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Hello and welcome to The A-Z of TV Gardening.

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

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But first, let's learn the basics of an eye-watering crop.

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'This O is for onions, and here's Monty Don.'

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(Put that to one side.)

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First of all, I think I need to rake that over.

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If you remember, we had potatoes in here which I lifted.

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These were Charlotte and they've been good,

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but when I lifted the potatoes, I added compost, forked it over

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and, although it's rather dry, that's good soil.

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Over-wintering onions are sometimes called Japanese onions

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because a lot of them have Japanese varieties.

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I've actually got a couple of varieties I've grown before,

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are reliable and I like the taste of.

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And taste is always the important thing.

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I've got two varieties. There's a white onion called Radar -

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good, really tough, but quite delicate taste,

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which I like very much -

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and also Electric Red.

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Red onions add colour,

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they add glamour and also they tend to be slightly sweeter.

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The best thing to do is just dib holes

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about four or five inches apart.

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Obviously, the wider apart they are, the bigger the bulb.

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I don't like onions too big.

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I think a tennis ball is perfectly big enough.

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Let's do a row along there.

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These will be ready for harvesting about June, early July,

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so just a month or six weeks ahead of main crop.

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But the theory is that you store your main crop now

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and they will last you through to about April or May,

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and then these follow on in succession.

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There's very little else to do but do you need to keep an eye on them

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because birds tend to come along,

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they see this thing wiggling up and they pull at it.

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It's quite common to come down in the morning and find them

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scattered around, and that is birds.

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The best way to counter that is to cover them with fleece

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and weigh them down until you see good green shoots,

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which means the roots have grown and anchored into the soil.

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It doesn't always happen, so I'm not going to fleece them straight away.

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Now you dib a hole to put it in

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because there is a basswood plate that the roots grow from

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and if you just ram it into the soil and almost screw it into the ground,

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there's a real danger of damaging that

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and therefore affecting root growth.

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I actually quite often use my finger instead of a dib.

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Although you could argue my fingers were made for dibbing.

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Now I'm watering these in, just to make sure that the soil,

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which is very dry, firms around the bulbs.

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So I'm using a rose, rather than a direct jet,

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which would just knock the bulbs out of the holes.

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Right, that's a job done.

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Next we look at a flower that is so common these days

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that you wouldn't dream it was once on the brink of extinction.

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O is for orchids.

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Here's Mike Dilger, who's in Kent

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looking for Britain's rarest wild specimens.

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Alison Wright of the Kent Wildlife Trust,

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what is it about orchids that people love so much?

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-They're wonderful, aren't they?

-They're amazing.

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I think it's just they're rare, they're usual,

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they have fascinating habits.

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They're just like the plant equivalent of diamonds.

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-A girl's best friend.

-Oh, yes.

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A guy's best friend, too, cos I like them.

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And they're just diverse. Look how many species we've got here.

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We have Fragrant orchids, just over there we have a Pyramidal.

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Just starting to come into flower,

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so it's showing its pyramid shape that gives it its name.

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Because they can flower anything from late spring,

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right the way through to late summer,

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so it's a good time now - in the middle of June is great, isn't it?

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The best time is now, when you have so many out in the flower.

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But you can see them right the way through

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-the spring and summer season.

-Wonderful.

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Now, I reckon this orchid is at the top of everybody's must-see list.

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It's the Bee orchid, of course,

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and you can see how the lip perfectly resembles a bee.

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It also smells like a female bee, so it attract bees to come in

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to take away these little pollen sacs.

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But this one's a virgin, because the pollen sacs are still stuck there.

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'Ironically, it doesn't even need to attract a bee,

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'as the orchid is perfectly capable of self-pollination.'

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'Now this one isn't so colourful but believe me, it's a real treasure.'

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Alison, what a cracking little orchid.

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I know, they're amazing, aren't they?

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It's the Man orchid,

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and it's called the Man orchid for a very obvious reason, isn't it?

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Yeah, if you take a close look at each one, you can

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see that right at the very top, you've a little bonnet, like a head

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and below that, two arms and two legs

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just like a little stick person.

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How rare is this orchid?

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This is an extremely rare orchid.

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It's really restricted to the Southeast.

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Wow, why has declined so much?

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-It was always quite uncommon, but now it's rare, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

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It needs chalk. We've had so much loss of chalk downland

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since the Second World War,

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-they think up to 90% has been lost.

-Really?

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Added to that, it doesn't just like normal chalk downland,

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it likes a little bit of scrub.

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You can see all the long grass that we're in here,

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just to keep it a little bit damper than most.

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So it has really specific needs.

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The thing I love most of all is,

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you look up and they're like men here.

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But you look right at the top they're like little boys coming out.

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This should be called "man-and-boy orchid."

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'Next stop is Park Gate Down, a diminutive reserve

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'south of Canterbury that's jam-packed with orchids.'

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Ian Rickards, reserve warden of this site,

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I have never seen so many orchids.

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The Kent Wildlife Trust must be very proud.

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It's one of our real key sites, it's absolutely fantastic.

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We've got tens of thousands of orchids on here.

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I reckon I'm within three or four metres of about 200 orchid spikes.

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Flipping sensational.

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The density is wonderful, isn't it? And also the variety,

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the number of different orchid species is just stunning.

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Why is the site so good?

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It's a combination of lots of different things. One,

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it's an ancient, unimproved grass. It's never been farmed intensively.

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The only farming that's gone on here is grazing

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and that's happened for hundreds and hundreds of years.

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-It's never been ploughed, has never been fertilised?

-No.

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On most orchid sites, grazing is crucial.

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When do you do it and what do you use?

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We do it generally from as soon as the flowers have all finished,

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which is kind of September/October,

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then we bring on our livestock grazers,

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which are Konik ponies or Highland cattle,

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these old, really tough breeds, which can come in

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and graze this site hard for three or four months.

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And that's it, that's the management done for the year.

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It's pretty straightforward.

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It's a botanical ticker's paradise.

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Let's wander off and see what we can see.

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Check out this beautiful show-off.

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This is the Greater Butterfly orchid.

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Now, this usually smells...

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but only in the evening. It has a lovely smell.

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And that's because this is pollinated by moths,

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so that's why it smells strongly in the evening.

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So I think the Greater Butterfly or Lesser Butterfly

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is a bit of rubbish name, really.

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This should be called the "greater moth orchid."

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'Now here's the real star that I've come to see.

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'Once again, close up, the individual flowers have a quirky

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'resemblance to something else.'

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This is the creme de la creme of orchids.

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It's a Monkey orchid and it's incredibly rare, isn't it, Ian?

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It's a real spectacle,

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cos there's only three sites in the country where it exists.

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But if you look at the individual flowers themselves,

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that's where they get the name "monkey" from, isn't it?

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Yeah, they've got arms, legs, they've even got a little tail.

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A little hooded head.

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They're perfectly named, really. Absolutely perfect.

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But I have to say, the star attraction.

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Yes, yes. Definitely.

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I couldn't agree more. A real gem there.

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Well, that's all from us for today.

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Hope you join us next time on The A-Z of TV Gardening. Goodbye.

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