Fruit Trees and Ornamental Bedding 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 reveal the 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,

Christine Walkden gets behind ornamental bedding,

but first I want to return fruit trees to all of our gardens.

For me one of life's great pleasures

is picking fruit from a tree and eating it.

Not just apples but pears, plums, damsons, medlars, cherries and more!

Britain is most brilliantly suited

for growing the most amazing range of fruit trees,

and yet we've turned our backs on wonderful old varieties

like this Crawley Beauty

in favour of less tasty varieties from further afield.

90% of all the fruit that we eat in this country is imported,

and as a gardener with a passion for home-grown produce,

I find that statistic so worrying,

because not only are we losing our orchards,

but we're in very real danger of losing our fruit-growing heritage.

I think it's time that we put home-grown fruit back on the menu,

so join me, Toby Buckland, for the Great British fruit tree revival.

I want to find out why some fruit tree varieties are facing extinction.

Just 100 years ago, there were 500, 600 varieties of pear.

I'll be tasting some of the rare and wonderful fruits that have almost been forgotten.

-That set my teeth on edge.

-There you go.

And I'll show you how easy it is to plant these wonderful trees at home.

That is all there is to it.

This is West Dean Gardens in the heart of West Sussex.

A fabulous magical place with, what's to my mind,

the finest collection of fruit trees anywhere in the country.

Built in 1804, this kitchen garden

is home to over 200 varieties of apples, pears and plums,

many of which line the mile-long garden wall.

One of my earliest memories is of sneaking under the fence

into next door's neglected garden with my brother and sister

to steal the apples. When we first went in there,

I didn't know there were any fruit trees growing,

but my sister explained it all.

I must've been short because I couldn't reach up to the branches.

But I felt so excited, and it wasn't just the thrill of the mischief,

although I've always liked that,

it was this feeling of wealth and sheer abundance.

It was like we had struck upon an edible treasure trove,

and, you know, to this day when the fruit comes to ripen in my garden,

I still get that feeling of excitement

and that thrill of having food for free.

Sadly, we seem to have lost sight of these simple pleasures,

much to the peril of our fabulous native fruit trees.

I say it's time we reverse this trend

and put these wonderful fruit trees into our own gardens.

To begin my campaign, I'm heading out

to discover why Great British orchards are rapidly disappearing.

Time was when orchards were dotted right across the country,

and you could mark what time of year it was by what was going on in them,

whether it was pruning in winter,

the blossom billowing on the trees in the spring

or the fruit swelling to fruition in the autumn.

And now they've nearly all gone,

and it's such a shame that the trees have been lost.

In fact, the National Trust say that 60% of England's orchards

have disappeared since the 1950s.

By the end of the century,

we could lose small, traditional orchards altogether.

Derek Tolman has spent the past 25 years

preserving our fruit-tree heritage

by hunting out the rare and almost forgotten.

-Toby. Nice to see you.

-And you as well.

He has an old orchard in Buckinghamshire to show me,

containing some very interesting specimens,

but en route, he's spotted something by the roadside.

Is this the sort of thing you do, Derek?

Drive along, see little parcels of neglected land,

and then just spot the fruit tree.

Well, sometimes you can just find them travelling around

and that's always great. But often people come to us and say,

"I've got these interesting old trees,"

or, "I've got an old orchard. Can you tell us a bit more about it?"

So we're only too happy to go and poke around

-and scrump an apple here and there.

-Fruit snooping!

-Fruit snooping.

-What is it, then?

-I don't know. Try one. I've not tried it yet.

I don't think it's fully ripe, but we shall see.

It's quite dry, isn't it?

There's a certain amount of sweetness.

-It's very sweet. I think this is a cider sweet. A cider apple.

-Yeah.

It's gone very brown. There's a lot of tannin in this one.

That would normally cause it, but mine hasn't.

I think you must be using the wrong toothpaste.

On arriving at the orchard,

Derek is keen to show me one fruit tree on the verge of extinction

that desperately needed his help.

What's the story with this old cherry, then?

This old cherry... Well, this is the epitome of what we do.

We come along and we find a tree which is either dead or dying,

take a bit of a cutting off it, the last bit you can find that's alive.

And you take it back, produce a new tree,

and we bring one back for the owner,

replant it and go through a whole other life cycle.

-And this rare plant then survives.

-It survives, yeah.

Neglected orchards like this one

would be doomed without Derek's passion and commitment.

You'll see the spaces around.

A lot of trees would have originally been in here,

but we're down to just a few cherries, just a few pears,

one apple over there. That's it. They dwindle.

-Year by year, they disappear.

-So this is an old pear tree?

Yeah, it's a lovely old pear. It's in fantastic condition.

-Still fruiting?

-Still fruiting.

-So is this a variety that isn't seen

in contemporary catalogues, nursery catalogues and the like?

Nursery catalogues have very, very few pears.

Just 100 years ago,

there were maybe 500, 600 varieties of pear that were known.

But why are these old trees that survive here in this orchard

good for gardens and gardeners?

You've got an ornamental tree.

They all have fantastic blossom in the spring. They give you food.

They take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

What more could you want?

It shocks me to think that there are fruit tree varieties out there,

like these pears, that are in danger of being lost for ever,

and I'm starting to comprehend

the scale of the task that Derek is undertaking.

That's amazing. How many different types of fruit have you got here?

I think something in the region of just over 1,500.

But it's going up all the time. They keep coming in.

We can't stop ourselves.

To give new life to an old tree,

Derek uses an ancient technique called grafting.

There's so much jargon around this, but it is simple, isn't it?

It's just joining two bits of wood together.

All you need is a shoot from the tree you want to reproduce

and a living root system of a similar variety.

Right, take it away, Derek.

First, Derek prepares the new cutting to be grafted.

Always angle the blade as I'm doing here.

Keep your fingers well away.

The secret is to get a complete plain cut,

so it's not actually got a scallop in the middle.

The next bit is to prepare the root stock to receive the scion

and to attempt to cut a mirror image.

Squeeze them together with your thumb and then tape them up.

This technique will result in new growth on the recently joined stem.

Using this simple method,

Derek has ensured the survival of many almost forgotten fruits.

So with 1,500 varieties of fruit tree under your belt

that you know what they are, how many left are there to discover?

I honestly believe somewhere between 10,000 still to discover

or 100,000 still to discover. It could be more.

Every time you go somewhere, you find something new.

There are just so many interesting old trees out there.

But you're going to go out and gather as many as you can?

We'll gather as many as we can while we have breath,

and just gather them in like Noah. Make sure they survive.

To think there are more varieties of fruit trees

growing in dying orchards than there are in cultivation,

and they'll be lost unless we start growing them in our own gardens.

You don't need a massive orchard to grow your own fruit trees,

because as well as being productive they are adaptable.

And here against the brickwork of the gardens of West Dean in West Sussex, we've got a plum tree.

Now, it's Victoria.

You might recognise it,

but it's not in its usual guise because it's been trained as a fan,

hardly taking up any space at all against the brickwork.

And I'm going to show you

another training method that's ideal for smaller gardens.

Now I've got a Conference Pear here

and I'm going to grow this as a cordon.

Now a cordon is a tree that you train on an angle,

and that means it can fit into the tightest of spaces,

like against the brickwork here.

You can grow most fruit trees in this way,

but it's important that you select the right root stock.

Now, there are different types of root stock,

and, just to explain, your fruit trees are in two parts.

You've got the subterranean part, the roots,

and then you've got the shoots that carry the fruit,

and you can see where the root stock and the varietal wood or scion wood meet.

There's a slight line and a change of colour.

You get different forms of root stocks

from dwarf, which are very small,

semi dwarf, which are a little bit bigger,

right up to vigorous that make massive orchard trees,

and if you're going to train any tree as a cordon,

always go for semi dwarf.

Now the reason I mention the root stock

is that it's so important when you plant

that the join between the root stock at the base

is above the ground level,

because if the top gets down into the ground and roots away,

the tree will be incredibly vigorous.

Plant your tree,

firm soil over the roots and give it a good drink to settle it in.

Now, it's at 45 degrees, and this is the clever bit.

Because you want your tree to grow,

and in a way, by angling the branch at this angle,

you're tricking it into thinking the wood is older than it is

and that it's ready to bear flowers and then fruit.

To prepare your tree for a tight space like this,

give it a bit of a prune.

This will encourage growth in the right direction

and ensure it produces fruit-bearing buds from bottom to top.

All that remains is to tie the tree in.

You make a loose loop of it around the tree,

just so the string acts as a little soft bumper

between the bamboo and the fruit tree.

And that is all there is to it.

And after a few years, this is what you get.

Now, all you need to do to keep your trees in check

is to whip off the summer growth

and then take out the tops when they reach the height you want,

like over the top of your fence or wall.

But look at the amount of fruit you get.

See, by having the trees trained on their sides,

they are far more productive and they fruit right down to the base,

and best of all,

if they're planted just 70cm apart, look how many you can pack in!

I'm on my way to the Kent countryside to a place

where fruit trees are getting the love and care they deserve.

Behind these walls are one of Britain's largest collections of fruit - over 900 and counting.

Now, I know 600 of them are apples,

but I'm keen to see what make up the other 300.

Keepers Nursery is very much a family business

run by Hamid, Sima and their son Karim.

Originally from Iran, the Habibi family's passion and hard work

has seen this 20-acre plot blossom

from a disused hop farm into a luscious commercial orchard

that is now home to fruit varieties from all over the world.

So what is it about growing fruit that you love so much?

Well, it's very much part of our tradition as Iranians.

I mean, you know, Sima and I were children in Iran as we grew up.

You know, we had, everybody had fruit trees in their gardens,

so it was very much of the part of the tradition.

I love the fact it's not only that you've brought old varieties back

or you've got an eye for the new,

but you're also bringing in types of trees and varieties from,

well, Persia of old, aren't you, really?

Yes, and fruit that people don't really know much in this country,

like medlars or certain types of quinces that people don't know.

It's amazing how ignorant as a nation we've become really

about the types of fruit and the world of variety there is within it.

The Habibis' orchard is an explosion of colour with row after row of different fruits.

But don't be put off by the grand scale.

You can start your own orchard with just one tree.

With over 900 different varieties of fruit, I mean,

how do you help people get started and what are your recommendations?

I think the most important thing is to have something that you like.

-There's no point in growing something that you don't like.

-OK.

-So get a wish list?

-Get a wish list.

Many of the trees are dripping with ready-to-pick ripe fruit,

and here's one of my favourites.

-Now, this is a plum.

-Yeah.

-Which variety is this?

-This is President.

President. Oh, a lovely purple President. Look at that!

So what's the difference between a plum and a gage?

Well, there's no difference in the species, but it's more the fruit,

it's the type of fruit. Gages are lovely to eat straight off the tree.

They don't last all that long and you will find that they'll be there

for about a week...but that week will be very memorable.

Every summer, you'll remember your tree's just there,

and you won't tell your father about the fruit,

because you just want to eat it yourself.

-Are you talking in general or are you talking in specifics?

-Well...

But that's why you should plant your own tree, you know,

because you'll have that treat every summer.

Karim makes a great point.

Plant a fruit tree in your garden,

and you get something delicious to look forward to every year,

and I'm keen to taste some of the more rare varieties

that the Habibis are growing in the Garden of England.

Here we have a kind of quince which you would probably be familiar with.

There you go.

The core is almost sort of like trying to go into granite.

Blimey, crikey!

-It is...

-Oh. That's set my teeth on edge.

-There you go. You try some.

-I haven't had one yet this year.

You don't want to eat too much of this.

I mean, this is one of the Iranian varieties called Isfahan.

Much sweeter and also a much finer... finer flesh.

Mmm! That's more apple-y altogether, isn't it?

But here we have a fruit that is a connoisseur's fruit variety,

but even with this,

there's new types and varieties coming in from overseas

that are just fantastic and must-grow trees.

You know, we're learning all the time. But doesn't it just go to show

that there's a fruit tree for every garden?

Well, yes, I think every garden should have a fruit tree,

or at least one fruit tree.

We've been growing figs on these shores since 1550,

and this beauty growing here in the greenhouses of West Dean Gardens is 100 years old.

In the sheltered environment of this greenhouse,

it produces two crops a year,

and the greenhouse is of course the place to grow them if you have a cold garden.

But it's not always necessary because, if you can provide

a bit of shelter and sun and a variety like Brown Turkey,

you could be having fresh figs with your breakfast right through the summer.

And figs are just one of the fruits you may be surprised to learn grow here in the UK.

With warm and sunny conditions and a south-facing wall to train them against, you can even raise peaches.

The key is to know the best way to train and care for your tree.

All the fruit trees here are carefully maintained

under the watchful eye of garden manager, Jim Buckland.

And, no, we're not related.

I'm joining Jim to show you how easy it is

to keep fruit trees small and manageable using the espalier training method.

So, Jim, what have we got here, then?

Well, it's an espalier apple. Blenheim orange. Well established.

Been here for probably 10 or 15 years

-and now we're just keeping it under control by summer pruning.

-OK.

The term espalier refers to the method

of pruning and training to a strong horizontal branch framework,

maximising the fruit yield.

So this is the point which we cut back to in June, back here.

It's now put on this extension growth and we want to go back harder.

We're going to cut back to one bud above the basal cluster.

-That's your...

-One bud above the basal cluster.

-That's your mantra.

One bud above the basal cluster, which is that point there.

Off it comes.

So I'm getting my head round your method here.

In early summer you're cutting back,

you're cutting back the shaggy growth,

and then again you're cutting back when that re-grows

back to one bud for winter.

-Yeah, and it's good until next year.

-Well, let's get stuck in!

It must be a pleasant job, sort of idling the hours away out here, Jim.

-Is that how you feel?

-I never feel like I'm idling the hours away, Toby.

But, um... Yeah, it is. It's a fantastic job.

I think it's the most rewarding part of horticulture,

and of course the great thing about it is, with these trained cordons,

you can grow fruit even if you've only got a very small back garden,

whereas you couldn't grow a traditional orchard tree,

so these are fantastic.

So do you think a lot of gardeners are missing a trick

-and missing out on the fruit they could be having?

-I absolutely do,

because I think they think it's too difficult. There is a craft to it

and you do need to learn that, but it's not complicated

and it's fantastically rewarding when you get it right.

Yeah, you pick me up when you like, Jim. I can tell you're itching to.

You're looking at my cuts. They're not short enough.

Well, I think that's probably the most common mistake

is that people don't clip their trees hard enough,

and the wonderful thing about plants is you can hack pieces off them

and, if you get it wrong, they'll grow another limb.

So the secret is...have a go.

Gardening is a craft. It's learnt by doing.

If you don't do it, you'll never learn it.

This method is an ideal way

to incorporate small fruit trees into a garden with limited space.

And espalier training can also be used on larger trees

to keep their fruit in easy reach for picking.

Crab apples. They're my favourite small garden tree.

They're so versatile and they have wonderful autumn tints to the foliage.

In the spring, the blooms are clustered tightly together,

and that means they carry more blossom than any other fruit,

but still they get a bad name,

and that's because so many gardeners leave the berries to fall on the pavement or the drive

where they need sweeping up, and that is such a waste because these wee little apples are delicious.

And I'm not alone in my love for this fruit.

Ginny Knox and Caroline Willson spent their youth together

foraging for crab apples to make their own jellies.

Now they've turned their childhood hobby into a full-time business.

-Hi there.

-Nice to see you...and come and help you with your picking.

So what are we working on here?

This is a John Downie crab apple.

A lovely old one.

But what do you use this for?

Jelly is the most absolutely lovely thing to make, and John Downies are very traditionally used for jelly.

So crab-apple jelly. Chilli jelly. Mint jelly.

So what got you started on picking crab apples?

Were you scrumpers when you were little girls?

Were you jumping over the fence and...?

Well, we used to go and... Never scrumping, obviously, never, no, no.

We used to make crab-apple jelly together with our mums.

-That's almost a forgotten art, really, and you've sort of brought that back.

-It is.

There are so many traditional recipes made from, you know, indigenous fruits,

and one of the things we really love is that it links us back to our heritage, culinary heritage.

You can imagine our ancestors 500 or 1,000 years ago doing pretty much this.

So how do I pick them? Is there anything I should or shouldn't do?

Well, you should avoid the mouldy ones obviously,

and also try not to throw them into the basket because they bruise really easily.

Right. OK, that's a good tip.

Quite a few are falling on my head!

They're very ripe actually at this time.

LAUGHTER

What have I done?

Now I'm conscious I might bruise them as they go in the basket.

-Oh, yeah, be very gentle.

-You'll be in deep trouble.

-Oh, dear.

Having collected a bounty of these almost forgotten favourites it's time to head back to the house.

Ooh, you've got quite a mini orchard there.

Yeah, we have actually.

We planted a few things like quince, medlar, crab apple, greengage, things like that.

-All things you'd recommend for a small garden?

-Definitely.

Pretty trees. You can keep them to quite a small size and, of course, the fruits are great to cook.

It just goes to show that you can easily start a small orchard at home.

Ginny and Caroline are using theirs to create all sorts of culinary delights.

What's this one?

That's actually a crab-apple cheese.

-A crab-apple cheese?

-Yeah, a yellow one.

-It doesn't have cheese in it.

-No.

Why is it called a cheese? Is it just the texture?

-It's just an old-fashioned English word for a fruit preserve that doesn't have pieces in it.

-Mmm.

Yeah, it sort of has a meatiness to it, if you know what I mean.

It's quite solid. I'm not saying that... But you know what I mean?

Well, it's a fruit puree as opposed to the... Jellies are the fruit juice that has been set.

This is the whole fruit which has been turned into a puree and then set.

They're incredibly versatile, that's the thing,

and you cook it up, flavour it and you use different varieties of fruit to get the colours.

-Is that how it works?

-That's right.

So the yellow ones are great for some products,

like you can see with the apple cheese that you've got there.

-Golden Hornet, those ones, yeah?

-Those are Golden Hornet, yeah.

Are they easy to make?

Well, time-consuming.

-So it's a labour of love in a way.

-It is a labour of love but I think well worth it.

Well, anyone that cooks or anyone that bakes...

you get a house that smells delicious depending on what you're doing...

Well, they do, and to be honest as well, Toby,

it really warms your heart, doesn't it, when you open the cupboards

and you've got all these beautiful preserves in them and they're not things that you can go out and buy.

They're just flavours that only you and your friends can have.

And that's the thing, I suppose, as these trees become less well known for what they can do for you,

these preserves are, wow, like you say, becoming a bit more like hen's teeth.

-I'll tell you what, I do make a chilli jam.

-Do you?

And it's no surprise... it's nothing like as good as yours.

Don't be put off if chilli jelly isn't your cup of tea.

There are many delicious things you can make from your own fruit trees, so go on, get planting!

When you get lots of fruit forming on your trees

there's always that question, what on earth do you do with it?

You'll want to keep as much of it as you can for use right though the winter and beyond.

In order to make your bumper crop last as long as possible,

it's important to store them in the right environment.

This is the apple store here at West Dean where the fruits are kept in the traditional way.

And the fruit sits on these slatted shelves

that allow the apples to sit there in shrivel-free suspended animation for month after month.

But you don't need a building like this to keep fruit from your own garden.

I'm going to show you how you can do it at home.

The best way to store apples is in a box.

Ideally one that you can move around and one you can stack one on top of the other.

And these fruit trays are brilliant for the job because they've got slats in the bottom,

like a traditional apple store to let air circulate around the fruit.

So all I do is set the fruits out in my trays with a whisker of space between them.

Again just to let the air circulate around the apples.

And this is a good keeping variety.

It's called Red Devil.

It's an old English type, and I can tell it's a good keeper because of when it's picked.

You see, the later an apple ripens, the longer it keeps into winter.

Apples like this Red Devil can be stored in a cool dry place

like a shed or a garage for around two months.

Others such as Bramleys will store as long as five months.

Now, early varieties like Discovery that come into fruit in July,

well, they only last a few weeks when they're kept in store.

You have to do something different with them.

So you've either got to eat them up straightaway or, as I do, stick them in the freezer.

Now, when an apple freezes what happens is the cells within the walls, they start to shatter.

They certainly do as it defrosts, and that means it will yield its juice,

so all you've got to do is stick this in a blender and out the juice will flow.

So you might not be able to keep them as apples,

but they'll give you a supply of something lovely to drink right through the winter.

Freezing is one of the easiest ways to preserve fruit.

Berries and cherries should be frozen straight after picking,

but apples, pears and plums should be allowed to ripen before they go in the freezer.

You don't have to live in the countryside to enjoy the benefits of fantastic fruit trees.

A Birmingham-based organisation called Urban Harvest collects fruit

that would otherwise be wasted from across the city and puts it to good use.

A lot of the fruit that we pick is in the public spaces around us.

Birmingham's very fortunate, we've got a lot of green public spaces.

There's a number of fruit trees in this particular park,

and every year we see all the fruit goes to waste,

so we thought this year we'd come and pick it and put it to good use,

take it to children's centres, give it out through food banks and make sure that it's not wasted.

The team also helps garden owners who can't pick their own to make the most of their fruit trees.

The actual fact is that we're here.

We're picking the fruit for people who don't particularly want to pick it themselves,

and we get an enjoyment taking it off the trees, believe it or not.

I'm really enjoying it. Everyone's really nice.

It's good to get involved in the community

and learn lots about fruit picking and the environment at the same time.

I think we've got used to the idea that we get fruit from the supermarkets now,

and people have stopped going out and making use of what's around them

which is actually free and hasn't flown in from New Zealand, South Africa,

causing food miles and damage to the environment.

Well, I hope you've been inspired to plant a fruit tree of your own,

because there's so many types and so many varieties.

In fact, choosing between them is about the hardest thing about growing fruit.

Not only will you have a garden filled with blossom in the spring and fruit in the autumn,

you'll also be a custodian of our fruit-growing heritage.

So go on. Get planting. What's stopping you?

Next, Christine Walkden is on another Garden Revival campaign.

These eye-catching displays were the gardening bling of yesteryear.

It's a tradition that crashed out of gardening fashion.

High cost, high maintenance and a decadence that simply ran out of steam.

I'm Christine Walkden,

and I want you to get behind my revival of ornamental bedding.

On my campaign, I meet the passionate people who are working hard to keep this heritage alive...

Unfortunately, now it's almost becoming a bit of a dying art.

..discover how experts are developing new types of plant...

Bedding is changing. Your choices are much wider than they used to be.

..and I'll be showing you just how easy it is to create your own stunning display.

Nothing is set in concrete when it's in compost.

A 16th-century-style French chateau

is not what you'd expect to find in Buckinghamshire, but this is Waddesdon Manor,

home to the Rothschild family, pioneers of Victorian flamboyant bedding.

Following the trend of the Victorian upper classes,

the Rothschilds used the garden to showcase their wealth,

creating a range of ornamental beds with exotic plants and flowers,

the most decadent of which were the carpet beds,

special designs of thousands of tightly knitted foliage with the blooms removed.

My first memories of bedding was the colour and the vibrancy of it all and we see it here -

begonias, ageratums, the sparkle of silver in the helichrysum.

Plants creating a lovely vibrant display.

But these ornate beds were considered too showy and expensive to maintain

during the First World War and many were grassed over.

20 years ago, the current Lord Rothschild restored them to their former glory.

So what better place to base my British bedding revival?

The most unusual beds here are the 3D carpet birds,

made up of several types of alternanthera and sedums,

which are looked after by head gardener, Paul Farnell.

They're really lovely those birds, aren't they?

They are indeed. They've been here quite a while.

-How long?

-Well, it goes back to 1910, actually.

The Rothschilds pioneered this sort of 3D bedding, so we've had sort of birds around and about since then.

And how much time and care do they need to really make sure they look fantastic?

It's very time-consuming, actually.

We had a blacksmith put together the framework.

It's got an internal watering system.

It takes four people a couple of days to plant the whole thing,

and then once a week there's always a little bit of gapping up to do.

There's always a little bit of trimming to do.

The Victorians wouldn't let them flower at all.

They would absolutely shave them.

I mean, they were just into stunning foliage contrasts.

Indeed, indeed.

And how many plants would you need for something like this?

Oh, I'd guess we've got somewhere in the region of 10,000, I would think, just to do this little bit.

Blimey! It's a lot. A lot of labour and a lot of time.

It is, and that's probably one of the reasons why you don't see it very often these days,

because, you know, it is labour intensive,

relatively expensive.

-Could you just give them a little bit of a trim-up with the shears for me, please?

-I can do that for you.

All I'm doing is keeping them to the same height.

That's what I was taught. Is that something that you like?

-That's right.

-Bits are going on your bed, I'm afraid.

We'll vac them up later on.

That I think, that's perfect, yes.

It is a piece of gardening that if we didn't do it, it would get lost.

Good 3D bedding and good carpet bedding is an absolute art form.

Well, I'm glad it continues.

It takes me back to my childhood and I think if we lost it, it would be a great sadness.

It would be a great shame if we lost these skills and... no doubt about that.

The Victorians didn't just use ornamental and carpet beds to show off personal wealth.

As the trend for taking holidays grew,

seaside resorts also realised that these blowsy bedding displays

could draw in the crowds.

The famous Eastbourne Parade Carpet Gardens were born in the 1890s.

Tourists came from far and wide to admire the designs.

Although similar gardens up and down the country have disappeared,

here, they're desperately holding on to the tradition.

So is it really worth it?

I personally love bedding.

But I'm here to find out what the public really think of it,

to test the temperature of the nation.

So what do you think of displays like this?

Well, I think it's absolutely wonderful.

I mean, it just adds so much, the colour, the vibrancy.

-We're just used to it being there. It would be weird if it wasn't.

-It would look wrong if it wasn't there.

It's part of Eastbourne.

It's a tourist attraction and I think it's just fabulous.

How would you feel if it was to totally disappear? Would you miss it?

-Yeah. Would you?

-I would.

It's part of my heritage, isn't it?

-It's nice to have something green along here.

-It is, it's lovely.

So there you have it. The Great British public still love it.

But it's no longer on the same scale as in Victorian times.

Back then, they had almost 40 gardeners working on the beds throughout the town.

These days only 10% of the ornamental beds remain,

including the famous carpets which contain over 40,000 plants and have eight dedicated members of staff.

Darren Pillar has worked here for 22 years.

So what do you really think makes this prom so special in Eastbourne?

It's kept its heritage and we're part of history.

They did it because it brought in tourists, and they just continue to do so.

People come from miles away just to see this and the residents love it.

-You know, the tourists love it.

-So it's not just the tourists?

You think there's a sense of civic pride here in Eastbourne because of these beds?

-Absolutely, there is.

-So how have things changed over the years?

They have changed a lot. We incorporate a lot more sustainable planting now.

Beds that were bedding are now either grass beds

or they've got herbaceous plants in or beds for the bees.

But we've managed to keep the Carpet Gardens as is

and as was back in the day many years ago.

It's hard work, isn't it, that sort of thing?

It really is hard work.

With carpet bedding, the process is intense.

It's clipping daily.

It's weeding all the time. It's watering non-stop...as you can see.

It may take a lot of effort keeping the beds looking this good,

but the people here take such pride in their work.

I'm involved with history, so although we get input in designs and use new plants,

we're still maintaining that piece of history that's known UK wide,

and it's lovely to be a part of it,

and unfortunately now it's almost becoming a bit of a dying art.

But the thing is, anyone who is involved with horticulture and gardening

I'd will them to get into it because it's absolutely fabulous.

Anyone can have a go.

I would say start small with your initials or your house number and gradually work your way up.

-So this is something that the man in the street can do, isn't it?

-Oh, most definitely.

The gardens at Waddesdon Manor are truly inspiring,

but beautiful bedding doesn't have to be on this grand scale.

We can all recreate a bit of history.

I want to show you with modern and sustainable planting how easy it is to bring back the glamour, the glory,

the fun and excitement of ornamental bedding to your own garden.

What I want to do is show you just how easy it is to make a carpet bedding scheme at home for yourself.

Start off with a tray. Now I'm just using a wooden tray.

The key thing is that it's got some drainage,

because if it fills up with water, they'll drown. And I'm just using a general-purpose compost here.

Nothing that flash. And you fill it up to around an inch, an inch and a half from the top of the tray,

so that, when your plants sit in, they're more or less level with the top of the tray.

And all you're really looking for is compact plants

that are going to give you a contrast of colour, texture and habit.

Pick what you like and put them together and see if it works for you.

This is your display.

Things like the campanulas that will flower eventually, but, if you clip them, they won't.

This plant has got a very, very special meaning to me,

because this is the very plant that got me into gardening.

At school, Miss Sinfield, our headmistress came in

and she said could some of the children take the plants home for Blackburn Wakes Week?

I grabbed three, went home and my dad said, "We're going on holiday, what are you going to do?"

I have no idea where I read this, saw it, but I went into the backyard into our shed...

tin bath that we used to bath in as kids.

I filled it up with water, put some bricks in and plonked three of them on there.

Total darkness, we hadn't got any windows in the shed.

Went away for a fortnight's holiday, and I kept thinking, "They'll be dead. They'll be dead."

Came back and three Campanula isophylla, White Icicles, were in full bloom

and that was the moment that I wanted to be a gardener.

Never been able to repeat it since, but that plant has resulted in a life of love.

So, once I've selected the plants, all I'm going to do is then place them out.

What I'm going to do is plant a row of these lovely green sempervivums on one side.

I'm then going to come in along the edges, two rows of those.

I'm going to contrast it with a little luecanthemum,

a nice silver foliage plant that you can either keep the flowers on or whip them off.

And then I've got a really common little alpine that you'll see for sale as a sea thrift.

When you come to plant, make sure the plants are watered the night before you actually plant them.

That helps to keep the compost altogether when you knock it out of the pot.

It also means that when you water this, you're not going to have all the water that you're pouring on

just rush into the root ball and have dry patches.

It also makes it easier to slip the plant out of the pot.

Then comes the exciting bit about planting.

A lot of people worry about planting, but literally turn the pot over, smack its bottom and pull it out.

All I'm going to do is make a shallow depression in this tray and then pop my plant into place,

and then you just repeat that down this side,

and you'll see all of a sudden the magic of carpet bedding being created.

When you're taking the plant out, make sure that you take off any dead or dying foliage,

because that can encourage the stem to rot

and if the roots are dangling out of the bottom of the pot, don't worry.

We prune the top of the plant to encourage growth.

We prune the roots for exactly the same thing,

so you're going to get good root growth.

If the roots are running around the bottom of the pot and the root ball, just tease them out.

That will ensure that the roots establish into that compost very, very quickly.

Don't pack them too tight, because if that happens, instead of growing sidewards, they'll grow up.

What you're really after achieving is the blending together of the plants so it looks like a Persian carpet.

All growing together beautifully, but without being overcrowded.

And if you get to this stage and you don't like it,

take it all out and start again.

You know, nothing is set in concrete when it's in compost.

It can all be taken out and put back again.

This is something I don't use very often, but actually it's called a make-up brush.

Don't try and get the compost off with water,

because it can often go very muddy and it can stain your plants.

It's far easier to use a make-up brush.

Plants like this are very low maintenance.

Just water them and keep them tidy with a bit of clipping in the summer months,

and if you pick perennials like these you'll get to enjoy your beds year after year.

And once I've watered that... hey, presto!

I now just wait for it to go whoosh and grow.

What's really nice about planting in something like a tray

is you can shift it to your balcony, to your patio...

You can have it lined out on the beautiful table where you're going to have dinner as a centrepiece.

You can do so much with plants that you put in a tray.

There are lots of plants that we can use to create an ornamental display,

and at Thompson and Morgan, one of the largest suppliers of seeds and plants in the UK,

they cultivate new varieties that are cheaper and easier to grow.

Crucial work, as they've had to help one of our classic bedding plants in crisis.

Just a few years ago our bestselling annual bedding plant,

the Busy Lizzie, was struck down and destroyed by an epidemic disease.

In fact, the disease was so bad that this stalwart of British bedding,

which sold almost 35 million plants a year, has now been removed from garden centres nationwide.

Michael Perry is the product development manager who is helping the Busy Lizzie reinvent itself.

So, Michael, what was the actual problem?

There was a problem with downy mildew which is an airborne disease,

and most of the Busy Lizzies from walleriana origin, so the type that you see here...

So the common standard?

The common Busy Lizzie that we've known for years and years

was absolutely susceptible to it so they all died out.

And they didn't look very good either, did they, in the process?

No, not at all.

So literally plants melted and they completely were unrecoverable.

There is no treatment for it at the moment.

What you need to do is grow resistant varieties.

That's the only way.

Right, and where has that breeding work taken us?

Well, the breeding work has taken us to what we see here

which is Busy Lizzie Divine which has completely different genetics to the usual Busy Lizzie,

but it's bred on so it's bigger, better,

more resilient to all sorts of different weather conditions from hot, dry, wet or cold.

It really is almost a Super Busy Lizzie. Great alternative.

And is it as good in shade, in the sunshine as the traditional Busy Lizzie?

Absolutely, because the brilliant thing about traditional Busy Lizzies is that they love shade,

and there aren't many plants you can grow in the shade, but this loves sun as well as shade.

There are all sorts of different innovations apart from that,

like the perennials that you can grow in bedding, different foliage plants. I've got loads to show you.

This is really bedding heaven.

These fantastic trowel beds are home to over 500 new types of plants that have been especially cultivated,

and I'm about to get a sneak preview of the perfect plants for my revival

that we can all use for our own ornamental displays.

We use these trial grounds to grow out all of our products to check that it's growing true to type,

and to look a new varieties against older existing ones to see if they are indeed an improvement.

So what about the traditional plants, are they still selling or are you seeing a gradual transition?

They tend to still sell because people recognise the names and they know they'll work in their gardens,

but we really want people to move towards newer varieties that perhaps perform better in gardens

or have better disease resistance.

So this is a great example of that.

This marigold is so much bigger than that traditional one, so you get more plant for your money.

It stops the weeds coming through, so it's a natural weed suppressant,

and also it mulches the ground so you'll need to water your soil a lot less.

And because you're covering the ground naturally,

you haven't got that bare soil that you've got to keep maintaining all the time.

That's truly amazing, and it's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the work they do here.

Michael's arranged for me to see how different our familiar favourites are

to the next generation of bedding beauties.

So, Michael, we've got our very own mechanised conveyor catwalk, but what are the movers and the shakers?

Well, first of all we've got some begonias to show you.

The traditional bedding begonia.

Yes, so this is the traditional Begonia semperflorens, it's Organdy,

but the blooms never fully open and it's quite stunted and not that weatherproof.

-Now look at this biggie!

-This is Begonia Lotto.

Much bigger, more landscaped-style growth, big clear flowers,

leaves like water-lily pads and perfect for any weather.

So we've got an annual antirrhinum,

a plant that dies down to ground every year.

Absolutely, so traditional snapdragons.

Lovely and pretty, but don't flower for long.

A good alternative is the perennial hardy penstemon.

Flowering for five to six months and really, really tough and resilient in the garden.

Coleus, I mean, a plant that many of us have grown as children and as we've got older.

A traditional foliage plant in Victorian times,

but now we have perilla which is very similar, nice colours but also edible.

-Good for stir fries or salads.

-OK.

-Ah, now alstroemeria.

-Now these are some new kids on the block.

This is Alstroemeria Indian Summer, also known as Peruvian Lily.

Flowers for five to six months and lovely bronze foliage.

Ooh, and Gerberas.

Gerberas, this is very exciting.

Brand-new breed.

These are hardy down to minus 10,

-and they'll come back every year with these lovely big florist-quality flowers.

-Right.

-So a revival is really taking place?

-Absolutely. Bedding is changing.

Your choices are much wider than they used to be.

This is how we can bring British bedding back to life with new varieties

that are more sustainable and easy to look after, and find more cost-effective ways of planting.

It's time to move on, try some new favourites and revitalise your beds.

Each year Waddesdon Manor creates a special carpet bed to breathe new life into this Victorian tradition.

This year's, by artist Philippa Lawrence, was inspired by a piece of 17th-century lace

and is made of almost 30,000 plants.

The high number of plants needed to create a display like that often put people off,

but you can save yourself lots of cash by taking your own cuttings.

This is one of the most popular bedding plants, the Pelargonium, commonly called the geraniums.

They've got a long flowering season,

they're very easy to grow,

they're reliable, they're a really flipping good plant.

I'm going to cut it off just above a pair of leaves, so that I don't leave a stump.

A good tip to stop them wilting is to take a plastic bag and just drop them in.

If it's a hot day, these will dry out very quickly,

and the aim is to keep as much water in that plant as possible.

If you've got a lot of geranium cuttings, stick them in the fridge just to keep them cool,

that will stop them from wilting.

I'm going to drop a bit of drainage material in a clay pot so that the hole doesn't bung up,

and then I'm going to take some seed and cutting compost,

and I like to handle it gently, so I don't destroy the structure.

Allow it just to fall in, so you've not got air pockets,

and then I'm just going to bring it up to around about half an inch to an inch,

and then we're just going to level it.

And then I'm going to start taking the cuttings.

What I'm looking for is current season's growth which is known as a soft-wood cutting.

The stem should be firm and healthy.

The leaves should be nice and healthy,

and a lot of people don't like taking geranium cuttings with flowers on.

I find it makes no difference whatsoever, but these need to be removed.

I need a cutting, when it's finally prepared, to be around 2-3 inches in length,

and all I simply do is a straight cut beneath a pair of leaves.

Trim them off, and then I'm just going to pull the flowers and the leaves off.

I'm aiming to get between three to five leaves on my cutting.

If you take off too many, you actually haven't enough leaves for the plant to photosynthesise,

make its own food.

If you leave too many on, it will lose water very quickly and can wilt.

Once I've prepared that cutting, you can either use a dibber to make a hole,

but I don't like these... I've got my own dibber.

I'm going to make a hole towards the outside of the pot,

because you get an exchange of oxygen through that wall and that will help rooting.

A lot of people will use hormone rooting powder.

I don't like it, but what I do like using is vitamin-C tablets.

Drop it in a mug full of water, dip your cutting in for about a minute.

That vitamin C won't half improve your rooting rate,

and then place that cutting so that it's around an inch down in the compost.

And then I will just prepare the others in exactly the same way.

You can probably fit about six cuttings in a pot this size,

and you want to space them about two inches apart.

And then two methods of watering.

I actually prefer to water overhead.

Some people will put it into a tray and allow the plant to soak up water.

The other thing that I differ on is a lot of people would put a plastic bag over here,

I find that that creates too much humidity and then the cuttings rot.

I just keep an eye on this pot to make sure it doesn't dry out.

If it's dry, it needs a drink.

If you're doing them in the autumn, leave them in that pot to overwinter,

and then in the spring when they start to grow, then pot them up.

If you're doing it in the spring, you can pot up straightaway.

So once you see the young shoot growing away, that means they're ready for potting.

The Victorians were great control freaks and everything had to be clipped to perfection.

Now that level of perfectionism may not be necessary today,

but the love of bedding is alive and well and still growing in Woking.

This ornamental bedding paradise on a corner of a street in Surrey was created by Pam Grey.

For 20 years, she's planned, planted and pruned these colourful eye-catching beds

which have been the talk of the town and the daily highlight for her postman.

When you see other gardens compared to this one,

yes, it definitely does put a spring in my step.

If Pam is the brains, then devoted husband Barry is the brawn.

My role is anything to do with hard work...

..and do as I'm told.

She's a terror for buying plants.

She's on a red card.

She's not allowed to bring no more home and so forth.

But she's a good lass. I wouldn't swap her.

Pam is in the middle of preparing her cuttings for next year, just like I've shown you...

a job she prefers to do by herself.

Barry and myself disagree about putting cuttings in fungicide and using hormone rooting powder.

I don't usually bother. I just put them straight into the compost,

and I did an experiment one year without telling him, and mine were better than his.

Oh, what's this? Are you having a go at me already?

These ornamental bedding cuttings are crucial to Pam's success,

and are really an inexpensive way of creating her magical beds.

So when did it all start for you? What got you into it?

Barry built my first greenhouse about 35 years ago, I think it was,

and I just started to get interested in that, and it's grown and grown every year.

I just love it, and I think people enjoy it as well.

One lady walked passed the garden the other day when I was watering,

and she said, "Your garden is just like a big bunch of flowers!"

And isn't that a lovely thing to have been said?

-I said, "Oh, thank you very much."

-Yeah. Yeah.

What's your favourite plant?

I can't answer that one.

-Really?

-No.

I have to have Marguerites.

I have to have Cosmos.

I have to have Salvias.

-But you obviously enjoy propagating as well?

-I do.

It's quite relaxing, so...

So how many cuttings are you likely to take over winter?

-Probably about 30 trays.

-Right.

It must take you forever just to pot all this stuff up.

It takes a while, but then I find that relaxing too. OTT, I know.

I mean, people could do it on a smaller scale, couldn't they?

They don't have to go mad like we do, but I think it's worth it.

It certainly is, and most of this started from cuttings.

What an inspiration Pam is.

Talk about cramming an awful lot into a small area. It's fantastic!

-There's no weeding to do.

-Well, they haven't got the chance!

-No.

-And do you think this is achievable by a beginner?

-Definitely.

-A small section would be quite easy, really.

-Right.

It's just a case of thinking of your colours and your textures...

-And just sticking them in!

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

If I fancy growing a different plant, I can.

-Yeah.

-Different colours, combinations.

-I just get a kick out of it.

-And doesn't it look great?

Now, tell me, do you garden in this front garden for yourself or for everybody?

Everybody, but mostly for myself.

-Is that right?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Because it is true.

-Yeah.

It's that simple.

Choose a couple of plants that take your fancy and start experimenting with your own bedding.

The possibilities for ornamental bedding are endless.

We just need to get out there and get planting,

and luckily, in Bournemouth, tastes are changing and a revival is already under way.

It's ornamental but it's also edible,

and I think that kind of unusual factor with the public gives that extra edge to what we do here.

Bournemouth Council nursery manager, Chris Evans has always been passionate about edible plants,

so he decided that it was time to get the community behind them.

The public response has been fantastic.

Wouldn't it be great if it could inspire people to grow edible plants

in any patch of land they could possibly find?

It doesn't cost much.

It really is such a fantastic feeling to go and eat the plants that you've grown.

In this amazing 100% edible bed,

Chris and his team have planted everything from ornamental chillies

to peppery nasturtiums, crunchy chard, delicious dahlias and marigolds.

Perfect for tarting up your salads.

What's your kind of opinion on this?

It looks lovely, and if you can eat it, it's a bonus.

It is surprising to see edible flowers in a flower bed.

We noticed that some of it was edible as we walked past,

because we saw the chard and realised that was,

-but we didn't realise it all was, did we?

-No.

-What do you think?

-Nasty.

-Not really sure.

Give it to Mummy.

Quite nice, but very bitter.

You're not a big salad eater anyway, are you?

Ah! Sorry, that's just right in the back of my throat now.

Have you got a drink?

Oh, that's quite nice.

Weird.

Very, very, very, very... I can't stop saying yummy.

-You like that?

-Yeah.

Slightly mixed reviews on taste, but with a little bit of imagination anything is possible.

Whether it's this that inspires you

or the magnificent and more traditional displays that take your fancy,

there is no limit to what you can do with ornamental bedding.

So I hope you're now as excited about bedding as I am.

So let's roll out the carpet for the Great British bedding revival.