Letter V 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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where we sift through all your favourite garden programmes

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and dig up a bumper crop of tips and advice from the best experts in the business.

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Flowers, trees, fruit and veg,

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letter by letter, they are all coming up a treat on The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

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

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Here's what's coming up...

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Joe Swift looks up at a vertical garden in Paris.

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No-one just walks straight past here.

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Everyone look up at it, stops, takes photos, cars almost crash into each other out here,

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it's a really major talking point of the city.

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Kate Humble is on the spice trail for vanilla.

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Oh, my goodness!

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I just had no idea it was going to look like that.

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It looks like a mad, primeval vine.

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And Alys Fowler meets the queen of vegetable growing.

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If you have a patch of red lettuce and then a patch of green lettuce, you get that quilted effect,

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I love it, I'm just a sucker for making a vegetable garden look pretty.

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Just some of the treats we have in store,

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but first we look at a flower that drove the Victorians wild.

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They would pin them to coats and dresses, make perfume

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and even cook with them.

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Our first V is of course for Violets.

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Devon's famed for its rolling moorland,

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its romantic fishing villages

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and of course its cream teas.

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And gardeners have long flocked here to take advantage of the mild climate

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in the lush, wooded valleys.

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And if there's one plant that's particularly associated with Devon

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it must surely be the humble violet.

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It's hard to believe that at the turn of the 1900s

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there was a train that travelled daily from the Southwest

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up to the fashionable markets of London,

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carrying its valuable cargo of violets.

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At the Devon Violet Nursery, Joan Yardley tends the National Collection of Viola odorata.

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Tell me about how the collection got started.

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Well, we came down here about seven years ago.

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With a name like Devon Violet Nursery,

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I kept saying, "Well, where are all the violets?"

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And there was quite a bit of arm-waving going on,

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sort of down the garden, down the field,

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and we never did find them.

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But one Sunday morning, I was clearing out behind the greenhouse

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and found about half a dozen quite old-looking, wizened plants,

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and I thought, "I bet these are the violets!"

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But they didn't have any perfume at all.

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And I thought, "Well, I want violets that smell like violets!"

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You've got a wide range of violets here. How many different cultivars do you have?

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About...130...something.

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-You're not quite sure?

-Not quite sure, no.

-Expanding all the time?

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No, no, they...I've just brought about 12 back from Italy,

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so, I mean, you're collecting the whole time. It's amazing where you find them.

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Which ones would you particularly recommend as being very floriferous and very fragrant?

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Well, mainly the odoratas are fragrant.

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Pamela Zambra is a very good grower.

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This was named after the daughter of the Zambra family

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who used to have the violet nursery over at Windward at Holcombe.

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But, you know, violets do possess this substance called ionine

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which anaesthetises your ability to smell,

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it somehow affects your power to smell them,

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so you can smell them once and then the perfume will disappear,

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only to come back and you smell them again.

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And, of course, it isn't the violet that changes, it's your nose that loses the ability to smell them.

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Well, of course, the violet heyday was really in the sort of 1920s, 1930s,

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when it was popular with the Queen, for instance,

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Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, both of those Queens it was said to be their favourite flower.

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And they were present at the funerals, at the weddings,

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they were a very important flower in those days.

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They were associated with death, they were associated with romance, all sorts of things.

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The old ladies send me letters saying, "I can remember when I was a young bride in the war,

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"the war years, and I only had two nights with my husband before he went off to war," sort of thing,

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and I have a bunch of violets that I have preserved all this time.

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There have always been violets in our history,

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whether it's our country, whether it's in Europe,

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whether... It's just such an important flower.

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And so it's very, very sad that it's sort of had its heyday

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and really not come through again, so we're hoping to alter that.

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Which form in particular do you think is going to start the violet revolution?

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Oh, gosh! That's a difficult question, isn't it, with over 100 to choose from!

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I guess I'd come back to the sort of Devon violet, you know, the purple violet.

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Of all the orders that I get in, you can bet your bottom dollar,

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it's always got an odorata, just the sweet violet, as we call it, the sweet violet.

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People that used to come down here on holiday always used to go home with a little scent bottle

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smelling of Devon violets and their little purple plants.

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I mean, that is Devon violets, isn't it?

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Violets belong to the family of flowers called Viola, along with fellow family member the pansy.

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They are both easy to plant and propagate as Toby Buckland explains.

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By a country mile the best bedding plants

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for this time of year are violas and pansies.

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You can tell the difference because the violas have small flowers, and the pansies large,

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but, in truth, so many species have gone into breeding these new varieties

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that the genetics is a real old hotchpotch.

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At this time of year, you can pick up a pack of these for about £2.50,

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which is, I think, a reasonable price for six plants.

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But you can propagate from them too.

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You might think, "Why would I want to propagate these?"

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Well, for starters, propagating plants at home is a good habit to have,

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because you never know when you might need an extra plant or two.

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And with winter-flowering pansies and violas

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that could be because one of them fails in a pot,

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but also because the garden centres tend to buy them in different ranges,

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so you can go in there one week, pick up one type,

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then go in the next, and they're no longer there!

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And having a back-up plan is always a good thing.

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When it comes to taking cuttings of violas, look for non-flowering shoots.

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That's easier said than done on a plant as floriferous as this,

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so what I'm going to do is snip out the shoot from near the base,

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just below a bud...

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..and then pinch off the flowers to give me a non-flowering shoot.

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And you want your cuttings to be two to three inches long.

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So we move all the leaves up from the stem,

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and then any little tassely bits that stick out from the side...

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because these attract rots.

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Then, using a pencil dibber, make a hole in some cuttings compost

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and just pop the cutting in

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so its leaves sit proud of the surface.

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The edge is always the best place to pop a cutting, because it's more free-draining, there's more air.

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And it's not just moisture and compost that the cuttings need to root, air is essential.

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Once they're in the pot, water them in...

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Just a quick drink to make the compost nice and moist.

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Then what I do is put in a stick and that keeps the sides of my mini polytunnel,

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or plastic bag, off the foliage.

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Put this under your potting bench or somewhere warm and shady

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and the leaves will start to grow away.

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At which point you can pot them on and they'll be ready for planting out early in the new year.

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We haven't always used bedding plants in our gardens.

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It was a fashion started in an era we've already mentioned today.

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Our next V is for Victorian gardens.

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So many of our gardening practices were started then.

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Here's Alan Titchmarsh showing just how much our ancestors liked to put on a show.

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The Victorians were masters of display.

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And what they wanted in their conservatories was impact.

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They wanted you to walk in,

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escape the worries of the world and be faced with a display

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that would quite simple in Victorian terms "knock your socks off".

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You know, we're quite staid nowadays in what we do.

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We have staging in our greenhouses like this,

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and we arrange our plants on them, generally tallest at the back, shortest at the front,

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and, although it's pretty, it's a mere shadow of what the Victorians did.

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And the way they did it was incredibly simple but hugely effective.

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I just think in a modern home, when there's precious little foliage,

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how nice it is to have a bank of colour to look at.

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It is ridiculously simple.

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Flowerpots upended, supporting these boards.

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But suddenly, from being quite flat, this will lift the display and give it much more impact.

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Geraniums, or pelargoniums as they're properly known,

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were absolute stalwarts of the Victorian conservatory.

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Both the zonal kind and these regals here.

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And they loved their colourful foliage.

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This is irisene with its bloodstained leaves.

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And a lot of these would have been temporary,

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a dailier in the pot that could go in while it was doing well

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and before it got too big.

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Fuchsias, they absolutely adored.

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What they hadn't got were lovely things like the Cape figwort, Phygelius,

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which has got much more popular in a much greater variety recently.

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Along the front, things like Begonia rex

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enjoying the shadows down the front.

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The trick of this kind of staging

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is to make sure that each row masks the pots of the row behind it,

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and that way, in this day and age, it doesn't matter if you've got plastic pots,

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even if they're black because they sink into the shadows,

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as long as the ones along the front here that you do see are terracotta.

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And that really rather flat display that was has suddenly become...

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a bank of colour!

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And if your guests when they walk round the corner and see that, don't go, "Wow!"...

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I'm a Dutchman.

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On to our next pick now, and we're dealing with displays that defy gravity.

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This V is for Vertical gardens.

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Let's join Joe Swift in Paris.

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All over Paris, strange botanical growths have been climbing up

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concrete surfaces, turning architecture green

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in the most unlikely places.

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These stunning spectacles

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are "mur vegetal",

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created by Europe's extraordinary pioneer in vertical gardening, Patrick Blanc,

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who may be getting as close as anyone to a modern-day hanging garden of Babylon!

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Patrick Blanc is leading the fashion in greening architecture,

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creating what he calls mur vegetal or living walls.

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I'm here at the Musee du Quai Branly on the banks of the River Seine in central Paris.

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It's in sight of Paris's most famous landmark,

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and, in fact, it's becoming quite a famous landmark itself, and quite rightly so!

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Patrick Blanc was commissioned to create this vertical garden on the street side of the museum

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in 2004.

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So it's really pretty established now and what strikes me immediately

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is it's taken on a life of its own. It dangles right out over your head

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as if you really are in a tropical rainforest or something.

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With the irrigation system dripping down on you, it feels more like that.

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It's a natural habitat now, and I've seen birds nesting in there, you know,

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bringing in little twigs to make a nest with.

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But no-one seems to mind, it's great... Look, there's one just going in there now!

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It's wonderful, there are buddleias, valerians, you've got heuchera,

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and then you get these windows, cut around these windows, so you get this nice clean bit of architecture,

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and also the reaction of everybody that walks past. No-one just walks straight pass here.

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Everyone look up at it, stops, takes photos, cars almost crash into each other out here,

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it's a really major talking point of the city.

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Patrick Blanc's first inspiration was the large tropical aquarium he saw in his doctor's surgery

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when he was just a little boy.

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And so my bedroom was invaded by aquariums

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and later by plants outside.

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First it was like a aquarium, but there were only plants inside,

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and later more and more plants, even at the ceiling,

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I had ferns coming from the ceiling,

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and also very quickly I had, when I was maybe 15, something like that, some lizards

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living inside the plants,

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and after there were also some frogs, living, hidden in the leaves of the plants,

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so, you see, it was a kind of little jungle very quickly.

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This is Patrick's latest work.

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I'm at the Euro Alsace which is a mixed tenure development,

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there's businesses here and there's apartments here too,

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and it's all set within the old railway HQ

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at the Gare de L'Este.

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Now, the clever thing is that this was out in six months ago.

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The building site's still going on, as you can see, it's not finished at all,

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but the green wall is.

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So when the residents finally move in, the green wall will already be beautifully mature.

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Euro Alsace is a very, very interesting project.

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First, it is the biggest I have done up to now in the world.

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It's very interesting, why? Because it's in the heart of old Paris,

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between the two railway stations, east and north railway stations.

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So it's totally urban, you have no gardens, you have nothing,

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and it's a very small, very narrow street,

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and I cover all the walls along this small street that's shaded...

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it's not a suitable place, but I try to prove that, no, for the plant it's OK,

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and they will thrive here.

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For me Euro Alsace is the most symbolic work you can do in the heart of old towns

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where you think it's impossible, impossible to have any piece of nature.

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This isn't just any old sort of bit of gardening, this is quite a serious construction here

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and engineering. This is a whole metal frame all along the wall,

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segments of frames that are separated away from the wall on these metal rods that are set into it

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to let air circulate behind it so that the wall itself doesn't get damp,

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and then on top of the frame are two layers of felt,

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and each individual plant is planted by hand into a little planting pocket,

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so you cut a split, put a plant in, and it just holds itself there,

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until it establishes its root system and clings on by itself.

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Thanks, Joe!

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And he'll be showing us how to create our own vertical garden later in the show.

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We also meet a vegetable-growing master and discover the birthplace of vanilla.

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But before all that, a flower that according to old folklore could turn your hair blond

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and whose seeds could get fish drunk, making them easier for poachers to catch.

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This V is for verbascums

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and here we're visiting Vic Johnstone and Claire Wilson who are on a quest to grow the very best.

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We first got involved when we saw wild hybrids

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growing in Kent,

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and we thought that it would be quite interesting to do some of our own hybridisation.

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It got us wondering,

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if you could get wonderful hybrids like that from the few British species that we've got,

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what could you do if you collected all the foreign ones together

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that might very well never meet in nature?

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The most important thing is to ensure that the plant is perennial.

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If it isn't perennial, we drop it,

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because the general public wants a plant

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that's going to survive longer than one year.

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And then we're obviously always looking for new and exciting colour breaks,

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because I think the standard hybrid verbascum until now

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has often been just perhaps slightly dreary.

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We are very interested in breeding more and more of the red terracotta, orangey tones,

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because this simply has not been done before.

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Almost all of the wild verbascums are yellow flowered,

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but the idea of having red in a verbascum was intriguing.

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Although we'd produced lots and lots of hybrids,

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they were mainly up until recently pastel colours.

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We tried an awful lot of different parents,

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and then quite by accident one day we spotted one coming into flower

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that was blood-red.

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We've called it Firedance,

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and we're propagating large numbers of them here now.

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It's not on the market yet, but we hope that it will be.

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Merlin is one of our favourites,

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and it's got these lovely large

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pale purple flowers.

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It is also very, very tough.

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We leave it out all winter and it survives pretty well.

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By far the most important pest of verbascums is the mullein moth.

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The moth comes along and lays its eggs in April,

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and the caterpillars hatch in May,

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and you have to catch them when they're very small,

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because if you let them get big they will defoliate a plant overnight.

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We spend an awful lot of time picking caterpillars off the plants.

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It certainly began as a hobby,

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but it quickly outgrew the back garden and we had to find a piece of land.

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Now we've got about as many plants

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as we can possibly look after at one time.

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Now a spice that is so common these days that most of us have forgotten where it comes from,

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and even what it looks like in the wild.

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Our next V is for Vanilla,

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and we're going abroad again,

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joining Kate Humble in Mexico as she enfolds the story

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of the very first vanilla growers.

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The Totanac farmed and cured vanilla

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as a medicine and a perfume for their temples.

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And Totanac cities like this were spread along the coast of Veracruz.

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One of the biggest was here in the very heart of the vanilla-growing area.

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This city El Tajin was once a major Totanac centre

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where vanilla would have been used as a currency.

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It had enormous value even back then

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largely because the Totanac believed it was sacred, and here's why...

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there once lived a princess called Morning Star,

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and she was so beautiful and pure of spirit,

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it was decreed that she should never be possessed by a mortal man.

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Now, unfortunately, a young man named Running Deer ignored that decree,

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fell madly in love with her, and she clearly did with him, because they ran away together.

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The high priests were furious.

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They set off in hot pursuit and when they found them, they put them to death immediately.

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And on the spot where their blood was spilled, a plant grew up...

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you guessed it! A vanilla vine.

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And when the beans ripened, the scent was deemed to be so exquisite

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it could only be the embodiment of the pure spirit of the princess.

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Don't forget that next time you're having a bowl of ice cream.

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Just a few miles outside Papantla lie the lush tropical forests

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where vanilla still grows today.

0:23:250:23:27

THEY SPEAK SPANISH

0:23:270:23:29

Jose Luiz Hernandez has been growing vanilla all his life,

0:23:310:23:35

and he's an enthusiast for the original Totanac ways of cultivating the spice.

0:23:350:23:40

Oh, my goodness!

0:23:460:23:47

I just had no idea it was going to look like that.

0:23:540:23:58

It looks like a mad, primeval vine.

0:24:000:24:03

It's amazing!

0:24:030:24:05

These are the beans?

0:24:090:24:11

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:24:110:24:13

And this is what it looks like...

0:24:130:24:15

For hundreds of years, up until the 19th century,

0:24:170:24:20

vanilla could only grow in this region, and here's the reason...

0:24:200:24:24

one tiny little insect, unique to this part of the world.

0:24:240:24:29

It's called the Melipona bee and it's the sole pollinator of the vanilla flower.

0:24:290:24:35

So when the flower comes out,

0:24:510:24:53

the little bee pollinates the flower and then the flower dies

0:24:530:24:58

and the fruit begins to grow.

0:24:580:25:00

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH Wow!

0:25:000:25:03

Vanilla takes a very long time to grow.

0:25:050:25:08

From the appearance of the first flower,

0:25:090:25:11

to the harvest of the vanilla pod takes nine months.

0:25:110:25:15

I've arrived after the flowering season,

0:25:160:25:19

so I'm not expecting to be able to see a vanilla flower.

0:25:190:25:23

Is that a flower about to come?

0:25:320:25:34

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:25:340:25:36

But this is completely out of season.

0:25:360:25:38

You Mexicans! You're so jolly!

0:25:450:25:48

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:25:480:25:50

And you think it could flower tomorrow?

0:25:570:25:59

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH Will you call me?

0:25:590:26:02

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH Perfect, perfect!

0:26:020:26:05

We might see a vanilla orchid! That would be amazing!

0:26:050:26:08

I feel like I've had a morning of complete revelation.

0:26:140:26:18

Who'd have guessed that it has to be pollinated by one particular tiny species of bee

0:26:190:26:26

and only then can those beans grow?

0:26:260:26:28

What is without doubt

0:26:280:26:31

is that vanilla is definitely Mexican.

0:26:310:26:35

In fact, it's definitely Totanac.

0:26:350:26:38

It comes from this region,

0:26:380:26:40

it is absolutely rooted here,

0:26:400:26:43

and I feel that I have actually come to the very birthplace of vanilla.

0:26:430:26:49

Jose Luiz?

0:27:000:27:02

THEY SPEAK SPANISH

0:27:020:27:05

THEY SPEAK SPANISH

0:27:090:27:12

It happened?

0:27:120:27:14

This is so exciting!

0:27:150:27:16

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

0:27:170:27:20

Oh, it's beautiful!

0:27:200:27:22

It's just such an astonishing colour.

0:27:270:27:29

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH It's like fresh!

0:27:290:27:31

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:27:330:27:34

It's an extraordinary piece of luck to see a vanilla orchid bloom out of season.

0:27:340:27:40

But if the secret to the success of growing vanilla lies with the little Melipona bee that only exists here,

0:27:410:27:47

how did vanilla ever grow outside Mexico?

0:27:470:27:50

Well, this chap is the reason.

0:27:500:27:54

His name was Edmund Albius,

0:27:540:27:57

and in 1841 he was a 12-year-old slave boy, living on an estate in Reunion,

0:27:570:28:03

then a French colony in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Madagascar.

0:28:030:28:07

Now at that time, his master, like so many others,

0:28:070:28:11

was desperately trying to cultivate vanilla.

0:28:110:28:13

The vines would grow beautifully in hot tropical climates like that,

0:28:130:28:17

but what they couldn't get to happen was for them to flower on any regular basis.

0:28:170:28:22

Well, one day Edmund was wandering around his master's estate

0:28:220:28:25

when he happened across a vanilla flower,

0:28:250:28:28

and he discovered somehow that if he fiddled with it in a certain way, he could pollinate it.

0:28:280:28:34

And it worked, it produced a bean.

0:28:340:28:37

He managed to work out how to pollinate it.

0:28:370:28:40

And this is how he did it.

0:28:420:28:44

So are you going to pollinate this now? HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:28:450:28:48

Jose Luiz uses a sliver of wood, just as Edmund Albius did

0:28:480:28:53

to move a membrane aside before pollinating the plant.

0:28:530:28:58

Jose Luis brushes the pollen on the tip of the stick

0:29:000:29:04

across the stigma to fertilise the flower.

0:29:040:29:07

So what Jose has done is basically the work of the bee,

0:29:220:29:26

and brought the male and female parts of the plant together,

0:29:260:29:30

so it's now fertilised.

0:29:300:29:32

I can't believe how lucky we've been.

0:29:320:29:34

What a day!

0:29:340:29:36

You're amazing!

0:29:360:29:38

HE ANSWERS IN SPANISH

0:29:380:29:40

Discovering how to hand-pollinate vanilla was a major breakthrough,

0:29:410:29:45

but it was the beginning of the end for Mexico's monopoly on the world supply of the spice.

0:29:450:29:50

And we leap back to a slightly colder Britain,

0:29:560:29:58

going from exotic vanilla to things that are still edible,

0:29:580:30:02

but slightly more familiar and home-grown.

0:30:020:30:05

Because V is for vegetables.

0:30:060:30:08

Here's a star-struck Alys Fowler meeting her gardening heroine, Joy Larkcom.

0:30:080:30:13

Meeting Joy Larkcom is the pinnacle of my career to date,

0:30:150:30:18

because she is the best vegetable grower,

0:30:180:30:21

and the idea that she's going to come and have a look at our vegetables

0:30:210:30:24

and give us a master class on how to grow some of the things that she's introduced

0:30:240:30:28

is just really very exciting.

0:30:280:30:30

It's like being given a present, because this is one of the people

0:30:300:30:33

that you most want to be able to say, "Why do you think this is happening?"

0:30:330:30:36

and, "Do you think that's too close?" and "Have you ever done this?" and "What do you think of that?"

0:30:360:30:39

and "Is this your best variety or do you think there's a better one?"

0:30:390:30:42

So I get a whole day to pick her brain! It seems like heaven!

0:30:420:30:45

I suppose one of my burning questions is how did you get into vegetables?

0:30:470:30:52

Where does it start? Where does this lifelong, 40-year passion start?

0:30:520:30:57

Well, I was a wartime baby,

0:30:570:31:00

and I suppose it started with my dad coming back on leave during the war,

0:31:000:31:04

and digging up the garden, as everybody did, digging for victory,

0:31:040:31:07

and he used to give me the wireworms to take to the hens.

0:31:070:31:10

I suppose that was my introduction.

0:31:100:31:12

I have always grown things and I did horticulture at university,

0:31:120:31:16

and really it wasn't until I got married and settled in the country and we had kids,

0:31:160:31:20

that I really started growing again in earnest.

0:31:200:31:24

One thing I really love about your books is that they're filled with this wonderful really good detail,

0:31:240:31:29

but they really buck the trend. They seem to constantly say

0:31:290:31:32

you don't have to do this unless, you know...kind of question things,

0:31:320:31:35

and they seem so different from that very old-fashioned idea of straight rows and things like that,

0:31:350:31:41

and I wondered was it easy to come in and do that

0:31:410:31:44

or was there a lot of people going, "This isn't how you grow veg!"

0:31:440:31:48

I think it was the ten-year gap that really helped,

0:31:480:31:50

because, you know, you're indoctrinated at college and it was a very scientific course that I did,

0:31:500:31:54

and you were just taught that you grow things in rows with a big space in between,

0:31:540:31:58

and when you start growing, you think, why? You do start challenging things.

0:31:580:32:03

I mean, there are cases for growing in straight lines, mainly onions and leeks, I think,

0:32:030:32:07

-but I do love the idea of something just looser and more informal.

-Yeah, I completely feel the same way.

0:32:070:32:14

If you have a patch of red lettuce and then a patch of green lettuce, you get that quilted effect,

0:32:140:32:18

I love it, I'm just a sucker for making a vegetable garden look pretty.

0:32:180:32:22

And something like pumpkins which are one of those notoriously big things,

0:32:220:32:27

I mean, is there any sort of way to kind of keep them in together?

0:32:270:32:31

I've always trained my round and round in a tight circle,

0:32:310:32:33

because so many people want to grow pumpkins, but of course it is a big, sprawly vegetable.

0:32:330:32:37

Well, I tried it last year, but I don't think I did it enough,

0:32:370:32:40

and they all sort of spiralled off.

0:32:400:32:42

You kind of always have to be doing it...nip out every morning...

0:32:420:32:46

Right, I think that was maybe my...

0:32:460:32:47

People think of pumpkin as being a huge wild sprawling thing, which it can be,

0:32:470:32:51

but you can actually make them go into a very small circle.

0:32:510:32:54

-Do you think we can rescue this one?

-Yeah, I'm sure we can, yeah.

0:32:540:32:58

-I mean, they could even go round the sweetcorn.

-Yes, around the corn.

0:32:580:33:02

Yeah. I mean, I would...

0:33:020:33:03

So just take a tent peg

0:33:040:33:07

-and just push it really right just over the stem like that.

-OK.

0:33:070:33:11

And it's always worth putting a stick in the middle,

0:33:110:33:14

so that if it comes to watering, you actually know where the middle is.

0:33:140:33:18

-That's my problem with my melons. I just can't find it...

-You can't find the middle?

-Chasing through it.

0:33:180:33:22

-Good tip.

-But the great thing about this also, if you get secondary roots coming out from the stem...

0:33:220:33:27

-Oh, OK.

-..Taking more moisture and nutrition.

0:33:270:33:31

-How tight can you go? Can you just sort of...? Within reason?

-I do it as tight as I can.

-Right.

0:33:310:33:36

I must admit the only one I grow now is the Crown Prince.

0:33:360:33:40

Do you know that one, with the grey skin? It's not a huge one,

0:33:400:33:44

-but it's...

-Is it a good flavour?

-Fantastic. It's so solid

0:33:440:33:47

-and we roast them and make puddings and everything, but it keeps right through till June.

-Right.

0:33:470:33:52

Yeah, I've just got Baby Bear here.

0:33:520:33:54

Well, that's lovely, because it's a neat little one, you just put it in the oven and roast it quickly.

0:33:540:34:00

-So June is a really good time, so you finish one and then practically start the next.

-Exactly.

0:34:000:34:04

-It's fantastic.

-Good. I might try that, then.

0:34:040:34:07

It's a good combination, isn't it?

0:34:080:34:10

It's a fantastic combination, pumpkins and sweetcorn, it works so well.

0:34:100:34:14

-So we need to pick some stuff for lunch.

-OK.

0:34:150:34:17

-But I also wanted to pick your brains about crop rotation.

-Right.

0:34:170:34:21

Because I suppose I feel...

0:34:210:34:24

like...

0:34:240:34:26

that... I don't know... I feel really frustrated about crop rotation,

0:34:260:34:30

because I feel like I get myself tied up in knots,

0:34:300:34:33

and I was wondering, I guess, how relevant you feel crop rotation is.

0:34:330:34:37

I think it's one of those things that, if you can, it makes a lot of sense,

0:34:370:34:42

because you do get a build-up of pests in the soil,

0:34:420:34:47

so if you can avoid growing the same thing in the same place, it does make good sense.

0:34:470:34:52

On the other hand, in a small garden, it's so impractical,

0:34:520:34:54

because, you know, most pests will move from one bed to the next,

0:34:540:34:58

so maybe mixing things up is a better way around it,

0:34:580:35:02

-because then you don't get a build-up and so on.

-Little bits here, there and everywhere.

0:35:020:35:06

-I think, do it if you can, but don't be a slave to it, is what I would say.

-Right.

0:35:060:35:11

Great advice from a true gardening legend.

0:35:120:35:15

And as we reach the end of today's programme we come back to vertical gardens.

0:35:150:35:20

They're becoming more familiar sights in our towns and cities,

0:35:200:35:23

and if you fancy building your own, just watch Joe Swift and Mark Gregory

0:35:230:35:28

as they help Ben Mason make the most of his balcony.

0:35:280:35:31

This is actually a communal space

0:35:310:35:33

and each floor has its own communal sun deck like this.

0:35:330:35:37

-So anybody from this floor...?

-Anybody from this floor has a key, comes out here...

0:35:370:35:40

on days unlike this, enjoys the sunshine...

0:35:400:35:43

yeah, it's lovely.

0:35:430:35:45

So it's very important to everybody?

0:35:450:35:47

Yeah, I mean, it's really important for these blocks,

0:35:470:35:49

right in the middle of town,

0:35:490:35:51

there's no real outside space, you know, apart from this,

0:35:510:35:55

-so it gets used a lot.

-And you've got quite a lot of edibles here.

0:35:550:35:57

-You've got herbs and your tomatoes...

-This is where it all started for me, really.

0:35:570:36:01

I kind of got into gardening through food.

0:36:010:36:03

Where do you go from here? What's the next stage?

0:36:030:36:05

Well, that's quite a difficult one. Who knows?

0:36:050:36:08

-So what about using some of this vertical space a bit more cleverly?

-I think that would be a great idea.

0:36:080:36:13

-Yeah?

-Great.

-When you can't go out any more, you go up!

-Indeed! Good plan.

0:36:130:36:17

So to challenge Ben to think vertically,

0:36:180:36:21

I'm introducing him to a friend of mine who won a coveted RHS gold medal

0:36:210:36:25

at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

0:36:250:36:27

for demonstrating how the vertical approach

0:36:270:36:29

can even relate to a small family garden.

0:36:290:36:33

-Happiest Yorkshireman around.

-Yeah?

0:36:330:36:35

It's going to be a good day today.

0:36:350:36:37

In fact, vertical gardening was generally all the rage at this year's show.

0:36:370:36:43

This is Mark Gregory's vision

0:36:440:36:45

on behalf of the Children's Society and it's incredibly practical,

0:36:450:36:49

and, as you'd expect, environmentally tactful.

0:36:490:36:52

There's somewhere to keep the bicycles and also, of course, somewhere to put the recycling bin.

0:36:520:36:57

But it's that that catches my eye.

0:36:570:36:59

It's a real theme this year, why simply grow along the ground when you can plant up the wall as well?

0:36:590:37:05

So I thought he'd be the ideal gardener to come with a way of creating a vertical garden

0:37:060:37:11

on a budget.

0:37:110:37:13

-I'll give you hand.

-It's great. It's a beautiful object in its own right, I think.

-Yeah, it's lovely.

0:37:130:37:17

And it isn't even planted yet. To explain how it works, run us through it.

0:37:170:37:22

Well, my bookshelf system,

0:37:220:37:24

basically I just wanted to do something

0:37:240:37:26

that people can emulate and it's a kind of DIY...

0:37:260:37:29

planting wall.

0:37:290:37:31

Really, what I've used, I've just used this softwood deck boards,

0:37:310:37:34

just standard deck boards you can get anywhere,

0:37:340:37:37

-and we stained them just to make it last longer.

-Yeah.

0:37:370:37:40

It's got a ply back,

0:37:400:37:43

and really it's just a series of compartments.

0:37:430:37:45

And in fact they're louvered to hold the compost in,

0:37:450:37:49

-so when it goes upright it won't all just fall out.

-Exactly.

0:37:490:37:52

Well, I'll leave you lot to it!

0:37:520:37:53

So before we can plant up or even fill up with compost,

0:38:010:38:04

Mark has to drill holes for the irrigation pipes to pass through.

0:38:040:38:08

He's chosen a simple drip-line system that can be found in any good garden centre.

0:38:080:38:13

Well, Mark, we've got an interesting intestinal system here.

0:38:140:38:18

This is your irrigation. It's a bit Heath Robinson, isn't it? But will it work?

0:38:180:38:22

The thing is with this kind of system, it does need water, it needs irrigation.

0:38:220:38:27

And really what we've used is just this standard drip line,

0:38:270:38:30

and the idea is that every pocket gets water.

0:38:300:38:34

Basically, underneath that comes out,

0:38:340:38:37

-push your hosepipe on there...

-And that fills it up from the bottom?

0:38:370:38:41

It fills it up through this main pipe, and even the main pipe has got drippers.

0:38:410:38:44

Basically the water kind of comes through and trickles down each section.

0:38:440:38:50

But if you don't plug it into the hosepipe,

0:38:500:38:53

you can use a watering can as well. A trickle-down effect, I think they call it in America.

0:38:530:38:59

This is a belt-and-braces job, this. It's got everything.

0:38:590:39:03

-This has got a hopper at the top where you can water it and put your feed in as well.

-Of course.

0:39:030:39:07

You've really got to treat it like a hanging basket.

0:39:070:39:09

If you don't water your hanging basket daily, it'll just dry out.

0:39:090:39:11

-So it's ready to go, yeah?

-Ready to go.

-We're going to put the compost in and plant it up.

-Yeah. Great.

0:39:110:39:16

Oh, don't faff about doing that! This is the way to do it.

0:39:170:39:20

I've played my joker definitely on this one.

0:39:220:39:25

And like a hanging basket, we're using a good quality, moisture-retaining compost.

0:39:260:39:31

So what's next, then, Mark?

0:39:310:39:33

We're going to cover it with a geotextile which is this material.

0:39:330:39:36

It seems a shame to cover it up, it's so beautiful!

0:39:360:39:38

This basically will keep everything in and allow the water to come through it,

0:39:380:39:43

but it won't allow the separation of the soil,

0:39:430:39:45

so if you leave the water on, it's not going to collapse on you.

0:39:450:39:48

-Straight forward to my finger.

-Yeah.

0:39:490:39:51

Right, now we get creative with it, OK?

0:40:010:40:03

-So I'm just going to draw a band through here...

-Yeah.

0:40:030:40:08

'Well, we did film a section where I revealed my fantastic Patrick Blanc inspired planting plan to the team,

0:40:090:40:15

'but since I'd brought along a black pen to sketch it out on a piece of black geotextile...'

0:40:150:40:22

-Are you going to give us a key to what goes where?

-Yeah.

0:40:220:40:25

'And since no-one paid any attention anyway, let's just move on to the bit where we start planting.'

0:40:250:40:31

If it's tight, I can make a little cross in it.

0:40:320:40:35

-That it?

-Yeah, that's good, because all the roots are going to just knit together.

0:40:360:40:40

And another one in there while you're at it.

0:40:400:40:42

In essence, the secret of vertical gardening is to put your most drought-resistant, sun-loving plants

0:40:470:40:53

up near the top,

0:40:530:40:55

and your damply shade-tolerant lovers near the bottom where more of the water will collect.

0:40:550:41:00

-Are you happy with the overall oomph?

-I think the creative swathes are excellent.

0:41:010:41:06

-You're a good director.

-Excellent.

0:41:070:41:09

We've got, like, the mints up here together,

0:41:090:41:12

-and the strawberries coming through the middle.

-Yeah.

-It's looking good.

0:41:120:41:15

-So are we going to put it in its final position?

-I think we ought to.

0:41:150:41:19

-What do you think, Mark?

-Absolutely. Yeah, let's go for it.

0:41:190:41:22

Let's have a little bit of a tidy-up and then we'll put it in.

0:41:220:41:24

Patrick Blanc, eat your heart out, eh!

0:41:300:41:33

We've included a variegated oregano, purple basil and thyme,

0:41:330:41:40

to name just a few of the herbs.

0:41:400:41:42

Oh, and as I'm sure you all know,

0:41:420:41:44

you can eat nasturtium leaves and the flowers.

0:41:440:41:47

-OK, straight up.

-Standing that up.

0:41:480:41:51

Oh, trapped Joe behind!

0:41:540:41:56

Put it down and then I'll get out and we'll walk it back.

0:41:570:42:00

To me, to you, to me.

0:42:000:42:03

How many gardeners does it take to make a herb garden?

0:42:040:42:08

-Well, let's just take a look at it.

-That's cool.

0:42:090:42:11

Right, stand back, have a look. Pat ourselves on the back.

0:42:180:42:22

That's really cool, isn't it?

0:42:230:42:24

-What do you think?

-It's fantastic, isn't it?

0:42:270:42:30

-Just amazing.

-Look at that! It's beautiful.

-It's cool.

0:42:300:42:33

It is really, really cool.

0:42:330:42:35

It's going to knit together really well. In the next two or three weeks, it's going to look fantastic.

0:42:350:42:39

It just fits so well with all the stuff I had already,

0:42:390:42:41

-you know, it's kind of like a carpet going up into a wall.

-Yeah. I want one!

0:42:410:42:45

Stay away from this one!

0:42:450:42:47

But there's like 15, roughly, different varieties of herbs and stuff in there,

0:42:470:42:52

without using any ground space at all. It's pretty clever.

0:42:520:42:55

It's amazing, and so much for the residents here of the whole floor who can come out and enjoy it.

0:42:550:43:00

-I think it's fantastic.

-Yeah. Well done, Mark.

0:43:000:43:02

-Good use of space.

-It's worked.

-It has worked.

0:43:020:43:06

And with that bit of DIY, it's time to bring things to a close.

0:43:070:43:10

Do join us for more planting tips on the next A To Z Of TV Gardening, but until then, goodbye.

0:43:100:43:16

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0:43:240:43:28

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