Cut Flowers and Trees 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 lack lustre.

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, Joe Swift is on the campaign trail for trees

but first I celebrate the very best of British cut flowers.

For me, there's nothing better for bringing our homes alive than

freshly cut British flowers.

And a simple vase like this should be a celebration of the seasons.

We used to take enormous pride in our own home-grown cut flowers

but today around 90% of them are actually imported and I find that

really shocking and it's something I believe we need to change.

So, come on, Britain, grab those secateurs, get out in your garden

and join me, Rachel De Thame, in the Great British cut flower revival.

I want to find out exactly what's happened to Britain's cut-flower industry.

Unfortunately most English growers have packed up now.

It's sad but it's true.

I'll be meeting our passionate flower champions...

Amazing.

They really are such a delicate flower.

..who are fighting to save our floral heritage.

People are coming and asking specifically for British grown.

And I'm going to show you how simple it is to start your own cut-flower garden.

It's like an heir and a spare. If one of them

fails then hopefully the other one will germinate.

So together we can put the bloom back into Britain.

It's like holding an English garden in your hands.

This is Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire.

Built in the 1730s it stretches over 3,000 acres

but it's most famous for one award-winning garden in particular.

Well, for me this is the jewel in Kelmarsh Hall's crown.

An incredible, an enormous, walled garden. Breathtaking.

There's no better place to base my campaign to revive the Great British

tradition of growing our own flowers for cutting than here.

A team of expert gardeners are dedicated to showcasing the best

of Britain's floral heritage, but is sadly struggling to stay alive.

And in-house florist Louise Wesley's fulltime job is to maintain

the Kelmarsh tradition of cutting and arranging flowers for the hall.

I thought I'd come and give you a hand.

If I can get to you. I'll just tiptoe through here.

-This... You know this is my idea of heaven?

-I'm very lucky.

This setting.

But why is it that Kelmarsh Hall has such an extraordinary cutting garden?

It's all thanks to an incredible lady called Nancy Lancaster.

She arrived at the hall around 1930s

and although from Virginia

she completely wanted the essence of an English country garden

and just basically loved flamboyant arrangements

within the house because she did lots of entertaining.

So why are home-grown flowers so special?

In terms of using the flowers, the strength of the stems

and the longevity of the flowers, they just last so much longer.

Also when you're buying from the shop, obviously everything is grown to demand.

So it's the same stem lengths. It's the same flower heads.

Whereas if you're growing them in your garden obviously, as you can see, it's the variety

of the shapes and the textures and the colours that you can get.

It's somehow more real, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely.

The UK cut-flower industry relies on the fact

we say it with flowers and it's worth over £2 billion a year.

It's 6.30 in the morning and I'm at New Covent Garden market

in southwest London, and if you want to know

about the business of cut flowers this is the only place to be.

It was the original market which opened its doors in the late 1800s

that ignited a spark and created a booming cut-flower industry.

I have very fond memories of the original Covent Garden market.

I was training to be a dancer,

I used to go there for rehearsals and I remember the barrow boys

just wheeling the barrows across the cobble stones and sort of

bump, bump, bump as they went along and they would be filled with flowers.

And it was the colour,

the aroma, and the atmosphere was just very buzzing in that place

and I think that's stayed with me - it's become part of my

passion for plants, for gardening and of course a love of cut flowers.

The market grew so big that by the 1970s it had to be

moved down the road to Vauxhall.

This is still the UK's biggest market.

£45 million worth of blooms pass through every year

and even though I know we import most of our flowers these days,

I'm hoping, here, we'll still be buying British.

-Hello.

-Hello. How are you?

-Very well thank you. Can I just ask you what

proportion of the flowers that you sell come from Britain originally?

Come from Britain, um, very little now. 10%-20%.

All imported. All imported.

Um, mainly from Holland, Columbia, Ecuador.

Probably about 10% of British.

Unfortunately most of the English growers have packed up now.

It's sad but it's true.

Ooh, now this looks promising. Look, Union Jacks everywhere.

English flowers on the boxes. Excuse me.

Is this you?

That is, yeah.

It says "English flowers". Are they all British grown?

We do supplement it with some imported goods

but in the main English flowers, that's what we do.

All this is seasonal and it's from Kent.

-Lovely poppies, larkspur, cornflowers, lavender. All traditional English flowers.

-Yes.

Rather than something that's come thousands of miles.

I mean those roses have come from Ecuador.

-It's a hell of a long way to send flowers.

-Ha-ha!

But there it is, you know?

So, the people that are supplying your flowers, what are they like? What kind of growers?

It's all sorts of businesses.

Some of them are small concerns, small farms,

traditional growers that have always grown flowers.

But it is diminishing because obviously the young people tend

not to go into the growing, whereas their parents or grandparents

have done it because, believe it or not, it's not that profitable.

It's a lot of hard work for what return they do actually get.

So, where did it all go wrong?

The struggle for British growers began in the 1960s,

when subsidies for growers in Holland brought cheap imports to

the UK. And with the arrival of even more blooms from far-flung locations

like Columbia and Kenya, the bottom fell out of the UK market.

The final nail in the coffin came in the 1990s,

when the supermarkets wanted a piece of the action

and their buying power put pressure on already slashed prices.

But now it's time to put British flowers back on the shelves

and in our homes.

Now, you see THIS is really exciting.

This is what I wanted to find here.

You know you've got these cornflowers, the lavender.

Look at these pinks down here. Absolutely beautiful.

It's like holding an English garden in your hands.

They've been cut in a field an hour or so's drive from here.

I would rather have a bouquet of these than one of those great

big bouquets of roses that have come halfway across the world.

For me, this somehow... it just says more.

The gardens here at Kelmarsh Hall are vital

because they're keeping our classic flowers alive.

Like salvias, a range of daisies and flocks.

In fact you can't get hold of most of these any more

because the supermarkets focus on the same imported flowers

all year round rather than what should be available seasonally.

It would be such a great shame for our traditional blooms

to disappear, so I'm going to show you that we can all grow our own.

Just look how lovely these are, and there's nothing more

rewarding than you knowing that you grew all of these from seed.

Seed growing is such fun. It's incredible.

I don't know why everybody isn't doing it.

The easy flowers to grow are hardy annuals, which means

they go through their entire life cycle in one season,

like sunflowers, cornflowers and poppies.

You need to plant the seeds at the start of spring

and can then spend the summer enjoying their blooms.

Now I like to sow my seed into modules

because, if you put these little inserts in and just a couple of

seeds in each one, you get a really strong, individual little plants.

So I'm going to fill this with a seed and cutting compost.

Now that's a compost that is very low in nutrients because

you don't need to feed these little baby plants because what they need

is a nice soft texture that they can get their little roots out into.

A packet of seed. This is coreopsis.

The common name for it is tick seed and that's

because these tiny little seeds look like little ticks.

Little insects. And so very gently,

just try and grab a couple of those into each module.

So it's like an heir and a spare.

If one of them fails, then hopefully the other one will germinate successfully.

And this is just one of those lovely jobs to while away

one of those blustery days at the end of winter and early spring

and you've got all that promise of all these flowers to come.

Press them down gently and then I'm just going to add a very fine

layer of compost over the top. Always check on the seed packet,

it will tell you whether that particular seed needs

a bit of light, and in that case you don't have to cover it at all.

That's just a very light dusting over there.

Now I'm going to label it because that's the other thing that's crucial.

So I always put on the date and then the name.

This is Coreopsis "Quills and Thrills" mixed. Sounds good.

There. I'm going to give it a good watering.

It's that simple.

If you don't have a greenhouse keep them covered and moist by

a window indoors and soon enough the seeds will germinate and shoots will

appear. Once you've got a strong seedling, you can put them outside

in a sheltered spot or cold frame

and this will help them to acclimatise.

After two or three weeks, they should be ready to plant out

and your flowers will appear at the start of summer.

For just a few pounds you can pick up some seed at the garden centre.

It's an easy and cost-effective way to get beautiful blooms outside and in.

I'm prepared to guarantee that once you start growing your own

cut flowers you're never going to want to stop.

It's completely addictive.

When you look at something like this, the sweet pea,

which traditionally has been such a favourite for gardeners,

not only for the fragrance - which is knockout -

and for the way they look, but also because they make incredibly

good cut flowers and I want to see even more of them.

So I'm off to Kendal in Cumbria

to see how a national sweet pea champion

is on his own mission to inspire us

to grow this cottage garden classic.

I think a gardener might live here.

-Hello.

-Hello. Viv.

-Yes.

-Hello. Nice to meet you. It's Rachel.

-Nice to meet you.

I expected to come here and it be absolutely full of sweet peas

because I hear your husband's quite keen.

Er, keen? Obsessed, more like, yes.

The average day for him will start at five in the morning, so then

it's into the sweet peas until usually about ten o'clock at night.

Sounds like you're a bit of a sweet pea widow.

Oh, definitely.

Gosh. Look at this. Just a sea of sweet peas.

Ah, here he is.

Viv's husband, Kevin, has been growing his award-winning sweet peas

for competitions for the last 15 years.

Where does this come from, this passion for sweet peas?

It's just the desire.

The sweet pea that produces

so many flowers throughout its flowering period.

It's just so fantastic to work with, really.

What I tend to do is grow about 21 different varieties,

about 60 plants of each so I get a good vase of quality flowers.

-That's what I'm after at the end of the day.

-Amazing.

They really are such a delicate flower.

So, for people who want to grow their own cut flowers,

would you suggest starting with sweet peas?

Sweet peas would be a perfect flower.

Very easy to grow and you put them in canes, let the side shoots grow

and get a good mass of flowers, and that's the easiest way.

Just leave them be and you'll get a lot of flower.

If you grow from seed, you only need a few plants to give yourself

flowers all summer long. Because they're climbers, the important thing

with sweet peas is to give them something to attach themselves to -

like a trellis or bamboo canes like Kevin uses -

and make sure they get plenty of sun.

And now the best part, isn't it? We're going to cut some.

The best part, cutting the flowers. Yes.

What we're looking for is something good on the stem

with three or four flowers on,

all fully open and really cut as far down to the plant

-as what we can, so it has a good long stem length.

-OK.

Depending on the year and the weather, you'll get flowers from

sort of early summer right through until the beginning of autumn.

But again, it does depend on you continuing to pick them.

If you stop picking them,

what they do is they start to produce little peas.

There's one here. There we are.

The plant thinks that it's done its job. It's reproduced.

It's got the next generation there and it's stopped flowering.

So the incentive has gone to produce more flowers.

So you prevent that happening, you get blooms for weeks and weeks.

Given how beautiful your sweet peas are, what do you feel about

the cut-flower industry bringing in sweet peas from abroad?

You will never get the scent of what we've got from a freshly cut flower.

From abroad, they'd be stored in a cold store for two or three days

before they get here,

and generally the scent will have actually disappeared.

So generally the fresher the sweet pea plant is, the flower,

you will get a far better and heavier scent.

So when you put it in your room, first thing in the morning

or last thing at night the scent will fill the room so quickly.

By morning or that next night, it will be unbelievable.

With around 1,000 plants,

Kevin has so many sweet peas that he sells some of them

to his neighbours, and today we've cut them for a very special order.

Ooh, a customer.

-Brilliant. They look absolutely...

-That's good timing!

Ah. I hope they'll do.

Yep, they're going to be perfect.

These are for my daughter's wedding, which is on Saturday.

They're so delicate and the scent is just absolutely gorgeous.

Well, they're absolutely stunning, and I hope you have a fantastic day!

Thank you.

This is what cut flowers should be about.

Straight from the Great British countryside into your own home,

and even better if you grow them yourself.

The traditional walled garden at Kelmarsh

has its own fair share of sweet peas,

but there are plenty of other beauties great for cutting here.

Another must-have are carnations,

but forget about those cellophane-wrapped, ever-flowering

and scentless varieties that you find in the supermarket,

and meet instead their fragrant cousins, the pinks.

I want to show you how from one little pink

you can grow masses of them.

People do tend to forget about old English pinks -

these lovely little dianthus -

and I think they're slightly under-used as cut flowers,

but there's also that wonderful fragrance,

and they do make surprisingly good cut flowers,

particularly for those little posies that are very fashionable

at the moment - in little vintage teacups and things like that.

Fortunately, they're very, very easy to propagate,

so you can get more plants.

You start off with one or two and you quickly get more.

And what you're looking for, rather than these flowering stems

where you can see these individual pieces of stems between where

the leaves are, you're looking for pieces that are sort of more tufted.

So there's some good material here around the base,

and we just strip away those lower leaves, and you're aiming

for something which is probably not much taller than your finger.

And then I'm going to make a clean cut just below that

slightly knobbly bit, just below where the leaf joins onto the stem,

and that's where the growth will come from.

And then, very simply, I've got a pot here which is filled with

a really nice gritty compost because dianthus, little pinks,

need good drainage and don't want to sit in a lot of damp soil.

And I've chosen terracotta because their porosity means that

they'll draw any excess moisture out towards the side.

If you put them round the edge, they seem to root better.

They take better.

Strip off those leaves,

cut to a node...

..and pop it in.

It's one of those nice jobs.

And it's also the idea that you've got the mother plant

and you're going to have all these babies.

It brings out the whole maternal side of me, I suppose.

Then I'm just going to put a top dressing of grit on there,

just to make sure we don't have water sitting round

the base of the plant which might cause them to rot off.

Now that needs a good watering in and then I'm going to cover it.

I'm just going to put a stick down in the middle there,

and then I'm going to use a polythene bag -

that will just help to conserve that moisture, keep it in there.

And the stick's just going to stop the polythene from flopping down

on top of those cuttings.

And in fact a great tip is when you're staying in a hotel,

take those little shower caps,

the little plastic ones, because they're already elasticised

they make great little covers for plants.

But this works just as well - an elastic band round the pot.

Keep them moist for about a month

when they should have developed roots.

Just sort of give them a little pull just to see

if there's any resistance there, and if there is they're probably

rooted down, and then you break them apart and take each one individually

and pot it up in its own pot, and before you look round

you'll have another lovely little pink.

Once they're planted out, these little beauties will flower

every year, so you can cut and enjoy them all summer long.

I hope by showing you how easy it is to grow your own,

you'll get out in the garden and help save our British cut flowers.

But if my revival is to have a meaningful impact,

I need to tackle one of the biggest areas of the cut-flower industry.

In the UK, more than £120 million a year is forked out

for the bride's special day,

the vast majority of which are still imported.

My daughter recently asked me to do the flowers for her wedding.

I think we might have overdone it just slightly.

Yeah, I think we've got three weddings' worth here.

A wonderful opportunity to add that magical touch to her big day

and to showcase the flowers

that I'm passionate about bringing back into our homes.

Like peonies and delphiniums.

It was such an incredibly special day and one I'll treasure for ever.

I've come to visit the magnificent 16th century Doddington Hall

in Lincolnshire, where florist Rachel Petheram runs the cutting garden,

dedicated to British floral heritage,

which she uses for her renowned wedding displays.

I definitely have noticed over the past few years,

that people are coming

and asking specifically for British-grown, and I think the trend

for seasonal food and British-grown food is translating into flowers.

She's also added an unusual twist to her bridal displays

by using commonly-grown herbs.

So, what is the reaction of the bride when you tell her

you're going to put herbs into her bouquet?

They always love it and they say,

"I would never have thought about doing that,"

but they absolutely love it.

We've cut stacks of lemon balm, artemisia, lovely mints.

They are very robust and they smell absolutely beautiful.

And the scent for wedding flowers in particular is absolutely crucial.

And obviously if you're growing herbs at home,

I mean, a lot of them, very easy to grow, so fantastic.

It seems to be a really obvious thing that maybe we've been missing.

Yes, exactly, and if anybody has already got a herb garden at home,

then they've already got the basis for a beautiful flower arrangement.

This is such a fantastic idea.

Many herbs can be grown all year round and they're easy to grow,

and if you don't have a wedding coming up,

you can always use them in your cooking.

Rachel runs workshops teaching people how to grow

and arrange their own flowers, and she's asked me to help out

with some hand-tied bouquets for a wedding down the road.

Do you feel that maybe this is an art that's got lost

somewhere along the way?

I think it has, and I think it's very easy for people just to go

and buy cut flowers from the supermarket and then just pop them

in a vase, but I think to be able to grow your own flowers, cut them

from the garden, put them together in a simple hand-tie like this,

it's a very easy thing to do,

but people are very unconfident about doing it.

So, do you think people should just get stuck in there and have a go?

-I really do.

-Yeah.

I think every wedding should embrace our floral heritage in this way.

You don't get fresher or more British than these pretty,

fragrant and colourful displays.

So, do you find this bit rather nerve-racking,

waiting to see how the bride responds?

Yes. This is the worst bit. This is the worst bit.

It's such an important part of someone's day

that they have to be right. I do feel a bit sick.

Ah, it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.

Are you pleased?

I'm really, really pleased. They look amazing.

I'm getting really sort of...

-Ah!

-I know. Just watching your reaction is wonderful.

Is it important to you that these are all home-grown British flowers?

It's really lovely, because it's like on the farm

and so it kind of brings Lincolnshire into the barn

and makes it feel just that sort of special extra touch, I think.

Oh, thank you so much.

You're very welcome.

Well, there we are, you see? Flower power in action -

that reaction to those flowers and the emotion that they brought!

It's something so simple and yet so exquisite and heartfelt -

home-grown, locally British flowers.

It doesn't get any better.

Back at Kelmarsh Hall I've shown you how to grow classic cut flowers,

so now it's time to enjoy them indoors.

Whether you're arranging flowers for a wedding

or just for the kitchen table,

there's a definite skill in cutting them

then preparing them, and, of course, arranging them,

so you get the absolute maximum from every single bloom.

When it comes to cutting,

first thing in the morning is absolutely ideal because the flowers

are going to be really full of water

that they've taken up during the night

and so they'll be really strong and sturdy on the stems.

And then, if you've got a bucket right next to you as you cut

filled with fresh cool water, you pop them straight into that

and that forces the water back up the stem to the flower.

Make sure that your secateurs are really good and sharp

so that you don't snag the plant and damage it.

You could also use sharp scissors or snippers.

And then go right the way down to the bottom here,

just above the leaf joint and snip there,

and then you'll encourage more blooms to develop and flower,

and you'll get plenty of blooms for your buck.

So before we fill up our lovely clean vase with water,

I'm going to add to that water some flower food.

Now you've probably seen these,

you get them when you buy flowers from the shops,

but it's just as easy to make your own.

I've got two litres of water in here

and I'm going to put in two teaspoons of sugar.

That's carbohydrate so that will feed them,

and then we're going to put in a little bit of thin household bleach.

Not the gloopy stuff you use to put in the loo.

Two teaspoons in there.

That helps to kill off any bacteria.

And then I've got some lemon juice here

and we're going to double up and have four teaspoons of that in.

It's just like cooking, really, isn't it?

Now that is going to make sure

that they really can take up that water nicely.

It really is that simple.

And finally, my favourite part, the arranging.

I've cut some colourful dahlias, statuesque snapdragons,

elegant cleome and one of my favourite herbs, dill.

Arranging flowers is just the best.

You know, it's that culmination of everything you've done

up to that point, and there are no rules!

What I'm doing with this type of dill is just creating a framework.

It's almost like using those metal frames that you can buy

for floristry, but here you've got a natural one,

and instead of using a foliage base

this is going to give me that lovely injection of a bright acidic green

as well, which is a great contrast

to these other strong colours I've chosen.

And turn the vase as you go,

particularly if you're going to have it

in the middle of the room because you want to make sure

that it's going to look good from every angle.

The trick with doing flowers is knowing when you've finished.

In here, I've only used four different types of flower,

and in fact I think that's enough.

You can over-egg the pudding. There we go.

I think that's probably about right.

I'm pleased with that. I think that's really effective.

Fortunately, I'm not alone in my mission

to bring back British cut flowers.

Just outside York, Jill Hodgson

and her daughter Peggy are highly successful flower growers

who are championing the glories of our seasonal flowers

from their farm.

A friend asked me to grow some flowers for a wedding

and I grew far too many,

so I decided I would sell some at the end of the drive,

and nobody was more surprised than me when people started buying my flowers

and I realised that there was a market for British garden flowers,

that these were different

from what people were finding at the supermarket,

and it's all grown from there.

Jill and her daughter wanted to share their passion and expertise

and bring like-minded growers together,

so they set up a non-profit co-operative

called Flowers From The Farm

that now has an incredible 150 flower farmers across the UK

who are fighting to get us all to buy local.

There is a fantastic market for these flowers...,

..for home-grown flowers, for the sort of varieties that have

actually been grown in our gardens for hundreds of years,

but sadly, over the last 30-50 years, they have disappeared.

I hope I've shown you what an incredible array of cut flowers

we can grow in British gardens. And my message is really very simple -

the next time you want to brighten your home, well,

celebrate our incredible horticultural heritage

and buy UK-grown cut flowers

or, better still, go one step further and grown your own.

Next, Joe Swift is on the campaign trail for trees.

What's not to love about trees? Take this silver birch, for example.

It's got a lovely, huggable trunk.

A lovely buttery-yellow autumn colour.

And just to think that this tree has grown from a tiny little seed

and it's going to outlive all of us. It's a beauty.

Now only a measly 2% of Britain is covered in ancient woodland,

and in our own back gardens

we've fallen out of love with trees altogether.

We're either scared of them - we think they're going to grow too big

or what the neighbours may say about them,

or we don't plant them in the first place because we think, "Why bother?

"I'm never going to live to see them mature."

I'm Joe Swift and I'm going to show you it's all about choosing

the right tree for the right place.

Join me for the Great British tree revival.

To help rekindle our love of trees,

I'll be showing you a selection of my favourites.

Some of the leaves have gone a lovely pink, as well.

You see them against a clear, blue sky on a day like this

and it really makes you feel alive.

I'll be learning about some new trees too.

The really dark one, that's beautiful.

I imagine that, with some silvery plants underneath

or against a white background, would just look phenomenal.

And helping plant trees fit for an Olympic athlete.

The foliage will turn a lovely sort of orangey, even a gold colour.

Do you think that might be significant?

-Oh, maybe. I see what you did there.

-Yeah.

-Interesting.

I've come to the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens

because in my opinion it has one of the finest collection of trees

for all different sizes of gardens.

What better place to start my revival?

Trees really are wonderful.

Every size and form, choice of leaf shape and colour,

flowers and berries, there's something for everyone.

I guess I first really connected with trees when I was a kid.

I used to love being up in them with my friends, and if I go into a garden

without any trees at all, I just feel as if something is missing.

They add plenty of height and lovely dappled shade underneath.

How can you have a garden without one?

Trees are essential to any good garden design

and are the first thing you should consider before planting anything.

They help set the scene and form the framework on which to

hang the rest of the plants.

But not only that, trees are living tower blocks for wildlife

and essential to a healthy garden.

They're the most important plant you'll ever buy

because they'll be there for many years to come.

Oak before ash, in for a splash.

Ash before oak, in for a soak.

It's just one piece of folklore that highlights

how we've revered trees for centuries.

We've relied on their wood for fuel and construction

and celebrate their aesthetic beauty and splendour

in our Great British landscape.

It was the Victorians who planted them in our streets and parks

to help bring green into the industrial landscape,

and in Brighton they chose to plant the infamous elm,

as I discovered from arboriculturist David Archer.

So, David, why does Brighton in particular

have such a wonderful collection of elms?

Well, it's all down to our Victorian forefathers.

When they finished building all the nice, comfortable villas

and residential streets that surround the centre of the city,

they planted the street rows along with elm.

Primarily because they were resistant to salt,

they tolerated exposure to strong winds and they liked alkaline soils.

They thrived in this warm, seaside, maritime environment.

So successful was the elm, Brighton and Hove now holds

the largest single collection of elms in Europe,

with an astonishing 130,000 specimens.

But this iconic Victorian street tree later fell on hard times,

putting it under threat of extinction in Britain.

I think it was back in the '70s

that I first heard about this Dutch elm disease,

it was always in the press.

It's a fungal disease that is spread by a beetle

and it was absolutely devastating.

In total, it wiped out over 25 million trees just in the UK alone.

Brighton, however, became a unique sanctuary with a glimmer of hope.

Some of their cherished elms are now in excess of 200 years old.

These are absolutely spectacular.

-They are really special trees, aren't they? They really are.

-Wow.

How come these haven't got Dutch elm disease or didn't get it?

Well, it's really an accident of geography.

We had natural barriers in place.

The seafront to the south and the South Downs to the north.

So the elm beetle found it really difficult to come into the city.

Unfortunately, Brighton's natural defences haven't been enough to stop

Dutch elm disease, and every year around 45 trees become infected,

resulting in drastic measures.

So this tree has got to come down, has it?

It has indeed, yeah.

It's got quite a deep infection of the Dutch elm disease.

And how do you know? How can you tell?

Initially, all you see is a brown staining or a dark bloom in

the top of the tree.

It will be universally green and then you'll just see a brown patch

that just sticks out to the eye.

The dark marks down in here are actually the fungus,

-the disease itself.

-That little bit of blue.

All of that darkness.

It should just look like Jersey cream.

It should just look a lovely universal colour.

And you can't just chop it out and hope for the best?

If we get to the disease within the first few days to a week,

sometimes we're really lucky

and we've stopped it getting into the main trunk of the tree.

So it's that quick, then?

A few days to a week and literally it's just got to come down.

The disease will show within two to three days

and then it'll be in the trunk of the tree

and then down into the ground in about two weeks.

Unfortunately, Dutch elm disease isn't the only disease

plaguing our trees in the UK.

Currently ash, horse chestnut and oaks are also under threat.

This tree is apparently about 100 years old.

100 years to grow and about an hour to take down.

It's absolutely tragic, but has to be done.

Owing to this assault on our native species, now more than ever

it's important to keep planting trees, but ornamental rather than

native trees are much more appropriate in our own back gardens.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden

is the perfect place to see trees in the prime of their life.

I'm going to show you three showstoppers

that are guaranteed to breed life and interest into any garden.

There are so many trees on offer

but choosing the right one for the right spot is important.

The key things to consider are its full height at maturity

and how quick- or slow-growing it is.

To help narrow things down, I'm going to look at three key attributes -

autumn colour, berries and bark.

This is Acer davidii and its common name is the snakebark maple,

which it gets from the fissures in its branches.

And on the younger branches its more pronounced,

and on the older stem, the main trunk,

it becomes deeper and more distorted

and it gives it more character too.

It feels so magical, standing beneath it, looking through to

the sky above, and it's got a very wide canopy, this tree,

so its perfect for the large- or medium-sized garden,

but actually you can prune it back to keep it in check.

I often use acers in my garden designs,

but the mature specimens can come with the price tag to match,

so it pays dividends to do a little bit of research

before investing in one.

Consider planting them in a sheltered spot away from harsh winds

and preferably on a slightly acidic soil that doesn't dry out.

If you like to see the mellow fruits of autumn, then look no further

than the sorbus - or mountain ash - family.

Berries range from white to pink and scarlet red,

and they all make great trees for a small-to-medium-sized garden.

Sorbus are best planted where you can see them from a window,

and that's because all manner of wild birds and mammals

will dine out on their bountiful berries.

Like with any tree, plant them a good distance from buildings

to make sure they don't block light or risk damaging structures.

This one is perfectly positioned in an open lawn area.

But if you want a great all-rounder with explosive autumn colour,

then this tree is a great addition to any garden.

Euonymus are commonly called spindle trees,

and they're tough as old boots.

This one is from North and East Asia, and is called sachalinensis.

Only reaches about 3.5m tall, so it's perfect for a small garden.

And at the moment it's got this amazing fruit on it.

These are sort of pinky-red flowers and then orange fruit.

Orange and red are not normally my favourite combination

but they work beautifully on this tree.

Actually, on some of the leaves, they've gone a lovely pink as well.

You see them against a clear, blue sky on a day like this

and it really makes you feel alive. I'm not the only one.

There's a robin over there. It's absolutely loving it.

Providing habitats and food for our wildlife is essential,

and trees are a vital source.

If we don't continue to plant trees in our gardens

then our wildlife will suffer too.

Birch trees support extensive communities of insects

and other invertebrates.

A whopping 334 species are known to feed on them.

I went to see a fabulous collection of birch trees which was

the labour of love for one man.

The late Kenneth Ashburner sadly passed away

just a couple of years ago.

Since 1971, he spent much of his life collecting and planting seed

of this ideal domestic tree in his Devonshire garden.

His legacy now holds a National Collection status,

and with over 170 varieties

it makes it the perfect place to see them in their full maturity.

Wow. Just look at the different tones in those rings.

I'm in for a treat here.

Kenneth's wife, June, recalls how he first got the bug for birch.

So when Kenneth started collecting all these trees, what did you think?

Well, I didn't realise that it could be attractive in our time, actually.

I had no idea how quickly they could grow.

And I thought, there was Kenneth at 40-plus -

we'll never have a decent garden.

Nobody had ever actually made a garden in this manner before.

I honestly didn't know there was such a variety, coming here...

Most people didn't think there was more than one kind of birch,

-did they?

-Yes, well, exactly.

A white thing that grew all over the place.

So how do they make you feel when you come into this garden?

Well, I always remember him and I feel like I nearly see him, really,

because he usually walked in the same sort of way

and was interested in the same things as he looked around it.

So his presence is still very much here, really?

Oh, very much, I think.

Nobody else could have made this garden, could they?

These were Kenneth's favourite trees.

Fantastic specimens, holding the space around them

like a piece of sculpture in a gallery.

And it was his vision 40 years ago to plant all these trees.

But not plant them in regimented lines like a tree library,

but to create a wonderful, beautiful garden out of them.

And these trees will live on a long time,

and sustain an incredible amount of life too.

This precious collection of trees held in the five acre garden

is cared for by a committed group of volunteers, including Sue Fisher.

Sue, you volunteer your time here

and the garden survives on volunteers like yourself.

What is it about this garden?

It's just a magical place.

It's a wonderful opportunity to see it at different times of day,

at different times of year, and see how the light changes

throughout the seasons,

and to think that these have been grown from tiny seedlings,

and the chance to compare all these different varieties.

This is Betula davurica from Japan. Amazing bark.

The way it is just so shaggy. Full of insects too.

I'm bowled over by the variety within this one species,

but it's the delicate, peeling bark that really draws you in.

And take this one, China rose. This is just a beautiful colour.

It's gorgeous.

They are the most tactile trees, aren't they? I have to say.

But you do want to do a bit of tree-hugging with them.

I love that bit of moss, there, as well.

And what are those darker ones up there, then? They're gorgeous.

The really dark one, Mount Logi, that's beautiful.

Imagine that with some silvery plants underneath

or against a white background - a stone wall, for example.

It would just look phenomenal.

I love to stand in one place,

if I ever get the time, and watch how the light shifts and changes.

It's nature's natural light show.

Birch are incredibly important. They are a pioneer species,

so they were the first trees on the block, as it were.

They populate rocks and poor soils, as they can get their roots

deep down into the ground and draw up those nutrients.

They grow up and their leaves then just drop

and create leaf litter, and build up the level of soil, so that other

plants can start populating the same area and other trees come in too.

They have one of those architectural qualities too, but they don't

create lots of deep shade beneath, so they're perfect in urban settings,

suburban settings, and they really are the tree for all seasons too.

Great in spring and summer,

and in autumn they have a beautiful buttery colour.

And then in winter you can see their bark,

which is what they're really all about.

They can hold a garden together all by themselves.

There are some stunning birch specimens

here at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens too.

A top tip is to plant them in a tight group of three,

which creates a bold statement.

If you only have space for one tree in your garden, then here is

how to plant it and give it the best start in life.

Trees of all types can fail to establish at an early age

just due to basic care, really, so it's important to plant them

right, make sure they establish themselves, and then give them

a little bit of TLC, and they'll romp away and turn into fantastic trees.

The telltale signs of an unhappy tree are that their leaves

turn yellow or drop out of season.

If this is the case, check that the soil is not waterlogged

or bone-dry - these are the two biggest killers.

Get to know your soil, and you can easily solve these problems.

Now, organic matter you can add in.

It's something like mushroom compost or well-rotted manure, or just

garden compost. It's something just to beef up the soil.

If you've got a very sandy soil, it will help retain moisture

and slowly feed the plant at the same time.

And if you have a really heavy clay soil,

I would also advise putting in some grit or some sharp sand,

to just loosen it up and just help the drainage a little bit.

Now, as a lot of trees are grown in pots

and the roots tend to go round in circles,

if you actually dig a square hole, the roots eventually hit

a flat bit of wall and grow out through it and they spread nicely.

By gently teasing out a few roots, you'll help the tree

establish itself more quickly.

I'm just sort of loosening it up a little bit,

but I'm keeping as much soil around the root ball as possible.

And then any tree has a best facing side, like we all do.

So just make sure that you rotate it

so that it looks pretty happy in its setting.

I think that will do really nicely there.

And I'm just backfilling...

And, as I go, I'm just making sure to firm

it in, and I'm just going to lightly use my foot there, making sure that

there's no real air gaps between the roots and the soil itself.

So they're not just dangling in the middle of nowhere, where

they're just going to dry out.

The next thing I'm going to do is stake the tree.

Actually, use a stake very low down, and what that means

is that the tree actually has some flexibility

and it can move around and it can build up its internal strength.

Taking care not to drive the stake through the tree's root ball,

angle your stake at 45 degrees and hammer it in.

And then it's important to use a proper tree tie.

Now, this has got a rubber bung, which sits between the stake and the

tree, so it stops the two rubbing together and damaging the tree.

It's really quite important.

Fix a tree tie to the stake by hammering a nail in to stop

it slipping, and check the tree tie every year to make sure it's

not too tight. Now it's a case of just watering it in.

With young trees, it's important that they don't dry out while they're

establishing themselves, so give them a real deep soaking to the roots.

Planting a tree is as British as fish and chips, and we see

the royals planting at least one tree each every year, don't we?

It's a symbol of long life and prosperity,

but planting just one tree isn't enough for some people.

Fabulous views here across Bath - amazing.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Adam Gretton's personal crusade is taking over his life

and the land here in Bath.

His vision is to plant trees all over the city, as he's

concerned about the environment.

Planting trees is one way that he believes you can

offset your carbon footprint.

Helped by a team of equally concerned volunteers,

they've planted a staggering 3,500 trees across the district,

ranging from public spaces to private gardens.

It's great to be able to get a perspective on the city,

and it's amazing how green it is, really.

I live in London, such an urban environment,

but the trees make a difference to your everyday life, I think.

Yeah, they really do, you know. They're so good for your wellbeing

and general health, as well as the environment.

I mean, Bath is quite interesting because we're in this bowl,

in this valley, and there is a historical problem with smog

and pollution, so actually it's really important here.

They're the lungs of the city...

That's it. Improving the air quality. Yeah.

Adam and his team of volunteers are no strangers here at the city farm.

This community land is the perfect space to plant trees

to benefit everyone in the neighbourhood.

So, is it always community projects that you're involved in?

Not always. Sometimes it's on a more individual basis.

So probably the best example,

a mate of mine wanted to offset his carbon footprint.

He'd just bought a new four-wheel drive

and was feeling a bit guilty about it,

so he gave us some money to specifically offset

-the exact amount of the emissions of his new car.

-Right. OK.

So how many trees did he have to plant for his new four-wheel drive?

It was 35 trees. That's for two years' worth of offset.

-Sounds like a deal, really.

-Yeah, exactly. It's simple.

Volunteers at the city farm are helping to keep the 35 young

saplings weed-free during their early years,

until they become established enough to look after themselves.

This carbon-offset scheme doesn't stop there, however.

It's now attracting all manner of local people

who also want to get involved.

-Ah, Rose, I've been expecting you.

-Hi. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Now, why do you want to plant a tree?

I'm training for the next Winter Olympics, which is in February.

Lots of travelling. Lots of air miles.

We travel round in a van around Europe as well, so I'm just a bit

more aware of my carbon footprint, so I'm just trying to reduce it.

OK. What sport do you do?

So I do skeleton and that's all based here in Bath.

Skeleton? Hang on, hang on, what's skeleton?

It's a winter sport, sliding head-first on your front

at about 90mph...racing.

-90mph head-first?

-Yep.

-Are you mad?

-Yes.

BOTH LAUGH

So have you done any calculations on your carbon footprint?

I have, yeah. I've been online and had a look and tried to plug in

some estimates of how much we travel,

and it worked out that roughly

one tree over a course of its lifetime would cover a whole season.

Rose has chosen a mature cherry to plant here at the farm.

So what we've got to do is get that tree out of its plastic wrapper.

-Don't put your back out!

-I don't...

-You've got some serious training coming up.

-Wahey.

Right. I think you should put it in the hole, considering it's your tree.

-Yep.

-It's a significant moment. There you go. Beautiful.

It's going to be a beautiful spring-flowering cherry.

And now backfilling.

Well, there you go, a beautifully planted tree.

It just needs a bit of watering and staking,

and hopefully it will be there a long time.

Yeah, hopefully it will be. It will be good.

The foliage will turn a lovely sort of orangey, even a gold colour.

Do you think that might be significant?

Oh, maybe. I see what you did there, yeah.

-Interesting.

-Yeah. Exactly. Let's hope so, anyway, eh?

-Yep.

Well, what a great scheme. It shows anybody can get involved.

By planting trees, you can reduce your global footprint and,

in turn, reduce global warming. And also, it's important for habitats,

especially in towns and cities.

But it's proved to me that you don't even need a garden to plant a tree.

It's important to keep trees in tiptop condition.

Here at Cambridge, I want to show you how to go about it with

a spot of light pruning.

Now, it's nothing to be afraid of,

just a few simple steps to follow.

Deciduous trees are best pruned in autumn or winter when they're

dormant, but evergreen trees left till late winter or early spring.

It's important to have the right tools for the job,

and these are the essential tools.

A pair of secateurs, a pair of loppers and a pruning saw,

and they must all be really sharp and really clean as well.

And the reason we actually prune a tree is for two main reasons.

One is the aesthetics of the tree - to get a nice balanced canopy,

to make it look good and really proud,

and also for the health of the tree as well.

So the first thing we're looking for are the three Ds -

dead, diseased and damaged.

So something like that, you can see, it's got absolutely no leaves on it.

It's completely dead and that must come off

because otherwise it can die back into the trunk and damage the tree.

And when you're cutting, cut nice and flush

and that's why you need a really sharp pair of secateurs,

so they're cutting and they're not ripping the wood.

Now, as you do your pruning, you might come across something

like this, which is a crossing branch.

One is touching the other and is rubbing against it,

and is taking a layer of bark off it,

so it's opening it up -

creating a wound, as it were, and opening it up for infection,

fungal or bacterial infection, that can get in there

and really damage the tree. So you have to take one of those out.

I'm just going to get around this side of the tree -

gives me better access. There you go.

Once you've got all the obvious wood out of the way, that needs to go,

then you can stand back, make sure you're creating a nice, open shape.

One of the key things is to try to make sure you get enough

air into the canopy as possible

because that means air circulation keeps the tree nice and healthy.

At some point, you might want to get up on the stepladder just to

reach something you couldn't get from the ground.

But any higher than this, call in an expert.

And there you go.

Once you've taken out the dead, diseased and damaged wood

and the crossing branches, often that's all you have to do.

And then stand back.

Keep looking back and see if you've got a nice, balanced

shape of a tree, just like that, and there's no more work to do on it.

It looks absolutely perfect.

Just an hour or two of maintenance a year is all it takes to keep

a tree in prime condition.

But for one couple in the Midlands, they go one step further.

Their unorthodox and meticulous pruning methods

results in trees staying small,

meaning they can grow loads of varieties,

and proving you don't need masses of space to grow a tree.

-You see, this one is lovely, isn't it?

-Yeah. It's already changed.

All plants want to get larger.

In a confined space, you need a tree that you can keep to size,

so we find the secret is to prune a little bit and often.

In 1990, Tony and Marie Newton restructured

and re-landscaped their town garden.

The appearance is that of a traditional shrubbery,

but underneath the varied palette of tightly pruned foliage hides

a multitude of tree trunks.

Their garden has now fully matured and the trees provide them

all-year-round interest and structure.

This particular area is a mixture of evergreens

and deciduous plants.

The trees here in this case are acers and, in the

winter, I tend to pollard them quite heavily.

And then, as they grow in the spring,

I pinch out the growing tips and I've kept it quite compact.

We planted that about 20 years ago

and it would now be 30ft tall if we hadn't pruned it.

Hey, look at that... It's 20 years old. That's amazing.

That should be 30ft tall now.

I think it's a lovely one to have in the garden, really.

It's so amenable to pruning.

We're passionate about trees because they add

so much interest to the garden.

Many of them become focal points at different times of the year.

We've got colour throughout the seasons.

We've got the bark, the berries.

Everybody with a garden could plant a tree,

but of course it has to be the right tree for the right space.

Trees are essential for a healthy planet,

and with very little attention they reward us with so much.

Interesting bark, lovely berries, and then - just look at that -

awesome autumn foliage as well.

So join me in the Great British tree revival and plant a tree,

not just for our generations, but for many generations to come.