Wildlife Gardens and Peonies Great British Garden Revival

There's no doubt that Britain is a nation of very proud gardeners.

Our love of flowers and plants goes back centuries.

But there's a problem. Not everything is rosy in our gardens.

Our iconic plants are under attack from foreign invaders.

Ancient woodlands are at risk of being lost forever.

And our favourite flowers are disappearing right before our eyes.

So we need you to help us in our revival campaign.

We'll be inspiring you to dig deep and celebrate the best of British.

As we reveal the country's most stunning gardens.

And sharing our top gardening tips.

It's time to rediscover our passion for plants.

And breathe new life into our gardens.

We've been told for decades now that we all need to take responsibility

for looking after the planet,

and yet, one of the biggest tools we have to ensure a greener future

is often overlooked and it's right on our doorstep -

the back garden.

In our manic desire for ever-increasingly

low-maintenance plots

we've chopped down trees, we've dug up borders

and we've decked over lawns,

when in fact we should be viewing our gardens

as the biggest nature reserves we have in the country.

On my revival, I'm finding out how simple wildlife gardening can be...

The way we're talking about it, sounds like you've got to have

all this knowledge and do all these things. You don't!

..by learning how to choose nature over pesticides.

Encouraging beneficial insects in becomes easier

than going for the zapper.

And planting beautiful flowers for our precious pollinators.

Really my favourite wild flower, these are cornflowers.

You know that really beautiful, bright blue flower

that just looks fantastic in a meadow.

This is the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens,

set on four wonderful acres on the edge of the city.

It is buzzing with life, with bees and butterflies

searching for nectar.

There's a symphony of birds and even the pond is teeming with frogs.

This environment is a shining example

of what I like to call a wildlife garden -

a garden with trees, shrubs and flowering plants that attract

all manner of creatures and creepy crawlies.

As gardeners, we have this instinct to take land, to tame it

and to produce something that's beautiful and bountiful,

but we should be doing this in harmony with nature.

Over the past 30 years, intensive agriculture, industry

and habitat loss

have resulted in a sharp decline in much of our native wildlife.

From butterflies to bees.

From blue tits to newts.

And it's time we turned this around, starting in our own gardens.

If we just make some choices about what we plant,

we can still create plots that are teeming with wildlife

but have gardens that we're really proud of.

To understand just how important our gardens are

to Britain's wildlife population,

I'm visiting the Old Moor Nature Reserve in Yorkshire.

This was once a barren land owing to nearby coal industry,

but through regeneration has become a haven for all kinds of creatures.

RSPB conservationist Matthew Capper knows just how important

our gardens are to Great British wildlife.

This is an amazing project,

but how does it relate to my garden back home?

All of our nation's gardens collectively is a bigger land area

than all of our nature reserves put together.

And you reckon you and me can do something about this back home?

Anybody can do something about it. Absolutely.

There are simple things that we can do

that will make a massive difference.

Here at Old Moor they've created a wildlife garden that demonstrates

some important factors that we should all consider at home.

So what are the three main areas that we need to consider

when we're attracting wildlife?

They need food. They need shelter, they need somewhere to live.

And they need water.

It doesn't have to be a big pond.

Ponds are nice, but we've just put a Belfast sink here.

It sounds complex, doesn't it? The way we're talking about it,

it sounds like you've got to have all this knowledge

and do all these things. You don't!

It only needs to be one thing, each household.

Because if you've got a nest box in your garden and next door has got

a cotoneaster or a hawthorn in theirs,

and next door's got a bird table,

you know, all those things collectively,

that's the collective habitat.

And it builds up this wildlife neighbourhood, then?

-Absolutely. Absolutely. Perfectly put.

-Amazing.

One common misconception about creating a wildlife garden is

that it has to be wild and unkempt, but this simply is not the case.

-Ken.

-Hi there.

Dr Ken Thompson is a plant biologist from Sheffield University

whose back garden encourages wildlife to thrive,

whilst maintaining a beautiful and tidy appearance.

I love the garden, Ken. Absolutely love it.

To many people, this would be their ideal retreat, wouldn't it?

Yeah. It's very nice. Very quiet. Very relaxing.

So you've created a... Pretty much a full eco system here.

You've introduced cover, be it in trees, shrubs.

You have open spaces, you have shade spaces.

There's probably dry areas and every condition, really,

that we like to grow in.

That's one of the things that makes gardens so good for wildlife -

the fact that they pack all this variety.

There's no natural habitat that provides that variety

on this small scale.

But the really crucial thing that you need

for lots of wildlife in a garden is lots of big, woody plants.

Hedges, shrubs, trees.

The more of those you have, the more wildlife you have.

Woody plants like these beech hedges don't just provide cover

for creatures in a wildlife neighbourhood.

If you look at gardens,

if you can imagine a sort of aerial view of gardens,

they actually don't exist in isolation,

and as far as the wildlife in your garden is concerned,

as long as they can get from one to the other,

as long as you have nice permeable boundaries like these hedges here,

they don't care.

Along with half the country,

my fences were blown down this past winter

and coming into your garden today, I've decided what I'm going to do

is to grow a holly and beech hedge

because that's not going to happen again.

It's cheaper, it'll last forever, it'll never blow down.

Providing a regular supply of pollen and nectar is a sure-fire way

of attracting pollinators to your garden,

and that's exactly what they're doing here

at Bristol University Botanic Gardens.

For instance, this clump of honesty is perfect for attracting

nocturnal insects such as moths.

And the flowering kale over here

is packed with nectar which makes it absolutely seductive for bees.

Wild flowers are great for our precious pollinators and

I'm going to show you how to create a wonderful patch in your garden.

What I'm going to do is take a little patch of garden

in an open, sunny position and plant some wild flower seeds.

The first job is to clear the patch of ground of any weeds.

In particular, look out for perennial weeds with big roots.

Just dig down maybe a couple of weeks before you sow the seed.

Perennial weeds like dandelions and ground elder are common

and can thrive in your garden year after year.

If you don't want them competing with your wild flowers

you need to make sure you remove their roots completely.

The soil that we have here is relatively free-draining

but it is quite stony.

That won't be an issue for the type of gardening that we're doing.

Wild flowers flourish easily in stony earth

and by gently tilling the soil with a rake

you can create the perfect bed for your seeds.

I've chosen three of my favourite wild flowers for this small patch.

I'm going to start off with these poached eggplant.

They look exactly as you'd imagine, like a poached egg.

Yellow in the centre and a white veil all the way round.

They are great for attracting hover flies,

which of course will eat the aphids

that are attacking so many other things in the garden.

Sprinkle your seeds over the raked soil without worrying too much

about where they land.

After that, really my favourite wild flower.

These are cornflowers.

You know that really beautiful, bright blue flower

that just looks fantastic in a meadow.

In the countryside they're a little bit endangered

so isn't it lovely to encourage them into our own gardens?

And finally, I have poppy seeds here.

Now those produce these long, hairy stems

and on the top of them will be these beacons of red.

And to spread them evenly can be a bit tricky

so just be a little bit careful.

And right the way round the patch, let them fall into the ground.

Although poppies only flower for a short period,

they produce a huge amount of edible pollen,

which is a favourite of both bumble bees and honey bees.

And if you fancy a bit of pot luck,

there's another way to achieve a fantastic wild flower patch.

If you want, you can just get wild flower mixes

and you never know what you'll find in here.

There could be some orchids, red campion, all sorts

and it's the excitement of waiting to see what shows up

out of the ground is great.

You can sow wild flower seeds really at any time of the year

except in deepest winter.

In a matter of six or eight weeks, these will be jumping

out of the ground and creating a wonderful

and colourful display both for us and for the wildlife.

Creating habitats to attract wildlife

is essential for promoting a balanced ecosystem,

which in turn will make for healthy plants in your garden

without the need for pesticides and chemical fertilisers.

This is exactly what Malcolm Mullart has achieved here in one of the UK's

only chemical-free community wildlife allotments.

Now, what really strikes, Malc,

is that all of this gardening is done organically.

Everybody has signed up to the notion of working with nature.

-That's right.

-It's very difficult in an allotment.

What's happened is as the wildlife has come in,

people are seeing the work being done for them.

So for example, a girl called Tracey over there had a terrible trouble

with blackfly on her broad beans.

But within about an hour, she had an invasion of ladybirds

from the insect homes close by and wiped the whole lot out.

I would say now, if you rely on encouraging beneficial insects in,

they do the work for you

so it becomes easier than going for the zapper.

Each of the 68 allotments here in Shropshire are producing

all manner of fruit and vegetables organically and although harvest is

a little way off yet, I can already see crops peeking through the earth.

This is all made possible by specially designed habitats

that surround the plots

which has a diverse array of crop-friendly creatures,

and Malcolm is going to show me how it works.

At one side of the pathway you have the typical allotment

but everywhere else you look, there are little habitats.

What are this pile of old paving stones?

Yes, that's a pile of broken paving stones from

when someone had a new patio made at home

and we made a little dry-stone wall and that attracts beetles.

Why are beetles important?

They are prey insects and they'll be after

some of the bugs that will be spoiling our vegetables and fruit.

It's great fun, apart from anything else.

All of these man-made habitats are set amongst

some very well-considered planting.

So this area is the winter garden?

-Yes.

-And what does that mean?

This area has got plants in it

that predominantly look good in the winter,

but we make sure it looks good all year round.

So we have things like the hellebores and the carex

which will be flowering in the winter and the myosotis and...

Yeah, and coloured stems of the dogwoods and willows.

Right. That's very nice, isn't it?

-You see that's got insects on it.

-Yeah.

-Little flies.

By encouraging predatory and pollinating insects to the site

all year round, Malcolm and his fellow gardeners

are working in harmony with nature.

The other amazing thing is all the bird sounds.

Yes. We bring in by having nest boxes and natural hedges,

ornamental trees around the site that will bring the birds in

so there's somewhere for them to nest,

somewhere for them to shelter and food right throughout the year.

Behind us there, we've got a turf spiral

with a textured totem pole in the middle.

One of the main purposes of that is it brings voles in

and they come out and they eat slugs.

This balanced ecosystem doesn't just unite wildlife,

it's also created a close-knit community of all ages

that embrace organic gardening with a passion.

And they love to get together to taste their chemical-free bounty.

-Got the fennel.

-Yep.

-Which has a great liquorice scent.

-And what's this, marjoram?

-Marjoram. Yes.

So these are all wonderful for wildlife gardens

because I suppose they'll all produce flowers.

They all produce flowers which brings in the bees

and the butterflies and the hoverflies.

Do you think what you're doing here should be a beacon to

the gardeners of the rest of the country,

whether it's on an allotments or in their own back gardens?

I think, we're trying to encourage the youngsters on the allotment.

We've got quite a few young families so if we can sort of encourage them,

show them and let them see and understand what we're doing,

hopefully they will be the gardeners of tomorrow.

'These guys are true champions of my revival.'

Oh, that's delicious.

Just imagine if we all took a leaf out of their book

and started gardening in harmony with nature.

We could restore wildlife populations

to our green and pleasant land

and enjoy some healthy and delicious food.

Coming to this allotment and meeting people with a passion

for gardening along with nature has been absolutely inspiring.

To achieve a balance in your garden's ecology,

you really do need to invite the whole food chain.

Here at the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens,

there's some ingenious methods of enticing all manner of wildlife,

and I'm going to show you some simple ideas that will work a treat

in your garden.

As homemakers, housekeepers and gardeners, we've kind of evolved

into a species that expects things to be neat and tidy inside and out.

It's not the way it is with nature and it's not the way it should be.

Having an area of garden like this,

just a few pieces of rotting, decomposing wood,

is very important for a healthy ecosystem.

If you won't have room for a pile of logs,

just avoid sweeping up dead leaves

as they will also be decomposed by your creepy crawlies,

and they in turn will become food

for another important garden inhabitant

that you can invite with the right plants.

Trees, shrubs and hedges provide

great nesting opportunities for birds.

Take this holly behind me. It's perfect.

It's evergreen, so there's cover all year round.

Later in the year, there's berries for food

and with those prickly leaves, there's protection from predators.

Birds like all sorts of different plants.

Sunflowers look great and their seeds are a real avian treat.

Or why not plant a delightfully scented honeysuckle?

Yew hedges work really well,

providing shelter and nesting opportunities.

And a crab apple tree is sure to attract robins

with a fruit crop that can last throughout the winter.

If you don't have room for big trees in your garden

but you still want to encourage birds to nest,

well, give them a little bit of a helping hand.

How about this? This cute little nesting box.

This one has a large opening which makes it perfect for species

such as robins and wrens.

And the thing about those birds is

that you don't have to put the house on a wall too high.

They like to be just above eye level.

I'm putting this behind an evergreen shrub - an elaeagnus.

But it's not only birds that need a helping hand.

How about this bat roosting box?

This similarly is perfect for them.

They enter up this way and if you put it high up in a tree,

they could be adding to the biodiversity in your garden.

To help these endangered winged mammals,

incorporate night-scented plants into your garden,

such as evening primrose, that will attract moths,

a favourite delicacy of the bat.

Recent years have shown that our bee population is in shocking decline.

Bees are integral to our ecosystem

and their disappearance would result in a loss of a huge range

of plant life that rely on them for pollination.

We can all help to turn this around by planting pollen

and nectar-rich flowers to bring back the bee to Britain.

Hi, Jez.

I've come to South Yorkshire to meet Jez Daughtrey who,

after 20 years in IT, has quit the rat race

to become a champion of the honey bee.

We hear stories all the time that they're in decline.

What's your take on that?

Bees need a good source of flowers and nectar and pollen

and I think the more we can do to help bees that way,

that's the way forward.

Just spend a few pounds on a packet of seeds.

Everyone can make a difference that way.

And do you do anything like that? Do you sow seeds or...?

Back of my truck, we've got a big bag of five kilos of borage seed

and we scatter it everywhere. Literally.

-Without telling anyone.

-Without telling anybody.

Jez is a true guerrilla gardener

and although I'm a bit wary of bee stings,

I feel compelled to lend a hand in moving a hive.

How many times do you get stung a day?

Uh, myself, about 20-30 times.

I'm not happy.

So we're going to close the entrance on here.

Aargh!

Jez moves his bees to various locations

so they can gather nectar and pollen from different species of flowers.

And there's a very good reason for this.

One of the ideas was to create bespoke honeys -

the idea of creating a honey from a specific plant.

So we take the bees to the heather moors, it produces a heather crop.

We take the bees to the borage plants in North Lincolnshire,

it produces a borage honey.

Every single hive will have a distinct and unique honey,

a different flavour.

But before I get to taste this bespoke honey,

there's still work to be done.

This is a new block of flats or a new factory?

-This is a new factory.

-OK.

-We're upgrading. That's what we're doing.

-Right.

-Pair of gloves.

-They're not even real gloves!

Not even real gloves.

Did you go on any bee-keeping courses?

-JEZ LAUGHS

-That's why you get stung!

The smoking device subdues the bees,

so I'm hanging onto it for the scary bit.

-So we take our roof off.

-OK.

-If I lift this corner up...

-Yep.

..you can gently smoke inside. A bit more than that.

Over the frames themselves just to push the bees down a little bit.

That's perfect.

So gently we're going to lift the frames out one by one.

Well, it's amazing to see, isn't it?

-Can you see the honey here?

-Yeah.

-All this is honey.

-Wow, look at that! That's fantastic.

Nectar. Nectar to become honey.

-And then look at the dandelion pollen here.

-Yeah.

It's incredible.

'The most important part of the relocation is to find the queen bee

'and clip her wings before transferring to the new hive.

'This will discourage the queen from leaving her new home

'and keep Jez's honey flowing.'

Are they going to get annoyed knowing that you have the queen?

No. They won't be aware of that difference at the moment.

-In about ten minutes time, they're going to know that she's missing.

-OK.

Apparently it's my turn to get sticky hands,

but I'm not sure that I'm particularly keen.

And then you're going to place it into the gaps in the hive itself.

Ah!

No sudden movements.

Now, I reckon out of that ten minutes

you've got about two minutes left

until these guys realise something has happened.

-So are you going to brace yourself for this?

-Yeah.

-OK. Do you want to stand back a little bit?

-Yeah.

-DIARMUID LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

-What's a little bit?

I think the best thing to do is...

..tell me when it's over!

After my heroic attempts at beekeeping, it's time to take

some of this bespoke honey to the people of Sheffield.

What we're doing here is trying to create

an awareness of the different flavours of honey

that are available just in this city by doing some honey tasting.

And then if people like what they taste,

we're trying to encourage them to grow some of the plants

that will result in these distinctive flavours.

I've brought along three different types of honey produced from flowers

that any of us can grow in our gardens.

One where the bees have fed from heather,

one apple blossom, and one borage.

-Definitely mild.

-Definitely mild.

-What do you think of that?

-Flavour?

-Yeah.

Where do you think honey gets its flavour?

Flowers?

The beekeeper is growing this plant called comfrey

and that's what's giving this its flavour.

-Heather.

-Heather.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Isn't that amazing?

That shows you how green-fingered I am, doesn't it?

-Do you like it?

-It's lovely.

That's nice. Very soft.

It feels as though it's just so good for you, really.

The honey is a hit and I'm hoping that the people of Sheffield

will support their local bees and plant some nectar-rich flowers.

All take a packet of seeds

and if you sow them in your garden or anywhere,

in no time at all you'll have the bees coming to your place.

Does it need to be in the sun or will it grow in shade?

-Nice open, sunny area.

-Nice open, sunny area.

Unless we have wildlife, we won't be able to produce honeys like this.

The chap on the next allotment's got a couple of hives.

-He has hives on the allotment?

-Yeah.

-Fantastic.

If he wants an expert beekeeper,

now I'm not one for boasting or anything like that,

but I'm pretty good.

OK. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Bye.

Good morning, shoppers.

Please join the wildlife garden revival by planting

wonderful pollinating plants in your garden which will

provide a great resource for all the bees and other insects

in our back gardens, so that we can produce wonderful honey.

Food and shelter are critical for wildlife

but nothing can exist without water.

This large pool is teeming with wildlife such as pond skaters,

water beetles, newts and tadpoles.

But if you don't have the space or the inclination to dig a pool,

I've just the thing for you.

'I'm going to show you how to make your very own mini water feature

'for your garden.'

We start off with a container.

I'm using a simple plastic container so no need to seal up any holes.

I'm going to add a whole system of plants here

that will keep the water fresh

without the need for any pumps or plumbing or electricity,

so it's magic in a barrel.

By using upturned clay pots you can create

different levels on which you can place your plants.

The first one, a starwort. A very interesting arrangement.

A star-like arrangement of foliage.

What this will do is it's an oxygenator, so that's going to

add oxygen to the water and the foliage will float to the surface.

Once in position, it's time to add the next level.

And our big structural planting is this wonderful equisetum.

Looks a bit like rushes or bamboo

and also hosts lots of different insects.

Dragon flies lay their larvae here and those little insects

eventually creep all the way to the top of these stems.

In front of that I'm going to... It's not exactly planting,

I'm going to place one of these carexes.

Now, all these plants seem to be in pots,

but they're in little baskets with holes right the way around the base

and all along the side

to allow for the exchange of water and the gasses that will build up.

Next, I add some rocks, building up to surface level.

This creates a nice landing spot for my winged bathers.

Our main plant is going to be one of the stars of the show.

This is a water lily and again, it's coming in a basket.

Those leaves which are at the moment lying rather limply

have a beautiful kind of ruby colour

and that, once I place it in the deepest area of the pot,

those lily pads, upon the addition of water, will float to the surface.

Water lilies like this will not only offer a hiding place

for creatures that live under the water

they also provide a perfect landing pad for dragon flies.

The best type of water to use isn't from your tap.

Collect it when it rains in buckets or from the water butt

at the end of the drain pipes.

It's important to add oxygenating plants to keep your water fresh.

This one is called hornwort.

It's a funny way we have of planting this.

I'm just going to tie a little stone to it to weigh it down.

It takes all its nutrients from the water

and produces lots of oxygen to keep that water fresh.

When you plant up this or any garden pond initially,

you might find that some algae takes over, the water goes a bit greenish.

It takes a while for the ecosystem to develop

and all the workings of these plants to kick in.

The only thing to do now is to sit back and enjoy it

and no in time at all, it will become a habitat,

a home to all sorts of pond life.

One common misconception is that to create a wildlife garden,

you need lots of space.

But Keith Reynolds' inner city Manchester flat

is proof that that is simply not true.

This is my balcony.

As you can see, I've used lots and lots

of galvanised metal buckets because these are the building blocks

of the wildlife garden balcony.

The buckets are really cheap to get.

I just drilled holes in them and then filled them

with peat-free compost and plants which are fantastic for wildlife.

When I look out and see around me in the inner city of Manchester

all these blank, sterile balconies, I think it's a crying shame

because people could be making them really green.

They could be attracting lots bees and butterflies

with the right plants.

They're missing out on an opportunity to actually sit out

on their own balcony and have their own piece of nature

right on their doorstep.

Keith has employed some very inventive techniques

to attract wildlife.

What we have here is my dustbin lid meadow.

So what we've got now is white campion, which is great for bees

but also for moths at night because it has a night-scented flower.

Here I've got a bucket pond which, as you can see, is essentially

a bucket that's been filled with water

and I've planted water bistort as well as yellow flag iris.

He's even started a blog to give advice to other inner city

wildlife enthusiasts.

I started the blog for my wildlife garden balcony

approximately four years or so ago.

It contains lots of details about what plants to choose,

what containers to use, how to set up the right conditions

so that your plants don't die, to hopefully inspiring people

to see if I can do it, they can do it.

To be able to sit back and relax

and enjoy the wildlife in your own garden is such a real treat.

But our birds, bees and butterflies are under real threat.

We can make a difference, though, if we provide some food,

water and shelter for them.

No matter how big our outdoor space,

your wildlife will be all the richer for it.

Across the series, our revival team are travelling

the length and breadth of Britain,

celebrating our gardens...

You couldn't draw, as a landscape artist, a more perfect picture.

Flowers...

The perfume. Oh, it's sensational!

And plants.

This plant is perfect.

That's going to get off to a great start.

Next, Charlie Dimmock campaigns to revive the peony.

Ask anyone what their favourite flower is

and you'll probably get rose, daffodil or maybe even sweet pea.

But there's one flower that doesn't appear very high on anyone's list.

It's a really gorgeous flower that I feel has been somewhat neglected

and overlooked by the British gardener,

and that flower is the peony.

Considered difficult to grow and with a short flowering period,

we're simply not planting as many of them in our gardens.

But if we don't, there's a chance we might lose

some of our more beautiful varieties.

That's why I want to make it the star of the border again.

On my revival campaign, I'll see just how versatile

these stunning plants are.

No-one can say that there's not a peony for them.

I totally agree.

'I take to the streets to ignite people's passion for peonies.'

What would be most romantic? Getting peonies from sir or roses?

And I'll show you my top tips on how to establish

peonies in your own garden.

Just be patient. I promise you it's well worth the wait.

This is the enchanting Kiftsgate Court Gardens in Gloucestershire.

This seven-acre garden is on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment

and has stunning views as far as the eye can see.

In early summer, the borders are a blaze of colour

and it's the peonies that steal the show.

Some people think peonies are old-fashioned and uncool

but I've always thought they're rather glamorous and romantic.

There's nothing understated about the flowers

and no matter what border they're in,

they'll always draw your attention.

Whenever I see peonies, I get transported back

to when I was a child.

I've got lots of very happy, fond memories of helping my grandad,

who was a gardener, in the garden

and I would be drawn to the peonies

because they were so colourful and full-on,

and probably much to his irritation, I would go

and collect the petals even if they were still on the flower

and then distribute them round the lawn.

But they are beautiful and it takes me

right back there every time I see them.

To try and understand the decline of the peony,

I have come to the West Country, the flower's spiritual home in Britain.

Now, I think one of my biggest problems with the campaign is

that people don't actually recognise peonies when they see them.

Would you know what those flowers are?

-Not a clue.

-No.

-No?

-No.

Would you know what these flowers are?

I have no idea what they are.

Carnations?

Is it a camellia?

They smell lovely, though. No eating them, darling.

My wife will kill me if she sees this because she's a florist.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Oh!

It seems the poor peony is suffering a bit of an identity crisis,

yet it's here in Somerset where the flower was historically grown.

Kelways is one of the UK's oldest plant nurseries,

established in 1851 and named after its peony-loving owners.

They helped spread the popularity of peonies as far as America

and turned them into a bit of an Edwardian obsession.

But as the craze for labour-intensive herbaceous borders

diminished in the mid-1900s,

the peony gradually fell out of favour across the country.

I'm not the only one that thinks

that peonies have got a bit of a raw deal

and we've neglected them slightly in the garden.

Mr Kelway wrote in his garden peony book,

"It seems to me surprising as well as unfortunate that the peony,

"one of the loveliest of all flowers and available to all,

"is not as widely known to the general public in Britain."

But current owner Dave Root is determined to safeguard

these historic peonies for the future.

Using the nursery's original hand-written catalogue,

Dave is attempting to identify all the peony varieties

from the collection

so that he can replant them and preserve them for the future.

I'm here to help relocate one of these original peonies.

We've got our, what we call our peony bible here,

which is our big stock list made by James Kelway

back in the 1930s of all the peonies they've got in the collection.

Occasionally, a plant still comes up and flowers

which is actually not what it's supposed to be.

I'm pretty convinced this is one called Bridal Veil,

which I thought had actually been lost from our collection.

So I'm really pleased that we've discovered it again.

Dave needs to dig up the peony so it can be moved to a different area

where he's growing the new collection.

There it can be labelled and catalogued.

So when would you say the real big heyday of peonies was?

I think the heyday was at the end of the 19th century when...

Which was the days of the great Victorian plant collectors

and the big estates and the big gardens.

And in those sort of times,

everyone had the grand double herbaceous border

and peonies were an integral part of that.

And it was said that the peonies were like the Victorian ladies of the day

with very thin necks and big hats.

-SHE LAUGHS

-OK, yeah. I can see that.

So why did they go into decline, then?

It all changed about the time of the First World War

because the labour, the gardeners all went off to war

and a lot of the big houses had the gardens turned into vegetable plots.

-Of course, yeah.

-And the houses themselves

were turned into hospitals.

So gardening and things like peonies ceased to be an important thing.

Post-war, the lack of man power saw British growers struggling

and American and Dutch breeders took over.

We stopped exporting peonies and started to import.

What makes Kelway special is the peonies.

They've been here since the 1850s and we want them

to be here forever more, really, if we can.

And the great thing with peonies is you'll get more and more flowers

every single year and you see them getting bigger and bigger.

They are plants that need a little bit of time to establish

in the garden, which does put some people off.

But once they're in, they're there forever.

And to hopefully preserve the rediscovered Bridal Veil forever,

it's being relocated to the new collection

in a more condensed area of the nursery.

We started planting this back in the autumn of last year

and we've got 150 varieties in here already,

but my dream, Charlie, is to have 1,000 in here.

-1,000? Fantastic.

-How amazing would that be?

The only important thing when planting a peony

is that you don't plant it too deeply.

Can you see those little growth buds,

-which are the buds for next year?

-Mm-hm.

They want to be no more than about five centimetres

-below the soil surface.

-Right.

Any deeper than that and you'll get loads of lovely leaves

but you'll never get flowers.

And it also gives rise to the myth

that if you move a peony it won't flower.

If that were true, then we wouldn't be able

to propagate these plants at all or sell them.

-And it's just because someone's planted it too deep?

-All it is!

It's just all down to that planting depth.

Get that right and you'll never have a problem moving your peonies

or making them flower.

And you'll be labelling this one so that you know...

I will indeed. It will be proudly labelled 'Bridal Veil'.

-SHE LAUGHS

-And it's not lost.

It's not lost. It's back in the collection.

We'll log it on the database and next year, I'll come back

and inspect the flowers again.

Why do you think it's so important to have a collection like this?

It's just all part of the world's richness of flora

and fauna, isn't it?

Some of these plants exist nowhere else in the world

but in this little field in the corner of Somerset

and I think that's really, really special.

So what do you think of my campaign to get people

to put a peony in their garden?

I would love you to get more people to grow peonies.

I think they are one of the best

and most rewarding of all the garden plants.

Everyone's got to have a peony, as far as I'm concerned, in the garden.

I'm all for that. Or even 1,000 varieties, like me.

With enthusiasts like Dave flying the flag for peonies,

it can only help my campaign to get everyone growing them

in their gardens.

Peonies fall into three different categories,

all with different characteristics but perfect in any garden.

Herbaceous peonies are the ones that most people recognise.

They die right back down in the winter time

and in the spring, there's the flowers.

You can get simple single ones right the way through to

full-on double in a vast array of colours.

And that's why they often feature as a cut flower in bouquets.

Tree peonies flower much earlier than the herbaceous peonies.

Late spring, early summer.

In actual fact, it's a large shrub,

getting up to about three metres by three metres,

and although they have flowers,

they're not quite as full-on as the herbaceous ones.

But they do have these fantastic seed pods afterwards that

look like court jester hats.

The third group of peonies came about

when a plant breeder in Japan crossed a tree peony with a

herbaceous peony to give us what are called the intersectional peonies.

They've got the structure of the tree peony

and the lovely foliage,

but they've also got the full-on glamorous flowers

of the herbaceous peonies.

Here at Kiftsgate Court in the Cotswolds,

peonies have been a feature plant

since the first one was introduced into the garden in the 1930s,

a legacy that has been passed down through three generations

of women gardeners.

I'm meeting Anne Chambers, who is carrying on her grandmother

and mother's passion for peonies.

Anne, how did the gardens develop here?

Well, my grandmother, my grandparents, bought the house

in 1918 after the First World War

and there wasn't really a garden at all here.

Anne's grandmother Heather Muir had no horticultural training,

but nonetheless, set to creating the garden.

She decided that she was going to lay out this top garden to begin with

and then set to on the very steep banks in the 1930s.

And from there, your mother took over?

Yes. My mum moved in in the 1950s.

And you've kept it going?

Well, we moved here, yes, 30 years ago and luckily for us,

my mother was still going strong so she taught us a lot.

-It looks amazing.

-Oh, thank you.

And have you always been peony enthusiasts?

Well, yes. We love peonies. They're very special.

And Anne has three special peonies to show me,

planted by the three generations.

The first was put in by her grandmother

and had a long journey to get here.

That's a climb, I have to say.

This is a tree peony that my grandmother brought back from China.

-Oh!

-Back in the 1930s.

So did she go out there?

No, no. In those days it came back by boat, so it took six months.

I always think it looks rather in situ here.

It could be on a hillside in the Himalayas or China

-with this sort of wooded area.

-Definitely.

Well, it's obviously finished flowering now.

Yes, absolutely. It flowered in May.

It has wonderful, big... Those enormous, saucer-shaped pink flowers

which are spectacular.

Even when the flower's over they're still pretty.

-So how old's that, then?

-Nearly 90 years old.

Definitely worth the investment.

Quite. Absolutely.

Well, here we've got the lovely peony Bowl of Beauty.

One of the most popular ones, really, isn't it?

Absolutely, yes. I think most people do know it.

Beautiful pink guard petals and then the fantastic centre.

-They're known as Japanese peonies, aren't they?

-Yes.

-Or imperial.

-Absolutely.

You've got a real month or six weeks, probably, of flowering

which is very good for a peony.

Yeah, and I mean, so spectacular.

Was this you that put this in or...?

No, this was my mother so this one's been here, yes,

probably since the 1960s.

So, Anne, you grew up here as a child. Do you remember the peonies?

As a child, you just take everything for granted.

But I do remember that at this time of year,

the roses and the peonies were very much a feature

and as a result, yes, we've planted lots of other new varieties as well.

And one of those varieties Anne planted six years ago,

but this year is its first flower.

It's called Jan Van Leeuwen.

-I don't know if my pronunciation's right.

-Oh, OK.

And I'd sort of forgotten about it

and then suddenly this year, this beautiful white flower.

It's gorgeous. Another Japanese single peony.

-Yes, yes. And a good leaf as well, don't you think?

-Really nice.

A really strong green, which contrasts fantastically with

-the white of the flower.

-Yes.

I'm thrilled. Worth waiting for.

So, Anne do you think I'm doing the right thing,

encouraging people to put peonies in their garden?

I do because really, they're very little bother.

They don't get diseases.

They disappear in the winter. They're totally hardy.

I think they're a tremendous family, really,

and there are so many different varieties.

Peonies will reward you with a lifetime of flowers,

so it's worth investing in a plant.

To try and get the public excited,

I'm setting up Pop Up Peonies here in Bristol.

With my stall set, I call upon resident florist Lucy Manning

to gain some insight into people's buying habits

and to create some beautiful peony bouquets.

I particularly love these ones.

-They are gorgeous aren't they?

-Yeah. Together they look beautiful.

Are they popular?

They're kind of popular.

I mean, actually when I buy them, they look like this

so people just tend to kind of confuse them with other things.

-Poppies and roses.

-Poppies, yeah.

Clematis, maybe? Double clematis.

-Sometimes. Even dahlias someone thought one was before.

-Yeah.

So, Lucy, what do you like about peonies?

Um, I think what I really like is just watching them grow, really.

When you put them in a vase and they're in bud like this

and then you wake up in the morning and they've just opened.

And, yeah, and they just smell so good.

I have to say, in the garden peonies have gone slightly out of fashion.

-Yeah.

-Are they like that in the floral arrangement?

Floral-wise, I think with weddings they are kind of,

they are quite a fashionable flower now.

I'm doing a lot of weddings that are corally, peach tones

-that's the kind of the fashion.

-So that would be perfect.

Yeah, exactly, so I'm always recommending these.

Only at this time of year, though.

And price-wise in comparison to roses?

Now they're in season, they're a good price.

Come August, if a bride wants them,

she might spend probably triple what she'd spend around May.

And go on. I bet all these come in from abroad, don't they?

They do. That's the sad thing.

Most of the flowers I do get are locally-sourced,

but with peonies it's virtually impossible.

That's why I want to get everybody growing peonies in their garden.

Yeah.

I'm going to use Lucy's beautiful bouquets to grab people's attention,

then hopefully convince them to buy a plant of their own.

-Hello there.

-Hi.

It will cost about the same as a bouquet

but you will reap the rewards and it will flower year after year.

What would be most romantic - getting peonies from sir or roses?

-I want a red one.

-You want the red one?

Would you buy a bouquet of flowers like that?

I would. They're absolutely beautiful.

I really want people to grow them so I'd prefer you to buy a plant.

OK.

-Now, do you grow peonies at home?

-Yes, I do and I've got two.

They were my grandfather's and they've been growing for 50 years.

They're not as good as those but they're not looking too bad.

The white one is really beautiful.

Yeah, I'd grow that in my garden.

-Thank you very much.

-Kiss.

-Mwah.

Thank you.

Well, it's getting to the end of the day.

The market's closing down.

I managed to get rid of half of the peonies.

I'm really pleased with the positive reaction my plants got.

I think I've definitely helped raise the profile of this

incredible flower.

Peonies are not only beautiful plants

but they're one of the most robust as well.

As the generations of plants here at Kiftsgate Court have proven,

I'm going to show you how simple it is to manage peonies at home.

Tree peonies require very little in the way of maintenance

but what you may want to do is contain its size.

This one here's got way too tall and is hanging over the path.

I'm going to take this one out to reduce the height

and also the width.

Always prune to a nice strong shoot or bud that's outward-facing.

A nice clean cut there.

The other thing to remove is crossing stems.

That way you keep the shrub nice and open

and it lets air circulate through.

So you can see this stem here is crossing right the way

through the other upward stems.

Again, always prune to a nice strong shoot.

I'm doing this just after it's finished flowering, which is fine

but if you're doing major retraining, then you're best

to wait until the autumn when the plant's gone dormant

and most of the leaves have dropped off.

Now, this growth that's been taken back here will cause the side buds

that are dormant at the moment to shoot next spring

and of course, it's going to be covered in fabulous flowers

in April-May.

Unlike tree peonies which happily grow without any additional support,

some herbaceous varieties may need a helping hand by staking.

Now, personally, I would chose ones that don't -

something like Pillow Talk that has lovely strong stems.

But if you want to go for something like Sarah Bernhardt

for cutting, then you will need to stake it.

You could quite happily just use canes and twine

but I like to use these herbaceous supports.

So all it consists of is a circle that's been divided up with supports

and then you've got three or four legs that hang off it

which you must make sure you get in position above the plant

before it starts growing.

Push it down into the ground

and as the foliage grows up, you can raise up the ring with it.

As you can see from this peony here, you really don't notice the support

at all and all you're seeing is the lovely flowers.

Someone who shares my love for peonies is Claire Austin.

She's been growing them in her nursery garden on the Welsh Borders

since the 1980s and now has around 200 varieties.

Now, I know you've got a passion for peonies

but where did that come from, then?

It was really just my father who was...

He was breeding roses

but he didn't think they were going to hit the big time.

So in the early '80s, he bought a large collection of peonies

and irises and other perennials, and then the roses went wow

and he wasn't going to grow peonies any more, so I took them over.

And you can't resist a peony when it's in flower.

They are just so beautiful.

They add the wow to the border and they're very easy to grow.

Through 30 years of growing peonies, Claire has built

a collection of reliable and easy-to-maintain varieties,

and it's the modern intersectional peonies that stand out.

So the intersectionals, then?

Crosses between tree peonies and herbaceous peonies

and they make lovely round, sturdy plants.

Now this plant is actually only a couple of years old

and the flowers will get bigger, like all peonies does as they age.

This one's called Bartzella.

It gets no disease and in the autumn, it just falls off very neatly.

You don't have to cut it back.

So there's no faffing around, cutting it back or...

No. Self-supporting.

So would you recommend intersectionals

for the average person?

Oh, absolutely, yes.

They may be a bit expensive at the moment

but they are going to get cheaper

and they come in such a lovely range of colours.

Why do you think they're so expensive?

Is it just because demand outstrips supply?

-They're new, in peony terms.

-Right.

A lot of peonies that might be cheaper

may well have been introduced in the 1900s.

This was only from the 1980s, 1990s.

OK, so that's why.

It's taking a lot of time to propagate them on.

-Are they not doing tissue culture with them?

-They're starting to.

There are certain ones and they're going to be cheaper, much cheaper.

And it's lovely and compact, isn't it?

Not only that, they're really easy to grow.

Just plant them and leave them.

-That's what we like!

-Exactly!

That's what we like.

One common complaint is the short flowering season,

usually less than three weeks.

But Claire thinks the intersectional peonies are key to overcoming this.

So I suppose by having two or three of these different

intersectional peonies in the garden,

you're going to get quite a lot longer flowering period?

That's right. They'll come in different heights as well.

This one is particularly compact.

By growing intersectionals alongside herbaceous and tree peonies,

Claire ensures she further extends the flowering period

and has blooms from April through to June.

So what would you recommend, then, in a herbaceous line?

Well, I think something like this Japanese peony,

which is called Cream Puff.

It's self-supporting.

-So no staking. Once it's in, that's it.

-That's right.

It flowers for a good ten days, two weeks,

-even two and a half weeks.

-Each flower?

-Each flower.

-Yeah. Who's this, then?

-This is Crackles.

Hello, Crackles.

-CLAIRE LAUGHS

-Do you like the peonies?

-Do they smell nice?

-I think they've been eating them.

-CHARLIE LAUGHS

-Yeah.

Claire's collection is a fantastic array of colour, shape and height

with a long flowering period to boot.

I can see why you've ended up with a field full.

Absolutely. There are so many and they all flower at different times.

No-one can say that there's not a peony for them.

I totally agree.

What I love about this border at Kiftsgate Court Gardens

is the lovely pallet of colour,

from the dark blue of the pea-flowered baptisia,

the soft pink of the ballerina rose

and the dark purple of the astrantia.

But what still steals the show? The peony.

And for a show-stopping peony of your own,

here's how to plant a tree peony in your garden.

Tree peonies are extremely hardy and not very demanding.

Ideally, they'd like to be in partial shade

but they will put up with full shade as well and do OK.

What you must remember is they're going to get large

so you make sure you give them the space

because they're going to be there for a very long time.

As with all plants, make sure you dig the hole big enough to get

the whole of the root ball easily into the hole.

So I'm just going to pop some bone meal at the bottom of the hole,

which is really good for getting the roots established

and the plant established and giving it a good boost.

Now, I've had this standing in water

so that the root ball is nicely soaked.

And it's a case of gently tapping it out of the pot

and there you can see we've got some really lovely young, fibrous roots.

You just want to make sure that you plant it slightly deeper

than soil level.

That way it will give it more stability.

And then just pop the soil back in.

With all varieties of peony, if you buy them containerised

like this one, they're happy to be planted at any time of the year.

Now, tree peonies are hungry plants

and they really will benefit from a top dressing of fertiliser

in the autumn, which will help initiate lots more lovely flowers

in the spring.

So firm it in and of course, give it a good water.

Soak it well.

That way, the roots will start to grow downwards rather than

come up to the surface.

And you must keep on top of watering for the next year or so.

And don't worry if you don't get flowers in the first year.

You've just got to be patient.

But I promise you, it's well worth the wait.

It's not just in gardens and vases where peonies stand out.

Floral artist Rebecca Louise Law regularly uses them

in her art installations of floral 3D sculptures and wall hangings.

I start all of my installations with flowers being fresh

and I allow them to dry.

Her most recent work is a private installation for a kitchen wall.

Within my artwork, I love peonies because they dry incredibly

and they hold their colours.

The technique I use is hanging the flowers within a space

where it has enough air to be able to stop the decaying process.

I get really excited when it's this season and I can use peonies

and dry them.

Peonies should definitely be revived

and people should really start to see the qualities in them,

especially in the garden.

Peonies are the best.

I couldn't agree more.

For me, no other plant gives such a show-stopping performance

as the peony.

You can have flowers from spring right into summer

and they're glorious.

And once they're in, you're going to have flowers

year after year after year.

Go on, splash out and put one in your garden,

or maybe even two.