Episode 1 The Beechgrove Garden

Yeah, looking good.

This is a nice spot of colour - isn't it cheerful?

Some colour for a change. It makes such a difference.

Hello there, welcome to Beechgrove 2016!

And a belter of a day! Absolutely super, isn't it?

It's lovely. I mean it's definitely spring, isn't it?

-Yes, yes.

-But sadly, I mean, wettest winter on record since 1910

for Scotland, Wales and northwest England.

And you've had the mildest winter since records began.

Yeah, mild, wet and windy.

That was definitely the order of the early season.

And that has had an effect on the countryside and the garden.

Yeah, I mean, huge consequences.

So much water, the soil turned to soup

and then the wind meant that the plants were being thrown around,

roots breaking.

So, plenty of loose plant material that needs staking

and just needs an eye keeping on it, really.

I see compaction being a major problem

on ground that hasn't been cultivated.

We have to get rid of that moisture gradually, so that it heats up.

And, you know, what about these yellow fields you see?

And it's not just daffodils!

That's it, isn't it? The amount of rain that we've all had,

all the nutrients that are water-soluble

have largely been washed out from the root zone

and as a consequence, you get that yellowing,

not just in fields and on lawns,

but as plants start to break bud and emerge as well,

I think we need to keep an eye on the fertiliser

and the organic matter.

Anyway, we're back in the garden again and this garden is...

-What did we say, 20 years old?

-20 years we've been in this garden.

And some time during this series, we'll pass

-the 1,000 programme mark.

-Wow.

That's a thought.

And toots here will have been at it for 30 years.

You wouldn't think so, would you?

-So, the garden needs an overhaul after 20 years.

-Yes.

What do you get after 30 years?

Cosmetic surgery!

Now then, now then, steady on.

We've got one member missing, but George was with us last week

in the garden when we did a bit of pruning,

so it's on with the work and a lot to do in a garden

that's 20 years old.

And we're always saying to people how important it is

to have colour in the garden 12 months of the year with plants.

However, the garden I'm going to be visiting later

introduces colour in a very different way.

You're left in no doubt when you've been a naughty boy

in the Beechgrove Garden...

because you get banished...

to the rubberwear department

and the pond.

But, in truth...

it's quite an exciting job to have because

over the winter months,

the garden team have really done us proud in here.

If you remember, this section of the garden -

which is the centrepiece, constructed over 20 years ago -

really had become overgrown.

The pond was completely congested with plant material,

this rather fabulous water feature coming down here -

which adds so much to the atmosphere of all gardens, of course,

flowing water -

had ceased to work.

The wooden banking here had rotted away and collapsed,

there was no proper flight of steps.

The whole place was just an area that we felt looked rather sorry

and in need of a certain amount of work.

And it's important that if you're going to work in a pond,

no matter how large,

the bulk of the work is done during the winter months

because all the plants are dormant,

but, more importantly,

all of our little friends over here are dormant.

Just look at that. There's a whole...

I'm not sure what the collective word for frogs is,

but there's a whole, let's say fleet of frogs, over there

having a rather fun time, it has to be said.

So, I'm going to tiptoe in at this end

just to keep myself fairly discreet.

So, the liner in here is sand, but all of the plant material

and all of the silt and sludge was all cleared out

and what we see now is the bare skeleton of

an essential component for the water feature.

So, at the far end, we've got a bog garden

and then we've got a beach that allows

a certain ingress and egress of fauna,

easy access into the water.

We've got vegetation tumbling in because some animals,

particularly things like hedgehogs,

are very shy and they want to get to the water's edge unseen

by any predators.

When the gardeners were taking the plants out,

they managed to salvage plants like water lilies

and water iris and, of course,

no pond like this is complete without that wonderful lily pad.

So, it's time to replace them and allow them to replenish themselves.

You can be fairly unceremonious with the cutting.

Water lilies grow from a very thick, sort of, an inch thick.

There you go, you can just see it there

where it's been cut through.

An inch thick of rhizome which, generally, lies horizontally

on the surface of the soil or on the mud at the bottom

of your pool

and what you're looking for is chunks of rhizome,

certainly no smaller than that, four inches absolute minimum.

There's a piece here, which is much longer - six, seven inches -

that's perfect.

It's got young shoots coming from it, fresh, young growth.

Once you've got a decent-sized pad,

you can then fill an aquatic basket full of compost.

The reason for using aquatic compost is that it's low fertility.

The low fertility means that once you put it in the water,

the nitrogen, especially, isn't going to leach out

and cause an algal bloom.

And then, because we've got so much wildlife in the pond,

it's quite important to put a very thin layer of gravel on the surface

and this really just serves to prevent the frogs

and newts and toads, which are, sort of, furtling around,

from kicking up the silt and sludge.

You can see that we've already prepared three here of

different cultivars.

You can then reintroduce them into the pond.

And the thing to do is to make sure

that your pond has got the essential levels.

Now, one of the things that was very obvious

once this was all excavated

is that we've got the deeper section there,

which is about a metre deep

and then about 90, 60 and 30, so it's perfect shelves

on which we can place our aquatics.

Don't just drop them into the deepest level,

even if, ultimately, they will grow that deep.

Just beneath the surface is what you're looking for.

Like that. If you drop them in too deep,

they will just rot off.

They need a little bit of light to get through

on to those emerging shoots.

So, we've got a few plants still to go in

and we'll keep coming back to the pond

over the next few weeks

to start filling it out with plant material and to complete

the pond banking over here.

So, by the end of the season,

this area should, once again, be the focal point of the garden.

Well, it's time now to have a look at our overwintering vegetables,

after what we would regard as a fairly mild winter.

We had four different sets.

We've got onions under cloches and in a polytunnel.

We've got brassicas and we've got others.

The onions are going to need a little bit of a lift now

to get them to start growing

and they've come through quite well.

The brassicas, however, it's a mixed story to be told.

Here we've got calabrese.

I think it's a sin. I think it's almost actionable

to grow overwinter calabrese.

Broccoli, yes, that is calabrese, it's Italian,

it's frost tender and it's a mess.

It's a waste of time.

However, the other brassicas, coming on not too badly.

The surprise for me have been the others, so to speak,

and they've done best in the tunnel, surprise, surprise.

We've got parsley, of course, we've got pak choi,

we've got chard, we've got spinach and we've got that weed

which people love to eat, called rocket.

Doing superbly well.

So, we're quite pleased we've got lovely green veg

over the winter months.

And then, out of doors, the tale never ends

cos here we are.

The veg plot's covered up, ready for planting tatties

and getting the seeds of the roots in.

Well, the Calendar Border, at the moment, looks nice and tidy,

but there's always something to do.

And this hypericum, basically, you could start

to see it sprouting at the moment, there's just one or two

little buds here.

And the whole idea is we actually chop this right down to the ground

and then you get beautiful new growth, nice foliage

and, in particular, in the autumn time,

you get lovely little berries on it.

And also, another lovely winter plant is this one,

the Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn'.

And some of you might remember that I pruned this back last year

with Mairi, our head gardener, back in June

and you can see, there's some lovely new growth

because we want to regenerate it.

But, at the same time, we have still got some of those lovely flowers

which have a little bit of fragrance and they attract

the pollinators.

Now, I think what was also interesting was that Jim

actually called me the Sweeney Todd of pruning.

Now, just wait until you see Jim and George

and what kind of pruning they've been doing.

Now then, George, I reckon this is a very essential, preparatory

piece of work before we have a binge on the pruning.

Absolutely. These have got to be really sharp

because you want to get clean cuts because

we don't want to damage the plant, we want to get it to heal quickly.

This is true. And you're using?

Well, it's just a little carborundum stone, Jim.

This is, what, a junk shop or something like that

I picked it up in.

That's just ideal for putting an edge on.

Well, I use what they call a steel,

made by the same company that makes the secateurs.

And the crucial thing is, we only sharpen one side of the blade.

-Yep, yep.

-Because this side has to remain flat

as it passes the anvil.

I'll tell you what.

-I could shave you with that.

-Could you?

Want to have a wee go?

I'm away to start...

-Right, I'm away over to do something over here.

-OK, OK.

See you later.

The real purpose of coming to this part of the garden

is to look at this mopheaded hydrangea.

There are the old flowers.

Two reasons why people might keep them on the bush

instead of tidying it up in the autumn is, firstly,

they do actually give a bit of a canopy

and help the buds underneath to be protected from the weather.

And, secondly, when the heads have not been so misused by the weather,

they're actually very nice in flower arranging.

So, people do actually keep them from time to time.

But what's the job now?

Well, there's a shoot there with umpteen flowers on it.

We don't want that again, it's not going to flower

on the end of these shoots any more.

And I'm looking to thin out...

the bush.

So, I'm going right down into the base

to cut with my new secateurs.

But it's a bit of balance we want to do.

What I'm looking for, and we'll be trying to leave,

are these lovely, dark shoots.

Look at that one there.

We wouldn't want to cut any of these away,

but we will cut some in between to give them more space,

without destroying the overall dome shape of the bush itself.

So, here we go.

Well, that's it.

I could keep on cutting, but I think that's enough for now.

There might be a little more frost damage to come,

but we shall see in due time.

This is the purple foliage, the elderberry,

a thing called Sambucus niger 'Purpurea'.

It has brilliant purple, or smoky purple, foliage

in the summer and going through in the autumn.

Now, what we're going to do with this one is

we're going to prune it back as we would prune a buddleia.

So, we're pruning it to emerging buds

and we can see the buds on this already.

They're just starting to grow out from the woods.

So, what we'll do, we'll prune this quite hard

back to those buds and then we'll see what's left of the shrub

and I'll tell you what's going to happen to it.

So, that's how we prune a Sambucus then.

We've really whacked it right back.

But at the end of each one of those shoots

which we've cut, there are buds, emerging buds.

We've taken about 70% off the top of this plant

and we've got now 100% root system left behind.

All the energy from that root system is going to be pushed up

through the shoots, out these little buds,

these buds will extend, they'll put on about two metres of growth,

at least, in the summer.

Great big leaves, lots and lots of intense purple colour.

It's a good job.

At least, fingers crossed it will be!

All the pruning we've done up until now

has been on decorative plants where we're interested

in the architecture, the shape, the size, maybe reducing

a plant so that it doesn't get too big for its place.

Here in the fruit garden, we are pruning to produce plenty fruit

and it's quite a different, sort of, philosophy.

And so, you've got to know where the fruits appear

on a plant like this redcurrant bush.

Fruit on blackcurrants is on one-year-old wood.

On redcurrants and gooseberries, it's on older wood

and it's produced on spurs, like there.

So, what I want to do is to create and encourage...

a spur to develop and that's where we'll find the fruit.

Here's another one.

So, you'll can see, I'm pruning it back to there.

Now we come to this fella.

I've got to make that into a spur as well, yeah?

And this is the leader that would carry on,

so we take about a third off.

There.

And that's one unit, one fruiting unit is that branch.

And so, I systematically go over the bush

and, in the meantime, I'm looking at the shape.

We always talk about this goblet shape.

We want to keep the uncluttered space in the centre

to allow air to circulate through

because it then is not so prone to the likes of mildew.

I'll take that one out, making it into a spur.

We'll get some fruit on there and that one, and that one.

And so we go on.

Spring is also a good time to be tidying up the grasses.

And, remember, with grasses, things which are brown

are not always dead.

This one looks brown when you just look into it,

but when you take the foliage and turn it back,

look, it's still green. This is a thing called Chionochloa.

It's one of the big tusset grasses from New Zealand.

And if you prune this, if you cut it back,

it'll take the pet and it'll just die on you,

so leave that alone.

It's just a fabulous grass, the way it moves in the wind.

On the other hand, this one here, this is one of the tall,

almost sentinel-like grasses

and this is a thing called Calamagrostis.

And it grows up, flowers on the top, we enjoy that

during the summer and the autumn and the winter

with the frost on it.

And then it dies back a bit and what we have to do at this time

of the year is get our fingers in at the bottom, right?

Comb it upwards like that.

And as you're combing it up, what you start to see is

the level to which the new grass has grown.

So, what we're going to do here is we're just going to cut that off...

at that sort of height, just above where the new grass is emerging.

And that lets the grass grow away...

and we get left with this thing, eventually,

we'll be left with the thing which looks like a shaving brush.

When you think about it, George,

all the pruning we've done up till now has been annual.

-Right, this fella hasn't been pruned for years, properly.

-No.

Now, this is a permanent branch shrub. This is, I think, what?

Viburnum rhytidophllum.

Brilliant foliage on this, and that's what we want to see.

I'm glad you did say that. Yes, indeed.

-But it's getting a bit sort of top heavy.

-Yeah, it's what?

-Three metres plus?

-So, erm...

-How far down?

-About a metre off.

-OK.

But I keep saying about this kind of pruning is, you can

go so far and then stand back and have a look at it, you know,

and you can't stick things back on!

THEY LAUGH

-Not once I've cut them off anyway!

-Take this branch here.

Coming out from there,

it's coming out over the path, which,

another consideration, and there's absolutely nothing on it.

-I take it right down to the bottom.

-To here?

-Yeah.

And then there's one there that you can take off. You doing a saw?

You got a saw?

Anyway, I'll get started here,

-and bring some of these top ones down a bit.

-OK.

-Is that all right, how I'm going, then?

-Oooh!

Don't... Yeah. OK.

-I'll clear that.

-OK.

Yep. What's the difference between a good and a bad haircut?

Fortnight.

What's the difference between a good and a bad prune?

-Ten years.

-Ten years.

Well, now to something a little bit more civilised after that

butchering job on the... In the shrubs.

In the propagating house, it's a busy time, cos we're sowing seeds

and then we're moving them on to an intermediate stage, and then

they'll be planted out, whether it be flowers or vegetables or whatever.

Here we have some tomato seedlings getting ready to be moved on to

the next stage. They're going into a nine-centimetre pot.

That's enough soil to keep it going until it finally gets planted out.

I'm putting them into a compost, which is a bit rougher than the seed

compost into which they've been sown, because they're beginning to grow up.

They can cope with that. And I see a lot of this this year.

In other words, stretched seedlings,

because of the poor light conditions that have prevailed

generally all over the place, and that can be a problem,

so what I want to do is,

carefully taking these seedlings one at a time,

and separate them out with the old fingers,

holding onto the seed leaf, not to the stem,

which could be bruised, and then down as far as I can go into that

pot with the roots all the way down,

and then gently pop it together.

Little squeeze.

And when I've watered that, the soil surface... The soil will have

dropped slightly, just leaving the little seedling proud.

That's it, well on its way.

We've decided to carry on the story of our two 8x6 greenhouses.

So, in other words, Jim had that one and I had this one,

and over the winter time, they've had a really good clean.

It's really important to make sure that the glass hasn't got any

algae on it, you go into the astragals

and get rid of all the pests and diseases.

And of course, I've kept some of those plants from last year,

including the amaryllis, so these are in their second year, and last

year, we had a real success story, because they flowered and flowered.

So, that story was the fact that, when they did flower,

you then cut back the flowering stem,

then we had to feed them,

then they were completely dried off for about 12 weeks,

and then we started them into growth again, and this particular one was

started off in December, and I'm so pleased that we have got a flower.

This one, I think, is a gorgeous colour called 'Royal Velvet',

and then the orange one is called 'Desire'.

And what we did do was,

when we did start them off, we didn't re-pot them.

They don't really like disturbance.

I would suggest maybe every three or four years, you re-pot.

We just scraped off the surface of the compost

and did a bit of top dressing and we started to feed them again,

and you can see this one has also got a flower bud.

But you can't always be assured in the second year

that you will get flowers.

Now, my theme, I'm going to continue being flowery,

and I'm going to come back in a couple of weeks' time.

Well, it's quite a different story here in the other 8x6,

because we've actually been keeping plants over the winter.

It's heated with this beer cooler system.

It's been down to plus two on one occasion,

but for the most part, the plants have been quite safe.

If you recall, for example, the Coleus.

This is the only survivor of the types that we chose to try

and make a pyramid out of it, so we'll have another

go at that this summer, once we get a bit of growth into it.

Then we've a selection of half-hardy shrubs, which I felt could be made

into standards as we make fuchsias into standards.

So, we've got the Streptosolum here.

It's beginning to flower already,

and if there's anything that will put it off growing, it's flowering,

and I don't want it to flower at the moment,

so I'm going to chop...chop...chop.

And these things, once the days get longer

and it gets a little bit warmer, they will come away fine.

The fuchsia, these conditions have suited it. Look at that.

Absolutely beautiful colour, and now beginning to sprout, and we want

to start cutting back these shoots, so that we can get a nice mop head.

So, there's plenty going on in here, including, of course,

these half-hardy perennials here, which were potted on,

and they've come through the winter very, very nicely.

Now, next week, I will be potting them on into a new compost.

More of that.

But you know, we're always complaining about the lack

of bright colours at this time of the year.

Last November, Carole went off to seek another way

of solving that problem.

What a lovely location for a garden.

I'm in Aboyne today, and would you believe,

it's actually November and we've got the sunshine!

But I have to say,

November is not the favourite month of the year for me.

Very, very short days, the leaves start falling on the trees,

and it's a very messy time of year.

However, I've come to seek some inspiration from Maggie Patience,

who has a unique way of adding colour to the garden.

Well, Carole, ten years ago,

we moved into this absolutely gorgeous location.

We moved in in the summer, and then winter hit, and I discovered that

days were very short and we had very long, cold nights,

and I just needed to fill my garden with colour however I could.

And so, is that when you started some of these mosaics?

I actually started with plants.

I started transplanting and moving things about,

just trying to keep the colour going for as long as I could.

And then you added all these sculptures!

That was seven years ago.

I started to do mosaics, and basically,

I have had the best time just making sculptures, structures, anything to

get colour into places where there is no colour to keep winter cheery.

I think it's a brilliant idea. It makes me smile. Look at the flowers!

I just love these.

They're frost-proof, they're lasting for ever

and they're not in the dump.

You say people throw them out, but you know how to make them

into flowers, so, you've got that inspiration.

Well, I had a few experiments but I got there in the end.

I know how to drill through glass now,

and basically, yeah, they're great fun.

Now, I think this is a real clever idea,

the fact that you are utilising the plants as well as your mosaics.

I absolutely love the idea of a fusion of the plants together

-with my mosaics.

-The smoke bush, I mean, that is absolutely stunning.

Quite late autumn colour.

It's absolutely gorgeous. We planned that ten years ago.

And then, you've got my favourite colours here.

Well, I think the colours work well together.

This little pot, I had fun trying to create a nice frost-proof

piece there, that would stay out all winter

-and everything else around it is...

-Well, I'd like you to show me a bit

-of the process.

-I'd love to.

So, Maggie, this is all you need then, to make yourself a sphere?

This is all we need. So, basically, our substrate can be anything.

-This is, in fact, a bowling ball.

-So, that's nice and heavy?

It's really heavy. So, that's not going anywhere.

In order to make them have a nice key to put the tiles on to,

we need to cover them in a watered-down PVA solution.

It'll take a couple of hours to dry, depending on where you're doing it.

Then, once the PVA is dry, we're ready to set the tessarae on.

Then you would use this cement-based adhesive, which is

suitable for outdoors.

And, basically, what we would do is just take a piece

-of tessarae, place it on.

-Just pop it on.

Do you then have to do a bit of grouting?

We don't grout until we've got all the...

-Or at least some of the tessarae on.

-Yes.

Then, once this is completely dried in place.

It's great fun to do and it's great fun to grout.

-It's a lovely touchy-feely thing.

-It does look fun.

Can we carry on in the garden and find some other things

-that you've been doing?

-I'd love to show you what I've been doing.

So, here's another project I've been working on.

This started this year. Basically, I've been melting glass.

Melting glass?

What kind of temperatures are we speaking about?

We're talking about up to 800 degrees.

It's just coming up with the best results. It's so exciting.

It's gorgeous, cos that is just like a picture on glass,

with this beautiful backdrop.

Now, as an artist, I would imagine you're always

thinking about colour and what you're going to plant.

Well, absolutely.

And I just love the idea here of the asters flowering behind the panel.

Don't they just complement each other so nicely?

It does, it frames it.

And I can't believe asters still in flower in November.

I know. I'm delighted.

-I'm so delighted you're seeing it like this.

-That's great.

Now, this is quite a sizeable rock garden.

Did you construct this?

This rockery was here when we moved in,

as was a lot of the hard landscaping.

But, again, I've tried to enhance it, by adding height,

colour, fun, just bits and pieces of unusual things.

Well, there is lots of colour.

And I think, in particular, the cosmos, still flowering.

-Did you sow that from seed?

-I love taking cosmos from seed.

They are so incredibly independent. They just don't need anything.

They're so sturdy.

You look at things in a completely different way, I think,

from most people. For example, the lampstand.

I mean, most people, they're going to have that in the house.

It's great fun outside. It's metal, it's weatherproof.

I give it a wee spray, when it gets tired-looking.

Yeah, you've got a lovely garden ornament.

Oh, my goodness, Maggie.

Now, this is something that I call really pretty wacky.

I've never seen a pond like this before.

This is an incredibly easy, low-maintenance pond.

It's all about illusion.

And it's all about fun and quirkiness, but I have

actually added loads of plants around the edge to soften it.

-What about the lady?

-Sunflower Shelly.

-She's a bit of a looker, isn't she?

-Isn't she just!

She's had a bit of work done, the hair extensions there.

Basically, the hair extensions come from the twine that we found

up in Durness on Balnakeil Beach.

People bring me their rubbish and I use it in my garden.

You know, I'm going to look at rubbish in a completely

different is manner now. And you do do classes, don't you?

I absolutely do, yes.

And, maybe, do you think you could perhaps do something for Beechgrove?

I'd love to do something for Beechgrove. I've already

-got an idea in my head.

-Brilliant.

Back here, in our low-maintenance garden,

Maggie has been true to her word.

She has produced this magnificent mosaic sculpture.

Now, we did ask her to produce it in the Beechgrove Garden colours.

So, there's lots of purples and greens.

And it must have taken her hours to do it.

It does look stunning now,

but I think it's going to look even better when all the shrubs

start to put on their leaves and it's going to be so colourful.

-Well, that's been a busy programme.

-Hasn't it!

-Yes.

So, a lovely display of bulbs to finish it.

And, well, we're back to George again, because this is his work.

-Yes.

-End of September they were put in. They're gorgeous.

-Favourite?

-I've got to say, 'Icicle'.

It's the purity and the simplicity.

And I think that demonstrates that if you've got a few spare bulbs,

stick them in a pot, think ahead, magic.

-And exhibit them like that, beautifully.

-Mm.

-What are you doing next week?

-Next week, actually,

-I'm minding the pennies.

-For a change.

-I've got a new strand.

I'm going to be in rural Aberdeenshire.

-It's about trying to garden on a budget.

-OK, yes.

Well, before all that, if you'd like any more information

about anything in the programme, then have a look on the website.

-Visit the fact sheet.

-Well, well.

We're about to do some pruning next week, would you believe?

More pruning.

Aren't you and George the new Sweeney Todd?

I couldn't possibly comment.

-Until then, bye-bye!

-Goodbye.

-Bye.