Episode 13 The Beechgrove Garden

Well, hello there, and welcome to Beechgrove.

It's a trifle moist today, which is very appropriate because we're in the environs of the pond.

And whenever gabions are mentioned, everybody looks at me,

because I suggested we try gabions to overcome this very steep slope here.

And truth to tell, it's been quite difficult

trying to disguise them and clothe them,

although we do have a few successes.

We've got the geranium, coming down the side, hiding it.

We've got a bit of ivy here, coming on nicely and colonising it,

and one or two wee ferns are starting, and here is another ivy up here.

So progress is being made, but I think some things are really struggling.

So we're going to plant some new bits and pieces.

One of the plants that's been very successful is Lewisia.

Here it is in here. So I'm going to pop this one into this.

Now, it seems as if it's awful cruel,

because you've got to squeeze it a bit to get through the hole.

You know, ease the brick up,

and this could be more difficult than I thought! Then I'll tart that up

when you've gone, because I've another little dodge here.

Here we have a section of tights.

Don't ask me where I got them!

Some compost, and I'm going to sow some aubretia seed in here, like so.

And that's why we made up this obscene little sausages, like so.

Roll it up like that.

And I better put a hole or two to let them out.

I've no idea how durable these things are.

I'll prickle it like shortbread. Then...

Here we go. In it goes. In there,

like so.

Let's see if they get established and we get a little forest of aubretia in there.

I've got some Alyssum to do the same.

If all else fails, of course, you can get the horticultural definition of a six-pack.

Good value for money,

little alpines which I'll pop in all over the place.

Meanwhile, Lesley's just over there.

Well, I've just got a really nice, pleasurable job

of weeding these tiered beds next to the pond,

and they have come together so beautifully.

This is Geranium psilostemon,

and it's got this gorgeous magenta with the black centre.

When I say I'm weeding, I'm not going to be taking everything out,

because we have this beautiful Dactylorhiza orchid.

Now we didn't plant that, that has just come here.

Looks absolutely stunning. I know it's coming through the anthemis, but we'll not to worry about that.

What are strutting their stuff at the moment

are the plants that you associate with ponds,

the hostas are looking gorgeous, as are the primulas.

Bright orange of Primula bulleyana.

These are candelabra primulas, and then the lemon of Primula alpicola,

which is nice and fragrant.

But do you know, I think I've got a really easy shift here,

because I'm on dry ground, as opposed to Carole,

who I'm afraid is in the pond.

Well, I hope it's firm here as well.

I think I get this job every year because I've got the waders.

But before I mention what I'm doing in the pond,

a couple of the plants that are looking good are our water lilies.

There's so many buds here to come.

I think with this weather, they don't want to open!

But what I'm doing is a job that we have to do every year,

and it's clearing out some of the weed.

I've got three things here. This is very hair-like.

It's a filamentous algae, or blanket weed,

and that really builds up and multiplies.

Then we've got little duckweed,

which is the floating plant, and also the oxygenator,

which is good in the pond,

but again that multiplies too much and it chokes out the wildlife.

I need to put piles of this on the side of the pond,

leave it there for 24 hours and then you can put it onto the compost heap.

The reason we leave it there is so that the little creatures can go back into the pond.

Now, meanwhile, on the rest of the programme, from this big pond to a much smaller one.

This pond is over 20 years old and it's past its sell-by date.

My job is to breathe new life into this border,

but keeping the theme of water.

And I am in Montrose, visiting old friends in a new garden.

We are back here on the decking, and Carolyn and myself

were planting these geraniums a couple of weeks ago,

-and look how much deadheading we've had to do.

-It's not been helped

by the wet weather, but there's lots of flower buds to come.

I think that's the important thing. Keep deadheading and you'll get lots of flowers.

We will leave our soggy bouquets there.

Now, the containers here, I think, look brilliant at the moment.

The whole of this decking garden is really absolutely looking superb.

Everything's in containers and it's all edible.

Yes. This is a lovely little iceberg called Mini Green. Tennis-ball size.

That's appropriate for Wimbledon, so I think we should pick one of these at the moment.

And then this is looking really pretty, isn't it, the spinach?

It's a variety called Reddy.

Lovely red stems, and again, will we take off one or two of the leaves?

It has got really usual leaves, hasn't it?

They're are sort of like ivy, almost, but then ivy's poisonous.

I would be also be tempted to take the tops out. You know, stop it going to seed.

And again, we could maybe use some of those.

Then we have the lovely little pea here.

Only grows to two feet in height.

I tell you something - that's really, really sturdy.

That's fantastic.

Look, there's is loads of pods. Avola, that one.

This isn't looking so good.

Patio Star, the courgette, and I would be tempted quite honestly to tidy this up.

Take off some of the old leaves, and the first fruits.

You know, we're not going to get anything out of that at the moment.

I know it makes sense, but it does looks cruel. These are looking fantastic.

These went in as little plants when we were first on this decking.

Just mixed salad leaves. That's a lovely oak leaf.

-They're really pretty!

-We're going to pick some of those.

-They're so decorative.

I'm going to get the odd one of these. And then the veggie table

has produced a lot of crops for us, hasn't it?

Yes. We've got some lovely radish, at the front here, which are just about ready.

Look at the size of that!

-Oh, wow! That's gorgeous. That's lovely.

-I'll take two or three of those.

-They'll need a wash.

-The beetroot's doing well.

You can use the leaves of beetroot as well. You can steam that, or we can leave them in

and then actually use them when they are ready.

Then the radish, we can re-sow again, can't we?

Which is the secret of keeping your crops going.

Tell the story about the carrots.

Because I was putting carrots in the top because the carrot root fly

allegedly flies in no higher than 21 inches,

so we put them up there and thought let's trial this by putting carrots in every level.

At the moment they really look healthy so we'll just have to see.

No difference, but they're looking good.

And then this is your new stacking system for the potatoes.

It is. Now you had a lot of French potatoes which we were growing

in these systems and in pots.

Yes, we've got a whole variety, they're all first earlies.

What I wanted to do, what you get, you get three of these stacks

and that should be enough to grow the potatoes on,

but the inventor of this told me that you can get it six high.

He was reluctant to tell me what variety he was using.

I was concerned because you've got Charlotte there, which is a first early.

I'd have thought a main crop would be better because first earlies,

-you're only leaving them in containers for about 12 or 13 weeks.

-But we're going to experiment.

We've got Charlotte in here, so we're going to go beyond the three,

we'll put the fourth one in

and put the compost on top there and I'm going to see how high

I can get this, just out of interest.

I'm not competitive, but I've got Charlotte in a pot. We'll just have to see.

You say you're not competitive?

Over more than 20 years, Tina and Bill Bigland have created

a beautiful garden in Grantown-on-Spey,

in the heart of the Grampians.

Tina, it's obvious to me that you're a good gardener, you love your garden.

Yes, I must admit I love my garden.

I've always loved gardening.

All my life I've loved gardening.

-It's therapeutic as well, it gets you out.

-You have a wonderful display of flowers

but I can't get over the lawn. It's so green, not a weed in sight.

My husband does the lawn, Bill does the lawn, but if there's a weed I take it out.

-And the edges, they're immaculate.

-Yes, I think the edging makes a garden.

It shows off the flowerbeds and I think it actually makes a garden to see a nice edge.

I totally agree with you but we're here because of the pond.

Yes, it's a bit of a problem now.

It's a problem cleaning it out every springtime.

I usually go in in my bare feet

and take everything out and then clean it off and put everything back in again.

I just find it's too much now.

So we want to go for lower maintenance but you still want water.

I still want water, so I'm going real mod, I think now.

That's brilliant, I think we need to roll up the sleeves and get cracking.

Good idea, Carole.

You know, what we've discovered is Bill and yourself have made a really good job

of this rock garden and the pond so it's not that easy to dismantle.

No. There was a lot of work put into the pond and a lot of stones, as you've discovered.

Big stones but also what I've discovered is

I thought that was just topsoil, but underneath that mound...

-There's a lot of stones, yes.

-It's been in a long time, hasn't it?

It's been 24 or 25 years since it's been in.

-It's really time for a change.

-Time for a change, yes.

OK, I hope that we're going to be recycling most of this, so pond plants, where can they go?

I'm going to get in touch with the council and they've got a new pond down at the play park

-and I'm hoping they'll recycle them and put them in their pond.

-That's great.

And we've got an electrician here, a friend of yours, Stephen.

He's got his eye on the preformed liner.

Stephen can have anything he wants.

It's really good to see everything being recycled rather than wasted.

What we've got to do next is take out the water,

completely clear this, pull out the liner and then we can start shaping it for the new fountain.

New fountain, look forward to that.

Carole, it's up to you.

No, it's your garden.

Left a bit, right a bit?

Perfect. How much length do you need?

Stephen, as a qualified electrician, water and electricity

don't really mix, so talk us through what you've been doing.

Well, first of all I installed an outdoor socket, just over there.

-Which is waterproof.

-Which is waterproof, through an RCD spur.

An RCD, is that a bit like a circuit breaker?

Yeah, it's a safety device.

It protects against electric shocks.

Then the cable, you've basically threaded that through this pipe.

Pulled through quite nicely, so, yes.

At the end of the day really this is a job for somebody that's qualified.

Any electrical work, yeah, qualified electrician is advised.

-Safety first.

-Safety first, yeah.

OK, ready?

-Tina, what do you think?

-Oh, it's just beautiful.

Thank you very much. Lovely.

We haven't finished yet, we haven't got any plants.

-I think it looks beautiful.

-It's just beautiful.

That's the plants then, Tina.

Not my favourite thing, planting through landscape fabric.

It's a bit fiddly but it's worth it, it's going to keep the weeds down

and that's what you want, isn't it, the low maintenance?

-It's beautiful.

-Already?

-It's beautiful already, yes.

-You're very complimentary.

The plants are about an inch proud because then what we're going to do is

-add an inch of gravel, so you don't want to be burying the necks of the plants, that's quite important.

-Yes.

Gone for a tree, or a little shrub, it's Prunus incisa,

and I think it ties in quite nicely with the conifer,

a sort of Japanesey...

-Japanese feel, yes.

-You told me that you like grasses.

I do like grasses, yes.

-Any in particular?

-Yes, I love the blue grass, it's beautiful.

One of my favourites is a Fescue. But we've got a range of colours with the grasses

and the sedges, goldens, bronze, variegated, and the black one here isn't actually a grass.

-Oh, I thought it was a grass.

-It's a turf lily and there's little flowers just starting to come.

We've got the Thrift as well.

So that's quite a small form.

Taller growing one there is called Joysticks, full of flower.

That's beautiful.

Now, back to the low-maintenance, I tried to choose plants that don't need really need pruning.

Most of them are evergreen and you're going to have interest right through the year.

-When the snow is six feet high.

-You won't see anything!

-You won't see anything!

-You might just see the conifer!

-The tree.

Now we've got to put the gravel on.

At long last we're getting to try this moss killer called MO Bacter.

I've chosen a piece of the old orchard lawn here,

there's quite a bit of moss in it and we'll test this material out.

Now we mentioned it about a month ago but unfortunately,

the stuff didn't arrive in time for us to apply.

Time for applying actually is quite important.

Soil or air temperature should be around, round about ten.

Anything less than that and it might be not so efficient.

It's an organic fertiliser, with a formula 5-5-20.

5N, 5P, 20K, 20 potash.

The theory behind the whole thing is that the moss gorges itself on the potash, thus killing itself out.

And within this material there's a bacillus,

which then feeds on the dead vegetative material,

so you don't even have to get the scarifier out. There's no black bits to scarify out.

I'd better get this other square done before the rain gets any worse.

Do you think it's Jim to blame for the rain now?

It's just the weather for a salad, isn't it?

Isn't it just? This is all that we picked on the decking.

I'll try a bit of that radish because I think it's gorgeous.

-Mm, so crisp.

-Quite mild.

What I like to do is pep up a salad by putting in some other spicy herbs and things.

-One of my favourites is rocket.

-Which has a nice spicy flavour.

It's peppery and hot. The other one is this, which is variegated land cress.

I've never tried that, Lesley, so can I take a leaf and see what it's like?

-It's so pretty.

-It's quite attractive.

Pop it on there. This is a perennial.

Quite an interesting flavour.

-Not sure?

-Ooh, it's quite spicy as you start to bite away at it.

The story here is that we called it the Mediterranean Steps, a little bit optimistically.

-We lost the bay over the winter.

-Yeah.

And the perennials in the side borders, the rosemary, we lost those as well.

But the sage is still here and the marjoram. Everything we're putting in here is perennial.

So what I want to do in the spirit of that is to plant...

This is the rocket, I've bought two plants which we'll put in the beds and also sow the seed,

the one that I sowed, in pots here.

So we'll ring the changes, not the Mediterranean Steps, we'll make them the hardy steps.

We're also going to put seed in now of American land cress.

It's good you can sow them from seed as well as buying plants.

It's a good time to be sowing seeds, it's warm and it's most certainly wet.

So you've got a plant of the land cress at the front, that'll go in as well.

These beds look pretty because they're edged with the lavender,

and this was salvaged from the rose garden.

It was salvaged, pruned back, and it's looking really good now.

You get that lovely smell of the lavender.

We'll put in some perennial onions. We've got two different sorts here.

Yes, this one is the tree onion.

I brought that from home and think it's quite amazing because another common name is the walking onion.

These are some that you brought.

They're further on and those are great on barbecues.

Once these kind of mature and the stems start to die back,

with the weight of the onion on top it just flops over, and you can see that roots into the ground.

That's why they call it the walking onion, because it moves.

It also makes these little shoots which has a secondary bulb on.

What I did with these in the spring, in March time, was slice them up,

and use those in salads because they're very fresh and oniony.

-A bit like chives.

-Now the other one I've got is the Welsh onion.

Nothing to do with Wales at all. It comes from Siberia, so we know it's really, really hardy.

These will taste of onions, so again you can use them in salads and things.

They tend to bulk up, just like chives,

and multiply, whereas those are far more mature ones, the Welsh onion.

I'd imagine once they're planted in the ground you'll get these offsets from them, which is really good.

Then finally I've got some lovage, but it's the Scots lovage.

-Lovage is huge.

-Yeah, lovage goes up to what, a metre or more.

This, at the most, I'm not going metric now, 12 inches in height!

-So quite compact.

-You can use that in salads?

I'd be a bit careful with that one because

there's quite an aniseedy flavour, so just a little with that one.

OK. So shall we plant these, or shall we go back to the home for people with peculiar taste in hats?

I first met Janet Ireland and Paul Newman in their exposed

yet delightful Orkney garden,

where they were gardening in some really challenging conditions.

In some contrast, during the last four years Paul and Janet

have created an equally delightful but sophisticated town garden in the centre of Montrose.

Well, this is a very different challenge from Orkney, isn't it?

-It is, Jim, yes.

-I imagine you're on a very sandy soil.

We are, yes, it's very sandy indeed, very dry.

But these hostas look absolutely fabulous.

It may be because we put in a lot of our home-made compost and we add a lot of leaf mould.

It's a good object lesson there, they really are stunning.

-This fellow in the middle, is that an alien?

-That's an arisaema, not an alien.

It's an arisaema, bought at Garden Scotland.

-Lovely, isn't it?

-Looking quite at home there.

-It is, isn't it?

-I say, what about the decking?

-Our boardwalk.

-Boardwalk, sorry!

It lifts you up that wee bit.

-I suppose it hides a multitude of sins.

-It does.

-Why do we stop here, Janet?

-Because there's a wonderful specimen here of cardiocrinum, the Himalayan lily.

-Isn't it lovely?

-You can't grow that anywhere, can you?

-No.

-You've got to get the conditions right.

It needs it shady, it needs plenty of compost.

Coming up out of the undergrowth, it's really quite majestic. Right, where are we stopping next?

We're going to look at one of my favourite flowers in the garden, Jim.

This is peony Jan van Leeuwen. Isn't it lovely?

I can understand why. It's just sublime, isn't it?

-It's in such a lovely setting. I think that helps, it's not stuck out on its own.

-Just beautiful.

It's very much at home, absolutely gorgeous.

And I sense a wee bit of a changing colour here.

-Yes.

-A little bit more body to it.

This is rhapsody in blue, the rose.

It's a bit of a liberty for the colour.

-It's definitely violet purple.

-Yes.

But it's got a lovely perfume.

So it's got something going for it.

-As has this wee fella here, this wee geranium.

-Yes.

-I've never seen that before.

Yes, this is Richard Rendall's geranium, from Orkney, and he called it Tanya, after his daughter.

It's good ground cover.

Isn't it? It's beginning to spread. I might be looking for a wee bit of that before we leave!

Tell me, at Beechgrove in the last week or two we've been featuring gardens that are open to the public.

-Yes.

-For charity, obviously. Do they ever get to see here?

Yes, this year we're open for the first time, eight gardens in Montrose and Hillside.

On Sunday 3rd July, between two and five.

OK, I hope you have a super day.

-Thank you.

-Good old salvia is doing rather well.

-It is, isn't it?

How many plants did you put in there?

I think about seven in that space. They filled it out quite a bit.

It does cover the ground, by jingo, there aren't many species and that's the art of good gardening.

-I like your wee water feature, too.

-Do you? It's rather nice, isn't it?

-Yes.

-This clematis has caught my eye.

-It's obviously flowered its head off.

-It has, yes.

-It's, uncharacteristically for spring, anyway, it's a gorgeous pink.

-Yes.

-Which is it?

-It's called alpina Constance.

-Constance.

-It's constant, it keeps flowering.

Obviously, yes. It's a stonker.

You obviously love astrantia.

-Yes, they're all over the garden, aren't they?

-Absolutely stunning.

It's the pink going into the white.

-Yes.

-Of?

-Crambe cordifolia.

Aye. A relative of the cabbage?

-It is indeed, yes.

-Carrying that on into the stems of the birch.

Yes, I really like these stems of silver birch jacquemontii. Beautiful white one.

-You've got this eye for juxtaposition, putting things in the right order.

-Thank you.

-Good stuff.

-Yes.

Let's establish, Janet, what direction are we facing?

I mean what direction is the wall?

-These walls are south-facing.

-Yes, yes. A bit of a hot corner.

-Yes.

-Which becomes apparent when we start with that gorgeous solanum.

-Yes.

-That's the kind of plant that people around Scotland have lost in the winters, because it's...

-Quite tender.

-Isn't it just. South American.

Yes. We did cover it with a fleece, it's only a year-old.

Why I twigged that it was a hot corner is you've got these blinking thingies.

-Lovely tree ferns.

-From Queensland.

-Dicksonia antarctica, that you love so much, Jim.

-You've only got two.

We've only got two. That may change! LAUGHTER

-They're lovely.

-It's these stumpy bits at the bottom that are so ugly.

Yes, we lost all the plants we planted at the bottom, so they're a bit on show at the moment.

-Well, this ceanothus is looking absolutely gorgeous. What variety is it?

-It's Concha.

It's stunning, it really...

-Evergreen?

-Yes, evergreen.

I haven't seen that variety before.

If it's in the right place it just shows how good it can be.

So it must be in the right place.

-It must be. I'm off to find Paul.

-OK.

Well, well, a change of emphasis, change of weather as well.

Another bit of this garden, wonderful sedum roof up here,

gorgeous wonderful herb garden, but round the corner, fruit and veg, and I'm here to see Paul.

Well, there's an obvious reason for stopping here, Paul.

Your little apple tree.

-This is Egremont Russet.

-Mm-hm.

-Not a very vigorous tree but quite good at fruiting.

-Yes, yes.

We have a little bit of a problem with mildew.

That's a classic bit of mildew.

I go back to the fact that the soil is a free-draining sand, and plants in free-draining sand

that are allowed to get dry, are predisposed to getting mildew.

You get these little twigs. There's no point going into a big spray programme.

All you need to do is to pick them off and burn it.

-And perhaps watering.

-Yes.

-And mulching.

-Yeah.

-You might get a better response, more growth as well.

-Yes.

It's a fascinating garden, both sides of the dyke and I should say,

if you can get to see this garden on 3rd July it's worth your while,

because there's so much to see, some lovely plants and great crops.

-Thanks to you, Paul and to Janet.

-Thank you.

-..for a lovely day.

These are the sweet pea rings that you buy in the garden centres,

but have you ever thought of making them yourself?

I like to use plastic-coated wire.

You just take a length,

wind it around, for example, a broom handle.

You then just slip that off

and here's one I made earlier.

Just get some snips,

keep clipping like that...

and that's what you end up with.

Well, on the whole our potato crop is looking pretty good,

but here I detect a wee problem in this variety of early potato.

Sudden collapse of the top like this when they've grown so far

is caused by, probably, a bacterium

and we refer to it as blackleg.

Confirmation of the problem is... There it is.

The bacterium affects the tissues and the thing collapses.

Where does it come from?

Well, it can be carried in the seed tuber,

it can be caused where the plants are under significant stress

because of a bad growing season.

And the important thing is to rogue them out

and get them into a bag and off the site as quickly as possible.

There'll be nothing wrong with the tatties though.

The alliums here in the Silver Garden have made a beautiful display,

like exploding fireworks.

But it is worth dead-heading them, because if you don't,

all these seeds will set in the ground

and you'll end up with a forest of little alliums that just won't flower.

Now, what you can do is you can dry these and use them in arrangements,

or just use them straight away

and just have one in three glasses.

I mean, that looks really quite stylish.

Well, considering the angst that we've suffered over our rose garden,

I have to say, they're looking pretty good.

There's one or two gaps yet, but even the new plantings have come away

and they're being treated not with pesticides, but with garlic extract.

Maybe that's the secret. Now then, girls.

-This is flaming June, isn't it?

-It is a flaming June.

Well, here's a bit of produce for you. Would you like to...

-That looks lovely. Can I have a look at the cauliflower?

-Yes.

-Some broccoli.

-What's the variety?

-That is...Mayflower.

-Wow, that's nice.

-That broccoli is beautiful!

-That broccoli is Vivaldi.

-Isn't that lovely.

I've been in this garden on three or four occasions

and the peonies have been looking gorgeous - and the irises - and it's always been bucketing down!

But you know they do look good. I'm not so sure about the names, like that Soft Salmon Joy.

But, I mean, that pink in bud is beautiful.

The fragrance is very good too.

That, if it is My Love over there, the pink one,

it almost smells like a rose. Just gorgeous.

I haven't seen them looking any better, they really are healthy.

They seem to have recovered from the peony blight,

which was one or two years, they really suffered.

And the irises are lovely. Maybe just going over a wee bit.

All looking very pretty.

If you'd like any more information about this week's programme,

the herbs that we were growing that are going to be hardy in Scotland,

the decking veg, or the MO Bacter, then it's all in the factsheet.

And the easiest way to access that is online.

Now, next week we're going to be in the calendar border - a little bit of tree work.

And I'm also going to be propagating some houseplants.

And I'm off to the nether regions of Aberdeenshire to create a potager,

and if I'm not back send for the RNLI!

And then in the programme,

George and I will be cavorting in the secret garden.

So until then...

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

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