Lilies and Woodland Gardens 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.

If you could invent the ultimate garden plant, it would have

unparalleled colour, incredible scent and at the same time,

give you maximum bang for your buck and be foolproof to grow.

There is one plant that ticks every single one of those boxes.

It's this little guy - the lily,

and us Brits just don't grow enough of them.

Sadly, today they are only seen as flowers that belong in vases

and far too exotic to grow in our Great British climate.

There is so much more to this horticultural superhero than

the standard cut flower staple,

and I believe they deserve a place in all our gardens.

On my revival, I'll be tracking down some amazing lily varieties.

Look at this strapping seven-footer.

Hunting for some tiny terrors that are a real threat to our lilies.

Oh, wait, I think I've found the culprit.

And giving you all the tricks of the trade for growing these

incredible flowers at home.

You will get a plant that will get bigger

and better every year for decades, and that's my kind of gardening.

I want us to rediscover the simple elegance of the lily as one

of our most valuable garden plants.

So that's why I've come here to Fullers Mill Garden

in West Stow, Suffolk, to see how even in the most

quintessentially English garden,

this exotic bloom feels right at home.

This garden is brimming with loads of lilies including

some of my absolute favourites,

but I must admit - I haven't always been their biggest fan.

I used to think, you know, incredibly lurid and tacky

and all the different colours of the rainbow. I was given

a packet a few years ago and I felt bad for throwing them away, so

I just bunged them in the ground and I have been a convert ever since.

And there are so many varieties.

If you think all lilies are giant lurid pink trumpets,

well, this should hopefully change your mind.

It's a little Turk's-cap type and has these recurved petals.

A really exotic looking woodland plant that's at home

in any environment.

Even in quite deep shade, and just across here just to show you

the diversity, you've got this guy, Conca d'Or.

Massive blousy trumpets

but, at the same time, without losing any of its elegance.

People will say lilies are tricky to combine in a border,

and I think this shows you it's totally not true

in-between the acid greens and the lemon yellows.

I mean, this could totally belong at Chelsea Flower Show.

Unfortunately, this dazzling range is just not

available from our florists and supermarkets, and if we don't start

planting lilies in our gardens, many varieties could be lost completely.

To start my revival, I've travelled to Northamptonshire to investigate

the history of the lily and discover why so many varieties exist today.

Growing lilies is about all-consuming passion,

and we've been cultivating them for over 3,000 years all over the world.

In fact, they were one of the first ever plants to make it

out of the wild and into our gardens.

I'm here in this 60-acre woodland to track down one particular

plant that's played an important role in the diversity of the lily.

There are so many varieties here that hail

from almost every major lily group -

from Asiatics and Orientals to martagons and longiflorums.

Tim Whiteley is the man behind this spectacular collection that's

spread across this vast landscape,

but finding the flower in question may take some time.

Or maybe not.

Tim, I need one of these.

Talk about a civilised way to see a garden.

Beep-beep!

Zipping around in Tim's snazzy wheels is a great

way of admiring his collection of exotic-looking lilies

and, perhaps surprisingly, they all seem very much at home

thriving in our climate.

So when were lilies first brought to the UK?

Probably the Romans would have brought in the Madonna lily

which is certainly in pictures going back right into early medieval time.

Commonly depicted in medieval paintings and being held by the

Virgin Mary, the Madonna lily became the symbol of purity for Catholics.

Wall paintings of the flower have even been found in the ruins

of the Minoan Palace of Knossos that date back to around 2000 BC.

Oh, look at these ones coming up.

These are silk road.

They are an Oriental hybrid and I'm very fond of them.

Amazing.

Even though the lily is one of the oldest of all of our garden flowers,

we have more lilies now than there has ever been in the past.

I mean, the 20th century just seems like an explosion.

And this is all down to breeding,

and one of the most prolific lilies used in breeding is right here.

This lily is henryi.

It's a species that comes from China and is very much used for breeding.

So I know why we've stopped now. Check out this.

Tell me about him!

It's a very beautiful lily and certainly it's one that's been

used in breeding probably more than any others.

Therefore, it's one of the most important lilies.

Lilium Henryi is regarded as a strong breeding variety

because it can confer traits for health and vigour to its offspring

creating a range of super-charged hybrids.

Today, people have the advantage of newly-bred lilies which are not

expensive, they aren't difficult, and I'm hopeful that over the next

few years you will see an expansion in the growth of lilies in gardens.

This is the grandfather or great-grandfather of many,

if not most, of the modern lilies.

Lilium Henryi, the stud lily.

Today, we have so many hardy

and easy-to-grow lilies that have been bred to thrive in our climate,

so why are people not growing them in their gardens?

I believe the number one reason why people don't grow lilies

is a big fear of a small pest,

so I've come to RHS Wisley, the nexus of all horticultural

knowledge, to find out if there's any truth behind the hype.

This is the red lily beetle.

It was first discovered in Surrey around 70 years ago

and can now be found across the UK.

They appear in the garden from around March to May

and lay their eggs from April to September.

They not only eat lily foliage

but their larvae consume even more of the plant.

Andrew Salisbury is a senior entomologist who knows

a thing or two about these lily-munching insects.

Do you feel the lily beetle has put people off growing lilies?

I feel and I know.

I did a survey and about a quarter of people who had lily beetle

said they wouldn't grow it due to that pest.

I've read so many scare mongering articles about this.

I imagine it to have tentacles and attack New York.

Shall we go see some?

Yes. We'll go and find some, that should be easy.

OK. So we've got a prime food source here.

Some amazing botanical ones. Will we be able to spot them easily?

Well, you should be, yes, yes. They're bright red beetles.

Oh, wait. I think I've found the culprit.

Is that two on there?

That is, yes. Doing what they do all summer.

Yep. Beetle on beetle action. So look at that.

You've got a breeding population,

but you really don't have that much damage.

It's fairly minor damage there on the leaves

and the plants will be fine and will probably come up next year as well.

So the beetles certainly are pests, but they're not the real villains.

The main thing to watch out for is the grubs.

That's the thing which can really destroy the plants

and eat all the foliage, the green on the stems

and even the flower buds and flowers, occasionally.

Do they ever kill the plant?

It does happen. Unfortunately, it does happen.

So what are we looking with these grubs cos they all look

completely different from the beetles?

They do, yes. They're covered in their own excrement.

So if you turn over some leaves, particularly these leaves

with a bit of damage on them, you may find one of the grubs.

Ah, there we go.

Oh, wow! Oh, look there's quite a few on the other side of them

stem as well, right?

-Yes.

-Is that them?

-Yep, that's them.

-So that's when they're at their most damaging state?

-Yes.

-OK.

And almost all the damage you can see on the leaves

has been caused by those larvae.

Once hatched, the larvae set about devouring your plant for the

next month, and if that wasn't bad enough, they cover themselves

in their own excrement to discourage predators from eating them.

I normally say, you know, check your plants maybe once a week

just to make sure there's not too many grubs there

and remove the grubs and destroy them.

The lily beetle has certainly played a role in the decline of lily

growing in Britain, but for me,

it's just not an excuse for missing out on these brilliant blooms.

I'm back at Fullers Mill to show you a really simple and inexpensive

trick that I use on my lilies that could help keep them pest free.

As much as people freak out about those little red beetles,

they really don't have to scupper your plans

for creating an incredible lily display.

My preferred method to control their numbers is to wage chemical

warfare, and I'm not talking about any kind of synthetic spray.

I'm talking about

the naturally-occurring chemical allicin,

which is found in garlic cloves.

Now, garlic is a relatively close relative of the lily and all you're

doing here is hijacking a chemical that garlic has evolved to get rid

of all sorts of pests and diseases and applying it to a lily plant.

Everyone's got that bit of old garlic hanging out

at the back of the fridge,

and it's old garlic which is likely to be richer in allicin.

It's produced when the clove is damaged,

and the best way to damage it to the maximum level is to chop it up

as finely as possible, to pound it, or even better, in a blender.

You're looking at about a bowlful of garlic with a litre of water

and blitz down to the most fine possible paste.

So when you've mashed your garlic up as fine as it's going to go,

all you need to do is just pour on some water.

And you'll have, like, the easiest pest control ever.

All I'm going to do is pour that into this jug.

Just so it's a bit easier to get in a spray can.

You can sieve the bits out but I'm lazy and impatient so I don't.

There we are.

Natural insect spray made from something

kicking around at the back of your fridge and safe enough to eat.

Not bad.

Now to put it into action.

The only thing you need to do to keep this strapping seven-foot

monster in tiptop condition is just a light spray in the mornings

and evenings when the sun is at least strength and try

and keep it off the flower and this should confer them a resistance

to not only lily beetles but things like slugs as well.

I know what you're probably thinking -

spraying your plants with garlic solution, yeah, it does smell.

It smells a little bit like an Italian restaurant or freshly

baked garlic bread, which is no bad thing to me.

I like to really saturate the leaves,

but soak right down to the base because that's where

things like slugs are crawling up to create their damage.

If you can create a good foot-long barrier at the base

they may not even be able to get up at all.

I'll apply this really liberally, probably about,

I don't know, once every two weeks from the early spring,

and this should give you show-perfect lilies every time.

Pongy protection guaranteed.

For the next part of my revival,

I've come to this nursery in Cheshire.

They've been growing award-winning lilies and exhibiting them

at famous flower shows throughout Britain since 1994.

Lorraine Hart and her family are renowned for producing

some of the most stunning lilies,

and walking through this sea of colour it's easy to see why.

Lorraine, it's difficult to believe that these are real, living flowers.

They're so enormous and there's so many of them. It's like silk.

We grow them for displaying at all the different flower shows,

from Chelsea all the way through the year.

Hampton Court was last week and now we're going on to Tatton Park today.

-So there's like a two week gap... Today?

-Yes, today.

What does the process involve?

How many cut flowers do you have to produce?

I think we're putting up today about 700 stems,

so you can imagine how many we've had to grow for that.

It must be the biggest technical nightmare ever.

If you're growing these at home in your own garden just to look

good, are we talking about the same amount of effort?

Not the same amount of effort at all.

If you're planting lily bulbs in the garden, you just need

to plant them up.

We send bulbs out at the end of February.

You can plant them then, um, and they'll flower in the summer

sort of from June till the end of August.

How do you get them looking so damn good?

Oh, well, it's a long process, really.

We use the right compost, obviously, and we're planting them

all through the year so they're the right height

and they're the best possible flowers we've got

for displaying at the different flower shows.

With so much preparation in the build-up for Tatton Park

Flower Show, I've offered to come along to lend Lorraine

an extra pair of hands to set up her lily display.

The show opens tomorrow

and every exhibitor is going hell for leather to perfect their stands.

Lorraine, what's that, like, six metres of pure lily that you've got

right up to the ceiling there?

Yes. I think the stand's probably about 15 feet high.

Is there anything I can do that is low responsibility?

I don't want to be the person that puts the star on top of the tree

and then... Oh, look, that's where I belong. I like it. OK.

-See all this mess here, James?

-Yes. Yep.

-There you go.

-Perfect.

-You can rake that.

-I can do that. I can do that.

There's a nice box there for it to go in.

It's nice to be given these incredibly important,

vital jobs to do.

I'm hoping that my raking skills have earned me

the honour of getting hands on with Lorraine's precious lilies,

and she's got one right here that I'm not familiar with.

So this is nymph. This is your favourite one.

This is my favourite.

-That doesn't...

-No, it doesn't smell like a lily, does it?

-So if you don't like...

-It's completely different.

If you want fragrance and you don't like lilies, good choice?

Yeah. It's like vanilla, spicy. It's my favourite.

I love this one.

-It smells like, er, like cinnamon buns I used to eat in school.

-Yeah.

-Can I pop this into anywhere? Do you trust me?

-Do you want to?

Where do you want it to go?

Um, let me see. Somewhere where you can't trip over.

HE LAUGHS

I like how much confidence you have in what I'm going to be able to do.

Right, with this in place, you really get to see

the full-on wedding cake effect.

Look at that. Tier after tier.

It's really nice. A really big pyramid of lilies, isn't it?

It's looking great. It's looking great.

I can't believe not only are these

things growable in the UK but they've been grown here.

So I'm on a mission to revive the interest in lilies.

Apart from this avalanche of flower here, what's your number one reason

why everyone should have at least one lily plant in their garden?

They will grow just about anywhere

and they will come back every year without a lot of looking after.

Here at Fullers Mill there are so many scents,

colours and shapes, its wall-to-wall horticultural inspiration.

To an urban gardener like me, it's hard not to be seething with

jealousy walking through a plot like this.

The variety of plants. The space. The habitat.

But the star of the show is something that I grow at home

and the easiest of all to take care of.

And I'm going to show you just how simple growing lilies can be.

Lilies are such unbelievably generous plants, that even

when guys like this are just beginning to go over, you can

plant new bulbs to give you effectively a conveyer belt

of flowers right up until almost the first frost.

This bulb - and it looks a lot like garlic

because it's very closely related - has been kept in cold store,

effectively tricking it into thinking it's still in winter.

It's such a powerful bulb that as soon as you release it

out into this heat, it starts to kick out roots from the stem itself

and little shoots. All you need to do is bury this in the ground

and you could get decades and decades of colour out of them.

Lily bulbs should be planted about 15cm deep and the same

distance apart in a sunny spot with moist but free-draining soil.

Once you've got them in the ground, however,

you do not have to do anything.

I've had my tree lilies for at least six years.

I have not watered them. I have not fertilised them.

I have not staked them.

It is insane that people will keep repeating how difficult

lilies are to grow when this... I will show you the sum

total of everything I do to my lilies in a year, and that's this -

when they've stopped flowering,

as in they've gotten rid of all these

petals, they'll start to produce fruit packed full of seeds.

Now, that's quite an energy drain towards the plant

and I'm not really interested in it producing seeds or fruit.

I just want it to concentrate on flowers for the next year.

So all I do is I snip them off just about there.

And all that does is it prevents them from wasting energy

on stuff you're not interested in - seeds and fruit.

All that energy that the leaves are manufacturing,

the sugars, are then sent right down into the bulb to fuel

the growth of flowers for next year.

You will get a clump that will get bigger and better

every year for decades.

Now that's my kind of gardening.

To understand more about the different varieties of lilies

that can be grown in the UK, I'm here at Tatton Park Flower Show

to meet Richard Hyde.

Apparently, there is nothing Richard does not know

about British lily growing.

Richard, you're like the Dalai Lama of lily growing.

Explain to me what I'm seeing here,

cos I'm seeing a different height and a colour differentiation,

but are all these genetically distinct groups?

-Explain what's going on here.

-All genetically distinct, yes.

Asiatics this side, perfect with alkaline soil.

Also unscented, so if you don't like the perfume, Asiatics.

What's going on over here?

These are acid lovers. These are the Orientals.

So you've got a group called Orientals

-and a group called Asiatics?

-Yes.

-And they're totally different?

-Totally different.

Highly scented, one type.

Highly scented, and all whites and pinks.

No, you don't get the bright colours of the Asiatic.

All whites and pinks.

And demanding of acid soil, so you couldn't grow both together?

-No.

-In pots, though?

You could sink them into the ground full of acidic compost?

-Even if you have an alkaline soil?

-Yeah.

-So all of these, no matter which one...

-Yes.

..there may be a soil variation

-but you could grow these in the UK outdoors.

-Any one, yes.

-Like, outdoor all year? Even in like a -20 winter?

-Yep.

It is pretty spectacular.

There is nothing more exotic that I can think of that would

survive that.

So whether you want the vibrant colours of the Asiatics or

the incredible scent of the Orientals,

just as long as you have the right soil pH, or frankly, the right

compost in a pot, anyone can grow them at home.

Explain to me why more people aren't growing lilies because, to me,

it fulfils all the criteria -

low-maintenance, high impact, hardy, survives well in the UK.

I mean, what's not to like? Cheap. Fast growing.

Many people don't grow them cos they don't know how to grow them.

Simple as that. They think they're... As you say, they're hardy.

Many people think you've got to put them inside in winter.

Totally wrong. Leave them outside.

Richard's flowers are really quite a spectacle.

But I wonder if other exhibitors are using lilies outside

the floral marquees in their displays.

It's like pretty much everything except a lily.

No lilies in this one either.

There's basically every type of plant group that you could

possibly get, from chrysanthemums that are

so out of fashion to bonsai, and no lilies.

This is the only lily plant that I've seen here.

But I'm hoping to convert some of these exhibitors to the

wonders of lilies by handing out bulbs they can grow at home.

So you're a man who knows his stuff. Do you grow lilies?

No.

What's wrong with you? Why are you not growing lilies?

What we're missing is some lilies. There you go, sir.

It's giant white flowers with, like, a cream backing to them.

Things come and they go in the fashion of plant world.

That's so un... There are so many different types.

If lilies were like roses or they're generally kind of similar,

I could see it, but lilies are so different.

You put in the least amount and you get the most out of them.

-I'll take your word for it.

-You're not convinced.

Super easy. You can get flowers within 12 weeks of planting that.

-Isn't that nice? Thanks very much.

-Yeah, you're welcome.

So here's your bag. What are you going to do with them?

I'm going to put them in my garden.

-Ah, so we've converted you.

-HE LAUGHS

Is that all it took? A free bag of lilies.

-Good luck with them.

-Thank you.

Part of what gives this garden an incredible sense of adventure and

discovery are the lilies that are popped around

at every twist and turn.

I'm back at Fullers Mill to show you some nifty propagating techniques

that you can use to get the most from your lilies.

The wonderful thing about plants like this Lilium lansafolium

is there are so many ways to increase your stock for free,

and my favourite, being a geeky scientist, is cloning.

But before you roll your eyes, this is the only bit of kit

you need to be able to do that - a paper bag.

And that's because lily plants

are capable of cloning themselves.

At each axel here, you have these little structures.

These are embryo plants known as bulbils and they've evolved

this strategy, so when the stem collapses,

it hits the ground and each one of those turns into a new plant.

But if you want to have a bit more

control about where they pop up, you can just pick them off very gently.

Pop them into a paper bag and grow them on.

And it couldn't be simpler.

Sparking these little fellows into growth

is a real horticultural no-brainer.

I was not born with green fingers.

I really have to try, and even I can grow them.

So you need to make a really free-draining compost which is

exactly what they want.

And all you need to do to do that is take regular multipurpose,

the kind of thing you can pick up at any garden centre,

and cut it with a bit of this perlite

and it does two exact opposite things -

it helps retain the moisture in the mix and also helps improve drainage.

So you bang it down onto a surface just to get it nice and flat.

You take your minuscule little capsules of plants

and just pop them onto the surface.

It doesn't even matter if you don't get them all pointy end up,

which is the preference, because they will find their own way.

I'd say probably an inch, 2 or 3cm apart for metric people.

Fantastic. That's one batch. Water them in.

If you have a cold frame, which is basically a little area

covered with glass in your garden or just a sheltered position,

you pop these in there and I promise you, within a year,

your little clone army of plants will be ready.

OK, they do look like little blades of grass but they are ready

to go out in the garden, and in as little as three years, you'll

have potentially hundreds of plants for really very little work.

Takes a bit of time in waiting,

but in terms of doing, it's almost nothing.

There is another way to increase your lily stock that requires you

to dig up your bulbs at the end of the year,

but trust me - it's worth it.

All you've got to do is remove one of these scales -

the equivalent of a garlic clove -

and each one of these individual scales can turn into its own plant.

So you gently work round, breaking them off,

trying to keep as much of the base intact as possible,

and then all you've got to do is grab a little plastic bag,

and trust me - this is the hardest bit.

The same mix. About 50/50 perlite and multi-purpose.

Mix it all together.

Chuck in a handful of these things...

and spray with a bit of water just to moisten the whole mix up.

Seal the bag. Give it another shake

and pop this in a relatively warm, dark place.

We're talking room temperature. So about 20 degrees, 21 degrees.

In a cupboard.

Just almost forget about them and, within as little as six weeks,

you can have...

..all these little pups popping out.

You have a miniature plant that has miraculously sprung to life.

How can you not be excited by that?

Plant them in your garden and just wait for your reward.

There is one lady in Cambridgeshire who is already

a true pioneer for my revival.

Pat Huff's garden is bursting with all manner

of different lily varieties,

but there's a lot more to her mission than just her garden.

I receive seeds from all over the world from our members who

very generously donate their time and their seed to us,

and then I get orders in from all over the world as well.

Pat is part of the RHS Lily Group that, in the interest

of conservation, distributes seeds worldwide.

It's so exciting to know that I'm spreading these wonderful,

wonderful plants all over the world to keen growers, and the best part

of the job is when someone sends me seed from distribution some years

ago and say, "It's grown for me and I want to share it with other people."

This is...this is what the seed distribution,

as far as I'm concerned, is all about.

I believe in conservation through cultivation.

The more people grow lilies, the more these wonderful plants

stay in cultivation because plants are fashion accessories

and can go in and out of fashion, and once it's gone, it's gone forever.

No other garden plant is ever going to match the grace, the drama

and the enduring appeal of the lily.

They're so beautifully diverse, easy to grow,

and much more than a cut flower.

So go out tomorrow and buy one because you will thank me

for decades to come.

Across the series, our revival team have been travelling the length

and breadth of Britain...

..celebrating our gardens,

flowers and plants in all their glory with one important mission -

to champion our rich gardening heritage.

Next, Christine Walkden is on the woodland plant campaign trail.

Our woodlands are magical places.

A sea of blue and green under dappled light.

A fantastic place to find inspiration for your own garden.

But it's not all calm and tranquillity.

The British native bluebell and other woodland plants are at risk.

But we can help.

In the past, woodland plants have been

left in the shade in favour of the sun loving blowsier, bigger plants.

But we can all enjoy woodland plants in our gardens too.

On my revival campaign, I'll be revealing how close to

extinction one of our favourite woodland flowers is.

This is British!

And it's such a spectacle, isn't it? It's just gorgeous.

Ah, now look.

Constructing an assault course to put some of the nation's

favourite slug deterrents to the test.

There's a lot of protein there, really.

It's a shame we can't eat them out of existence.

And will be showing you just how easy it is to grow a little bit

of woodland in your own back garden.

This is a lovely plant

and I've had the pleasure of seeing these growing in the Himalayas.

Memories of magic.

This is the enchanting Beth Chatto Gardens,

near Elmstead Market in Essex -

the perfect place to start my woodland garden revival.

This inspirational plot, which was once a derelict wasteland,

has been transformed into a series of gardens that tackle

difficult growing conditions head on.

As a plants woman, I believe strongly in the principle

of right plant, right place.

The same principle that Beth Chatto used herself to create these

magnificent gardens.

Sadly, our ancient woodlands are in decline

and one of our most iconic woodland flowers could soon be lost forever.

The shade-loving English bluebell has been voted

one of the nation's favourite wild flowers,

and British woodlands are home to up to half the global population

of this unique plant.

And yet, the sight of the beautiful bluebell wood carpeted

in these spectacular blue flowers may be denied us within 20 years.

The greatest threat to our beloved bluebell comes from a rampant

foreign invader - the Spanish garden bluebell.

Once confined to our gardens, the Spanish bluebell has jumped

the fence and is interbreeding with our native variety,

resulting in vigorous hybrids in suburban areas that pose

a real threat to our English bluebells.

So how do you spot the difference? The English bluebell -

a one sided flower that nods dark blue flowers,

sweetly scented.

The blobs inside the flowers are creamy white.

The Spanish - a thug of a flower.

The flowers are all around the stem.

Pale colour.

No scent and the pollen, the blobs inside that flower,

are slightly greeny, sometimes bluish, not creamy white.

Some of the country's most spectacular bluebell displays

can be found in Essex at the Woodland Trust, Hillhouse Wood -

a native woodland yet to be contaminated.

But do people in nearby Brentwood know they're in danger?

I want to see if they can spot the difference between the English

and the Spanish varieties, and I will be handing out seeds to

encourage people to grow our native bluebells in their own gardens.

To give my campaign some welly, I need to convince the good

folks of Brentwood that the only way isn't Essex.

No, the only way is bluebells.

Hi, would you recognise what these flowers are? Give it a guess.

-Bluebells.

-Bluebells. Well done. Good.

One is paler than the other one.

Do they not have the same scent?

You have a whiff of that.

Oh, yeah, nothing.

Ah, there you go, you see.

There are two different species.

-This is the English bluebell.

-Yeah.

And this is the Spanish invader.

This is taking over and taking out all our beautiful bluebells.

Oh, that's sad, that is.

Each of you can have a free packet of good old bluebell seeds.

-Oh, thanks.

-English bluebell seeds.

This weekend, go wallow in bluebells

because they're looking absolutely beautiful.

Ah. Thank you.

Unfortunately, people don't appreciate that that is a thug,

yet that is the British beaut at her best.

Dr Fred Rumsey, a leading botanist at the Natural History Museum,

has spent the last eight years monitoring our bluebell population

and knows just how quickly Spanish hybrids can

spread once they get into our woodlands, like Hillhouse.

Obviously, if a pollinator comes across,

takes pollen from it then moves on to one of the native plants,

then several years down the line, we could get seed from that, forming

a hybrid plant and then, as with so many hybrids, it's very vigorous.

So where you find these hybrids in the wild

they build up a really big colony.

Yeah. What would happen if the Spanish took over?

The differences that we've got between them

are because they have been isolated since the last ice age,

so sort of tens of thousands of years of evolution that we would be

undoing by bringing them together again.

Once they're out, there is really no way of closing Pandora's box.

Yeah.

And it's such an iconic flower here because we have

so much of the world's population.

-It doesn't do this anywhere else in the world.

-In the world!

This is British!

And it's such a spectacle, isn't it? It's just gorgeous.

People like Fred have a real job on their hands

now that the Spanish hybrids are out,

but while there's little we can do to stop cross pollination

in the wild, we can all do something to help in our gardens at home.

Native English bluebell seed is readily available,

and by growing plants from seed, we can be sure we're helping

to preserve the genuine article for years to come.

So just get sowing.

This glorious woodland at Beth Chatto Gardens is awash with

whisping flowers.

Who couldn't but admire the beautiful honesty?

The delicate bleeding heart of dicentra

and the frothing foam of tiarellas.

Now, like me, most of you won't have woodlands in your back gardens,

but don't fret because you can still create the peace

and tranquillity of a woodland without all these trees.

All you need is shade and we all have some of that in our gardens.

I've picked a few of my favourite shade-loving woodland plants

to get you started.

For me, the queen of the woodland are trilliums.

Whites, pinks, yellows.

Beautiful plants but they've got to have bags of organic matter.

By organic matter, I mean old leaves, old rotted compost,

old rotted manure.

Anything that's got lots of bulk into it.

It has to act as a sponge, retaining all that moisture

so this thing can erupt into colour, produce these exquisite

flags of flowers and then produce quite an elegant seed pod.

It's the choice of choice for any dappled woodland garden.

Primula vulgaris, our native primrose.

A delicate, beautiful little plant with pale yellow flowers

and a lovely rough of green leaves.

It appreciates dappled shade.

To keep it growing really well, lift it every two to three years.

Rip off some of the foliage.

It sounds brutal, but that will reduce the leaf area

and you get better establishment.

A bobby dazzler plant for any dappled woodland.

If it's ground cover you're after,

then look no further than the epimediums.

They're such an adaptable woodland plant

and will thrive in any open situation as well as a shady one.

They're fascinating because when they come through in the early

spring, the flower is the first thing you see

but the old foliage of last year is present and it'll be tatty.

Cut that away.

Let the flowers erupt and then you get this spectacular carpet

with this beautiful patterning.

It's one spanking good plant

where you want to cover ground relatively quickly.

And if you're looking for something to plant in very hostile conditions,

periwinkles or vincas are perfect.

Dappled shade, rubbishy soil, this will survive

and there's something very, very magical about the flower.

If you take off the flower and literally pull it to bits,

literally just dissect it and take out the female part of the flower -

that's the very bit in the middle -

you reveal the template for the original Olympic torch.

So there's no excuse not to plant woodland plants at home.

They're the perfect solution for troublesome, sheltered areas

providing colour, cover and interest and, believe me,

you don't need to be an expert to grow them.

While many of us may dream of the perfect sunny plot,

in reality, our gardens are rarely suntraps.

I'm in Hackney to visit two young chaps that have

taken on the challenge of an ultimate shady garden.

Ben Nell and Darren Henderson had little garden know-how five years ago

when they took over this mid-terrace home and its north-facing garden.

But with a little TLC and the right shade loving plants, they've

transformed this tired London patch into a woodland paradise.

-Hi!

-Hello.

Hi, this is rather fun, isn't it? Hey. Goodness.

Can I have a wander?

-You certainly can, yes.

-Of course you can.

You're coming into a Japanese woodland space.

Yes. Look at this.

Lovely!

We've got a small stream running through the centre.

Absolutely lovely. So what was it like when you moved in?

Oh, completely overgrown.

It was a massive challenge

-because we'd never really come from gardening backgrounds.

-Right.

We just went for it and we've just be hacking away most weekends,

and do you know what,

you sit out here, you just wouldn't think you're in Hackney.

How would you consider the challenge of shade?

You know, most people are daunted by that

but you two don't seem to have been.

We did have to put a bit of research in to see what would survive,

and if you look behind you, we've got Pachysandra terminalis

which, erm...flowers. Little white flowers.

We've been very lucky with that over the last few years.

We've just plopped in a camellia at the back of the garden with

a single head, so we're hoping that will survive.

-We make mistakes sometimes.

-Yes.

As you do.

But, you know, you learn and you start to understand what grows

and what doesn't want to grow and which plants love a certain space,

and, you know, now it's absolutely wonderful.

Ben's not wrong there, and it just goes to show what can be

achieved by the right shade-loving plants.

In fact, the lads are so proud of their garden, they're opening

it with the National Gardening Scheme tomorrow

and have invited some of their friends round for a sneak preview.

OK, lads, what do you want me to do? What can I help with?

-Are you good at hairdressing?

-Absolutely.

Well, we've got this nice ball for you to help us with.

-You want it clipping?

-Yes, please.

Right, have you got any newspaper?

Evergreen plants like box and yew grow in sun or shade,

providing year round interest if kept under control.

So it all drops on the newspaper. Much tidier.

It makes it a lot easier.

Perfect.

Next one.

The same rule applies to a plant commonly known

as mind-your-own-business.

A creeping perennial that likes dark, damp conditions

but it soon can get out of control.

Can you see how it's coming over the edge?

-Yeah.

-You try pulling that up.

It's quite stuck in.

You can have a nightmare on your hands.

Some contact weed killer will keep it at bay, just use a tile or

similar to keep it off the rest of the plant.

By embracing dense-growing evergreens that love water

and shade, Ben and Darren have created their own woodland

wonderland in the heart of London.

All we need now is tea and cake...

Hi!

..and some equally passionate shade-loving gardeners.

Go and have a quick trot round while we secretly eat cake.

SHE LAUGHS

The great thing about a garden is that you're not only

cultivating plants, but you're cultivating people.

Friendships. Relationships.

Exchange of information. Just listen to that chatter.

Babble. Babble. Babble.

It's what gardening is truly about, and this garden, with shade as well,

adds that mystery to what could be a very dull spot.

My fascination with shade-dwelling woodland plants

started at a very young age, and places like these spectacular

informal gardens have fuelled my passion ever since.

I have very fond memories of the first time

I fell in love with woodlands.

My mum and dad had taken me up to the lakes and it was a sea

of snowdrops.

And a few weeks later, it was a sea of blue,

and then they went, and it took me ages to realise

that the magic of woodlands is all

about popping up and disappearing, and popping up and disappearing.

And that takes place right through the season until it's absorbed

into the earth and we have to wait for spring to enjoy it again.

Snowdrops and bluebells are pretty low-maintenance

but every three to five years, after flowering in the spring,

they need lifting and dividing to keep them in tiptop condition.

For a spectacular display year after year, follow my simple tips.

Use a garden fork and not a spade

because if you use a spade, you'll actually slice through

some of those bulbs that are slightly away and damage the clump,

so a fork.

Place your fork in and give it a good wiggle all the way round.

Water the night before.

I like to feel that the bulbs are sliding out of the soil

rather than being rasped out of the soil and damaged.

Those root hairs are vital to the re-establishment of that bulb.

Sliding is better than yanking off.

Sometimes they come up dead easy.

Other times, you've got to give them a bit of welly.

But it's very enjoyable.

Oops.

I've had a long love affair with snowdrops.

As a kid, and I'm talking about a small ten-year-old,

I used to go into our woodlands around where I lived, picked them,

bunched them up in a bit of fern

and flog them to people down our high street.

As a ten-year-old, you do these things,

but don't do it at home because it's thieving!

Once you've lifted your bulbs, the next job is to divide them.

What I'm trying to do is take just the bulbs

without all the bits of weed.

Sometimes when you do this you'll find that they're

so caked together that you can't separate them.

On that occasion, use a knife

because sometimes, depending on the soil, you can't do this.

This is a nice lightish soil.

On a heavy soil, you'll be sweating for hours.

Another woodland plant that should be divided between autumn

and mid-spring are hostas -

one of the best foliage plants for light to medium shade.

Hostas are one of the staple plants of the woodland garden,

but after three or four years,

they can often get to such a size they need to be divided.

Lift them, having watered them the night before,

and then, using a spade on this occasion...

And don't be worried, you're not going to damage them.

..you literally find a gap where you can get the spade in

and literally have a good chop.

And then this one I can do again.

I'm going to get down there.

Yeah.

There.

So here we've got a herbaceous perennial with a fleshy root

unlike the snowdrop which you would plant individually,

this you plant as a clump.

This wound will dry over. Give it a good water.

Establish it, and up will come luscious leaves to enjoy all summer.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one that likes shade-loving plants.

Woodlanders are favourites with slugs and snails too,

which act like living composters in our woodlands and our gardens.

But for me and other gardeners, they are public enemy number one.

I've come to the John Innes Centre in Norwich to meet head of entomology

Dr Ian Bedford to find out more about my long-standing nemesis.

-Hi, Ian.

-Hello, Christine.

There's lots of different species,

but what have you managed to collect?

-Yeah, we've got about 30 species of slugs in the UK.

-Right.

-But only a few are actually problematic to us, you know.

-OK.

This tiny little black slug...

That's the so-and-so that does damage to potatoes, isn't it?

Yep, that's the black garden slug.

Then, we've got a few species actually of keeled slugs.

Oh, right. Yeah, they've got that sort of keel down the back.

Yeah, they look like an upturned boat.

And then, more recently...

we have this invading Spanish slug, Arion vulgaris.

How big can it get?

We've had specimens here that have grown up to 15cm long.

Ye gods!

Yep. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely amazing.

There's a lot of protein there, really.

It's a shame that we can't eat them out of existence.

SHE LAUGHS

Possibly. Well, it's a thought but, er...

Have they been introduced to the French?

SHE LAUGHS

Knowing what's inside these things, the bacteria

and the internal parasites, I don't think it's a wise thing.

OK. Right. Right. Only teasing.

Now that's a snail, so why have you got him in the box?

Yeah, this is our common garden snail which can be

more of a problem on certain plants than the slugs.

Hostas and things, aren't they?

Yeah, they really do like hostas.

So, Ian, how do we control them?

Right, well I've got a little demonstration

-that I've set up in the lab.

-Yep. OK.

-We'll go and have a look, shall we?

-Yeah, let's.

I've asked Ian to construct a slug and snail assault course for me

to put some of the nation's favourite slug deterrents

to the test in a completely non-scientific experiment.

British gardeners use over 400 billion slug pellets every

year to tackle this sticky little problem as well as a whole host

of organic alternatives believed to keep slugs at bay.

But with the average UK garden thought to contain

over 20,000 slugs and snails, do any of these old remedies actually work?

Heading up my slug challenge are physical barriers like crushed

egg shells, abrasive grit, coffee grounds, and copper strips thought

to give them an electric shock, and sunken beer traps to entice them in.

Left over night under close surveillance with an unprotected

leaf as a control, which of my hostas will have escaped damage?

Oh, wow, look at this.

-Yeah, there's a bit of damage there.

-Crikey, look at that.

Hmm.

I mean, have they all been nobbled?

-No, that looks...

-That looks all right, actually.

It does.

Egg shells. They're supposed to be sharp and sticky and abrasive.

-That hasn't really worked.

-That hasn't worked.

What about the old grit?

How many have we got? We've got one, two...

-Oh, dear. They love it.

-..three, four.

Well, that definitely doesn't work. We've got beer.

They're supposed to like beer. Shall I pull this out?

Yep. See if there's any inebriated.

-Not a sausage.

-No?

-Nothing.

Oh, dear.

All right, the old coffee grains.

Now, they're supposed to be really successful.

There's no physical damage

-but that's definitely slug trails, isn't it?

-Hm.

And this is the control that's perfectly all right.

-SHE LAUGHS

-That's really something.

What could be done?

I mean, this is so simple that the gardener at home could try

-this, couldn't they, and see what works in their garden?

-Absolutely.

As for my simple experiment, I think it's safe to say that nothing

appears to be slug proof.

I'm not totally convinced. The only two that seem to have worked

is the coffee and I don't want the whiff of coffee in my garden.

The copper? Maybe.

But, you know, do I really want holes in my hostas from these beasties?

No. I'm going to stick with my method -

collect them up at night. Put them in a plastic bag.

Tie a knot. Lose them in a dustbin. They don't come back.

The aim of my revival campaign is to encourage you to grow

shade-loving woodland plants at home like Beth Chatto has done here in her

stunning series of informal gardens.

And the good news is, you don't need heaps of space to do it.

I'm going to show you how to plant up a woodland container

that will give you year-long flowers and foliage with minimum fuss.

The container needs to have plenty of drainage,

so if it's only got one hole, get yourself a drill,

and in a container this size, I would want probably 10-15 half-inch holes.

I would then use crocs, gravel, or polystyrene to make

my drainage layer, and that drainage layer would be a couple of inches.

Don't be stingy because you want the water to drain through that pot.

A Christine Walkden special tip is get yourself some fleece or

old net curtains and put that over the drainage layer

before you put your compost on.

The reason for that is - I don't want the soil particles coming

out in solution and being dragged down into that drainage layer

and bunging it up.

Net curtains or old fleece is just the job.

Next, the compost.

Chose one with a high level of organic matter in it.

I'm using here some old leaf material.

I've got some lovely, rich, leafy compost.

I mean, you could eat this on your cornflakes.

Now comes the magic of the plants.

I'm going to put this in the corner of my garden,

so I'm going to start from the back and move forward.

If you were to view it all the way round, you'd start in the centre

and then fill in, but this is going to be in the corner

so I'm going to start with something high.

Dicentra spectabilis Alba - a beautiful plant.

I love this. It comes through in the spring lime green,

almost like it's looking ill.

Most people, at that stage, dig it up and throw it away.

Don't. Let it grow.

It will then take on its beautiful green foliage -

feathery - and will then go on to produce these spectacular

little dancing hearts.

It's a beautiful plant.

What I tend to do first is just position them in place

and I've got... So I'm going to pick up the white theme,

so I'm going to run with something like a brunnera and I'm looking...

I've got a selection here, so I'm going to just play and see what...

Hmm, yeah, I quite like the white and the blue and then...

Ooh, yeah, let's have a fern.

When you're thinking of planting a container,

think about the shapes, because what you want to do is get contrast.

Oh, let's use a pulmonaria -

the spotted lungworts - and then some of these corydalis.

This is a lovely plant.

And I've had the pleasure of seeing these growing in the Himalayas.

Snow on the ground and delicate beautiful flowers.

Memories of magic.

Once you've done that, then it's a case of filling in with compost.

Water your plants the night before.

Plant them to the same depth as they are in the pot.

Stand back and enjoy a bit of woodland magic.

One woman who's passionate about growing woodland plants in her

back garden is Vicky Fox, whose love of heucheras has seen her

give up her day job and open her very own nursery.

-Yeah, I used to be a piano teacher.

-SHE LAUGHS

Once you start growing them, you realise how amazing they are,

and you become hooked on heucheras.

They are really good for all positions.

You can put them in the full sun.

You can put them in partial shade. They're evergreen.

They all flower. There's nothing not to like, really, is there?

She's even started to breed her own varieties

and has won gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.

This is called heuchera lipstick. A fabulous plant.

It flowers spring, summer, and autumn.

And this is a lovely one called pear crisp.

It loves the shade and we grow it under these trees

so it just looks like it's a natural woodland.

And with so many different types of heuchera,

she's now been granted National Collection status.

This is a really, really old one. It's called coral bouquet.

It's part of the National Collection.

Nobody else, as far as I know, has this in their collection,

and of course, if we hadn't saved these, they wouldn't be around.

But while enthusiasts like Vicky can help safeguard the genetic future

of some of our woodland plants,

I need you to help me revive these shade-loving beauties

on a larger scale, so get out there and start planting.

I'm a great believer in protecting our native woodlands

and bringing the charm of shade-loving plants

into your own garden.

It's time to change our perspective about shade,

to embrace the plants that thrive in it

and create a little bit of woodland magic in all of our gardens.