Episode 2 Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

If there's one thing us Brits do well, it's a good

All you really need is a great big field, passionate

plants men and women, some talented garden designers and,

of course, thousands of plants from all over the world.

But if you add the rather regal Hampton Court Palace as a backdrop

and open its gates to the largest annual flower show in the world -

well, then you've got something very, very special.

Hello, and welcome back to the RHS Hampton

We, of course, are highly privileged to be here all week,

and having spent three days now, it's the floral

marquee that pulls me in with its floral magnestism.

I dissed keep discovering new things there. Has anything stood out for

you? You like it is beautiful in and fast. There is a Dutch nursery and

the way the exhibit them is stunning. It's like a sweet shop,

lollipops on sticks. I wish it could grow them like that on my garden.

This is the oldest known version and the tourist, and it got lost to a

virus that was rediscovered in Italy three years ago. It's being shown

again for the first time in ages. That has to go. There are some

fabulous plants here. for you tonight, so sit back,

get yourself comfy, and let us bring you the very best of the RHS

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, an event supported

by Viking Cruises. Coming up, Adam Frost seeks out

the never seen before plants being launched

right here at the show. Carol's got clever cottage garden

ideas to bring new life And Rachel will be

meeting some first time a name for themselves

in the floral marquee. This year, there's 47 show gardens

across seven different categories, taking up space as big

as a football pitch. Earlier, gold medal-winning Chelsea

garden designer Adam Frost and I went to take a look

at a few causing a stir. This garden is about trying to in

gauge young people into gardening, especially in the city. We have a

microclimate to grow a range of exotics and architectural plans, the

plants I really got into an I first started designing. With plans like

this jelly Palm, who needs sculpture in the garden. Make sure you bivvies

turns the size you want because they grow so slowly you will be waiting

an eternity. -- by these firms the size you want. As this grows up,

they start turning upwards to the sky and turn a darker green. None of

these plants are particularly rare but they combined so nicely

together. The judges loved it as well. They gave it a gold in best

summer garden. Sometimes show gardens are designed to make you

stop and think. That is exactly what designer John Warland has done here.

I first saw this at the Chelsea Flower Show in the fresh section. It

was a lot smaller, but here at Hampton Court, given more room, it

really feels a lot better. I love the way it has a sense of movement,

moving under these turf ribbons. At the end of each pass, a really

simple reflective pool. As you get to it, it pulls you in. You want to

have a moment, look and stop. It's actually the planting that takes me

back to childhood memories of laying in amend a meadow making daisy

chains. The bees will also be pulled into this space. It's quite a simple

design but actually it has been really cleverly put together.

This garden is called summer retreat, it's not meant to be

challenging, innovative or breaking any rules, it's meant to be

accessible and packed full of take-home ideas. Which I think it

is. I think it succeeds. It's about British craftsmanship and putting

together in a nice and simple way. This garden really work us, and this

is key to the design. So many gardens have an empty space in the

middle, or something sitting at ground level. But by bringing the

water feature up to eye level, it's a wonderful simple reflective pool

to give a hub to the whole space and a movement around that works nicely.

The planting is incredibly simple. It's all working nicely with the

rusty steel, tying into the borders around the outside. A lot of people

go to shows and buy things, then get them home and wonder what they will

do with it. This garden shows how to integrate them. The seats are recess

to into the planting. This sculpture already has a home waiting for it to

be placed, so it holds the space around it as a piece of art would in

an art gallery. This garden is ultimately cohesive, wrote together

because it has been nicely planned and nicely thought through. That's

why it got a gold medal. Nothing conjures up early summer

more than the elegant rose. But for these varied fragrant

flowers to work in your borders, sometimes the planting

around your prized blooms needs work Carol's been taking a look at how

to avoid a game of thorns. Think of a traditional Rose garden

and what springs to mind? This is it, small shrubs with beautiful

blooms, Perfect Poison and elegance. Look at the bear legs and all the

soil in between. This is the perfect way to grow them if you want the

classical look, but there are otherwise that really reflect the

Rose's sociable nature. A more modern take is to combine

your roses with other plants. If you choose plants that enhance the

roses, you can elevate your planting to a whole new level. There are so

many plants to choose from. Things like Crane's bills, hardy geraniums,

a natural choice for these situations. The geranium will spread

itself around between the roses. You could go for these stiff, solid

spikes, and after the flowers have fallen, a glorious ground cover from

these deep dark green leaves. And then you have the pretty rude, plans

that will frolic around the roses, penstemons, dainty grasses. They all

enhance the beautiful pale pink rose.

Some roses are just made to live among other plants. Many of the

modern shrub roses have this lovely relaxed habit and these soft

flowers. Like this frilly cuffs. Isn't this just the perfect sort of

rows for this mixed planting? It is a modern shrub rose, employed with

all these lovely perennials, and the sprinkling of cosmos that runs right

the way through. Dainty and delicate grasses, the sort of situation that

roses find themselves in in the wild. And it works so brilliantly

well in the garden setting. We'll be coming up rosy once again

on tomorrow night's programme when we will be revealing Rose

of the Year! This year at Hampton there's a brand

new category of garden inspired by the 300th anniversary

of the birth of famous landscape We asked Alan Power,

Head Gardener at Stour Head and fully paid up member

of the Capability fan club, to find out why Hampton Court played

a part in his rise to fame. If you think of a classical English

landscape, what do you see? These landscapes that we know

and love owe a huge debt to one man, Lancelot Capability Brown,

one of the followers Lancelot Capability Brown changed

the face of garden design in 18th-century England,

transforming the landscapes of some of the country's

grandest stately homes. In 1764, at the age of 48,

he arrived here at Hampton Court Palace where he had been appointed,

not as designer but chief gardener. I am meeting up with one

of his successors, head And, he coined the name "Capability"

because he was constantly talking to the clients and saying,

"Well, sir, your site has It was really his sort

of calling card. Almost a very polite way of saying,

"I am not really keen on your garden now but I can make it much

better than it looks." Of course he was sought

after because he was Capability Brown didn't come

here as a landscape designer, I believe he did that

because he wanted the royal patronage and also what

opportunities managing that Really, he did not change

the gardens, he managed a contract that more or less had been set up

by his predecessors. So, it did his CV and his business

an awful lot of good. Oh, Terry, what an amazing view

you get from up here on the terrace! What was it like when Brown

was here as a gardener? Fortunately, we have

this fantastic record. Here you can see the Georgian

members of the court This is actually

Capability Brown's yard. He wasn't just the head gardener -

he lived here. He moved into Wilderness House,

which was a house he had as a perk of the job, and it was

his home for 19 years. What a nice address

to have for your business! Planted during the tenure

of Lancelot Capability Brown. Everything comes from this

wonderful, old, gnarled trunk. As head gardener, have

I got your permission just It's a living memory of Brown's time

here, isn't it? I might be here for a while,

just touching it. This was part of his contract,

wasn't it, fruit production? He was responsible,

amongst other things, for growing fruit out of season

for the King's table. And we allow this pleasure now to be

given to the public. We actually sell all these

grapes to our visitors. They are eating the grapes

that the King ate, produced by Capability Brown and his team

300 years ago. They are eating a piece

of history, aren't they? What a magnificent connection

to the past! Capability Brown lived

at Hampton Court until his death During his time at the Palace,

Capability Brown was at the height of his career and, for almost 20

years, he combined his royal duties with running the landscaping

business that was to During his time at the Palace, Brown

kept meticulous records and they are kept at the RHS lending library.

Fiona Davidson has brought his accounts book to show you. I have a

copy of his account book, it's the only surviving ones, covering 1759

until his death, it is a Who's Who. You have the K, for the King? He

knew which one he meant! He didn't have to write George III. I want to

see the details. April 26, received the King's most excellent Majesty,

?500. It was due in March! Is very interesting. We know he had some

run-ins with the Royal household, and he was very assertive that he

was good value for money and he knew his business, he had managed large

garden staff and he knew how to improve the estate. He is

recommending things like planting Green Clover because it will provide

a green lawn and you can feed cattle. I wish we had longer because

he's a fascinating man. Thanks for bringing them along.

This year, to mark the 300 years since his birth,

There is a special category of show gardens inspired by his three teams

have tackled his work difficult to distilled these landscapes into a

small space but oh has been to speak to one.

This is the Capable of Reinvention garden, and you are one of the team

who put it together, Zaidee. There are five of us, we tried to work

collaboratively but it was difficult. Designing by committee!

What are the key features? The water features came from the idea that

used lakes and rivers with some of his follies and bridges, to create

the open space, so we have a bridge that reflects into the water and we

have the oakleaf as welcomer half, so that it forms the whole image in

the reflection. And this shadow coming down onto the paving is

supposed to be similar to if you were being reflected as well.

Congratulations. Thank you, we are thrilled. Reflecting the landscape,

a contemporary take on Brown's enormous skill in reshaping the form

of the landscape, adding artfully positioned trees to make it look as

natural as possible. It's a brave attempt, but perhaps lacks some of

the elegance of the true Brown landscape.

Mind the Gap focuses here on allowing the eye to sweep from the

manicure grass to the landscape. It is the essence of Brown but it also

gives something contemporary and inspiring. When Brown died in 1783

866 he was a master of his craft and he has remained the byword for

landscape design ever since. But even he was a novice once. Here at

Hampton Court every year, there are people setting out on their show

career and Rachel has been to speak to some of them.

You walk across here and you pass a lot of very conventional, beautiful

looking stands, and then, there a Land Rover! Is this part of a fresh

approach as a first-time exhibitor? Yes, we wanted something that was

fun and different, to catch the imagination. The first time we have

shown these plants, they are quite fun, big and bold. I love Land

Rovers soap mixing them something that we enjoy. Some exotic looking

plants, were they straightforward to bring? Some of them are easier. This

is flowering at this time of year, it is doable, but the big one at the

bank does not flower until it is eight feet tall. They get a lot of

attention -- at the back. So they flowered too soon. I love this one.

It hurts a bit when you have to clean them, they bite back. Enjoy

the show, I think it looks fantastic. Thanks very much.

Christopher, such a beautiful, classic display. It is a national

collection but it is very specific. It is a collection of historical

fuchsias, introduced by a hybridist. It is crucial for the visitors do

see the plant in its natural state, you want to see the transition. Like

the fact that you flagged up that these are edible. Something not many

people know, they have a great texture and taste. Jam is worth

having a go at. I absolutely love it. Thank you very much. Benedict

is, you have brought your beautiful collection all the way from Cornwall

to Hampton Court. I have seen an outside come is this your first time

inside the floral -- the Floral Marquee? Yes. Can you pick out a

feud varieties. One of my favourites is this little white one, and I like

cracker because it is very bright and it flowers early in the season.

That is an unusual colour. Yes, it is relatively new, it has a delicate

perfume and a very long flowering period. It is beautiful. Will you be

in the Floral Marquee next year? If they had us, yes. I'm sure they will

have you! It looks sensational. It is wonderful to meet some of the new

faces at Hampton Court but there are lots of new plants making their

first appearance at the show. A lot to get excited about and Adam Frost

couldn't wait to take a look. This is the perfect setting to see plants

that you have not seen before and I'm going to see what I can find.

Takes me back to being 16 years old, North Devon Parks Department, and we

used them as spotting plants. You have two new varieties. They've been

developed over the last couple of years, the darkest, lightest and

brightest ones we have developed. We have this dark rich one here, and a

beautiful white large flower with a pink blush, called White Dove. They

are stunning, if I wanted to buy one, give me some tips how I'd look

after it. Really easy, three ingredients is all you need. One, a

bit of shade. Second, soil that is very nutritious and number three,

you want to be savaged to them, cut them often and harshly. Do they all

need to be inside? Not at all, some of them are very hardy and others

need that protection, a blanket in the winter. I'm sure people will

love them. Thank you very much. David, you have a new variety,

summer flowering. This is one we found when we had an awayday on the

Isle of land. We took a couple of cuttings, they looked unusual, we

brought back the cuttings and eight years later we're at this stage just

off the North Devon coast, very exposed. That plant is obviously

quite tough. It is a very hardy plant, Lundy is somewhere you stay

outside in the wind and rain, it is very exposed in the Bristol Channel,

but this plant was quite happy. The name, creepy Cauley, how did it get

the name? It was a nickname, it accurately describes it because it

creeps and calls over the rocks and borders. It couldn't have any other

name. I think it's beautiful. Simon, a little bird tells me that on this

stand, there is how many of these flowers? About 3 million individual

flowers. Wow! Am I right in saying you have 400 different varieties in

the national collection? Yes, about one tenth on the stand, we probably

have the most comprehensive range on the planet. And you have a new one?

The anniversary bouquet, named after our 25th anniversary in business

this year. A cracking plant, perfect for making bouquets, a good, strong,

but she even flower head. -- bushie. When do I prune my lavenders? On

that kind, early September. Flower off, stem off, to stop them from

going woody. Good luck. Thank you very much.

There's nothing like huge swathes of lavender to convey a sense

of calm, and wow, do they hit you in the nose.

The aroma hits you in the nose. Fragrance is a natural wonder,

something that perfume is have always striven to capture.

This year, designer Jade Goto has been working on a garden that

We joined her in Brighton to find out why the success of her gardens

hung on the survival of humble seaweed.

To me, perfume can be about nostalgia. It can transport you back

to a specific time or place or remind you of a person. I think it's

quite emotive. And that's what I wanted to capture within the garden,

the power to evoke those feelings. I wanted the structure of the garden

to mimic the fragrance pyramid. So you have the base note, the heart

note and a top note. The top note of pay-per-view is the first

impression. -- of a perfume. It is normally herb or citrus. This is

amazing. The heart note is the note you get when the top note

evaporates. This is where you get the big floral hits, the heady

aromas. Using lilies and jasmine. The bass note of the garden is made

up of two ingredients, one of them is moss and the second is seaweed.

The seaweed is going to be in a large glass tank which logistically

is proving quite difficult to get right.

Because seaweed is such a key ingredient in the garden I've come

to the aquatic design centre workshops. We need ten days at

Hampton Court for the seaweed to look fresh and show ready, the

colour and water needs to be right and it must look beautiful. We need

to get it right because timewise, we are getting close to Hampton Court.

This is our second attempt at our seaweed. And as you can see,

disaster. You want it to be as good as that one. It's got to be, you

know. This is the tank with the pump in,

this is the pump free tank and they both look murky. It is decomposing.

So is this more of a problem compared... We thought? Definitely,

yeah! We'll get there, we've got to. You can smell it, definitely

something wrong with that. Could the smell be a problem as well? It's

decomposing, yeah, that's what that is. That won't be good. Not good at

all! It really smells. It does smell. It smells horrible! Oh, it's

rancid! decomposing seaweed in a garden

about fragrance is a problem! It probably isn't the smell you want to

be portraying to the public. I would like to say at this point we are

still confident we can get it to work. We are just going to have to

do a lot more testing. Quite confident. We have to make it work,

so it's not really an option. That was quite a run-up to the show.

At beautifully clear water in the tanks with lots of plants. What

happened? Logistically the seaweed was quite difficult. They rushed it

up from Cornwall and we got it in on Sunday, but because of the heat on

Tuesday it was clouding up and not looking fresh so we made the

decision to put in freshwater plans for the rest of the show. Now it

looks beautiful so it works both ways. You have the Moss in the

copper containers and you step up through the garden, so the base

notes are the components of the perfume. On this level we have the

masts, the seaweed, in the centre we have the floral heart note, and in

the top, the citrus. It has worked well. In the heart of the garden you

have this still. It's a modern-day still room celebrating each plant in

its true form as an ingredient. It's the most wonderfully aromatic place

to stand. You get the perfume wafting up at you. Well done on your

silver gold medal in. Will you do any more gardens in the future with

seaweed? No we won't! There's still plenty

to come on the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show,

an event supported Joe's dipping in and out of this

year's water gardens. And Toby Buckland has

all the plants you need to avoid But first Carol is in

the Floral Marquee with one of summer's most striking

plants, the agapanthus. There's nothing ordinary about

Agapanthus. They are big, bold, blue and beautiful.

They always stand out from the crowd. And they are surrounded by

their own mystique. Many gardeners and regard them with

awe, they look at them but feel they just can't grow them. I feel it's

about time we dispel a few of the Agapanthus myths.

Firstly, people think Agapanthus art difficult to grow. No they are not.

When you get your first planned, it's probably small like this. Good

routes, but just a baby. What it needs is to be crowded in its part,

keep it in the pot for the first couple of years until it gets much

bigger. After a couple of years you get a fine big plants like this, and

at that stage you can think about putting it out into the garden. Just

give it what it needs, a really sunny place with brilliant drainage.

Feed it with a high potash feed. People think they are not hardy.

Some of them are and some of them aren't. These ones with broad strap

like leaves are evergreen, tender, and they need to be brought under

cover during the winter and then brought out again the next spring.

On the other hand, these refined leaves are herbaceous, they bed in

the winter. These are the ones that are totally hardy. These are the

ones to go for to grow in your borders. Thirdly, people think they

are all blue. Yes, but some of them are deep blue, some bright blue,

some pale blue. Some of them are white touched with blue, or blue

touched with white. They are all beauties in their own right, but

they are not unapproachable. There's bound to be an Agapanthus just made

for you. One of the show's most controversial

design categories has to be Celebrating their 10th year,

they are designed to provoke opinion They tread the line between

conventional garden and land art. This is Wormhole, one of the most

striking designs here, designed by John Humphrys and Andy Hyde. Just

hours before the show opened, disaster struck. What happened? One

side of the pyramid collapsed, a land slip. Conditions in the last

couple of weeks have been so bad, we were sitting in mud. A pond around

it was leaking, and it sheared off the turf when we watered it. The

soil collapsed. You must be devastated. The design was around a

dying star. The idea was the pyramid was sliding into the black hole of

the universe, and that's exactly what happened. We should have kept

it as it was because it was telling the story in real time. We explained

to the judges what happened and they said under the circumstances that

they wouldn't judge, how could you judge a garden that is incomplete?

They assessed us before the accident, and then they came to tell

us yesterday that they had assessed us as gold. It's a conceptual gold,

here you go. Thank you very much. This is a garden called the Red

Thread, designed by Robert Barker, which seems to exemplify all that's

ingesting about conceptual gardens. The judges agreed with me because

they awarded it a gold medal. It's based upon an ancient Chinese idea

that when we are born, a Red Thread connects us to all the other people

we meet. It becomes incredibly complex, but never breaks. Red

Thread makes this visible, tangling its weight above and through a

conventional garden. It makes you think, ideas that you can accept or

reject. The important thing is, it makes us look at our world and

gardens with fresh eyes. Not everything at Hampton is pretty.

In fact, the outside of this garden is far from it. This is the Border

Control garden. We see rubble and plans struggling to survive among

the odd life jacket. It's not somewhere you want to hang around.

Standing here, I really get the sense I want to be inside. And as

you move through the transition, things do change. It gets more

beautiful, more ordered, and there is a sense of shelter with this

structure in the middle. This garden is all about raising awareness, and

those who see it questioning the plight of the refugees. With that it

sings wholeheartedly. For me, the garden is a little too literal. I

like one I need to work out for myself, but the message is really

clear and they have executed it fantastically. The judges loved it

and gave it a gold medal and best conceptual garden and I can see why.

This is the Greenhouse Effect by designer Sheena Seeks,

and its aim is to demonstrate the simple requirements that

plants need to thrive - air, water and soil.

Climate change is probably one of the biggest challenges facing

the planet so it's no surprise that another conceptual garden called

Near Future has this message at its heart.

It's been designed by a relatively new garden designer,

Arit Anderson, who collaborated with Deborah Scott Anderson

from an organisation called Climate Gardens.

We caught up with Arit in the Lake District

as she prepared her garden for the show.

I've been coming to the lakes since I was little. It's a place I'd

genuinely love. I drive up the M6, hit a certain spot, and think, I'm

home. It's really only a couple of colours

but so many different tones, it gives you a palette of its own.

I'm so passionate about climate change and the effect it's having at

the moment. The design is really centred around the carbon cycle and

stopping using fossil fuels. It's all about turning to renewable

energies. We have the sun, we have wind and water, and it's putting all

those natural resources to power our energy now that we could help our

future. Charlie Winnie is an amazing wood

sculptor in the Lake District. His work is very organic and

free-flowing. We didn't work for what of technical drawings. Just

some sketches and ideas. -- work off a lot of technical drawings. Can you

just hold that? You need to really push down. This forms part of the

sons sculptor. I think this will be, dare I say it, the most iconic. We

wanted to use all the different processes Charlie uses, lamination

and steam bending, so we make sure this one really has a power to it.

As gardeners, we see the climate every day. We are always focus on

what the weather is doing and what we can get done in the garden. But

we really need to think about how our gardens might change for the

future. That's why I have not done a planting palette that is sympathetic

to the usual English landscape. I've tried to put something in that

people aren't familiar with, that they don't recognise. Plants in the

garden all have different drought tolerance levels. The whole thing

with climatic change is that it is water that is at the key of this.

Too much or too little. I want to inspire people to think differently

about plants. This is my first show garden. I feel incredibly

privileged, but there are butterflies going in my tummy. I'm a

bit nervous but also excited to get out there as well.

Here you are, first time at Hampton Court. How does it feel? Really

strange but really exciting. The garden has come together and looks

fabulous. Thank you. Remind me what eat of the sculptures means. You

look at it from two angles. First of all the UCB figurine of a man, and

from 90 degrees it's an element. You might see the a wind turbine, and

another sculpture is the clouds with rain coming down. Charlie has done

amazing job and the public have really engaged with it. This vortex

is a great centrepiece. I wasn't expecting it. It represents the

amount of fossil fuels we use and how we are draining it out of the

Earth. The planting is very dry. Some really interesting stuff

though. This is drought tolerant, and it likes free draining soil. If

we are in a drought moment, and then we go into heavy rain, how will

plants survive? The orange one over there with the really nice foliage?

It has been very popular, people have really enjoyed that. For the

future we need to think about how we will plants the extreme of drought

of or flooding. It is to provoke a reaction from visitors. We hope to

see you again. The impact of a changing climate

across the world is now firmly at the top of scientific,

political and environmental agendas. I'm joined by Eleanor Webster

from the RHS science team, who have been undertaking research

as to how it will affect us I know you have a lot of work to do

and you are publishing a report next year, but in terms of what you have

learned, how should gardeners be reacting? One thing to take away,

the extreme events we have experienced, a lot of rain and

drought, that's going to affect gardening over the coming years.

More floods, more wind and more drought? Yes, exactly. Should we be

making long-term plans instead of just reacting? Gardeners can

potentially do a lot to slow down the trends we are observing. Such

as? The more we plant, the more carbon dioxide which is good -- the

less carbon dioxide which is good for the atmosphere. I was brought up

to think of double digging as a moral virtue, should we be doing

that? Certainly it can disturb the soil. Mulch rather than digging.

Yes, and it can keep the temperatures down, which will slow

down the soil respiration. How influential in terms of affecting

global climate change do you think gardeners can be? No single thing

will reverse climate change. Small things can help to reverse it for

future generations, so it's up to each person. However good our

gardens and borders are looking right now, inevitably, there is a

slump that happens round about the end of this month into August.

Sometimes, things can deteriorate quite dramatically, however Toby has

been looking for plants that will carry you through that and keep your

board is looking fantastic through to the end of summer. -- borders.

This is a beautiful border, it has a lovely femininity, some wild carrot

and some summer Mane -- summer mainstays such as foxgloves. This is

like a floral party. Sadly a party that is about to come to a very

abrupt end. It is a natural consequence of these plants being

tuned to the seasons. They grow in the spring when there is moisture in

the soil, setting flowers when the sunshine is, the seeds then fall

onto the soil just in time for the autumn rain. It means in terms of

the party, they are waiting for the taxi home! One way to keep the

colour and interest going right through summer is not to think about

flowers at all, but foliage. I won't pretend this is easy to do because

we are all beguiled by beautiful blooms, but if you think about the

leaf shape, the texture, combining plants with interesting foliage like

this Japanese battler fern, you can create a tapestry that looks good

even when the blooms of high summer are over -- butler. But if it's

colour you are after, there is a raft of plants that do really well

in our gardens in the UK, coming from hotter climates. So for them,

high summer, it is like that spring, so they have blooms to come until

the end of autumn -- it is like their spring. These are from North

American prairies, they are just getting going, they are used to

extreme temperatures. Then the South Americans, the dahlias. Most of us

grow this tall and wiry plants, but there is also this variety called

Lollipop, growing to waist height, which is easier to live with. It is

full of flour and it will be for months to come. -- flower.

If you aren't in the market for new plants there is plenty you can do

with your existing borders. Cottage garden classics like Camilla can be

cut back to ground level without any harm, especially if you give them

water. If you do that they may flour before the autumn. -- flower. A

bucket every week is far better than a cupful every day because it soaks

down to the roots and keeps the flower buds coming. After an

eight-year absence, the water garden category is back. These gardens have

water at their heart and I'm glad to say that I'm so pleased, I've really

missed them. This is the Working Wetlands Garden

and it is so relevant, today. The unpredictability of the weather and

think how much rain we've had this year already. This garden could be

the answer. It's all about catching all the water that lands on the

footprints of your house and garden and trying to use it as a feature

and also get it back to the water table. If you imagine this is the

roof of the house, it is raining, the water comes through this feature

and then it goes through the containers, and gravel in the

plants, so it's getting filtered through. And then it goes over this

bridge and it ends up in the pond. I like the way the pond is at the

heart of the garden, it's the main feature rather than being on the

edge. It's all about planting, don't have sterile edges because more

plants will be a wildlife for -- a magnet for wildlife. You can plot it

like a herbaceous border, things like this flowering rush, this

delicate water plant and the architectural foliage of the

Arrowhead. The planting here looks really lush and exotic too. What

happens if your garden is full and it rains again? This is the bog

garden, acting as a soap away and then the water will go back into the

ground. These plants must be able to cope with wet conditions but drier

conditions too, like this ragged robin, finely cut, and this purple

flour also. What I love about the garden, it is self-contained and it

can cope with anything the weather throws at it.

I think it must be my age, but this garden really appeals to me. A

traditional Scandinavian turf hut, only room for one, with a bench

outside on the edge of a lake. This is a Scandinavian Garden and it

connects you with the great outdoors. Is that a bite? This is

what I would call a stage set garden, trying to capture a moment

and recreating it. It isn't easy to do but they have done it very well.

We have the planting, the wild look is tricky but it looks as if this

has been here for ever. If you catch a fish, Cook it on the fire and you

are surrounded by nature. I wish! LAUGHTER

Water has been used in gardens the centuries and why? Because it is an

element like no other, it brings movement, it brings the reflective

quality. When it rains, the top dances, and it also brings a lovely,

cooling presence. I've seen walls of water like this before and they've

been completely silent. To me, that's a missed opportunity because

the sound of water can be so fantastic. Get the sound right, like

they have here, and it can be a wonderful, soothing quality to this

space. The drought garden, designed by

Steve Dimmock,, narrating the great drought we had in the summer of

1976. --, narrating. I can remember it clearly, I was 21 and all summer

long I was working outside in this blazing heat. I had a garden from

spring to summer and by this time of year, the lawn was Brown, apart from

a few plants, and this is what we can see here. Plants that have

evolved and adapted to cope with searing heat and long periods of

drought. They tend to be Mediterranean. The colour palette is

very blue. You catch the you have things like rosemary, which

can resist drought by being tied to not much surface area. And these

plants which are furry and can hold water. And what's really interesting

is that instead of beefing up the moisture content, sometimes you had

to increase the drainage because the plants that could cope with drought

had evolved in areas of poor soil, and very fast drainage.

I can remember the drought of 76 very well, the grass was dried to a

crisp. It's easy to forget in the middle of summer that many of the

plants we love growing in our gardens need a bit of extra care and

understanding to get them through a British winter.

These are classic drought tolerant plants, I love seeing them grow like

this on their own, when you can appreciate the architectural shape,

but lovely to mix them with something colourful, some flowers

that aren't hardy, so they need protection over the winter. Ideally

you put them somewhere that is frost free, but not heated, like a cold

greenhouse. If you want to bring them into the house, make sure that

you give them a little bit of water through the winter and put them

somewhere light. There's nothing quite like the array of colour that

you get from these, they are fabulous. Bold beacon, shining away.

Important to be aware that they are susceptible to frost, so before the

temperatures really drop, you must bring them somewhere with

protection, meaning somewhere fairly bright, but frost free. And minimise

the watering through the winter and just let them sit there and bide

their time. And don't let concerns about low

temperatures or winter wet limit the plants you grow in your garden. A

bit of extra care and attention and you can have displays like this

through the summer. Monty and I are in this lymphoedema garden. Cut

flower garden, packed with old favourites like the chocolate

cosmos. One of my favourites, this one at the back, very easy to grow,

but it is another of these gardens that is heavily sponsored, with a

very worthy cause and a trend you are seeing not just at Hampton

Court, the weight of sponsorship from corporate sponsors is starting

to press down on the gardens. I agree, as a designer it is important

to focus but when the message takes over, that every plant must have a

meaning, the journey through has to be a journey through life, it

doesn't help the garden, ultimately. Certain plants and colours and you

think, what is that colour doing there, and it turns out to be the

colour of the charity. Yes, branding. The bowel cancer garden,

it is somebody suffering with that disease but it is ultimately about

the plants that can be grown. I think that gardens that are done

well must be the best advert for any sponsor. Absolutely, tomorrow we

will look at a garden that does it pretty well too and some that have

been dwarfed. That's it for tonight, join us tomorrow. Goodbye.