Topiary and Roof 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.

And 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, James Wong is up on the roof for his garden revival.

But first, I champion a Great British gardening tradition

close to my heart.

What an amazing place.

You can't help but be impressed by this really imposing garden.

I know I certainly am.

This is some of the very best topiary anywhere in the world

and these are extraordinary living sculptures.

Topiary is our great tradition of trimming and shaping plants,

from clipped hedges to fantastic sculptures.

Topiary used to be grown right across the country,

showing off our Great British flair for individuality

and that sense of personal style.

But today, it's all too often the preserve of stately homes

and formal gardens. The amateur enthusiast's craft is on the wane.

I say it's time to reverse that trend.

So sharpen your shears, shape up your garden and join me,

Rachel De Thame, in the Great British topiary revival.

To help kick-start this revival across the nation,

I'll be unlocking the secrets of topiary's glittering past.

-Quite bling.

-Oh, yeah, very bling. Tudor was bling.

I meet the man that's making contemporary topiary

accessible to all of us.

It's like painting by numbers but with hedges.

And I'll show you just how easy it is to make your own creations.

This is going to be something that is going to be in your garden,

potentially, for certainly for as long as you are.

What better place for me to start my revival

then here at Levens Hall in Cumbria,

where you can find not only some of the best but some of the very oldest

topiary anywhere in the world.

There's something here for everyone,

from the formal and geometric

to the quirky and unusual.

In fact, topiary in all its many forms

gives a garden real identity, and I love it.

But topiary has seen its ups and downs,

and many gardeners today see it as a specialist art

beyond their capabilities.

If I'm going to revive our passion for topiary,

I need to delve into its chequered past and find out exactly

why it fell out of favour.

The grand historic gardens in Hatfield House in Hertfordshire

provide an incredible insight into topiary fashion

right back to Tudor times.

Famed as the playground for the young Elizabeth I,

I too visited these fantastic gardens as a child

and these visits played a formative part in my love of topiary today.

Wow. Just look at this. It's brilliant, isn't it?

Twigs Way is a garden historian who shares my passion.

-Every time I come here it's the same reaction.

-I know.

The light today is fantastic for picking up

all of the different foliage textures.

-You know, we've got the hawthorn.

-Bay.

And then of course the very reliable box.

Take me back to the very beginning,

I mean, even the origin of the word "topiary".

It comes from the Greek "topos",

which most people still know through the word "topography",

and then it becomes

applied through the medieval period as a term to clipping and shaping.

Why was it through the medieval period

and into the Tudor period that it became so popular?

Well, the Tudors didn't have many flowers to choose from

because they hadn't had this huge array of imported plants.

You know, if I was stood here in 1500,

I would be really pushed in autumn to actually fill out my garden.

So, what more splendid than to have intertwining patterns

and different foliage textures?

You could be bringing me out here to walk on Boxing Day,

you know, I could still say, "Wow, that's amazing."

So what kind of specific features

might we expect to see in a topiarised Tudor garden?

Well, we'd have the standard clipping.

Some cones and balls, maybe,

but actually quite a lot of flamboyant heraldic features.

You know, a fox being chased by a load of hounds, I'd expect to see,

and I would love to see it in real life.

A man with a sword on horseback.

-Quite bling?

-Oh, yeah, very bling.

-They went for it.

-Tudor was bling.

This verdant craze for clipping and shaping

continued for well over 100 years until it fell out of fashion

in the mid 18th century, when garden trends changed dramatically

and a desire for naturalistic planting and less formal landscapes

wiped topiary from estates across the land.

Even here at Hatfield, the Tudor-style topiary you see today

was only re-established in the 1980s.

So, we've seen this sort of remarkable way

that topiary has been used for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Why is it still relevant today? Why should we be planting it?

As you look at this now, if somebody hadn't planted this,

we wouldn't have the chance to enjoy it.

You know, these will eventually, unfortunately, die.

We've got to start that planting now

so future generations can enjoy what we're enjoying.

You know, you don't have to create U buttresses.

You can create shapes and figures and scenarios.

-You can have, you know, bunny rabbits jumping across the lawn.

-Why not?

Isn't that great? Well, yes, it's fantastic.

So just take a corner of your garden and have fun.

Fashions come and go but fortunately topiary never fell out of favour

with the owners here at Levens Hall.

Known as the "judge's wig", this is one of my favourite pieces here.

It's got a lovely organic shape across the top,

and then you have the opportunity to get inside, which is extraordinary.

And you can see all these wonderful, rather sinuous stems

going down to the ground.

This is native English yew and really ancient.

And it also illustrates how the green growing bit here

is really only just a covering a few centimetres thick.

I think it's extraordinary.

These vast, ancient shapes have been clipped and preened

by generations of head gardeners, and I'm very excited to be meeting

the latest incumbent, Chris Crowder, who's been here 26 years.

One of the things that I love about topiary

is that it's very touchy-feely.

I mean, you can't resist running your hand over it

but what is it that you like?

I love the size of, particularly in this garden, some of the shapes

and because I've done them every year

I feel that I'm involved with them. I know them very intimately.

-A personal relationship with each piece of topiary.

-Absolutely.

And have you got any personal favourites

among the topiary pieces in the garden?

Although I do like the big ones,

it's some of the ones that are more person-sized,

about six foot high.

The ones where you can just walk up to without all the apparatus

and just clip them round. They're almost like people.

Are there any you don't like?

As they get old, sometimes they get a bit saggy and loose,

I suppose like all of us.

They can be difficult to treat because you have to try

and hold them up with a bit of wire and things like that

and it's not very satisfactory.

-So you prefer them young and firm?

-That's much better.

It takes Chris and his team six months of the year

to restore their 100 shrubs and trees to their full shapely glory.

Many are so colossal that they can only be accessed

using special equipment.

Luckily, Chris is going to let me loose

and clip some a little closer to the ground.

Well, I'm very excited and somewhat apprehensive

because you're going to let me loose on Levens Hall's famous topiary.

Absolutely. They're a matching pair.

That's what we're aiming for at the end -

two cones looking the same.

-And box we're starting with here?

-It is, yes.

The smaller pieces around the garden, they're made of box.

You can grow up to about six foot high, two metres, with box.

Any bigger than that, we're straight into a yew.

But they're both tight-leaved evergreen and they will take a clip.

And what about when to do this? Is there an ideal time during the year?

The best time is after it's got through that first flush of growth

in the summer. If you clip it then, it's got time to fill out again

and you may have enough time to clip it once or twice more.

And every time you clip it, that's the action that produces more buds

and makes a thicker surface for next time.

I think I'm quite old school because I do like to use hand tools,

things like the shears and secateurs, but what do you prefer?

These are much more, in a way, satisfyingly hand crafty.

At home, hand shears are fine, or even smaller tools,

-depending on the size of the topiary, really.

-Yes.

I suppose the main thing is that they should be sharp

and also, we carry one of these water squirters.

If you just run that down the blades every so often

it just stops them getting gummed up

because, after a while, they get that green residue on them

and it just keeps them moving quite nicely.

What about standing back? Because I do that quite a lot

-while I'm cutting.

-That is really important.

If you do keep walking away from it, you will see

where you're going wrong.

We use a cane as well, certainly on these flat-shaped pieces.

Because what we think of as flat,

if you actually start putting that straight edge against it,

you can see we may have taken a little too much off here and there.

Ooh. Ooh, yes.

Right, Chris. What do you think?

I mean, it's not as tightly clipped as yours but I feel a little caution

in someone else's garden is a good thing.

We can always go around it after you've left and finish it off.

Thank you.

If you get into brown stuff, though, you know you've gone too far.

Yes, definitely. Then I'll leave very quickly.

-Fantastic. It didn't take us long either, did it?

-No. No.

Another 100-odd to do, if you've got the time.

Today, topiary is mainly associated with grand country houses,

but throughout history it's had a place in domestic gardens too,

and never more so than in the Edwardian era.

And it wasn't just lovingly tended clipped hedges.

In typically British style, it was quite common to see teapots

or cake stand topiary towering over people's cottages.

In some ways, I really wish that I'd been around to see that.

That really was the heyday for topiary.

And because I travel now so much for work, I'm very aware that,

unless it's a big stately home, I hardly ever see topiary

and that's something that I really believe should change.

So I've come to Kent to see a garden that celebrates

the art of topiary in spectacular, creative style.

Charlotte Molesworth has spent the last 30 years creating this oasis

of amazing forms and undulations.

Wow, Charlotte. This is extraordinary.

Such an ambitious piece. It's enormous.

How on earth do you do that?

Well, this plant always had this very strong central trunk,

so I knew that I was going to tier it,

but I can't think why I left so many strong trunks at the top.

But I obviously didn't have the heart to cut them off

-so I bowed them over and created these sort of strange...

-Yes.

By simply bending it back down and tying it in.

I think it's fantastic. It reminds me of a chess piece.

-The king.

-Of course.

And then the next bit here, a more organic shape.

A wonderful bird on the top. Is that... It's a peacock?

He's a sort of fantasy, really.

All the birds are sort of fantasy-ful.

The base was one of the first things I actually clipped

when we started the garden, because I knew

that whatever was going to be on top,

which I had no idea what it was going to be, had to sit on a plinth.

It feels wonderful. I mean, it's sort of...

You do want to hug it.

It's so tactile. It's wonderful. Like a giant cushion.

What is it about topiary that inspires you?

My mother had a lovely garden and she used topiary in her garden,

and I really believe you slightly garden with your mother's garden

in your heart. I mean, it is so versatile, really,

that you can be adventurous.

-You get hooked on it.

-Yes.

'Despite my passion for topiary, I've never attempted anything

'as figurative as this. But with Charlotte as my muse,

'now seems like a jolly good time to try my hand.'

So you've found our victim.

I have. Now, this is a pretty woolly old thing.

It has got lots of options and always, before you cut,

look at all the possibilities and all the sort of potential that it has.

It sort of has a bit of a tail-ish bit here, maybe?

I mean, do we feel a bird?

'The first task is to create a plinth for our bird to nest on.'

You're very purposeful. You're very definite about it.

Yes, I think one needs to be.

'We might have formed the base

'but I have no idea how we're going to make a bird out of the rest

'of this mess, but Charlotte's well up for the challenge.'

Now for the exciting part.

We have to find a head and I think this, Rachel, is a good candidate,

but it's too thin on its own, so let's put that...

-and do you think almost a third?

-Yes.

So, if we tie those three.

So you're tying that up? Tying these three pieces together.

'With our bird's head identified, Charlotte's given me

'the daunting task of giving its body plumage

'a drastic but shapely trim.'

It does feel so final but here goes.

-Great.

-Right and here.

Get rid of it.

-And that one off there.

-Off. Off, off, off.

-Yeah.

-What about this little chap here?

-Off, off, off. But marry up

the two sides, get them a little bit more symmetrical. Marvellous.

I'll get that last little one at the back.

What I think we'll do now, to give people cheer,

-is give it its marvellous-looking tail.

-Yes.

'Sticks and string are Charlotte's low-tech tools of the trade.

'We're using them to unite and shape our young flexible tail branches

'into a wonderful fan. Over time the wood of the young tail branches will

'harden into its newly moulded shape and the sticks can be removed.'

-What do you think?

-I think it's jolly good.

Obviously it needs a little imagination now.

And years to grow and time to grow.

Yes, but you know it was so much fun as well.

-Good. I'm glad.

-I enormously enjoyed that.

-I enjoyed it too.

Topiary can make a huge impact on any garden,

whether it's for your own private appeal or one like Levens Hall,

that attracts visitors from far and wide.

Many of the ancient pieces here have evolved into huge and weird

and wonderful shapes,

but there are younger examples throughout the formal gardens.

This gorgeous yew spiral is a newcomer.

In fact, it's only 15 years old and already looks magnificent.

And although this spiral shape looks complicated,

in fact, it's not that difficult to do.

I'm feeling so inspired by my visit to Levens Hall that I think

I'm going to do something to this poor unsuspecting box cone.

I'm going to do a spiral

and they're actually remarkably straightforward to do,

she says with confidence!

I'm just going to start with some string.

Right, and now I'm going to use this to create the spiral shape

that I'm going to follow when I start cutting.

So, I've just got to get it on a diagonal.

Now I'm trying to keep these broader as you go down.

So here, a little bit tighter towards the top

and then broadening out lower down.

Ideally, you don't want to go right the way down to the bottom

of the plant. You want a sort of tyre shape

around the base of the cone.

I'm going to tie that off.

When you're sure that it looks all right, the only thing to do

is really just to go for it.

I'm just using sort of really heavy-duty sort of kitchen scissors

just because they give me that little bit of control.

And all I want to do initially is to sort of mark off where that line is.

Now, this isn't really a job to be rushed

because this is going to be something that is going to be

in your garden, potentially, for certainly as long as you are.

Now, by this stage you should be starting to see the outline.

You know, where the indentation is

and which parts are going to be the fat parts around the spiral.

The next step is to remove the string and to begin cutting

a little deeper to increase the definition of the spiral.

If you take too much away, because the stems are all growing upright,

you lose all the growth above so I'm still going to work fairly gingerly.

Right, OK.

I'm going to now get the hand shears

and just sort of shape it, generally.

So, you're sort of rounding off these corners, you know,

because at the moment you've got a harsh line top and bottom

and I just want to round those through.

You know, I could go on tweaking this probably all night long.

However, I think that's pretty good.

Definitely the shape's there, the spiral's there.

So I'm pretty pleased with that.

And it's so much fun.

I hope I've shown you that topiary is an enjoyable and easy way

to add a touch of class to your garden the whole year through.

But if you're not convinced, there are a few shortcuts.

I've come to Bury St Edmonds to meet artist Steve Manning.

14 years ago, he turned his hand to topiary

but his methods are anything but traditional.

Using welded-metal wire frames,

Steve trains his plants to fill them.

The resulting detail is so intricate

even the experts would struggle to match it.

I'm absolutely intrigued by this idea of a wire topiary frame

because I've never done it before, so what have we got here?

Well, it's the Pied Piper of Pakenham being followed by a line of children.

They were some of the first frames that we ever made.

They were grown in yew.

They've been made in galvanised steel wire, like fencing wire.

It will eventually get so dense that the frame will hide in there

totally, in the end.

The first thing that strikes me is the level of detail you can get.

I mean, you can see I can hold hands.

You can see the thumb's there.

Well, that's the good thing with the frames.

If I can put the detail in the frames then at least you've got a chance

of achieving that detail at the end of it.

They're extraordinary, and nice well-behaved children

when they're made of yew. Not like mine!

'Steve's frames will not bring instant topiary to your garden.

'This rearing unicorn is one of his tallest pieces.

'It's already been growing for 12 years

'and will take another six before the yew completely fills the frame.'

These are extraordinary.

I absolutely love them. And this time made of box?

But surely this must be several plants along here?

Er, yes, it was. We started with ten plants in that one.

One in each leg and then the rest went up the body,

and this one we put eight plants in it.

So that one has still got a little bit of growing in to do there.

That's right, it's still growing out but you've got to remember,

we're growing out from this point here to grow the head.

So that's a long way that that box plant has got to grow

in that direction.

Is that tricky, to get it to grow that far horizontally without

trying to grow upwards?

Well, what we would do is tie the plant to the underneath of the frame

because most plants will tend to try and grow upwards.

So if you let it go along too high,

you'll end up with a bit of space underneath that you'll never fill.

The beauty with the frame is that anybody can go out there and cut it.

You don't have to be an artist to achieve the shape.

You've just got to go out there with the shears

and keep to the shape of the frame.

You know, it's like painting by numbers, but with hedges.

I think I've always been a bit of a purest when it comes to topiary.

I haven't wanted to use a frame before, always done it by eye.

But having seen what I've seen today,

I've been so impressed I am going to give it a go.

And when you get that instant impact in the garden,

right from the off, there's no excuse not to try.

Large scale bespoke topiary frames aren't cheap but don't despair.

I've invited some garden enthusiasts to a local nursery

to try their hand at some cheaper and smaller-scale alternatives.

So we've got these.

You buy them flat and then they become three dimensional.

If I just hand those around, you can sort of see how they work.

What have you got? A duck? And...geese?

-And a dove.

-I think that's a chicken.

It's a chicken, yes.

Yes, I think it's a chicken.

'Growing your mini topiary animal in a pot makes it infinitely mobile

'so if you move house, your topiary pet can go with you.'

So if you put that round.

Let's try and do it.

Let's try and see how... If you squash it...

'First you have to manoeuvre your frame over your mini box plant.

'A frame like this one costs around £10.'

Now, you've got one of these cage types. Let's see how that works.

Shall we try and ease that...?

If you push the...top of the box in.

Ah, there we go.

'And then all you have to do is give it a quick haircut.'

So what's the general consensus?

Do we feel like this is something you'd like to take up?

It's something that you don't consider doing in a small garden

because you always think it's something that belongs

in a stately home garden.

And so to be able to achieve something as quickly

as we have done today, it's incredible.

Well, I'm absolutely delighted to hear

that I've got five new converts. Excellent. No stopping you now.

You see? That's what I believe about topiary.

It's just one of those things that once you start -

and you have to just start -

don't think about it, don't over-analyse it, just get in,

start clipping and you find out that it's enormous fun.

It's rewarding, it's easy to do

and I guarantee that once you do start, you won't look back.

Here at Levens Hall, all of these unique topiaries

would have been grown from cuttings.

It's an incredibly simple skill to acquire and will allow you to grow

and clip a whole menagerie of shapes and figures for next to nothing.

Now, if you're clipping boxes from mid to late summer, it's also

a perfect time to collect cuttings for propagation,

and box is incredibly forgiving.

So that you just snip off some of these nice long shoots.

Just take them a little way back into there

so you've got a little bit of the old wood there,

but otherwise they're semi ripe. Just take those off.

And ideally you'd do this...

First thing in the morning is always great

because the plant's taken up lots of moisture overnight.

And these will all make new little box plants.

Now, that's a nice little pile of cuttings there.

Now, the thing with box is that it's generally incredibly easy

to grow, so instead of putting it in a pot and growing it in a greenhouse

or in a cold frame, I'm going to do it here, straight into the ground.

Now, these are semi-ripe cuttings, which means all of this growth

has come this year and you can see the tips, they're still very soft.

But then here, along the stem, well, that's got a bit of bend in it

but it's semi ripe and then here, at the very end,

this little bit is last year's wood and it's become quite tough.

So I'm just going to snip off a bit of that at the end

and you do that just underneath a pair of leaves.

And then I'm just going to strip all of these lower leaves from the stem.

You want to expose a good sort of half to two-thirds of the stem

and that's so that these new little plants don't get stressed by having

too much leafage on there that they have to support.

I do love this idea of getting plants for free, and I know that

with something like box, you've got to wait a little while.

They're not the fastest-growing plant but you'd be surprised.

You'll forget about them and then a couple of years later think,

"Oh, my goodness, I did that and didn't pay anything for it."

Now, we've forked over this bit of ground and also weeded it

to make sure there's nothing

competing with the new little plants.

And then I'm just using a pencil as a dibber, really.

Just sort of waggling that around to give a bit of space and then

just dropping the cutting in and firming it back round.

I'm just going to do that in a row right the way along here.

Now I'm putting these in about five or six inches apart,

which is just about close enough to give a dense little hedge

but also, if I decide to dig something up and replant it

and move it somewhere else or pot it up, then I can get in there,

it's enough space between them to do that.

And then just make sure that they stay moist,

that they don't really dry out.

My father used to say, "Throw a stick in the ground and it'll grow."

And in the case of box cuttings, it really is true.

It will take about two years for these cuttings to fully establish

and grow into small bushy plants.

But then, within a few more years, you could have your very own

little Levens Hall right on your doorstep. Imagine that!

As we've seen, topiary knows no bounds and, armed with his shears,

one man is causing quite a stir on the streets of north London.

After years of giving his mature privet hedge the bog standard

short back and sides,

Tim Bush was challenged to weald his shears to a more artistic effect.

I got into topiary about four years ago following a request

from my wife to make a cat in the front garden,

which is this hedge, and I decided a cat was far too complicated.

So I started cutting a tube shape

and then realised that maybe a steam train could come from the tube.

Four years later, this is the end result of that.

The steam train gave Tim the confidence to attempt the cats

his wife so desperately wanted -

in the neighbours' hedge across the road.

And after that, commissions rolled in.

At the moment, I'm working on a herd of elephants in Finsbury Park.

I remember the first time I walked by after Tim had cut these bushes

and all of a sudden, I stopped and I went,

"Wait a minute, those are elephants over there across the street!"

I think they're great. They give you a smile every time you walk by.

It cheers up the whole neighbourhood.

May all overgrown hedges be turned into topiary, I say.

And with the proceeds from Tim's clipping talents pouring in,

it's not just the neighbours who treasure his work.

Instead of just cutting for fun, I cut for charity

so at the moment I'm cutting them for the Home Farm Trust,

a charity which supports people like my sister

who has got learning difficulties.

We're up to £1,200 and I have a target of £5,000, ultimately,

which is enough to inspire me to carry on for a little bit longer

and do a few more hedges around the neighbourhood.

I hope I've convinced you of the wonders of topiary,

that this great art and historic form of gardening is in real danger

of being lost and I strongly believe that it should have a place

in our gardens today and in the future. So get clipping.

It's time for the Great British topiary revival to begin.

Next, someone else who is passionate about the garden revival campaign.

Like most of us Brits, I live in the city

where access to green spaces is increasingly limited.

But I believe human beings need access to nature.

It's vital for our wellbeing.

There's masses of urban space out there

just waiting to be transformed into brilliant new gardens.

You just have to look up.

The idea to create gardens on the tops of buildings

is a modernist dream from over a century ago.

But roof gardens were way ahead of their time and fell into

decline following their heyday in the first half of the 20th century.

Even though they're rooted in our past,

I believe they are the gardens of the future.

So join me, James Wong, up on the roof, to utilise the space that could

make our lives cleaner, greener and bust the stress of modern living.

Now is the time for the Great British roof garden revival.

On my campaign, I'll be exploring one of Britain's

most incredible roof gardens.

If I was to pick one plant that I was to say there is absolutely no way

you could ever grow it on a roof, it would be an oak tree,

and these have been here for three-quarters of a century.

I meet one woman who's lifted almost an entire garden into the sky.

I'm so jealous of this.

I like it a little bit too much.

And if you want to know where to start

and what plants work well in a roof garden, I'll be revealing all.

It's an antidepressant in a plant.

Some of our most incredible gardens

can be found in totally unexpected places.

Here I am in the centre of London with three roof gardens

right in front of me, and that right there is Cannon Street,

one of our busiest stations,

with the River Thames and the London skyline wrapping around me.

But sadly, Britain's roof gardens are few and far between.

So I'm basing my revival campaign right here

in the centre of London on the top of Japanese investment bank Nomura,

which features a stunning roof garden.

It's a surprising green oasis in the heart of the city's financial hub,

with vegetables growing alongside beautiful beds of ornamental grasses,

and it's the perfect example of what more of our city buildings

could look like.

I grew up in Singapore,

one of the most densely populated cities on the planet,

and building gardens in the sky there is a standard part of urban planning.

They don't see them as frivolous decoration, of course.

They see them as genuine solutions to 21st-century problems.

They can mop up pollution. They can cool over-heated cities.

But to appreciate why NOW is the time for roof gardens to undergo

a revival, I need to delve into their history.

Britain's roof gardens began in the 1920s,

when department store Selfridges set a trend

with a flamboyant pleasure garden. It was THE place to be seen.

Other department stores followed, and when Derry and Toms store

opened on Kensington High Street in 1933,

the decadent Kensington roof garden was born

and became an icon of its time.

And look at this. I've been transported to the Med.

It's amazing to believe that this Spanish garden is just

one of three different gardens -

there's a woodland garden with its very own river,

there's a Tudor-themed garden,

all floating 100 foot above the bustling streets of London.

It's a horticultural miracle.

To discover more about what makes these gardens so enchanting,

head gardener David Lewis sheds some light on their history.

People think about green roofs as this really cutting-edge idea

but almost 100 years ago, this was a proper garden,

with trees and fountains and turrets and all sorts of things.

Absolutely. The department stores love them.

So Selfridges built theirs, as you say, 100 years ago,

and then Derry and Toms really wanted something more spectacular,

more special, so they created this.

So it's an acre-and-a-half of proper gardens on top of their roof.

This is a competition. You get department stores

all over the country competing to outdo each other.

Yes, it was a novelty to draw people to a commercial enterprise.

It took them two years to build this and I'm sure every bit of soil

was carried up a staircase on someone's back.

At practically the size of a football pitch,

there's an abundance of magnificent gardens to discover.

But it's not only flora up here.

There are also ducks and, unbelievably, pink flamingos

that have inhabited these exquisite grounds for the past 35 years.

There are 125 trees on this rooftop,

52 of which are situated in the spectacular woodland area.

What I can't believe is the size of everything, and the maturity.

How did they get the trees up here in the first place?

Well, they winched 70 trees up the side of the building by hand,

-as far as we know.

-I'd loved to have seen that.

-I know, and at night.

-Oak trees.

If I was to pick one plant that I'd say there's absolutely no way

you could ever grow on a roof, it would be an oak tree

and these have been here for three-quarters of a century.

You've got to remember they were much smaller than this, though.

You couldn't plant a tree this size into 18 inches of soil.

-That's all you've got?

-That's all we've got everywhere.

I find that incredible. 18 inches is what,

-like the height of my knee, in terms of a pot?

-Yeah.

They planted small and allowed to grow, but the great thing is,

their roots accommodate themselves so they've just gone outwards.

That's a really good tip, to start small. Some quick-growing stuff

could get there really quickly. Something like a eucalyptus or...

Yeah, yeah. Certainly in a pot.

-And you would get the same effect in five years.

-Yes. Exactly.

During the Blitz, many of London's roof gardens were destroyed

so how come much of this one survived?

It's been under threat in several ways.

A couple of bombs dropped on the building during the war.

One demolished the town and Spanish garden.

The other one landed, didn't go off. So they picked it up,

put it in front of the tower and took a postcard of it.

-Talk about a hardy war spirit.

-Yeah, absolutely.

In the '30s, when these gardens were built, it was considered

the model of things to come.

The future wouldn't be about smog-clad Victorian cities.

It would be about flying cars and cantilevered sky gardens

hanging off every tower block would be commonplace.

But that wasn't to be.

Sadly, roof gardens have disappeared over the years.

The Adelaide House building in London Bridge is another

classic example of this decline.

This, believe it or not, was once a pleasure ground

for stressed-out City office workers.

It had rolling lawns of soft Cumberland turf

and a flashy 18-hole putting green.

It was cutting edge, it was forward thinking. It was right up there.

Now look at it.

The urban oasis became a victim of development.

In the 1970s, an additional floor was added to the building

and its garden and putting green were lost for ever.

Although this Utopian ideal may be long forgotten about up on this

roof today, it may have an effect that its founder had never imagined.

Cities in the UK can be warmer than the surrounding countryside

by up to 6 to 8 degrees.

That's because bricks and mortar can work like a giant storage heater,

absorbing and retaining heat from the sun.

It's a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect.

But gardens built on roofs absorb this heat instead,

helping to keep the buildings cool.

So come on, Britain, this is not just about aesthetics.

Imagine the potential here.

A garden on every urban roof could help cool

and shade the centre of our cities.

It could help absorb water, reduce flooding,

provide a haven for wildlife.

But ultimately it could look

and feel a whole lot more inspiring than this.

Even though some roof gardens haven't lasted the test of time,

here in the capital, this one on top of an investment bank

is paving the way for a revival.

But there are some practicalities you've got to consider first.

Roof gardens come in all shapes and sizes

but there are two factors that almost all of them have in common,

and the most important in my mind is root space.

You're either probably going to be growing your plants in pots

or really shallow beds like this because roofs can only take

so much weight, so they don't have the luxury of roots

spreading all over the place.

And the second one is wind.

We're up, effectively, on a man-made cliff face

and that could mean an almost constant battering by the wind.

You'd think those two factors would mean that you can't have

fantastically verdant plant growth.

But it couldn't be any further from the case

if you picked the right plants.

Up in the front here we've got what looks cute and adorable

and very cottage like.

This erigeron is from Mexico and it naturalises all over the UK

in cracks and little walls, just like a buddleia.

If it will grow in that kind of super minimum root space,

this is pure luxury for it.

This gaura may look delicate with these beautiful white petals,

but it comes from really arid areas of the southwest United States and

may even self seed its way through your beds, creating a lovely drift.

Anything with a thick leaf, and we're talking this phormium, for example,

we're talking this cordyline,

they may look lush and tropical but the second you touch their leaves,

you'll realise these guys, they have been used as fibre plants.

They will handle anything that a blizzard can throw at them.

Almost anything, if you're not a plant geek,

with the words "maritimum" or "littoralis"

in the Latin name basically means "grows by the seaside".

They'll grow brilliantly up here.

They get that extra heat that the building really kicks out

and they'll absolutely love it.

Think roof gardens are an inhospitable environment?

Then think again.

This little Mediterranean plant, lavender, has made a break for it.

These flowers have seeded throughout here.

Look at it, it's thriving in gravel.

No watering, no fertiliser, no care. Looking pretty.

Right plant, right place, and 90% of your job is done.

Get your kit sorted and I'll make a sky gardener out of anyone.

Let's talk containers,

cos that's how the vast majority of people will be getting started.

You need them to be light and you need them to be non-porous.

If you think about clay or terracotta,

not only are they incredibly heavy but they're porous.

They contain tiny air spaces which allows water to dry out of the side

of them, meaning you have to get out there with a hose so much more often.

Something like this.

Incredibly light, false bottom so you don't have to fill it up all the way.

Cheap and easy to get hold of.

I'd go for things like aluminium, zinc

and lightweight polymers like this.

To reduce the weight even further, I'm going to fill up

up to 50% of the pot with this stuff.

It's expanded clay,

and it basically looks like one of those chocolate breakfast cereals

and has about the same weight to it.

Fills up a lot of space and absorbs water.

So great drainage, but also holds onto that little bit of moisture.

I'm just pouring in regular potting compost

you can get at any garden centre.

I'm going to pop in this lovely phormium.

Phormiums are perfect for roof gardens.

They're tough, low-maintenance

and, planted like this, won't need a lot of watering.

People say to me all the time,

"They've only got a small roof garden."

"I can only grow stuff in pots."

"I can't have a proper garden."

We live in the 21st century.

You can grow your own way.

Why be grounded when you can live elevated?

I'm almost done here but there's one super geeky tip

that I have to share with you.

It's an idea I picked up in Latin America.

It looks a little bit like an Indiana Jones relic,

so you may be wondering why I'm using it.

This guy is called an olla.

It's any kind of unglazed terracotta vase-type contraption.

You're going to bury it up to its neck in compost,

you fill it with water

and, amazingly, it will give it to your plants only when they need it.

When the soil is dry, water will seep out of this and into the compost.

It's low-tech genius.

What I'm going to do now...

a bit of a top dress.

Fancy word for some pebbles going over the surface.

This gives a really neat sort of finished look,

but also insulates the water on the inside,

preventing evaporation from the soil surface.

It means you need to water less.

With these simple tips, you'll be spend less time watering

and more time enjoying your roof garden.

One person who has really mastered planting on high

is Bahamian-born artist Lynn Parotti.

Just over two years ago, Lynn moved from a house with a garden

into a roof-top apartment in west London.

She not only moved her paintings but also dug up her plants -

some were craned in and others carried up six flights of stairs.

Against all odds, she successfully relocated them

into their new environment.

Look at this. I'm so jealous of this.

I like it a little bit too much.

And so many people in a new-build property like this would

probably stick a table and chair out so you can really see the view,

but wouldn't go to town on the planting because that's work.

No, that's not me.

That's not me, because my plants mean a lot to me.

They all have a history.

I can show you plants that my dad bought for me

when he was last visiting from the Bahamas.

I just have to make sure they're healthy and living.

In fact, I'm quite annoyed at the moment

because there's this black beetle

which has attacked a few of the leaves.

I knew you would take it so personally if you were a gardener.

What is he doing?!

I love that idea that if you're a really obsessive plant person,

it's not a choice.

It's not like you could've put plants here or you couldn't.

You have to have them here.

Life wouldn't be worth living otherwise.

Can you imagine this terrace with just a seating area?

'This is a roof garden to die for.'

Lynn's transformed it from a bare roof to something that's not only

satisfying her passion for plants

but also benefits the environment and wildlife,

and in doing this, she's learnt some tips along the way.

It's quite a different skill set, quite different circumstances -

growing on a roof than growing anywhere else.

It is, indeed, but drainage, drainage, drainage

is one of the most important, you know, sort of dogma.

The second thing is, I find that one must never let

the containers dry out, because if you do

then you're really struggling to re-saturate again.

Insufficient drainage could lead to root rot or drowned plants...

so it's important to strike the right balance when watering,

which is something that Lynn has a clever solution for.

I do have an irrigation system for most of the pots.

Very, very important.

You can set the timer if it gets really, really hot

or you can turn it off if it's raining.

The sheer variety of plants

that Lynn has growing up here is incredible,

from a bounty of fruit and veg to magnificent flowers.

There doesn't seem to be much she can't grow.

Do you miss ground-floor gardening?

No, not really, because one of the benefits of this garden,

a definite change, is you can really control specific soil requirements

for things like these tomatoes.

That's such a bonus, because that means you can choose your soil type.

You're not stuck with clay or acid or alkaline.

-You get a bed of each.

-Exactly.

That's one of the reasons why I find this sort of gardening a bit easier.

-Easier than growing on the ground?

-Easier,

because you can actually really control

what you're going to plant, precisely where,

and off we go.

I have a bumper crop of tomatoes.

If you're considering roof gardening,

it's worth seeking professional advice from an architect

or structural engineer before you plant anything substantial

on your roof or balcony.

There's this general assumption that roof gardens

are a real second-rate citizen compared to regular, proper gardens.

People think about them as this huge project

that you've got to put together that's going to cost loads of money

and never really look right.

Never really look mature.

This garden completely blows that out the water.

It doesn't cost any more than your average decked garden,

it just happens to be floating in the sky.

It looks great and probably is a lot less work.

Why doesn't every rooftop have one of these?

Back on Nomura's rooftop,

there's a wonderful display of ornamental grasses.

Using these beautiful plants is a fantastic way

to start your very own rooftop garden.

Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winning grasses expert Neil Lucas

is going to explain how.

I don't think I've ever seen healthier grasses

growing right up here. Look at the amount of soil they're in.

There's almost nothing to them.

Virtually nothing, which of course is one of the defining things

of a roof garden, isn't it?

There's only soil about that depth

and yet these things are looking fantastic.

People think that on roof gardens you've got to have everything

in tiny pots so it's all stunted and miserable looking.

They're not proper plants, whereas this oat grass

is significantly taller than me,

they look like a mature garden.

Absolutely. It's got that feeling of space, of enclosure.

And grasses, they take an empty flat space

and turn it into something exciting.

What makes them so great for roof gardens?

Um, well, I think it's their adaptability, James, to be honest.

They come from... If you think steppes, prairies,

big open places where there's lots of wind -

often there's very little soil, very little water,

and so grasses have become used over thousands of years

to adapting to difficult situations.

The secret is to choose plants that grow

in the kind of conditions you've got.

That's what the guys have done here.

They've chosen the fountain grasses, the golden oat grasses and

they're absolutely loving these open and frequently windy conditions.

Golden oat grass is great value.

Its architectural foliage can reach up to two metres high

and the soft, feathery flowers are magnificent in June.

There's so much variation here.

I think people think about grasses as lawn, full stop.

Well, actually, our lawns are made up of this kind of grass.

This is a stoloniferous type, i.e., it runs.

And these are the stolons.

The underground stems that kind of pop up where you least expect it.

Yeah, and they will run along

and they will gradually send up another plant.

They're great for gardens,

-and if you look behind you there.

-Which one?

Any one of those. That one.

That's the bronze edge there.

Can you see the difference in the root system?

Totally. This is straight up and down,

and this is spreading out and trying to colonise wherever it can go.

Exactly, whereas this is forming a clump.

So however long the plant stays in the ground,

it only ever makes a clump.

So for roof gardens, it's generally the clump-formers that you want,

and there are hundreds of them to choose from.

And colour as well. They're not all green.

We've got this crazy kind of fibrotic

ginger, freckled stuff here.

We've got this very elegant almost bamboo-like one.

The Japanese blood grass.

It looks like feathers of some kind of subtropical bird...

Beautiful colours, aren't they? Absolutely fabulous.

Grasses work so well with other plants.

If you look at this,

I mean, the flowers that we have here -

the golden oat grass and the pennisetum, fantastic flower.

That is wow factor flower that lasts all the way through the year.

Plant roses, you get a fantastic display in June

and general black-spotted miserableness

-for the rest of the year.

-You've noticed, yes.

This guy, right into December, these flower heads will stay on there.

Even covered in a frost, they still look beautiful.

Pennisetum's beautiful brush-like flowers just go on and on,

as undemanding as they are impressive.

With the population growing,

open spaces are being sacrificed for development

and in many UK cities there just isn't enough green space

for people to enjoy.

I believe that everyone should have the right to have access to

green space and, thankfully, I'm not alone.

Here in Birmingham, a cutting-edge new library has been built

and sitting atop is a brand-new roof garden.

The building is a fusion of modern architectural style

and garden landscaping,

right in the city centre.

One of the library's senior managers, Sara Raoul,

explains how the garden benefits the community.

Where did the idea for creating a garden up in the sky here

first come about?

Well, as we were developing the vision for the new library,

we realised we had a great opportunity here

to create some really beautiful green, open space.

And Birmingham, when you look out, actually doesn't have that

much green space in its centre, so this must be really valuable.

It is, absolutely. Of course, being in the library,

it's the place that all the community can come in

and really enjoy the space.

Come and relax out here with a book maybe and a cup of tea.

Is this just aesthetic?

Is it like a giant window box that just looks pretty or does it

have other functions?

No, not at all.

We started off from the point of view of thinking

we just wanted some really beautiful planting,

and then of course we realised the opportunities that we had

if we started to introduce fruit, vegetables and herbs, for example.

We very much like to see some of the food that we're growing out here

on the terrace find its way into the dishes that we serve in our cafe.

That's a really sort of excellent example

of how the library is a very sustainable building as well.

The roof terrace also helps offset the library's carbon emissions

and attract wildlife, so everyone's a winner,

especially the city-dwelling local volunteers

who help maintain it.

Like Jean, who misses growing veg in her own back garden.

I've had various gardens all through my life,

and now, of course, I've just got a little balcony.

The chance to do a bit more gardening

on a bigger scale really appeals.

And Jim, who left his rural home and gardening hobby behind

for city life.

I never actually felt quite all right without a garden.

I really wanted to...

I regretted the fact that I didn't have a nice terrace,

like some of the other flats in the development, and all of that.

We all have the right to enjoy green, open spaces

whether in the country or the city, and it's easily done.

These volunteers are living proof.

What can I help you out over here with?

Right, curly kale, that's what we're planting here,

-and cabbages there.

-Excellent.

So what do you think about the future of roof gardens?

Oh, I think it's a great resource. It's fantastic.

In many ways, parts of these gardens, on these terraces,

they're just like public parks,

it's just that they're using this space.

But just look round the city - they're everywhere.

We can see acres of empty rooftops just waiting to be developed.

I guess it could totally change how we think of cities, Jim.

I think it might. Yes, and for the better.

There'll now be an added interest in the roof garden,

in the tops and what's going on up on top of the building,

not just what it looks like from the street.

With around 4,000 community groups

involved in urban green spaces across the UK,

Jean and Jim aren't the only volunteers

championing the revival of rooftop gardens.

So what do you think roof gardens like this

offer a city like Birmingham?

Erm, well, it beautifies it.

Without something like this on the skyline,

it's going to look pretty grey.

But if this could inspire other buildings

to do the same thing, then that would be wonderful.

I think it's a matter of giving to the community.

The garden is obviously giving beauty to the library also, so...

I love the fact that you can be a gardening geek

even if you don't have a garden

by doing volunteering like this.

In the grand scheme of pulling off a giant shiny new building like this,

this roof garden really wasn't that hard to do

and wasn't even that expensive to do.

These gardens offer so much value to so many people, and cost so little.

It's incredible why it isn't mandatory.

I mean, look at this garden

and then let's have a look at the alternative.

If green space is lacking in your life,

there may well be a community roof garden for you to enjoy,

or you could even start one of your very own.

When night falls, it doesn't mean that gardens can't be enjoyed.

This roof garden in the heart of the capital

has become a truly sensory experience.

If you're a city slicker,

simply stepping out onto your roof terrace on an evening after work

is enough to make you feel like your blood pressure

has just dropped a couple of points.

It's the ultimate stress relief.

If you're working hard and doing overtime,

I don't see any reason why your plants shouldn't be doing it too.

They don't need to look good in the middle of the day

when you're not around.

They need to look their best shining out in twilight,

and for that, you can't beat anything

with really pale, white or silvery colours.

The brilliant thing about things with paler colours

is they're usually the very things

that are scented, particularly at night.

I've got a really special find here - Cestrum nocturnum,

designed for moths and liked by humans.

Plants like these have evolved to attract nocturnal pollinators,

like moths and bats, with their intoxicating scent.

Incredibly delicate orange-flower fragrance.

It's an antidepressant in a plant.

You're going right at the front of the border.

The brilliant thing is,

you don't actually just have to go for a pale palette of white

on its own.

Just that little hint of colour, like this pale pink tulbaghia,

what they call society garlic,

and this really light blue agapanthus here -

really set off that white to stop it looking flat,

and make it appear like you've strung up fairy lights

all over your garden.

I love texture as well in a garden,

and these flowering heads of pennisetum

and this miscanthus over here

are so textural that you've just got to run your hands through them.

Look incredible as they slowly move in the wind.

Cestrum nocturnum grows very fast

and blooms on and off throughout the warmer months of the year.

A roof garden enjoyed in the evenings would be lost without it.

I'm pleased to report that it's not only me

who recognises the immense contribution that roof gardens

can make to our lives.

There are others out there championing gardens in the sky.

Gillian Edwards from northwest London

is one of those champions.

I think it's really important, if we can,

to have access to some kind of greenery, some kind of nature.

Coming back after work and being able to sit out here

and look after my vegetables and pick my flowers

and just get involved with the earth in some way keeps me sane.

I'm really proud of this.

This is my first ever squash that I've grown.

Gillian's used nearly every inch of her terrace

and hasn't been defeated

by the structural restrictions of the building.

One of the limitations or the challenges

of growing anything on this roof

is that I'm not allowed to have pots right on the asphalt itself,

because that would damage the roof.

So what I've had to do is build shelves all the way around,

so everything is growing six inches off the ground.

Here, we've got the first of the tomatoes.

These ones actually self-seeded from last year

and they just obviously wanted to grow,

so I just thought I'll let them grow.

In containers you can only grow things

which have relatively small roots,

so next year, more of the salad crops, more beans,

masses of lettuce again, because it makes a great gift.

It's a lovely way to be able to share your produce.

Imagine this view if every building out there

was topped with its own roof garden.

Even if you've only got a couple of square metres to play with,

just popping some plants out there,

it's so simple to do and can genuinely change your life.

Now is the time for a roof garden revival.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd