Letter Q The A to Z of TV Gardening


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

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We're digging up the best advice

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from all your favourite programmes and presenters,

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so join me as, letter after letter, one by one,

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we explore everything from flowers and trees to fruit and veg.

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We're starting with a real treat,

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a very rare look at some of the most famous and exclusive gardens in the world

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because our first Q is for the Queen's Gardens.

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Back in 2004, Her Majesty granted Monty Don

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and the Gardeners' World team a special "access all areas" pass

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to the open spaces of Buckingham Palace,

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so let's enjoy what they found.

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Buckingham Palace Garden in the heart of central London is flanked by St James's and Green Park,

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both originally hunting grounds for the monarchy.

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The garden occupies an area of 39 acres.

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The Serpentine Lake is at the heart of the garden

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with a lawn the size of five football pitches running down to it.

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The lake has been enlarged a number of times

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and in the dig of 1827, some of the spoil was used to enlarge this mound

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that was created to hide the garden from the Royal Mews.

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The Buckingham Palace Rose Garden was originally laid out in the 1960s

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by the celebrated rose grower Harry Wheatcroft

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and has been continually updated, often with commemorative roses.

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This is Royal William, Rose of the Year in 1987.

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Silver Jubilee flowers all summer long.

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The Queen Elizabeth has been going strong since 1954.

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And Gracious Queen was launched at Chelsea for the Golden Jubilee.

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And species roses, always a favourite with the Queen Mother,

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still thrive around the Admiralty Summer House.

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One of the oldest residents in the garden you'll find dotted around in the grass and it's this -

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the chamomile, which was first recorded in the 17th century and has been here continuously ever since.

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In more recent times, a sandpit, swing and slide were added

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for the young Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

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The swing and slide have gone, but the sandpit is still there,

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its wooden cover now hosting a colony of lichens.

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There's also a tennis court.

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King George VI was a keen tennis player, even competing at Wimbledon.

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Today, the court is used by Palace staff.

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And like anybody trying to encourage wildlife into the garden,

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the Queen has her own royal bird table.

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BIRDS SING

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'One of the highlights for most of the guests is the herbaceous border.

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'Over 150 metres long and five metres deep,

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'it peaks in July.

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'One man who knows royal gardens better than most

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'is writer and garden historian Sir Roy Strong.'

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I suppose the first thing is how does a herbaceous border fit

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into the gardening tradition, let alone a palace one?

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The herbaceous border, Monty, was really a mid-Victorian invention.

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The great reformer William Robinson,

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who wrote The English Flower Garden, then his pupil was Gertrude Jekyll,

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and the apogee of this form of gardening was really before 1914

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with the relationship of Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll,

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mass planting of herbaceous plants in a kind of symphony of colour,

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ascending at the back to tall things like delphiniums which we can see here,

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and, believe it or not, banana trees.

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I suppose you can say they're a symbol of a vanished empire,

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plants from all around the globe gathered into this fantastic border here.

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Then it's like so many other things.

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Once they cross the Channel and they arrive here, we think they're English.

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They're part of our multicultural identity or diversity now.

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It's nice to see sweet peas because they always make me think of the late Queen Mother,

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who absolutely loved sweet peas,

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and all her houses were decorated in sweet pea colours and she always dressed in sweet pea colours.

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-I think that's...

-Do you think that's deliberate, a sort of family...?

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It's possible. It's a kind of memory of a much-loved person.

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I mean, do remember that the royal family and the Queen live in there

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and it does give her something wonderful to look down on.

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Then also the border screens, what, if I remember rightly, is a little private walk

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because any royal person leads such an exposed life.

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I understand that Her Majesty takes the corgis for a walk behind there, which I find absolutely enchanting.

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And I do like to see delphiniums that are huge.

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I think this trend of breeding dwarf delphiniums seems to be losing the very essence of the plant,

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-and to see enormous...

-They're quite a fierce blue, aren't they?

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Yes, I don't mind that.

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And what is unusual about this border...

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There's great attention to flower and leaf shape and height.

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But there's less attention to colour. Some of the colour is quite aggressive.

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If I had to be critical of this, I think it's planted but not designed.

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But in a funny sort of way, the fact that this arrived in the post-war period...

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All through the 20th century, you've seen the democratisation of the monarchy,

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then more and more accessibility of the monarchy,

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and the monarchy in a way responds to that and you can say this is almost a gardening response

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because here on a mega scale is what most people have in their back gardens.

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They have a border, a mixed border,

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but here at the Palace, boy, you have a mega mixed border!

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I like that kind of relationship because people can really relate to going along and looking...

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A lot of the plants, like the dahlias and the delphiniums, everybody grows those,

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so I think there's a very good statement

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about the dialogue of monarch and people said through the border.

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As garden ponds go, the lake here at Buckingham Palace is huge, three acres,

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but at no point is it very deep. The deepest point is about five foot, which comes up to my chest.

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It's great for wading birds, but its history is also connected with its shallowness.

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This was the wettest part of the garden, almost swampy,

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so the lake was made simply to drain it. In Victorian times, people complained it attracted malaria,

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that it was stagnant and shallow.

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But it was deepened out, the spoil was used to make the mound,

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and the lake as we see it has been pretty much the same for the last 150 years.

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Beyond there, you can see the trees that are on the island,

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an island on a lake in a large garden in a city, the supreme urban haven for wildlife.

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The intention throughout the whole area is to preserve that naturalistic feel and make an environment

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for animals and insects to prosper. Along the edge, you wouldn't expect to see this fringe

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of grasses and reeds, but ideal cover for insects and birds.

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And as you face it, you can be forgiven for thinking that this is a country lake

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or part of St James's Park.

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It's not until you turn away and go back towards the house that you remember where you really are.

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I'm always fascinated by the working areas of any garden, so it's back to the yard,

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past the potting shed, and round the corner is the greenhouse for the Palace.

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It's 28 metres long and a really good example

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of an Edwardian - built in 1900 - lean-to greenhouse.

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It's got the painted timber and cast-ironwork and lovely mechanisms

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for opening the louvres in the window.

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And, in its own way, it's grand, but this is a 40-acre garden.

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You might think that they would need acres of greenhouses to service all their needs,

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but that's to miss the point of what this garden is. This is a town garden.

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And town gardens didn't have all the elements of gardens that you would get in the country.

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Very few had vegetable areas or greenhouses with peaches and apricots and grapes or what have you.

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The people that owned the houses in London would also have country houses

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and they would be brought up by train every morning - asparagus and peaches

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and flowers for the table, coming in from their country estates.

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Buckingham Palace is no different. To this day, if they want flowers and vegetables and fruit,

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it all comes from Windsor, where it's grown. So this greenhouse is a much more intimate affair.

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It's used for housing some tender plants, gifts that can't be put outside.

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And a little bit of propagation.

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But there are details that I love and you won't find anywhere else.

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For example, look at that. A pot, monogrammed ER.

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That's, of course, Elizabeth Regina.

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And it can do better than that. Some of the pots date back further.

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Now if I get down on my hands and knees,

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under here we've got the pots ready for use,

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crocks to get drainage from broken pots,

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stacked out in sizes. And we can see - here we are -

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ER, ER, ER on those pots.

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So those have obviously been made since the Queen came to the throne in 1952.

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But there are older pots as well.

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Here we have one at the back with what looks like GP

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but in fact is GR. The bottom bit hasn't come out properly.

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That's either her father, George VI, or possibly George V.

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I suppose it could be George IV, but that's a bit unlikely.

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However, there is a pot here just on the side.

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And if you turn it round you can see...

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VR - Victoria Regina.

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Whilst this greenhouse isn't the biggest around, the plants aren't the most special,

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what I love is the way that the history and succession from monarch to monarch

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is evident in even the tiniest details in this garden.

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Really beautiful and such a treat to visit the Queen's gardens.

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And with that we've reached the end of today's programme. Join us next time on the A to Z of TV Gardening.

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Goodbye!

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