Episode 21 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello, there. Welcome to Beechgrove

on quite a sultry morning. We call it muggy.

And it's going to get very hot.

We must start off with the stumpery - are you pleased with it?

I think it looks great. The idea really was to get all those old tree

stumps, pile them up in a bit of a valley, and

then impregnate that with greenery, with ivy and ferns, predominantly.

Eventually, all the stumps would rot back,

and all you'd see is the greenery.

And that's what's starting to happen, three years later.

It's the shades of green, isn't it, which are magic, I think.

Yeah. You don't need any other colour, do you?

It just... It works as it is. Do you think there are 40?

At least, Jim! Yes!

From the first project to the latest - Fungal Valley!

Er...explain.

So, slightly less aesthetic considerations here...

Yes. ..than in the stumpery.

But this is all about productivity -

this is about growing mushrooms for harvest.

So, hardwood logs form the outside edge -

those have been drilled and impregnated with dowels,

which are growing the mycelium of the fungi we want to harvest.

So, on the outside, we've got the shiitake and oyster.

And then in the wood chip underneath,

we've got those woodland floor-dwelling members,

and notably things like wine cap, which are wonderful to harvest.

So we've got to use our imagination at the moment!

Yeah! It's about being optimistic, yes!

Yes! Gardeners are good at that!

That's why they're so expensive in the shops!

Now, in terms of maintenance,

I would have thought we should be irrigating these quite regularly.

We've got heavy overhead branches here, and we do get a lot of rain,

but... Looks a bit dry.

Yeah, well, that's the key, really, is keeping it nice and humid.

It is about those rotting conditions that you'd find deep in a woodland

or in a forest. So, you do need to keep it wet through the winter,

and also, importantly, in the summer.

So, if you can get irrigation on it, or put it like this,

so it's slightly overshadowed on the northern side - ideal conditions,

really. So, would you say this time next year, totally different?

I'm positive! It'll be a forage of fungi in here.

Fingers crossed. Meantime, in the rest of the programme...

This week, I'm visiting two places on the coast,

East Haven and Carnoustie,

who are both marking the 50th anniversary

of Keep Scotland Beautiful.

And you think I'm sitting here relaxing?

Wait till you see what I've done to the seed box.

As we head into autumn,

I feel this is the perfect time to be planting some of your evergreens,

because the soil is warm and it gives a chance for those roots to

get into the soil before it starts to get really cold.

And what I've got here is a wonderful range of hebes.

So, I'm taking you to the other side of the world,

because the hebe originates from New Zealand.

And what a collection! A dozen different varieties.

I'm going to start at this end.

Now, I want to say these two, which are prostrate,

are some of the hardiest of the hebes,

and they should survive the really cold temperatures.

And of these two, I'm going to pick out this one, Quicksilver.

Beautiful glaucous leaves, really tiny leaves,

but the stems are almost black - really quite attractive.

And then, as we move on, a lot of the glaucous foliage.

And what I should say as well

is that the hebes love a coastal situation.

So, if you live by the seaside,

normally, they will survive quite well.

And within the glaucous ones, look at this one - very narrow leaves.

And then we've got round leaves. This one, though, I really like.

It's a variety called Red Edge.

And you can start to see a little red edge coming in.

And as the temperatures drop, again, you get more of those red markings.

Then, bright and cheerful, some of the variegated forms.

This one, I'm not too sure how that will do - Heart Breaker.

Some of these will only survive

maybe to temperatures of around -5, -10.

And believe you me, sometimes in this garden it can go down to -15.

But we shall see. And, finally, the last group -

and some of these will get quite high, up to maybe a metre,

metre and a half in height.

These ones have beautiful foliage.

Obviously, all of them will give us flowers as well.

But, again, in the winter time, more purple starts to come in.

So, they are value-for-money plants.

They are evergreen, interest with foliage, interest for flowers.

And also, they don't mind the soil type either.

Quite happy in a chalky situation,

and also quite happy in a slightly acidic soil.

So I'm going to have to place these out,

and we'll come back next year and have a look at them.

Aren't these magnificent trees?

These are Wellingtonias, possibly about 150 years old,

planted on a lot of estates here in rural Aberdeenshire.

And that's where I am today, I'm just outside of Boyne,

and I've come to visit an absolutely fabulous project

called The Seed Box.

I believe they've got one or two jobs they want me to do,

so I'm just going to see what they want.

The Seed Box is a horticultural therapy training centre

for adults with additional learning support needs,

who aren't able to work in mainstream employment.

Participants undertake meaningful gardening activities that encourage

independence and life skills,

with the aim that they eventually move into employment.

The scheme was started three years ago by Belinda Rowlands

in the old walled garden on Ballogie Estate.

Oh, my goodness! Look at this!

All these veg! What a credit to you!

Thank you. But, of course, it's not just you, is it?

No, no - we have a group of volunteers, we have four staff,

and we have eight co-workers.

Now, what do they get involved in, the co-workers?

Well, the co-workers get involved with the herbaceous border, lifting,

splitting, the propagation, dividing - you name it, basically.

The whole skill set?

The whole skill set, yes.

And with the veg? Yes - very much involved with all the tending

to the crops, and then they do the harvesting, the weighing,

the packaging, and then we sell it to the local families

through a veg bag scheme. How many? 23 families.

Gosh, that's quite a good client base, isn't it? Yes.

Do the co-workers go out and deliver? Yes, we do deliver as well.

They're getting a fabulous skill set.

What a learning process for them, isn't it?

Yes. It's just magic. I see they're sort of harvesting over here.

Will we go and help? Certainly!

Busy around here, then, Tom. What's going on?

These are good, aren't they?

These for the veg boxes? Er, yeah.

So how many do we need?

Lots. Lots and lots! Lots of them!

THEY LAUGH

Do you like doing the veg boxes?

Yeah. I reckon Thursday may be my favourite day

because of the veg bags.

Do you take them out and deliver them sometimes?

Yes, I do, and sometimes they give us feedback on...

if they don't like particular vegetables.

Well, William, what are you up to?

I'm doing the carrots for the veg.

You've been loosening them with the fork, have you?

Yes. There's a lot in the bucket - these are good, aren't they?

Look at that. How do you normally do it,

do you just snap them off like that?

No, we... You show me how you do it.

Are you using your secateurs?

Yeah. Is this cos they're posh, they a good pair, are they?

Let me see.

What do you do?

You just cut it like that.

I see, and that makes it look better, doesn't it,

when it's got...? Eh? Yeah. That's a good idea.

Now, I believe you've got other jobs you think we need to do.

Yes, I could do with a hand with a particular job.

Oh, that sounds a bit ominous, that!

The yew trees are over 150 years old, they are very overgrown,

and been neglected for over 30 years.

And so we were wondering if you could make them a bit smaller,

and more compact.

HE LAUGHS

No pressure, then! Well, we could maybe get Callum to do that.

But look, see inside here, when you force these branches apart,

you see there's a lot of branch work in the middle there.

We'll get inside there, and cutting out some of these tall branches,

which are giving it height... Yeah. Bring that down.

And then we tie this material back in,

and we pull it back in over the cut stumps.

It will make it smaller and a bit more compact.

It might not look 100% perfect when we're finished, but eventually,

I mean, you can't kill yew trees,

they will grow and it will sort itself out.

That's one of the jobs. We'll leave Callum to do that.

We have a cherry tree here, a Stella,

that we planted two years ago.

And we've had fantastic growth, we've been tying it in,

but it's now reached the top of the wall,

and we're not too sure what to do next.

Because if we let it go on and on and on,

it'll take all the strength away from those branches,

and that's where we want the fruit to be, down here,

where it's nice and easy to pick and easily accessed.

All we need to do here really is just to take the top off,

and stop it going over the wall.

There we go, just like that.

So, George, we have a Victoria plum here.

It's been in for two years, the same as the cherry.

But we've got to this growth

and we'd like to train it in the same way,

and we're not too sure where to go next.

Because you've got two very vigorous shoots, haven't you?

Yes. The way to stop that vigour is,

take that shoot and we'll train that down and along that wire,

we'll tie that in. That then causes those to fruit much more.

It just alters the flow of the sap,

and these will then start to bear fruit.

Right. And then with this one, what we'll do is,

we'll tie this one down to here...

If I can find my handy piece of string - there we are,

bring that down.

What will happen now is, we'll get a shoot developing from there,

and it will start to go straight up,

and that will give you the next storey, the next level of branches.

It's just a question of tying in, there's nothing vicious here.

Yes. We'll just tie these things in to this one.

Callum has been quite busy. Can you see what he's done?

Yes. Much better shape.

A lot thinner. So, thinned out the centre, taken a lot of stuff out.

And we've put one wire in there already,

and we're drawing the whole thing together now.

Yes. It's a slow process of trying to tighten it all up.

But we needed a hand just to put that other wire up there.

We need to push that up with rakes

so that Callum can really tighten it further up.

And that will bring the top in. Right, let's get the rakes.

You can go a bit further there...

So there you are, Belinda, finished product -

what do you think?

Wonderful - much more compact and tied in.

It's all been drawn in, and we've lowered the height as well.

Yeah. But we've also left you some homework.

The volunteers will be more than happy to tie in this one.

You can just pull it... Yes, pull it all in.

We've had great fun today.

It's a wonderful project, and these young folk,

these co-workers - superb.

This whole project is fabulous. So, well done.

Thank you, thank you for all your hard work.

Here in the cottage garden,

there's no better candidate for a late autumn flush than the aster.

This one is Thomsonii nana, about 45cm high,

and a good blooming candidate, with those classic aster flowers -

lavender blue stars.

You can see why it has that wonderful origin of being associated

with twinkling stars in the sky

which, in fact, is where the plant gets its name from.

And there's a whole bevy of them.

Don't be fearful of too many of the asters.

If you stick with the more species-orientated ones,

then they tend to be mildew- and wilt-resistant.

And it was the mildew and wilt that was really affecting all of those

Michaelmas daisies,

typical of the sort of plants that you would have been seeing in

Granny's garden years ago.

A good example of the way that plants are being reclassified is

with the group of asters, because although these look like asters,

they flower like asters, they're no longer classified as asters.

Because in 1994,

botanists started to play around with the genetics of these plants,

understand them better, and realised that, actually,

they're not even related closely to the aster.

So you might find some of these plants classified

under other genera.

As a broad rule, if it's from Europe or Asia, it's still called an aster.

However, if it's from North America, all those wonderful prairie plants -

this is one of them, Little Carlow -

then it's reclassified as Symphyotrichum.

And there's a whole bevy of them, about 90 species,

moved into that particular genus.

Now, Little Carlow will top out at around 90cm.

It's a cordifolius species type and, in fact,

there's a white form there which is called Silver Spray -

the name suggesting exactly the type of flowers that it has.

Some of the asters are really useful in really quite difficult spaces in

the garden. For instance, this one, divaricatus...

Look at those twisting, purple, wiry stems,

and then star-like blooms on the tips.

It's a fab plant to use if you want it tumbling over something like

a dry-stone wall, or, as we've got it here,

going up through a Rosa glauca,

where its scandent nature will assist in twining with the stems.

It will mix in in spring, when the rose is in full bloom,

and then come autumn, it's the aster that we'll all be attracted to.

This incidentally was Gertrude Jekyll's favourite aster,

for fairly obvious reasons.

But there's also ones that you can play with on the edge.

Ericoides prostratum, Snow Flurry, for instance, down there,

I'm using as an edger - wonderful white mounds.

And this one is lateriflorus Prince.

It's quite an interesting grower

because it has these horizontal branches,

and then on the tips of these,

flurries of more wine-coloured blooms.

Again, very small,

but perfect with not just the flower colour but the foliage colour

against slightly lighter-coloured specimens, like this one here.

And if you get the chance,

stick them in in groups of threes and fives,

because whilst all of this broad group that we call asters are

vigorous going up, they're less vigorous in terms of spreading.

So put them in tight clumps,

and then as you knit other herbaceous perennials around,

you'll find the whole garden just becomes a mound of blooms -

these blooming right through until Christmas.

Well, we're going to repeat a little exercise that we did last year,

but it'll have some differences, and that is,

to plant some brassicas and other plants to overwinter and

be harvested in the late winter, early spring.

We plant some outside and inside.

And last winter, they all did reasonably well because it was

a very mild winter. So we're going to try it again

and see what happens this time.

As I say, a few differences - different varieties.

This is obviously a red cabbage.

I'm about to plant a red kale.

Mostly brassicas, but we've got leeks and some chard as well.

There's some lovely plants in the garden centres at the moment,

so this is how we're going to handle it.

Now, when we come into the tunnel here,

the soil in these tunnels doesn't ever get any huge drenching

from torrential rain or anything.

And there's a tendency for the lime levels to drop and sometimes

the salt levels to rise but what I'm interested in today is the fact that

the pH - the acidity of the soil here - is quite significant.

It's down to about five, which is fine for most plans.

Brassicas prefer a little bit nearer neutral so what I've done is

to apply lime to this side of the tunnel and you see what it's been

down to at five. The other side

I'm not going to put any lime in at all,

to see if it makes any difference whatsoever.

The second testing, of course, is the outside ground

where the pH is 6.5 and it's quite normal

and there is no problem there at all so here we go.

I've planted down some early cabbage,

I've planted some pak choi and now it's time to plant the kale.

Giving them plenty of room because last year they actually loved

the tunnel situation and it grew like the clappers.

There we go. When they're all in,

the other thing I want to do is give them a real watering.

In other words,

with a hosepipe, not with a wee footery watering can.

A real drenching. Because that'll help the whole scenario.

Keep Scotland Beautiful is a charity that supports community groups

that wish to enhance and improve their local environments.

And here in Carnoustie is a typical example, where in the main street,

they actually look after

150 of these hanging baskets and containers.

And the volunteers responsible for that -

the aptly named Colourful Carnoustie.

I met two of the leading lights of Colourful Carnoustie,

Kirsty McDonald and Ed Oswald, at the town's war memorial,

where they are marking the 50th anniversary of

Keep Scotland Beautiful.

Now, Ed, to start off with,

can we have a little bit of history about the competition

because you're in the Coastal Town category.

When did you all start?

I started entering Keep Scotland Beautiful in 2010.

That was our first attempt, we got a certificate,

a merit certificate I think it was that year.

And last year, lo and behold, we scooped the gold medal.

We were very excited,

the whole town was delighted to see that we got the gold medal.

Absolutely brilliant.

Now, Kirsty, you do have lots of volunteers, so where does everybody

come from? All walks of life and all ages.

And we're so pleased to have them.

We work very closely with Angus Council, who plant the memorial,

along with the British Legion, and of course ourselves.

We involve the schools and they have done some design work for us.

And this year they did some artwork down at the Haven.

Now tell me also, Kirsty, about the begonias

because I know you look after these and we're speaking about thousands

of plants. Thousands indeed. I do look after them.

Last year, one of the judges, Sandy Scott from Aberdeen, suggested that

I tried storing them over winter in wood shavings and it proved to be

very successful. So frost-free, really important?

Frost-free in my conservatory

and they progress after planting into the cold house

and then into the baskets.

And obviously labelled as well so you know which colours.

Absolutely, yes. You want to get that right.

But this is the wow factor, the war memorial

but where else can you find a different places in

Carnoustie to look at?

We've also got the railway station.

We've got planters when anybody alights from the train services,

so that's the first thing they notice coming into Carnoustie.

We do all the hanging baskets in the planters on the high street.

And there's a lot of those, isn't there? A lot of those,

full of begonias. And what about things like the watering?

We have a wonderful guy

who waters at three and four o'clock in the morning.

We do pay him, it's a very, very small amount.

He's a professional gardener and he is one of our mainstays, really.

And what is the response from the locals and people who come here?

I think we get a tremendous response.

I think people take a great pride in the town to see what we're doing.

It's tremendous, when we are working here

the visitors to the town and the locals that come in

and talk to us and say how lovely it is and

congratulate us. You know,

I'm always a firm believer that gardening is good for you.

Very much so. And it works here, doesn't it?

Mm-hmm. It does. Now, you haven't got the results yet?

No. Fingers crossed... Fingers crossed.

..that you are going to get a gold again. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Colourful Carnoustie comes under the Coastal Town category

in the Beautiful Scotland awards.

Just a few miles up the coast is little sister, East Haven,

who deservedly takes all the awards in the Coastal Village category.

Jim and George were here in East Haven in 2014,

where they watched the community create this,

their very own community garden in the centre of the village.

The driving force was Wendy Murray

and she still is.

So, Wendy, what's happened since Jim and George were here?

Well, the community has gone from strength to strength, Carol.

We've really taken on a huge number of additional projects.

We acquired another area of neglected ground last year

and it took us six months to clear it because there had been

fly-tipping and it was really in a poor condition.

But we have now got a beautiful wildlife garden and we have also

developed the coastal path and the area at the head of the cycle path

because, as you know, we are on National Cycle Route 1

so we get lots and lots of visitors every year.

So one of our residents provides them all with refreshments

every day from April to September. That's magic. Last year,

we took on a community partnership with the local authority

to prevent our beach-side toilets from being closed.

So we now clean and manage the toilets

and we provide fresh flowers, hand cream, hand soap for everybody.

And we've even put in a collection of our own original paintings.

Beautiful. We've also, this year, become the first community on

mainland Scotland to achieve a community beach award.

So we're really very proud of that. And this is all in two years?

Yes, all in two years.

So, yes, we were starting from a really low point in 2013.

The village was looking really run down and neglected

and we had some graffiti, some antisocial behaviour.

And, really, we felt that we had a mountain to climb.

So we looked at the Beautiful Scotland website and

really found inspiration in the three pillars.

And the three-pillar concept looks at horticultural achievement,

community participation and environmental responsibility.

It's incredible what you've done and I'd like to know what you feed

the red-hot pokers on? What a size. Well, that's our secret weapon.

That's bio solids.

Our nearest neighbour is the waste water treatment plant at Hatton,

and they supply us with free bio solids which act as a slow-release

fertiliser and the plants have been fantastic.

And what about your awards?

Well, we were very fortunate in 2014

in that we achieved silver-gilt.

And last year we were very proud to win a gold award,

also the Best Coastal Village

and also the Jim Murdie Award for Sustainability.

That is fantastic. Now, would you encourage any sort of village,

town or city to take part? Absolutely.

I think improving the place that you live is so important.

People need to feel that they are living in safe places

with green spaces.

Working together on gardening projects is a wonderful thing to do

and it brings people together.

You put that in a nutshell. Thank you very much. Thanks.

Here in the summer tropical border,

the Cannas and the Ricinus have not only grown and filled out,

but they've also started to flower.

And, in truth, we've got about a month of flowers still to appreciate

before these plants have to be

lifted and given some winter protection.

And once the ground is cleared, it's ready-tilled, it's weed-free.

Why not take advantage of some old packets of hardy annual seed?

Here, mixes of things like Eschscholzias, Calendulas, Nigellas.

Mixed with a little bit of dry sand, scattered onto the surface,

rake in vigorously and you'll find that a few extra months' head start,

hopefully by early summer, we get a good pallet of meadow flowers.

Here, we have an ornamental dwarf willow, which ain't ornamental,

that's for sure! Because it's riddled with rust.

Just look at that. Every leaf and it's dying off.

Now, I had a Kilmarnock willow like that at home and it pains me

to say so, with that being my home town, I cut it down.

I got fed up with the thing.

And there's been a lot of questions about it this year,

this business of the rust, weather patterns and so on,

and the lack of real control measures.

So what am I going to do? Whack it down to about 15 centimetres from

the ground. Clear it away, burn it.

Clear away the detritus, which is full of inoculums and then,

perhaps with a bit of feeding and mulching,

it may well grow away and retain its space here in the garden.

I'm absolutely delighted this year that we've got a really good crop of

autumn fruiting raspberries.

The variety is Autumn Bliss and the tip to remember

is to thin out the canes.

Thin them out in the springtime and you end up with something like this.

And, of course, it's all about the flavour as well.

And these are pretty delicious.

Well, I love this time of year, don't you?

We're beginning to harvest the fruits of our labours and what

a display of flowers as well. It's great, isn't it?

It's amazing what you can get your hands on and just shove it in a vase

and there you go, instant flora.

One or two sweet peas? I'm glad you picked out the sweet peas.

Although the colour combinations, great here,

but I'm not so sure with my Lobelia cardinalis standing here.

It clashes a bit. It does a wee bit, yes, yeah.

I think that's my one, the blue and white,

and that's for you, Jim, again, lovely sweet peas in there.

Gorgeous. But you've got all the...

Well, yes. This is my first concern is...

feeding the tum-tum. So some good crops.

Some lovely plums this year, actually.

SHE LAUGHS

I saw you, I saw you. Yeah, I've got my eye on those.

Also some good news because Beautiful Scotland, where I visited,

you know, Carnoustie and East Haven,

they have both won gold.

And also, East Haven won the Best Coastal Village trophy,

which is just fantastic. Absolutely stunning. Tremendous.

So what are you doing next week?

Well, next week, no money again for me

because it's gardening on a budget.

And you? I shall be harvesting even more of our crops.

You will be somewhere?

I'll be in the ether, yeah.

Don't forget, 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. Until next time, bye-bye.

Bye. Bye. These are lovely, aren't they?

GLITTER BALL CHIRPS A "YOOHOO"