Scented Gardens and Tulips 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 for ever.

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.

When setting out our gardens there are things that we all consider.

The shape and design of the borders. Flower combinations.

Even add in a few wigwams for height and structure.

But, you know, there's one thing that so many of us

miss out on in our gardens and I think it's fundamentally important.

Scent.

Scented plants have played an important role in British history,

from the fragrant herbs that arrived with

the Romans to the aromatic flower gardens of the Middle Ages.

But where are those sweet smells today?

These sweet peas are glorious and their perfume...

Oh, it's sensational! And that's something that's been

lost from many modern cultivars and not just in sweet peas.

And that's why I think we need to make our gardens fragrant once again.

On my revival campaign - I'll be visiting the scented garden

that was created to win the heart of a queen.

Today, if you fancy someone you might buy them a bottle of perfume.

Dudley grew it and put it in a garden!

I'll show you how to have fragrance wafting into your home with

a window box.

You'll get months and months of time to enjoy all the aromas.

And I'll be holding the country's first ever scented-flower competition.

-It's got quite a bit about it, hasn't it?

-Oh, yes.

-Fragrance is important, isn't it?

-Yeah.

We all know what lavender and lily of the valley smell like,

but they're just the start.

Because right under our noses is a whole world of beautiful,

engaging fragrances to enjoy.

I mean, some plants smell of cinnamon, others of nutmeg.

There's sugary syrups, citrus. Even plants that smell of bubble gum.

Now, this is the beautiful University of Cambridge Botanic Garden

and within its walls is a whole garden dedicated to all

the wonderful range of aromas that plants produce.

This is the aptly-named Scented Garden

and it's like a perfume cabinet made of plants.

All the fragrances are here - from the cloying aroma of lilies...

It's a bit like sniffing a glass of tropical fruit juice.

And the sweeter aromas from the stocks.

Lemons and citrus from pelargoniums.

There's even plants here that you don't associate with

fragrance at all. But believe me, they have one.

This is yarrow and on rainy days up from these felty grey leaves

comes a...

HE SNIFFS DEEPLY

..fragrance which is just like disinfectant.

Now, it's not everyone's cup of tea but I really like it.

Flowers produce scent to attract pollinators.

Different plants do this in different ways,

but mostly it's by secreting oils.

The scent in our gardens, these days, is getting harder to find.

I mean, take this rose. It looks like it's got everything.

It's abundant and beautiful - but sniff it...

There is nothing there, and this is the unforeseen

consequence of breeding programmes that have prioritised flower colour

and size and completely forgotten about fragrance.

But there are still roses, along with many other flowers out there,

that do smell delightful, and I want you to bring them

back to our Great British gardens.

I'm starting my campaign at the magnificent romantic

ruin of Kenilworth Castle.

It once belonged to Elizabeth I's suitor Robert Dudley,

who transformed it into a Renaissance palace in order to woo his queen.

It doesn't take much to imagine what it would look like in its pomp.

But there is one bit of it that's been restored

to its 16th-century magic, and it's this bit.

Down here.

This splendid scented Tudor garden is a recreation of the original.

Designed by Dudley to impress Elizabeth on her many visits.

Ah, goodness.

Isn't that incredible?

It was lost to the world for over four centuries

until it was resurrected five years ago by John Watkins, who is

Head of Gardens and Landscapes for English Heritage.

How important was scent back in Elizabethan times?

Scent was very important because life wasn't sweet-smelling then

and, um, and so it was real luxury.

The thing that really strikes me about it, that I just love,

is that today if you fancy someone you might buy them a bottle of perfume.

Dudley, now he was the man.

He not only had the perfume, he grew it and put it in a garden. I mean, it's extraordinary.

HE SNIFFS

Cor, it smells good. I can really smell the sweet rocket.

I think it's the hesperis and I think what's so nice about this

is its great colour and you've also got scent at the right height.

-Ah, that's important, is it?

-Well, I think it's important for those of us with bad backs,

you've not got to bend right the way down - so it's just at the right height.

Well, I'm all for it.

And being so much of it, of course, means there's plenty of scent

waving around in the air, so it does scent the whole environment.

Do you have any favourites, John?

Well, I think something that's always special in a garden are peonies.

This one has quite an unusual scent. What do you think of it?

Oh, it's appley.

It's like a bowl of fruit.

Yes, yes.

Fruity.

And just think, a flower that size in the Elizabethan period

and also with that scent, you know, it's surprising that didn't persuade the Queen, isn't it?

I know. I'm surprised she didn't go for him in the end.

Obviously she was no horticulturalist.

HE LAUGHS

Seeing and smelling the wonderfully aromatic plants here has really

brought it home to me how much scent we've lost from our gardens today.

To try and get to the bottom of where all of our fragrant plants

have gone I'm visiting a nursery in Worcestershire, where Geoff Caesar

and his team grow over a million plants every year for the UK market.

How have we got into this state?

BOTH LAUGH

It's all about that the plant has got to look fantastic

-when you buy it.

-Yeah.

A whole load of features that you're looking for in plants - they're all

really important and without some of those features a plant won't sell.

How attractive it is. How disease-resistant it is.

How hardy it is. All of these things will come before fragrance.

Really, it's that far down the list?

Fragrance is important

but it's not always the primary thing that a breeder is looking for.

So the fact that plants have lost their scent is an unforeseen

consequence of the breeding programmes.

-No-one wanted to do that, it's just happened.

-Of course not.

-But it's not all bad.

No, no, it's not all bad. Some plants that have been introduced in recent years

-have got fantastic fragrance.

-Yeah.

-Honeysuckles being one of them.

If I had come here and you'd have said to me,

"No, no, scent's not important. We just don't sell anything with scent anymore."

-I think I'd have just wept.

-It would be disappointing, wouldn't it? No, no, absolutely not.

I'm pleased to hear that there are still fragrant plants available,

but there are so many heavenly scents we could lose altogether

if we don't get planting.

It's not just the Scented Garden here at the University of Cambridge

Botanic Garden that's fragrant, these are the systematic beds and

I used to work here. And I loved them because you can navigate your way around

by your nose. You see, planted in each bed is a family of plants.

These are the labiates, the aromatic herbs.

And then there's the potato family, grasses and orchids.

You just close your eyes and you know where you are.

It's a sort of heady mix of plants, cut grass and hoed earth.

HE SNIFFS

It's lovely.

But if you're after something a little less subtle,

a bit more in-your-face and sweet, I've got just the thing for you.

And this is it. Jasmine or Jasminum officinale.

Now, it's got white night-scented flowers.

Many white flowers are scented at night because they're pollinated

by moths. And it's an interesting fact that when you're sniffing

around the plants in your garden, often the paler colours or the

flowers with less pigment in them, they have a more powerful aroma.

It's as if the colour uses up some of the scent.

Now, when I used to live in Cambridge I had one of these beautiful plants

growing on my shed. And I used to sit out, of a night, having a glass of wine

and it just filled the air with its tropical, sweet aroma.

Now, how this one will grow is up the side of the shed onto the roof.

And the scent, due to the heat that's going to be trapped in the roof,

pushing it and pulsing it out into the rest of the garden.

It's just going to fill the air gloriously.

When it comes to planting anything...

don't forget to put

a handful of fertiliser in the planting hole.

It just gives them that little boost to make sure they grow nice and tall.

A couple of other tips.

Notice how I haven't put the hole right next to the building.

I've left a good space.

That's because you want your plant to grow towards the structure

but not be in the dry soil right next to it.

Because the closer you are to the woodwork or the brickwork

of a building, obviously, the drier that earth is going to be.

Another tip...

climbers always like to grow toward the sun but then,

when you think about it, in nature

they would grow on the north side of a plant and aim up through

the branches, up through the canopy

and then grow out through

the top into the bright sunlight on the south side of their support.

If you struggle...

HE CHUCKLES

..like I am, to get your plant out the pot,

remember the old spade trick.

Put your spade in the ground and just tap

the pot against it like that and it comes out relatively easy.

Now, because this is grown in a container, as long as the earth

isn't waterlogged or frosty you can plant the jasmine at any

time of year. Then put the nice moist root ball down into the earth.

The canes are just to support the plant in the garden centre,

so make sure you remove them straight after planting.

Train plastic wire through secured hooks

and use loops of soft twine to attach the stems.

Most important of all is to give your plant a good drink once

it's in the ground.

A canful is what it needs, just to settle that soil around the roots.

And it's important with climbers that you keep them

well hydrated through their first year, just to help them

establish and get down on their own roots.

And if you do that and put that effort in in the first few months

you've got your plant, it will reward you -

filling your garden with fragrance for years to come.

One of the reasons why we don't appreciate fragrance in our

gardens is because, I think, we don't understand it and that's why I've

come to meet a man who has turned the art of aroma into a science.

John Stephen is the chemist and perfumer at the Cotswold Perfumery

where he has a specially designed perfume garden.

I'm hoping he'll explain to me the science of scent.

So tell me about your garden, John.

Well, in this garden everything has been planted for its aroma

rather than its appearance.

Each flower will produce a different aroma

so every flower is its own perfumer, really.

And where does the aroma come from in a flower?

It comes from what's called an essential oil

and there are many, many materials in a flower. So if you're looking

at a rose, for example, you're looking at about 700 components in it.

They're highly complex mixtures.

Yeah, and these are volatile oils,

ie they evaporate into the air when it's warm?

Yes. They must be volatile because we can only smell vapours.

And do you have any tips as a perfumer about how to

appreciate scent?

Is there anything that most of us are missing out on?

Well, you can assist yourself by improving what's

called your odour memory. And your odour memory is being able to

put words to what you smell and being able to recall it.

Now, this is something that we don't normally practice

but if you do, you increase your odour memory... A whole world opens

up to you with fragrances.

Because you have a much better appreciation of smells.

I like this idea of a workout for your odour memory.

Can you give me some tips on how to do it here?

Is there anything that I can have a sniff of?

We've got a good example here with a rose, for example, where the

fragrance does not come in the flower.

But the aroma is in the leaf and it smells nothing like rose.

Now, I guarantee that you've smelt that before

but you never will have associated it with a rose bud.

-If you scrunch it up really tightly in your fingers...

-Yeah.

..throw the leaf away and just smell your fingers.

Sort of like apple skins.

It's apple. Yes, well done.

-Wow!

-So there you are, you see, your odour memory is improving already.

HE LAUGHS

I like this. This could turn into a good garden game, this.

Focusing on my odour memory has made me

realise that it's all too easy to take fragrance for granted.

It is high time that we all pay a little more attention to our noses.

I'm back at Cambridge Botanics to show that if you don't have

space for your own scented garden and want to bring fragrance

into your home, then growing your own scented flowers from seed is... simple.

One of the things I love about fragrant plants is their ability

to paint picture in your mind's eye of a time or place.

And when it comes to painting a

postcard of summer - annual bedding plants, well, they can't be beaten.

I sow them every year.

I've got some real favourites that are dead easy

and will fill your garden with beautiful perfume

and, well, will cost no more than a pack of seeds.

Sweet peas, they're always a winner.

Now, the rule of thumb with these is that some you need to

soak in water and others you can sow straight away.

And you can tell often because the darker the flower on the front

of the seed packet means the thicker the seed coat.

With all seeds it pays to use a good seed compost.

Seed and cutting compost is different from the usual stuff

you buy because it's hardly got any nutrients in it

because nutrients, particularly phosphates, inhibit germination.

You just need a compost with good drainage.

And then with your sweet peas, I've got a nice little pale variety here...

All you do is scatter four or five to a pot,

onto the surface of the compost.

Space them out so that there's an inch or a couple of centimetres

between them, and then just push them down into the compost.

Up to my first knuckle on my finger, like so.

Smooth out the top

and then pop your little, potted sweet peas into some water to soak.

With tiny seeds it's slightly different.

You fill your pots with compost in the same way

but pick off any lumps of peat or bark or little stone chips,

because they will inhibit germination of any seed that

touches them and then smooth out the surface, and that's essential.

The surface has got to be level because otherwise the compost

will sit wetter in some parts than in others.

Now these...are nicotiana seeds. Tobacco plants.

They don't smell like much during the day

but at night it's like your garden is filled with someone baking cakes.

It's that sweet and sugary.

And can see how small that seed is?

Now, if you can't see very well without your reading glasses,

a good trick is to add a bit of sand to your seeds and just mix them together

because when they're combined it's so much easier

to see what you're doing. And then...

..you sow your seeds onto the top.

As long as I paint over the top of the compost, covering it with

the sand, I know the seeds will be evenly distributed as well.

It's always essential that they go in a water bath like this.

Never water from the top

because otherwise...

the water is like a tsunami, it just sloshes all

the seeds to the side of the pot where they

sprout in crowded conditions and they could damp off or start to rot away.

Keep your seedlings somewhere where the temperatures are nice

and even, but they won't get baked and they won't get frosted.

And after a couple of weeks they're up and looking like this.

Now, at this stage they need to be potted on into individual containers

in a process called pricking out.

Now, this is always a bit of a game and often gardeners

love their plants to death by mucking about with them.

The trick is - be prepared.

Get all your pots ready, make a hole right down the middle

with your finger, and then, here's the bit where so many people struggle.

You've got lever out the seedlings up onto the surface

so you can get hold of them. The name of the game with this is to handle

the plants as delicately as possible and you do

that by just holding them by one leaf...

and they come out with all the root intact.

You've got to get that root down.

So my trick is to get one of these pens.

Anything plastic will do.

Just create a bit of static on my trouser leg,

touch it onto the root and you see how it grips?

That means you can drop it down into the base of the pot without

it getting caught onto the compost.

A gentle firm round.

A little tap then pop it straight back into some water.

And really, it is as simple as that.

You can have a garden that's full of fragrance

and one that will be like a postcard for you to remember for ever.

I, for one, can't imagine what it would be like to lose

my sense of smell but one man who knows only too well is Duncan Boak.

After losing his sense of smell nine years ago

he now campaigns to raise awareness of smell and taste disorders.

I'm meeting him in a local florist where, sadly,

he can't smell a single flower.

Well, Duncan, we're in a florist and it smells well...floral

-and heady. But you can't smell a thing?

-Not a thing.

No, I lost my sense of smell in 2005 after suffering a severe head injury

and so the beautiful flower smells in this shop now,

I don't get anything at all.

And did you value your sense of smell or is it something you really miss now?

I never thought about the sense of smell

and all of a sudden I didn't have it any more.

You see, I'm on this revival to get people to appreciate

the value of scent in their gardens.

Is that something you think is important

since you've lost your sense of smell?

I think it's hugely important.

My parents have this beautiful garden in Shropshire

and I can walk around that and I don't smell the flowers.

It's just flat. There's nothing there.

I can look around and see the garden but that's very clinical and cold.

You don't FEEL it in the same way.

-And so aroma is connected to emotion?

-Completely, yes.

Our sense of smell is more closely associated with our emotion

than anything else we have.

We started a survey in October 2013 to establish the

quality-of-life impacts of olfactory disorders. And large numbers of people

say how the pleasure they once had, once took from their garden, has gone.

People don't understand that. People don't realise it.

But it is really one of those - you just don't know what you've got until it's gone.

Meeting Duncan has definitely given my campaign even more drive

and purpose, and I've got an idea.

There are hundreds of garden shows across the country where

flowers are judged in garden designs or bunched together

and rewarded for their artistic merits, but none, as far as I'm aware,

where flowers are judged for their fragrance alone. But all that is about to change.

To help my revival and make people realise how vital

scent in our garden is, I've decided to hold the country's first

scented-flower competition here at the Staffordshire County Show.

Oh, an iris.

'And I'm not short of entries.'

It's got a floral quality to it but it's light, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

-It's really lovely.

-It's Lupin arboreus.

-I think you're in with a shout here.

A dianthus, oh, that's so special, isn't it?

-My husband says they remind him of the dentist.

-HE LAUGHS

-What have you got there?

-It's a dwarf lilac.

It smells... Quite musky, isn't it?

It is. It's got a powerful presence, hasn't it?

THEY LAUGH

You wallflower.

It's got a bit about it, hasn't it?

-Oh, yes, fragrance is important, isn't it?

-Yeah.

To help me decide on the most perfumed plant I'm enlisting

the help of judge Eleanor Griffiths.

Eleanor, you travel up and down the country judging floral competitions,

have you ever come across a fragrance category before?

No, I haven't come across a fragrance category.

So why do you think that is?

Because our criteria doesn't allow it.

We're not allowed to judge on perfume.

-But do you think it could work?

-I think it should work.

We've gone too much into colour and lasting quality.

Perfume is important.

I'm hoping Eleanor's judging skills will help me

make the final decision.

It goes into your nose when you smell it, doesn't it?

HE LAUGHS

That's a lovely, lovely lilacy smell.

You're having to learn your judging all over again here. The tricks of the trade.

SHE LAUGHS

Well, we smelt all the flowers, have you got a favourite?

Yes, I've got two that... I like at the moment.

Thank you very much for coming along to this,

the first scented-flower competition.

The strongest smelling plant...

is the dwarf lilac from Clive Plant.

-Congratulations, Clive.

-Thank you.

-Well done.

-There's your cup.

-Lovely.

-There you are.

There you are, mate. Let's hold that one up.

Yes!

CHEERING

That was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun. I think it created a lot of interest,

didn't it? And enthusiasm.

Do you think it can run and run?

Definitely. It's going to be a bench- full next year. Great. Great.

Well, I might enter myself.

SHE LAUGHS

These are the Mediterranean beds at the University of Cambridge

Botanic Garden. And there are some real beauties

when it comes to fragrant foliage.

Now, this is a plant called Cistus ladanifer.

It's got big flowers, yes, but its party trick is in the foliage

and stems because on a sunny days it releases this sort of resin

that's scented like hot cross buns that you've left under

the grill a little bit too long.

It's used in the perfume industry.

HE SNIFFS

Cor, when the sun breaks through the clouds it is such a perfume.

So redolent of summer holidays abroad.

I'm going to show you how you can have your own fragrant memories

come flooding back day after day, simply by planting up a window box.

One of the things I've learnt about gardening with fragrant plants

is that it's not just about enjoying them on their own, it's when you

combine them that you create hybrid fragrances, almost like recipes.

It really brings them to life. One of my favourites...is this.

Now, it's quite a rare plant.

I mean, I've been growing it for years.

It's called Zaluzianskya ovata.

It's got a very resinous foliage, but it's these small flowers -

they might be tiny but, my gosh, they pack a punch.

They smell like those sherbet-like sweets you used to

get as a child. And in the evening they'll fill your garden

and your whole house with that fragrance.

Amazing from such a small plant.

My next scented plant is a little more common

but none the worse for that.

It's chocolate cosmos. A delicious thing which does smell of chocolate.

Like dark chocolate with a...

HE SNIFFS

..twist of vanilla, and as long as you keep

it fed and watered and deadhead it by pinching off the flowers as they

become spent, you get flower after flower right through the summer.

We'll have one either side of me Zaluzianskya.

Now, this is a plant that I just love - it's a beautiful pelargonium

that's also useful.

They are wonderful just to rub and release the fragrance from,

but they're also good for cooking.

Because what you do is you pick them off and if you're cooking a cake you

put that under the batter before you put the batter in the oven to cook.

And it imbues the whole cake with this wonderful chocolate, mint aroma.

My kids really love it.

Next up I've got another South African plant, like the pelargoniums.

This is nemesia and it has a cherry Bakewell tart aroma.

Like sugared almonds, actually.

A really lovely thing

and the beauty of this plant is that it's scented during the day.

I'm going to squeeze him in there for a bit of height.

Whenever you're making a planter you need things that mound,

some things that create a bit of height, others that spill down the front.

The plants will find their own space.

Now the final ingredient of my floral recipe...

are petunias, which I just love. And when you're choosing them

for fragrance, unusually, it's the dark flowers, particularly

the purples, that have the best aroma.

It's just like vanilla. Oh, a lovely thing.

Now, the thing to know about fragrance is, often as not

if you can find a form of plant with double petals, for example, you

get double the scent and so it is with this purple Tumbelina petunia.

It's quite unusual-looking and it's very vigorous.

But my gosh, it does have double the scent.

So I'm definitely going to use one of these.

In on the edge. And to balance it out on the other side I'm going for

one of these less scented, but still lovely, cherry-cheesecake petunias.

Let's find a little space in there.

The time to plant up a window box like this is in the spring

and that way you get months

and months of time to enjoy all the aromas. And they really are delicious

and mouthwatering, and even better - there's not a calorie in sight.

Another man on a mission to bring fragrance back into our gardens

is Thomas Broom, who is so passionate about scented plants that

he runs dedicated workshops at Petersham Nurseries in Surrey.

The idea of the scented-garden workshop came about

because we felt it was something that was being

missed by the general public in gardens.

If you rub the leaves you'll get the smell of Turkish delight.

I think it gets people smelling different smells

and maybe things that they've never even

considered about a certain plant and how it smells.

Coming here today has made me a lot more conscious of the smell

and scent and how important that is.

There was a geranium that had some really exciting smells.

One that smelt of cola bottles. How strange, how fun.

You know, so, of course, it's always lovely to get a bit

more experience and meet a few new plants.

For each person, smelling something is completely different.

So, for example, this Matthiola incana here...

to me this smells like cloves.

But to others it might smell like honey.

Here we have this pergola which is covered with two intertwined wisterias

and you just get this burst of scent coming through.

The scented-flower collection here at the nurseries also holds

some personal memories for Thomas.

This one's called Madame Gregoire Staechelin.

The fragrance is a typical old French perfume

and it's very evocative to me because I remember this as a child,

being planted in my grandmother's garden.

I think anyone who has not introduced scent

into their garden should perhaps rethink,

and add scent wherever possible or wherever they've got gaps.

Because there's always room for scent in your garden.

Gardening for fragrance offers a personal, even intimate way to

enjoy your garden.

Yes, there's things to enjoy in the here and now,

but it also brings back happy memories from times in the past.

If you garden for appearance alone, well, that can soon

turn into the tyranny of keeping up with the Joneses.

No. If a garden smells good,

it is good. And that's good enough for me.

Across the series our revival team are travelling the length

and breadth of Britain celebrating our gardens...

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

..flowers...

Ah, that's a knockout fragrance.

..and plants.

This plant is perfect.

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

Next, Tom Hart Dyke flies the flags for tulips.

As a globetrotting 21st-century plant hunter

I love growing plants from all over the world. And there's one

flower with petals as colourful as its history...

and this is it.

The glorious tulip.

But over the last 50 years the British tulip industry has

almost vanished, and we've stopped planting them in our gardens.

It's time for other spring bulbs to step aside and for all of us,

all of us, to be planting the tumultuous tulip.

On my revival I will find out about the turbulent history of this plant

that 400 years ago brought an economy to its knees.

People lost their homes, their livelihoods

and their businesses over it.

I'll lend a helping hand to what remains of the Great British tulip industry.

-I left a lot to start with.

-Oh, dear(!)

And show you how to start your own tulip collection at home

and make one of my family favourites, the tulip lasagne.

You'll have eight weeks of flower power tulip heaven.

There was a time when our gardens weren't complete without

tulips to brighten them up.

In the 1950s we even had our own tulip industry,

in the counties of Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

But sadly today, that industry has all but disappeared.

The tulip was once celebrated on our streets and in our gardens.

It's such a shame that today they're seen as troublesome,

hard work and simply not worth the effort.

Well, you try telling that to the gardeners

here at Dunsborough Park in Surrey.

They plant an incredible 10,000 tulips each year. All by hand.

Some of these tulips are planted in formal rows like this and some

are planted randomly, yet sumptuously,

within a meadow setting such as this.

Whatever situation you've got, tulips will provide a kaleidoscopic range

of colour in your garden from early March right the way through to June.

Sadly, we're in the habit of buying imported cut tulips from Holland

instead of making them permanent residents in our gardens at home.

And for anyone with a love of plants, that simply won't do.

To start my campaign I want to trace back the history of how this

flower first took root on our shores.

So I have travelled to Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottinghamshire.

The gardens have played host to a variety of beautiful flowers

but I'm here for one particular wild resident that

made its home in the meadow long ago.

Are you ready? Are you ready, everybody?

This particular tulip is the only relative of the garden tulip

found growing wild in Britain and it holds a very dear place in my heart.

It was at the age of four when my inspirational Granny -

she was an amazing horticulturalist gardener - she said to me,

"Tom, I want to show you something very special.

"I want to show you this tulip."

Tulipa sylvestris from the southern Mediterranean.

It was sensational to see it spurting out underneath

a bit of shade in dry conditions on an east-facing aspect,

where Granny had her wonderful herbaceous border.

Tulipa sylvestris is rumoured to have been introduced to

Britain by the Romans centuries ago.

But we didn't start growing tulips in our gardens

until the early 1600s.

The first person to record them was botanist

and herbalist to King Charles I, John Parkinson.

I'm meeting his descendant Anna Parkinson, a fellow tulip enthusiast,

to find out how this flower changed the way we gardened for ever.

Anna, why is the tulip so dear to your heart?

Why is it such a personal story to you?

The tulip heralded an age of decorative gardening.

It was, if you like, a signifier of gardening as we understand it

today because up until that point nearly every plant had

a medicinal value, but the tulip had no medicinal purpose at all.

It was just beautiful.

Is it fair to say that, together with others too, John Parkinson

was responsible for the ornamental gardens that we know so well today?

Yes, he was a pioneer of the decorative garden and

he learned from his Flemish friends in London about how to grow these

decorative plants, and the tulip was the most desirable of all of them.

It's amazing to think that the tulip is so central to

the history of our gardens and yet it no longer takes pride of place.

Anna has brought with her what is considered to be the first

British gardening book ever written, in which her ancestor

describes one of the most desirable tulips of all time.

So these are so-called broken tulips and they were very rare

because they didn't grow true from the parent

and they were highly sought after, and they triggered something

called Tulip Mania in Holland in the 1630s.

These new variations of tulip species became referred

to as "broken" due to the streaked colours of their petals.

The rarity of the flower resulted in huge demand.

Within a space of a few years it saw the price of tulips rise

astronomically so that within one growing season a tulip would

go to the price of a house.

And as quickly as Tulip Mania went to its peak...

..it burst, didn't it?

It collapsed.

People lost their homes, their livelihoods

and their businesses over it.

It is incredible to think that broken tulips were once

so highly prized.

And I want to see what all the fuss is about.

I've heard that there are some varieties still growing today,

in the Cambridge area.

I have never seen a broken tulip and as a plant hunter

I am desperate to see this mysterious and exotic blossom.

I feel a plant hunt coming on.

In order to track down horticulture's most wanted I'm taking to the

streets to see if anybody knows where it might be hiding.

Good afternoon, sir. I've got this mission. I'm a plant hunter.

I go all over the world seeing plants in the wild

but I've heard, here in Cambridge there is this plant.

Have you seen this plant before?

I have never seen that plant before.

Where would you think in Cambridge I could find it?

Maybe in the common up there, I think.

I think if you go over...

I would say the market right there, I think they would be there.

-At the botanical gardens. Have you been there yet?

-No.

Of course! What am I thinking? The Cambridge Botanic Gardens.

Britain's national collection of tulips are housed here

and Botanic Gardens Director Professor Beverley Glover has

agreed to show me what I've been searching for.

I hear, rumour has it, that here at the Cambridge Botanical Gardens

you have one of the rarest broken tulips...

-We do indeed.

-..in the world.

-So let me take you there and show you.

So this is our broken Captain Fryatt variety.

It's just horticulturally bonkers!

THEY LAUGH

Well, you can understand where the tulip mania came from, can't you?

They are spectacular and just the diversity within a single pot...

The unbroken tulip should be, sort of, this colour.

So you've got a couple of streaks in there coming in.

Yeah. So it should be a rich, winey colour.

The colour variations of broken tulips are actually the result

of the tulip-breaking virus that can infect any tulip,

causing discolouration of the bloom and eventually killing the plant.

These are the only bulbs of it that we know of that are left,

-so we have the only stock.

-This pot is the only pot of them.

That's right. We're not aware of it anywhere else and so, actually, it's a bad

thing for us that it's got the tulip virus because we don't want

to lose the line and the virus obviously weakens the plants.

Wow.

Historically the tulip was the main event in ornamental gardening

but nowadays they have fallen out of favour.

However, that is certainly not the case here at Dunsborough Park

where Baroness Caroline Sweerts de Landas Wyborgh has been

growing them in abundance for the past 20 years.

Now, when I look around here and see these amazing tulips

I do think of the workload that you've got.

How many do you plant each year?

Well, we have roughly about 10,000 tulips every year and of course

they stay in the ground until the June when we lift them

and then they go to the meadow and then the new bulbs come end of October,

when we plant them in here again. So it's over 20,000 bulbs, really.

And you've got no wastage whatsoever.

No wastage whatsoever and what's

so fun about the meadow is that we literally throw them.

Colour wise - it's all mixed.

So it's very formal in here and that's how I like it

but it's also very wonderful to do the meadow because...

It's a wild look. It's the lovely wild look that you've got.

Absolutely wild look, yes.

This magnificent meadow is testament to how easy

it can be for tulips to thrive in our gardens.

Of course they can also look spectacular indoors.

And Caroline is passionate about cutting tulips from her own garden to

brighten up her home.

She's a bit of an expert at this, so I've asked her for a few tips.

I will do the best one and cut them very low because I want it...

I like the tall tulip.

And you keep the leaves? The leaves come off?

The leaves come off. I do all the work in here

with my little basket.

And I will have an open one and I will also have a closed one.

And I will get about 20 of them...

..to make a really nice display of my tulips.

So this is the best one. It looks really good.

So here we go, we're going to cut down here.

-Quite low down, right?

-Yeah, quite low down.

-Quite low down.

I do feel awful doing it. I do feel quite sad.

Peeling off the leaves.

Keeping the top leaf? Sometimes?

Oh, yeah, sometimes. If they have enough space then this would

look perfect because the leaves should never be in the water.

By ensuring that no leaves are submerged in your vase you

will prevent them from rotting and making your tulips limp, prematurely.

However, you must make sure that your stems are underwater.

The moment they have no water they really start to be very unhappy

and hang, so they want a little bit of water every day

and you will have the tulip for a very long time.

So if you want to enjoy beautiful tulips in your home don't

buy them in the supermarket, get planting and grow your own.

These days most of the cut tulips that we buy in this

country are grown in Holland and although the Dutch now

dominate the tulip industry, this wasn't always the case.

Just a few years ago this part of the world was covered in 3,000 acres

of tulip fields and the sad thing is that since the late 1970s,

early 1980s, it's been reduced in a steady decline to almost nothing.

Almost every single tulip field has disappeared.

I've travelled to the town of Spalding in Lincolnshire.

It's known locally as South Holland

and the tulip has been celebrated annually here on a grand scale

with the famous Spalding flower parade, but sadly, not anymore.

These are the remnants of the most famous tulip festival

and it's just sad, to me, seeing this.

It's like a graveyard of floats rusting away.

With the decline of tulip production across Lincolnshire over

the past few decades, the annual festival that was founded

back in 1959, is no longer.

It's also quite eerie. It's quite, sort of, spooky.

You just see this...

And in such a short space of time...

how these things are just being stored away.

Well, they're just wasting away.

I mean, there are just rooms of them.

There are room after room after room of these.

Look what I found here. An absolutely enormous tulip!

Picking this up you just feel like you've taken

a bit of community spirit of Spalding.

You just fell the passion and energy it's taken to build this.

To build these extraordinary floats.

To find out more about the impact of the decline in tulip production

I'm meeting David Norton from the Springfields Horticultural Society.

What was it like in this area when tulips

were at the height of popularity?

Well, there were literally hundreds of acres

and it was a patchwork of colour right across this area of the county.

It was as if you... Back in the days of black and white TV...

but in Spalding in South Holland it was colour.

Tell me about the world famous parade here.

My granny came in the '70s to it and was really inspired by it.

At that time she would have been because that

was at its heyday at a time when the floats were at their biggest

and looked their most spectacular.

They were fantastic in terms of the sculpture that they had

and engaging the community.

How important is the tulip to the people of Spalding to this day?

It's still important. It's a symbol of South Holland.

It's an anchor in some ways to the past which is sadly...is being lost.

Even though the decline in large-scale tulip

production across the region has resulted in the loss of the parade,

the tulip industry in Spalding has not yet disappeared completely.

I've arrived at the Springfields Gardens where multitudes

of glorious tulips are in bloom, and John Taylor is here to tell me more.

John, I remember growing up as a youngster, getting Spalding

bulb catalogues in the post, and you said

and thought the word "Spalding", you thought of tulips.

Is it still true today that tulips are thriving in Spalding?

Thriving is perhaps not quite the right word, Tom. It's changed.

I mean, there is no longer the fields, as you know, and that's

one of the things, but there's still a lot of work involved with tulips.

There's tulips that are grown under glass for cut flowers.

There's tulips that are packed for sale for the gardens.

I'm so pleased to hear that. I'm relieved!

I was getting a bit worried, today.

So the tulip industry may be smaller, but it's still here.

Is there optimism for the future?

Yes, certainly. I see the tulip as still being a wonderful

article that's going to be going, I think, for many years.

The range of colours, as you've already said, it varies in shape,

size, colour. I don't think there's another bulb that can match it.

Phew. Thank you.

Inspired by these beautiful gardens, I'm taking my revival to the streets

of Spalding to get the locals fired up about growing tulips at home.

Right, I'm ready. I've got my hat, I've got my apron,

I've got my market stall. All I need now are some tulips.

What could be better than these British-grown beauties?

Ladies, you look like tulip fanciers. What do you think of these two?

-Oh, they're beautiful.

-They're lovely, aren't they?

Do you promise me, if I give you some of these tulips, that you'll

-plant them in your garden?

-I will. I'll do it when I get home.

There you go. Put them in water straight away and they'll last for

-days for you.

-Yeah?

-Let's make it three.

You're a star. Thank you.

My tulips are flying off the stall.

-Aw, thank you.

-OK? A couple of bunches?

-Ooh, if you're offering.

-OK, go on - which colours do you want?

-I haven't got enough hands.

-That's it.

-Oh, crikey! Thank you so much.

See you later. Good luck, ladies. Keep growing those tulips!

We've had a fantastic day here in Spalding.

I really feel that my tulip revival is well and truly under way,

but what about the rest of the country?

Well, I tell you what, that's up to you.

Of course, tulips only flower for a few weeks over the spring months,

but don't let this put you off planting them at home.

I'm back at Dunsborough Park to show you one of my favourite planting

techniques that is perfect for even the smallest of gardens,

and maximises the time that you can enjoy these beautiful blooms.

My favourite way of displaying tulips in a container

is using a technique called bulb lasagne.

A layering system of bulbs in the container to maximise

the duration of flowering performance.

In order to cook up my quirky take on this Italian classic, you'll need

some broken crockery, three varieties of bulbs,

some compost and some grit.

The best time to put this dish together is around November

or December, in order to ensure spring flowering.

First of all, to aid drainage, we're going to add

a couple of bits of broken crockery here.

This side up. Not that way, where it collects water.

This side up. We're going to place three or four sections.

Remember that tulips do not like too much water.

They rot so easily.

To ensure good drainage,

use a compost mixed with horticultural grit.

I'm starting with a base layer of about six or seven inches.

The first layer of bulbs that we're going to put in are the latest

flowering bulbs and they're also the tallest bulbs.

These particular varieties are Golden Apeldoorn and Blushing Bride.

When you're planting your bulb, it's fairly obvious with this one.

You're planting it with the growing point going up

and the root developing at the base, that way up.

However, when you're planting them extremely dormant, it can be

difficult to tell which way round to plant them.

If you're unsure, the best thing to do is to

plant your bulb on its side.

Once they're in, I add another compost layer of about four inches.

A nice big wad of compost in there.

Firming down lightly before my next tulip, Macarena.

The second layer is a variety that flowers...

just before the layer I've put in, so by doing this layering system,

you maximise your flowering time.

Now this layer, the aim is try and not put them

directly on top of the layer you've just placed in.

Two or three inches apart, nestling the roots into that lovely...

smells great, as well.

Lovely multipurpose compost.

Now another good layer of compost, followed by my third layer of bulbs.

And one more like this. Now for the final layer.

This variety is called Concerto.

It is my favourite tulip, with a lovely open head of flower.

And, finally, as we approach...

the last point in filling up the container,

and that's the slightly burnt crusty brown cheese topping,

which in Tom's plant world equivalent is going to be

lovely crushed grit.

Adds a bit of ornamentation to it.

The main reason for me doing it, though, is just to reduce the

build-up of moss and liverworts...

and annual grass seed germinating on it.

So there you have it. Tom's tulip lasagne.

Add a sprinkling of water to get them started.

In two or three months' time when they first start bursting into bloom,

you'll have eight weeks of flower power tulip heaven.

For the next stop of my tulip revival, I'm in search of what is

regarded as the last bastion of large scale tulip production in Britain.

I'm on the hunt, today, for the last commercially viable tulip farm,

of an industry that was huge in this part of the world.

And here it is.

Belmont Nurseries, just outside the Norfolk town of Narborough.

No words can describe this.

Nine million tulips in flower.

This vast sea of colour is grown

and cared for under the watchful eye of Mark Eves.

Mark, I've been absolutely blown away by your mouth-watering,

kaleidoscopic selection of tulips here.

You think of tulips, you think of Holland,

but here we are in leafy Norfolk.

How comparable are you, in seize, to the Dutch growers?

We're equivalent to a very large Dutch grower.

There's not an awful lot of bigger growers than us.

They specialise in different things, I suspect, but as far as

growing the tulip, I think we're one of the largest.

To my surprise, the tulips in this field

will not be sold as cut flowers.

All the bulbs will be lifted and replanted under glass,

where Mark can manipulate their flowering cycles,

thus increasing the time he can supply supermarkets with cut flowers.

But this does mean all these blooms are for the chop.

There'll be a bunch going home to my wife, but apart from that no further

of these flowers will actually end up in a vase.

-So not one flower head is kept?

-No. Not one.

And how many flower heads are we talking?

About nine million. In this one field.

-37 million in total this year.

-Stop, stop. OK.

By cutting off the flower heads at this early into of bloom,

all the plants' energy is focused into the bulb, and although the

thought of beheading all of these spectacular flowers breaks my heart,

I must do my bit for the Great British tulip industry and pitch in.

And just a little bit of throttle.

Off you go.

Go on. Away you go.

And then you look behind to see how many you're leaving.

It's a bit patchy, wasn't it? I left a lot to start with.

Oh, dear.

Well, then, you just need to look where they're falling in the path

to make sure there's not too many bits of leaf in there.

If there's too many bits of leaf, you're too far down.

-It looks pretty good.

-I think you're not bad.

-Only a slight change in height makes all the difference.

-Yep.

That's cutting pretty well, isn't it?

It is quite a sad feeling knowing I've just beheaded

thousands of tulip flowers, but the only bonus about this is the fact

that when this tulip degrades and decomposes into the soil,

it's going to put nutrients back in for next year's crop,

so that's something, but it was quite a sad moment, actually.

Although it seems a shame to see all of this colour disappear, it is

reassuring to know that it's all for the greater good.

Well based on seeing this today with these nine million flower heads,

I think there's a place for it in this country.

I think it's absolutely staggering.

Yeah. Yes I'm proud to say it's British.

Species tulips and varieties, such as Tulipa Archford, are happy to

stay in the ground and thrive year after year.

But many tulips don't like the wet and benefit greatly from being

dug up and stored before being replanted.

Don't let this put you off.

I'm back at Dunsborough Park just to show you how simple it is.

One of the most important jobs is lifting tulips.

Now this particular variety here is tulipa pink impression,

and, although, they haven't completely died down yet,

because we're making way for a summer bedding scheme here, these have got

to be lifted, and it won't do them any harm by lifting them in the

green, and that simply means that the plants are still in active growth.

Now the first thing to do before you lift your tulip

with my handy pair of scissors here,

is just to remove the spent flower head.

Take it right down to above the first leaf and snip that off.

Inside the flower head are developing seeds,

and that's exuding energy from the bulb to produce these seeds,

so by cutting that off, you'll at least preserve the bulb a little bit.

Once all your flower heads are removed,

it's time to dig for your bulbs.

Now I'm using a fork not a spade to make sure

I don't slice any of the bulb.

I'm doing it from a couple of sides as well.

And this is my favourite bit.

I just love well-rotted manure and compost.

God, that's an ingredient in itself. Look at this.

You've got bulbils developing around the side.

You've got a lovely swollen bulb,

and I'm just going to shake off the worst of the soil and also some of

the scaling on the bulbs, which has a potential for bacteria and so on.

And you can see from one bulb planted last December,

how much this set has developed.

So having lifted your bulbs in late spring,

it's time to store them until late autumn.

What I find is storing in cardboard boxes - absolutely fine.

Try and space out your bulbs as much as possible,

so they're not all on top of each other.

And you want to store them,

if you can, in quite a dark position in the house.

In an old cupboard would be fine, as long as you've got good

ventilation around it, and you'll be amazed how quickly all

the energy will be seeping from the leaves and the main stem,

into the bulb and really fatten it up

for when you need to replant them again.

After around six to eight weeks, you can remove the dead leaves

and stems, then store them in potato sacks,

or Mum's old laddered tights do really well, and hang them

from the rafters of a cupboard or shed until December time.

Very easy to do but you will maximise your optimum

flowering performance of your tulip, if you lift them each year.

In the heart of Somerset, there is one farm that is already

a champion of my revival.

The thing I like most about tulips is that they surprise me

every year, so I have no idea what colour they're going to be when

they come up because I've forgotten I've planted them, most often.

Tish Jeffery is the mastermind behind Britain's first

and only pick your own tulip farm, which produced its first

colourful crop just three years ago.

We started the business

because we met some people who were looking to plant some tulips,

and because I'm a tulip lover,

everyone else was going, "What, tulips?"

I was going "Yeah, we'll do it, we'll do it."

Within five days, we'd got 100,000 tulips from Holland,

and we set off in the near dark in mid-December and planted our tulips.

Despite these tulips originally coming from Holland, Tish has

ensured that they are now a truly British crop,

and people are flocking from miles around to pick their favourites.

Um, we do grow tulips in our own garden but I don't pick them

because they look so lovely outside, so it's nice to come

-and pick these for inside the house.

-I love them. They're beautiful.

They come in so many shapes and colours,

and when they're all together, they're so pretty.

I think everybody should grow tulips in their garden just

because waiting for them to come out, looking at them

coming out, when they come out, all of it is such a pleasure.

When you grow tulips, you are rewarded with

an explosion of colour.

Come on Britain, lets plant our own piece of paradise

and put the tremendous tulip back into our spring gardens.