Episode 7 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello there and welcome to a fine May morning in the Beechgrove Garden.

You know, if you are faced with looking after four fractious kids,

the best thing to do is give them some water to plouter about in!

And here we have Chris and Carole and Jane and Maddy,

busily working away, happy as Larry,

getting some of this pondweed out, this blanket weed.

I would think it is because it is a mild winter, Carole,

that we've had quite such a harvest of it.

I think it's the worst I've ever seen it and I think you're right.

The temperature of the pond has really warmed up

and this blanket weed has gone a bit berserk, hasn't it?

Yeah, but you were saying the water underneath, Chris,

-is absolutely spot-on.

-It is remarkably clear.

You don't want the blanket weed, but the blanket weed is so dense on the surface,

it is reacting faster to the nitrates and phosphates and anything else in the water,

so you're not getting the pea soup, the single-celled stuff.

The water is completely clear underneath.

-I think that is harder to get rid of, isn't it, the pea-soup effect?

-Yep.

-Jane, you have a secret weapon.

-I've got a secret weapon in my pocket

in the form of this little bag, which is a blend of microbes

that will deal with all this blanket weed and digest it.

-Just one packet?

-That's enough...

-For all of this water?!

We'll see. We may need a second packet.

The temperature of the water has got to be at least ten degrees.

You're beginning to know whether it's ten degrees or not!

It doesn't feel like ten degrees where I'm standing, I can tell you.

-Can I say, I've got a hole in my waders.

-You've got a leak!

That's a cue for a song, I think! But later, perhaps.

One of the important things is about the health of the wildlife.

Apart from you guys, of course.

We're putting the blanket weed onto the plastic

to allow anything caught up in there to crawl back into the pond.

Just a few minutes ago, there was a newt making his escape.

I am conscious I'm not doing very much here,

so I'm - guess what - off to the greenhouse.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the programme...

I am in a lovely garden in Aberdeen

with a wonderful collection of plants.

But I am going to help the owner reduce the maintenance.

What a difference already.

I will leave the rest of the team to clear that blanket weed out

and I'm going to move on to a much smaller pond.

Probably most of us only have a small garden

and therefore only room for a pond this size.

This is the garden for life.

You can see we have the same problem - some blanket weed.

I don't think I need the waders on.

Instead, it is the wellies, kneepads and the gloves,

because this pond is a lot smaller.

Straightaway, we have similar problems to the big pond with that blanket weed.

You can see how fibrous it is.

But in amongst it, we have another weed.

This tiny little weed amongst it is called duckweed.

That again multiplies and blocks the light.

The good news again is, underneath, like Chris was speaking about,

the water is crystal clear.

Jim was saying in the other pond we have newts.

In this one, Jane, we have quite a few frogs.

He has just swum away from me. I was trying to catch him.

We are going to use the net.

If we catch any of those, we will put them into the trug

and then we can put it back once we've cleared it out.

The other thing I'm going to have to look at is what sort of plants.

This, for example, this glyceria, that's quite invasive,

so I will have to pull out a lot of that, replant it into pots.

That one, that needs attention.

It really has rooted into the bottom of the pond.

So I think we should just crack on, shouldn't we?

It is really nice to have the fountain working again,

and the water, well, it is starting to settle down,

it is starting to clear.

I hope you agree with me that there is a big difference that we've made with it.

You can see how much we've taken out the side.

There is a pile over there. Just going over it again.

We will leave it overnight, just in case there are any little creatures,

and, tomorrow, that can go onto the compost heap.

We never managed to catch any frogs. They must've gone to the edge.

I think now they will have a really nice swimming pool.

We've even got some pond-skaters - we can actually see them!

To deal with the plants themselves, I've done a bit of repotting

and rescued plants.

Over there, that is the glyceria.

There is a lot of that in the main pond. It's very invasive.

I have just lifted three or four of them that had rooted

and put them into a special pond basket. The same with this one.

That is the water hawthorn.

It is a good deep-water plant

and it follows flowers for a long time, much longer than water lilies.

So that is a value-for-money plant in my mind.

Back to the baskets, they have a fine mesh on them

and that stops the soil going through.

Please, don't be tempted to take soil from your own garden,

because if that is high in nutrients,

what will happen is you will then get that pea-soup effect.

It is much better to buy proper pond soil, which is low in nutrients.

It's a very heavy soil. And then I have rescued another invasive plant.

This is the water mint.

A beautiful smell, but it is important to keep it in a container.

If it starts to escape, cut it back again.

You may notice that we still have a bit of duckweed on the pond.

I don't think we will ever completely get rid of that,

but, every week or so, if we go in with a net,

we will keep it under control.

So that is planted. A bit of gravel.

This is quite important to keep the soil in.

If you have fish in the pond, that is another thing.

What they will do is disturb the soil.

This is a marginal, so it needs to sit on a shelf

and only go to a depth of about three to four inches.

That will sit perfectly in there.

And, well, I think it's looking really good.

In our gardens, we are used to creating a wonderful display

of shrubs, or herbaceous perennials, when the borders are horizontal.

The challenge really comes when the surfaces go vertical,

that is to say fences, trellises, walls.

The key aspect in selecting plant material is which direction is

the surface you are going to climb your plant on facing?

For instance, is it north, south, east or west?

If you are not sure, do check.

A simple compass.

This garden is laid out so that that is directly north,

which makes that south, west and east.

Really, that should be the starting point

when it comes to selecting plant material.

What we decided to do in the cutting garden was to create

a series of fence panel surfaces,

which indicate each of those aspects,

and then try and create a planting tapestry that

delivers year-round interest from each of those elevations.

For instance,

this panel here is a north-facing panel.

That is to say that direction is north.

Typically, this is shady, it's cool, it's humid,

so you have to choose plants that will celebrate those conditions.

And Akebia quinata is a great example of that.

It's the chocolate vine.

It's in flower at this time of year, with its slightly pendant, purple blooms,

followed by extended pods, which, in Japan,

are a delicacy when stuffed with minced meat.

That is a great scrambling plant.

It needs something to scramble up, so my second choice is Rosa Zephirine Drouhin.

It's an old Bourbon rose. Double-pink blooms. Very fragrant.

Incredibly free-flowering.

It's so generous in the way it produces flowers.

Normally, you will find people saying it needs sunshine.

But, it is such a good flowering performer, it will tolerate a northerly aspect.

And then the third specimen is a real rarity.

The beautiful green, luscious foliage of Hydrangea seemanii.

This is a real rarity.

But, it is tough,

and it produces those lace-cap flowers late in the summer.

Pure white.

Exactly what you'd expect from a self-clinging, climbing hydrangea.

That is the northerly aspect sorted.

For the east, we are going for plants which are tolerant

of the conditions that are generally cold -

we generally get a cold easterly breeze coming through -

but also the thing to watch out for is sunlight,

first thing in the morning, hitting the delicate shoots, which could be

leaves, or buds, or fruits, and defrosting them at the early time of the year.

That is when the damage is caused.

So you need something resilient to those conditions.

Clematis, the macropetala forms. Very early flowering.

This particular one is Maidwell Hall. Clear blue flowers.

It's already finished flowering and now it's producing the foaming heads -

old man's beard is the common name for this plant and,

as soon as these seed heads ripen,

with the white, wispy fruits, you can see exactly why.

Mixing that with Schizophragma integrifolium.

This is a woody climber. White flowers, late in the season.

It produces them horizontally on strained branches.

A bit like the hydrangea, it comes out and presents itself,

a little bit like a doily.

And mixing with that -

Vitis vinifera Purpurea.

The purple ornamental vine.

The beauty of this plant is it's not really fussy in terms of aspect.

But if you grow it somewhere where it's truly hot,

it tends to suffer with mildew on the foliage late in the season,

so choose an east-facing wall and you won't suffer with the heat.

Heat is something that Jim might just be struggling with down in the glasshouses.

It's been getting a bit hot in here,

so I just stepped out for a minute, to get a bit of fresh air.

It's mid-May, it is time to plant our cold-house tomatoes.

What's the score? What are we doing this year?

We are growing in ten-inch pots, but we're using grow-bag compost

and these guys have upped their game a wee bit because we put it

through a sieve and there is very little rubbish in it nowadays,

which is a great improvement. So that is the basics.

We're putting a single plant in a pot, growing them up a string.

We always get asked, "How do you do this knot?"

Because it's a one-handed thing.

I think George got the privilege of doing it last year

and I probably did it the year before.

Twist the string once round the wire like so

then create a little loop and bring it through with your finger.

Pulling down like so. Nae bother.

Now where does the bottom go?

The fact of the matter is... I'll do it in this one. It is easier.

Make the plant ready for planting.

Beautiful white roots. Dig a hole.

Put the string in the bottom of the hole.

And the plant in on top of the string. Nae bother.

By the time the plant gets a grip,

it's got nice and slack for twisting around the plant itself.

So, we have four varieties, standard variety, beefsteak,

two cherry varieties and a replica that side. Why two?

The challenge this year - and it came from the visit

I made to the primary school in Comrie, Perthshire,

where the children were very keen that I should use comfrey

to feed my tomato plants.

Here is the comfrey and this is what it looks like

when you press the liquid out of it.

Typical of organic recommendations,

it says this should be diluted to the colour of whisky.

Devotees like myself know that whisky can be almost colourless to the colour of port wine,

so we'll take a medium blend sort of colour, as we mix it.

And we'll compare that with a standard, high-potash,

commercial liquid feed.

This half gets the Comrie... Gets the Comrie!

Yes, gets the comfrey.

And this half gets the commercial feed

and we shall see just exactly what it is.

Because that's for nothing.

Whereas we have to buy the inorganic material.

Just before we leave, we've had an inquiry or two about this system of growing.

It's a system of self-watering.

Start with a reservoir here, into which you put the water

and, gradually, liquid feed. When you add the liquid feed,

you mix it first at the right strength and then top it up in here

and it will give you four or five days of watering of the plant.

Six plants in this particular system.

You've got a plant with a capillary in the bottom to prevent

the roots from going through.

And a little float switch, which controls the water

and it's taken up by capillary action. It works a treat.

Of course, setting it up on a couple of bricks gives it a better head,

so you get a nice flow of the liquid through there. It does work.

It's to be recommended, I have to say.

With the north and easterly aspect planted up,

you really start to appreciate how shady it is in that corner

and, by contrast, the south-facing fence in full sun, plenty of warmth.

And as soon as the sun comes across,

the west-facing fence will benefit from that warmth.

The consequence - you can grow much more glamorous

and exotic plants on these two aspects.

To start with, a good old reliable clematis.

This one is Clematis Jackmanii Superba.

It's a large, blue-flowering hybrid form, very late flowering.

It flowers right through until the frost. It's a super candidate,

very easy to look after and manage.

Mixing that with a rather more delicate clematis.

This is from New Zealand, one of the cartmanii types.

It is called Early Sensation.

It has finished its flowering flush and it's evergreen.

Great spring flowers, but it needs the protection of that west fence.

And then, to add a bit of meat to the tapestry, Vitis coignetiae.

A beautiful plant, leathery-hide leaves

and the best autumn colour of any of the climbers.

But, be careful, it's vigorous.

And for the south-facing fence,

go for those plants you never thought possible to grow in your garden.

I've got two actinidias.

The first is the most vigorous

and the most showy - Actinidia kolomikta.

But this is one that cats take a shine to,

so if you've got furry creatures,

go for the actinidia which is slightly more resilient and,

for my money, all the better. It's much more exotic.

This one is pilosula.

It produces not just the foliage, but also those beautiful pink blooms.

Combined, they should create a great palette.

And then a plant that is normally seen in the cool glasshouse,

or conservatory. Jasminum beesianum.

Broad, pink, propeller-like flowers, already starting to form.

Will flower right through the summer

and it has the most exquisite fragrance.

Combined with the pinks and whites of the actinidia,

I think this south fence will be something to die for.

This week, I'm revisiting a garden in Aberdeen

that Jim was at 14 years ago.

At that time, it was owned by Alistair McKelvey,

a plant hunter who, in ten trips to the Himalayas, had collected 150 species.

Julie Platt bought the house 18 months ago,

and though an eager novice, she wants advice on what to do

with a garden jam-packed with so many choice plants.

So, Julie, were you really attracted by the garden when you came here?

When I came to look at the house, I fell in love with the garden.

That was one of the reasons I decided to buy the house.

Presumably, it's a little bit daunting for you?

Not being a gardener, I think when I took on the garden, I didn't realise how much work was required.

Probably, I would like to cut down the amount of work required in the garden.

So slightly low-maintenance is quite important for you?

Yeah, that would be very important.

I hope to grass most of this area,

but I'd like to keep some of the plants

in the beds and move them elsewhere, because some of them are so pretty.

That is quite a sensible idea,

because obviously that will be less time cutting the grass,

rather than maintaining the borders. But there are so many plants here.

Presumably, you don't want to get rid of all of them.

I want to keep them. As you say, they are beautiful plants,

I want to keep as much as I can, but I think there will not be enough space.

Of course, there won't be.

Straightaway, I would say that Daphne, that is Daphne Retusa.

Lovely perfume, beautiful specimen.

I think once that has finished flowering, you can think about lifting that.

It should have quite a good root ball on it.

That is maybe an obvious place there.

You've done a bit of tidying up over there.

-Something didn't survive, so it's gone.

-OK, that one I would keep.

But this Euphorbia,

take a look at that, the way it is spreading right through the border.

-That is one I call a bit of a thug.

-OK!

Because you have limited space, you don't want to lift that

-and then have it spread through the border, so forget about that one.

-OK.

But let's have a look at the front.

We've come at the right time to look at the front garden,

because it's really colourful, with the rhododendrons.

What do you want us to do here?

Again, it's about keeping the maintenance down,

putting maybe some grass paths through to define it a little bit more.

That is interesting, because we talked about adding grass in the back,

which will cut down on your maintenance. It's a bigger area.

But putting in a small grass path here is going to be fiddly.

It will be more work for you. You have to keep the edges and things.

What I suggest is we define the paths with some bark.

I know you have done a bit of weeding. Did that take you a while?

It took me about three hours on Monday night.

That's what you want to cut down.

The other thing is we are going to go over it again,

get the rest of the weeds out and we are going to mulch it.

-So I think it's about time we got our hands dirty!

-Excellent.

As a general rule, rhododendrons don't need pruning.

However, sometimes they can get too big for the situation.

Maybe they get rather leggy. Then you can think about pruning.

Julie has been quite severe.

Personally, I think you need to do it over time.

Take about three years and you would cut out one third one year,

then the next third and the next third.

However, this one is not too bad,

because it is starting to recover. It's quite interesting.

Even down here, there is a tiny shoot. So a little bit of patience.

This one next to me doesn't look particularly great.

A little bit of life there, but what is interesting is this branch

has naturally rooted into the ground.

This is what we call... It is almost like a technique of layering.

Therefore, what I want to do is cut it here,

we'll keep this and that will come out.

Now that the bed has been weeded,

this is an ideal time to feed the border with a fertiliser for acid-loving plants.

You must be careful not to overfeed.

Always follow the instructions on the packaging.

You would normally lightly fork the fertiliser in,

but we are mulching the bed with composted bark at a depth of five centimetres,

which will keep the moisture in and suppress the weeds.

We are using a coarser grade of bark for the paths,

which is ideal for walking on.

We are back in the back garden

and this is one of the beds you want to get rid of.

I think there are one or two plants we can salvage,

because, also, there is a raised bed in the front that needs filling.

We need to go on a hunt and there is quite a good example.

It's a little geranium. I think that might be worth trying to lift.

So see what kind of root system we get on it.

I have a feeling you might lose one or two things, but it's worth a try.

Is there...? There are some fibrous roots, so that should maybe be OK.

However, this phlox, although it looks pretty,

if you take a closer look,

there is no root on that at all.

It's really woody, leggy.

So my advice there would be don't worry about that one,

you can buy them fairly cheaply from garden centres.

Little saxifrages, though, these are fine.

These are just hugging on the rocks.

And just lifting up a few of the rosettes -

ideal.

I think we've just got to go right the way around and see what we can find.

OK.

Lovely, aren't they, the pulsatillas?

-Do they go at the front?

-Yeah.

-I would actually tend to put that near the back.

-OK.

We've got another one, so spread them around.

-How do you know how far they are going to spread?

-A-ha.

That's the problem. You did see that one in the garden.

-That was quite invasive. Maybe stick it in the corner.

-OK.

-What do you think, Julie?

-I think it's wonderful. I'm so pleased with it, and thank you.

I think it's been very inspiring to do what I can do at the back.

I think it will make the work at the back easier than what I'd thought it was going to be.

Basically, what you've got to do is weed a border,

mulch it straightaway and then bark on the paths.

-Perfect.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

One of the great scourges of glasshouse crops

is red spider mite, and it loves an arid climate.

So the thing to do on fine days is to give the plants a real good sloshing with water.

Oh! Just soaked myself.

Now you might wonder why I'm cutting back some herbaceous at this time of year.

There is a reason for it

and this clump here I'm cutting right back and the reason

for it is what I want to do is, basically, delay the flowering.

It might delay it up to about six weeks.

And there will be a nice comparison with the phlox at the back.

The plants themselves will be more compact

and probably a little bit more bushier, as well.

You can do this to one or two herbaceous plants,

with things like some of the Campanula group.

It is also called the Chelsea Chop.

The reason for that, of course, is the Chelsea Flower Show.

And that's the time of year you need to do it -

about the middle, towards the end of May.

Well, the bad news is some of our rhododendrons have been frosted.

It's a bit of a shame.

The good news is one of my favourite trees of all time

is just coming into full leaf and flower.

It's a member of the Sorbus family, the Rowan family,

but this is the Swedish version - Swedish Whitebeam. Sorbus aria Lutescens.

Absolutely stunning. I've planted one of these in every garden I've ever owned.

Some of you may remember that Jim was in the fruit cage last week

and he was looking at damage with blister aphid, but the aphid had actually gone.

This is a Ribes here and you can see the damage of the blisters.

But also there is still evidence of the aphid.

The reason I'm looking at this plant is not for the aphids,

it is because of the flowers. This is the fourberry.

It is Ribes aureum and a variety called Black Gem.

The flowers are so unusual -

bright yellow, little tubular flowers, really attractive

and, because it's called the fourberry,

hopefully, this year, we're actually going to get some fruit.

Jim, this is a great display of the wallflowers, but what's going on?

Well, just to recap on what we've done.

This lot of wallflower here are home-grown.

They were sown in June, they were transplanted in early August

and then planted out

in October. That transplanting process makes them nice and bushy.

These are plug plants grown in modules.

And these, somebody bought them offline. Online?

-Online, I think it is.

-Bare-rooted things.

-And it shows.

-It goes to show, follow you, Jim.

This is the old-fashioned way, of course.

-You recall that from your youth.

-That's it,

when I was a kid the first job I had in the nursery was bundling these up.

Bundles of ten, normally.

Heeling them into a sand bed ready for that autumn planting.

And that's the display you expect

but they just completely fell out of favour.

I think a combination of our changing tastes in colour means this

sort of cauldron is a bit garish at this time of the year,

but also that they are perceived as difficult

-because of that double handling.

-Also, they flower quite late.

And we've had that mild winter and they're doing really well this year.

The one thing is the perfume you get. Isn't it gorgeous?

You can't transmit that on the telly.

The Siberian wallflower at the back is really strong actually.

So grow them yourself, don't go for the online. Which reminds me,

if you want any information it's all in the fact sheet

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

Next week, are you with us, Mr Beardshaw?

Yes and no. I'm with my new build families.

So first-time gardeners. Paying another visit.

Keep them moving in the same direction to see how they get on.

-They are toeing the line?

-I hope so.

-That's good stuff.

-What are you doing?

-I'm indoors and outside, Jim.

Cucumbers and courgettes. What about you?

Sweetcorn is on the menu for me.

-So, until next week, goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Bye.