Rock Gardens and Herb 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, Toby Buckland launches his herb garden revival,

'but first, I celebrate the rock garden.'

The British have always been great explorers.

And some of the mountains and high places

that they've come across in the course of their expeditions

have inspired a uniquely British style of gardening.

The rock garden.

All of us who grow alpines owe a huge debt of gratitude

to all those intrepid plant explorers who've combed the world

and climbed mountain ranges to bring back these wonderful plants.

From piercing blue gentians to exotic Turk's cap lilies

and dainty colchicums.

These mountain-dwelling plants are as tough as old boots.

They're an absolute pleasure to grow

and I want to see more gardens full of them.

I'm Carol Klein, and I want to share with you the splendour

of rock gardens and the exquisite plants that live amongst the rocks.

Welcome to my Great British Rock Garden Revival.

'To re-ignite a passion for this style of gardening,

'I'll be visiting some of the country's finest rock gardens,

'and meeting their creators.'

It's all a huge learning curve and just so much fun, isn't it?

And to bring the mountains down into your own back garden.

What could be better?

Yeah, I often I feel I'm the luckiest person in the world.

'I'll be showing you how to get to grips with creating

'your very own miniature rock garden.'

Sometimes you feel as though you're being a bit brutal with things,

but don't forget, these are toughies.

They're used to that sort of treatment.

'And I'll be on a trip down memory lane with one community

'and their precious rock garden.'

-It was just a sad, locked-up, old weedy garden.

-It's not any more!

-No!

-And it's all down to you lot.

Well, with a little bit of help from our friends. Yes!

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

is the very pinnacle of rock gardening.

People come here from all over the world to find out how it's done.

It's a real centre of excellence.

'Rock gardens, Alpine rockeries, whatever you call them.

'For me, the plants that they display are fascinating

'and intrinsically beautiful.

'And they're all here, so...'

..Where better to host my Great British Rock Garden Revival!

I think I must've inherited this love of mountainous places

from my mum.

She liked nothing better than to be standing on the top

of some high peak, breathing in all that oxygen.

There's something about rocks, mountains. Something primordial.

There's nothing between you and the Earth.

It's basic, it's fundamental. It's wonderful.

Rock gardens were first built on large estates by wealthy aristocrats

who would have funded and built these gardens around the late 19th century.

But it was the very success of these gardens that led eventually

to their decline.

The Yorkshire Dales, a stunningly dramatic landscape,

carved by glaciers

and now criss-crossed by dry-stone walls.

It was also a wonderful place to source local limestone.

And build incredible rock gardens like this.

This is Aysgarth. It's an Edwardian rock garden.

Oh, boy!

Aysgarth Rock Garden was built in 1906

by Alpine specialist James Backhouse.

And it demonstrates the sheer commitment needed to build

these spectacular gardens.

And if you just close your eyes and listen to the water,

and then open them and see all this, with the trees in the background,

you're up a mountain!

But creating such illusions wasn't the focus for everyone.

Reginald Farrer, THE leading light in rock gardening

in the early part of the 20th century,

centred his attention onto the plants rather than the rocks.

What I love about Farrer is the way he writes.

I would love to have met him, but this is the next best thing.

"Yet more superb is Gentiana farreri, which sends out many flopping..."

"..Very narrow foliage and ending each in a single,

"huge upturned trumpet..."

"It thrives also with singular vigour in a cool, rich..."

"..Whose glare of splendour is almost painful to the eye

"in August and September."

Don't you just want one?

I'm meeting Nicola Schulman, Reginald Farrer's biographer,

to find out more about this fascinating man

who brought rock gardening into the hearts and minds

of the British people.

I find Farrer incredibly inspiring,

but what specifically do you think Farrer brought to rock gardening?

His interests were individually beautiful,

rare Alpine novelties.

He felt he was rather like them.

He was very difficult and touchy, and they were difficult and touchy

and had to be given a huge amount of care all the time.

No, it's true. And he writes about them as though he and they

have a kind of soul camaraderie.

But it was the close observation of a cave that triggered

a greater understanding of rock gardens

and the plants that grew in them.

Reginald used to go down into the caves,

and he could see this inside, what actually goes on underneath,

he could see what was happening with the drainage.

And along with his knowledge of the plants,

Farrer was critical of the way some rock gardens were being built.

He had this sort of idea that people were placing rocks

without paying any attention to what a rock was actually doing in nature.

He did ultimately, probably, contribute to the demise

of the rock garden.

What Farrer disliked was the fact that form should go before content.

He was scandalised by the fact that these ostentatious monuments,

which is what a lot of rock gardens had become,

should be more important than the plants that were growing there.

He was the plants' champion and the gradual dissemination of his ideas

and their sort of osmosis into popular society

meant everybody could have a go at rock gardening

and everybody could love those beautiful plants.

Over the decades, this popularity of rock gardens grew exponentially.

Scaled-down versions became fashionable in every suburban garden.

But familiarity breeds contempt.

And it was their prevalence that led to their demise.

Farrer even influenced the way that they laid out the rock garden

here at Edinburgh Botanics.

When you take a look at the rock garden here, you can begin to see

that there are a few essential rules to follow before building your own.

First of all, if you've got limited space, find your sunniest spot.

These are plants which are used to living out in exposed places,

battered by the wind in full sun.

Secondly, choose your rock carefully.

Try and get it from a local building supplies or from a local quarry

if you're lucky enough to have such a thing close by.

Create it so that your rocks all run the same sort of way.

Nothing sticks up awkwardly.

And within it, try and create all sorts of different niches.

The plants that grow up on the mountains,

some of them grow between the rocks, some of them grow up on plateaus.

For instance, this geranium over here

and this lovely campanula just tumble down together

right the way through the rock.

But this zaluzianskya is sitting on its own little platform.

It's a beautiful South African Alpine. Scented at night.

A delightful thing.

Occasionally, you'll get something like this.

A little rhodiola. This is a little rose root.

It's got succulent leaves

and it'll find its way wending all the way down the hillside,

and upwards, too.

Here it is on top of this plateau,

just mixing and mingling with saxifrages

and all manner of other plants.

So, as many different planting habitats as you can possible create

will give you the maximum interest.

What great fun experimenting and seeing what you can grow

and how well you can create your own little mountain scene.

Rock gardens celebrated a resurgence in the 1970s,

coinciding with a craze for ponds and water features.

The rock garden became the solution to the excavated waste

when a pond was being dug out.

Nurseryman and world-class gardener, my mate John Massey did just that.

He's keen to share with me his passion for rock gardens.

-When you dug the pool, did you just move all the soil to the side?

-Yeah.

All the soil formed the base of the rockery.

-So it didn't have far to go?

-No, it didn't have far to go!

Everybody thinks of rock gardens as being very static things,

they stay in one place, but yours moves, doesn't it?

Yeah, it keeps evolving, cos we're always trying to create

the right situation to grow a certain plant in.

That to me is what gardening's about.

John has a mind-boggling plethora of plants in his rock garden,

ranging from delightful cushion alpines, unusual herbaceous plants,

to striking shrubs.

These are all plants that typically grow in mountainous regions.

There's always something of interest,

and there's always something to look forward to.

As well as dainty alpines, John's not afraid to use

one group of plants that have had a bad reputation in the past.

So it wouldn't be wrong to say you're quite keen on conifers, would it?

I love them!

And do you think every rock garden should have a conifer?

Yeah, I do. I love the pines

and a lot of the dwarf pines will change colour.

In the winter they'll go bright yellow.

But as long as you keep cleaning them out, pruning, and you can lift

the canopy and grow other alpines underneath,

like the Hepaticas over there, or the cyclamen.

I often think that gardening's a bit like life.

There's no short cuts.

The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

It's all a huge learning curve and just so much fun, isn't it?

-So much fun!

-Yeah.

And to bring the mountains down into your own back garden.

What could be better?

Yeah, I often feel I'm the luckiest person in the world.

No, that's me. THEY LAUGH

Though people talk about rock gardens being at their height in spring.

Your garden really disputes that, doesn't it?

I think with a little careful choice of plants you can have interest

all through the year.

One of John's must-haves for the rock garden is cyclamen.

Little cyclamen here.

That's intaminatum, one of the smallest cyclamen.

It's sown itself there.

The other great autumn-flowering one is hederifolium,

which should be in every gardener's top ten plants.

-Easy and straightforward.

-Yeah, no hassle.

Flowers first, beautiful foliage afterwards.

And I often find people go for the darker colours,

but to my mind, in the winter there is so much bare soil around,

it's the paler colours that really stand out.

That lovely foliage is cyclamen coum,

see the little river that kind of echoes the water.

It's superb to get this fabulous foliage,

often with the Christmas tree design on,

in sort of, end of September, October

and then start flowering in December through to March.

Right into the New Year.

What are your top tips for actually making sure

that your alpines go on flowering and you get the most out of them?

One of the most important things is deadheading.

I find it so therapeutic, and like with the erodiums and the geraniums,

if you don't then they stop flowering,

because there is so much seed production.

What about weeds? I can't see any!

I'm sure I can find some, but the main thing is, if you don't have

weeds, you don't have weed seeds. So it's just regular maintenance.

-Stitch in time sort of thing?

-That's it.

As if it wasn't enough for John to show us

how to make the perfect rock garden, he always goes one step further.

How about this for an idea? This is a sort of rock garden of succulents.

All these plants are tender, but they are carried out in the spring,

left to do their thing during summer and right into the autumn,

and then dug up and carried off to their winter home.

It's so cutting edge and up to the minute,

and it's the sort of thing that anyone could do.

Here at Edinburgh Botanic Garden, I'm going to

show you how to create your own rock garden, however small your garden is.

If you haven't got room for a great big rock garden,

this is a really good alternative

and it brings that whole sense of the mountains into your garden.

The prerequisite of growing any alpine successfully is good drainage.

This is what I'm going to use.

Crocks, they're just broken plant pots,

but instead of putting them in that way round,

it's really important to put them with the curve upwards,

because that means the water will drain away

and the holes don't get clogged with soil.

'Once you've capped the drainage holes,

'add chunky gravel to about half the level of your container.

'This will guarantee sharp drainage

'and stop any roots from sitting in water.

'Then put some mesh over the top to stop the compost

'washing through and clogging the drainage holes.'

It's half loam-based compost and half this lovely stuff -

fine, little chips. The loam will really retain moisture

and keep the plants going for ages and ages.

'Carefully fill your container to the top.'

Just firm everything in.

This is where the rock gardening part starts.

You can buy stone from the local builder's merchants for a few pounds

and select rocks that offer an angular shape.

Have a look at them and see where you're going to be able to create

the crevices and little places where plants can grow and settle in.

I'm going to put those two like that.

I'm already creating this sort of crevice in here.

Ooh, it's such good fun, this.

Now for the very best bit, the plants themselves.

Here's a really showy one, this is a little Lewisia.

They come from America and grow on the side, they grow like that.

But they also like to be north-facing.

I might even have to move me rocks just a tiny bit to push it in.

It's fine them feeling tucked in,

as though they've squeezed themselves into the rocks.

Sometimes you feel you're being brutal with things, but don't forget,

they're toughies, and they're used to that sort of treatment.

When you pick some plants up, you can tell exactly

what they're going to do. This is a parmelia, and you can tell

it's anxious to hang out over the edge.

I'm going to take a few of the roots off.

A lot of people are going to accuse me of extreme brutality,

ripping the roots off this plant,

but in actual fact it doesn't put the plant backwards at all,

it just encourages it to make lots more of these fine feeding roots.

That will help the plant to grow and settle into its new home.

'So that's my north-facing and rambling cliff-hangers sorted out.

'Now I need something for the crevice I've created.'

Fairy foxgloves.

It will seed all over and you can take out what you don't want,

but you see this growing in walls with practically no soil at all.

So I think it would be fairly perfect to grow in here.

Right in between the rocks. Push it in. Give it a shove.

If you want to make it look even more established,

maybe try...a couple of them.

Put this one with the flower in. Loads of tiny little pink flowers.

'Once you're happy with your planting,

'add a top dressing of coarse grit or fine gravel.'

The whole point of the grit is,

apart from making everything look beautiful,

is that it helps retain moisture.

It helps suppress weed seedlings too, but most importantly, it provides all

the alpines with really sharp drainage,

especially around their crowns, which is where it's most important.

What a lovely thing to do, to create this little bit

of the mountainside in your own back garden.

It's so easy and simple. And such, such special plants.

An alpine trough is just one way you can bring

a flavour of the mountains into your garden.

But I went along to Bolton to see how one community have brought

back their beloved rockery from the brink of ruin.

Moss Bank Park Rock Garden,

once hailed as the jewel in the crown of Bolton,

is being restored by community volunteers

headed by founder David Butcher.

-It was famous, this rock garden, wasn't it?

-Oh, yeah, very much so.

-Not just in Bolton, but...

-No.

-..it was held up as an example.

-Absolutely.

I used to come with my mum on the bus.

-Bring sandwiches and make a full day of it.

-Did you?

-Yes.

It was THE place.

We used to come with my sisters, and my grandpa used to come

and sit on the bench puffing his pipe.

I used to come and play when I were a kid.

It was more of an adventure.

Yeah, of course, cos it's like going into a different world, isn't it?

I played in here myself, I even used to bring my girlfriend

here when I was a bit younger.

LAUGHING: You can't tell us about that, you know.

It's confidential, that.

In the early nineties, Moss Bank Park Rock Garden lost its funding

and fell into disrepair.

It closed its gates. It became a target for vandals.

-How did you feel?

-Oh, it was heartbreaking, it really was.

It was a jungle here.

You just couldn't get along the paths at all.

My husband was so disgusted he went down to the authorities

and he said, "If you're not doing anything with it, can I buy it?"

So did that prompt them?

I think that it gave just a little bit of a nudge.

Back in 2010, funding was given to start reviving this classic rockery.

It was to be put firmly back on the map, for every generation to enjoy.

-And it's all down to you lot?

-With a little help from our friends, yes.

You are doing all this in the hope it's going to become

what it was to you when you were kids?

Yes. My daughter over there, she came in one day and said,

"The rock garden's closed, Dad."

You feel guilty that they've not got the same opportunity that you had.

-Do your family come visit?

-Oh, yes, the granddaughters.

-"The secret places", they call it.

-The secret places?

"They can't find us, Gran, they can't find us!"

We didn't realise there was rock underneath here.

So are you discovering new rocks and new ways?

LAUGHTER Marvellous, isn't it?

The rocks are the special thing. The limestone rock is beautiful.

And it gives it a completely different character

from the rest of the town.

The people of Bolton appreciate what we're doing

and they're in favour of it.

It really is, as I said, a magical place.

BIRDSONG

It's so wonderful to see what these people have done

with their enthusiasm to return this rock garden to its former glory.

It's an inspiration to all the people all over the country who have

got those fun recollections of what the rock gardens

in their local parks used to be.

Not just a wonderful place, but a fantastic part of the community.

At Edinburgh Botanics, their purpose-built Alpine House is

a showcase for all manner of rare and delicate alpines.

One of the most rewarding groups to grow are bulbs,

especially successful when you grow them in pots.

Some of the most spectacular of alpine plants are bulbs.

They occur all over the world in mountainous regions

and we are very familiar with a lot of them.

Some of the species bulbs

- that just means the bulbs as nature intended them, the way

they occur in nature - really add to this lovely feeling of the mountains.

Species bulbs can be more difficult to track down.

If you can't find them at your local garden centre,

try specialist growers online.

Always buy them in season when the bulbs are fresh.

Look at the difference between an alpine tulip and the

sort of thing we are used to growing in big pots for very vibrant display.

Just as there is this difference, this disparity between the size

of the bulbs, so there is in the flowers that are produced from them.

The flowers from alpine bulbs are always dainty, delicate,

so very, very special.

There's no hand of man plays any part in them.

The great thing about growing anything in a pot is that it's

a moveable feast and you can take it to where you can see it.

Believe you me, when you see some of the exquisite flowers

from these alpine bulbs, you really do want to be as close as possible.

'I'm planting a tulip called pulchella violecea.

'When the petals of its purple flowers open,

'they have a black star deep at their base.'

They do what all tulips do and remain closed while the sun's not shining.

As soon as it does - roomph, you can see right into the centre of them.

These beautiful, big, starry flowers.

'Add a few crocks to the bottom of a terracotta pot

'and fill it three-quarters full using a 50/50 loam and grit compost.

'Then start adding your bulbs - pointy end upwards!'

I'm going to put those in in one layer, but lots of them.

You can't put too many in, frankly.

And this pot will be bursting with colour.

'Cover the bulbs with compost and

'dress the pot with sharp grit to aid drainage and finish the look.'

Then just water it well once, and put it outside.

Rock gardens are important in other cultures too.

In Japan, they play a significant role, and have done so for centuries.

Helen Goodchild from Somerset has veered away

from the traditional rock garden we are used to.

For her, rocks predominate.

In my garden, rocks are an absolutely essential element.

I realised the full possibilities that rocks could play in a garden

the first time I went to Japan. Their gardens can be tiny,

but they aim to recreate a miniature landscape.

In my garden, I've got rocks that represent the side of a valley.

There are purple rocks, which represent water.

And either side there are the azaleas,

which represent large areas of trees.

For me, it's a very peaceful haven that I can come out to.

It's been the thing I've heard most from visitors to my garden,

they find it a complete contrast to the world outside.

Now I'm delighted, because my grandchildren,

who are three and four, adore my garden.

Oh, jump in the water! Spuh-lash!

They are able to creep underneath parts which

I'm too big for and they see it at their level.

I'm hoping they find it as magical as I would like it to be for them.

That looks very comfortable, Angelie, is it?

I think people would benefit greatly if they tried

maybe a few rocks in their gardens

and see the added beauty that they would give to the plants.

And if they wished to try to make a rockery it could be just a tiny

space and it could be a little world within the rest of their garden.

By now, I hope you agree that the rockery deserves a place

back in our great British gardens.

I've shown you some of my personal favourite places and plants.

Rock gardens and alpine plants are disappearing fast.

We just can't let this happen.

So, why not make room for a rock garden on your patch?

And join me in my Great British Rock Garden Revival.

Next, Toby Buckland is on another garden revival campaign.

For me, there is nothing more satisfying than a garden

filled with plants that you can really use.

And aromatics like this

Greek basil and rosemary have been used throughout history in medicine,

to stimulate the senses and, of course, in food.

But there's a very real danger that our knowledge

and understanding of these plants is being lost.

And I think it's high time we reversed the tide.

I'm Toby Buckland and I truly believe the moment has arrived for us

to start the great British Herb Garden Revival.

To get my revival under way,

I want to find out just how indispensible herbs used to be.

Many people will think - "Oh, you are growing weeds!"

Nothing was a weed in Tudor times.

A herb was a useful plant.

I'll meet a woman whose garden is absolutely chocka with amazing herbs.

Most of us have never even tasted them.

This is a real rock'n'roll one. Cinnamon basil.

It's got a peachy sweetness.

The tiny flower adds such zing.

And I'll be showing you how to grow

and make the most of your own fresh herbs,

whether you have a garden or not.

Of course, the beauty of a herb garden is as soon as they're planted

you can start picking them.

As a professional gardener I've spent a lot of time in walled gardens

like this and I have to say, I love them.

This is the Chelsea Physic Garden.

Just around the corner from the site of the Chelsea Flower Show,

this was London's first botanic garden, established in 1673

to train apprentices in medicinal plants, or herbs to you and me.

I can't think of a more fitting place to start my revival.

My earliest gardening memory is of herbs, parsley.

My mum and had a patch outside the house

and when I was five I ripped it all up and gave it to the neighbours.

My parents went nuts.

But looking back,

I guess it was my first lesson about these wonderful plants.

It taught me that herbs are valuable. Herbs are plants of the people.

Their seeds, leaves, roots and flowers can provide us

with pretty much all of life's essentials.

So much so that these amazing plants were once

ESSENTIAL to our daily lives.

Although there are many that you would still recognise today,

hundreds have fallen by the wayside and largely been forgotten.

Of course, these days, if you have an ailment you go to the chemist and buy

a cure, but time was you went to your garden and looked to your plants.

Now, this might look like a collection of garnishes

but it's so much more, because it's an ancient medicine cabinet.

For example, parsley was a cure for bad breath.

You nibble on a bit...

HE EXHALES

..fresher than a daisy.

Mint, on the other hand, is a cure for flatulence. Not that I need it.

Mm, and I certainly don't now.

And rosemary, if ever you've had a hangover,

this is the plant for you.

It might not help you find your dignity, but a little sprig

popped into a cup of hot water might just help you find your feet.

All this knowledge and more was second-nature to our ancestors

and to find out just how important herbs were in their lives

I've come to the beautifully-restored Tudor gardens of Cressing Temple in Essex to meet

Rebecca Ashbey, a gardener with a passion for the past.

Herbs have been growing on these shores for thousands of years, haven't they?

They have. We were an island

and after the Ice Age there were 200/250 native herbs left.

But then they were added to by all the invaders,

Romans and Normans in particular.

-And they left their plants?

-They left their plants. And how fantastic tha was.

So, rich pickings?

-Absolutely.

-Every one of the herbs they left they had a use for?

Definitely.

They used herbs for colouring food, for colouring inks and manuscript.

Sage was used to darken the hair. The list is endless.

The way to think of it is all the shops on the high street.

Of course, there were no shops on the high street where you could get this sort of thing

so you had to grow it.

Of course, herbs were also used in cooking, but the Tudors were either

less picky or perhaps better informed than we are now.

Many people would think - "Oh, you are growing weeds!"

Well, we do grow weeds, as they would be regarded today,

but nothing was a weed in Tudor times.

A herb was a useful plant.

Plantain, nettles, dandelions, all of these were

valued as highly nutritious and flavourful additions to the Tudors' main diet of pottage,

a cauldron of starchy, stodgy stew.

In would have gone all the herbs that they grew.

Leafy vegetables, root vegetables stems, to flowers even, to pretty-up the pottage.

That would have been boiled all-day long, which then needed flavour,

so strong-flavoured herbs would have been added to...

-Bring it back to life!

-Give it a bit of zest.

-The herbs coming to the rescue like the cavalry?

-Absolutely.

At the end of an appalling culinary mistake.

Herbs were grown by everyone. Rich and poor.

Many like dandelions and nettles could be picked in the wild

and if a herb wasn't good for the pot, it might be elsewhere.

These are the strewing herbs.

Strewing means to scatter and that was a traditional thing done

throughout the Tudor period and beyond to scent the room.

-I can imagine the lavender would make a room smell very sweet.

-It would

-and as it was trodden upon as you entered the room...

-Yeah...

Along with all the others cos it wouldn't have just been lavender

it would have been santolina and teucrium and sage

and a multitude of others

you can just imagine how that would have freshened-up what would have been, possibly, a rather

stinky place to begin with.

If you were wealthy you might have had a strewing lady.

-Oh, a strewing lady!

-Yes, absolutely, like me, for instance.

-Yeah.

Someone who would go and cut the herbs on a daily basis

and lay them in the house.

But was there any other reason for strewing.

It wasn't simply about the scent?

The essential oils in all of the plants are disinfectants, so they would

so they would have been to fumigate the house.

And if you were living with lice and fleas and bugs and so on

that would have been the way to get rid of them.

What you have really brought to life, Rebecca, is how

herbs were once the part of EVERY day.

People's understanding was it was fundamental.

It was absolutely fundamental to every aspect of their lives.

If they didn't grow plants and if they didn't learn how to

use them, then there were many things they couldn't do.

Since the heady days of the Tudor herb gardens our connection

with herbs and their many uses has gradually been eroded.

To find out why, I've come to Blists Hill in Shropshire

a perfect replica of a Victorian town.

Curator Katy Brown is taking me to the

latest addition to the Victorian high street.

-Oh, wow, this is a shop of treasures.

-It is. Welcome to the pharmacy.

-So, this is set...

-In

-1900. In 1900.

Right at the end of Victoria's reign.

And there isn't a herb in sight?

No, it's all been put into these bottles

and you now have extracts, so the herbs

-as we know them are not in a big bunch, tied up anywhere, are they?

-No.

Medicines at this time were still largely herb based, but as the

Industrial Revolution grew and people moved from the country to the cities,

their gardens and home-grown medicinal herbs were left behind.

By the end of Victoria's reign the pharmacists had monopolised

-the dispensing of medicines.

-I see.

So people in the early 20th century had given up on growing herbs for medicine themselves?

They are not growing them, no, they are being mass produced somewhere

-and shipped in from huge drug warehouses.

-So, I suppose

this is the start of our disconnect from herbs that were common knowledge

of what they did?

It is really. If you haven't got the space

and the knowledge isn't being passed down, people aren't growing

and making the medicines themselves they have to go to a third party

to then get that knowledge and it's been removed from the public.

Industrialisation and the medical progress it's brought has been wonderful,

but it's such a shame that we have lost touch with herbs.

Plants that were core to our lives and so important to us.

That's something I want to change.

The Chelsea Physic Garden has been growing its collection of apothecary

plants and herbs for over 300 years,

but many of those with medicinal properties are also delicious in the kitchen.

As part of my revival I want to show you how to combine some culinary classics

with some lesser-known aromatics to create a home-grown

self-contained herb garden to be proud of.

Herbs, they're the most accommodating of plants.

Happy in the soil in the garden, or in containers,

even unusual ones like my customised wheelbarrow.

In fact, they'll grow in any type of pot,

and the only thing you need to know is that you've got to have

a drainage hole in the bottom to allow excess moisture to escape.

And also, if you're planting them in the soil, dig in a bit of this stuff,

it's horticultural grit, it just speeds up drainage.

So the roots don't sit wet in winter.

You do that and give them some sun and your herbs will love you for it.

And when it comes to planting herbs, there's basically two types.

There are those like sage and rosemary that are perennial

and that means

they will come back year after year or stay as evergreens in your borders

and it's these you want to

plant first, because they'll give your garden its shape or its character.

Now, one of my favourites is this sage.

Purple sage, it's been used since Elizabethan times.

Lovely in salads when it's young and fresh.

Then I've got some winter savoury. This is a cracking herb for stews.

It will form a nice green dome through summer.

Top with flowers that the bees just love.

Now, Rosemary does turn into quite a big plant.

A really beautiful thing.

If you like bacon, you've got to have rosemary in your garden.

There are not many gardeners that grow this one.

It's called sorrel and its leaves have a flavour of a sort of tangy vinaigrette

and in between the perennial herbs,

I'm going to put the summer holidaymakers.

Herbs that are sun-loving and short-lived.

This is one of my absolute favourites, it's Greek basil.

They are the most incredibly strong and tasty basil leaves you can get.

Next up is a bit of parsley.

No herb garden would be complete without some of this.

In Britain we have always liked the curly and that's

because in days of yore

when gardeners and cooks would go out into the hedgerows to gather their herbs,

you couldn't mistake it for fool's parsley or hedgerow hemlock

which, of course, is a poison and finally,

one of the most interesting basils around, Red Rubin.

Now, this is a herb that will not only make your food taste good,

but make it look good as well.

Of course, the beauty of a herb garden is that unlike

a vegetable garden or

a cut-flower garden, herbs as soon as they're planted you can start

picking them and using them in the kitchen.

It's as simple as that.

There is so much more to culinary herbs than the usual suspects

in pots and plastic on our supermarket shelves.

I've come to Gloucestershire to meet up with Jekka McVicar,

widely revered as the

queen of culinary herbs, by chefs and gardeners alike, including me.

Well, this looks great, Jekka. Just looks stunning.

Every day -

-and I've been in this industry a long time - I still get hugely excited.

-Yeah.

It's infectious, your excitement. It is.

SHE CHUCKLES

But Herbs, they are easy to grow, yes?

And they're so rewarding, because they can transform a meal into a feast.

You can make oils from them and make teas from them.

It's the whole holistic aspect of them and they're brilliant for bees

and butterflies and all the pollinating insects.

And one of the great treats for me is coming round here and having a nibble of a few.

-Particularly the unusual ones.

-Let me show you, actually, I really want to show you down here.

Lead on, Jekka.

Jekka grows more than 650 varieties in her herboretum but she has

not stopped looking for the next big culinary stars to add to her herb family.

This is where my new babies are. Just try this, this is from Bolivia. What do you reckon?

It's like everything I love about coriander

and everything I like about basil rolled into one.

-It's a combination, isn't it?

-This is Bolivian coriander.

It's a member of the Asteraceae family.

I never thought a daisy would taste so good.

And look at this, this is a real rock'n'roll one.

Smell this. That's cinnamon basil.

It's got a peachy sweetness. Almost like nectarine. Cos of the sugars in there.

That flower packs a punch.

People don't realise a tiny flower adds such zing and this one here is African blue.

-Oh.

-What I love about this - it's a perennial and you can grow this

all-year round and raise it from cuttings, but if you're

a mum like me and you see something wilting you'll always water it.

Quite often it doesn't need water and basil can really -

-you've got to think of the most cantankerous man you know...

-Yeah!

-..and never send him to bed wet, because you know he'll sulk.

-Yeah!

Water in the morning, never at night.

Jekka's energy doesn't stop at searching out the new.

She also champions old favourites that have disappeared

from the culinary radar,

and makes it her business to know each and every one's

most intimate secrets.

This little group here, this is the savouries.

This is native herb of Sardinia. It's really peppery and pungent.

It does have a hotness to it. That is really lovely.

This one here is summer savoury, a great herb

and you put it with beans and stews and casseroles.

It stops flatulence.

I thought it was used cos it has quite a peppery flavour.

It does but it also makes it digestible.

And that is the hidden factor of fresh herbs.

If this was dried you wouldn't get all those essential oils

that make it to aid your digestion.

-The only way you can have this is by growing your own?

-Yes.

-Another must-have herb.

-Another must-have herb.

We'll put that with the other 500.

THEY LAUGH

Sorry, my collection will only get bigger.

At the Physic Garden, Jekka's passion and knowledge of herbs

is very much shared. With over 1,000 varieties, these gardens have

one of the most comprehensive collections of herbs in Britain.

But there's more to herbs than simply knowing names and uses.

My revival would be pretty short-lived

if you don't know how to look after them.

If there's one technique that'll keep your perennial herbs -

those are the ones that come back year after year -

in tip-top condition, it's pruning.

Now, with the woody types like sages, rosemary, and lavender, the time

to do that is in spring, just as soon as they come into growth.

And that way you have fresh leaves right through the summer.

But with herbaceous types, like this mint,

plants that die down to the roots for winter,

don't spare the secateurs.

The time to prune is in summer.

You see, what mint does - and oregano - is run up to flower,

and although it looks incredibly beautiful in your herb garden,

the leaves, once the plants are in bloom,

get a bit tough and lose their flavour.

So, the thing to do is get in among the plants and treat them mean.

Cut them really hard back, just above the soil level.

It might look harsh, but it will do this plant the world of good,

because it will encourage it to put all of its energy into producing

a crop of fresh leaves from the base.

This is apple mint and like the rest of its family, it's easy to grow.

In fact, it's almost irrepressible,

so much so its spreading roots

are best contained in a sunken terracotta pot.

Keep it locked away in its own private penitentiary

and it will stay nice and tame and give you summer-long pickings

and this plant will bounce back in no time.

Within a few weeks, these little embryonic buds that just have

a few leaves on them will be fresh and succulent

and ideal for storing through the winter,

when the rest of the mint in the garden has died down to the ground.

My favourite way of storing mint for winter is to keep it in honey.

All you do is take an empty jar

and then snip up the best leaves of your mint into it.

Next, pour over honey, stopping just short of the brim.

Because the honey is full of sugar, it keeps the mint nice and green

and the best place for this is in a dark, cool cupboard,

with the lid firmly on.

Freezing is another way of keeping your herbs for winter.

You've probably heard of the old ice cube trick.

Basically, you get herbs like this lemon balm

and you snip up leaves into the cube trays, like so.

Then pour water over the top.

But actually what works better is olive oil.

Partly because the oil keeps the leaves nice and fresh

and they don't go brown on the tips.

Also, there's nothing like adding butter or oil to mashed potatoes

and putting them on top of a pie and they make sauces so much more creamy.

Here's some that are frozen. You can see they've got a buttery colour.

In here I've got a bit of basil,

which I wouldn't be able to get in winter, and some rosemary,

saving me the job of running down the bottom of the garden.

If growing your own flavour-filled herbs that can last right through

the winter months hasn't whet your appetite,

I need to show you that the wonderful plants packed with fragrance

and essential oils are there for you to exploit in different ways.

At first glance, few would think this beautiful field of flowers

is a herb garden, but a herb, after all, is any plant which has a use.

Echinacea, long known as a cold remedy, is one of the plants

that botanist Dr Paul Richards grows to make medicinal tinctures

and skincare products.

Bees and butterflies absolutely love it.

This year it's been growing spectacularly

and we have seen more butterflies

this year on it than I've seen for many years.

-A healing plant for nature as well?

-Absolutely.

To prove you don't need complicated equipment to harness

the medicinal power of the plants,

we have invited a group of local gardeners to make a simple skin cell

from a flower we can grow at home.

But first they have to help harvest the raw materials for the job.

Here's the crop of Calendula.

As you can see, we have picked them all by hand. And it's really good

we've got loads of you to pick it cos it's going to take us all day.

THEY LAUGH

Calendula is a hardy annual, perhaps better known as the pot marigold.

Its vibrant flowers aren't just beautiful, they contain

essential oils used by Paul in cosmetic products.

-Who would have thought that these flowers are so sticky?

-I know.

-Do you think it's good for the skin as well?

-Oh, yeah.

Have you ever considered hand creams and salves?

Have you ever thought about making your own?

I think you probably need large quantities of things,

which a lot of people aren't going to have access to.

-But you do. You have your own herb garden?

-I have.

Are you quite excited about making an oil from Calendula?

Well, it will be interesting to see what the process is.

-Is it reproducible at home?

-All will be revealed.

In the meantime, get picking, you're falling behind.

We have got your flowers.

What do you do with it next?

Before processing, the Calendula flowers

need to be dried for three to four days in a dark, warm place,

like an airing cupboard.

-So, once you've got them dry what's next?

-Got a small jar here.

Pack them in reasonably tightly, but don't fill the whole jar

because you've got to have room for oil.

You can use any vegetable oil but I would recommend sunflower oil.

Pour it in quite gradually so it slowly goes between the flowers.

Again, you don't go higher than the bottom of the neck.

When you've put this in your airing cupboard, the oil will expand.

Every day you go through a ritual of giving it a bit of,

"Go and shake the Calendula."

Then in about two or three weeks, you strain that off,

you'll have a beautiful golden oil and you can use that as a salve

for the hands or any angry skin.

Calendula's a very powerful anti-inflammatory

-and a healing herb.

-It sounds just the job for us gardeners.

-Yeah, ideal.

-And look at the colour.

Yeah, this is one that we've done before

and you can see it's just a beautiful golden colour.

One of the reservations that some of the team have was

the number of flower heads you would need to produce

a jar of oil as useful like that.

I was afraid you would ask me this question.

I had it do a few quick calculations today

and we worked out it's roughly 70 heads in that jar.

-Ten plants would give you that.

-No problem.

-Would you give this a shot?

ALL: Yes.

To see it done without any special equipment,

it seems to be really good.

A good reason for having a go yourself.

I can see myself putting it in some nice bottles and wrapping it up

and giving it for Christmas presents.

Hopefully you're starting to see benefits

of having your own herb garden.

Once you discover your favourites, you'll want to make sure

you keep a steady supply of fresh herbs year after year.

The team here at Chelsea are dedicated to looking after

their unique collection of herbs and I'm with head gardener

Nick Bailey to help with a vital end-of-summer job - seed collecting.

I guess with some herbs, the rule of thumb is you either want

to collect seeds to perpetuate them or to stop them spreading?

Absolutely, yeah. We don't want them running all over the garden.

Any spares we can use and something like lovage is delicious.

-Great in the cooking pot.

-You must have a love of herbs.

There's no way you would have gone for a job here at the Botanic Gardens

-unless it fascinated you?

-They're extraordinary and the more you learn

the more you realise you don't know,

so whether it's edible or medicinal plants or plants used in perfumes,

it's extraordinary the range and ways that we use them.

Let's face it, many of them are lookers.

Lovage, for example, it's great.

From a standing start, in spring, nothing out of the ground,

and this big explosion of growth and glorious seed heads.

Today's a perfect day for collecting seed.

Absolutely. The key thing is to find the perfect moment,

just before they drop,

but when they're at the perfect stage of ripeness.

That is what we are looking for. Just allowed to dry down.

-It's as simple as that.

-As simple as that.

Whenever you collect seeds from the garden, always make sure you label up

your packets, so you remember what they are when it comes to sewing.

And when it comes to sewing, herbs like lovage, well, they are used

in soups and casseroles, largely northern European cuisine.

They're hardy and you can sew them in the soil in autumn

to come up over winter or to come up in the spring.

Whereas herbs that are a bit more exotic, like the coriander

I have in this packet, they're from India,

so they'll going to enjoy a much warmer soil.

That doesn't mean you can't sew it. You can sew this one all year round.

That's because you can get it started on a window sill indoors.

All I've got here is some good potting compost.

It's got a bit of moisture in.

My tip is for telling whether it's got the right amount is if it forms

a nice ball, like that. It won't do that if it's dry. This is ideal.

We scatter it onto the surface of your compost.

The seed itself will tell you whether it needs covering with compost.

Tiny seed, about the size of a grain of sand will find its way down

between the particles within the compost,

but larger seeds like the coriander, that will always sprout best

if it's just covered.

Now, you could use a sieve if you've got one,

or just another pot with some compost in it.

A little shake over the top

until the tops of the seeds are just out of sight.

The key to success is giving your seeds the right amount of water.

Use one of these misters, just to make sure it stays hydrated.

Do that every time you notice the compost surface dry out.

And on a warm window sill indoors

these should be up within a fortnight.

But if it's summer, wait for the roots to show through the bottom,

because that tells you that they can be planted

straight out into your herb garden.

Herb gardens have so much to offer everyone,

as one community group in Edinburgh has discovered.

A short stroll from the city centre's bustling streets

is Greyfriars Kirkyard

and here, growing amidst the grave stones,

are over 200 medicinal and culinary herbs.

This labour of love began five years ago,

when the Grass Market Community Project enlisted some of the city's

most unlikely gardeners to help to create this wonderful haven of herbs.

The Reverend Dr Richard Frazer is one of the team.

There's been a long tradition here of walking alongside

some of the most vulnerable people in our community,

people who have maybe had periods of homelessness

and mental health problems.

So, part of the vision with the herb garden here was to get them involved

in looking after the place and giving people a sense of ownership.

I like working in the herb garden because it helps me to relax.

I think it makes me feel happy.

I think it's a lot of work, but at least we get on with it

and don't just stand about doing nothing and get on with the work.

It can be surprisingly easy to grow herbs,

because they are often like weeds and grow all over the place.

Sometimes it's actually quite difficult to stop them growing.

One of the most beneficial things you can do with your life

is to get out into your garden and cultivate.

We now have an army of people who look after the churchyard,

adding a bit of biodiversity into this little green lung

in the centre of the city. It's a great thing.

The variety of herbs and the hundreds of uses is so exciting.

I hope you've been inspired.

It's time we put the herb garden back where it belongs -

in our own gardens.