Episode 8 The Beechgrove Garden

Well, hello there and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.

We're going to have a nice crop of peaches in due time

but I'm here to talk about strawberries.

You may recall last year, we set ourselves a wee challenge:

Could we pick strawberries from the end of May

right till the programme went off air at the end of the season?

It more or less worked.

June 1st was the first picking, to be honest with you.

Well, last year we tried three different varieties.

This year we've gone for the one that did best.

In fact, Sonata picked more than the other two put together

and that told me the story we like Sonata.

It's not a bad fruit, either, so we planted these up in late February.

We had a wee hiccup to begin with

because there was a bit of crown rot in them.

Whether it was conditions or not, I don't know, but we had to do a bit of replanting.

However, they're coming away nicely and who knows?

They may well be on schedule for the end of May,

beginning of June. We shall see because, look, the fruits are there.

Encouraged by starting to feed them now

and we're using a high potash tomato feed

and that will see them cropping well into June.

But then, our outdoor crops will take over

and, incidentally, the outdoor crops

have had a wee frost attack the leaves.

It's turned them white and one or two of the early flowers

have got the black centre,

the Black-eyed Susie centre,

which means frost damage and these flowers will not produce a fruit.

But this is looking good

and we will follow it up with a second batch later in the summer,

to take us to the end of the series.

In the meantime, on the rest of the programme...

I'm in Fife, visiting two out of twelve gardens

that are open under Scotland's Gardens

and they're joining in the Jubilee celebrations.

And I'm in a rather soggy Garden for Life.

After last week's big prune, we've now got a huge replanting job.

Well, it makes a change for me to be allowed in the fruit cage.

No fruit at the moment, but lots of blossom.

The cherries are looking great

and then we've got apples and pears and again,

there's quite a bit of bloom there,

so hopefully we're going to have a really good crop.

The other thing about the trees at the moment

is they're looking lovely and healthy, no sign of aphids

and this is something you really have to look out for

at this time of year.

At the moment, we've got a spray program going on.

About every week to 10 days, we are spraying with garlic.

So, a new addition to the fruit cage. What am I putting in?

Well, I'm putting in a fig.

And it's a new variety. It's called Violetta and it comes from Bavaria.

It's meant to be hardy down to -20.

So surely it's going to do OK here.

Leslie has this variety in her garden.

She put it in last year and she tells me it came through the winter.

So, hopefully, it will succeed.

Now, a fig has to be constrained.

In other words, we have to build this sort of pit with shuttering.

We've used paving slabs

but again you could use wooden shuttering if you like,

but it needs to be open at the base

because the fig puts on a tap root.

First of all, lots of old crocks in the bottom

and then I'm going to put a layer of gravel in.

And that just gives a chance for the tap root to go down.

So we'll just level that off.

And then as for the compost,

obviously this is a permanent plant,

so we need to give it plenty of goodness,

so we've got some of our own well-rotted garden compost,

roughly about a quarter, and then a soil-based John Innes number 3

with some bone meal and that's a slow-release fertiliser.

It's high in phosphates

and that's quite important for root development.

Now, I haven't explained why this plant has to be restrained,

it's because a fig is very vigorous and by constraining it,

what we will do is encourage the flowers and the fruits

at the expense of the foliage and that's really important.

Think about it when you go to a garden centre and you buy,

for example, a shrub in a small container

and it's already flowering for you

and then you put it into the garden and it tends to put on leaf growth.

So, quite a bit of filling up to do here.

I also notice on the plant itself that we have got one small fig.

Hopefully it'll do well for us.

This week I'm back in our Garden for Life.

It's 16 years old,

so it had got a little bit overgrown and neglected.

What we did last week

was really seriously prune a lot of the framework trees and shrubs

and we also did a lot of spring-cleaning jobs,

so the moss was removed from the paving

and the slabs were all cleaned.

This lovely swing seat in the corner here

has responded so well to the furniture cleaner we put on it.

It's going to be a gorgeous place to sit in the sun.

This conifer was completely overgrown and encroaching on the beds.

It's been trimmed back, exposed a whole new border here

which has been planted up and then mulched with bark

to reduce the amount of weeding.

This week we're going to concentrate on the replanting of this garden

and we're going to be using the most suitable plants which are good

sources of food for wildlife.

We're going to have a look at that real vital element, the pond.

But let's just have a look at one of the real surprises.

This is the discovery of this patio.

The hurdle here had completely rotted,

bringing down with it all the climbers,

completely covering this.

So we've replaced the nice barrier here with some trellis,

so it's going to be a nice secure place to sit

on this seat on a sunny day

and watch wildlife.

One of the joys of a more mature garden

is you get some really nice tapestry and mingling of plants.

We've got a lovely pattern here with the ajuga

and the chrysanthemum all working nicely together.

But there has had to be a lot of planting

and the New Hopetoun Garden teams have done a lot of that

but they've still left some for me to do.

Well, here under the shade of the amelanchier,

I'm putting a collection of plants

which bees particularly enjoy feeding from.

This first one is digitalis,

or foxglove, and when it flowers in the summer,

the flowers have little tramlines

that the bees follow to go up into the plant.

Bees are incredibly important to us

because they are such good pollinators

and they do that for our crops and fruit.

For summer-flowering interest I've got a lupin here.

This is one with a gallery mix, it's a pink one.

And then a larger shrub here at the back is Helleborus foetidus.

That actually flowers over the winter.

This is quite significant.

We've got to make sure we have a spread of interest across seasons.

It's no good having feast and famine.

It is incredibly wet at the moment,

so I'm actually going to delay planting this little corner.

Well, as a brief respite against the weather,

we've come inside to fill the containers

that we're going to put back in the Garden for Life.

These have been in the garden for 16 years, so they're nicely weathered.

They're stone and on the front here,

there's lots of quite nice-looking moss.

Then, it's the usual thing,

we've got a drainage hole in the bottom,

which we want to keep clear, so we put a crock on the bottom.

The compost I'm using is peat-free, multipurpose,

which I have used for years and had very good results with.

Then, some of the things I'm going to put in the containers, these are permanent plants.

Rosemary officinalis.

Over the years, we've planted this in the Garden for Life because it is so good.

Bees love the blue flowers on this

but we have lost it time and time in the winters here.

So I'm going to pop it into a container and, of course,

the advantage of that is when it gets cold,

over the winter, we can move it into a cool greenhouse.

It's interesting how many of our culinary herbs,

when they flower, are good for wildlife. In another container

I'm going to put chives and hyssop.

Another character that we have systematically lost over the winters,

is Choisya ternata or the Mexican orange blossom.

It has white flowers, that orange, citrusy perfume

and, again, bees love it.

I'm going to surround it, this is a little campanula, it's portenschlagiana.

It's quite a thug,

so I'm going to let it tumble over the side of the container,

but it'll slightly restrict its activity.

Just on the other side of the trellis,

we've got a nice sunny area

and this is where we're going to put a lot of butterfly plants.

Butterflies need to bathe in the sunshine

and warm up before they feed.

We've got a real old-known favourite

and that is the buddleia, known as the butterfly bush.

This is Pink Delight.

Next to that is sambucus, this is Black Beauty.

I may look as if I've got these really spaced out

but they are going to get huge and occupy this space.

Of course, the sambucus is very good

because it has berries in the autumn and birds are going to feed on that.

Going back to the butterfly plants,

Verbena bonariensis

has great big arching stems with purple flowers on.

It's a very airy plant, so it'll fill up this space

and then sedum, Autumn Joy.

You see butterflies resting and relaxing on these

as they just drink the nectar.

If there was one change you're going to make to your garden

to help it increase the amount of wildlife you have there,

then it would be the inclusion of a pond. It's a vital habitat.

The pond here was incredibly overgrown.

Ten years' growth of matted aquatics,

which was a terrific job to get rid of.

We have also got our fountain working again.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

There are a couple of significant things to do

to make sure that your pond is good for wildlife and one of them

is have a gently sloping side, so that things

can get in and out easily.

Also, this rock is useful for birds to perch on and preen.

We've got some pretty plants round the edge here. This is a caltha.

Make sure you plant single varieties of plants

because then all the pollen and nectar is available for the wildlife.

I want to slightly increase the number of plants we've got here because we have lost some.

When you plant a pond, you're doing it in a special aquatic basket.

No need for hessian any more,

the roots can get oxygen through the sides here.

Special compost as well and then top-dressed in gravel.

In this basket, I have popped in some water mint,

Scrophularia aquatica and a lychnis.

And finally, one more tip

about encouraging more wildlife into your garden.

Just relax about pests.

Remember they're somebody else's lunch,

so no spraying.

Aphids will be eaten by ladybirds

and frogs will guzzle the slugs.

And, also, make sure you plant single varieties of suitable plants

and you will be absolutely inundated with wildlife.

And the names of all the plants are going to be on the fact sheet.

I'm returning now to the saga of trying to find a decent compost.

A month ago, we planted up some calibrachoa from little plugs

and some brachycome which is the 'Swan River Daisy', on the same day.

Five different composts,

to see if we can find one that is reliable amongst them all.

And lo and behold, the news is really positive

because you can hardly tell the difference.

Just look at the growth. So far, not a mark on them right the way through.

I reckon that's progress. It means that these guys

are beginning to get the job right, thank heavens!

Now the next stage, through in the Robinson greenhouse.

We might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

as far as these composts are concerned

but the next nightmarey scenario, to me, are grow bags.

Nearly every firm in the land has grow bags

and they're all different sizes and shapes.

Just look at the two we've picked out.

One of the biggest and one of the smallest. How do you compare them?

For long it's been recognised that grow-bag compost

is probably the cheapest and I've known many an allotmenteer

who buys his compost as grow bags and then tips it out

into all manner of different containers

for actually growing the plants.

In a sense, that's what we've done. We've got eight different composts

set out to have a look at value-for-money

and the growing qualities of these bags.

We'll be using one tomato variety, it's Shirley,

one of my favourites, and getting ready to plant into the pots now.

They've been sitting here for a while, warming up,

which is one of the tips that I would pass on to you.

Never put things into cold compost.

We've got bags of varying sizes,

so how do you compare like with like?

The fact of the matter is,

each one of these pots takes about seven and a half litres

and the way we've worked it out is they've got a range of prices

that run from 5 pence halfpenny a litre to 10 pence halfpenny a litre.

So that will all come out in the wash at the end of the day,

when we see how they perform because, let's face it,

the 5 1/2p might be just as effective as the 10 1/2p.

Nice plants, in good nick, nice white roots

and I don't worry much about using a trowel.

Fingers were invented long before that.

Here we go, press them in nicely.

This is going to look real good.

We're in the trials area, having a look at the bed here

which is full of dwarf tulips and narcissi.

When we planted them, Lesley, that end should be the first flowering

and this is the later flowering

and we've still got 'Fire of Love' in flower.

-I think Lady Jane is so pretty in pink and white.

-It's lovely.

It's a shame that the sun isn't shining because when that opens up,

it's a gorgeous shape.

But anyway the narcissus are giving us lots of flower cover.

Looking at floweringness, I mean, this is nearly finished

and these are still full of flowers. 'Katie Heath' is gorgeous.

Value for money because it's multi-headed,

and I think that's almost got a slight tinge of orange to it.

Lovely. And this is a new one. This is 'Golden Echo'

and the yellow there is just bleeding out into the petals.

-Lovely.

-Pretty.

The one I particularly like at the moment is 'Silver Chimes'.

Very delicate, multi-headed and lovely perfume.

It's a very attractive narcissus.

The last one here, this is 'Toto',

it's the white version of 'Tete-a-tete', which always performs well.

And you know, they've been flowering since, what was it,

the end of January, and now we're into May.

So pretty good, aren't they?

We also did the layering with varieties, two layers,

and they flowered for a long time.

I would just put them into a shady spot,

let the foliage die down and then you can just bring them out again.

They will come back next year.

Now in this next bed, we're going to have a look at what happened.

We saved seed last year. I'm going to look at some of the results.

I was looking at the fleshy seeds,

so I had things like the rowans, this is Viburnum opulus,

or the Guelder Rose, so here's a great success story.

They've germinated, we've got the rosehip there.

Whereas you looked at different types of seed.

I've saved seeds and what I want to do now is grow these on.

This is a purple podded pea.

I want to see if the saved seed gives me a purple pod.

I've saved some sunflowers. This is Little Dorrit that we grew in the beds last year.

-Little Dorrit means that it should be quite small.

-It should be.

We started them off in March, we've rowed them out now

and we're going to have a look and see if they are all...

I think we might get big Dorrits!

You're going to sow Little Dorrit as well

-and we'll be able to compare them.

-Put a row of that in as a control.

Lupins, again, we don't know what colour we're going to get from that.

That's quite nice. We might get lots of different colours.

And I saved some poppies and you get so many seeds from a poppy head.

It's like a little pepper pot when they come out of here.

And I've saved a red-fringed one,

I don't think it will be red-fringed but we'll see.

And we've also got cornflour and some poached egg plant.

Poached egg plant, I'm pretty sure that will come true.

-It's a really good value way of filling the bed.

-Absolutely.

We've got pansies to look at and they're looking really colourful at the moment.

Lesley, we do have a little bit more flower colour here with the pansies.

They are looking a bit sorry for themselves, a bit scruffy still.

We need to go through what happened because they were fairly small when they were put in,

then the frost lifted them and the rain has hammered them a bit.

They've got such pretty little faces, haven't they?

But the gardeners have kept a meticulous record here.

I think it's quite interesting because the one in the bed

that's come out top is 'Panola Yellow', which is over there,

and that started flowering on the 31st January

and it's still in flower now.

I like the one next to it, 'Matrix Morpheus'.

-It's got little whiskers. It looks like a cat.

-Lovely.

And I quite like this mix here, 'Matrix Blue Frost',

and that came out second. It's been flowering for quite a long time.

But what is absolutely stunning are the ones in baskets.

These are the star of the show.

We looked at 'Plentiful Yellow' before and it was looking good,

and now we've got 'Lavender Blue' and I think that is really gorgeous.

I don't normally like a mix but the mixed one,

there's a little sparkle of yellow.

I think they're gorgeous.

If you keep dead-heading them, you should have flower for a long time.

In the next couple of weeks,

we've got to be taking away the winter baskets

and putting in the summer ones

but I think we should find a spot for them in the garden.

I recommend people have two lots of baskets so we can put those somewhere else and bring the summer ones out.

They're too good to get rid of.

I'm in the Royal Burgh of St Andrews

and as part of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations

we have the Fife Diamond Garden Festival.

There's 12 gardens open to the public

and they're going to be open over a weekend.

I'm going to take a sneaky preview of two of those

and the first one is right in the centre of the town,

belonging to June Baxter.

So when you first came here, what was your first impression?

I think of the garden, because my husband said,

"There's a marvellous house coming on the market, you have to see it."

I came up the stairs and said, "Oh, but it's got a garden."

Because you've no idea that there's a garden.

-So you don't remember the house?

-Not at all!

It's one of the only long gardens that remains, is that right?

The only one that goes right down to the bottom. Originally they all did and that was the farm at the bottom

and all the animals and lots of little houses where people lived.

-And you have designed this, basically, from scratch?

-Absolutely.

Because it's long and narrow, we tried to make separate rooms.

It is amazing. I can't see the whole of the garden from here,

so I think we should go for a bit of a wander.

I would be delighted to and that exercises the dogs as well!

This is the orchard.

With a wildflower meadow which we planted with wildflowers.

It sometimes works. It's always got something in it.

It had daffodils earlier on and now the bluebells are out.

And not only do you have the blue of the bluebells but you have some pink ones and white ones coming in.

And pears, are they quite productive?

Inedible, except for this big tree here, which is rather out of scale

but it does produce marvellous pears, so that's worth it.

Wow, this is beautiful, this part of the garden.

Where did you get your inspiration for this?

I think I always loved shrub roses. I had a shrub rose border in my old garden,

so I thought this would make a marvellous shrub rose garden.

We planted the roses and then it all sort of tied up with the dookit

which is 18th century and is now a garden room.

It's a stunning building. And you've got somebody busy working here at the moment.

This is Alan Reekie,

who's helped me in my garden since I started in 1990.

-Hi, Alan.

-As you can see, it all looks immaculate.

-So you've been here for over 20 years?

-Yes, yes.

So it's a lot of work for you, I'm sure.

You get used to certain routines when you're doing things like this.

And a lot of preparation, presumably, for the open days?

It's amazing how it concentrates the mind,

opening the garden to the public.

Well, I hope you get lots of visitors

and I hope the days go well for you.

I'm off now to the next garden, off to see my pal, Willie Duncan.

Willie, it's lovely to have a seat in the garden, isn't it?

It's most comforting.

I have them in various places so you can get out of the wind.

The wind here is right off the sea.

This is the original part of the garden?

This is the little pentacle, aye, that's right.

The blackcurrants down either side of the path,

and the vegetables on either side.

What you've created now is a lot of colour.

Presumably you've done this on purpose with the tulips for the two open days?

-Oh, aye, we did that.

-And the variety?

-It's 'Purple Splendour'.

It's lovely, isn't it, the lily-shaped one?

-Yes, it's a lovely lily head.

-And how many have you planted in the garden?

Overall, there's 1,000 planted.

And a lot of interest here, evergreen interest too.

That's the winter. You're looking out your windows in the winter,

you want to see something green,

and that 'Baggesen's Gold' just allowed it to ramp.

-And likewise, the Berberis darwinii.

-Some flower!

-I know.

I think it's lovely to hear water in the garden, very therapeutic.

It is, it's a lovely sound. That one's man-made.

The only thing is, Carole, if you're drinking a gin and tonic

and it's a wee bit cold, it tends to make your waterworks go!

Now what about the erica here because that's some size.

It is, it's really quite large that.

That's Arborea alpina, the common name was the Briar,

because the old men that smoked the pipes,

their pipes were made from the roots of that plant.

Now I didn't know that. Every day's a school day with you, Willie,

because you always know something about the plants.

It's lovely, Willie, to see the leaves coming on the trees.

-And that acer is looking beautiful.

-That's a variety called 'Osakazuki',

and it's absolutely pillar-box red in the autumn.

Now that needs a bit of shelter.

And people maybe don't realise that just beyond this,

-not far away, is the sea.

-That's right.

-So you get problems with the wind and the salt spray.

-That's right.

Now this is the surprise part of the garden, isn't it?

Aye, it's the old quarry.

What you're looking at here is a panorama of the planting.

It's absolutely beautiful.

I think we've straightaway we've got to mention the azalea here

-because you get that perfume, don't you?

-Oh, it's a super thing.

-And what about any other plants that you'd pick out?

-Well, the Youngiis, the weeping birch there.

And there's two other birches there that are notorious.

-This is the one from Ontario.

-It's stunning.

I think the bark on the betulas are beautiful, even in the wintertime.

Absolutely.

But the golden form of the Metasequoia is worth a look, Carole.

Oh, that loves moisture, doesn't it?

It's super in moisture. Aye.

Absolutely beautiful.

And, in fact, if you'd like to see these plants in Willie's garden

or in June's garden, well, they're both open on the 19th

and 20th May but the festival actually starts on the 18th.

Well, I do admit I've been bragging about our over-wintered brassicas.

Sown last August, planted in September,

we started cropping them in the spring, early in the spring.

The cabbage and broccoli's good. We're taking the second head still.

But this crop of cauliflower, which is the variety 'Mystique',

is going to remain a mystique. But here we are, 8, 9 months later

and they're showing no signs of heading up.

They were meant to be winter-spring residents

because the summer residents are due to come in here very soon. So this lot are out, I'm fed up with them.

Back in the Garden for Life, if you want to include water

but you're a little bit worried about the safety of having a huge amount of open pond,

then this is a really safe way of still having water in the garden.

It's a bubbling cobble, balanced on a grid here and then,

obviously, there's a reservoir of water underneath, all covered over with stones.

And this is where we found most of our frogs.

Carrying on the pond theme and planting,

we've already seen Lesley planting marginals.

Well, I'm going to put some oxygenators into the pond.

They're going to help to keep the water crystal clear.

Very often you buy them as bunches and you see people

just throwing them into the pond.

Well, you can do that but I think it's a much better idea

to put them into the basket.

That way it contains them because they can be a little bit invasive.

Lesley, what a transformation with the Garden for Life.

It's just fantastic. Lots of work but it really has made a difference.

It certainly has because up until now, as the thing has matured,

you had to go into it to see things around.

Completely changed. You can see it from the path now. That's the way things are in gardening.

-A lot more space.

-Twice the size, I think!

-Absolutely.

Speaking about things looking good, well, things that have survived,

what do you make of those sarracenias?

-I'm absolutely underwhelmed.

-George and myself planted them.

I didn't think they were going to be hardy enough.

-They're a bit strange-looking.

-What are they for?

Well, you've proved they come through, can we get rid of them now?

No, you've got to see what happens! And, in fact, in two weeks' time,

I can't believe that it's Gardening Scotland,

and next week I'm going to give you a little preview of an exhibitor

that is going to Gardening Scotland for the first time.

He grows carnivorous plants. It's called Pretty Ugly Plants.

That just about sums it up for me.

But thinking about Gardening Scotland,

1st June for three days at the Royal Highland Centre. Can't wait.

New plants, new people, new things to look at and buy.

-Exciting!

-We'll see you there.

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

or about Gardening Scotland, it's all in the fact sheet.

The easiest way of accessing that is online

and we're also on Facebook and Twitter.

-Wow(!)

-Haha!

-Until next week, goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

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