Episode 14 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello and welcome to the Beechgrove Garden.

But patently we've left it behind today.

We're on our summer hols.

We've moved up to the Moray Coast to the town of Nairn,

and getting our share of the ozone.

It's a wonderful spot - right behind me here is the Moray Firth

and the Sutors of Cromarty, the Black Isle,

and right away in the far distance there, the hills of Sutherland.

Back in the 19th century this town was a bit of a spa town,

and not in your Bath-type spa. No, no - it was the sea.

The temperature was just a little warmer here than elsewhere.

THEY LAUGH

And I think what's rather interesting is even though

we are 90 miles north-west of Beechgrove, it is

one of the sunniest places in Scotland,

and used to be called the Brighton of the North.

-It's incredible, isn't it?

-It has switched on.

-There you go, you see?

Just when you need it. As well as being the sunniest,

it's also apparently one of the driest areas in Scotland.

I don't want to tempt fate given the colour of the clouds

in that direction, but it is dry here.

Which is even more remarkable when you consider the latitude.

Cos if you head due west, Hudson Bay. Due east, Moscow.

And of course, the question for us is what actually grows here?

If you want to know anything about the local growing conditions,

there's no better place to start than an allotment.

And here there's a whole host of Mediterranean herbs -

raspberries, strawberries, courgettes, artichokes, apples, cherries.

You name it, it's all plentiful.

And it shouldn't come really is a surprise,

because this site, Mill Road allotments,

was many years ago the local pasture for the draft horses that

were tethered here when they weren't working.

After bringing, well, the harbour produce from

that end of town to the railway line at this end of town.

Today, you can grow a whole host of produce on what is reputed

to be three metres deep of fertile alluvial soil.

Perfect for the small-scale gardener.

Now then, Chris was showing there the small-scale production

of vegetables in this part of the world, but Steve,

out here in the field, this is part of the speciality of the Moray coast, isn't it?

Growing commercial crops. The reason being...?

Morayshire's got a perfect climate for root vegetables,

combined with very light, free draining soils. As we can see today,

the combination of the two give us

ideal growing conditions for this crop.

Indeed, not just carrots, but potatoes and beetroot also.

-That's right.

-Wonderful depth of soil and drainage, too.

I mean, we've had an enormous amount of rain over the last 24 hours,

and yet that soil is hardly sticking to the boots.

The free draining characteristics of the soil,

they're so important to root veg growers.

Cos not only are we looking for a good growing climate,

we also store the carrots on the land right throughout the winter.

-Yes.

-And it's essential that we are able to select land

that is not going to waterlog.

And it will still be able to be harvested during these periods.

Tell me about the varieties.

I mean, they all look the same here, but we've got red ones

and yellow ones and so on.

Is that a new fad that you're responding to?

Colours have been around for many years,

but in the high street we haven't seen them very often

until recently.

And there's definitely an appetite out there for more exciting colours.

Yes. I've kept 64,000 question to the last.

How you deal with carrot fly?

There's a couple of cultural things that we do commercially.

Firstly, we try and delay the sowing of the crop

So that we actually miss the first cycle of egg laying.

-Which is when in this part of the world?

-It would be early May.

-Yeah.

-So we'll delay the drilling until after that first phase.

-Subsequent to that, we apply garlic granules.

-Really?

And the smell of the garlic is enough to prevent the egg laying.

Well, you couldn't get a better endorsement than that, folks.

How often do you have to put it on?

Ideally every 10-14 days right throughout the growing season.

So then there's a break because then we get the second generation,

August time, perhaps, in this part of the world. Do you start the treatment again then?

Yes, we do, and continue it right into the autumn.

Jim, Chris and I are in and around Nairn, finding out what grows,

and possibly what doesn't, here on the Moray coast.

We've been invited by the Nairn And District Gardening club to host a question session later,

and hopefully between us we might even have some answers.

That's not going to help! LAUGHTER But I just thought I'd ask.

I'm hoping Jim will fill in for a bit longer

-so that I can rack my brains.

-LAUGHTER

To find out a little more about the growing conditions in Nairn,

Jim is visiting a small garden in the centre of Nairn.

It is a plant-packed, tiny,

seaside-themed garden

owned by Donald Cheyne.

Hello there, Donald.

I can tell already that we're going to have an interesting visit.

Lead on, Macduff, as they say.

What have we got here, Donald?

Well! Heavens above! What a display, eh?!

And of course the thing that takes the eye straightaway is that birch tree.

That's incredible. JIM CHUCKLES

And although this tree predominates, you know,

you've got so much colour, so much of everything in the garden.

-How old is the tree?

-It's about 16 years now.

Do you ever have to wash the bark? Some people get moss.

It naturally keeps itself clean, the bark peels off.

Despite the fact that it's a mature tree,

it doesn't cast a lot of shade, and you've got this wonderful feel,

a kind of seaside feel, as one would expect.

But if we start round this corner here,

I'm interested in this weigela, the golden one here.

That's able to grow twice the size. What do you do?

Well, we just take out the point.

Let me see how much you're taking out.

Oh, aye, right, uh-huh. And it doesn't affect the flowering?

-Oh, no. You can see.

-Well, you wouldn't want to.

-Otherwise it would be way out here, you know.

-Exactly.

And talking seaside...

We've got this lovely barrow

-converted into a boat.

-Pirate boat.

-I like this.

-Yes. Solar powered.

Oh! I was going to say it's a wee bit garish,

but tell me about solar power.

It comes on as soon as it gets dark.

and it carries on all night long,

and then it switches itself off when the light is in the morning.

Why have you got it there?

There's the dual purpose of keeping out the cats from the garden,

-you know, it digs up the borders.

-It doesn't need any other purpose!

I'm going to sign up for one of them. Are they expensive?

No, they're just about £10.

Donald, where are you leading me now? What's the next surprise?

-This is the fruit section.

-The fruit section! It's...

In the name of patience! What have we got here?

-Redcurrant or white currant?

-White currant.

-Wow!

-Just trailing up the side of the shed.

-And facing North?

Facing North.

Eh?! That's a fantastic lesson to learn - how to use a bit of space.

There they go. Absolutely stunning. You'll get some crop off that.

That's three.

It's been a short visit, dear boy, but that's three cracking tips.

How to keep a shrub smallish,

how to keep the cats oot the garden,

and this use of space.

-Thanks, Donald.

-OK.

-It's been brilliant.

This is the community and arts centre where we're hosting

our Q and A session, and we've been invited by the

Nairn And District Gardening Club.

And they've invited many of their gardening friends,

so I think it's going to be really interesting to see what

challenging gardening questions they have for us.

The MC is our friend and broadcaster Mark Stephen.

And I think I'd better go and join them and stay out of the rain.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome here to Nairn.

We're absolutely delighted to be here, not least of which

because, as we know, Nairn has its own microclimate.

It actually only rains once a year in Nairn.

LAUGHTER

Sadly, that day is today, and it's all arriving at once.

Ladies and gentlemen, you've come here with your gardening questions.

Can I ask you to welcome to the stage Jim McColl.

Miss Carol Baxter.

Chris Beardshaw.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Beechgrove gardening question team.

Right, we've asked for questions already.

You take that microphone and ask your question. Can you remember it?

I have red cabbages planted for the first time in my allotment.

They have beautiful, beautiful long leaves on them,

but there's not one sign of a nice, neat compact heart.

Carol has got heartless red cabbages, Jim.

Patience is what you need, madam. Patience.

It will arrive in due time.

The red cabbage is probably autumn to winter, meant to be,

and it needs a long growing season before it starts to heart up.

Just have patience. LAUGHTER

It also needs sunlight as well. Which I...

I know may sound a little bit far-fetched today,

but you do find that if the plants are overshadowed by perhaps

overenthusiastic planting of other crops close by,

that they will struggle to form a heart.

So make sure you give them sufficient space.

And the other thing I would add is maybe plenty of fertiliser,

cos they are a very leafy crop, and you have beautiful,

very sort of sandy soil, and because we are getting a bit of rain

as well, a lot of the fertiliser actually just goes through the soil.

So something high in nitrogen may also help to produce that heart.

Next question, please.

Sitting right beside Chris Beardshaw is an orchid.

I think it's outgrown its pot.

Can you give me some idea of how to either split it up...

I really don't want to repot it cos it's too heavy as it is.

-MARK:

-Chris, I don't know if you can see it from there,

it is a monster cymbidium.

It's a bit of a giant. What do you reckon?

I think it looks great! I really do.

IF you felt like potting it on, I would certainly suggest using

a specialist orchid compost, because that tends to be relatively

low in nutrition, it is quite a fibrous organic matter-based compost,

and it isn't going to overfeed the plant.

That said, if you pot it on,

by definition you are adding extra room for the roots to move into.

And as a consequence of that, the plant will then start to

absorb nutrients out of that compost,

and it will utilise those nutrients

to primarily focus on producing foliage.

Because what you have to remember is that all plants,

no matter how small or insignificant or where they're from in the world,

all plants have the attitude that they want to rule the world.

Therefore, their primary response to a little bit more soil

is to grow a bit bigger.

And then a bit more soil, and a bit more, and grow a bit bigger.

Until you get to the point where

they feel slightly compromised by their position,

and then they will think about flowering.

Because flowering produces seeds,

seeds will then allow the plant to migrate from its current

restrictive point into a new area

and continue this "I want to conquer the world" scenario.

So, if you pot your cymbidium on,

you will find that you'll get lots of fresh foliage but you may

reduce the flowering enthusiasm of it for a couple of seasons.

Much better, actually, to try a liquid fertiliser,

a specialist liquid fertiliser for a cymbidium and orchids,

and that will be balanced to the point of producing flower

and not too much in the way of extra foliage.

-MARK:

-Can I just check, Helen, I'm not sure he's getting the point here.

You think it's too big. You want something smaller.

Not necessarily smaller,

but really it's almost too big for a normal bungalow.

-And I did wonder about splitting it.

-It's too big for a stately home!

I'm going to go down another route.

I look at the plant and think, wow, you can propagate from that,

and you can split it up. So, no good having a small knife like this.

-What you need to get is probably a bread knife.

-An axe.

-An axe, yes.

Something really sharp. You could get loads of plants from that.

But I would say at least you could get a good four plants from that.

I have a tale I could tell you that would take rather long

because it was one of the Alexander brothers.

It was Tom's wife who had a problem with a similar plant.

And I said, "a plastic sheet on the kitchen floor,

"knock it over on its side and roll it back and forward until it's loose."

Out it comes, and then...

"Have you got a hatchet in the cupboard?"

And we split it into four, put it back into a suitable sized pot.

I never was asked back. LAUGHTER

If you have no polytunnel,

what vegetable is the best for growing in Scotland?

Well, this part of the world, of course,

is very famous for its vegetable growing.

Especially root crops because of the climate and because of the soil.

You know, you don't need a polytunnel.

A polytunnel is great for maybe extending our season

cos it's a very short season. Go for your peas, go for salad crops.

I mean, salad crops are great because they're very quick,

so if you want to sow some radish, you'll see them germinating

at this time of year within about seven days, so just experiment.

The sky's the limit. Have a go. That's the important thing.

And I would go back to what is it you enjoy eating,

so for instance, if you like quite spicy foods,

if you like quite oriental food, for instance,

then one of the plants I think is fabulous

is to go for a beet relative, go for something like a chard,

and whilst you're growing your chard,

get some little chillies growing on your kitchen windowsill and then

you can dice up the chillies, you can make a really good chilli sauce.

Steam your chard so it just starts to wilt

and then you put your chilli sauce over your chard

and serve it with some fresh rice or an egg fried rice,

that sort of thing, and it's absolutely delicious,

so start from the eating end and work backwards.

He's beginning to sound like Mary Berry.

LAUGHTER

Have I told you the recipe for my sponge cake?

I'll share it with you later.

I've been growing courgette successfully in the open

for many years, except for this year, it's been a disaster.

Three of my five plants are already dead,

the other two are looking as if they might be dying.

The answer lies in the soil.

Who was it who said that about 150 years ago?

What sort of conditions have you?

-Plenty organic matter?

-Yes.

Plenty fertiliser?

I think the death of the plants is probably due to,

as you may well... maybe the weather.

That looks like a deficiency symptom,

if I was taking a stab at it,

it looks a bit like magnesium deficiency,

so maybe you need to give them a dose of salts.

But my colleagues may have another idea.

It has been a difficult season.

My courgettes outdoors are in a big pot

and all I could say is they're awful slow.

Well, I wondered to start off with, I wondered if it was aphids

and a virus, but can I ask how...

I mean, are all the leaves like this

-or are some of the new leaves coming in good?

-Just some of them.

Well, then, I would just pick off the leaves that have gone like this

and I think if the fresh leaves come in and they come in well,

then they should be OK.

The manure that you put in, what is that? What are you using?

-It's horse manure.

-Horse manure.

-How well rotted is that horse manure?

-It's pretty well rotted.

Described to me how it smells.

LAUGHTER

-It doesn't really smell much at all.

-It doesn't smell?

-No.

OK, and there's no evidence of any straw or any fragrance or

-any warmth in it?

-It's very clean.

Very clean, and you've used it from the same source across the garden?

-I've used it many years previously.

-In that case I have nothing to say.

Are you...

OK, I maybe have something to ask you.

-Are you growing them in the same place every year?

-No.

So you're practising rotation? I've got nothing to say either, then.

MARK: Next question - Katrina West, please.

This is spreading through our lawn and I just wondered

if you could tell me what it was and how to get rid of it.

And how tall do you allow it to grow before you whack the tops of?

It gets cut by the lawnmower.

The interesting thing is, whilst I try to keep you preoccupied

with answering my questions, these two are paddling like blazes under the table to get the right answer.

-We think we've got it sussed.

-We think it's prunus, don't we?

We think it's prunus, yeah.

We've got a prunus nigra growing in the centre of the lawn

and there is some beside that as well.

See, you never told us that!

-And it can be a huge problem, can't it, the prunus?

-Suckers.

-Suckers.

-Yeah, it can,

and one of the worst types of plants to put into a lawn is a cherry.

Prunus are terrible as lawn specimens,

even if you've got a bed around the base of the tree,

you will find that cherry trees as a general rule are very shallow rooted

and they will scavenge around in the top few centimetres,

which means that those roots are then getting constantly scalped

or bruised by the lawnmower

and the more you cut them with the lawnmower,

the more you're encouraging buds to form,

because you're not taking them back down to the root. What you're doing

is just carrying out a light bit of pruning on the top.

Now, what also worth pointing out is that if you've got prunus nigra...

-Yeah.

-..in the lawn, then the top of it is...

-Presumably it's a dark purple colour, dark purple foliage.

-Yeah.

And this shows no sign of purple,

which means that this is the rootstock,

so what you've got here is

the most vigorous, invasive, aggressive form of prunus

-and it's going to be difficult to get rid of, to be honest.

-So...

What if we cut the tree down?

-Good idea.

-They'll be even more vigorous.

Yeah, they will be, Jim's right, they will be more vigorous.

It's a despairing scenario, really,

but I would be thinking it's worth your while

at least 60cm or 90cm out from the bowl of the tree,

you dig a trench, about two feet deep, all the way round.

And chop everything that's in there,

and then starve the other ones and put some herbicide on,

lawn herbicide to kill these guys as they're coming up,

and if you cannae do that, as Mr George Anderson might have told you

-if he was here... He's in Japan, isn't he?

-He is.

-Yeah.

He said, "Well, get the directory out and go to P for Pickfords."

LAUGHTER

-MARK:

-Final question, from Donna Cameron.

Many plant names make me smile

and I wondered which plant names the panel enjoys.

THEY LAUGH

-Oh, gosh!

-Which plant names make you smile?

Chris Beardshaw, because there's no point looking at the table and pretending you're not there.

I think it depends whether you like the plant or not, to be honest.

I really do. I think there are some plants that

when you hear the name, it brings a certain amount of joy

because of your association with that particular plant,

so for instance, one of the things which I really enjoy,

not just growing but talking about, is Cercidiphyllum japonicum.

Because Cercidiphyllum, it does what Latin,

the plant nomenclature, should do,

it describes and paints the perfect picture of that particular plant,

so cercis, "round",

Cercidiphyllum, phyllum is "leaf", "round leaf".

Cercidiphyllum japonicum, "from Japan",

"the round-leaved tree from Japan".

The only thing that's missing is

Cercidiphyllum japonicum candiflossiensis on the end

because of the way it has that delightful habit of just

wafting across the arboretum late in the autumn

as its foliage turns a golden colour,

so I think, you know, you fall in love with plants and you get really

excited about plants and those are the names that you remember.

What plants make you smile, Carole?

Well, I was going to maybe recite the fact that

I very often go to garden centres and help people choose their plants

and I think it makes me smile sometimes, the pronounciation

-and the Latin...

-Or pronunciation.

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

I can remember this gentleman coming up to me and he says,

"Carole, I've got this Leyland Two. I've got this Leyland Two."

And I'm thinking, "Leyland Two"?

And of course, he means Leylandii,

because there's two Is on it and he thought that was "II".

Jim, the final word.

Taxonomic botanists should have been drooned when they were pups!

Because they keep changing familiar Latin names to...

I mean, what was that one we passed? Brachyglottis.

-Yes, which used to be Senecio.

-"Seneckio".

There you go - Senessio, Seneckio.

It's a strange thing, I was taught Latin

till year three at secondary school,

year four I packed it in because we had an option to pack it in,

and then I became a horticulturalist

and I've been using Latin ever since.

At least it helps to be able to pronounce.

Can I tell you a story? This is a story about the late Queen Mum.

She was wont to take a wander around Balmoral

and every now and again she would stop at the head keeper's house

and she might be invited in for a bowl of soap.

"Now then, this is a lovely bowl of soup", she would say.

"Tell me, what are the ingredients?"

"Well", the wifey would say, "well, there's barley intil't

"and there's peas and there's a bit of ham shank intil't..."

And the Queen Mum said, "And what is intilt?"

LAUGHTER

And she says, "Well, there's barley intil't and there's peas intil't..."

-And so it went round and round and round.

-Yes, it did indeed.

Listen, folks, thank you very much for your questions.

I hope you found the answers to be useful.

Can I ask you to thank our three guest experts one more time, please?

Jim McColl, Carole Baxter and Chris Beardshaw.

'After a lively panel discussion,

'we took some more informal questions.'

Do you remember you helping me to grow tomatoes on top of the piggery?

-On the piggery. I quote you regularly.

-I quote you as well!

-It just didnae work!

-It didn't work.

As we said, we've been invited

by the Nairn and District Gardening Club

and I'm going just a few miles out of Nairn

to visit a much more rural garden near Cawdor.

Jane McKenzie has always lived in this area and this garden is

a product of Jane and her parents' love of gardening over many years.

We live about six and a half miles out of Nairn,

about 150 metres above sea level,

so the snow lies here where in Nairn there might not any snow at all.

It's incredible, just that few miles,

how different the climate can be.

You're very rural, so quite exposed here.

It is. From the South, the south wind tends to cause more damage

because we don't have any shelter.

But the herbaceous are looking good, Jane.

Do you lift and split that quite often?

I split the geraniums every maybe three to five years

and replace it with autumn-flowering plants.

Really good practice, but the other thing that struck me

is your collection of acers. How many do you have?

About 20 altogether, different ages and sizes.

I presume that one with the size of the trunk must be quite an age.

Yeah, that one's about 35 years old.

Mum bought that with money she got from an uncle in Canada.

He wanted her to buy a box of chocolates,

so she bought that instead.

Absolutely beautiful, but I think we should maybe find one or two more.

This is one of my favourite acers.

It's Acer griseum, the paper bark acer.

It's absolutely stunning, isn't it, Jane, for the bark,

but also the foliage is so healthy.

Yeah, it's one of the latest ones to come into leaf

and I leave the trees and shrubs at the back

because it's exposed from the north.

You obviously like using your secateurs as well.

Tell us a wee bit about the cloud pruning.

The conifer, the base was covering quite an area

so I was going to take the bottom branches off

and then I decided to give the cloud prune a go to see how I got on.

-And that's the result. I love things like that.

-Yes.

But what about the beech?

-That's massive and you obviously trim that.

-Yes.

About October, I go round it with the electric hedge trimmer

from the ground, and then I go around next stage up with the steps

and then I have an extension for the hedge trimmer

and then I climb inside and Mum directs me if...

-What, left or right?

-Yes, any branches sticking out.

It's absolutely amazing. There'll come a point, will there,

where you'll go no, it's going to get too high.

It's getting to the point now.

Do you have a favourite part of the garden?

I like the north side of the house.

Let's have a look at that, then.

Well, Jane, I can see why you love this area.

-I mean, this is packed full of choice plants.

-Yeah.

I enjoy collecting hostas and acers.

And what about this, the Montana?

Yeah, that's a Clematis Marjorie.

She's a real showstopper at the moment, isn't she?

It's lovely at this time of year.

And to me I feel like this is a full-time job for you,

looking after this garden, but you are a professional gardener.

A full-time gardener, yes.

-And you obviously love it.

-I do, yes. I love gardening.

And for me, this has been a real joy to look round your garden.

-Thank you very much.

-That's OK, thank you for coming.

Well, that's our lovely trip to Nairn finished.

We started on the beach in the rain...

-and we're back on the beach in the rain.

-It's starting to rain.

But in between times it's been fantastic.

-We've had a lovely time, we've seen some beautiful gardens.

-Yeah.

And some cracking questions at the question session.

Absolutely, and I was fascinated about those carrots.

Beechgrove is back in two weeks' time.

Carole and I will actually be at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,

helping with a garden in the children's section.

It's fabulous, it really is.

That means that Mr B will be in Beechgrove on his own.

-Now, he could get up to a bit of mischief.

-That could be interesting.

-Time alone will tell. Till we see you next time...

-Goodbye.

-Bye-bye.