Episode 15 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.

We've got a bit of cloud today, a bit of relief from that sun

which has been taking it out of us over the last several days.

I'm in the fruit cage.

We haven't been here for a while and what a change there is.

So I'm here, there's fruit-picking to be done

and there's a lot of pruning to be done because to grow them

in this fashion like these redcurrants growing as a cordon,

control is the important thing, and what I want to do

is to get rid of all of this growth

that's coming out from the side like so.

Because that's putting the goodness

back into the base of the shoots where next year's fruit

will come from.

So basically it also makes picking a lot easier

if you can get at the stuff.

Not only have we wonderful redcurrants,

but believe it or not, opal, this plum, is cropping its head off.

Just look at that.

I'm going to have to spend a bit of time thinning that fruit,

but these are looking really good at the moment under this canopy here.

Gooseberries - here we have again the cordon gooseberries

and what a pleasure it is to pick them

without getting your hands jagged, because they also are pruned

the same as the redcurrants putting the good back into the plant.

It's all about control, as I say.

Now, last year at this time our cordon pears

and apples were looking really bad.

I wouldn't have given tuppence for them.

It was two minds - do we start all over again?

What a difference a year makes, as they say.

Look at the quality of growth on here now.

I think these are going to be really profitable

and productive over the coming years.

There's not a lot of fruit on, just an odd apple here and there.

Pears are not so far forward, but it's the quality of the growth

I'm really excited about,

and there's a bud there that's going to be a fruit

next year just in that little rosette.

We don't have a pest and disease programme as such in the garden

because all of the fruit here, bushes, trees, the whole lot,

are actually sprayed every fortnight with garlic.

The one flaw, and there always is one, isn't there,

is the black cherry aphid which refuses to be washed away.

Look at that, it's a real stinker.

But fortunately I'm going to be cutting the ends off these branches,

and that is going to get consigned to the bonfire

without a shadow of doubt.

There's lots for me to do here.

I'll be pruning, pruning, pruning here all day I think.

In the meantime in the rest of the programme...

Surrounded by purple flowers and purple pots,

can you guess whose garden I'm visiting this week?

And I've no idea what young Mr Beardshaw means when he says,

"treat them mean and keep them keen."

Something about planting a herbaceous border.

We'll see soon enough.

Well, then, sweet peas is the subject now for a wee while

and I'm looking at the cordon sweet peas.

Single stems growing up a cane, side shoots all removed

so that we've only got the flowers coming off the main stem.

As a result we get these long straight stems and...

Wonderful, wonderful perfume from these gorgeous flowers.

There's all sorts of ways of growing them, but this is the way

if you're going to grow them from cut flowers

and they've been cropping regularly.

Now, I've got something interesting to show you.

Sweet peas at this end have been grown on this trench

for about three, four years, and the blighters

are only about waist high. That's not good.

From here down first time sweet peas in,

the plants are about two metres high. What's the difference?

Well, you could say are we beginning to get sweet pea sickness in here?

No, I don't think so.

That looks like drought in the bottom leaves there to me,

and at the other end of course I think the soil is much deeper,

and that's why we're getting so much better quality growth.

But that's only one way of growing them.

It's now Carole's turn because she's got all sorts of things.

It's like a veritable forest.

Well, Jim is totally right about this forest of sweet peas.

I am so delighted with the results.

Here we're just letting them scramble.

This is our trials plot and Jim was talking about the soil

with the cordons.

The trial plots, we've had loads of organic matter put in it

and I think that's why they've done particularly well.

Just four varieties I'm growing,

they come from the scented Chelsea collection.

Beautiful perfume and I have to say they are one of my favourite

cut flowers.

The four varieties - we've got a white one here

called White Frills, the lavender, that's Karen Louise

and the blue one here I think is gorgeous,

it's called Blue Velvet, and finally the mahogany one

is Beaujolais.

So the structures that I'm using, as I say they are scrambling

so you don't have to take out the side shoots,

you don't have to take off the tendrils,

all you need to do is maybe a little bit of tying in.

This first structure here, this was the most expensive.

It's wire mesh and it came out at £53.

The gardeners found a little bit of tying in,

but the good news was that the sweet peas didn't actually

go through the mesh itself.

Then we move onto the plastic mesh.

and again very little tying in and they didn't go into the centre.

That one was costing £28.

This one was the cheapest, which is the pea and bean netting.

Only £8, but because those are fairly large holes

that had to have quite a bit of tying in from the inside

and the outside as well.

And then finally we had the bamboo canes just on their own,

a tepee style. That was £16 and lots of tying in with that.

So basically at the end of the day, and I remember Chris

looking at this one and thought that this would be the favourite,

well, I would say it is the best one. £28, the garden mesh.

That is a structure that you could leave there

just like the cordons.

Of course if you really have a tiny garden, well,

then think about growing them in pots. These are the dwarf varieties.

Some, I have to say, are a little bit disappointing.

Things like "Snoopea," and we've had to stake them,

but the cupid varieties are really beautiful,

and that one, mahogany, that's a favourite.

Here on the cusp of the wild meadows down on the lower slopes

and the more ornamental garden on the higher slopes,

it's a rather strange ridge of ground.

We rather grandly titled this The Entrance Garden

because it's really the entrance to the ornamental section.

However, our original plans, which were to revitalise this back

just before Easter, were scuppered given a flurry of snow.

In fact the whole ground was just white.

The ground hasn't been cultivated since,

but there are some pretty things coming through.

Well, that's it. It was dug over and we allowed it to just rest

for a while as the ground dried out and we had our attentions distracted

by other things.

What's come through is a really rather random mix of annuals

-and perennials.

-I've got some lovely things here,

some lovely poppies.

I love this purple, and just behind you

-is a gorgeous little Echium.

-Oh, yeah.

-Right behind you there.

And an ornamental geranium, as well, coming through.

These poppies are just gorgeous, aren't they?

They're well worth hanging onto, actually,

because they'll fit in really nicely with the theme.

The idea is to try and embrace the informality of the meadow

with the floral and bountiful nature of the herbaceous borders up there,

picking up the low-maintenance aspect with the really high floral reward

at that end of the garden.

So a gentle weed through,

saving some of these more interesting species

before applying organic matter and then we'll start to look

at the plants.

On a hot day like this it's nice to walk away from all the hard work

at that end of the garden, but I do have an excuse,

and that's to try and explore and interrogate how the native meadow

is so robust.

How it works, how each of the individual plants knits together.

There's a great example down here.

A little bit of open ground and then we've got prunella,

a sprawling scandent plant that's weaving its way through.

It's very mercurial, very opportunistic,

just finding a space, flourishing briefly and then moving on.

That's joined by explosive plants.

Things like the Leucanthemum, the oxeye daisy, just popping up

like little fireworks here and there. And they are then joined by

the clump-forming plants,

best characterised by this seedling of knapweed here.

And if you let it flourish, well, this is what happens.

You get a good robust colony gradually growing in size,

and then the next step on is really to go for something like this

where you end up with a huge colony.

It's got so large and geriatric it collapses,

and then you get open space in the centre,

so you're almost back to stage one.

And look, little tiny buttercups starting to squeeze in.

It's this cyclical nature of the meadow,

the robust cycle that we want to really encapsulate

and use up in this part of the garden.

Up here alongside the stream the perennials

are doing what they do best - filling the garden full of bloom.

There are some disadvantages to growing some of them

in very rich soils that you find in herbaceous borders.

The Crambe and Anthriscus here are great examples of that.

If you overfeed them

and over-water them they become a little bit too pampered.

They become a bit lax and the whole plant just collapses in a heap.

You have to stake and tie and then prune them back hard.

So what we want to try and achieve in the new Entrance Garden

is the floral bounty, but with none of this

rather lax floppy nature.

Once the site is cleared of weeds we can dig in organic matter,

and it's important that this is home-made garden compost

which is generally very low in nutrients,

as opposed to artificial fertilisers or farmyard manure,

which is very high in nutrients.

We want that low nutrient status

because we want to grow our plants hard,

but we also want the benefits of the organic matter

breaking open the soil structure and making the roots of the plants

much more efficient.

These are the clump-forming plants that we're just extracting

from the cold frames here.

They're the individuals which are very similar to the knapweed

in our native meadow.

They form really dense colonies that gradually spread and expand.

So all of these will go in the garden first and form

the framework, and there's a few more in this cold frame.

From Japan the Hemerocallis, great for slightly more damp sites.

Eupatorium and veronicastrum, which creates a wonderful colony

of fluted flowers.

Very elegant, fluffy, late summer flowerers.

And then we put the explosive plants in,

which are best represented by things like Allium sphaerocephalon,

which will seed and move around in those spaces.

And Eryngium eburneum - once this gets going

it'll produce six-to-eight-foot-high spires,

and these wonderful green flowers on that the wasps

and bees go absolutely crazy for.

And then at the opposite end we've got the ground covering.

These are the mercurial plants, the ones that really mould and flow.

Gaura "Rosyjane," Nepeta, Persicaria,

Astrantia and the most wonderful little geranium.

This one is "Rozanne"

and we're relying on these to knit the whole scheme together.

They are the glue between all of the other elements.

Once all the plants are in you really get a sense of how they're being

used and the role that each plant is performing within the overall matrix.

So for instance the clump-forming plants like Monarda here

are used in batches of threes to reinforce the idea

that it's one solid clump.

Occasionally there's a little outlier, a single plant standing

by itself showing almost a juvenile, it's subservient to the major clump.

That's one of the ways that we can make the scheme appear really

quite naturalistic.

In terms of mercurial plants, well, our geranium here as an example,

is just spilling underneath the canopy

of some of the taller specimens.

It'll move down like a little blue river coming through

the centre of the scheme. And then the explosive plants.

Well, Eryngium eburneum here is dotted throughout the bank

up towards the Spiraea.

It's as if the seeds from a parent have just been scattered in the wind

and they're germinating wherever they fall.

The idea behind this style of gardening

is it's incredibly informal.

There's no formulaic system to it.

You literally just put the plants wherever you feel is appropriate

and allow it to become very naturalistic.

We're planting very densely.

Remember, it's low fertility so the plants will be grown very hard

and mean, but because they're so close together they'll

all become very self-supporting. The idea overall?

Well, we reduce the amount of inputs the gardener places in

and increase the amount of delights we can take out.

Well, we've just seen Chris in the Herbaceous Border,

and across the path we have the Calendar Border.

And this is all about shrubs that give you interest for 12 months

of the year. This shrub is a real beauty, it gives this autumn colour.

It's Parrotia persica.

But we need to do a little bit of pruning.

It's almost forming like a natural archway along this path

which goes right through into the vegetable patch area.

All I want to do is prune away one or two of the branches.

So starting off with this one, and you go right to the main stem,

and I think I'll take this one off as well.

It's a good idea sometimes to just stand back,

have a look before you take something off

because there's no going back,

and I think I would take this one off as well.

And that makes quite a difference.

But working back this branch,

I think we need to go back to a side shoot,

so I'll take the loppers...

and I'm just going to snip it in there.

And then over on this side

we have another slight problem with the lovely white stems here

of the Betula jacquemontii.

It's just this small branch,

and it's a really good time to be pruning back at the moment.

So that clears that area, but I've one or two others

to look at further up the Calendar Border.

Now, up here we've a summer flowering shrub.

It's a Deutzia and a really good specimen,

and it's just about finished flowering, but look,

there's one or two blossoms to look at.

Beautiful pale pink.

And my decision here is what shall I do,

because it's a large specimen and it's growing into the oak tree.

I've really got two choices - do I think about pruning this back

and keeping it fairly compact? Or do I lift the canopy of the oak

and let in a bit more light?

Well, my choice would be to lift the canopy of the oak.

That means taking off one or two of these big branches,

in particular this one here.

Now, I'm not going to do it at the moment because

I really need a pruning saw and it would take me quite a while,

but if you were doing something like this at home

what I suggest first of all is you take off quite a bit of the branch,

make a cut underneath and then you cut that off.

The reason for that is then it doesn't rip too much of the bark.

Then that last bit,

then you can go in there and cut it off right to the main trunk itself.

I'm sure there's one or two other branches as you go around,

I think we need to take them out as well,

especially because there's a rose at the back there

and it's starting to look fairly leggy.

And then back on the path, well, this is a lovely plant.

I really like it.

It's a Salix lanata of the willow family, lovely soft hairy leaves,

but you can see this is encroaching on the path,

so I'm back with the secateurs and just again cut back...

Stand back.

And you know, I think this is going to take me

quite a few minutes to do.

Well, we get lots and lots of questions about how to prune

flowering shrubs and I've got two good examples right here

which show the sort of thing that you have to look for.

It's a rule that I've used for years and years.

It's a very simple rule and so it can be bent.

It's not absolutely cast iron. This is it, simply.

Here we've got Weigela "Florida Variegata."

It's flowering on old wood that was made last year,

and so the time to prune it if you're going to prune it at all

is immediately after it's finished flowering.

Now, the season is such that it's still flowering,

but you can see it's coming end of its flowering season,

and I would want to prune it now, OK?

Now this one here is one of the Spiraeas and it's very, very obvious

that the flowers that are appearing right on the end of the growth.

This flowers in the second half of the season,

like roses for example.

So that's simple, you prune it in the spring

and you can cut it down as far as you like.

It's the new growth that will produce these flowers

in the second half of the season. It can't be simpler than that.

Although there is a bit of an overlap.

Now to get to the business with this one,

and a bit of justification for it is simple.

If I take out one of the oldest branches

I will be taking out some of the flowering wood

and leaving some, but wait till you see the difference it makes.

Because it's actually quite important. If I get down in here...

Now, out it comes.

And from below that cut we'll get some new growth,

but just look at the new growth that's already apparent.

And that is the growth that will produce the flowers next year.

So you can actually overhaul your bush over time.

There's no need to allow it to get away too big for its boots.

And there's how you do it.

There's a bit of a hole there at the moment but that will soon fill in.

Keep it simple. Prune these now, prune that in the spring.

One more point - when I was over here at the Spiraea

I realised that there's something amiss with our pea tree.

This is one of these weeping Caragana arborescens.

You can see the little pods on it there.

Look at these shoots there. They're definitely not weeping.

Suckers from the base of that trunk will get in there

when there's a bit of time and space and get these out.

Another form of pruning.

It's pretty obvious where I am this week with the Forth Bridges

just behind me there.

I'm about to visit a very special gardening friend of mine,

and many of you will recognise her straight away.

It's the one and only, that lovely Lesley Watson.

Well, it's a little bit unusual

because the house is in the middle of the plot here

so we've actually got garden on all sides - north, south, east, west.

Starting on the north, which, even though it's shady,

this is one of my favourite beds.

Well, it's lovely and bright, Lesley, because you've got

so many sort of golden foliage plants, which is wonderful.

It looks as if the sun's shining.

Some of my favourites are in here because it has hellebores in the spring.

That Centaurea is just singing out, isn't it?

But you know with the golden foliage, I particularly like

the Dicentra there just behind the slate sculpture, which is quite a feature.

It is.

We both love art and we like collecting things,

so we see something we like and we think, "Well, will that fit in?

-"Yeah, we'll find a place for it."

-You'll find a space.

Lesley, you've been a presenter on Beechgrove Garden for 16 years,

and I think one of your specialisms was garden design.

So do you practise what you preach?

You know, this is actually kind of scary doing this.

I'm opening up my heart to you

because this garden is a very special place for Dougal and I.

And...yeah, I hope so,

but you know, you're going to have to be the judge of that.

Well, I feel privileged. So, let's head south.

This is completely different round the back of the house.

It's obviously really sunny and very sheltered with the hedging.

So this is where we choose to sit and eat and entertain.

It's quite a long run of the garden here.

So what we did was just to make it feel more like a room

we just put up one pergola rail and also painted it black,

because the inside of the windows in the house are all black.

It's a design feature that we're bringing through

into the garden.

That's really clever because it feels like another room,

and yet it's not a solid barrier.

-Yeah.

-I've also noticed lots of glass in the garden.

I saw some blue flowers and purple, your favourite colour.

I just love glass. I think what people maybe don't realise

is it's completely frost proof.

It's not wind proof, if it blows over it breaks,

but it's just lovely to get that colour coming through.

So the magenta of the basket there coming through

onto the tea lights and everything.

And some of the plants at the moment are looking magnificent.

-This is Ceanothus.

-This is "Concha," isn't it beautiful?

It needs a trim back once it's finished flowering.

A lot of people lost this plant in the bad winters,

but it's thrived here.

Yeah, we're a bit experimental round this side of the house

because it is sunny and quite warm.

-This is my real triumph.

-That's amazing.

This is an Echium.

And it's just loved by bees.

It came through the winter, it had a nasty skirmish with the wind

and got blown over, but Dougal put a stake in and it's...

OK, so that's the second year of flowering

and then what happens is it actually dies.

-Yes, but I'm hoping I get some little seedlings.

-I'm sure you will.

The surface here is gravel as well, so we can play petanque or boules here.

-Oh, can we have a game?

-No, you're too competitive.

Oh, well, let's head east instead.

Well, completely different flavour to this part of the garden

because everything's edible here.

Oh, this is lovely to see, Lesley, because part of Beechgrove

as well is potager gardening, pretty and productive.

Well, that's right, and I used this to try things out and if it

worked here then I'd quite often replicate them up at Beechgrove.

So, what sort of things?

The living willow arch that we've come through,

we had one up at Beechgrove.

The mint here in a pot, which I have tulips underneath.

-We created one of those.

-That's lovely.

What do you think the variety of potato is?

I expect it's Charlotte.

Yeah, it is. My onions here, I have best success with an autumn planting.

They're looking really healthy. Oh, look at this.

Purple pot, purple Clematis. That's you, Lesley, all over.

And then I've got nice little lavender hedges here

which just frame the beds.

And you know, it feels a lot warmer in this part of the garden today.

It is, it's quite sheltered.

You know, there's always somewhere you can get out of the wind,

and there's a seat here too.

That's the most important bit of equipment for a gardener.

And coming round to the last bit which is the west garden,

and of course this gets the evening sun. It's a lovely place to sit.

This is very special because this is my leaving present

from Beechgrove and it combines my love of glass and Clematis.

-And a bit of purple. It's beautiful.

-Yes.

It looks lovely when you look out from the conservatory

into the garden as well.

We do that with a lot of parts of the garden,

that's one of the ways we design.

-Check what is the view like from the window.

-That's really nice.

I mean, how many hours do you spend in the garden?

Well, we all... Dougal and I garden a lot,

and Jacqueline comes in and helps us once a week, which is invaluable.

In fact, she's just replanted this bed over here

which was nine years old and just needed a bit of a revamp.

And it's a different kind of colour

and a lot of the plants are good for the wildlife.

They are. They are very important to us

and we try not to spray. But in fact a lot of the garden

has only been planted for about seven years

because when we extended the house it had huge implications on the garden.

That's incredible because it looks so well-established.

It's an absolute inspiration, and roughly a third of an acre?

Yeah, it is, about a third.

I've really enjoyed it, Lesley. Brilliant.

Can I come and see your garden, then?

With cameras?

I was going to say you can come, but not the cameras.

Time for a snifter. Cheers.

Not quite. It's feeding time for plants and containers.

Quite important at this time of the year that you choose a feed

that has high potash.

It's all about flavour and it's all about colour if it's flowers.

Regardless of whether it's petunias in the basket or tomatoes,

peppers, cucumbers or whatever. Feeding regularly.

So a measured quantity into a measured amount of water

and give it a good stir and you're ready to...

But be warned, in this kind of weather don't feed plants

that are dry at the roots because you may very well

scorch the roots and do damage.

So be sure, even if you have to pre-water,

then get the feed on, but don't forget to do it.

Well, I just want to take the chance to have a look at this

variegated Acer again.

You might remember six weeks ago there was lots of reversion

on this. In other words, lots of green.

But I'm really pleased because I think we're winning the battle.

However, we need to keep going over it, keep taking out the green

and we'll end up with this beautiful variegated plant.

We like to recycle as much of the garden waste as possible.

We have two compost bins.

This one's still being filled for this year, this one is last year.

What we're making use of is the top space by growing a courgette.

Jim, what do you think of the gravel garden?

I think it's absolutely stunning.

One of the reasons is that I don't know how to use grasses,

I say it all the time.

-Just look at this wavy hair grass, it's absolutely gorgeous.

-It is.

I mean, I think this little island works particularly well

with the mix like the Euphorbias there.

Yeah, what are you doing about weeds?

I know, now this is something we did explain, because we didn't

put the fabric down because it's on a slope,

and also it means things can naturalise.

But I think we're going to have to treat them

with a spot of weedkiller, aren't we?

Yes. Get the paint brush out.

You can paint it on or you can spray it on.

-Paint it on there, for example.

-Yes.

-Look at this.

-Brilliant, isn't it?

We should have a stall on the market, shouldn't we?

Is that the first of the redcurrants?

That's the first of them, yes, and the last of that cherry

from indoors, but the outdoor ones are ready.

Oh, right, great, and strawberries,

I can never have enough strawberries. I love them.

-It's looking stunning.

-What about this, the mangetout?

Yeah, I shall try that later. Not sure about it.

All the information for this week's programme of course

is in the fact sheet.

Well, we'll be back in harness next week

and Chris will be with us and he's going to do a really hard look

at the new Royal Horticulture Society hardiness charts.

-Bit confusing.

-Well, yes.

-See you next time.

-Bye.

-Bye.

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