hooked.

When Linda Laxton moved house in the 1980s,

she wanted to fill her Georgian cottage

with the native wild flowers that she'd loved as a child.

But after failing to find any wild flower seeds or plants to buy,

she decided to collect a small amount of wild flower seed

and to grow her own.

At the end of the first year,

I'd got so many that I decided to sell them at a car boot,

and suddenly I had a business selling

wild flowers from my back garden in an 8 x 6 greenhouse and a cold frame.

Over the next 25 years, Linda's business,

along with her wild flowers, blossomed.

We've now got six acres and we grow over 1 million plants a year,

all native, and try to do our little bit to help restore the countryside.

There's some red poppies over here, let's have a look,

see if we can see some more bees.

Our native plants are so beautiful.

Primroses and violets and in the summer, the harebells.

Agrimony, which has lovely fluffy pink flowers on it

and the bees and the hoverflies just swarm all over it.

Every single person that's got a garden should be considering

putting wild flowers in there.

We, as individuals, can actually help the decline...

Bee, sorry!

Well, I hope I've persuaded you that wild flowers

are wonderful things to include in any garden.

And it's something that, if we all care about, then we all look after

because they belong to us and they're part of our daily lives.

So, everybody everywhere benefits.

'Next, Joe Swift is on another Garden Revival campaign.'

At one point in our rich gardening heritage,

the front garden was highly valued.

It was the place to show off our gardening prowess.

Over time, though, this intrinsic part of our homes' design

has fallen out of favour and simply become a no-man's land

between the street and our front door.

But worse than that still, it's being concreted over at an alarming rate.

But getting rid of this planted buffer can reduce drainage

by up to 50%, increase pollution and adversely affect our very wellbeing.

I'm Joe Swift and I'm here to convince you to breathe new life

into the Great British front garden.

'On my mission, I meet the expert who wants us

'to fight pollution through greenery.'

If you put the plants very close to the traffic then they have a greater

chance of soaking up the pollution and making a significant reduction.

'I get inspired by the anti-concrete community

'who have won awards for their planting prowess.'

It's cleaner, it's nicer here, and the gardens look better.

But also, everybody's talking to each other.

There's a wonderful social cohesion.

'And show you how to transform your own front garden

'in a few simple steps.'

So don't concrete them over,

don't pave them all over, there's always a solution.

I've come to the north-east of England where, sadly,

some of the worst damage has been done to our front gardens.

Here, nearly half of them have been mostly paved over

in the nation's desire to turn them into miniature car parks.

'But there is one exception.'

This is Rockcliffe Avenue, a terrace of 24 houses, each with their

own strip of front garden leading out onto this charming alleyway.

All the residents here take enormous pride in their neighbourhood,

which makes it the perfect place to kick-start my front garden revival.

'It all started six years ago when the neighbours came together

'to brighten up their dingy alleyway with a few pots.

'And the transformation was instant.'

We used to have a lot of kids who used to cause havoc,

and it's stopped all of that.

And people don't drop rubbish in this street any more, neither.

It's a different place. It's transformed it.

We all get involved and help with the weeding, dead-heading

and contributing, basically.

'What started with a few plants has now become the talk of the town,

'and in 2010 they even won an award for Best Street in North Tyneside,

'and their efforts have had an even more profound effect.'

It's definitely brought the neighbours together.

We all come out and we all do our own pots and that.

It's made a friendlier street.

Everybody in this street wants to natter and chat

about the gardens, about the pots.

So what took a quarter of an hour now takes two hours to do.

HE LAUGHS

I know we don't have as much time as we used to,

and we have to think practically about how we use these spaces,

but I'm determined to show you why it's time to

rekindle your love of what's right outside your front door.

'To start my revival, I'm heading to Letchworth Garden City,

'the vision of Victorian architect Ebenezer Howard,

'who pioneered the idea of a patch of green outside your front door.

'I'm meeting historian Caroline Holmes to get a greater insight.'

So I've been walking around Letchworth Garden City,

and it's unbelievable.

It is incredibly green, and obviously designed in the first place

-with front gardens and green space in mind.

-Absolutely, it was key.

Ebenezer Howard looked at people squashed into city centres

and said, "No, there's no way.

"It's not good for your health, it's not good for your wellbeing.

"Earn city wages and live somewhere that's green and pleasant

"and takes you back to all our roots, back to countryside."

By giving every house a front garden,

it provides another piece of green,

and as you look down the streets, you have hedges and trees

and shrubs and all the different houses in their different styles

that are all part of the public space but still owned individually.

And there's a sort of civic pride

in making sure that you're not letting the side down.

Absolutely.

'This place really is incredible.

'One of the reasons this Great British heritage is alive

'and kicking in Letchworth is

'because front gardens are protected by law here, which is

'sadly not the case across the rest of the country,

'where many of them have been completely paved over.'

So when was the start of the decline of the front garden?

I would say... I'd put it at the 1960s.

There is increased use of cars, people need the space

so they tend to pave it over, goodbye front garden for the moment.

And that was it? So the car really was the beginning of the end?

It seems very sad, but possibly it's the case.

'So the number one obstacle in my campaign to save the front garden

'is the question of where to park

'the 28 million cars we have in the UK,

'a problem that's very apparent only a few miles away.'

I've been walking up and down this road in Watford

for about five minutes, and some of the gardens are quite nice.

But most of them are just car parking spaces,

and frankly, it's quite depressing.

'In London alone over the last five years, 120,000 applications

'were made to lower the kerb for off-street parking.

'One major issue caused by our need for cars is loud and clear.'

CAR HORN HONKS

'Paving over the front garden has a dangerous effect on water drainage,

something London Wildlife Trust Director of Policy,

Matthew Frith, is well aware of.

One or two front gardens on the street that have been paved over

don't have much of an impact.

Once it starts to get to hundreds, thousands,

which in some parts of our cities they really are,

then all it takes is a relatively heavy rain period.

All of a sudden, the sewers can't cope.

So, the water has to find somewhere to go

and that's when you get those flash floods.

And there are parts of our cities which are already vulnerable to that

because we have, literally, stripped our gardens away.

David, you're an independent parking expert,

and is your argument that we just need somewhere to park cars?

That's right. Three-quarters of the households in Britain

have a car, 40% of them have two cars.

And increasingly, it's difficult to park on the road,

and the front garden is the only place

where they can park their cars.

Are you concerned about the environmental effect?

Are drivers on the whole concerned about the environmental effect?

Unfortunately, in a period of economic difficulty,

the environment goes pretty low down on motorists' priority list.

What do you think, Matthew?

Do you think the front garden can be a garden

and somewhere to park the car too?

Absolutely.

The clever solution is to provide parking which is hard but porous,

so that addresses at least in some way the surface water run-off.

But there are always spaces to put a little bit of vegetation,

whether it's flower beds or something a little wilder,

for wildlife, those can be done.

And when you see it, you're being given a change,

a kind of feeling of the community again.

Parking isn't an option on Rockcliffe Avenue here in Whitley Bay

because the row of front gardens on the terrace are accessed

by this beautifully planted alley.

Everything here is grown in containers.

But if you want your front garden to be both practical and hard-wearing,

I've got a few tips which will help you achieve it

without turning it into a paved wasteland.

Now, if you don't think you can have a nice front garden with

plenty of plants in it and somewhere to park the car, then think again.

There is always a way. And this is a handy piece of kit.

It's a reinforced hexagonal plastic mesh that goes into the ground,

and it means that water can penetrate through it.

At the same time, you can park your car where there's gravel or plants.

'These plastic grids will support the weight of a car,

'and I'm going to show you how easy it is to install them

'as if you were starting your front garden from scratch.'

You put a landscape fabric,

that's this stuff, over the soil, and that will let the water drain through

but also stop the weeds coming up through it at the same time.

And then on top of that, we put a layer of sand...

And then we just bed this stuff in to the top of it,

and you can fill it with all sorts of stuff.

Say you wanted to have a lawn, you would use a nice bit of loamy

topsoil with a bit of sand in there as well.

Don't use just garden compost from the garden centre

cos it's not quite got the body.

And then it's important just to pat it down as well.

Run your hand over the top to leave a nice fluffy texture,

perfect for sowing grass seed.

Most people over-sow, they put too much down,

so just sprinkle a light amount, generally.

The ideal time to do this is late summer, early autumn,

about September, October, or spring, again,

because the temperature's warm enough for it to germinate really well.

Make sure to pat that in as well,

so that the grass seed is in contact with the soil.

And then keep it well watered while it establishes itself.

And that'll green up in no time,

you'll have a lovely lawn that you can actually drive the car over.

But I like to mix it up a little bit. You can also use gravel.

Again, it's a really good medium, it gives a textural contrast

to a lawn and the plants surrounding it too.

So, just get handfuls of gravel and just fill in the gaps like that.

And again, you can drive the car over it, and it looks really good.

If you've already got a lawn in your front garden

and you're thinking of turning it into a car park, well,

why don't you use this stuff again but just turn it over,

and what you do is actually just push it into the ground,

a bit like a pastry-cutter, yeah?

And that will actually let the grass grow through it but be able to

take the weight of a car as well, so it will green up in no time.

You can see where the car tracks go, and it's as simple as that.

So, don't concrete them over, don't pave them all over,

there's always a solution.

'The next stop on my mission is Birmingham University, to find out

'why front gardens aren't just vital for water drainage.

'Professor Rob Mackenzie has spent 25 years studying

'the relationship between trees and pollution.'

I'm right behind you in the campaign to bring back the front garden

because we've known for decades that pollution is taken up by plants.

If you put the plants very close to the source of the pollution,

to the traffic, then they have a greater chance of soaking up

the pollution and making a significant reduction,

perhaps as much as 10 or 20%. There are two effects.

One is a purely physical effect.

It's like putting a piece of filter paper between you

and the pollution, capturing tiny, tiny particles on their leaves,

and, to a certain extent, to the stems and twigs and so on.

There is another process which is happening simultaneously,

and that's to do with the way the plants breathe.

So they have particular little breathing holes

on their leaves called stomata.

And they exchange gases through that.

We all know that plants take up carbon dioxide,

they release oxygen, thank goodness!

But they also take up pollutants through these breathing holes.

-Are some plans better than others for dealing with pollution?

-Yes.

They almost certainly are, although it's very early days for this.

But we do know that as long as the plants have lots of leaves,

to a certain extent we think that hair on the leaves

is important too, then all the plants will be providing a benefit.

Right. I'm going to tackle this issue head on and get the public planting.

This is a really good plant for a front garden.

I plant these all over the place. Convolvulus cneorum.

Slightly sort of hairy leaves, which Rob was talking about,

it's good for pollution.

'No more excuses.

'If I pick the perfect front garden greenery...'

Ceratostigma willmottianum...

'And give it away for free, the nation can't say no!'

Honeysuckle...

'These are all tough plants that thrive in most garden soils

'and are easy to look after.'

Trees as well. You know, you can get a lot of trees in a front garden.

A small tree, perfect for a front garden.

But I'm not giving away trees! They can come and buy their own!

What do you think this is?!

Well, I've got some lovely plants there.

Enough to start the campaign of transforming the nation's front gardens.

I'm just going to need some help, I think.

Right! Better get these on board, then!

'One small plant for mankind,

'one giant step for the Great British front garden!'

Right, let's give some plants away!

'I'm starting in north London, an area I know that needs

'some serious help.'

There's some pretty bad ones here on the right.

Hello! Hello, darling.

She doesn't know what's coming for her!

-I'll be honest with you, I can't see one flower.

-I know.

-Because I put the car there.

-I know, but look at all the gaps around here!

-Around here. Look, you could put it on here in a nice big pot.

-Here?

-Here, in a nice big pot.

-Yeah.

'There are now a shocking 12 square miles of front garden

'under paving in the capital alone, an area equivalent to 22 Hyde Parks.'

It doesn't look like anyone's in, but honestly,

this one desperately needs some help. I mean, look at this pot over here!

Look at that! Look at that! I'm going to leave it there.

Does that make any difference? Not much.

But they'll be wondering who the mystery gardener is!

'I've definitely got my work cut out.

'Remember, it only takes one plant to start a pollution revolution!'

I would like you to take this plant. Yeah? It's a beautiful dianthus.

-It will keep flowering for a long time.

-It's very colourful.

Put it in a pot, take some cuttings, hand it to your neighbours.

Get everyone growing, gardening.

Thinking about their front garden a little bit more.

-And spread the love!

-And spread the love! Exactly!

Look at that. That is really good. Pachysandra.

And that will spread and spread and spread.

You never know, one day I might get you to come and...

-Yeah, I'll give you my card later. Give me a shout.

-Yeah. All right.

OK, Lauren. Nice to meet you. Cheers. I might get a job out of that!

-Keep spreading the word!

-All right.

-Cheers, thank you.

-Good luck.

'Well, seems like here at least my front garden revival

'is off to a good start.'

'So, greener streets for a greener planet.

'The Rockcliffe Avenue residents are totally committed to the cause.

'Every inch of this alleyway is helping the environment

'and keeping our glorious front garden heritage alive.'

Now, you don't need a lot of space in your front garden to grow

some plants. In fact, you don't need any.

All you need is a wall, and everyone's got one of those, right?

A lot of people are worried about climbers on walls.

They think, "Oh, no, it's going to damage the pointing,

"going to damage the brickwork."

Well, as long as the pointing and brickwork is sound before you plant,

it's going to be absolutely fine.

In fact, there's a school of thought that says it's protects

the brickwork and insulates the house, too.

So here, we've got an ugly drainpipe.

And a lot of people have got ugly drainpipes.

Very few plants are going to actually attach themselves to plastic.

They'll all slide down.

So the first thing to do is put something that they're going to

twine up or cling onto first.

So there's this quite nifty little semi-circular trellis work.

I've put one up already, just to save a bit of time.

And I'm going to put the second one in.

And it's literally a case of a few screws into the wall.

I've chosen this lovely Clematis armandii.

It's got these lovely glossy leaves. It's an evergreen plant.

And clematis will grow nicely in a pot.

And the first thing you've got to do with pots is put some drainage in.

Well, I'm just using some old, broken-up pots.

But you can use a bit of polystyrene, a bit of packaging.

And then on top of that I'm using some compost.

I'm using something with a bit of guts, really.

This has got a little bit of composted bark added in.

Because clematis like it quite fibrous

and they actually like to be planted quite deep.

So don't fill it up too much.

I'm just going to pop it out of the pot there.

Make sure it's leaning the way I want it to,

so I can just train it up the trellis.

And then backfill with plenty of compost.

And there you go.

And then I'm going to water it in because the roots

are a little bit dry. And the clematis never likes to dry out.

And then just on top of that nice damp compost,

I'm going to put some beach pebbles as well.

Clematis, they like to have their roots in shade

and their heads in a bit of sunshine.

Now, the next thing I want to do is just tie the clematis

into the trellis here and just encourage it to start growing.

Actually, it's got tendrils, as you can see here,

so it will start clinging itself. And I'm just going to get it going.

Just do simple loops.

There's a whole range of plants that actually you could grow,

things like roses and jasmine and ivies and even climbing hydrangeas

and plants like that are fantastic for softening a house.

That now won't need clipping on at all.

Once it gets going, it will actually start attaching itself

and scramble its way up there.

And the key is just to not let it dry out at all in a pot.

But this guttering is dripping nicely.

It's dripping on my head and now it's dripping into the pot.

So, going to have to have a word with number 24!

This is an area I'm really passionate about.

I live not far from here at all.

And the beloved Arsenal are just round the corner.

And there's a community, I'm told, that are coming together through

their front gardens here and, well, the first signs are really promising.

'Four years ago,

'Islington Council in north London started a wild flower seed giveaway,

'which inspired two of the residents in the Blackstock triangle

'to take it a step further.

'They've now got the whole community gardening together.

'Nicolette Jones is one of the founders

'of this brilliant initiative.'

How easy was it to get people on board in the first place?

Well, it was quite easy.

But I think there are two things you need to remember.

One is that it works best if you are fearless about knocking on doors.

Introduce yourself, tell them who you are.

We talk to people personally. And the second thing is,

it's very important not to tell people what they have to do,

to wag a finger and tell them

they should tidy their front garden or they should plant their tree pit.

What we did was we knocked on doors and offered them something.

We would say, "Would you like a free window box with some flowers in it,

"or would you like a bag with earth and some seeds

"so that you can grow vegetables on your front path?"

We started always by giving people something

and the extraordinary thing was, when you give them something,

-they give more back.

-Mmmm.

We found that we'd give people a window box, and they would start

putting pots full of flowers on their concrete forecourt.

'I think what they've done here is fantastic.

'They didn't just get gardening,

'people power helped convince the council to remove concrete

'from some of the front gardens,

'the key to solving that all-important drainage issue.

'And I only have to walk a few feet from Nicolette's front door

'to find an eager, green-fingered local.'

We gardening people will say that if you can, thou shalt clean

and de-weed thy neighbour's tree pits! That's what I've been doing.

-That's a very good motto!

-That's what I've been doing!

-And that's a very good plant.

-It's a pretty little plant, isn't it?

It's lovely. And they are robust and excellent things, this time of the year in particular.

'I'm really impressed by all the work they've done here.

'Think I'd better lend a hand planting this Japanese anemone.'

-It's all worth it, right?

-It's totally worth it.

It's worth it because the place looks better and it's cleaner

and it's nicer here. And the gardens look better.

But also, everybody's talking to each other.

It's a wonderful social cohesion.

-So gardening can really pull people together?

-Gardening has done it.

It must give people a lot of pride in their neighbourhood?

It certainly has. Yes, this whole process really does work.

'Robert's not the only resident that's seeing the benefits.'

Without the gardening initiative,

I just don't think people would know one another like they do.

So it has been fantastic.

There used to be sort of gardens with nothing but concrete

and dustbins, and now all of them have something interesting going on in them.

As you walk past, it sort of makes you smile

and every day or every month, there's a new garden that's looking

nicer and nicer as people see what's happening around them.

'The jewel in the Blackstock crown is at the end of the street,

'a whole garden donated by two of its residents.'

-I think it's lovely that someone would actually give their garden to the community.

-It's amazing.

It was an amazing thing. Here we are, rhubarb we're stepping over.

-Yeah. Wow.

-This, with the disco balls in it, is a glam rockery!

-Oh, yes!

-OK!

-It's been several years now,

so we've had different things each year.

But it's great because it's been a changing array of different kinds

of edible and decorative plants all together.

What would you say to people who lived in a street,

they didn't know their neighbours,

and they didn't care much about their front gardens either?

Well, not only have you got, potentially, a great space

for growing food and for making something beautiful,

a sort of shop window to your house, if you do start gardening

the front garden, you will start to know your neighbours.

Once you know your neighbours,

it's amazing how the sense of community can grow.

Once that grows, the benefits go beyond having a beautiful garden,

because neighbours help each other, they feed each other's cats,

they watch out for burglars.

They are sort of one big family, really,

and they help each other in all sorts of ways.

People, you know, walk to the local shops because the streets

and the gardens are pretty and so it's good for the local economy.

It makes it a desirable property.

Already, the estate agents are commenting on it in this area.

So, not only will gardening bring your community together,

it may also add value to your house.

Well, the neighbourhood spirit is certainly alive and kicking

here in Rockcliffe Avenue in Whitley Bay.

All the residents muck in together to keep this alleyway

looking absolutely fantastic.

And it's packed full of a huge variety of plants,

looking particularly good at the moment. This is one of my favourites.

Cosmos. It just flowers all summer long and all you have to do

is just keep deadheading it and more flowers will come.

Now, you might think, "Well, I haven't got time for all of that, Joe."

Well, you're not the only one.

-Louise, it must be lovely living here?

-It's amazing. Lovely.

Surrounded by plants and gardens and keen gardeners.

Yours has got a lot of gravel in it, hasn't it?!

Do you feel like you're letting the side down a little bit?

-A little bit, yeah.

-Yeah.

-I need to sort of do a little bit more, I think.

-And why is that?

I think it's time.

A lot of it's time, you know, I'm a full-time working mum.

-So you're going to take Rhys off to school?

-Yes.

-And then you're going to work.

-Yes, I am, yeah.

-OK, well, we'll see what we can do.

-OK.

-And we'll see you back here later on.

-Lovely, thank you.

'I've only got a couple of hours to give Louise's front garden

'a bit of a spruce up.

'Luckily, Mike and Jenny, the street's top gardeners, are here to help.'

-You're up for this, are you?

-Yeah, sure.

-Yes?

-I think so!

-Yes.

-Good.

-Well, let's get cracking, then!

-Where shall I put this, then?

'First job, and it's free. Let's hide that unsightly gas meter.'

That's better. That's much better. It deflects the eye, you don't see it so much.

And the rhododendron's going to grow a bit more. Perfect.

'Next, the crucial stage...'

I'm thinking, one there, one there.

'..lay your plants out to see exactly where you want them.'

-Two spades.

-Two spades!

'Right, time to get stuck in. Well, for Mike and Jenny...'

-We're doing the digging, are we?!

-I think so!

-You've got the hang of it!

-Yeah!

'Start by scraping the gravel away...'

What we need to do is get a knife.

'Cut the landscape fabric...'

This is lovely soil.

'..and dig a hole that's big enough to comfortably take the roots.'

Just break up some of the roots.

'It's best to choose a perennial that flowers year after year,

'like these punchy purple asters...'

'..sunny rudbeckias...

'and grasses which are great to break up the gravel.'

Looks good.

'I've also bought some annual snapdragons which will decorate

'the drainpipe and need replacing once they die, giving Louise and Rhys

'some fun replanting them with whatever they like.'

That's looking really good, Mike. You've done that before, haven't you?

A few times! Trenches.

'We saved the biggest job till last...'

Well, that's about perfect there.

'A crab apple tree to give Louise some privacy

'and the ingredients to make tasty jellies.'

That looks really good there.

It just instantly breaks up the space at eye level, you know.

A small tree in a small garden really can make a difference.

Here they come.

'Well, I love it, and the neighbours love it.

'But what will Louise and Rhys think?'

-Hiya.

-Hi!

-Good day?

-Yes!

-Good, good.

Oh, wow. It's amazing!

Gosh, what a difference.

Mike and Jenny did most of the work, frankly! I left them to it!

-It's lovely.

-What do you think, Rhys, do you like it?

-What's your favourite bit?

-The apple tree.

-The tree, the crab apple tree?

Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it?

Really pleased with it.

It will make you feel part of the neighbourhood

from a gardening point of view!

Thank you!

'Whew! It's got her seal of approval.

'My campaign has been to show you just how important our front gardens are.

'They're vital in our busy cities.

'Here in Elephant and Castle, south London, Richard Reynolds

'is on his own green crusade,

'but went about it in a rather unusual way...'

So I moved here to central London nine years ago,

to a flat in this block which has no garden,

and soon realised that this was a big frustration

because for me, gardening as a kid was something I was obsessive about.

So I channelled that obsession into turning the neglected

council flower beds around this block into my front garden.

And what began as a late night,

illicit, secretive guerrilla activity,

for me now is something that I do just as I would were it my own.

'Richard's guerrilla gardening has now got the full support of the local council.

'They're even giving him funding as his mission spreads

'to other abandoned patches of green,

'much to the delight of the local residents.'

I love the flowers, I love even the fruit trees that he's growing.

So, it's wonderful and I think there should be more of it.

It brightens up your day, really, to be honest. Yeah.

It makes me happy because I love the trees, the grass.

And it's really good.

This is an immensely satisfying place to tend.

It's a really social space, too.

I would encourage anyone with a bit of land at the front

of their house, whether it's theirs or not, to go out there and tend it,

to not only see what they can grow, but to see who they meet.

Front gardens aren't all about keeping up appearances.

They're about bringing people together,

and they're great for the environment, too.

But if we don't get out and do something about them,

we're going to lose more and more of the Great British front garden.

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