Letter I The A to Z of TV Gardening

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

We're 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 I.

Here's what's coming up.

The British honeybee.

George McGavin is buzzing with enthusiasm.

GEORGE: Wow. This is one of my top wildlife experiences.

Absolutely amazing.

How painting and gardening go hand in hand...

What I'm hoping to do is to collect together every single iris

that Cedric Morris ever bred and named, before they're lost for ever.

And ivy and its bad reputation...

Ooh, they kill trees.

Ooh, they climb up your pebble dash and pull it off.

Ooh... They are wonderful garden plants.

Just some of the treats we have in store.

We start with an in-depth look at the creatures who,

especially during the warmer months, arrive in our gardens

in their millions and play a role in them

that's as crucial as our own.

Yes, I is for insects.

And, to get things started, let's join Chris Packham

and bask in the beauty of the Great British butterfly.

CHRIS: With the arrival of spring comes the emergence

of the true British treasure.

Symbolic.

Objects of fascination.

Inspiration for artists.

And adorning our countryside with colour.

Seeing your first butterfly gives you the sense that spring has arrived,

and the warm days of summer lie ahead.

I look forward immensely

to seeing each new species of butterfly

every season, because we have spring butterflies

and high summer butterflies

and the late summer butterflies and

it's reacquainting and strengthening relationships with old friends.

CHRIS: And there's plenty to get to know.

You know, we have over 50 species of butterflies in the UK

and they've been living alongside us for thousands of years

in our woodlands, field margins, parks and gardens.

But butterflies are not just pretty faces. Oh, no.

Their private lives can be both complex and fascinating.

Take the Large Blue, for example.

The caterpillars hatch out

and feed on wild thyme, but then

they trick a species of ant into taking them

into their nest underground

and here they eat the ants' own grubs

before emerging again the following year.

You've got to agree, butterflies are pretty amazing.

Sadly, in recent years,

Britain's butterflies have been in serious trouble.

And the statistics are fairly sobering.

Well, it's really bad news for British butterflies.

Over the past three decades or so,

three quarters of our

butterfly species have declined,

so that's a massive loss

for many different species.

Five species have become extinct in Britain completely

and many others are threatened with extinction.

To understand why our butterflies are suffering,

we have to uncover their complex and fascinating lives.

To do that, we have to start at the beginning.

Female butterflies are notoriously

picky about exactly where

they lay their eggs.

-MATHEW:

-Some butterflies only breed on a single species of plant.

White admiral, for example, only breeds on honeysuckle.

But most of them actually breed

on plants from a single family.

Purple emperor breeds on sallows,

which are a type of willow.

-RICHARD:

-They're very choosy, these butterflies,

and that makes them very sensitive. As soon as that plant has gone,

then they go extinct in that place straightaway.

They live very fast lives,

so they respond very quickly to these changes.

CHRIS: And the reason they are so fussy? Well, it's because of these.

The key to a butterfly's success is getting the right

food plants for their hungry caterpillars and, unfortunately,

these plants have been disappearing from our countryside.

-RICHARD:

-The big problem that our British butterflies have faced is

the loss of traditional ways that we manage our farmland and forests.

They're now increasingly restricted to small pockets of habitat,

small islands in a sea of otherwise inhospitable terrain -

might be intensive farmland or housing, roads and so on.

And they really need to be able to move through the landscape.

CHRIS: But with that landscape changing so fast and such specific

and different needs, it's no wonder that

they've found it difficult to cope.

But there is a simple solution to their complex problem.

Understand the species and then make space for its needs.

We're lucky. We know a lot about butterflies in Britain,

probably more than any other country in the world.

They respond so quickly to change

and we can reverse some of these declines.

The perfect example is the Heath Fritillary.

Its food plant, Common Cow-wheat,

grows in sunny, woodland glades.

Now, when traditional forestry methods stopped,

the clearings covered over and the butterflies came close to extinction.

But by simply changing back to the original practices,

in woodland in Kent the Heath Fritillary

is now thriving once again.

-MATHEW:

-It's not all bad news for butterflies, by any means.

The truth is that they live in a bit of a different dynamic,

almost a different dimension to us

and their populations yo-yo up and down,

depending on weather cycles

and what's happening with their habitats

and they can boom or bust.

We want to see far more boom.

# Boum

# L'astre du jour fait boum

# Tout avec lui dit boum

# Quand notre coeur fait boum-boum... #

So, how do you attract butterflies to your garden?

In a minute, a few tips from Toby Buckland,

but first, here's Carol Klein and Ivan Hicks

at the Butterfly World in Hertfordshire.

CAROL: 'Within the 27 acres here are

'a series of gardens that show us

'all what we can do at home

'to provide these charismatic insects with

'all that they need.'

It's so sheltered in here, isn't it?

Yes, these walls create quite an atmosphere and I find

they trap the aromas of the garden, just like a walled garden, in fact.

So, really pull the butterflies in.

I bet this does, too, doesn't it?

Yes, it's a very popular plant nowadays,

but it's ideal for butterflies.

It's reckoned to be Britain's

second-best nectar plant after Buddleja.

Right, so Verbena bonariensis

really fits the bill, doesn't it?

Yes, and it seeds itself, as well.

It's incredibly easy to grow, isn't it?

I mean, you can grow it anywhere, providing you've got sun.

But not everybody might have walls like this.

-They're marvellous, Ivan.

-Thank you.

They're deliberately created to provide nooks and crannies

for insects and bugs and butterflies of all sorts.

-It's just brilliant.

-This is what insects need.

Everywhere's so rendered nowadays and covered over.

And insects need places to live outdoors.

They need these plants, too, cos these are for homes, aren't they?

Oh, this is an extraordinary plant, of course, Onopordum acanthium,

silver thistle.

Earlier this summer, painted ladies laid their eggs on this.

We watched the caterpillars and they've pupated.

I think we can find one on one of the leaves, just down here.

It's just in there, you see?

Oh, look! Isn't it beautiful?

A little golden beauty. And it should emerge later this summer.

You can see exactly where they've been eating this Onopordum.

Oh, yes.

People get a bit apprehensive about caterpillars, don't they?

It's only really the cabbage white, so-called, that eat your vegetables.

The rest of them don't.

I suppose the message is there's plenty for them

and there's plenty for us and we can all get on very happily together.

Yes. And if you choose the plants in your garden that are

butterfly-friendly, you can still garden in a very beautiful way,

but you can be helpful.

So we thought we'd do our bit for the butterflies here at Greenacre.

We're going to extend the bee border.

So I'm going to put some bee-friendly,

nectar-rich plants in here,

and some real crackers that should bring in the butterflies, as well.

First one, is a Buddleja.

It's called lindleyana, Buddleja lindleyana.

It has the most delicate little

purple tubes for flowers.

They're produced in long panicles, like on any butterfly bush

and that's good for the butterflies that visit,

because it means they've got food over a long period of time.

They open at the base of the panicle first

and then working their way up, I suppose like

a firework fizzing to the tips.

Last for months.

Actually, I've got another cracking plant over here.

This one has one of the best Latin names of all.

It's called Vitex agnus-castus 'Latifolia'.

Sounds like an old Roman general from 2,000 years ago, doesn't it?

But, again, like the Buddleja,

has these sort of clusters of flowers and stubby little tubes.

Butterflies just love it.

But here, against this fence, I think we'll do really well.

There are so many beautiful butterfly plants,

but if you're not sure which ones to choose when buying,

a good tip is to look out for small flowers in clusters or spikes.

Thanks, Toby. Now, let's join Joe Swift,

who's been having pest-related problems on his vegetable plots.

It's a relaxed summer's day at the allotment.

A bit of harvesting, bit of weeding, bit of watering,

maybe putting a few bits and pieces in and taking some out.

But, the exciting thing is, I've got

an entomologist coming up here today.

What's one of those?

An entomologist, Mark, is Bugman.

Bugman. You've heard of Batman, you've heard of Spiderman,

we've got Bugman coming up, because there's a few bits and pieces

eating some of my crops, so I thought I'd get him up and have a look.

Right, Ian, something has been nibbling my brassicas.

Well, I know it's not birds. It's not that sort of damage.

-But also, I've had this net on.

-Yeah, this will be caterpillar damage.

-Right.

-And, in fact, the net, I think,

has contributed to your problems,

because it's great to put it on when your plans are small,

stop the pigeons coming down and chewing up your leaves,

but this size mesh would allow

things like moths, whitefly, aphids

to come in and start causing a little infestation on your plants.

And that's the point where you need to inspect the plants, as well,

and remove the first infestations.

But this is quite old damage, from

what looks like cabbage moth caterpillars.

And the caterpillars will now probably be down in

the soil as chrysalises.

They've pupated in the soil.

OK. How can I get rid of those? I mean, if I hoe and dig

around a bit, will the birds come in?

Yes, expose them to the birds.

Damage them by digging around the base with a hoe or

a small fork or something.

Oh, look, there's a caterpillar there!

Sorry, mate. I've got to do this to you.

-Au revoir.

-Ah!

-Hasta la vista, baby.

-What have you got there?

-This is the start of some mealy cabbage aphid.

-And, again, if you nip it in the bud now...

-Nip it in the bud?

-Wipe it off like that?

-That's it.

-Just wipe it off like that...

-And that's gone.

Otherwise, that would have spread all over the leaf, all over the plant.

You have to get down on your hands and knees

-and have a good look, don't you?

-You do.

-It tells you what'll be around next year, too.

-Exactly.

I might have missed it a bit this year,

but next year I'm going to be much more aware of it now.

Right, I just want to show you my peas,

cos I'm not sure what this is at all.

There's a couple that have died out and I was wondering

whether it was early stem damage, the stem got damaged or something.

But now they're going a little bit yellow around this patch.

I suspect it's actually a virus.

Looking at some of these plants, you can still see

-the mosaic symptoms on the leaves.

-Oh, yeah, OK.

This will be a virus that's transmitted by aphids, greenfly.

I did have some blackfly and some greenfly here and I've used this.

It seemed to have got rid of it,

but maybe the virus had already been spread.

This is just an organic soapy solution.

OK, fatty acids.

Yeah, and it did the job.

Yeah. Looking at these plants, I can't see any aphids on there,

so it looks like you have done a really good job of it.

-But you will need to keep on top of those aphids.

-OK.

What about next year?

Well, these seed are likely to contain the virus as well,

so don't use the seed for planting next year's plants.

Just keep a very good eye on the plants early on

and try to keep on top of the aphids.

Cos it's possible that there's a reservoir of the virus

-somewhere else on this allotment.

-OK, right.

It would be a real shame to get rid of them.

-cos I'm getting loads of peas off them at the moment!

-Absolutely.

Who's this fellow? He looks like he's after your sandwiches, rather than my brassicas.

This is a larvae of a moth of some sort.

It could be a tiger moth of some sort.

But it's certainly not a problem to your allotment.

OK, I'm glad, cos he's so beautiful,

I wouldn't want to damage him or her.

This will be feeding on some of the weeds around, maybe bramble.

How do you know which are the goodies and which are the baddies?

Yeah, that's tricky, but I think it's just experience, really.

If you watch your plants, you'll recognise the caterpillars

that are eating your vegetables and the ones that aren't.

Is it a problem? If something is eating your caterpillars, is it bad?

I've just squashed one between my thumb and forefinger.

Is that a bad thing to do, or is that perfectly legitimate in the world of the allotment?

I think if you're 100% certain that that species is eating your plants,

then it's a safe and effective way of getting rid of them.

But certainly don't go around killing every caterpillar you see,

because things like this aren't a problem.

Right, on my sage.

I've had a bit of problem at home with mildew and stuff,

but this doesn't look like mildew at all.

That's the feeding damage of the sage leafhopper.

-Do you see them on here?

-Feeding damage? Oh, right. OK.

-Do they hop?

-Yeah.

-Oh, they do hop?

-Yeah.

They hop nicely, actually.

Is there anything else I should be worried about?

It looks perfectly edible, this sage.

No. All that is, really, is a little bit of leaf damage.

They feed on plant sap,

so what they're doing is tapping into the cells,

sucking out the contents, and you end up with

these little necrotic areas,

which is basically empty cells.

OK. It's not affecting the taste?

-They're not nicking all the tasty bits of my sage?

-No.

What have you got there?!

I've brought my pooter along

which is what an entomologist uses to catch insects.

Oh, this is exciting!

You basically suck down the tube and

-the insects end up in the pot.

-OK.

Oh, it's completely silent...

-There they are.

-And there they are,

in your little jar. Hopping around.

If you look at these under a microscope, they're really pretty.

-They are very beautiful, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-They won't cause you too much damage.

-OK, fine.

So I'm going to leave those little fellas there.

We'll release these later.

We'll investigate some more insects later on in the show,

but we're moving on, now, from creepy crawlies

of spring and summer to a creeping climber

that is often associated with winter time.

Our next item, I is for ivy.

Let's join John Craven

and the editor of the Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey.

JOHN: Well, here we are in your very own wood in Hertfordshire

and there's a lot of ivy on these beech trees.

Yes, but only at the edge of the wood.

Ivy's not really a plant of the dark interiors of ancient woodlands.

It tends to grow at the edges.

It likes hedgerows, it likes a bit of light.

It likes a rich soil.

It gets established along an edge, like that one there,

which used to be an old track down to the village.

And when it's growing in a hedge,

like that, it will put down these suckering tendrils

and gradually creep over the ground, into the wood, towards the trees.

And when it reaches the tree, does it cause any damage as it climbs up it?

No. It's one of the myths that we ought to nail

right from the outset about ivy.

It isn't a parasite.

It doesn't take any sustenance out of the tree at all.

It doesn't even strangle it or suffocate it

in the way that some people think.

All it does is use the tree as a kind of trestle.

It puts out these little suckering tendrils

and climbs up it towards the light.

This one's almost reached the top of the tree.

Yes, it can get to a great height.

And sometimes, when it does get that height,

it can cause a bit of trouble by smothering the leafing branches,

which, of course, will cut down the tree's capacity to make food.

But that's no excuse, really,

for the hacking down of ivy that you see so often.

Because it's a terrific plant.

But it does have a sort of gloomy image, ivy, doesn't it?

-As opposed to holly, which is a joyous plant.

-That's right.

I think it may have picked this up in the last century.

It has a habit of growing around old ruins

and derelict churches and cemeteries.

And the Romantic poets used to notice this quite a lot

and I think that association may have lingered.

An association with death, really.

This very dark green of the leaves.

That's right. It keeps that colour right through winter, of course.

That's an introduction to ivy, but here's more from Alan Titchmarsh.

Now, a few years ago, ivies were having a bad press.

Ooh, they kill trees,

ooh, they climb up your pebble dash and pull it off. Ooh...

They are wonderful garden plants.

And look at the variety,

particularly if you want something golden.

This is Golden Carpet,

rather strangely trained up a moss pole,

but beautiful, vibrant, lime greeny-yellow leaves.

They don't come more butter yellow than Midas Touch.

Not much green speckling here,

it's almost all yellow.

And, when it comes to leaf form, as well, they are amazingly diverse.

Manda's Crested - larger, fingered leaves with rippled edges.

You can even train them into standards, with a sturdy trunk.

This is Deltoidea,

with bright green, heart-shaped leaves and this lollipop head

of branches looks every bit like a bay tree

and equally evergreen.

The only thing is, don't use it in your bouquet garni.

And, if you like the look of that, here's Rachel de Thame

on how to train one.

Many people grow plants as a standard,

but for a different alternative, how about training one from ivy.

Try and use a variety of Hedera helix,

which is our native English ivy.

This lovely one is Gold Ingot.

And this is Glacier, with a lovely silvery variegation.

But I'm going to use a very

plain ivy, called Chicago.

You need to try and choose a plant with two good, long stems on it

and then remove all the leaves

from the lower part of the stem, like that.

Pop a couple of crocks in the bottom of the pot

and then I'm going to fill it up with John Innes No 2,

which is a soil-based compost, so it's a little bit heavier and it

will give it some stability and stop the pole from wobbling around.

Now, pop the plant in.

A bit of a squeeze.

There we are.

I'm going to plant it slightly to the side, here,

to leave room for the pole.

Now, this is just a broom handle with a wired-on hanging basket.

I'm going to push it down, right by the side of the ivy.

Really firmly like that.

Weave the stems evenly up the pole

and secure it with plastic ties.

When you get to the top of the pole, weave the stems into the basket

and then remember to pinch out the tips.

And, as it matures, keep clipping away to maintain the shape.

Thanks, Rachel. And, for the last word on ivy,

let's turn to Geoff Hamilton,

who's got things covered when it comes to walls.

If you want to plant a new ivy, or any self-clinging climber,

come to that, like Virginia creeper or climbing hydrangea,

there's one important point to remember,

and that is that it's only the new growth that will stick to the wall.

So, when you go down to the garden centre

and you're tempted to buy a plant like this,

remember that none of this old growth will actually stick

to the wall and there's not a lot of point in fixing it to the wall

either, because the top of it will then wave around

and the new growth will have great difficulty sticking to the wall.

You're much better off to buy a smaller, cheaper plant like this.

Make the hole a good foot or two

from the wall, where it'll get a bit of moisture,

and prepare the soil really well with lots of organic matter.

And then it can be planted in just the normal way.

And then, what you do is you simply point

the shoots in the direction of the wall and you can hold them

down there with a couple of these little wire staples.

And then, very soon that'll hit the wall and, as soon as it

does, the new growth will fix to the wall and away it will go.

And it will provide a lovely evergreen

background for plants in the border, here.

It's time to move on to our next subject

and it's a flower species that's a perfect pollinator.

Yes, this I is for iris and we're rejoining

Carol Klein for an introduction to the wide-ranging iris family.

Named after the Greek goddess

of the rainbow and no wonder -

just look at these beautiful,

jewel-like colours.

And these little Iris reticulata

and histrioides represent what

we come to expect from an iris.

They're typical.

They've got these six sepals.

Three in the centre are erect, and they're called standards.

And these three, which hang down, are called falls.

And they've also got something else that we see on nearly every iris,

this golden band in the centre of the fall.

Both it and these beautiful little markings here

are pollen guides and they bring the insect in

and that's way the iris does what's

most important to it,

it procreates.

And what a joy it is to see such wonderful,

brilliant colour at this time of year.

Lots of us use these little irises,

but British gardeners have one complaint.

The next spring, up these bulbs will come, but they'll

appear as little, tiny green leaves

and no further flowers ensue.

And the reason for that is where these bulbs come from,

up in the mountains of Iran and Turkey.

And although it may be fearfully cold there during the winter,

in the summer, the sun is boiling hot.

Well, you don't get many British summers

that are quite like that.

In the UK, there's insufficient heat to bake the bulbs

and they don't ripen enough to flower again.

The one exception to this is this gorgeous iris.

This is Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin'

and it doesn't have this rather annoying habit.

You can depend on it, year after year.

Not all irises are bulbous by any means.

A lot of our most popular irises,

things like Iris sibirica,

Iris ensata, are actually fibrous rooted.

These roots go down into the soil

and then form this whole network of small feeding roots.

These are plants in their natural habitat

of sort of open meadowland,

very often damp.

And, in total contrast to those,

Rhizomatous irises,

these very popular bearded irises,

demand poor soil and they love to be baked by the sun.

The Iris clan is massive.

Iridaceae is a huge, huge family.

Plants like gladioli, Dierama,

or Angel's Fishing Rods,

freesia and the crocus are all relatives,

along with the fiery late summer favourite, the crocosmia.

I like to plant them in a great big sort of swathes,

or waves, through here.

And incorporate lots of really good compost,

because you want to get them off to a flying start.

You only need to plant them

with a couple of inches over the top of the corms.

Well, I think crocosmias

are amongst the most elegant members of Iridaceae.

Some of the family are glamorous,

some of them are just downright cheerful,

but whatever your soil and situation,

you can bet that there are at least

several members of the family that you can incorporate into your garden.

One person who has incorporated irises into her life is

Sarah Cook, former head gardener of Sissinghurst Castle

and preserver of the legacy of

the legendary plants man, Cedric Morris.

'I've loved irises all my gardening life.

'They're a fantastic group of plants.

'They're the real pinnacle of the summer in May and June.'

Cedric Morris' irises come in every shape and colour.

He bred them particularly, being an artist,

he bred them with a painterly eye

and I think that's what makes it a really lovely set,

because they're so different, but all this sort of artistic

patterning, which you don't get with some of the other breeders.

What I'm hoping to do is to collect together every single iris that

Cedric Morris ever bred and named before they're lost for ever.

It started as a mission, it's now turned into a real obsession.

Cedric Morris lived in Suffolk from the 1930s.

In 1940, he moved to Benton End, Hadley, in Suffolk,

with his partner, Lett Haines,

where he opened an art school,

teaching, amongst others, Lucian Freud and Maggi Hambling.

So, a very influential artist.

His other great passion in life was plants.

He used to collect them abroad and

was a huge influence on Beth Chatto.

Irises, though, were always his greatest love

and he bred them by crossing different parents

and would raise up to a thousand seedlings a year,

then picking out the best to register and sell to the public.

He died, unfortunately, in 1982.

No-one knows now where all the irises are.

We know where some of them are,

but some of them may have already been lost.

This is Benton Nigel, which I think is probably

the inspiration for the whole collection.

I found it growing at Sissinghurst when I was

a young gardener there and it just

made me feel so much at home.

He named his irises Benton

after Benton End where he lived in Hadley, the place of my youth,

then gave them a second name, often after his friends

and this is named for Nigel Scott,

a young man who helped Cedric Morris

in his garden for many years.

When I came to finding his irises growing at Sissinghurst,

it was only a small step from there, really, to when I retired,

to thinking, "I know, I'll collect together the ones that he bred."

At the time, I knew five names from the Plant Finder.

Imagine the horror when I discovered

there were about 90 altogether.

This iris is particularly exciting.

It's one of Cedric's pinks,

and probably could be Strathmore, which is one that I haven't

had before, identified possibly

from the picture in this book.

Strathmore, very interesting,

because it was shown in the 1948 Chelsea Flower Show

and Sir Cedric Morris met the Queen Mother

and asked her permission as to whether he could

actually call it after her home

and she kindly granted that to him.

There are really three stages to researching this collection.

The winter stage in the

Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library,

looking at old catalogues and books that were written

when Cedric Morris was breeding, which gives me

the descriptions of the irises.

And then the sort of mad May, mad June stage,

which is going around, seeing the irises, meeting people,

rushing all over the country,

really, looking for the actual plants themselves.

So, then you bring them all back home again, grow them and

flower them and then the following year

'is the really difficult, tricky bit

'which is matching the descriptions you've got

'from the libraries with the actual flower when it comes into bloom.'

This one's potentially very exciting.

It came to me from Benton End.

I've read the descriptions in catalogues to try and match it up

to one of Cedric's irises and the best match is

Benton Alcibiades.

And Alcibiades was the bull terrier of a friend

and I love the idea of having

an animal growing in my garden.

It's described as, "Very tall, late and robust.

"Standards cream," then the falls are described,

with a slight coffee reticulations.

And I wonder, could this possibly be described as coffee?

They're certainly reticulations.

And here, in the same catalogue,

I have a picture of Benton Rubeo,

that was Sir Cedric Morris' pet macaw.

So, if anyone has this,

I'd just love to get the macaw as well as the bull terrier.

It'd be really exciting.

To me, it's really important as soon as possible to see how

we can find the remaining 70 or 80 that I need to find.

I've come to realise they're really as important as his works of art.

The pictures are safe in galleries,

the irises may be dying in gardens, so look for them, find them,

safely grow them and then pass them around to other people.

Keep them for ever.

Thanks, Sarah. We're leaving the garden briefly, now,

and heading under cover,

because this I is for indoor plants.

Let's get the low-down from expert grower, Lynne Dibley.

'The business started over 30 years ago.

'My father was really keen on house plants'

and he just was given a streptocarpus by a friend

and he just started propagating it

and it just moved on from that.

Today, we have somewhere in the region of one acre of glasshouses.

We're best known for streptocarpus and we hold the

national collection of streptocarpus as well, in this country.

Streptocarpus come from southern Africa and Madagascar

and they grow in wooded areas in the mountainsides up there.

And the features which distinguish streptocarpus are the

five lobes which are fused into a trumpet-shaped flower

and the flowers are held on stems

above a rosette of leaves.

And what I love about streptocarpus

is this range of colours you can get in them.

We have everything, now, apart from orange.

And it's not just the colours.

They're all equally easy to grow as plants.

Keep them on a nice, bright windowsill,

not in the midday sunshine.

Keep them on the slightly dry side, never over-water them and then

feed them a high potash regularly, through the spring and summer time.

Coleus are another example of a great option as house plants,

because they have fantastic foliage.

Most people know coleus from council bedding displays in parks,

but they actually make really good house plants, as well.

The foliage varies from yellows, reds, greens and orange

and all sorts of patterns in between.

And the best thing about coleus is

they're the easiest plants ever to grow.

I believe house plants are undervalued.

They're not considered the most elite of plants

which are grown in the horticultural world in Britain, certainly.

Over in Germany, Denmark, on the continent,

house plants are considered far more popular and far more important.

MUSIC: The Addams Family theme song by Vic Mizzy

I think begonias might get a bit of a bad press, more than other plants.

Probably with what things they're associated with

and how your Great Aunt Maud, or whoever, might have grown them.

I think that's a very unfortunate tag for begonias to have.

# They're creepy and they're kooky

# Mysterious and spooky

# They're altogether ooky

# The Addams Family... #

The great thing about begonias

is the variety of textures and colours.

Begonia sizemoreae has this

fantastic hairy surface, which is lovely and soft

and then you get the colours in Vesuvius,

the black and the red, the really intense colours.

And then Fireworks has got this

lovely markings with the pink

and the dark black on it, as well.

And then Escargot has got

the swirl in the centre,

which is emphasised by the colour of the foliage.

I think house plants are becoming more popular,

but, at the end of the day, it's quality that counts.

'I hope we will get a gold medal in Hampton Court.

'I'm pretty sure we will,

'looking at the plants we've got to one side at the moment for it.'

I'm pretty confident.

And she came so close, winning silver that year.

But never mind, there have been plenty of golds since then.

Now we're nearing the end of our journey through the letter I,

and returning to the subject of insects.

And this time the buzz is about bees.

Bee numbers have been falling dramatically,

so George McGavin went to speak

to Bromley beekeeper, Peter Springall,

to find out what we can do to help the British honeybee.

-Hi, Peter.

-Oh, hello, George.

Is there more interest in having bees?

Certainly, yeah.

People take much more interest now.

Especially the younger people,

which is a good thing.

'If you've thought about beekeeping, but were afraid of being stung,

'Peter's bees would appeal to you.'

For many years, now, I've been trying to breed docile bees

and I'm pretty well there, now, as you'll see.

Wow.

This is one of my top wildlife experiences.

Absolutely amazing.

'Honeybees are not just essential to our survival,

'they're also fascinating creatures in their own right.'

Honeybees are the most socially advanced of all the insects

and we've got worker bees everywhere, because worker bees are in

the job of making honey, which, of course,

they bring back fluids from flowers,

they swallow that, it comes back

to the hive, and then they basically throw it up into the cells.

So, in fact, what you're eating

when you spread honey on your bread is bee sick.

And, wait a minute... Mmm.

Oh, that is fantastic.

'It can take up to ten million

'foraging trips to produce one jar of honey, so

'bear that in mind if you're thinking

'of replacing a flowerbed with a lawn.'

There she is. There's the queen.

She is responsible for laying all the eggs in this colony

and all the workers are her offspring.

So, Peter, what are your top tips for increasing bees in the world?

We need beekeepers.

'So, no doubts there, then.

'But if beekeeping isn't for you,

'there are other ways you can help bees out.

'You can encourage them to your garden by planting flowering plants

'like marjoram, senecio and allium.

'You can even let parts of your garden go wild.

'It provides them with a variety of wild flowers

'to collect pollen and nectar from.

'And don't kill bees that come into your house,

'instead use my neat invention for removing bees humanely.'

All you need is a pair of cheap barbecue tongs

and a couple of tea strainers.

And you basically assemble them,

so that you make a little bee capturing device.

Here's how it works.

You cut the ends off the tea strainers

and then you drill some holes

and then, after you drill them all,

you simply assemble your bee catcher.

So, there we have it, a very simple and cheap tool.

If bees enter your house, you don't have to kill them,

you can catch them and put them outside. Every bee counts.

BEE BUZZES

Thanks, George. Now, on our insect investigation,

we've encountered the bees,

the bugs and the butterflies.

So, let's make it a fab four with a look at the beetles.

Stag beetles, in this case,

in the company of Miranda Krestovnikoff.

At first sight, rotten trees could be mistaken for a sign

of neglect, but decaying timber is actually one of our most important

wildlife habitats and is home to a rather formidable-looking giant.

The stag beetle, Britain's largest.

Adults may only live for a matter of weeks,

so they're hard to track down and getting more scarce.

Richmond Park in southwest London

is a real beetle hotspot.

Dr Nigel Reeve is the ecologist for the Royal Parks

and he knows the value of Richmond's 100,000 trees, alive or dead.

Even after they're dead, 200, 300 years they can be rotting away.

Meanwhile they're providing very, very important habitat for

the invertebrates, for which this park is internationally designated.

One of the highlights is the beetles.

We did a recent survey in the park

and we found over 348 species of beetles living in the decaying wood.

-That's astonishing!

-That's just the beetles.

If you're conserving decaying wood, you're doing a very big favour

to biodiversity, because this is normally a group of species

that just doesn't get favoured in conservation management.

Southeast England's warmer, drier climate

is the last stronghold of the stag beetle in Britain

as it's believed wet, cold winters kill their young.

The males' huge, antler-like jaws,

or mandibles, give the stags their name

and they use them to fight for access to the smaller females.

Mating is the adult's only concern

and it's a race against time.

As soon as they emerge in spring,

they're vulnerable to hungry birds...

MACHINE WHIRRS

..as well as lawn mowers.

But the real surprise with stag beetles is not

the short lives of the adults,

but the long lives of their young.

'At Royal Holloway College, University of London,

'Professor Alan Gange and his team have been uncovering

'some of the secrets of the Richmond Park beetles.'

Now, obviously, you've not brought along some ice cream.

-What have you got in there?

-Well, this is the larva of the stag beetle.

-And it is huge!

-It is.

-It's enormous. How old is that, then?

-Six years old.

That was probably laid as an egg in June 2002.

-Wow.

-And very few people see them,

because they live in the soil, often at a depth of up to a metre.

The larva itself eats rotten wood,

so this is an example of what they do to the wood.

They don't borrow through it, like a woodworm does,

but they live in the soil and chew wood from the side.

-Massive mandibles, as well.

-Yes, it has.

-Well-equipped to do its job, isn't it?

-Yes.

-That is just incredible.

I can't believe the size of it.

A very curious thing is the adults

don't feed at all in the adult stage.

Although they have mouthparts, they take no nourishment whatsoever,

so they are utterly reliant on the resources which the larva acquires.

The problem we have with males is that males fly, albeit like a brick.

He doesn't fly very well. But females don't.

The females scuttle on the ground. People tread on them,

thinking they're cockroaches and wanting to kill them.

I think one of the biggest threats

is habitat destruction, in terms of tidying up your garden.

'By complete coincidence, Lorraine Bardell,

'a telephonist at Royal Holloway, has left some pockets of wildness

'in her own garden and has been rewarded with some rare visitors.'

Look at that rotting log. That's fantastic!

This is exactly the sort of habitat they really like to live in.

-Can we shift this, then?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Will that come off?

-Can you see anything?

-You've got loads of woodlice.

Oh, there's a stag beetle there. A male one, huge.

-OK.

-That's a find, isn't it? Let's just pick him up.

There's a beauty, look at this one.

Oh, he's hanging on. There we go.

-Wow, magnificent.

-He's really nice, isn't he?

-He's quite a good size, isn't he?

-Yeah.

How big have you seen them in your garden?

I'd say a good sort of

inch longer than that.

Have you seen them here every year?

For at least the last five years, I've definitely seen them.

But I've obviously encouraged quite a wild garden...

-That's superb.

-..so obviously it comes with the territory.

-They're more than welcome to stay.

-It's great.

-It's great you don't want to get rid of them.

-No, no.

-It's good news.

These gentle giants really need our help to give them

the habitat they so desperately need, so don't be afraid to

leave the odd bit of decaying wood lying around your garden.

And you never know, you might be lucky enough to catch

a glimpse of the mysterious stag beetle.

What a fantastic specimen.

Thanks, Miranda, you've brought us creepy crawling to

the end of our journey through the letter I.

I hope you've enjoyed the ride and do make sure you join me

next time on the A To Z Of TV Gardening.

Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd