Episode 22 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello and welcome to Beechgrove.

The starter on the menu today, it's cut flowers again.

It is cut flowers again. We started cutting these back in July.

We're still cutting them, which is brilliant.

I did look at the Ageratum before,

I thought it was superb,

and lasts a couple of weeks as a cut flower.

They're quite long stems!

Surprisingly long, actually. I'm surprised how well that performs

as a cut flower, but it's so versatile, isn't it?

Stick it in anywhere and great in a vase.

Some of the things we haven't looked at,

the Scabious here, "Summer Fruits". Look at the different colours there.

-Really nice combination of those.

-Well named, I would have thought.

It is nice. You like the Cosmos, too?

I do, it is a favourite of mine and, being a single flower,

it's not so prone to weather damage because it dries out quickly.

Cut them and they just keep coming.

-And you like the name, "Sweet Kisses"?

-Oh, yes!

SHE LAUGHS

But the winner is this one,

Daucus.

I think that's nice,

I think that does really well with Scabious, too, don't you?

And that lasts for over three weeks.

-Carrot.

-Carrot family.

-Ornamental carrot.

-Amazing!

-I wonder if it's edible.

SHE LAUGHS

The other thing is, we did a test with having them in water.

The proprietary sachet and then our own home-made recipe.

-I have to say the home-made recipe was the tops.

-Can you tell us?

OK, a few drops of bleach,

a teaspoon of sugar,

teaspoon of vinegar,

-and a litre of water.

-That's the business.

Meantime, in the rest of the programme,

I've been back to Aden Country Park, had a lovely day there.

This is the third time.

It's getting more like the Garden of Eden.

I am going down the right trail.

Cold, windy Highland glens.

What do you think can grow in this garden, Lachie?

Find out later.

Here we are right in the middle of the bulb-planting season.

We're about to plant a whole range of dwarf bulbs.

Chopnodoxa, Scilla, Crocus,

the little Narcissus, and so on.

It often says on the packet

that this one should be planted in full sun,

and this one should be planted in the shade.

What happens if you reverse them round?

This Iris, for example, here, should be planted in the open,

so it will definitely be in the open.

Here is a south-facing wall.

Nice holes in the top of the old blocks there,

so we'll plant them in there.

But right next to it is Anemone nemorosa,

and, in fact, the advice there is they should be planted in the shade.

So we have a sort of mirror image.

We have this lot quite obviously grown in the sun,

and they'll get it all day.

These little squares have all been jazzed up

with some old compost out of grow bags and so on.

Never throw things away, make use of them.

That's what's happened there. Over on the other side,

we're ready to plant here. Let me go straight to the iris,

again, and it's in the shade.

I'm sure it will work.

But what sort of difference will it make?

When you're planting bulbs, as you well know,

plant them the depth of about 2½ times

the depth of the bulb itself.

But Anemone nemorosa there is a rhizome,

you don't bury that at all, you just cover it and no more,

right on the surface.

So here we go.

And, as they say, time alone will tell.

What difference will there be, if any?

This is our asparagus tunnel,

and if you remember, we have a range of varieties here

so we have early-season, mid-season and late-season.

But the actual season for cropping is quite short.

You only crop them for eight weeks.

Then what happens is, you let the foliage grow up

and the plants look really healthy at the moment.

But they are herbaceous perennials,

so what we have to do is, in a few weeks' time,

this foliage will start to go yellow,

and it's that time that you can cut them back.

You basically cut it right down to ground level.

Then we wait again until next year to get another crop.

Next door, we have another polytunnel,

and in that polytunnel,

we actually have pumpkins.

I have one or two that are outside,

but quite honestly, they are better to be grown under cover.

This year, I have gone for a range that are small pumpkins.

So, starting off, we have lovely Baby Bear here,

starting to get the hints of the orange on it.

Jack Be Little,

doesn't that look good? Absolutely wonderful,

and just a nice size.

Then we have Small Sugar,

I'd hardly call that "small", cos really that is quite large.

But I think this is my favourite.

Wee Be Little, absolutely beautiful.

What we have done is put them onto straw.

You could use slates or a bit of wood,

and the reason for that is

it lifts it off the soil which is a bit damp,

and it prevents it from things like slugs eating them.

This is the time that we could actually harvest.

You take off a little bit of a stem,

and then if you want to store it,

put it somewhere cool, frost-free,

you could probably keep this right until Christmas time.

Of course, what you might want to do is use this for a lantern,

for Halloween,

and also at the seed. They're really nutritious,

you can roast the seeds,

and the actual flesh is great for soups

and for pies.

So a nice crop. If you want to grow it maybe for next year,

what you need to do is start

the seed off in April, plant it out in June,

and by this time you'll get these lovely pumpkins.

Welcome to the allotments in Aden Country Park,

outside Mintlaw in north Aberdeenshire.

We've been here three times. We came in the spring to see

the new allotmenteers get started,

we came back in the summer to just check them out,

now it is harvest time.

Exhibited here is a wonderful array

of fantastic crops

and a few failures.

But, all-in-all, I think they've done a fantastic job.

Let's go and have a look round.

I have to say that one of the main successes of the season

has been the growth of weeds.

It's been that sort of year.

But some people have managed to get the crops

through and going, just look at this one here,

a really good range of plants,

although there are quite a few weeds about.

I'm turning a blind eye to that, because my garden is just the same.

It's been one of these years.

Hot, sunny weather, and then great downfalls of rain,

just to keep everything going, you know what I mean?

It's lush, but that's brilliant.

The next message that's getting through,

don't leave great expanses of ground

uncovered because it just grows the weeds.

Get the fabric on top and blanket them out.

If they don't get light, they won't grow.

Some nice peas still being harvested there. That's not bad.

That's very nice.

Of course, they have had a lot of water,

rain, and did you know the fact that

if they get plenty water when these flowers are just setting,

you get extra peas in the pod?

This is true.

So many are organised,

with a nice bit of edging, delineating,

nice, clean paths to get about.

It does make a difference.

Fortunately, this is a big agricultural area.

Of course, plenty of real good muck.

Being an open piece of agricultural land here,

surrounded by trees,

we always flag up the fact that pigeons

can be a problem and the folks have got the message.

A bit of netting over the broccoli and other brassicas there.

I'm not quite sure what is being grown under there.

I don't want to pry.

But there again, look at the display so far.

Nice beetroot.

That's not bad at all.

I think this guy is actually a professional gardener.

But, from the very start,

he realised the importance of windbreak,

so he has it all the way round.

He realised the need for cover

and he has arranged himself into slightly raised beds,

nicely sorted out and manageable, that is the whole point.

How much time can you afford? You have to make it manageable.

-Hello, there!

-Aye-aye, Jim!

-How are you doing?

-Nae bad. I have a question for you.

-OK.

-Anne-Marie, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

-Nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

Now, then, what's the question?

Right, fertiliser.

I want to use fertiliser,

but don't want to put chemicals into the ground.

What do I use?

Well, to keep the ground in good heart,

first and foremost you need organic material,

so that means if you are composting all the weeds

in the compost bin,

when it is ready in the wintertime and you do get into the ground,

bury it. Or you might have a source of farmyard manure.

That bulky organic material

will all wither away, die away,

in the soil, and it helps the conditions of the soil.

In a sandy soil, it will help to hold moisture,

in a clay soil it helps to open it out and acts like a sponge.

It takes in the rain and then gives it off.

There is feeding in that as well.

It is quite a low level, so if you are going to crop

at quite an intensity, and the plants are quite close together,

you have to add some fertiliser.

But you don't need to use man-made fertilisers.

You can use bone meal, hoof-and-horn meal,

or indeed pelleted chicken manure.

You would add that into the surface, work it into the top

before you are sowing and planting.

So be good to the soil and it will be good to you.

-Will that do?

-Perfect. Thank you very much for your help.

Gordon, you're a man, I think, who's cracked it

cos you have a good plot and some nice stuff here.

Aye, I've been very happy

how things have went.

Kind of pest-free.

-We have blightened tatties...

-I think everybody has.

-Everybody.

-Round the countryside,

the crop harvesters have been in,

chopping the tops off.

That's something you can do.

All is never absolutely perfect, is it?

Or you wouldn't be keeping trying.

No, no, but the mistake I made here was,

with putting in so much tatties,

-I tended to...

-Cram things up.

..cram things together and it doesn't really work.

It brings us back to one of the basic things.

If you are going to grow the same range of crops,

you have to be able to fit them in

in order that you can move them around.

So that you rotate,

so you don't do the ground to death with just

tatties, tatties, tatties.

-It's definitely a learning curve.

-It's good.

I actually have cause to say that just about

every day of my life.

HE LAUGHS

-We're never too old to learn, are we?

-Every day is a school day.

I resent that remark.

Later in the day,

the allotmenteers came together

to celebrate their first-ever harvest season.

It's hard to believe that at the end of August,

we have all these crops,

so without further ado,

we'll start giving out the prizes.

Georgia, you must be absolutely chuffed with the outcome of this

day and the whole season.

It has been a busy year but I'm absolutely delighted.

What we've seen here today

is just a tiny, tiny amount of the produce

that has been produced here.

And the different range of vegetables.

For me, as well, it's the social side.

It's the community spirit that's here.

It's all these laughing faces

and people that are enjoying themselves.

-They're supposed to be working!

-And they used to be strangers.

Yes, exactly, exactly.

Up until about a year ago, I didn't know any of these people.

But now I would class them as friends.

As I said at the beginning, this is my third visit

and I have already made pals.

And I look forward to seeing them each time I have been back,

and that's over such a short space of time.

That's one of the magic things about these allotments,

there's lots of lovely stuff being grown,

there are guys talking to one another

that stayed a few streets apart and have never spoken before.

And this common denominator is gardening.

And that makes me happy, it really does.

We are going to have some new additions in the seaside garden.

It's African lily, or Agapanthus.

I love these plants because they are a beautiful bit of colour at this time of year.

It's unsurpassable, isn't it?

Very, vey intense blues,

and an increasing number of whites that are hardy, as well,

and even a variegated form.

That's an interesting point, Chris,

because we have chosen three varieties that are meant to be hardy.

We have a dark blue one, Northern Star,

Arctic Star, which is obviously white,

then a variegated one, as well.

Silver Moon, and I would be very sceptical

about Silver Moon being hardy under normal circumstances,

but these are all supposed to be seedling forms

from very hardy forms.

So hopefully they will do fine.

I have added to the soil a load of grit in here,

it is on a south-facing slope, it should be free-draining.

It's getting lots of sunshine peeping through the wall here,

so we're giving them the best shot to see how they perform.

We our hedging our bets, cos as well as putting them in the border,

we have the same varieties and putting them in containers.

So over the wintertime, we can put these in the greenhouse.

As you say, drainage is important,

and if you've got a really cold spot,

you can mulch them as well, can't you?

Yeah, and if you plant them in the garden,

keep the crowns quite high, out of any winter wet.

That also allows the sunlight to get them

and ripen the bulbs, so you should get more flowers,

but I think these will be slightly slower into flower because there is a greater root run.

They like the constraints of the container. It forces them into flower.

You can tell already because they've been in the pots

and have flowered their heads off.

I'll cut those back, because we want the goodness to go back into the root system.

These should behave quite well, hopefully,

whereas we have a huge problem with our sea buckthorn.

-Two plants.

-There's a pair of them.

There's a male here, just flowers, no berries.

And then the berries on the female at the back.

These are absolute thugs,

and they are great at tying a bank together,

on really poor soils.

They are also very good at sending up suckers, look at that.

This would be ideal for your thug border. Or maybe too thuggish.

I think it is too thuggish, even for my thug border

but I lifted this a while ago.

It's been lifting up

on the slab.

That slab's gone.

Crazy paving next time, I think.

That's the result, look at that.

It's incredibly invasive

and we put in a barrier here

and it has gone right the way through.

So, you know, I think the answer probably is

that we need to take these plants out but before we do that,

I just remember one of your first programmes, that was last year,

and you took out a little piece of wood, didn't you?

And it was hoping that it would sprout from the base.

It's good horticultural practice to encourage it to coppice

but I think because it was a cold winter, we were worried about

the crown dying out and nothing coming from the base,

we were trying to encourage it.

But actually nothing was going to knock it,

even the worst of the winter weather and it's just sprouted out,

ignored and calloused over the horticultural slice I'd taken out

and in fact just laughed and threw up a few more suckers.

Yeah, I think I would've taken the chain saw or a saw to it

but we're going to do that anyway now so an opportunity

-to put something else in its place.

-Definitely,

leave it for the birds to take the berries over winter

and on a cold frosty morning sneak up on them, get your chain saw ready.

I'm just north of Blairgowrie, at the gateway to Glenshee

and I'm meeting up again with Callum Pirnie

who used to be the hard gardener of Crathes Castle Garden,

Beechgrove's near neighbour in Aberdeenshire.

Now earlier on in the series,

I was at a beautiful garden with him in the Trossachs.

This time I'm heading for the hills.

Well, here we are at the garden I've been developing in my spare time

up here at Middle Park.

I can't believe, Callum, that you have any spare time.

Well, you know, it's weekends I'm afraid, and holidays but no,

I've got the chance to develop the garden and here,

this part, we're in the orchard

which is actually on the site of an old farmyard

so basically I was able to lay out a good site for the orchard,

good fertile soil and obviously we're at 750ft.

So that must be a huge challenge, choosing the right varieties.

Yes, that was the trick and again,

it being the eastern Highlands with the later seasons,

especially the spring so I went for, well,

a good dessert apple was the Discovery

which, as you can see, cropping well this year

but it's a reliable cropper

and then here we have, of course, Bramley Seedling

-which is another good doer. Reliable fruit every year.

-Yeah.

So it's a case of getting the right varieties

and it's amazing what does do well up here.

I mean, this year they are cropping particularly well, aren't they?

So here we are coming into the secret garden which was a garden

I created over the last ten years from what was basically

a bare space and the critical thing here is the shelter.

As you can see, I've put in a dense planting of trees and shrubs

and with pruning, my aim is to break this chill wind

that comes down Glenshee in the spring.

But you're still getting the flowers on the Philadelphus,

you're doing the pruning at the right time of year.

That's right, the trick here is that it's densely planted with shrubs

and to get the enhanced flower

the trick is to keep pruning them and that gives you more space

so you can end up getting more into the garden.

So by creating that shelter belt, you're managing to grow,

well, things that are quite exotic like the Embothrium.

Touch wood. Now it's starting to get some shelter

and it's starting to come on quite nicely so the Embothrium

and here we have a Eucalyptus that's doing quite well.

Then I'm using the walls of the stead and south-facing, of course,

for things like the gage,

actually got some fruit in the gage this year.

Quite exciting and just obviously a nice place to sit

-and enjoy the view.

-But I mean, it is a huge collection you've got here.

Quite a diversity in this bit of the garden,

I themed it with the Crocosmias and the Hostas so just all adding these,

they're just little themes, little incidents in the garden.

Well, the garden really opens up here.

Yes, this is coming into what was the old vegetable garden and then the

previous owner had some lovely flowerbeds in here but then I decided

to unify the whole lot together into the garden you're seeing now.

This is the Crathes topiary,

I had to have one but this is actually

the Portugal laurel myrtifolia variety

which of course has this finer foliage which means

when I trim it, I can get a much tighter...

It makes just a really good cloud topiary.

Yes, so better for making the clouds, basically.

You can shape it tighter and it gets that lovely feel to it.

I remember the last time we were speaking about your Acers

because you love Acers and look at the collection here.

Well, that was again, I had the opportunity

and I thought let's see how we get on so with again developing shelter

as the maples are growing now and these varieties are selected

that were ones that seemed to be hardier again in this upland climate.

Now, you were head gardener at Crathes for a long time

and I just think you've got a colour thing going on here with

-the golden plants?

-Well, I had to have the hot border, didn't I?

Given Lady Burnetts' amazing themes at Crathes and here was a chance.

It's a sheltered site, it gets lots of sun,

a hot border so basically using Inulas, Rudbeckias, Solidago

and the Buddlejas and just creating this really nice autumn theme

-and here it is. Good stuff.

-It worked really well.

The Cercidiphyllum, weeping form,

does that give you that lovely sort of burnt sugar smell?

It does indeed but this is a really special tree, this one,

and as you can see now it's starting to get its proper shape now,

become a proper specimen so really doing the job.

Yeah, and as we look around, I mean, you talk about all these specimens.

I mean, how many different species have you got?

I reckon there's certainly about 700 - 800 plants on the database

and along with that obviously I label what I can because

-it's just to keep track of it all so quite a nice wee collection.

-Yeah.

A lovely collection here cos look at the colour.

I mean, for September,

a lot of interest and still more Acers in pots.

That's right and then this time of year you get these

kind of combinations and I love using plants in combination

so here you have the Buddleja "Pink Delight"

and then against that the Eucryphia.

And the Persicaria, I mean, that's a great ground cover plant

and you seemed to have used that right across the border.

Yeah, it's a brilliant thing.

It comes out on the gravel, it repeat flowers

and just does its stuff and by planting it in blocks along here,

it links it all together on the top of the terrace.

But you know over there, Callum, I think

you're really pushing out the boundaries.

Is it a bit of a micro-climate?

That's right, that's the most sheltered spot in the garden

so that's where to put, what I call the real choice plants

and of course the centrepiece is the Trachycarpus

and amazingly I don't protect it in the winter

apart from if there's a heavy, heavy fall of snow,

I'll maybe throw some snow into the crown of it just to protect it

from the searing winds when there's a lot of snow and frost.

Yeah, and that choice little Acer.

And the little Acer, yeah, that's a good specimen.

One of the dwarf Japanese maples and it's now just about reaching

its maturity and against the rock it's just bang on and loves the heat.

-Just thrives...

-And no doubt good autumn colour as well?

Great autumn colour on that one as well. It does fine there.

And the thing is, you probably get frost here for as much as what?

Ten months of the year, you could do?

You certainly can get frosts, yeah, certainly eight months anyway

and occasionally maybe it touches outwith that.

But you've proved what you can grow here

and also the fact that really you're just doing this over weekends.

It's my weekend and holiday garden this one so, och aye,

a lot of it's in terms of trying to keep it low-maintenance

-and let the plants fill the space.

-You obviously love it.

It's a wonderful place to be.

As summer slips into autumn,

gardens and landscapes take on a new lease of life.

Really emblazoned by flame tints and tones.

It's just not plants like this wonderful viburnum here

that go claret coloured,

what about Fothergilla major that almost becomes ignited

in really rich shades of reds and oranges?

And even the ubiquitous Hydrangea petiolaris

manages the most fabulous golden displays.

And I suppose the puzzling aspect is,

well, why do plants change colour in autumn?

And also why is that colour variation so distinct from one year to another?

Well, the story really starts in spring with the formation of leaves.

But the story of great autumn colour starts with

the production of leaves in spring.

The leaf, of course, is a green factory,

it's filled full of chlorophyll.

It harvest the sun's energy and transports that into sugars

which are then pushed down into the plant and enlivens the plant.

It's what the plant needs in order to be able to grow.

And when the plant produces a leaf,

on the end of the leaf's stalk is a very fine corky layer.

It's called the abscission layer

and it's a little bit like a tap that gradually gets turned off

as the season progresses, more and more corky cells start to grow,

restricting the amount of moisture and sugars

that can flow out of the leaf.

And that has an important effect in autumn

because after Midsummer's Day when the days shorten

and the intensity of the light is reduced,

the plant, predicting autumn, starts to dismantle the chlorophyll,

the green substance in the leaf, and pull it out

and as a consequence,

what we're left with are the shades that are always present

like the wonderful yellows of the Hamamelis here.

So if you want really reliable colours then go with yellows

because every season that plant will pull the chlorophyll out

and you're bound to get a great yellow display.

But, if you want the most flamboyant reds

and really vivid pinks

then you have to rely not just on the plant

pulling itself to pieces literally during autumn,

but also dry conditions at the root,

a drought in summer is perfect,

and really bright days followed by cold nights

because what then happens is that,

you can see on this Parrotia,

the leaves go bright colours.

The sugars are still manufactured in the leaf

but that tap has now been turned off.

The sugars can't get out and so another substance is manufactured.

It's called anthocyanins, it's the red pigment in all plants.

It's why, for instance, apples go red as they ripen.

It's exactly the same process, anthocyanin is produced,

the sugars are trapped in the leaf or in the apple

and we get the most fantastic autumn colours.

So plants like Parrotia and Fothergilla are the ones to go for,

just remember they may not always give you their very best displays

but it's worth the wait.

Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.

We're going to have a redundant cold frame all summer

and taking an idea from my old dad, he used to fill his cold frames

with melons for the summer and the staff all just loved that.

Well, I can't say that it's been the best use of space this time.

We've three varieties and the best one, 5 Desserts,

so your share is going to be really quite limited.

Then we've got Sweet Granite

which was looking as if it could double in size

in a very short space of time

but the fact of the matter is they've stopped growing now

and then finally there's Minnesota Midget up there,

it's been the most prolific by far.

I wonder what Mr B has to say for his efforts,

he was certainly growing wonderful silage the last time I looked.

The cheek of it, silage!

Although in truth,

I think Mr B's melon enterprise isn't going to be hugely profitable

if it's size you're after.

If it's quantity then we could be quids in because quick head count

in here and just look, everywhere you look, there's melons.

They're small but there are melons there.

In fact, there's about 45 in here.

From one plant, this is Minnesota Midget

so where Jim was producing one or two melons per plant,

this is, well, a wealth of melons.

Well, I think the melons were a bit of fun. However, our round courgettes

have been really productive and we've used a lot of them.

Now you can see there's one or two still left here

and as long as we don't have any frost,

I'm hoping they will mature and just to help them I want to

take off some of the foliage and let in as much light as possible.

Well, do you agree to an honourable draw in the melon stakes?

I think just about. Just about.

-Yours were slightly further ahead than mine.

-They were more plentiful.

But what about the heat which was used for them?

-Very juicy, actually.

-Yeah, they were very juicy.

-Good flavour.

Anyway, explain yourself, dear boy. This is an invention of yours.

Yeah, well, this was just a patch of land which was

very, very poor soil, it's part of the old wind breaker of trees

so it's tree stumps and unimproved,

popped in a load of 9cm herbaceous containers.

They've been in just over a year and really the idea was to use

exotic plants and try and assemble them like a meadow

so it should be maintenance free

and we have been taking out weeds in the spaces but actually,

it's giving you the display at the end of the season.

It's filled the gap. And that Monarda I think's rather nice,

-little bit of mildew but not bad.

-It's a good one,

that's violent queen which is known to be relatively good

at resisting mildew but look at the size.

Everything is about half the size you'd expect in a conventional

-herbaceous border with lots of fertiliser underneath it.

-No staking.

-Yeah, I like that too.

-That's a winner.

-But a good spread of colour for this time of year.

-Yeah, it's great.

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

it's all in the factsheet

and the easiest way to access that is online.

-Now next week, Chris, what are you doing?

-Next week I'm back roaming.

I'm going back to my new builds, end of the first growing season

for them so I'm really keen to see how they're getting on.

-What about you? What are you doing?

-Spring bedding, I think, Jim.

-And you too.

-Yes, well, in a different bed, I'd expect.

-Until we see you next time. Bye!

-Goodbye.