Episode 5 The Beechgrove Garden

Well, well. Back in the weather again.

Hello, and welcome to Beechgrove.

We certainly won't be having a problem with shortage of water.

I don't think we will. It's very sad for many places across the country.

-It is. But the job's got to go on.

-Yep, it does.

-Rhododendron border?

-Yes, anything that likes acid conditions,

the ericaceous plants, isn't it?

And, well, things have just got a little bit overgrown.

It happens. We get lots of letters about that. What do you do?

Can you prune rhododendrons? Let's go through this lot anyway.

-We need a bit of a sort out. That's looking a bit sad.

-It is.

Except for this fringe at the front here. That's the same plant.

Look at that.

-That's fine.

-And we've found out why because if you trace

-that branch...

-Yes?

..just there.

Don't pull too hard.

-It's almost done, I think, a natural layer.

-Yes.

So it's rooted itself and that could make quite a good plant.

So, I think the timetable from now on would be,

let's take the flowers, let's see the flowering passed,

as soon as that's finished, cut all of that out

and leave this and then maybe move it when it's better rooted.

Yes. I would maybe leave it for another growing season.

So let's put the cane in anyway, so that we know that that's got to go.

-Definitely for the works.

-Yes.

It immediately opens up another problem here

and that's that little Japanese maple, weeping dissectum foliage,

-gorgeous thing...

-Beautiful.

-..getting crowded out a little bit.

Except it's in the right spot,

cos it doesn't like being exposed to the wind,

so all these plants around are sheltering it.

So, a little bit of pruning, I think.

After flowering because there are lovely flower buds on there.

After flowering, just trimming off some of that.

And as you say, rhododendrons can be pruned,

doesn't have to be done like that, but they will respond to that.

And they'll regenerate. This fella's fine.

I think that's totally fine, Jim. It takes the canopy lower down.

Not so happy with that one, though.

-It doesn't look like a happy chappie.

-I don't think so.

Although it's springing into new growth there,

-I'd be tempted to lift that one...

-Yes?

..knock it about a bit, give it a bit of pruning

and try and re-establish it, perhaps in a wee nursery border.

-Somewhere else?

-See if it will come away and find a spot for it.

-OK. But it's got to go from here.

-Yes.

-And we've plenty time to do that.

-That's good.

Lovely. And, of course, our Tibetan cherry here

is one of the icon trees in the garden.

It's one of those plants that you have to touch.

-The bark is absolutely stunning.

-It's a stunning thing.

But look at the camellia behind. Very yellow.

All those yellow leaves. Aye.

-I think that should come oot.

-I think it has to come out.

Too much competition with the tree itself.

-It's taking away the nutrients and moisture.

-It's never performed.

-I want to tidy this up, don't you think?

-Yes.

Look. That's going into that one which is a beautiful rhododendron.

I think we need to cut some of the branches back.

-Not remove it, but just give it...

-It's got takeover tendencies.

And when we come just up to this bit up here,

there's that lovely, little, white rhododendron.

-Just take that fringe of branches off.

-It's just a bit of a layer that you have to take off...

-It's been squeezed.

-..to expose it a bit more.

And the wee andromeda?

Well, I would cut back a little bit of the pieris there.

-Again, that responds lower down.

-Yes, yes.

-Or it could be moved.

-Yeah.

I'll go for the pruning.

-I haven't got a cane!

-Well, well.

In the rest of the programme...

Would you like to have this lovely plant in your garden?

It's tall, statuesque, elegant, with beautiful white flowers.

Uh-uh. This is the biggest problem you'll ever have in your garden...

Japanese knotweed.

And I'm in a magnificent garden on the banks on the River Tay,

overlooking the water and right across to Dundee.

-Right, Jim, I'm going to leave you to the rest of that destruction.

-OK!

So, over the path from the rhododendron or ericaceous border,

we've got our rock garden or alpine area.

Lesley, you're busy doing some pruning, as well?

Last year, this cotoneaster was completely invading this seat

and a lot of the border so we cut it back.

It's going to be an annual task because I've been trimming it again.

We've got to keep it in check so that we keep this lovely seat.

And the alpine bed is looking very pretty.

We've planted some new aubrietia along the front

and iberis, perennial candytuft.

-That's nice.

-It's superb.

We've got the phlox and some of the dwarf daffodils

-and I'd like to mention this little Daphne, there. Daphne retusa.

-It's really charming

and also the pulsatilla.

And then, of course, we move on to the next garden,

which is our seaside garden.

This was the other bit of our project

because we replaced the griselinia hedge which had died

with this really nice bamboo trellising.

And it was your suggestion that we should put clematis here.

Well, one or two. Maybe a bit of variety.

Keeping the seaside colour theme, which is what we're going to do.

So, we've got orientalis which is a late-flowering one

-and that's going to be yellow.

-And followed by lovely fluffy seed heads.

-Really pretty.

-That will naturally train through the screen.

-Yes.

Pyracantha "Golden Charmer" will have yellow berries.

Yes, because of the name, and that'll be in the autumn.

We're going to fan-train it.

So, for example, the likes of that shoot coming out,

that will be cut right back and we'll have it fan-trained this way.

We'll do that after we plant it, concentrate its energies.

These two are just looking absolutely gorgeous.

-Ha-ha! More clematis.

-It is! This is a little alpine one.

This is White Swan and it's really just so, so pretty at the moment.

-And the blue one?

-This is Lagoon.

-That's macropetala, isn't it?

-It is.

We're going to put the two of these in the same hole

and then that blue and white will look like the sea in waves.

Shall we just show about the planting depth, Lesley?

Yes, because this is the only time you do this.

You're going to make a hole that is deeper than the pot.

And once we get the compost back on there,

it's going to be two or three inches below the soil surface.

That's quite important. Clematis will shoot from the base.

It keeps the roots nice and cool as well.

Now, these have got these tapes on.

This is really for transportation and they should come off.

But it looks so pretty at the moment.

Let it flower, take those off, untangle it and spread them out.

Don't worry if there's a bit of damage, because after flowering,

you can cut them back by up to a third, two-thirds.

Just to give them a tidy-up. Then we've got a honeysuckle.

-This is Cream Cascade.

-Still the same colour theme.

And it's going to be nice and fragrant.

That's next to the seat and wafting over the archway, which is lovely.

Yeah, that's really good.

Then we've got a bit of evergreen interest with the ivy.

-Buttercup, I think it is.

-Yes. That's a small-growing, polite, little one.

They look lovely.

Japanese knotweed. It's invasive, it's really hard to kill

and it's here in Lorna Sinclair's garden in Edinburgh.

-So, Lorna, how long have you been in this garden?

-23 years.

We moved here just when our children were very small.

We've changed the garden over the years. The bit down there

is slightly more formal, and then as we come up here,

it's a bit more of a woodland area that we're developing

as you go towards the woods.

-And this is where the knotweed problem is?

-Yes, it's just up here.

-So, when did you discover it?

-Last autumn.

We were downstairs and we noticed a fire in the woods

and this was the ranger who was burning something in the woods

and we discovered it was Japanese knotweed.

I see it now. That's the old shoots here.

All these new little bits in here.

What have you done so far, then, to treat it?

Well, at the end of last year, we sprayed it all.

You'll see it's come in right along this hedgerow.

And it has had some effect in that it's all dried out.

But it's all coming back! It's obviously coming from next door

where the woods are. That's the source of it.

I think we should go and have a look at that.

So, Lorna, we're on the other side of your garden now with Deborah

from Plant Life Scotland who's our knotweed specialist expert.

Now, tell me, how did knotweed come to be in this country?

Originally, it was introduced as a garden plant.

So, in the 19th century, it was brought over for garden purposes,

just to make gardens look lovely.

-So it's our own fault?

-Yes.

And how do we go about killing it, then?

It's very difficult to kill. It's possible to control it,

but to kill it, there are two ways you can do it.

You can either remove it physically, so dig it out. That's a massive job.

And Japanese knotweed is a controlled waste,

so then you have an issue in getting rid of whatever you've dug out.

Or you can use chemicals. So you can use a weed killer

and you need to apply that several times

in order to try and kill every inch of the rhizome.

So, why is it so important to get rid of it?

The thing about Japanese knotweed is that it will grow practically anywhere.

It's obviously happy growing along here, but it will also grow in tarmac, through concrete,

through walls, so it's actually quite a destructive plant.

Apart from the fact it's physically destructive,

it will also out-compete all other plants around it.

So, what's my responsibility then

as an owner of a piece of garden that's got some Japanese knotweed?

We've got new legislation in Scotland that came in fairly recently

that means if you've got it on your land,

you're legally responsible to control that knotweed

and to stop it spreading onto other properties,

so the onus is on the landowner.

So, basically, it's hard to control but not impossible

and we do all have to take responsibility in controlling it?

-Yeah.

-All right. Great. Thank you very much.

So, what we're going to do is mix up 20ml of glyphosate

with one litre of water.

Like so. What we're going to do is to cut the top of the stems,

rupture the inside of the stems with a screwdriver, so we can get

right into it, and then use this little pipette to suck up 10ml

of the liquid, just gently squirt that into the top of the plant.

Now, you can't take this off your site, so you can't compost it,

you mustn't put it in your brown bins, nothing like that.

All these little bits we're cutting off we'll dry

and then Lorna will burn them

to make sure that they're absolutely dead.

And, as I say, this is going to have to be spring and then autumn,

as the plants die back.

So that's all the bits of knotweed treated, that we can see,

but I want to leave you with something prettier before we go.

You wanted this to be a woodland theme, backing onto the woods,

so let's clear away the rubbish here, weed it a wee bit

-and I've got some lovely plants to pretty up this corner.

-Lovely.

Oh, look what I've just found! Another bit.

This is its little...

-Cos that's obviously going back into here.

-Yep.

-Or somewhere in there.

-SHE LAUGHS

-That's it.

And if you even leave just a tiny little piece, like that,

if you leave that in, that'll regrow again.

I guess it's going to come up again further in here,

just where we've pulled it out from. It'll be up in a few weeks, probably!

Unfortunately! Give you a second chance to get it!

So, this is the kind of selection of what I would call woodland plants,

so they look right in that kind of setting,

they like a little shade.

They've got dappled shade through the trees behind you.

Things like pulmonaria, with lovely speckled leaves,

some hellebores. A nice dark one as well.

I couldn't not bring you primulas, so we've got yellow primrose.

-What's that one?

-That's euphorbia.

That's lovely, just because it's got the dark foliage

-and then this limey-green top to it.

-Lovely.

Dicentra "Bleeding Heart" is a real woodland-type thing.

I love that.

And some foliage, with things like hostas, heucheras, ferns,

that kind of thing.

So just lots of colour - foliage colour, flower colour -

just to brighten up that back bit against the dark background.

-That looks a little bit better, doesn't it?

-It looks fantastic!

I'm afraid we can't say we've completely got rid of your knotweed,

but we've set you off, I think.

I've got my three-year programme! Yes. Thank you for that!

Well, here in the potager garden, we're growing vegetables and salads

on a very small scale.

I also want it to look pretty as well as productive,

and so, what I've done, I've divided the beds into little compartments,

and I'm going to plant crops, say, for instance,

like the beetroot, which is Boltardy,

which is purple leaves. I'm going to contrast that with calendula.

I'm going to make the walls of calendula,

and this'll look really, really pretty.

I'm also majoring on a lot of salad crops this year,

and because we've now got the barrel greenhouse in here,

we can start off our crops a little earlier.

So I've got some purple-leafed lettuce here.

I've got Bijou and Delicato.

The contrast with the calendula, when it's in flower,

will look really pretty.

I'm also going to grow some carrots,

because little young carrots are gorgeous in a salad.

Now, the female carrot root fly flies in about 21 inches or below,

so if you grow your carrots higher than that,

then they're well out of her reach.

I've put these onto a stand in a pot, and I've wired it on

to make sure it's secure, and then this is a really easy way

of sowing veg and salad - I'm using a seed tape.

The seeds are nicely distributed at the right sowing distance

all the way along. Ideal if you've got young children

that you want to encourage into gardening.

Another thing I'm going to do to help make our salad look

really pretty is, I'm going to grow some edible flowers.

So, first of all, I've got some little heartsease here,

or the Viola tricolor, and it's yellow and purple.

You can just pop those into a salad.

Because I want this to look pretty,

I also need to scare the birds away, but instead of hanging CDs here,

I've got this little device, and it's trowels and forks.

That should just flash, catch the light

and dissuade them from eating some of our crops.

Another edible flower I'm popping in is a dianthus.

This is a dwarf dianthus called Bourboule.

Again, the petals are really delicious in a salad.

If you suffer from hayfever,

then don't eat any of these edible flowers

because it can help to bring on your allergy.

Some of the other walls for these compartments

will be created with different sorts of parsley -

Italian parsley, and then this is just the curly-leaf parsley.

If you don't have any glass facilities,

then you can buy packs of this ready to go.

I'm also going to concentrate a bit on companion planting,

so I'll put some different-coloured nasturtiums in here,

one of them being Empress of India. I'll put that at the bottom of

the apple tree to help discourage the aphids,

so we'll get a nice crop of apples as well.

Well, thank goodness the rain's gone off,

but the ground's not dry enough yet to start planting.

No, I don't think we'll be planting these at the moment.

It's far, far too wet.

As soon as I saw that you were going to do this with grasses,

I signed up because I dinnae ken whit tae dae with them!

-You just like cutting them to this height, don't you?

-This is true!

This is a trial of different species of grass.

We've got things which are doing different things in the garden.

We've got wonderful movement coming through them in there,

stuff that's wonderfully hair-like, then coloured ones.

-You've seen that one before.

-I recognise them.

-That's a wee fescue.

-And this one, that's a blue one too.

-That's a New Zealand, though.

-Will it be as hardy?

Well, there you are. That's part of the trial.

Then we come onto the moor grasses, and we've got ones with structure.

-Yes.

-Which we can use in various places with herbaceous plants,

-like other folk do.

-That looks like Yorkshire Fog.

-It's no' quite.

This is a cracker. This is a really good one.

We'll see it later on in the season.

It grows up with a wonderful statuesque form, great thing.

That's one of my absolute favourites. That grows in full shade, they say.

I've put it in the light. It might fail, but we'll see.

-All of the facts will be in the factsheet.

-Absolutely.

I can't wait to see how these perform

as I don't know how to use them.

We'll come back and see what they're like in summer,

and then we can recommend them being used in other places.

-What have we got over here? There's a forest of canes.

-Two other trials.

I'm going to trial some...it's really green manure there,

and I'm going to trial something else, which I'll come to in a minute.

The green manure, we always sow that after the crops, don't we?

If the ground's going to be bare, rather than leave

it like that, the green manure will add more organic matter to the soil.

These are going to be sown now or pretty soon,

and they'll be grown and assessed during the summer,

and it's for fibre addition and maybe nutrition.

Yes. I did a little bit of homework,

knowing that I was going to be performing beside you.

Caliente mustard is a biofumigant or something? It sterilises the soil?

That's what they claim. I've seen this used a lot

after potatoes have been grown.

Whether it kills eelworm, whether it kills weeds, or what.

-It must have been an east coast thing!

-East Lothian job again!

I've never come across that at all.

But again, it'll be interesting for us to see.

What about the rest of the plots?

The bottom ones are all for wildflower seed mixes.

Now, there's a big splurge

and interest in wildflower seed mixes this year.

And has been for a while.

But we always complain, "It doesn't do what it says on the packet!"

-So I want to see what they're like.

-Uh-huh.

And grow them maybe for two years

-to see what they're like.

-It's not a labour-saving thing, is it?

No, no. This is gardening. You can't just walk away and leave them.

You've got to look after them.

Can't wait. This is going to be a blaze of colour.

-A lot of interest this summer.

-It'll be hard work as well, I think!

Angela and Peter Davey have a beautiful garden

with magnificent views across the River Tay.

It's in the town of Wormit, which is on the north coast of Fife,

looking over to Dundee.

Already, in April, there's plenty to see in the garden.

We moved in in 1988, and the woodland area was really overgrown,

and we hacked things back.

There were lots of elder and laurel,

and we ended up finding this amazing grotto,

which we've restored to becoming a waterfall that it once was.

We had to remove the rock from the bottom area,

where we discovered it was brick-lined.

That was leaking, so we had to seal those bricks

and also the base, which was concrete, put the rocks back.

In addition, we had to get help to restore the paths,

which had all collapsed, and they had caved in.

It sounds like a big job!

A lot of heaving of stones done by lots of people.

-Now it just looks magical, it really does.

-It really is nice, isn't it?

-Been worth it. Definitely worth it.

-Yes, I think so!

Your magnolia's looking lovely.

Obviously, the spring was very early,

you had all that warm weather and then you had snow.

That's right. It did take a bit of a hit.

As you can see, there's a bit of damage there from the frost and wind,

but it just bounces back. It is lovely.

And you've got a stellato at the top of the garden.

We do, yes, that's right.

I really like magnolia because they're so early and they look

-so white and pretty.

-They're very elegant, aren't they?

I mean, you're doing really well because your garden faces north.

It's a bit of a challenge, but, surprisingly,

things seem to manage, they seem to cope.

It could be that we're close to the sea.

It might be a little milder because of that.

I've seen raised veg beds before,

but this is something else, it really is.

-Where did the idea come from?

-Well, it came in stages.

We started off with dry-stone wall, and that didn't really work -

-it just took up too much room.

-Yeah.

And then we got hold of these sets from a place in Stirling.

We had a guy helping us with the garden at the time

-who was very creative!

-They're very organic shapes.

-Yeah. He came up with the interesting shapes.

-They're great.

It can be backbreaking work with veg beds on the ground,

but this is just...being able just to reach across is bliss!

-It is.

-What do you grow, then?

We grow quite a lot of salad things.

Our daughter has a deli in Edinburgh

and particularly in the Festival she needs

lots of salad leaves, so we grow

parsley, but we grow more unusual herbs, like chervil and sorrel,

and things that are actually still quite difficult to get in the shops.

-Angela, I love your hellebores. They're gorgeous.

-Aren't they?

-Look at the colour range of them.

-Yes.

This is a really deep purple, which I think is really stunning.

-And then this one is more crimson.

-It's really red.

-It's double-petaled.

-It's really pretty.

-They flower for such a long time.

-They do.

They're really garden-worthy plants.

-How long have these been in flower for?

-At least three months.

-I kid you not.

-They are amazing.

-And still looking good.

What I like too is that you've got them higher up on the banking

so you can almost see into the flowers.

Mine are all on the ground and I quite often cut the flowers

and float them in water, upside down, so I can see them

as otherwise you just see the tops of their heads.

And if there's a little bit of wind, their heads just nod,

and you can see that really well.

And that little primrose, limey primrose one, is beautiful.

That's a lovely colour, isn't it?

And the way the petals are standing out, it's special.

Yes, I really love that one too.

Now, gardening on a slope is never easy and always has a few problems,

but I think the way you've treated it has been fantastic.

You've got a water course coming down the slopes.

We did want to have something a bit interesting going on.

It had just been grass.

We wanted to see something from the kitchen window,

so we thought of having a few ponds and a stream

and some boardwalks, just to make it

a bit different and a bit more interesting,

and then we were able to plant a lot of things around it,

-which is always fun.

-Your gunnera with the dark leaves looks super.

As that gets bigger, it's going to really shine, isn't it?

Yes, it's suddenly come on in the last few weeks.

The pretty leaf there I think is very stunning.

-Next to the phormium, they make a good contrast.

-They do, don't they?

And some of the little planting around the place, as well.

Pom pom primulas.

I'm so envious of your trillium up at the top,

as I can't get that to grow in my garden. It just won't.

But that dark-red one is really lovely.

It's doing really well, isn't it?

I think it looks pretty good next to the white-barked birch,

-which I think at the moment is looking fantastic.

-It is nice.

You've got that gorgeous bright-yellow skunk cabbage.

-I always think they look great.

-It's quite wacky.

-Yeah, they're super.

Really super. Obviously, water is great for the wildlife.

-Do you have fish in your pond?

-We used to have fish,

but unfortunately the heron seemed to peck them off.

-Ohh!

-Even though we tried to deter them by having some structural...

-Did that not work?

-No, it didn't work, I'm afraid.

We might have them again.

-You'd have to net it.

-Your sculptures look gorgeous.

-You've got several round the garden.

-Yes.

-Very elegant.

-That's right.

It makes it a little bit of added extra something, doesn't it?

I think so.

Well, here's a garden problem that most of us

get from time to time, and that's slug damage to our favourite plants.

If you don't want to kill the slugs,

then you might take the organic route,

and here we have a new product, which is made from sheep's wool.

It looks like chicken pellets, like fertiliser.

Last year, we had sheep's wool and bracken compost

for growing our plants in. Here we have sheep's wool compressed.

We lay that in a little raft around the plant, acts as a mulch,

keeps the weeds down. But, more importantly,

as the slugs travel over the surface of it,

it withdraws moisture from the base of the slug

that's in contact with the ground.

They don't like that so they beetle off.

Glyphosate is a really effective weedkiller.

It goes through the leaves of the plant down to the roots,

which is fine.

But if you've got something like this, which is a dandelion

growing through another plant, if you spray it,

you're going to lose the plant you want as well as the weed.

This is a new formulation and it's in a gel,

so that you can just put it on the leaves of the weed and nothing else.

Here's a nifty way of securing the fleece.

It's like a large suspender clip. It's a new product on the market.

You just put it in like that, a bit underneath, clip it down on top,

that secures the fleece. And then, non-destructive,

you just push it through the hole in the middle like that -

no damage to the fleece.

No, I haven't taken up rugby, it's a waspinator.

Maybe that's the name that gives it away because

it looks like a wasps' nest

and it's meant to deter wasps coming into the area.

So putting it up in the fruit cage,

I hope we are going to have wasp-free plums.

And, if we don't, well, we want our money back!

Just like when we made that trailer, some of you have started too soon!

Ready, children? Go!

-And we're planting artichokes.

-We are, a variety of artichokes.

George and myself, we've got the common artichoke, haven't we?

-Straightforward, usual knobbly job.

-Quite knobbly.

Related to the sunflower. Lesley, you've got a named variety.

We have the sophisticated ones, and these are called Fuseau.

If we compare, you can see that's quite knobbly, that's quite smooth.

-They say that's maybe easier for preparation and eating.

-Peeling.

You treat it just like a potato.

We're planting them two to three inches deep.

I'm using the bulb-planter.

I think you've used that before, Jim, which is a good idea.

You'll be expecting to top-dress them?

Yes, we'll be earthing them up as the foliage starts to grow.

-These grow to a height of...ooh.

-Three to four feet.

At least, I think, George. They're good as a windbreak.

-What about these guys?

-A different variety.

I wondered where it had gone! This is the Chinese artichoke.

I've never grown it before. Looks like a big maggot, doesn't it?

Little spirals. I think that'll be quite difficult to clean.

Not necessarily too hardy.

It's important to grow that in a compost that really

washes away easily. Not in soil where it'll adhere too much.

We're going to try a few in the poly tunnel.

And that is related to the mint family.

We'll just have to see.

Well, I think that's just about it.

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

it's all in the factsheet.

You might want to find out about George's grasses, or perhaps about

the artichokes, and the easiest way to access that factsheet is online.

Don't forget, as well, you can find out about us too

on Facebook and Twitter.

I don't expect we've got much more to say

because this weather is absolutely gobsmacking, isn't it?

Considering how we started.

But sure thing is that we'll be here next week

doing a bit more gardening, but look out for us at 7pm next week.

-Until then, bye-bye.

-ALL: Bye!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd