Episode 20 The Beechgrove Garden

One, two... HE HUMS HAPPILY

This is a good dance.

It's lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely...

And once again! Are you turning already? I'm behind you.

Oh!

One... One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

Hey, I say, this is the way to get the work done! Isn't it just?

Isn't it? On a lovely, sunny day.

Absolutely fantastic day, it is, I tell you.

It's 11 o'clock in the morning, the temperature's up to 23

centigrade, and I'm not going near a greenhouse today, that's for sure!

But we're getting on with an essential job.

We're thinking about autumn, aren't we? Yes, indeed.

Crazy, isn't it, in weather like this?

Low-nitrogen fertiliser, high in potash,

give the grass a little bit of hardiness into winter.

And we've got to bear in mind, if we have weather like

this, we might have to water it in, because it might burn. Very true.

And of course, traditionally, half of it goes on in one direction

and half of it goes on in the other. Hence the dance. Hence the dance.

We're being very traditional, putting it on by hand.

He's mechanised. He's modern. Let's get on with it.

Shall we keep going? Yes, go, go, go, go.

Which way are you going, George? I'll go up the hill, yeah.

I need to get in line, though. Oh, absolutely.

You could say that this week, I'm in the Borders looking at herbaceous

borders, and I'm delighted to meet somebody who believes in tradition.

And this week, I'm back to the pond.

Not in it, but looking at the planting adjacent to it,

because it's decision time for our old friend the cryptomeria.

I just want to take a quick look at our asparagus,

which we planted at the beginning of spring. The variety is Mondeo.

Because it's a new crop, we didn't crop any of the spears at all.

We've just got to build up the plant.

So you treat it like a herbaceous plant.

In other words, you let these grow.

At the moment, they look nice and healthy.

When they start to go yellow, cut it back right down to the ground.

Fingers crossed for next year, we will be able to crop some of the

asparagus just for eight weeks, and then you do exactly the same again.

Now, next door, I want to have a look at some of the sweetcorn.

I'm growing two varieties, under cover, because it's a bit dicey,

I'm afraid, growing sweetcorn here.

One variety's called Lark, which we grew last year.

George and myself really like the flavour of that one.

And we're trying it against another one. This time it's called Honeydew.

We have had a slight problem with black aphid.

You can maybe see one or two of the aphids there.

But what we've been doing is treating it.

We've been wiping the leaves. We've been using an inhibitor.

Now, when it comes to planting sweetcorn, it has to be

planted in a block, because it's all about the pollination.

This is the male part that produces the pollen, called the tassels,

and it falls onto the female silks, which then go into the cobs itself.

Now, these are definitely not ready yet.

What you've got to do is wait for those silks to go brown and

then do a little bit of investigation.

Peel it back and use the thumbnail test or a pin.

And if you get a clear liquid, they're not ready,

but if you get a nice, milky liquid, it's definitely ready.

You want to crop them straight away, put them on the barbecue or

straight into boiling water, and they're absolutely delicious.

There's very definitely a warm glow of satisfaction to be gained

by refurbishing and replanting any part of a garden,

no matter how large or small -

the bog garden a few months ago, for instance,

taking out the pond and refilling it, replanting it.

But, of course,

the flipside of all of those pluses is that as soon as you improve

one area of the garden, other areas suddenly don't look quite so good.

This, for instance, Cryptomeria japonica.

Now, it's clearly not a happy cookie.

We thought it was because of the pond leaking into it,

but all that's been remedied.

In fact, it was done last winter

and the tree is, in fact, still going backwards -

plenty of dieback, all the young growth is looking very sorrowful,

and it's trying its best to succour from the base,

all classic signs that this tree,

which should be in its first flush of youth, is really going backwards.

So a hard decision has been made.

It's got to come out.

They make housing planks out of the timbers in Japan.

'When dealing with a big specimen like this,

'it's easier to take all of the side branches off first, which is what

'Callum and Marie are doing, before you can start tackling the trunk.'

It's surprising how dry the wood is, isn't it? Yes.

'The easiest way of taking a trunk down is to cut a notch,

'first a horizontal cut then a 45-degree cut.

'Knock the notch out and then hopefully the tree comes down

'in the right direction.

'Well, there's no going back now.

'Just to make sure the surface of the soil is clean, it's easy,

'when you've got a mini digger, to just skim off any of that

'green matter, compost it, and then we can start tackling the soil.

'Just before the final part of the cryptomeria is taken away, I want to

'explore more thoroughly the ground conditions it's been growing in.'

The reason it's worth going to the trouble of digging

a trial hole like this before we've even taken the tree out is

to try and establish what it was that killed the tree.

Trees don't just die. Something has had an effect

which has caused the tree to start to wither.

So, by excavating down,

what we're trying to expose is the different layers of soil to

see what the soil condition is like,

because the tree is reliant on the soil.

And what we've been able to determine is that from about that

level down to my hand at the bottom there is topsoil, so it's less than

30 centimetres of topsoil that this tree has been allowed to grow in.

And beneath that, you get these rusty layers.

The rust is caused by the iron content of the soil literally

oxidising, and that indicates that the ground is completely - or

has been - waterlogged.

And then beneath that layer, we're into solid grey.

It's a sort of clay base with fragments of stone.

And as soon as you get down into that dark clay and grey colour,

well, that indicates there's no oxygen at all.

No root is ever going to be able to penetrate and certainly make

life down there.

And what's probably happened is that a fungal complaint, something like

a phytophthora, has started to get into the tree, and once that's in,

in wet conditions there's no going back.

'To try and alleviate the compact conditions and give our new

'plants the best possible chance of succeeding,

'it's important to break open the compaction,

'first with the mini digger and then forking it over,

'digging in lots of organic matter,

'which will aid drainage and also increase the roots' ability

'to penetrate into those lower-soil horizons.

'The trees I've selected for this part of the garden are Pinus nigra,

'that's the Austrian pine,

'well known not only for its ability to cope with very cold

'conditions but also tolerant of quite poor conditions,

'where soils are perhaps compacted and/or impoverished.

'And what I'm going to do is to put them in really quite densely,

'far too densely if you wanted a single, grand tree,

'but that's not the plan here. I want more of a pine copse.'

For the trees on this side, the soil doesn't need to be overly dug.

You don't need too large a hole. We know it's been well loosened

and plenty of organic matter incorporated,

so as long as we're deep enough - that's always the key...

But not too deep, of course,

so we want to be just below where the tree was growing in the nursery.

That's perfect, a couple of inches below.

Pop them into the middle of the hole.

And before it gets seated in and backfilled, what I want to do...

..is to use mycorrhizal fungi.

It's a powder which uses a combination of two different

fungal organisms.

A couple of handfuls per tree.

And the point of putting this in is that the fungi will form

a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the pine tree,

so it's like doubling or trebling the size of your root plate.

All of that means you get a much more healthy plant.

So, once that's in, you want to backfill.

They should be perfectly happy here without the need for a stake...

..because the effect that I'm trying to create is one of a...

I suppose a windswept copse of pines.

I deliberately want them to be fairly ravaged by the environment...

characterful in their sculptural form.

And as young trees like this,

I'm not going to carry out too much pruning at this time of the year.

I want them to use this canopy to generate the energy,

send down good, healthy roots and spread out,

and then I'll start carrying out the pruning process

to create my somewhat sculpted copse.

The only pruning I'm going to do

is just to take off some of these lower...

..boughs...

to expose the trunks a little bit and allow underplanting to sweep in.

The understorey planting in here is predominantly plants like the

candelabra primulas, pulmonarias and metusias, all plants which

provide a visual link with the bog garden on that side of the bridge.

But the real prima donnas,

the plants that will attract your attention come May and June, when

they come into flower, are these, the Japanese evergreen azaleas.

These you might be more familiar with from Christmas-time,

when they're sold in their thousands as pot plants,

primarily because they have the most glamorous,

tissue-paper-like flowers in shades of pinks, purples and scarlet reds.

And don't be worried about their hardiness,

because they are at home.

The species versions originate on the lower slopes of the

Japanese Alps, in fact, right at the tree line,

covered in snow during the winter,

so they're plenty tough enough to grow in our gardens.

And they will provide mats about 60 to 80 centimetres high,

which are dotted around underneath the canopy of these pines

so that come next summer, we can start to prune the pines,

clean off the underside of the needles, selectively reduce

the boughs, and then we'll start to get our wonderful cloud-like pines,

which will just waft and hover over the planting bed underneath.

The bulb season is upon us. So much choice to look at.

And what I want to do is extend

our area for naturalising bulbs in the grass.

It was actually three years ago that we put in the narcissus.

We had five different varieties there, that have done really well,

and now I'm going to extend that selection.

And the whole idea of naturalising means that you plant them in

the grass, they come up every year.

They may even set seed, which is absolutely wonderful.

So, crocus. I've got two varieties. I've got purple and white.

That's why I was trying to mix them through,

because we want them sort of haphazard.

Scilla siberica, beautiful blue,

kind of fairly related to Glory Of The Snow.

We've got erythroniums. These I absolutely adore.

They've got these lovely reflexed petals.

And then we've got Fritillaria meliagris, which is the

Snake's Head fritillaria, and that's another one of my favourites.

Now, this one in particular needs it fairly sort of shaded and

fairly moist, and that's why I'm going to go for that area

behind me, because the hedge is giving a bit of

a shade, and also we're on a slope, so if we get any water,

it tends to run down to this area.

So, weapons of choice.

Erm...could use a bulb planter, which is fine for the narcissus,

but, quite honestly, these are fairly small, so I think I'm better

just taking out a small core with a pointed trowel.

I've also got three canes,

and the reason for that is you've got to think about the mower.

So, the mower, I want to make sure we can take

a strip around the edge so that you can see that lovely sort of natural

area when the Snake's Head starts to flower.

So one round the edge there, another one here...

And then I will just spread this. It's a bit like, you know,

spreading the fertiliser that we were earlier.

So, you know, some will be closer than others.

I won't necessarily put all of these out,

but I'll just show you how I'm going to plant.

So, basically,

in here. The rule of thumb is about two to three times the depth.

It's going to be a bit fiddly, it's going to be rather time-consuming,

but well worth it, so in the ground, push in the plug,

maybe even use the heel.

Gosh, this is going to take me a few hours!

Two sets of bulbs here getting entirely different treatment

from those you've just seen going into the ground.

First and foremost, paper-white daffodils,

beginning to sprout already!

Two layers of them in this pot using a compost three parts

multipurpose and one part John Innes No 1.

And they will be put outside in the shade somewhere until they

get started to grow,

and then you time it as to when you want to get them in.

We should be able to get them flowering for Christmas.

Same kind of pot

with the same compost in it. It's got drainage, obviously.

And we have hyacinths here, what we call prepared hyacinths.

They, too, can be made to flower at Christmas,

and the procedure here is into the pot,

in this case with drainage.

In THIS case, this vessel here has no drainage whatsoever,

so we use bulb fibre. And it is yucky stuff, I can tell you.

And it's not like the bulb fibre of old.

The important thing is to make sure that it's wet,

to that sort of state, before you put it in the pot

instead of watering afterwards, because think about it - when

you water afterwards and there is no drainage, when do you stop?

When do you know you've got enough? So it's better to do it right there.

I've managed to get five in.

These will go into a cold frame, covered up with some sand.

And then the deadline for putting in prepared bulbs for Christmas

is to get them planted before the end of September.

And then, by the end of November, beginning of December,

you're looking to see if the flower has come through the neck of

the bulb, which you can do by just squeezing it gently.

There'll be a little shoot. Squeeze it very gently and you'll know.

If you take it out too early, you're too anxious, quite often the

leaves will come and leave the flower behind in the bulb itself.

That's when it goes wrong. HE CHUCKLES

This is a good time of year just to take one or two ivy cuttings.

They're things which will root pretty easily,

and all you need to do is go round the garden.

Go round in the morning and select your cutting material then,

because at that stage it's really turgid.

It's full of moisture, and that's what you want.

You want a cutting which is full of moisture,

and then it's going to root much more easily.

Cutting selected just like that.

We've got, what, about four leaves or four nodes on it, and then

we just remove the bottom leaf like that, dip it in some hormone powder,

shake off the excess, and then that will be put into

a mixture of 50-50, peat sand, something like that.

I've got a layer of sand on the top, because what I want is for that sand

to fall into the hole when I've made

the dibble hole and put the cutting in.

That aerates the base of the cutting and it will root much more readily.

Now, just think of it. You've taken a piece off a plant like that,

you've taken off some leaves, separated it from the parent plant,

and this thing now, it's a race between life and death.

And death is going to occur if this becomes dried out,

so we've got to make sure that this is kept moist.

We're going to put it into a frame, we're going to keep it well watered,

we're going to cover it with some horticultural fleece over winter,

and then eventually, in the spring, they root.

And what am I going to do with them, then?

I'm going to put them in a banking down there, in the winter stem

banking, because there's no ground cover there at the moment.

This is the winter stem border, which we planted earlier in

the year, and look at the growth on that.

This is Salix matsudana Tortuosa, the wavy willow.

Absolutely fantastic foliage, and great growth on that, as well.

So there is also on Salix alba Sericea, and we'll be able to

look right into the banking at those and get this wonderful light

over the winter period.

Now, there's nothing underneath, of course, and that's where

we're going to put the ivies that we've just been propagating.

They'll provide our ground cover over the whole of the surface

here, and the snowdrops will come up through it.

This betula, of course, is doing well.

I'm surprised how well it's done.

But it's going to put all its growth at the top,

and that's what I don't want. So I'm going to teach it a lesson.

I'm going to take it down. I'm going to take it right down to there,

I'm going to cut it off, and then that will mean that the

growth that we get on that fella will all be down at ground level.

The branches will extend out,

and they will be wonderfully white, and that's how we want to see them.

My garden visit today is to Portmore House, Eddleston,

nestling in the Peeblesshire hills at about 1,000 feet.

I'm going to see a garden that has been restored over

a period of 30 years by the owner, Chrissie Reid,

and her head gardener, Ken Kennedy, and I can tell you, it's a cracker.

'Chrissie and her husband, David, bought Portmore House in 1979,

'when it was nothing more than a neglected ruin.

'After restoring the house, Chrissie's attention turned

'to the garden, which had virtually disappeared.'

Well, Chrissie, I think you must have brought me to the corner

of the walled garden because this is where your restoration started.

It did, Jim, because when we started,

it was in a terrible state, and the only piece standing was this wall,

and then it crumbled away down the garden.

The railings weren't there.

So we thought, "Well, let's start where there IS something."

Yes. Aye. What about the glasshouses? Shocking! Terrible.

All in pieces. And what was a sort of starting point...

Because I'd never gardened, Jim,

let alone in a climate like Peeblesshire.

So, what principles did you employ?

Well, I read a lot, which isn't always the right way.

I had a lot of enthusiasm. Yes.

But I thought we ought to use those two holly trees,

because they were here and part of the original thing,

and then turn to a traditional plan. Yes.

Double herbaceous border. Mmm.

Grass cross paths. Mm-hm. You know that sort of thing. Tell me...

CHUCKLES ..if this is not a cheeky question to ask,

are you quite happy with how you've progressed so far?

I should hope so, because it's been 30 years and I should think

Ken the gardener would like to think I was.

JIM CHUCKLES

So, having admitted that you're a traditionalist... Yes.

I take it that you have rooms. I do.

You shouldn't be able to see all of the garden in one fell swoop.

That was exactly the idea of the plan.

Hence the yew hedges and so on and so forth. Yes.

Which are finally coming into their own.

And each room has a different theme. Very definitely so.

Some are very quiet, like this area here,

which just has the Alchemilla mollis. Mm-hm.

And then others are much more punchy colouring. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Again, quite controlled. You've got quite a thing about colour.

I have got quite a thing about colour. These borders here...

Mirror image? Definitely.

Repeat planting using shape.

I like repeat planting. So do I. I'm all for it.

And something like that is repeated throughout the whole walled garden.

Yeah. To try and make it more one,

although you've got the different rooms.

And the border is very, very full. I mean, do you change it very often?

No, but we take it out, divide it and then put it back.

Swapping places, one plant from another. Yeah, yeah.

So that they die and get hidden.

An interval of what, four or five years? Yes.

Something like that. Your lieutenant must be some guy. He is!

I should go and meet him, shouldn't I? He's some guy. I think you better.

Well, hello there. You must be Ken, the man responsible for all this?

Eh? Yes. This takes me back. Oh, wonderful.

Tell me, it's the first time I've seen half a glasshouse being used.

What's the story?

The reason for that is this is the last addition to the

whole of the glasshouses when we restored them

and we needed somewhere for the lilies, because they were

getting spotted by the rain. And it works wonderful as you can see.

There's no end. There's no end,

there's no front and there's also no vents.

Basically it's an umbrella. Absolutely, it works perfect.

I suppose you can actually use it for over-wintering stuff... Yes.

..that doesn't want to get too wet. Always use, that's a great thing.

Aye, aye. We've got figs, Brown Turkey... Yeah.

..and you can just see this one here ready. Aye.

We do get two crops, but only the first crop ripens. Yes.

A short season. More traditional with the grapes there. Absolutely.

Oh, it's magic.

Come here, Jim, and meet Kathy, my lovely wife.

She's doing a wee bit of dead-heading. Hello there.

Jim, how are you? Nice to see you. Nice to see you.

Now you're doing a wee bit of dead-heading and cleaning up

here but I do believe you've got a bit of

a skill as far as colour combinations. Yes. Explain yourself.

We want to keep the colours flowing into the greenhouse from outside.

From the borders, yeah.

Mrs Reid has had a specific design in mind with her colour scheme and I

like to bring it into the greenhouse and create a symphony of colour. Oh!

Oh! Can I use that phrase again? You certainly may.

That's very kind of you.

I'm going to turn the spotlight on this fella because these

plants are looking stunning. How often do you feed them?

Jim, believe it or not, they're never fed. Go away.

I rely entirely on potting the plants on.

How many times?

They're started in January, that would be the first potting, and,

throughout the summer, three times, usually.

Have you not anything else to do but pot plants?!

I cannot criticise.

The system works. Thank you.

Every day's a school day but, listen,

we can let this lady off the hook, because I hear water tinkling.

Can you explain yourself? Let's have a look.

Ah-ha! The source of the water. Aye.

JIM CHUCKLES

This was put in by the last owners. OK. Mrs Morton Robertson.

She came across from Italy in the early 1900s to get married

when she was only 16. Oh.

And the story goes she was that depressed with the Scottish

summers, that she imported this volcanic rock from Italy,

got the local tradesmen to build it and she sat in here and cried

most of the time. That's the tears of a 16-year-old Italian lassie.

Absolutely, still going. Well, well, well.

And normally when you look at these grottos,

you think in terms of ferns and more ferns and more ferns.

What surprised me is how well these begonias are performing. Yeah.

They just seem to love it in here.

It's nice and dark, quite subdued lighting because we're north-facing

here but at the same time we've also got south-facing at the same time.

So it works so well.

Is this the best water feature you've got in the place?

It's one of them, but we've got

a bigger one if you want to come and see that.

Will this do you, Jim?

That's more like the thing. Good.

Any self-respecting garden should have a real cracker of

a pond, and this is.

But the important thing is the change in atmosphere.

Yeah, well, it does, and it's always lovely to see people's faces

when I bring them through the walled garden. Yes, yes.

Which is very formal. Aye. You know.

We come in here and the rule book's almost thrown away.

So you've got lovely mixed planting all the way around.

That was exactly the idea that Mrs Reid had. Yes, aye.

Planting's very relaxed. Even the colour scheme's very relaxed.

And your number one lieutenant is beavering away there.

She's working away hard behind us there. Well done.

Anything goes, almost, you've got a great background, but down by

the pond you've got the usual suspects, haven't you?

The astilbes always come into their own and then the big gunnera,

the rodgersias - there's a lovely mix.

There's a lovely mix, Jim, and the light's always changing in here

but we're soon coming into autumn... Yes.

And again, the plants will be changing.

Quite a different character this place. Wonderfully different.

And I'm sure you must be pleased with it

Very pleased, it's taken 14 years. 14 years.

And you can see, even as the sun's setting,

how the character changes in here.

We've had a splendid day, I have to say. Thank you so much to you.

Thank you very much. It's been brilliant.

Nice to meet you and great to be chatting gardening with you.

And pass on our thanks... I certainly will. ..to Mrs Reid.

Thank you. She's been brilliant.

Back in the winter stem border here's

a handy hint for increasing the intensity and amount of

colour which you're going to get from shrubs over the winter.

We've got long stems like this, which are branching further down.

Just take your secateurs and snip the tops off.

One of the shrub families that give us

a lot of colour at this time of the year are the buddleias.

We've got two new ones to the garden here.

There's fallowiana behind me and there's

weyeriana Sungold here.

But lo and behold,

on weyeriana Sungold, we've got a shoot there

that's come up variegated.

So the top of that shoot was removed.

We've got a cutting, it is well rooted, ready for potting on.

This may be the very first weyeriana Beechgrove.

We've spent quite a bit of time on the programme planting bulbs

that will flower in the spring.

Jim also talked about the hyacinths, which will flower for

Christmas, but also then our bulbs that flower at this time of year.

Take a look at this, this tree lily, quite magnificent.

It's a variety called Robina, about seven feet in height.

And then this one here, in the Calendar border.

I think this is a real beauty.

It's called the summer hyacinth, or Galtonia,

with lovely, white bells.

Well, what a blistering day we've had, eh? Fantastic.

And we finish up with a lot of late summer colour.

It's gorgeous, the hydrangea. Which one? Vanille Fraise. Lovely.

Doing tremendously well. Look at this, eh, poking its head up,

clematis. Yeah. I didn't know it was there.

And phlox, which is flowering its head off.

This colour is just...

To save you both embarrassment, I'm saying that is anemone.

THEY CHUCKLE

It's stunning, isn't it? It's really stunning.

But, you know, if you'd like any more information about this week's programme,

it's all in the fact sheet and the easiest way to access that

is online.

Next week, as part of the 50th anniversary

for Keep Scotland Beautiful, I'm going to be visiting colourful Carnoustie and also the near

neighbour East Haven where the two of you have been.

And I shall be planting vegetables in the polytunnel to keep us

going over the winter and early spring.

Until then... Bye-bye. Goodbye.

We're in it to win it.

SOUNDS TO THE TUNE OF: In The Hall Of The Mountain King by Grieg

FEED RATTLES

BABY GURGLES

MOTOR WHIRS

CHAMOIS SQUEAKS

MUSIC BUILDS

They do it for love.

We follow five amateur orchestras from all across the country,

on a musical journey to find one winner

to perform alongside the pros at Proms In the Park.

We're in it to win it.