Episode 2 The Beechgrove Garden

THE BEECHGROVE GARDEN SAI A659B/02 HSG010362

Well, hello there and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.

It's a fine morning for gardening.

Rain threatens, so we've got to press on with the work

and one of the first jobs to be done is to scarify the lawn.

That's what I was doing this day, last year at this hour,

do you know that? Cos we do it every year

but it's going to be particularly important for people this

time to get the lawn scarified early

because the ground has been in a saturated state.

you need to get air in there and that's one of the ways you can

do it, by taking out all this gubbins.

Look at that, that's all choking up the drainage

and keeping the moisture on the top and you want it to get away.

Look at that, there's loads and loads and loads of it.

Not the time to put on moss killer but I'll come to that in a second.

Once you've done that, you're going to encourage the grass itself

and so you put on a fertiliser dressing.

So, with lengthening days, increasing temperatures,

a bit of fertiliser, an aerated lawn, it's going to loup away

and it'll turn green as quick as anything. What kind of fertiliser?

Don't take shortcuts by using some of the vegetable garden fertiliser.

Look at these size of these and if you put an ounce of that on,

they're going to be sitting waving at one another cos they're so big.

You put an ounce of that on and you get a much, much more even spread

and you'll get a much more even growth. So, that's that job done.

Wait until the temperatures rise, when the grass is growing,

the weeds are growing and the moss is growing

and then whack it with the weed-killer or the moss-killer,

whatever you choose to do, or give it another scarify.

That's the important thing but by then, the grass will be well

and truly on its way and beginning to look good.

And to put the spit and polish on it,

you've got to do the edges, haven't you?

Using the shears and I

see people thrashing about...do

you notice when I cut, there's

only one arm moving, not two?

I'm not...mashing them,

like that. One arm, like so.

And using a slightly circular motion of the hand, it's difficult

to see but there we go...nice, trim edges.

But, in fact, this time of the year you might want to improve it

even more so because when you take that away,

you see that the edge is getting a bit hairy

and it starts to fall out the way because of the weight of the mower.

So, a trimming up with the edging iron just like so.

I can take a bit off, even better!

Like so.

Once you get started and look at that!

Really nice, clean edge.

Looks much better, doesn't it?

Now then, in the rest of the programme.

It's hard to imagine any self-respecting plant wanting

to set up home in this and yet, amazingly,

this is a plot for a new build garden.

This week and throughout the series,

I'm helping two families who've bought new builds and want to

transform a plot like this into their impression of paradise.

Well, you know,

another job you can be getting on with this time of year is

thinking about lifting, splitting, dividing your herbaceous

and then replanting it.

And, well, we've got our work cut out here, haven't we, George?

We have indeed. This whole banking has got to be re-done,

so we're having to take out all the plants that we want to keep

and then young Chris is going to get on and rebuild the bank for us.

Yes, it's definitely passed its sell-by-date

and so it's going to be a big project in the next few weeks.

But there's different types of plants here

and why you want to lift them and starting with the asta there,

that's very invasive, isn't it?

Yeah, this is one which tends to run about in bits

and it gets to the edge of the path and runs along the side.

So, what you can do with this is just lift it and divide bits out.

So, I mean, you can have a really tiny plant from that clump,

you can get loads, can't you?

That's ideal, that size.

I love that, value for money.

Here's another example, this geranium and I've

just lifted a bit at the edge because what you find

is in the centre, you know, it completely dies out.

-So, it's the outer part, the fresher bit that you want.

-SHE LAUGHS

-It's the same as the head, isn't it?

-I'm saying nothing!

And, sometimes, what happens in a border, is that you get weeds,

invasive weeds. I mean, this is a grass, you can get ground elder

and this is a great way of cleaning it up.

Well, you then get two shots at that because you've cleaned it down,

you've got a small plant, you've planted it up or, potted it up,

lined it out and then you can have another go

if there's still weeds in it, cos often we leave little bits, don't we?

-Yes, so it's like, putting it into quarantine, isn't it?

-Yes.

And you could, possibly, take some cuttings as well.

Well, that would come easily from cuttings, yes.

And then you've got the great technique there!

The fork, back-to-back.

This is the other one, put that into the middle like that.

So, that's a day lily.

Yes, a day lily and you can split that up two or three times

and take them up, do what you want.

Now, not everybody has two garden forks but you could use a fork

and a spade, couldn't you, as well?

I would have been tempted to put a spade through that,

-it's quicker as well.

-Well, I think that's the wheelbarrow full.

-Yes.

And that's got to go down to the new nursery bed

and I'll carry on lifting.

Good girl. I'll go and see Jim.

Right then, Jim, here you are.

Some plants for you.

I thought we were getting plantlets!

No, no these are, well, we've explained how we do plantlets

but this is clumps now.

Oh, so we're on to clumps.

In fact, you could take time to split these up and make several.

Oh, you could now, aye.

But that's the right depth, well done.

-About the right depth.

-Well done, you.

-Well, OK, aye, aye.

Hemerocallis. One or two wee bits.

Hemerocallis or hemerocallis?

-Whichever school you went to.

-This is true, like clematis or clematis.

-These are nice.

-Right, so there you go.

-Down you go, you do it.

-Now, that's about the right space, I think.

-That's about the right space.

-Yeah.

-So, all we're going to do now, of course,

is just to fork that in and tramp them down.

But here, listen...

This is a new area, isn't it?

It is indeed, a nursery bed here,

to go on with our lovely fantoosh frames.

That's a bit like the Royal Botanic Garden, isn't it, eh?

-Can I hide money, eh?

-No, you can't hide money.

Right, I'll tell you what,

we're going to be able to make a lot of use of these.

-Yes.

-There we go.

-Right, I'll leave you to it.

-Thank you, sir.

Now then, our Chris has disappeared from the garden

because he's going to be helping a couple of families who've moved

into new houses, brand-new, with brand-new gardens, inverted commas.

This is the old fishing bay of Cove, just south of Aberdeen.

It's a deceptively idyllic and peaceful place because just

behind those cliffs, there's a frenzy of building activity.

In fact, in the last five years,

35,000 new homes have been built in this region alone.

With the same number planned,

to be constructed before 2020 across Aberdeen.

It's a phenomenal building programme. All those people

moving into new homes with great optimism to create new gardens.

What fascinates me is what's the reality of a new home,

new garden...in a place like this?

In most cases, gardeners in new build situations are faced

with the inevitable consequences of this, heavy construction,

which means a garden space largely filled with builders rubble or,

sometimes, a layer of what is amusingly called top soil and

even a veneer of turf.

But...it's what lies underneath all of that which really interests me!

And in this series I'm going to be inspiring two

families in new build gardens to turn this into paradise.

Susan and Brian Duffy moved into their new

home in Cove in autumn 2013.

There's great ambitions for this garden.

One of the nice things is that in gardening we often say,

-"Wouldn't it be great to have a blank canvass?"

-Well...

SHE LAUGHS

This is it! This is the ideal blank canvass!

I mean, anything is possible in this space. It's what, about ten by ten?

Yeah.

So, what are your ideas?

When you look out of the window here from the dining space

and the kitchen, what are your ideas for it?

We'd like to come out the doors onto a deck, then have some grass

and flowers, maybe, up the side.

And decking for when the sun shines like this in Aberdeen,

lying in the sunshine is always good.

Lying in the sunshine in Aberdeen?

You're the first person that's told me

it's possible to lounge on a deck in the sunshine in Aberdeen.

-It is, actually.

-I think you're absolutely right to have,

when you step out of the door, give yourself a generous space.

You know, if you're going to be lounging down here and...

Absolutely!

..bringing your coffees and lunch and so on outside,

then make it reasonably generous.

Erm, obviously,

you're looking at what is a garage wall at the end there.

-Lovely garage wall.

-The back of your garage wall.

So, in a way, it would be quite nice,

because of all these hard angles of architecture,

-to try and soften all of that.

-Yeah.

And to it with vegetation, so you get layer upon

layer of vegetation and you see the garage peeking up over the top.

You don't want your lawn to be too small

but equally any bed width, it's useful to have as a general guide,

-whatever the height of your boundaries...

-Right, OK.

-..that should be about the width of the bed.

-Oh, right, OK.

Proportionally, that works.

If you make your bed narrow, then your plants will look as

though they're going to be shot against the wall.

So, be generous with the spaces.

Looking at a blank canvas like this, you feel maybe just

a lawn will be enough but actually think much more ambitiously.

Put lots of things in and then there's always something to

look at, there's always something to stimulate you, as you walk through.

So, I think the good news is, you've got soil.

Yeah!

-Which, I mean, is...

-It's not the best.

It's not perfect but it's, actually, quite good.

It's brown and crumbly.

You know, that's not bad.

What's fantastic about this garden is that the sun comes in here

and hits this corner in the morning and then travels round

and so the whole garden is bathed in sun, at some point.

That gives us a great opportunity

to plant a very diverse range of material.

So, we've got a deck area in here.

Quite a generous width of planting up here.

I've suggested a hedge across the top here

and then this utility path, to create a bit more formality,

a bit of rhythm as you come down and have, maybe,

pairs of specimen plants as you go down the path.

I think, as a starting point, it would be worth marking that out.

-I could do the proportions.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Get a feel for the size.

James and I transferred the basic design through onto the ground,

spray marked first and then a few pegs to check levels

and those essential corner positions,

just to keep everything square.

Meanwhile, Brian, who was a joiner in his previous life,

thankfully, is able to put together the foundations of the fab deck!

You know how you said that the soil was actually quite good?

So why have we added all this other soil on top?

Or is it maybe not soil?

Erm, no, it is. Well, in a roundabout kid of way.

This organic matter.

So, this is composted garden waste

because the problem you've got is that whilst this looks brown

and crumbly, the chances are it's completely devoid of life.

You'll see, if you dig around, there's no worms in here.

-No, no, that's true.

-The chances are, the bacteria

-and fungi that bring life to the soil just aren't present.

-OK.

So, by incorporating some of that organic matter, what we're doing is

feeding the soil first and then as a consequence, feeding the plants.

Now then, during that session, Chris was using green waste,

local authority green waste, as a soil ameliorant

and it's absolutely superb for the job.

Now, thinking of a different kind of compost, growing medium,

I've got one or two things to say.

The first one is that there has been

a relaxation on the use of peat,

so most of the manufacturers have included peat in their mixtures.

But despite the fact that some of them have definitely improved

the texture, we've done a wee bit of a trial.

This bag here of multi-purpose compost,

we tipped the whole of that out, we put it through this old sieve here.

That was my dad's sieve, it must over 100 years old, I'm telling you.

He was not a carpenter, he was a gardener, but it works.

So, we put that through there and that's the amount of rubbish

out of that bag, erm, which is a bit disappointing.

For the most part, if you're using it for mature plants,

it won't matter.

We did the same with a grow bag

and that is what came out of the grow bag and all the sieved stuff

was put back in again, cos I'm very conscious of the fact that

many guys will use the grow bag as a compost, not just as a grow bag.

Now, the other point which is interesting is that we've

only got one peat-free compost on view and that's this one here.

I sieved that amount out and that's the rubbish that came through in it.

It's brand-new, we haven't used it yet,

so I don't know what it'll be like but I must say,

I like the texture of it, it looks like it may well be a good buy.

And lastly, my annual warning about grow bags.

They spend the winter, probably, out of doors, they're stacked high,

so they're compacted, they're like a big lump of cheese.

Don't expect to use them straightaway.

You've got to knock them about a bit, you know,

really...this is about as much exercise as I'll get today.

Do this and leave them for a while. Like, doing a bolster.

Now I'm going to have to go and sit down!

George, we're spending a bit of time looking at some of our

overwintering projects and we've fared OK, haven't we?

Well, I think so! THEY LAUGH

So, these are overwinter onions and shallots,

which are under this giant cloche, basically, cos it's open doors

and outside. So, the ones under the cloche have done pretty well.

And the ones outside have been damaged by the wind.

I grew them also in my allotment in Edinburgh

and they are under an insect mesh.

They're outside in the wind and they're intermediate.

-OK, so, inbetween.

-So, we will see what happens,

because this goes on until the end of May.

This is for filling this hungry gap which we get, of crops.

So, we harvest them at the end of May, into June,

and we don't get our next onion crop until, what? August, September?

-September, yeah.

-So, it's a great crop to grow.

And we've some more to look at next door.

These are super through here.

Now, look at these wonderful winter salads.

They've overwintered remarkably well. What have we got?

Cutting celery, corn salad, an American crest.

Have you tried that?

-I am going to try this.

-Go on, you try that.

This is the other one you get coming up in woodlands.

This is Miners crest.

That's got a real bite to it.

It's like a watercress or a rocket, something like that.

It's a bit wersh. Urgh.

-Is it not so good?

-Well, it's not sweet.

Do we have to mention the chillis?

-Best not!

-Dead sticks!

-Not so hot with your chilies!

There is a story behind it, George.

The chilli festival that I went to last year,

one of the commercial growers there said you can overwinter them.

So, some of the team took them home and this is what has happened.

-They do need really warm temperatures.

-Right.

It's not worth doing that,

but if we concentrate our warmth into the spring and germinate the seed,

we'll get them just as quick.

Yes, I would grow from seed. I think that's the answer.

Now, that might look like a dead stick...

-I was just going to ask you about this!

-..but it's not.

-For a start, it's sprouting here. That would have to come off.

-Right.

But, it is starting to sprout in the centre. You know what I would do?

You mist the wood. It softens it and it helps it to sprout.

That's what you want to see, because these plants are deciduous.

You're meant to put them into dormancy. You just tick them over.

-So, what's happened here?

-We haven't gone into dormancy!

Mild temperatures. I think maybe slightly too much water, as well.

They look healthy enough.

These are beautiful at the moment, but I'd be picking off the flowers.

I think that's important.

I'd also nip back these shoots,

take them back so that we get a nice shape.

-A nice ball shape. That's really important.

-That's what we want.

-You're going to have a job picking all the flowers off!

-Yes, we are!

Also what happens, because it's so soft, you see what's happened there?

There is botrytis there already

and we'll have to watch that because it could just run through these.

So, that comes in when the air's a bit still, not enough ventilation,

so really watch out for that.

We've potted them on, as well. I wouldn't go any bigger?

No, I think they're going to put on a lot of growth,

there's a lot of nutrient in the compost,

so we'll just keep an eye on them and try and slow them down a bit.

Yeah. But, fingers crossed they'll come through fine.

And fingers crossed too for Chris with Susan and Brian.

The main shapes of their garden are in place

and Chris and Susan are about to add the plant structures.

I always think it's great when you've got the boards in

and you start to see the levels.

The two-dimensional structure of the garden starts to become evident.

You start to see the spaces and how Brian's decking is working there.

-And, then, it's time to think about the vegetation structure.

-Yeah.

-This is Prunus amanagawa, which is a little flowering cherry tree.

-Yeah.

We'll put one in here, and then two more in that bit.

The idea is that this creates almost a colonnade

-as you walk down from the gate into the utility.

-Yeah.

It's got such a lot of weight down here,

-and this is all quite whippy stem up here, so it won't need staking.

-OK.

The ideal for planting a tree is to try and plant it

-at just below the level it was growing in the container or pot.

-OK.

So, you dig your hole about twice the size of the pot,

-and about half as deep again.

-OK.

-So, be generous. You can't over-dig the hole.

-Yeah.

This is really just to add that extra bit of organic matter,

in addition to the organic matter that we have already supplied.

If you put your spade across there, just to check the level again.

The critical thing on this tree,

you'll see that you've got the stem coming up here

and then this shoot coming round here.

That's because this is a grafted tree,

-which means that it's growing on the roots of a different tree.

-Oh!

What, essentially, the nurseryman has done is taken the glamorous bit,

the cherry, the upright, flowering and real performer,

and put it on to a much more resilient wild cherry rootstock.

That means this rootstock, think of it as the engine of the plant.

-It's driving how much growth is going to take place.

-OK.

We need to make sure that this graft here

is above the finished ground level.

For the very simple reason if you put it low ground level,

it will start to grow.

The rootstock is much more vigorous than the top

and the rootstock will take over and you'll end up with a wild cherry,

and wild cherries are about the size of oak trees.

They are enormous, way too big,

-and completely against what we're trying to achieve.

-Yeah.

This is another really good flowering tree.

This is Crataegus, Paul's scarlet.

It's a hawthorn, very resilient.

One of the reasons it's a good treat for this garden

is as soon as anything put its head over this wall,

it risks just getting its head blown off because of the prevailing wind.

So, you need something attractive for the garden,

but also something which is pretty brutish.

One of the things about this one is, because it's going up into the wind,

and because, essentially, it's a lollipop tree,

so a clear stem and then a canopy,

the canopy is going to be up here, acting like a sail.

So, this definitely needs staking, which is what James is doing here.

The idea is that you put the stake on the windward side of the tree,

-so the tree is pulling away from the stake.

-OK.

And you'll notice that we've also dug out a large hole

-but it's a square hole.

-Yep.

-And there's a very good reason for that.

See how the roots are all moving round...

-Yeah.

-..the side of the pot?

If you dig a round hole, these roots,

which have already conditioned

themselves to go like this, will continue to go round the hole.

Whereas if you dig a square hole and you start to just gently

rough those roots up a bit, they'll change direction.

Once in the hole, they hit the side of the hole and have to go out.

In this sort of scenario where we're using a brace what you do is...

..put the strap around the tree.

Then through the collar.

And then use the collar to push the tree away from the timbers.

So that the tree isn't rubbing against the timbers.

-If it was rubbing against here it would...

-Damage it.

..wear through the bark and would damage it.

And then what you can do is just put some nails on there.

And you just give it enough space to grow for a couple of years or

-something and then you take it all out.

-Exactly.

Generally, what you do is give it a season of growth.

-You're desperate to put that in, aren't you?

-Yeah.

THEY LAUGH

There you go. That means that next season,

this time next year you can just pull that one out,

little bit of slack on there to give the tree a little bit more

space so it's not throttled and put the nail back in again.

Back in again.

The third phase of structure, at least in planting terms,

is the hedge at the back.

The way to do it this time of the year is to dig a trench,

the most economical way of putting plant material in the ground in

autumn, winter or early spring like this and that's to go bare root.

And you can see why it's called bare root on this dogwood here.

This is a cutting. They've dug it up and supply it to you just like that.

-OK.

-It's a very economical way of buying your plant material.

Plunge it in a pot as soon as it arrives,

let the plants take on the moisture.

We've got dogwood which will give you red stems, white flowers

and then black berries.

You've got amelanchier,

the snowy mespilus which you can just

see the early white blossom starting to show there.

This is Rosa rugosa and it has those old-fashioned dog rose style

-flowers.

-OK.

-And then we've got Viburnum opulus at the end.

So you can do a mix and match with these.

The only thing I would say is avoid putting the spiny

one on the corners.

Because if you go brushing past, you know if you've bumped into that one.

So let's start with a dogwood

and the basic principal is that you dig a trench.

And put the plant in so that it's just above the level it was

growing in the nursery.

And you can spread the roots out a little bit.

And then you just backfill with your soil.

Give it a bit of a tread down.

Then you can immediately put the next one in

because the next one really needs to go in about 20 cm apart.

Which is really close for these sorts of plants

but because we're going to prune them back periodically,

they will tolerate being that close.

So take your pick.

Done like an expert, you see. You don't even need me here.

I don't need to be here.

What we're going to do is in a few weeks' time

when we come back the hedge will be in, the other

pruinose will be in to give us the columns both sides of the path.

Lawn down, deck finished.

Possibly lounging on the deck over there?

Possibly, if it's a nice sunny day. Well, you never know.

-But you can see that the structure is all starting to take shape?

-Yeah.

And that's the main thing that we've got over that initial

phase of looking out of the window and thinking,

-"What am I going to do with this?"

-Yeah.

These don't need staked at all? They just like a little waft in the wind?

-They like wafting.

-That's fine, that's good. OK, no problem.

-We'll see you in a few weeks.

-Indeed. That would be great.

Just a few days later after more hard work Brian had finished

the deck and all the turf had been laid.

And we can really begin to see the new garden taking shape.

Chris will be back in a few weeks' time to help Susan

and Brian onto the next stage.

This annual weed here is

hairy bittercress and it can cause

a lot of problems in your garden if you let it set seed.

The seeds actually pop, they're quite explosive

and they can spread by about a metre so the answer is don't let it seed.

Weed it out. A hand fork works quite easy, especially in a border.

If you've got a path, you might want to use a weed killer.

And if it's in the vegetable patch, keep the hoe going.

The normal time for planting spring flowering bulbs is in the autumn

but with snowdrops you can do it right now,

as soon as they're finished flowering.

New gardeners sometimes get puzzled by what we say.

We call this planting in the green.

If you want to expand your collection you can dig them

up now, take them into smaller clumps and plant them

back again and they'll just carry on as if nothing had happened.

Isn't this outstanding? It's a quince.

Only trouble with this one is it's flowering in my neighbour's garden.

Look at that.

Over the other side of the wall but the thing that's important is it's

flowering in full sun so the hint, always plant a quince in full sun.

They love it.

Well, you two, do you remember that wee experiment

I had at the end of last year planting some bulbs upside down?

What time of night did you decide...?

-Who told you?

-Goodness sake.

-I'm going to blame Chris for this.

-Cos he's not here.

He's not here but he said to me, I think it was when we were

planting daffodils, "Does it matter which way you plant them?"

-So we thought, "Right, let's try it out."

-So?

Tulips here, these two were planted upside down

and then these two at the front were the right way up.

-And the variety?

-The variety is Little Red Riding Hood.

At the moment, no difference. Beautiful foliage but no difference.

They're not in flower yet.

Whereas the narcissus here, tete-a-tete,

these are the ones that were planted the right way as far as I'm

concerned and they did start flowering first.

They've got to grow a little bit further, haven't they?

They look as if they're more plumptious.

They are more plumptious.

Mind you, if you were running for a bus you'd never know the difference.

-This is true.

-We'll stick to the right way.

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

programme it's all in the fact sheet

and the easiest way to access that is on our website.

Next week, busy, busy. Lots of pruning.

Lots of pruning but I'm picking out some very special seedlings.

I'm offski,

up country by 30 odd miles to see how the new allotmenteers

at Aden Country Park are doing.

-That's just outside Mintlaw. So, until then...

-ALL: Bye!