Episode 5 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello, and welcome to the Beechgrove on a beautiful, sunny day.

Thank goodness we have some weather to be able to get on with the work!

Here we are, scarifying our main lawn,

and most people have to do it with the old rake,

the wire rake, like this.

It would certainly be good for my waistline,

but much better when you've got a little scarifier like that when you've so much to do.

Then luckily, instead of having to collect it with a rake, we've got a rotary

and set at the right level, it does the work for us.

And just look at that.

Lovely stuff.

That's choking the new grass. I like to get that out of the way to begin with at this time of the year,

a light scarifying, followed by feeding with a granular fertiliser.

Here it is, all ready to go.

Only fertiliser at this time. I'm not interested in weed control. I'll wait till the weather warms up.

So that goes on and, a few days later, we're ready to cut the lawn.

And for goodness sake, don't scalp it!

If you do, you get the east winds, it turns yellow and it takes weeks before it's looking decent again.

This stuff, by the way, absolutely super for the compost heap.

Now then, in the rest of the programme...

Despite the inclement weather,

I'll have my designer's hat on,

helping a couple start to transform their raw garden ideas into reality.

And I'm in a maze.

If you want to find out if I've got oot, keep watching.

These are our first year flowering perennials and they did really well last year.

We thought, "Leave them in in the winter

"and see if they come through the winter."

That Achillea has come through the winter incredibly well and it's almost trying to get out the bed!

Gaillardia, you might think they're just sticks, but a closer look...

-There's one or two shoots there.

-You need to have a bit of patience.

-Into May and that's what's happening.

-Lychnis looks lovely.

-Superb.

-We'll keep that.

-The poppy, a little bit sporadic.

-Yes.

That possibly is something which you would grow one year only and throw it out afterwards.

Prunella, I think again is a really good plant

-and we could maybe use that in our gravel garden project.

-Yeah.

Now, I said about this one, the Delosperma...

-You were right.

-It's a succulent-looking plant and it hasn't come through the winter.

-That was the cheapest one. That was only a penny a plant.

-You've got 12 wonderful spiders there.

-But you can grow it again and treat it as an annual.

-One-year crop, yes.

-I'm holding this list here.

-Right.

This is all about the Royal Horticultural Society and the Award of Garden Merit

-because they've revised their list.

-Yes.

So, with your RHS hat on, what does the Award of Garden Merit mean?

The Award of Garden Merit... Those that have been awarded the Award of Garden Merit are a group of plants

which have been trialled at Wisley

and over a number of years have consistently been seen to be disease-resistant, good performers.

They're also readily available, have good flavour or are extremely good at flowering if they're trees or shrubs.

-It's ornamental as well as fruit and vegetables?

-The whole range.

It's to give gardeners the idea of which one they might wish to try.

-So we thought we would try some of the vegetables.

-Yes.

We want to look at some with the Award of Garden Merit.

-You're holding a catalogue. I think this is interesting too.

-Yeah.

In the catalogue, it has the little Award symbol, the cup,

which shows that it's got the Award of Garden Merit.

This isn't a variety. This is a cultivar that's got the Award of Garden Merit. Where is the symbol?

It's not there. That's something which needs to be followed through.

You've got the Award of Garden Merit and I've got a very similar cultivar, a green-seeded broad bean,

but it doesn't have an AGM, and we want to compare them, we want to do a little bit of a trial here.

It's just a comparative trial, one variety against the next, not a competition.

-No. Do I look disappointed?

-Yes...

-You'll try this at your allotment?

-Yes, I'll try this in Edinburgh.

We'll sow the same crops down in Edinburgh and we'll see how they work down there.

-It's not just peas and beans.

-No, we've got some salad crops as well.

We'll report back over the series

and find out if you should go for an Award of Garden Merit.

See whether it does what it says on the packet.

For my garden visit this week, I've come to the Rosneath Peninsula in the west of Scotland.

That is the Gare Loch.

Across there is Helensburgh, Rhu, Faslane up there behind the trees.

I've come to visit the garden of Ian and Susan McKellar

and the weather is set to be lousy.

-How long ago is it since you came here?

-We came here in 1970.

The place was just a burnt-out shell. The garden was actually a barley stubble field.

-Really?

-I know, I know.

Tell me, did you actually come looking for a walled garden because it's a bit special?

-Some of us dream of a walled garden.

-Uh-huh.

I had seen this... When we were looking in the peninsula for a house,

there were very few that really caught our fancy.

But I was always intrigued looking up the road at this one.

When you came here, did you realise that there would be limitations?

For example, we're on a peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, so you can grow anything.

What are the limitations weather-wise?

Well, people always think that the walled garden is a sheltered situation,

but curiously enough, it ain't. Not here, anyway.

We get the wind billowing over from the south-west and it flattens everything I'm growing.

Also I found, being an obsessive about levels and things, this garden is not actually level

and I had to actually create it as level by the plants.

Does that come from your original calling because you're an architect?

I think there's a lot... You've hit the nail on the head there. It's exactly that.

So we've got an optical illusion here because it looks dead flat.

-It does look dead flat and that means, I suppose, that I succeeded in what I intended.

-Let's continue.

-OK.

So where does the inspiration come from, Ian?

It's from all over the place.

The garden is totally eclectic

and I freely admit to cribbing from all these gardens.

But that's how we learn. Tell me a bit about this here.

That's a crib. As well as being an architect, I was a teacher.

It was one of the exercises I set the children to do compass work,

so it was actually a maze on paper.

-Would this be a crib?

-Yes, another one.

-This came from the idea that a city has towers.

-Oh, right.

-You try and cut it though. Look at the height of it!

-Wow!

-Which way?

-I think we'll go down this way.

-OK.

You know, on a day like this, when the light is just so awful, this comes alive, it's fantastic.

So let's start talking about plants.

Are they just your own favourites?

This arose through cuttings from my mother-in-law's garden.

-This boxwood?

-She had a wee, dark hedge in her woodland area.

I took about 800 cuttings and they turned out gold...

-I'm so glad.

-Well, I was forced into it.

-It is really stunning.

-Yeah.

The fastigiate Irish yew there, they've got some stature,

but I've only just noticed they're in sort of glorified pots.

Yeah, indeed, they had to be in these bins because the earth is extremely shallow.

-There's a shelf of rock.

-Yeah.

They have to be grown in the bins. We've only got eight inches of soil in some places.

You're extremely good at disguising them.

I do like these bay laurels, the Portuguese laurel rather, as trees.

They are very nice. You mention the word "bay". I was introduced to this up at Crathes by a lady.

I've actually got the lusitanica and the myrtifolias which are there

and the azorica behind us.

-And some colour.

-A bit of colour.

As people would say.

One of the few "flooers" that are out just now. There are more, but it's a bit early yet.

-So we've got snake-bark fritillaries and a little bit...

-Chionodoxa.

-And a tulip or two.

-Great.

-Good stuff.

Oh, glory be!

Another wonderful vista!

What can you tell me about this particular line?

Well, the hornbeams were put in about 15 years ago

-and the jacquemontii, the birches, were cloned at the same time.

-Yes.

I've never seen that feature before.

These are absolutely stunning.

-That's very kind of you.

-And so regimented.

-What's the story about these two?

-The thistly dumplings were the first two plants that went into the garden.

-The rest of them are cuttings from here.

-From that? All cuttings from these box?

-Wee cuttings.

-These are the silver boxes.

-Yes.

What a sense of satisfaction you must get from that!

When I look round, the amount of work there is...

How many gardeners to the square yard do you employ?

Well, you're looking at them. It's the one only.

Yeah, small, but extremely powerful.

I think you have to be. I mean, the precision of this place, the amount of pruning...

-When do you start pruning?

-We start pruning at the end of May and it's finished by the end of August.

-It's so immaculate, it's wonderful.

-Don't look too closely!

-Thank you so much.

-A great pleasure.

-I've thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the weather.

-Thank you.

We often talk about ground cover plants, but what do we really mean?

Well, let's take this heather garden which was planted in 1997,

five plants to the square metre, plants in four-inch pots or thereabouts at that time.

We got ground cover within about three years and there's hardly been a week's work done since.

All it needs is a bit of clipping at the right time and some fertiliser.

That's ground cover as it also blankets out the weeds.

Lots of things are described as ground cover.

We'll try out some woody plants and some herbaceous plants just to see how well they do the job.

-Have I put them in the right place?

-Any place will do.

-In the middle.

-As long as they're in the middle. Let's explain ourselves.

We've picked six shrubby things and four herbaceous, given them a square metre each.

Yes, you were explaining about the heathers as good ground cover.

Your selection?

-At random almost.

-Hmm.

In fact, what we want to see is how quickly they would cover that space.

-That's a square metre.

-If they do.

And for how many months of the year would they suppress the weeds.

You know, ground cover roses, to me, they are so annoying

because they're prickly and, in winter, they're not going to suppress the weeds.

So we'll go through them - Cotoneaster, thyme,

Vinca,

Persicaria vacciniifolium...

-Lovely Hebe Pagei, one of my favourites.

-Yeah.

-Another thyme, then another...

-Dammeri at the end.

The names will be in the factsheet.

On the other side, we've got four herbaceous - Lamium, Bergenia,

a Phlox, and at the far end, probably the one that will win, Geranium macrorrhizum.

-I've got that at home in a shady place and it really spreads. Great if you've got a big garden.

-Exactly.

We'll keep an eye on them and we'll come back to this in due time and see what progress they're making.

-Would you take the secateurs to that Vinca, just so it spreads out a bit?

-I thought you might say that.

The other thing that's interesting is that it does give us a wee indication

-because we get lots of questions about how far apart should I plant this, that or the next thing.

-Yes.

An indication is how tall does it grow and you give it space, but if you're costing a wee border,

you want to know how far apart your plants need to be, how many border plants you'll need.

-I think it will be fascinating.

-It's not a trial, just an observation.

If we had your list, it would be different from mine.

-George's list would be different from yours.

-And Chris's.

-Chris's would be different from...

That's the way of the world.

One of the greatest ambitions that most gardeners have is to start a garden from a blank canvas.

And rather curiously, one of the biggest challenges a gardener faces is to start from a blank canvas.

That's what you get in a new housing estate - at best, flat grass, at worst, builders' rubble.

'This week, I'm at George and Ann Taylor's house in Dundee.

'They've spent three years here and have done a huge amount,

'putting the foundations of a great garden together.'

What was here when you first opened those doors and walked out?

Basically, a ploughed field with a sprinkling of topsoil and building materials all over the place.

-When you say a sprinkling, how much?

-About that, if you're lucky.

How did you decide to move forward? What process did you go through?

In the first year, we sat in the garden on our paint pots, checking where the sun comes up.

We'd get up in the morning, "Where's the sun just now?" Dinner time after work, "Where's the sun now?"

Just to see, "Would it be a nice place to put something here? Will it be a seating area or all grass?"

That's the right thing to do, to take your time, to get to know the garden.

What sort of garden do you want?

Lots of grass and some place to sit. Some place to work in and some place to relax and enjoy it.

At the moment, your shapes are quite formal, straight lines.

Is that intentional? Are you quite geometric, ordered, formal people

-or do you like a more fluid, amorphous feel?

-A combination of both.

We were determined by the lie of the land,

so we cut it in half and we thought, "It matches the shape of the house, it's quite formal, straight lines."

-We need to soften it up now.

-What strikes me is there has to be a link

between what's going on inside and what's going on outside.

-Can we use some of these stakes and put some ideas in the ground?

-Sure.

We need to try and work out the centre there.

That gives us the first focal point.

This will be the object that tempts you outside or gives you that visual treat when you're inside.

The steps are a good idea, but we need to stand down here and think, "Where are the steps leading?"

INAUDIBLE

So what we've got now is a straight line running through the garden. That's our second visual axis.

Back a bit. Back...

Stop.

It's always a shame to throw away good quality turf,

so find an area in the garden like behind your shed here

and just inverse it, so lay it down, stack it a bit like you're building a dry-stone wall.

And try and hide as much of the turf as possible.

And then, within a season or so, it's all rotted down, any weed seeds have also rotted away,

and what's left is a wonderful pile of friable soil,

perfect for potential vegetable gardens down here. Never throw it away.

We'll just position it, then stand down there and make sure your geometry is...absolutely right.

-OK.

-Make sure it all clicks and is right.

-I'll get the ruler out.

-No, don't get your ruler out. That's too serious. We'll do it by eye.

-OK.

So, whenever you're planting a large tree like this,

it's important to dig a hole that's big enough.

Don't try and squeeze the tree into the smallest possible hole.

As a general rule, one and a half times the width of the pot, one and a half times the depth of the pot.

You can see all this moss on the top and sometimes a bit of weed growth.

I don't worry about that when I'm buying trees because it shows it's been in the pot at least a year,

which means it will be well rooted.

The other test you might want to do when you're buying them

is just be a bit cheeky...

Knock it out the pot

and just make sure that you haven't got masses of really woody roots round here.

This is all nice and sweet and fibrous.

You can see the fresh roots here, so it's good and healthy and ready to be planted.

With a root-balled tree like this where this is really dense...

This is the piece you've paid for, so it's valuable, you want to protect it.

You would never get a stake and drive it through the root ball because it will destroy your roots.

Always stake with two stakes when you've got a good-sized pot or root ball like that.

'The majestic trees positioned at the top of the garden are intended

'to create a natural arbour over the seat.

'It's Prunus Kanzan, an old variety,

'but well worth a place in anyone's large garden.

'To frame the seating area, we've chosen Buxus sempervirens,

'an evergreen, reliable British native, perfect for clipping and shaping.'

Behind the new seating area here, it's important to clothe this rather expansive wall,

so go for something which is pretty robust and vigorous.

This one is so vigorous, it doesn't want to come out of the pot!

This is Clematis Jackmanii Superba

which is known for not only its enthusiastic growth,

but also really great, hybrid, blue flowers,

a sort of indigo blue, from late spring in a good year

right through the summer months well into autumn.

The other two plants that we've chosen are both climbing roses.

It should only take a season or so and this will be festooned

with the flowers of pink Compassion down here, Paul's Scarlet at this end

and Jackmanii Superba in the middle.

One thing you'll notice immediately is the effect that this stagger has

and we've taken away that rather sort of slavish border

which follows the wall here.

And by coming out into the garden,

it's given you the opportunity to plant large shrubs and herbaceous on both sides.

They're blocking out the view from all those houses over there.

The wall is providing you protection from the houses looking from behind.

Then put large shrubs on that side and that area of the garden is also protected,

but it's a brave thing to cut into the garden like that and take away some beloved turf.

I never thought I'd let anyone touch my lawn.

-Less mowing, more gardening.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-It's been a great day.

We're supposed to be talking chrysanths and sweet peas, but first, I think this is a lost cause.

-These gladioli are...

-Soggy bottom?

-Deid.

-Deid.

-Yes, I'm afraid so.

Well, not all. Not all of them. There is one there struggling.

But not being one of my favourite plants, I'm not all that fussed.

-Would you have planted these out and let them take their chance?

-Yes.

-Nice wee batch of brassicas coming on, but let's get to the chrysanthemums.

-Right.

Have you ever thought that aphids have a sense of taste?

They always go for my favourite plants, so they may have some taste.

I wonder if they would prefer one kind of chrysanthemum to another because this one here is lousy?

-Look at that.

-The top of the plant, there you go, can you see them all?

It just shows you the season's going, isn't it?

What gives the show away is if you're looking at your plants carefully,

down at the bottom there, you can see the white dust that looks like cast skins.

One of the best ways of controlling this, of course,

-is to take the top off...

-Problem solved.

..which is the point we're really here to do.

And I've got another one and I've brought this one because, if you take the top bud out,

the apical dominance has gone and just look at these lovely shoots

that are waiting to come away, all the way down...

I'm looking for five or six stems and they're ready to be planted out.

So, if you do that, that's it, job done.

Now, I've got sweet peas here as well that are needing to be stopped.

These ones have been stopped already.

You can see where the side shoots are coming off. That's where it was stopped and there's the side shoots.

These have been stopped quite high.

I tend to be a bit more brutal, so I wouldn't take it away up here.

I'd take it off there, just in that bit there.

What I do is I use my knife, so you run your knife across it...

-Slicing, not pressing.

-No, because you'll bruise it if you press it.

-Just like that.

-You're a hard man.

-So taking them down like that.

You're grazing them down, but the thing is, you've got 100% of a root system underneath there...

-Only half the plant.

-Only half the plant at the top.

What you're doing once again is encouraging these breaks lower down the stem.

These wee buds will grow like fury and you'll get big, strong shoots.

If you're going to grow single cordons, you have a choice of stems.

-And you pick the best one.

-The best placed, then it'll thin out to that one and that's it.

I'll thin these out because they'll need to go outside soon, won't they?

-They are ready for planting any time.

-Yeah.

If you've got really shallow soil at home or perhaps just a little patio like our decking here,

then you might want to consider growing the little round carrots because they're not deeply rooted.

I'll try four varieties, grow them in window-boxes.

I'm going to sow a couple of rows and, of course, you're not using a lot of compost.

It's time for a wee look under the cover of the hot bed.

Two and a half weeks after sowing, we've got quite a nice selection.

All the germination has been pretty good - carrots, lettuce, radish,

small turnips, salad onions and, at that end, we've planted out some lettuce from plugs.

They're all doing rather well. The temperature under there at the moment is just above 20 C.

Strangely enough, next door, where the ordinary soil has been employed, covered up, of course,

germination is pretty good, but a little bit behind. The temperature in there is 15 C.

It'll be a race to see where we'll pick the first ones from.

I will be very disappointed if this doesn't come ahead of the others.

We're in the wild wood area

where, last year, we planted some summer flowering bulbs and some late spring flowering bulbs.

And they're just starting to come out now. We've got some Fritillarias coming out.

Look at that - Fritillaria meleagris with these wonderful, tessellate snake-heads just hanging down,

a beautiful flower when it's in complete bloom.

But they have to compete with some very aggressive grasses in this area underneath the trees,

so in order to help them, what I did was I propagated a specific grass, one called Festuca eskia.

This is a whole tray of it here, this plug tray.

These were just little divisions off the original plant, put in, grown over winter and they've rooted.

They've got good roots in them. I will plant these around the patches of bulbs.

That will highlight where the bulbs are,

but also, it's a grass which only gets to about that height. It doesn't need mowed or any maintenance really.

It's the sort of thing which gives you the idea of where the bulbs are. Job done.

-Well, I say, what a floral cornucopia!

-Hmm.

Starting from behind us here, look at that cherry.

It's absolutely stonking! And the noise in there with the bumblebees is something else.

-It's really busy in there.

-We'll definitely have a bumper crop of cherries.

-I hope so.

Before we start getting all woozy, etcetera, about the "flooers",

-we're still getting some nice, young stems of rhubarb.

-Lovely.

-And this is our first crop of asparagus.

-Good.

-What's the variety, Jim?

-Ariane.

-Hmm, nice.

-Of course, you grow this as well.

And last year, the commercial grower said the stumps at the bottom are great for asparagus soup.

Don't throw it away. I've been cropping for a couple of weeks. It's still quite late, this season.

-It is. But to the flowers...

-I know, look at the Narcissus here.

I think they're lovely. We've got three varieties.

Three varieties, yeah. Do we know them?

-I think that's Tweety Bird.

-This is Spring Dawn, this fellow here with the white at the back.

-I'll just try and get a coin out, so we can...

-Toss it up.

-And I think that one's January.

-And we're where?

-We're in May!

There's a cracker round here. This is one of these hyacinths I'm going to grow next year for the spring show.

That's a thing called Anna Liza and that is an absolute stunner.

-That's a belter.

-Beautiful colour.

-Really good.

-I like the blues.

-You can be sure of that, George.

The Muscari there and the one with the top just opening,

that's latifolium and that's rather unusual.

-That opens almost from the top down and the other ones open from the bottom up.

-In reverse.

-No less!

LAUGHTER

Anyway, if you'd like more information about this week's programme,

it's all in the factsheet, including all these plant names.

The easiest way to access that, of course, is online.

You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

-Next week, I understand it's going to be a very fruity programme.

-Very fruity.

I'll be sorting out the problem of the demise of the raspberry.

I wish you well, George. Until next time, bye-bye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

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