Episode 21 The Beechgrove Garden

Well, hello and welcome to Beechgrove on what is

an overcast, but a day with a promise of a little bit of sunshine.

Look at the sunshine coming out of that.

This is one of the later dahlias. This is a thing called Isadora.

It just looks absolutely splendid.

That sunshine in the middle - superb.

We've had a wee bit of frost, just.

So we'll just have to keep an eye on these.

Now Jim and Carol are away at a community garden this week,

so I'm in the garden on my own.

Though you're never alone when you're gardening.

The garden team is here just to keep an eye on me,

make sure I don't stray.

We've been growing unusual veg. This is the bed where they are.

-Jane, really some quite unusual ones, wasn't there?

-Yeah, George.

Have you tried this shocker down here? The electric daisy.

I did earlier on. That's just... I don't think I'll go back to it.

But this is interesting, isn't it? This is a thing called...

-Chop suey greens.

-Chop suey greens. Just Chrysanthemum coronarium.

It tastes of celery.

Does it really? Right.

This other purple one, what's that?

It's a Perilla. It's got a nice aniseedy, minty flavour to it.

Could use it in a salad or a stir fry.

Oh. I've almost got to the stage

where I'm frightened to taste some of these now.

THEY LAUGH

But, anyway, meanwhile, in the rest of the programme.

-What a vista, eh?

-Isn't that fantastic?

Right behind me here is the 15th-century Kilchurn Castle,

home to the Campbells of Glenorchy,

sitting on a peninsula into Loch Awe,

a man-made structure in a natural environment.

Strangely enough, in a much less grand way,

our new community garden this week, same thing.

Built in a natural environment.

It's just a couple of miles along the road.

Well, how about this as a spectacular viewpoint?

Behind me is Loch Awe and the Glen of Dalmally.

Dalmally itself actually means a pebbled valley.

The village, quite a small population of around about 300,

but if you take in the whole of the parish of Glenorchy,

we're speaking about a community of approximately 800.

The Parish Church of Glenorchy

and Innishael standing on and island in the River Orchy.

These ancient burial grounds have the bones of the Clan McGregor.

McGregor here, Campbell over there - intense rivals in times past.

Funnily enough, the new community garden over the back

of the church has one main aim, and that's to bring people together.

At last.

More of that later.

I'm off to the foot house to create mayhem with my secateurs, perhaps.

But look at these apples. Aren't these wonderful?

These are the potted apples, and this one in particular I love.

This is a thing called Egremont Russet.

It's got wonderful big apples on it. It's just doing splendidly.

-Well, Maddie.

-Bit of dampening down.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Still need to do it, don't we?

-Oh, yes.

-A spider can still come back, can't it? Catch you out...

-Yeah.

..when you're not looking.

-Look at these, eh?

-Great colour.

-Look at that, eh?

Just starting to colour up in there. So, soon be ready.

They'll soon be ready. The main thing, maybe, the fig.

-This is...some super crop.

-Oh, yes.

-We've had a really good harvest this year.

-How many?

Oh, maybe one or two.

All these little bits of juice at the corners of the mouth.

Just a little bit.

They're wonderful when they're ready. It's a great crop.

Now is the time when we've got to think about...

-Next year's harvest and what we're going to get.

-So...

You have to speculate to accumulate with figs, don't you?

Yes, which is a wee bit upsetting.

We'll look at those and think, "Well, we ought to keep those."

But those, I'm afraid, have to come out because they're too big.

They'll not mature.

We don't have the light up here or the warmth,

so they won't turn to anything.

So these are the ones that we want to save. Have you got your secateurs?

-Yes.

-Good girl.

-And now over to the wilds of Argyllshire

-to join Carole and Jim.

-Excuse me, that's my line.

THEY LAUGH

This beautiful bridge spans over the River Orchy.

It actually leads us to the community garden.

Now, normally the challenge we face is to create a highly cultivated

garden, but in this particular case, it is completely different.

The community want to work with nature, and they're going to create

something that really blends in with the wonderful surrounding landscape.

Whilst I'm actually here, I must tell you that the community

refer to this as their local swimming pool.

Oh, it looks like Jim's trying out the local diving board.

Look out, Tom Daley.

CHEERING

-Well done, Jim, man.

-That's better, but it's fairly spoiled the perm.

Janet and Kate, you're two of the leading lights in this project.

Start with you, Janet. How long has it been going?

We started in 2012. We started with the orchard.

It grew out of the bicentenary of Glenorchy Kirk.

Orchard means longevity. It's not for today or tomorrow.

Have you got security of tenure?

This is all glebe ground.

The general trustees have given us the lease of the grounds here,

which is fantastic.

Kate, as it's developed, so have your ideas developed.

What's the purpose, what's the main thrust?

Well, once we'd got the orchard up and running, we thought,

"Right, what next?" We thought we'd expand the area

and bring in the schoolchildren.

They'd get an outdoor classroom. The Guides wanted to get involved.

They wanted an area. The whole thing has sort of sprung from that.

We know that it's a fairly large area, so you've got plenty helpers.

-You've got people.

-We have.

The area the community orchard and woodland covers is about 40 miles.

It goes from Bridge of Orchy in the north to Eridan in the south.

We've got helpers from each of the villages and communities within that.

This is not an allotment.

In fact, it's in a very naturally beautiful area.

So what are your principle aims here?

The whole idea is to keep it natural.

Keep it as natural as we possibly can. Native plants, woodland plants.

Anything that we can try and teach people what we can forage naturally.

More power to your elbow. Thank you.

Well, I'm right next-door to the orchard here with Lynn,

our designer.

I would have thought this was quite a tricky task for you.

It was, Carole.

I did the conventional drawing on paper, but, in actual fact,

when I got to the site, more or less ripped up the paper design.

We've let the landscape dictate what happens here.

Very often, you start with a blank canvas.

Yes, but there's so much here already.

For example, the paths,

we just came along with spray-paint.

Look what we found.

These two fabulous trees - just the perfect place.

Why wouldn't you put a path through the middle?

-It's an obvious route.

-It certainly is.

Carole, here's another perfect example of letting

the landscape influence the design.

This area of the garden has always been very wet,

so what do you think we're going to do here?

-I think I need my wellies. It's definitely bog planting.

-It is.

You're lucky, aren't you?

Yes, you've got some wet areas, some are dry. Even a rock feature.

I know. Well, this was uncovered,

and we decided just to make the most of it - kept it natural and wild.

It's right at the site of the new entrance to the garden, which

again was dictated by the contours of the land and the dryness.

In there, we've got a wee surprise. All will be revealed later.

As we wander around, it's quite an extensive site.

Yeah, it's almost three acres.

This area in particular is really wild and open.

I thought it would make a perfect natural kids' play area.

I'm really not going to do an awful lot of planting here.

I'm going to create three planting roundabouts,

round about existing shrubs.

The rest of it, really, is going to be very open

-for kids to just run about.

-I like that idea.

In fact, I feel like we're on a roundabout within roundabouts.

But it is a big site, therefore we'd better get cracking, hadn't we?

I know, let's get the spades.

Jim is back in the community orchard where the garden started,

and finding that not everything in the orchard is rosy.

Well, Harry, you must be very pleased that you've got some

-nice apples on the tree.

-Yes, we are.

But this is really the only apple tree with apples on it.

With fruit on.

It's a wonderful example, of course, because this is a variety Sunset.

Quite often, people say to us, "We'd like to grow Cox's Orange Pippin."

Well, that's an apple that should be grown in Kent, Sussex and Essex.

It's a south of England apple.

This is a very, very worthy replacement in Scotland, certainly.

It's Sunset, and it's doing well.

The other trees haven't got fruit on.

It might be just because the flowers

are all quite low in these young trees.

They might be frosted with the radiation frost in the spring.

So as the tree grows and develops, the flowers are going to be

up here, and I think they will be out of the frost zone.

I'm just wondering if there's anything

we could do on the pruning side.

Yes, well, obviously we wait normally till the pruning

is done in the winter when the trees are dormant.

But let me say that in the early stages of a fruit tree,

you should be trying to create a goblet shape,

whether apples, pears, plums, cherries, doesn't matter.

So the pruning takes precedence over fruiting in the early stages.

This fella, you see, is going to dominate. He's right up there.

You're looking for a goblet shape, so what I'm suggesting,

and we'll do it even now, is that we want to take that fella out.

You'll see the difference as soon as I do it.

I'm going to prune it through there.

Now... Sacrilege, they say.

-What were we talking about? Open centre.

-Open centre.

Now, you've got fairly strong branches here.

They're nicely wide angled. That's good.

You've got slightly weaker ones here, so you prune these

lightly in the winter and you prune these a lot more.

Give them more incentive by cutting them harder.

You finish up next year with a nice bit of balance.

The new Glenorchy Wild Woodland Garden is all about gaining

access to the flora of the area, of course.

But it's also about enjoying and getting up close

and personal with the fauna.

We are the Glenorchy Guides, and we are hanging things for the birds.

Seeds and coconuts.

We're hoping later on to identify and do some bird watching,

if all the birds come to feed off this station.

From the Glenorchy Wild Woodland Garden

back to Beechgrove's own wild wood.

MOTOR RUNS

Thanks. This is our wild wood, and at this time of the year,

it's important to do a little bit of management -

to strim down the weeds or the wild flowers that are there.

By doing that, what you do is you distribute all the seed that

was in the capsules. They're now ripe and they go all over the soil.

Then, rake it.

You have to give it a good, vigorous raking to disturb the top surface.

That lets the seeds go into a seed bed.

They will germinate and grow on next year.

They're important, cos that's the new generation

that you want within this area.

In other years, we've planted bulbs in here.

I want to augment those bulbs by planting more.

I love doing this sort of thing. This is Camassia, Quamash.

We're just going to plant these at random within the site.

They'll come up as little pinpricks of colour

right throughout the whole area.

There we are. There's some Quamash for you.

What have we got here? We've got Ipheion. Can you spell Ipheion?

HE LAUGHS

You can catch it. Then we've got this one here, which is one of these...

Oh, look at this. Ornithogalum.

Do you want this one, Beth? Do you want this?

There we go.

So these things are going to be distributed right across the site.

They will just be planted where they land.

They'll come up and they will really give us all these wonderful

little pinpricks of colour throughout this in the spring.

Well, folks, it's show time!

Jane, what have we got this year?

Well, we're getting these show beds ready to lift.

-It's an exciting time of year.

-Isn't it just?

The important thing is the length of this blanche, this white part here.

-So what length has that got to be?

-I think it's 15cm.

So from there, from the button, as they talk about, which is

-the bit where the roots come out.

-Yeah.

So do we need to remove some of these...?

-We'll do that once we take it up.

-So there's...

-Oh, you've plenty room.

-Aye, that's fine.

-So we've got a nice length of white plant on that.

-So they should do well.

-You've got to have a matching pair, remember.

Yes.

-Look at that.

-Look at the size of that madam.

-That is huge.

-That would help you out.

-Did I hear something snap, then, George?

-Little side root.

-Oh, no!

-Look at that. See, that's what happens.

-Never mind.

-Do you think there's a category for funny veg?

-There is.

Wait for it, wait for it. Now, don't get excited.

Don't get excited.

Lay it down.

-Look at you getting all excited.

-That's a beauty.

Wait, wait, I need to get the end.

Yeah, we've got to make sure we don't break the ends off.

-Look at that.

-They're beautiful.

Look at that, it's got a bit of a kink in there.

Never mind the kink, dear. Look at the length.

-Put those together.

-Look at that, Jane.

Like a proud mother, a few days later, Jane took her babies,

I mean vegetables, to the local flower show.

The red peppers are OK.

What about Jane's pot leeks then?

Well, Jane, show us your leeks. What about them, eh?

Look at these whoppers.

Have you seen my shield?

Have I failed to notice that?

I haven't stopped grinning since.

But, look, we've got three, four empty spaces on that.

That means your name's got to be on them the next three years.

Yeah, a challenge.

You've done well. Carrots were third.

-But these, absolutely splendid, aren't they?

-King of the North.

It's bred specifically for low light levels and low temperatures.

Well, that certainly worked. That's very important, isn't it?

Selecting the seed which will do well in your particular area.

Yes, very important.

We know that carrots will do well anywhere, and the likes of parsnips.

I lost points here. Look.

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed. But when you see that, you know why.

We'll just need to do something to combat that next year,

-to make sure that doesn't happen.

-Slugs.

Just little slugs, that's it. We'll sort that.

These dahlias are fabulous.

They're lovely, but the stems are too short.

Wee short legs, cos she is a lovely lady, but...

I know what to do about it now.

I've got lots of hints and tips at the show. It was great for that.

That's what it's about - the hints and tips.

I thought that Isadora had longer legs than that.

Well, she will next year.

Good.

Well, the weather's held here, but back at Glenorchy,

it's raining stair rods.

Their poor souls!

HE CHUCKLES

In typical West Coast style,

the heavens opened on the Glenorchy wild wood garden

and turned the local swimming pool into a raging torrent.

In spite of the rain , Janet and the wild wood team are planting up

the new bog garden, or should we say mud bath?

This is our bog garden. It is a bit of a mud bath. What happened...

This is the wettest part of the garden,

so we thought that it would be a good place to have a bog garden.

What we had to do was we had to dig out the old earth,

which we've piled at the back, and we've put new fresh earth in

to try and get rid of some of the weeds and things that were here.

When we dug it out, it was left. The next day it rained.

We then had two swimming pools.

We had to do a bit of drainage, but, yes, it's wet.

It's a proper bog garden.

The plants that we've got in, some of them are marginals

that don't like their feet too wet,

and others that like their feet really wet and soggy,

like the iris and the really wet bits.

MOTOR RUNS

Well done, Martin.

I'm so glad that you didn't cut that off flush with the trunk.

-You left a little bit splayed.

-That's right, yeah.

It'll heal up much quicker.

I know everybody's inclination is to go right hard in,

but that would be the wrong thing to do.

Tell me, the real reason for coming here is, obviously,

what's happened here?

Well, this was one of the first jobs we had.

These branches, they came right down to the floor

and it was difficult for people to get access to this area.

As you can see, we've got a lovely view.

We wanted this to be a picnic area.

We got a picnic table, and then we had to cut these branches off.

As you can see, we haven't quite finished yet.

-You're going to be able to take that back in sections.

-Yes, that's right.

They're following the same sort of principle.

What do you do with the timber, then?

We're actually using it to delineate the pathways,

so we're recycling everything that we've got.

But it will, because there's more people here,

you want the trees to be looking their best as well, don't you?

-Yes, we do.

-I think that's a job still to be finished off.

It is, but we've got people in, which is the main thing.

-Keep up the good work, dear boy.

-Thanks, Jim.

And how about this for a clever, natural use of prunings?

I think this fencing looks absolutely great.

June and Anne have been working really hard on this.

So, June, first of all, is this something you have done before?

-No.

-Never? So, a bit of experimenting?

-Very much so.

What's worked best for you?

I think this looks better,

but the double stakes and filling it in was a lot easier

with the material we had available.

Anne, why have you put this in, in the first place,

apart from it looking really nice?

Mainly to keep the sheep away, that's the idea.

I also think it would be really a good wind break as well.

I know you've got a bit of shelter here,

-but it filters the wind rather than a solid fence.

-Yes.

Hazel is best because it's more pliable.

If you can use it when it's fresh, it's easier to work with.

And the great thing is, as well,

you've used all the timber round the paths.

-Yes.

-Fantastic.

-To edge the paths.

-Can I have a go?

-Yes.

This is what we do.

Just weave it in. Is this one long enough?

You'll get it. Just tuck it in.

Tuck it in round here?

I hope I don't break it.

That's you. Well done.

-Ta-da!

-That's it!

-Well done.

Back in the community orchard again,

Jim and the team are planting climbers to cover the deer fence.

Well, now, we're right here where it all started.

We're in the orchard, which started the project,

and needless to say, in this wild area of Argyllshire,

you need to have a deer fence.

A bit of artificiality

but it's necessary if all those plants are going to survive,

but, great idea you've got

is to cover the deer fence in lovely rampant climbers.

We've got Clematis montana here going on this side,

and round the other sunny side, I think,

you've got some honeysuckles lined up to go in there.

Absolutely stunning, and it will mask the baldness of this fence,

and the drill for doing it is always the same -

strip off the turf from the top,

if you can call that turf,

that's what it looks like, strip that off and put it to one side,

dig a hole adequate enough to incorporate some organic material,

but then I think we do have to ameliorate the soil

which we've collected here before we actually put the plant in,

and for that, you would use a pre-planting compost

which is of organic nature

and you want to get... sprinkle that in around the hole

and there is a bit of fertiliser involved here,

some in that, some in there

and some in there, and then

you've got to try and break this up.

Maybe you should move the barrow round there with you. There we go.

And break it all up. There you go.

Not right up against the post but lean it back against the post,

and I think we're about ready to start.

Then I think all you guys that are getting wet...

Get to your posts!

LAUGHTER

Thank you.

Well, I'm lucky enough to be with Kate on a bit of a fungal foray,

-and you have chanterelles in the area.

-We do, actually.

When we finished the orchard,

we noticed that there were hundreds of chanterelles nearby.

That got us wondering what else we had around here,

so we did a bit of a survey.

-Lots of cob nuts.

-Wow, wonderful.

And that's inspired you to want to

-sort of add to that bit of foraging?

-Yes, that's right.

We've now, we're going to plant some sloes, some hawthorns

and we've got crab-apple as well.

-Elder, we're going to put in.

-Yes, elder.

But back to the chanterelles.

First of all, how do you know that those are chanterelles?

Well, the colour, for a start. There aren't many mushrooms that colour,

but also it has a very distinctive smell, and it smells like peaches.

So you can be pretty confident that's a chanterelle -

-well, very confident.

-Yes, but it really is important, isn't it,

that you know what you're doing

and it's important to you as well that this is education

-for the children?

-Oh, yes, yes, and for the adults as well.

Definitely. I'm learning all the time.

And I think when you go on a foray, you start to home in

and you go, "Look, there's more there, there's more there..."

-That's right.

-Wonderful.

-No, we're all learning.

And here's another fine example of getting your eye in.

Just look at this lovely wild flower. It's absolutely everywhere.

It's called the devil's-bit scabious,

and when you take a close look,

I think that looks just like a pincushion,

and you know, the community want to introduce more native plants,

just to keep the theme going.

As with noticing the scabious,

the community are trying to highlight the natural planting.

It is a three-acre site, so rather than planting in massive drifts,

they're just planting in little pockets.

It's an athyrium. Just a nice wee fern.

And we're pit-planting so we don't disturb the rest of the flora

and fauna or local weeds.

So I'll just get rid of these roots,

which could be from anything.

I'm splitting it so it goes around the plant

and putting it in upside down, I suppose a bit like a mulch.

And that's it, more or less.

We're planting Sambucus nigra today, a black elder,

and we're putting it here because it could grow to six feet high

and about six feet wide,

so it's going to provide some shelter in this area

because we're quite open from the north-east here,

and so it's got lovely white scented flowers in the spring

and then they develop into blackberries in the autumn,

but we're very close to the bug hotel here, so we're hoping

they can fly out here and get this.

Even though the weather's not so good,

there'll be something here for them to feed on and pollinate as well.

The new Glenorchy Wild Wood Garden has started to take shape.

The community have kept it as a natural enhancement

of the already-beautiful location

and the new natural paths provide simple access

to the floral and fauna.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum, the Japanese katsura tree,

is a sacred tree in Japan, and I can see why.

It is wonderful in scent, fantastic in autumn foliage,

and it smells like strawberry jam, burnt sugar or candyfloss.

Now, the gardeners have also got some favourite plants

and perhaps some hints for you.

For big showy blooms on longer stems,

I'll keep just one flower bud on each of these dahlia shoots

and remove the rest.

This is Fuchsia magellanica.

It's the hardiest of all fuchsias

and it does well under the shade of a tree here

but also makes a good hedge in its own right

and doesn't need pruning until early spring.

These long-range pruners are great.

Not only do they cut

but you can bring the branch down

and you're not left with a branch at the top of your tree

or the hedge you're pruning.

Viburnum opulus has brilliant white flowers in the spring

and these fantastic polished red berries in the autumn.

So what do you think, Jane? A trickle or a torrent?

I think it's a gentle trickle of gentians.

Oh, that's difficult to say!

Well, yes, this was a river of gentians, wasn't it?

We planted one cultivar at the top and then three others

and they flower in sequence all the way down to the bottom,

-and it's strange, you know...

-Started as tiny thorns.

-Absolutely, little thorns like that, planted in...

-April this year.

April this year. And there is the growth,

and we would hope that by next year

they will have matted together absolutely completely.

-And it'll form a beautiful torrent.

-Absolutely.

It will be a sea of blue.

So, from our dry Beechgrove back to a wet Dalmally...

Bye!

-ALL:

-Bye!

So this is the surprise I was telling you about earlier,

a very posh bird hide with a fantastic view of the river,

great location, they can look at all wildlife and particularly

the birds, and also, a really good place for the community to gather.

-There they are!

-Lots of twitchers there.

-Absolutely, yes.

And you know what I love about this site?

I mean, we started off by saying it's very natural,

I think they've kept it really unnatural as well,

and it is just a beautiful location.

-We've been well fed as well, as always.

-We have indeed.

But the thing that gets me always is the sense of community,

bringing the people in from quite long distances

to make this natural setting even more beautiful,

and very constructive in what they're aiming to do.

Well, then, from the Glenorchy Wild Woodland Garden,

-from a lot of wild, happy people, bye!

-Goodbye!