Letter R The A to Z of TV Gardening

Hello and welcome to The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

We are on a mission to dig up the best advice and tips

from all your favourite TV garden programmes and presenters.

So, join me as letter by letter, one by one, we explore everything

from flowers and trees to fruit and veg on The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

Everything we're looking at today begins with the letter R.

Here's what is coming up.

The dark art of growing super-sweet rhubarb.

It definitely feels like summer - it's lovely and balmy -

but why is it dark?

It's dark basically because we are tricking the plant into growth.

Miniature roses with Alan Titchmarsh.

If you've no garden, there is still no excuse for not

planting roses, because you can do it in a window box.

Monty Don gets to the root of raspberry growing.

Now that's a beautiful example, because you have got these

very fibrous roots that grow almost horizontally.

And by the way, those buds there, that is what we're growing.

And rhododendrons, a scent to die for.

It really is very intoxicating.

And you get pollen all over your nose why you're doing it as well.

Just some of the treats we have in store.

But first, Britain's favourite flower.

And judging by what we have right here,

you've probably guessed it - R is for roses.

And we're visiting John Adams,

whose enthusiasm for old roses is bound to sweep your way.

About 15 years ago, I went to a famous local rose grower to buy

a couple of currently fashionable roses for my new garden.

Because I bought two, they gave me, in a little black pot,

this little thing for nothing.

And I put it at the top of the garden.

And this is what it was...

And since then, I've been loving and growing

old roses.

Smell that smell.

Here's a fine example of why I love old roses.

This is an old French Rose

called the Duc de Guiche.

It is covered in buds, beautiful buds,

that are going to come into flower over the next month or so.

And the flower itself has a typical old rose colour,

lots and lots of petals, a green button eye

a delicious scent.

It blends in very well with this geranium

and other plants we put around it.

And that will go on giving me joy for the next

five to six weeks with its flowers,

and then still look very good in the garden once it has stopped flowering.

In order to help the plant every now and again,

I shall say, "You're looking a bit tired."

And I will give it a lovely piece of deadheading.

Here is a very old rose, probably 14th, 15th century.

It is called Rosa mundi. It is another gallica.

Rosa mundi - rose of the world.

And they think it's named after The Fair Rosamund,

who was the mistress of Henry II.

And it shows that an old rose doesn't need to be dull.

Look at those beautiful colours, look at all of that bright,

vibrant colour coming at you.

They've been like this for many years.

We pass through her to something that is much more modern.

This is Madame De La Roche-Lambert. And is an example of a moss rose.

The Victorians loved these.

You can see the sort of mossy growth up the stem.

And if you rub your fingers over the buds,

you get a delicious scent of pine,

of rosin, which adds yet another sort of texture to what you're doing.

And over here, we have a great favourite.

This is Tuscany Superb -

perfectly aptly named, a superb rose, delicious colour.

Again, full of health,

but one of the top ten roses of all time.

This lovely thing here I can only see in July.

This is a great favourite of Constance Spry, the great cookery

writer, flower arranger, and a woman who kept the old roses alive by

insisting that you could not replace them with the modern hybrid tea.

This is Nuits de Young, isn't he beautiful?

You really should find space

to put a few ramblers. This one is Auguste Gervais.

And it is a Wichurana rambler, it's based on

the Rose of Wichurana.

It means it is very, very flexible, so I've been able to wind it round

this post and wind it along the top of the post there.

And it flowers all along very happily

at this part of the year. And it puts on old roses, with the colour,

the scent and the form of an old rose,

because no-one has really managed to invent a modern rambler that is

anywhere near as good as the old ones.

Now, when my old roses, my summer-flowering roses,

which are in brilliant bloom now,

when they finish in about a month's time,

I shall just take a hedge cutter and slice it through about half way up.

None of this messing with pruning this and pruning that, a quick slice.

It will then regenerate itself with beautiful, green, spring growth

and look beautiful throughout the year.

What a lovely rose you are and what good value.

People also worry about replant sickness, which is

the rule that you should never plant a rose where another one has been.

Well, I do it all the time, because I get my colour matches wrong or

I don't like it where it is.

I dig it up, I dig a nice, big hole again,

but I move all the soil and put new soil in from some other

part of the garden and maybe a bit of hoof and horn

to give it extra slow-release nitrogen.

So, you can move things around, you don't need to worry about that,

when you've changed your mind.

Isn't she lovely? Look at this.

A lovely moss called Madame Louis Leveque.

And she's got so many petals, she needs just a little bit of support.

So why do I love old roses so?

Well, it's partly beauty and it's partly romance.

The old roses, the beauty of the flower, the form, has not been

surpassed by anything which has happened in the 20th century.

That is why we still grow them.

And when I look around, I think, "Some of these Shakespeare knew."

When Herrick said, "Gather thee rosebuds while ye may,"

he meant these.

When Strauss wrote Der Rosenkavalier,

this is what he had in mind.

And when you marry, you give your girlfriend or your wife a rose.

It's romance, it's beauty. I love roses.

You want to get it right

when you're dealing with the nation's favourite flower,

so here's a master class from Toby Buckland on ramblers and climbers.

When it comes to choosing roses to cover a pergola,

there's a choice of two broad types - climbers and ramblers.

Ramblers have a lot of wild rose

species rose running through their veins.

That makes them vigorous.

It also makes them disease-free.

It means they're ideal for training up into trees.

Their party trick is that they produce all their flowers at once,

but then they are followed by hips.

So the show isn't over.

Now, I'm using two in this pergola - one planted against this post

and another one against here.

And they should come up and meet in the middle.

The variety I'm going for is called Francis E. Lester,

a real beauty.

It has white flowers with dark pink edges to the petals

and it is highly fragrant and very reliable.

From a distance,

it looks like a big candyfloss cloud.

When it comes to planting, dig out a good big hole,

big enough to take the roots and more.

You never want the roots bending up inside of the hole.

That's no good for the plant at all.

And then, to improve the soil, whatever your ground's like,

whether it's got

a heavy clay content or is like ours, full of sand,

a handful of bone meal

sprinkled equally between the spoil from the hole and in the bottom.

And then forked in.

Next, some well composted horse manure.

Again, sprinkle it in the bottom of the hole and over the spoil.

Tickle through so it doesn't burn the roots when they start to grow.

And finally, because our soil is sandy

and leaves something to be desired as far as roses are concerned,

I'm going to add some mycorrhiza, a fungi.

Now this is a natural fungus that connects itself

to the roots of all plants

and acts as a secondary root system.

And it's a recent innovation in horticulture, though it's

available as granules.

And it's perfect when sprinkled and stuck to the roots.

It has to be in contact for it to work.

The mycorrhiza will grow as the roots grow.

And gather more nutrients from the soil

and improve the ability of the plant to grow.

Now, the briars where they meet the root stalk -

briars being the top and the root stalk being the bottom -

that wants to be buried below the ground by about a hands width.

It might seem deep, however these briars will set out their own roots

and it will make for a stronger plant.

And then drop the plant into its hole,

brush your spoil back in around the roots.

Wobbling the plant every now and then to make sure any lumps

fill out the holes and there are no air gaps left.

Once it's holding itself, you can grab a spade

and speed up the operation.

And then firm the soil over the roots with the flat of your foot,

give your new rose a watering to settle the soil

into any last remaining air gaps

and then, finally,

with secateurs, trim the stems back to a nice plump bud.

That way you're guaranteed strong and healthy growth through the summer.

I'm also planting climbers on the pergola.

Now, climbers are more tame than their rambling cousins.

They are bred from vigorous sports of bushroses, teas and chinas.

And I've got a couple of real beauties here.

And the first, I can spot it a mile off, is called a Shropshire Lad.

I can spot it because the stems are almost thornless.

That makes it ideal for growing in places where space is tight.

It's got lovely flowers, actually.

Peachy pink in colour, and they repeat right the way through

the summer, so you get a flush in June and July

and then it carries on giving a display until the frosts.

It smells of hybrid teas, this one.

A lovely thing.

And the other rose, which is a more spiky customer all together,

is called James Galway.

A lovely rosette-shaped,

pink flower that has an old rose spicy fragrance.

It should be beautiful when trained on the pergola.

And I'm going to plant these, and the Shropshire Lad,

two by two down each side.

Roses aren't difficult to grow.

If you plant them properly and give them plenty of organic matter,

they won't disappoint.

If you give them plenty of sun,

it brings out their fragrance.

When it comes to choosing roses, there are literally

so many you can have in your garden, sometimes it's difficult.

Now here are some of my favourites.

One of the all-time great roses, Graham Thomas,

makes a manageable climber,

with flowers that repeat from June until September,

and reaching up to two and a half metres tall and wide.

Gertrude Jekyll has that quintessential spicy

old rose fragrance

and is a quick-grow climber, reaching 12 foot, four metres, tall.

Veilchenblau is a rambler

with unique colouring and a rich orange scent.

It's thornless and will ramble happily to 15 feet,

or five metres.

Just occasionally on bare-root roses,

you get one exceptionally long root.

Don't be afraid to trim it back to the same length as the others.

As well as planting roses, now is the time to prune them.

Ian Le Gros, the curator of RHS Garden Hyde Hall,

reckons he's pruned 20,000 roses over the years,

so who better to give us a master class?

Before you start pruning, what you need is a good stout pair of

gloves, cos you will get thorns in your fingers if you don't wear them,

and a good pair of strong,

sharp secateurs that are as clean as you can make them.

So, to start off with,

we actually get rid of all of our sort of dead and damaged material.

There's some old growth here that is sort of growing

into the centre of the plant, so I'm going to remove that.

We are looking for a goblet shape,

with better air flow around the plant.

It stops other fungal diseases,

spoiling the roses later on in the season.

OK, probably at the point now where I'm going to start dealing

with this sort of newer material,

where I will be pruning it to around eight inches of the ground.

All the time we are looking for healthy buds,

as outward-facing as we can possibly make it.

On this stem, here, there's a very good, healthy bud there.

Going to put a sloping cut on that cos the stem is quite vertical,

that'll help watershed away from the bud.

And stops the bud getting damaged.

We prune roses to encourage healthy growth, to remove the dead,

diseased, damaged material,

cos that will be an entry point for other sort of disease.

It also encourages newer growth to keep coming from the base,

replacing the older material.

It's worth pruning this now in March,

cos then your buds are starting to come through.

And if you do it any later,

you'll be knocking buds off, causing damage.

This is another rose.

This stem here is crossing through the centre, causing some rubbing.

Could be an entry point for diseases.

So, on this one, that's the better stem out of the two, I feel,

so I'm going to remove this one here

and then we prune this one to an outward-facing bud.

Always remove any little snags resulting from deadheading

in the summer.

Straight off the rose pruning,

you do any quick weeding that you need to do to keep it really clean.

And then apply mulch over the top.

Pruning done, now let's move over to the patio with Rachel de Thame.

The most important thing is you need a container much bigger

probably than the one you think you'll need,

because roses are hungry and they're thirsty.

I'm using a mixture here of a John Innes,

which is a soil-base compost,

with just a regular sort of loam-free compost as well.

There's a bit of grit in here. And for good measure,

I'm going to add in a little bit of a slow-release fertilizer as well.

And then the next thing is to make sure you've got the right rose.

There are so many to choose from.

Probably hybrid teas don't work terribly well.

Neither do some of the big old roses.

But there are lots of gorgeous patio roses, there are also miniatures.

And this is one of them. I'm going to try this one. It's called Cutie.

And it is a patio rose.

In fact, by next year, it's going to look more like this.

So it does bulk up quite quickly.

So you may not want to put any annuals or bedding in under there

next year, but I'm going to now. And I'm going to use this, I think.

It's a white flower, so I want a little bit of colour,

but not too much.

There we are.

Now there's still plenty of room at the top of the pot for watering, and

that's important because you need to water it,

particularly while it's just becoming established now.

And the other really important thing to remember,

particularly with patio roses,

is they like to be pruned hard,

so you can really go in there with the secateurs and cut them

right back. Probably in about March.

And they'll be all the better for it.

Otherwise, they get very spindly and nasty looking.

OK. Yes, I'm quite pleased with that.

There are so many wonderful things to say about roses that

we'll come back to them later on in the programme.

We've also got rhubarb, rhododendrons

and how-to-build raised beds.

But first, let's join Monty Dorn

as he plants a real summertime favourite.

Because this R is for raspberries.

It's nice to get back into this fruit cage, which

is actually one of the most exciting things that has happened

to Berryfields for ages, because it does mean that now we can grow

masses of soft fruit and we can experiment, we can try things out.

And hopefully, if you want to grow soft fruit too, you can learn

from what we are doing and pick and choose and apply it at home.

Now, I want to get raspberries in over the next few weeks.

And raspberries are much best planted bare root.

You can either buy them like this, in a container.

They will still be bare root in there.

What I mean by that, if I lift this out, you can see the roots,

they are all bundled together.

That is not an individual plant.

Or you can go and get them as they're lifted.

And I've got one here. You can see what a raspberry looks like.

Now, that is a beautiful example,

because you've got these very fibrous roots that grow almost horizontally.

And by the way, those buds there, that is what we are growing.

These are summer-fruiting raspberries and those are the canes we want.

Now, before planting them,

if you buy them bare root, it's worth giving them a really good soak.

Which I have done here.

And I have got six different varieties of bare root

summer-fruiting raspberries.

And it is worth explaining that there are two types of raspberries -

summer-fruiting, which fruit on the canes that grew the previous year,

and autumn-fruiting, which fruit on the canes that grew

in the current year.

And that affects the pruning regime. And we'll come to that.

When it is time for pruning,

I will go through that all with you next year.

But for the moment, I just want to plant them.

It doesn't matter what variety it is,

what type of raspberry it is, planting is exactly the same.

And I'm going to plant one variety here, another one there,

another one there, another one there then two more on the other side.

So, six varieties, which will give us

a continuity of fruit right through the growing season.

And planting raspberries... There is a technique and it is dead simple.

What they hate is sitting in wet ground.

And on heavy soil, that can be a problem.

And I have learned that the best way to do it is to dig the ground

thoroughly, remove all weeds and then put on masses of compost.

By the way, don't use mushroom compost.

They don't like alkaline soil or compost. Garden compost is ideal.

Simply scrape it away, so you're putting it flush on the ground,

and then cover it back over.

Now that is perfect.

And then we have got a good framework,

with really stout posts and wires every couple of feet or so,

which we can tie them into.

Now, remember, these are summer-fruiting,

so these canes here will not produce next year's raspberries.

It is the new growth from the base that will grow up,

and that will produce the fruit.

No quick fix here, I am afraid.

We won't getting any raspberries from these next summer.

This is a long-term investment in a really good soft fruit.

And as for spacing,

I think you need to give them

a couple of feet to 18 inches apart.

Because each plant, once it gets going,

will throw up half a dozen good canes.

So space that apart, pop that in the ground and push it around.

Now, you have probably worked out for yourself, but what this means,

with such shallow, fibrous roots, you can't read around him with a hoe.

Hence the need to dig out all perennial weeds and then mulch,

mulch raspberries.

You can mulch them that deep if you want.

I remember filming a chap, he had a mulch up to two-foot deep,

worked beautifully.

Now these are Glen Ample, which I have grown for years.

Delicious raspberry.

Which should start fruiting in June.

Thanks, Monty.

Now, as a weather expert, I find this next piece fascinating.

It is an example of a plant that is completely tricked

into thinking it is summertime

when really it is it all.

This R is for rhubarb.

And as Julia Bradbury finds out, growing it in bulk

can be more complicated than you think.

I'm in Yorkshire, in the shadow of the great mountain range.

And as anyone living here knows, thanks to the Pennines,

the weather is bitter and cold, with plenty of heavy rain.

And it is precisely this climate which allows us

to enjoy one of our most curious vegetables at this time of year -

rhubarb.

Rhubarb loves the cold.

It thrives in the frost pocket east of the Pennines,

traditionally known as the Rhubarb Triangle.

These days, the hub of production is concentrated just east, in Carlton.

Aside from frost and water, there is

one more thing that rhubarb needs to flourish.

It may not look like much, but this bag of dirty sheep wool is

key to the success of rhubarb grown in this area.

It is a bit grim.

Waste not, want not around here.

Shoddy, as it is known,

is a convenient by-product of the textile industry.

It is the unwashed, greasy wool and the dangly bits from the

backend of the sheep that fall out of fleece as it is combed, scrubbed

soaked and blow-dried on its way to the weavers.

So, how does it help?

Lindsay Hulme is doing a spot of weightlifting with these huge

rhubarb roots.

The plant has to sit in the frozen soil, growing slowly,

for three years before it can be harvested.

-Hi, Lindsay.

-Hi.

-They are big roots, aren't they!?

-Certainly are.

I didn't expect them to be so large. What does that weigh?

-Roughly about 25 kg, and a bit more.

-So that is hard work for you.

Not half.

So, what magic properties does shoddy have to help these roots grow?

The magic thing about shoddy is that it is natural and it

breaks down slowly over three years, releasing nitrogen slowly,

the exact amount of time that the rhubarb is in the ground.

And how does the frost help? How does this cold Pennine air help?

-Yorkshire is renown for its cold.

-Of course, yes, yes.

The frost itself, each plant needs a winter or a shutdown period,

in which the plant goes into sort of hibernation mode.

When we actually lift the plants out of the ground, we take them

into the shed and then the heat source there, it initiates summer.

The balmy conditions inside the forcing shed shock

the roots into life.

But before I head for the summer climes,

I've got a pit stop to make.

I have roped in TV chef Simon Rimmer to rustle up some rhubarb delights.

Mr Rimmer, Mr Rimmer. Hello, my love.

-How are you?

-I'm good, I'm really good.

This is what I like to see, you slaving away over a mixing bowl.

For you.

'Simon is breaking with the crumble tradition

'and using our winter rhubarb...'

Mm. Mm! I love rhubarb.

'..to rustle up a tray full of muffins with a heavenly twist.'

In the middle, we're going to add a bit of custard,

so we end up with delicious rhubarb and custard muffins.

You really did read my dreams last night,

-didn't you?

-Yeah, I did.

-You were there!

So, they're delicious, they're fruity, they're creamy.

Look at that, so nice.

Beautiful. Right, I'm going to see them grow now.

-In the...

-It's great. Wait till you here them pop.

-Lovely.

-See you!

-See ya!

The popping that Simon is talking about is the sound of rhubarb

growing.

The shoots sprout so fast,

sometimes up to an inch a day, that they break their skins

with a snapping noise.

After five weeks in the humidity of these vast sheds,

they're ready to be picked.

Lindsay's mother, Janet, has got the knack.

Well,

the harvesting, basically,

-we have to get the whole of the stick.

-Right.

-So it's the finger.

-Yep.

And you slide down the stick

right into the root, you'll feel the root,

and you pull and twist backwards.

OK, so you've got to get the whole root out, is that the trick?

You need the whole bud so we don't have it rot, basically.

-OK.

-Pull and twist back.

-How's that?

-Brilliant, brilliant.

Oh, there we go. Good, all right.

Now, Lindsay told me that it's meant to be summer in here,

and it definitely feels like summer, it's lovely and balmy,

why is it dark?

It's dark basically cos we're tricking the plant into growth.

We've built up that energy in the root

and we're making it now grow from it.

Forcing the plant to draw its energy from its own glucose stores rather

than from the sun gives this indoor rhubarb a sweeter, more tender taste.

Why the candles?

We do keep it pitch black, but we need to see in here,

so it's purely for harvesting.

Rhubarb has long been a prized produce.

In the 17th century,

it was said to be worth three times the price of opium.

Rhubarb was a medicine in ancient times, but they used the root.

And they're looking at today making drugs,

some of which are cancer-fighting drugs.

-Can I keep what I pick?

-Yeah.

Right, let's pick some more then.

During the Second World War, rhubarb became the vegetable of choice.

As one of the only home-grown winter vegetables around,

it was forced down many a child's throat in a bid to

stave off the scurvy.

So much so that we got sick of it.

Back then,

over 200 farms in this area produced 80% of the world's winter rhubarb.

Now the old droids are one of only 11.

But it is enjoying a revival.

Top chefs are bringing it back into fashion.

Speaking of which,

time to see how Simon is getting on with those tasty treats.

-Here we go.

-Hiya.

-Hiya. So, what have we got?

-Right.

OK, now these are little Parmesan scones. Simple scone.

Wensleydale cheese, great for Yorkshire, it's around here.

But this is what will make it delicious.

This is our rhubarb chutney.

Look at the colour of it, it is so lovely.

And all that we've done with that...

it's onion, it's chilli, it's ginger.

Fry that a little bit and then we had vinegar, sugar and rhubarb.

Meanwhile,

-what do you think that was back in the day?

-A party game.

-It wasn't a party game. Do remember sherbet dips?

-Yeah!

Well sherbet dips come from this.

-Really?

-Yeah, to try and get the kids to eat more rhubarb,

a little bit of brown sugar or sugar, rhubarb stick,

cos of course it is quite tort...tart, isn't it? Tort, tart.

Both. Oh, blimey!

Try that.

Yep, you definitely need the sugar.

Good though, it works.

Yeah. That is where it all came from.

-Thank you for all my rhubarb delights.

-Pleasure. See you.

-Bye.

If all that has left your mouth watering, maybe it is time you

created a bit of space for fruit and veg in your garden.

So, our next R is for raised beds.

And we're joining Monty Don a second time for a tutorial

on how best to build them.

All of our vegetables here at Berryfields are grown

in raised beds,

which means that the soil is mounded up,

so you have a depth of soil above the normal ground height,

contained with boards.

It doesn't matter what you use to contain it,

cos the point is to keep that soil from spilling onto the paths.

And the advantage of a raised bed is that you never need to tread on it.

That way the soil doesn't get compacted

so the roots get a really good root.

It is a very efficient and effective way of growing vegetables.

And you can make a raised bed really easily big enough to give

yourself a fresh salad every day of the year.

And it just needs to be about a metre long.

Even if you have got a tiny garden, a small raised bed will give

you the start you need for your own home-grown veg.

Now, I've used here old scaffolding boards,

but any boards will do,

as long as there are at least six inches high.

And I tend not to like using tanalised timber

because the chemicals can get into the vegetables.

And by attaching two sides to there.

I'm going to screw the ends on to make a box.

Now you could use nails just as well.

But the beauty of the screw is that you can unscrew very easily.

And nowadays, with battery-operated screwdrivers,

that goes straight in there.

We'll put one in this end to hold it.

Now, I can tell you, I am one of the world's most cack-handed DIYs.

So if I can do this, then anybody can.

There we go. And there we have a box.

And that'll work perfectly well over lawn or gravel.

Because the grass won't grow through the soil.

Another thing I'm going to add here is just a peg in each corner

to hold it in place.

I'll just put a couple in to give you the idea.

Bang that down or saw off the top when it is insecurely.

And, in fact, if you add a screw or nail to that,

that keeps it really rigid. It's not going to go anywhere.

We have the box on the ground.

It's just like a container with an open bottom, really.

Then fill it with soil.

Now, all vegetables grow best in rich soil.

That really is quite important.

So I've got some Berryfield's compost to go in the bottom.

Put a layer in.

Like that because we need good, rich soil for these vegetables that

have got to do an awful lot of work growing in a short amount of time.

Then on top of that, good topsoil.

And then we'll also put another layer of compost on the top.

Cos the purpose of all this work of preparing yourself a plot...

And actually, when you think about it, that's what this is.

This is a vegetable plot, however small it might be.

..is that you get a really good harvest.

Remember, growing vegetables is all about eating more

than about gardening.

Thanks, Monty.

And remember, in very hot summer weather, watch your raised beds

carefully as the soil can dry out quicker than it would do normally.

Now, after the DIY lesson, we are returning to flowers -

one that left the Victorians intoxicated

with its beauty and scent.

Our next R is for rhododendrons, and here's Chris Beardshaw.

It is hard to imagine the effect

that these plants had on Victorian gardens.

Up until the mid-19th century,

the majority of gardens were composed of very modest blooms and forms.

But then came the rhododendrons.

With their extraordinary blooms and intoxicating fragrance, it's

the equivalent of introducing a harlot to a tea party.

And by the way, they don't only come in white.

# Keep us from temptation

# Lead us not into temptation. #

These are dangerous plants.

Not only did they shock the very foundations of Victorian

horticulture sensibility, but in order to get a good collection,

you had to be willing to risk a family fortune

and the lives of the plant hunters who were sent out

to inhospitable places to bring them back.

The results - rhododendron mania.

Home to most rhododendrons means the Himalayas,

but they grow so well in Devon because the conditions here are

remarkably similar to the conditions in which they thrive naturally.

This is the reason we can grow such good rhododendrons,

camellias and magnolias in Devon.

These are made of really hard granite,

which are resistant to weathering, but as they break down,

they give away minerals, which then get swirled downstream.

And all those minerals are acidic.

So the soil down in the valleys is derived from rocks up here.

This is Killerton House. It shows you what money could

buy in the last century.

Wonderful house, great aspect, great big woodland

full of rhododendrons, magnolias and camellias.

It just looks stunning.

We're actually going right down into the middle of the gardens,

dropping below the tree canopy level.

The rhododendrons are still in full flower.

Marcus and I will do some grass cutting with the rotor blades.

I think you'll find that...

All those nice blooms we came to see, Marcus has blown them off.

Just the dead leaves.

This flowering shrubbery may look, well, a little overgrown by many

people's standards, but there is a very good reason.

This Rhododendron arboretum is said to date back almost 150 years

and be grown from the original seed brought into this country

by the plant hunters who were exploring in the Himalayas.

And at the time of planting,

no-one actually knew how big the plants were going to grow.

The plant hunters hacked through groves just like this,

not only risking life and limb, but also having to contend

with hostile natives and contagious diseases. The reason?

To give the English aristocrats a great woodland garden.

But it's the garden's collection of deciduous rhododendrons

that I'm after. However, asking head gardener, Andrew, for one

by name isn't going to get me anywhere.

A lot of them were planted and obviously recorded at the time,

but the names have since been lost,

so we don't have the names for a lot of them.

We just have a name for a few and we just propagate them

by numbers when we need new plants.

-We just select the best colours.

-So they really are plants with no name.

-Yeah.

-At the moment, anyway.

-At the moment, yeah.

And the fragrance as well, where is the fragrance coming from?

The scent is particularly coming from this yellow one, which is

not so dramatic in flower,

but more than makes up for it with the scent.

Rhododendron pontica luteum.

It really is very intoxicating.

And you get pollen all over your nose while you're doing it as well.

If you have that in the garden and a seat very close by, it would

just be intoxicating.

It would. You'd go and sit on it every day just to take in the scent.

It's lovely.

And the season of interest is not just about bud and flower,

the leaves that you can see coming through under the flowering

-canopy here give you really good autumn colour, too.

-They do, yes.

We get three or four months of them in flower

and then we get the autumn colours, which are just absolutely

stunning - all the colours that you can think of,

from the palest colours right through the fiery oranges

and reds, the scent...

It's just everything about the plant makes you really want to think,

-"I must have one in my garden."

-If you had a garden,

-would you plant one?

-I certainly would.

I'd definitely have one in the garden.

Beautiful blooms, no wonder the Victorians were mad for them.

Now, though, as promised, we are returning to roses, and this

time a look at miniatures with a very youthful Alan Titchmarsh.

If you've no garden, there's still no excuse for not planting roses

because you can do it in a window box.

Miniatures are all the rage now,

and here are some real beauties. This little one is called Longleat.

It was brought out last year in honour of the 400th anniversary

of the stately home with that name.

That is about as big as it grows, less than a foot high.

Very nice thing.

But if you want a really flat carpet, how about snow carpet?

Little white double rosettes.

Have beautiful blooms and a very, very thorny mat it makes.

A nice carpeter there.

And finally, at the end, something a little bit taller and creamy white,

is "Portoir".

That will give you a little bit more height to your window box.

Thanks, Alan.

Now, how to rise to the challenge when your roses come under attack.

-Over to Joe Swift.

-Bob, roses are notoriously hard to maintain,

especially organically - people are constantly spraying them

and feeding them. They get black spot and mildew and everything.

But yours are looking really good.

-Thank you.

-Have you do it?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with choosing the right varieties.

You're right, the perception is there,

and it's unfortunate cos roses are beautiful plants.

There are some varieties here that really stand out,

these yellow ones you see here is Freedom, is absolutely fantastic.

It's...I can probably find a little bit of black spot in there,

but not enough for anyone to worry about.

What if you do see a bit of black spot or something?

What do you do?

Right, well, shall we have a go and see what we can find over here?

-I can spot some over here.

-Oh, you spotted some from a distance already.

-Yes.

-You must have keen eyes.

-Well, we've got a little bit here.

Yeah.

You can see this here is creeping in lower down.

And we've got a deadheader here anyway.

-Yeah.

-So what I will do is I'll actually...

because it is not much, I'll just take

the leaves off that are particularly badly affected and take them away.

What about aphids? Do you have a problem with aphids?

Only early in the year.

By this time of the year, you won't find any.

And you might wonder what the organic strategy for that is

and it is actually don't panic.

-That's our strategy.

-That's a good strategy.

I like that sort of strategy.

Well, when you get a nice bud like that absolutely infested with

aphids up to the top, it is a little bit alarming, and the temptation

is to reach for the nearest spray, but if you wait,

what you'll find is the beneficial insects such as ladybirds,

lacewing larvae, the hollow flies,

all those sort of things will come in

and start feeding on those aphids.

And you will be surprised to find that within perhaps two or

three weeks of having first noticed them,

there are hardly any left because they've all been eaten.

Whatever you are doing, you are doing the right thing,

-cos this looks fantastic in here.

-Thank you.

And finally, here is Rachel de Thame again with award-winning

rose grower Gareth Fryer

on how to create the best roses in the country.

Sweet Dreams is the most successful British rose ever bred

and 4.5 million have been sold

since it was introduced by Fryer's Roses in 1988.

In that year, it was voted Rose Of The Year, one of three

successes for Gareth Fryer, who made it four

with his latest introduction - Tickled Pink - this year.

Well, it certainly looks like a very good rose to me.

-Are you please with it?

-Oh, highly pleased, delighted, yes.

And already I think

it is going to be very popular, too.

-It is a nice sort of seductive pink.

-It should be a good seller.

Hopefully. It is very easy to grow, that's the beauty of it.

That's probably what saw it through in the Rose Of The Year trials.

It took an incredible ten years of development for Tickled Pink

to reach this stage, and I was keen to learn why it took so long.

We first of all select the flower that we are going to pollinate.

-Right.

-And then we have to emasculate it,

that's remove the male parts of it.

So what we do is remove all the petals.

We would then remove the stamens.

Then you select the pollen parent.

Another colour.

And...

just a dab on the stigma here.

And when we have done the pollination,

we make sure we mark it with what the two parents are.

And we remove these petals,

-so that we know it has been pollinated, basically.

-Right.

And that is pollinated. That will swell up

and we shall sow the seeds from there

after Christmas, in the wintertime,

and they will be little seedlings flowering this time next year.

And by the following summer,

the results of all these crosses can be seen in their true colours.

-Do get many surprises in terms of the colours that appear?

-We do, yeah.

Something rather like this, actually.

-Yes.

-Which is sort of purple with a few stripes in.

Absolutely beautiful. Another stripy one here,

that's really... That's amazing.

-And could this red rose have had any colour parent?

-Absolutely.

Two pink roses could have made that or a yellow and a pink.

It's really all that is in the background, in the genes.

When you've got a promising flower like that, what is the next stage?

The next stage will be to try that outside next year.

In here, they've been cosseted - no rain, shaded from the sun,

watered when they wanted to be.

-So the real test starts next year for these.

-Out in the real world.

Mm.

Nothing quite prepared me for what I saw next.

Gareth, I'm almost speechless. It's... This is my idea of heaven.

Well, these are all the roses that we selected from the bench

last year. And over the next three years,

we'll be evaluating them, judging them, testing them.

This is really where they've got to tell us

they're the ones that are going to be

future Roses Of The Year or something like that.

Where do you start? Because, I mean, I stand here and I look at them

and I think, "Oh, gorgeous. Oh, lovely. That's nice."

You know? I mean, it must be so hard to narrow this down.

It is very hard, but at the moment,

we're at the beginning of the season, so

they're looking their best.

As we go another two or three weeks,

when they've stopped flowering, that's when we can weed them out.

But there is no question,

they've got personality, a lot of these roses.

And then got a twinkle in their eye.

And those are the ones. They've got sparkle.

So, you have got your most promising roses,

how do you go about choosing a name for them?

With great, great difficulty. That's the hardest part of it.

-The name has to be associated with the sort of rose it is.

-Yes.

It has to have some sort of appeal.

Is that why they're often things like Silver Anniversary

or Happy Birthday, that kind of thing?

Why not? You celebrate an occasion.

Can it make a big difference to the actual sales?

A big difference. I mean, even now we've got the Diamond Wedding.

Everyone is living longer...

And that is becoming a top-selling variety.

A good one as well. This is absolutely beautiful.

This does stand up and say, "Look at me."

It certainly does. I think we've got something very special here.

Possible Rose Of The Year?

Yeah, I think it could be.

It certainly has got everything that it takes.

-All you need is that name.

-Yes. Any ideas?

My thinking cap is on.

It was Gareth who created the 2013 Rose Of The Year,

another pink called You're Beautiful.

And if that is not a nice way to end

our look at the letter R, I don't know what is.

Do join us next time on The A To Z Of TV Gardening,

but for now, goodbye.

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