Episode 9 The Beechgrove Garden

Hello there. Welcome to Beechgrove.

It's a bit dull today, but it's a lovely

sort of climate for working in, and there's a lot to be done.

And the first job to say is...

-welcome, Brian.

-Thanks very much, Jim.

You're part of the team in here now. We'll be watching you.

-THEY LAUGH

-Yeah, I know!

And the other thing, of course, is

there's been a huge crop of new dwarf fruits,

so this little garden here is going to be dedicated to dwarf varieties.

Yes, and when you say little, Jim, it's not a big area,

it's only a few metres in size.

One and a bit and four and a bit.

And it's amazing what you can fit in.

-Well, we shall see.

-Yes.

-Let's start at the back.

We've got the top fruit, three of them at the back.

Well, we've got a couple of pears.

-Joy Of Kent is one of them.

-SHE LAUGHS

-She's not looking well.

-She isn't, is she?

-I bet...

-I hope she comes back.

-But that other one's looking quite good.

And then the stepover apple here.

Yes, that will be trained as a single asparagus.

-Nice little pear, that one there, in that corner.

-Yes, that one's a little sweetie.

And, Brian, what are you with?

Well, I've got a Little Black Prince blackberry

and I've got a couple of Little Red Princess raspberries.

A bit of a royal corner, right enough.

-Yes, these will only get about a metre high.

-Yes, yes.

And they actually came from the decking, they were in pots,

-and I think they're going to be better in the border.

-Well, look after themselves...

-Yes, they will, won't they?

-That's one thing, yes.

-And you're busy with blueberries.

-Yes, I think I've got the star of the show here.

This one is called Sunshine Blue, and the flowers are rather unusual,

-because they're pink, and it's semi- evergreen, this one.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Beautiful autumn foliage as well.

-That'll be good.

-Mm.

And along the front, a little border of Fragaria vesca,

-the little mountain strawberry.

-Yes, the alpine strawberry.

I'm also putting lots of ericaceous compost in with this one

-because it needs it.

-Yeah, lots to do.

In the rest of the programme, Brian, what are you up to?

I'm going to be completing the Alpine Garden revamp today.

-It's looking good.

-Thank you very much.

And this west-coast garden has a wonderful collection of little

and large rhododendrons, but so much more to see as well.

Now then, two weeks ago we set up this little comparison.

We've got, for example here, carrots that were

sown at the beginning of April in these little pots,

planted out two weeks ago, and on the same day,

I sowed the same variety there.

So, we'll get a bit of a progression,

we're going to get succession, indeed.

These will be ready first, I would've thought,

but is it worth the bother?

Some people will say yes.

Some people maybe say no.

Now then, I have a confession to make.

I have totally ignored salad turnips for ages.

I mean, at one time, you planted Golden Ball,

or Market Express et cetera.

But just look at the varieties that are available now.

Actually, I've included one or two swedes, but some of these early

salad turnips, which are grated into salad,

absolutely superb.

Some of them, they reckon, will be ready in about...50 days?

Month and a half? Thereabouts.

We shall see.

We'll have a feeding fiesta of...

turnips.

The swedes might take a few days longer.

Here we go.

Last week, as part of our Alpine Garden revamp,

we concentrated on the crevice features

at our fantastic crevice wall

and after a week of sun, the plants are looking great.

This week,

we're going to concentrate on some of the other environments.

The whole point of this Alpine Garden revamp

was to create as many alpine environments as possible.

So here I am on top of the mountain.

The plants that are going to do well on this mountaintop environment

are the ones that have adapted to the harsh and biting cold winds

that brushes across them.

Here we've got this mound-forming evergreen thrift,

Bevan's Form.

And this is going to do well hiding from the winds behind this rock.

We've also got these prostrate-growing helianthemums,

and they hug to the gravel.

So that one will do well coming over the gravel here.

And then, finally, we've got this dianthus

that'll cling to this rock face, and when it's flowering,

it's going to look great cascading over this rock face here.

When we're planting,

we're going to leave them slightly higher than the soil level,

because this will allow us to top-dress this area with gravel

and complete the mountaintop look.

There's plenty more to do,

so I'm going to get Mairi to give me a hand.

These are more meadow-y plants, these potentillas.

They'll suit well in here.

Maybe somewhere in about there.

Less soil, less weeds, less work you've got to do!

I reckon we just go for it now.

HE WHISTLES

So, for a small area like this, we've watered the plants first.

And then by applying this gravel mulch, not only will it look good,

it's now going to lock in the moisture,

it's going to act as a weed suppressant as well

and, hopefully, not too many weeds are going to come up.

Don't worry if there's big mounds like this.

It just looks more natural.

Just make sure the plants are sitting up, not getting swamped.

In the wild, these mountaintop rocks will slowly erode,

and the resulting rubble will gather at the bottom

and create our next environment, which is a scree.

That's what we're going to try and create here.

-Callum's got the materials for the job.

-I do, yeah.

We've got some blue slate chips that we're going to use

to represent the water following on down

-from your blue and white plants on the wall, or cliff face.

-Brilliant.

Then we've got 20-mil wash gravel

-that we're going to use to make the scree round about it.

-Superb.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of construction,

-we've compacted this soil pretty solidly.

-Yeah.

-So I'm afraid we're going to have to dig it over.

-Yeah.

I'm using a scree gravel to define the shape of our riverbed,

and then what we'll do, to save some time,

we'll get wheelbarrows of grit and then we'll fill in the gaps.

I actually wondered how it would look

-if that point was wider, so a wee bit further out.

-Right out.

Well, we've completed our scree,

and I'm quite liking how the two different types of gravel,

the effect that that's created.

Still looking a bit flat just now for me,

and that's where some smaller stones than the one we've used already,

variant sizes,

that'll just give us a wee bit of difference in here

and make it look a bit more natural.

But we can also use plants to create that effect.

So in this scree area,

we're not looking for any particular kind of plants any more.

We can use some of the ones that we used in the crevice

and some of the ones that we used in the mountaintops.

But we're also wanting to use shrubs

and dwarf conifers like this juniper here.

That's just going to help us give us a bit of structure

on what could be a flat piece of ground.

To plant these...

The soil was looking a wee bit tired and a bit lifeless.

So what we're going to do, scrape back our gravel...

..and create a planting hole.

Again, we're wanting to plant it just that wee bit proud of the soil.

And then we can wrap the gravel around its neck

and that will protect it from any winter wet.

But for now, we've dug our hole.

And maybe get a couple of handfuls of John Innes No 2

mixed with some grit,

and this'll just give a wee bit of life back into the planting hole.

Junipers are nice and prickly.

Bit nippy on the fingers.

As you can see, this is pot-bound here,

so maybe a wee bit of teasing in the roots,

just to give it that encouragement once it gets in the soil.

And then there we go.

A good water-in.

And, hopefully, that'll do us.

We've been to the top of the mountain

and the side of the mountain.

Now we're going below the tree line into our final environment,

which is our woodland garden.

Here's where we want to grow plants

that could do with a bit of summer shade

and also to be grown in a bit of moisture-retentative soil.

One plant that we're going to have here

is an old friend from the old Alpine Garden,

and that's the Daphne retusa.

And another plant that'll give us some winter structure

and some winter colour is this beautiful evergreen azalea.

Perfect place for the poppy flower,

and we've got a lovely dwarf meconopsis here.

Then one of my favourite plants in this woodland setting

is this Anemone tenuifolia.

The flowers are fading a bit now, but it's a beautiful blue colour

and it stands out well against the dark leafmouldy soil.

-Oh, Callum, I think we've done it.

-Yeah.

It's looking really good. Sun's come out for us, as well.

Yeah, I'm really pleased with it.

You really see the blue coming up on the slate

now that you've watered it in a bit.

I think we're the only people in Scotland hoping for a bit of rain,

-just to give everything a good wash now.

-Yeah!

Brian, what a transformation.

You've redesigned the Alpine Garden just in a few weeks.

When you started pulling it apart, I thought, "What are you doing?"

And the plants, they've had a few days to get settled in.

It looks like they're feeling a bit more at home now

because they're starting to sit up, so I'm quite happy. Quite relaxed.

Yeah, they are, and the whole idea.

We said at the beginning that you were creating various areas

and I'd love to pick out that sand crevice

because it's rather unusual, and quite tiny.

A metre by two metres. Anyone could have that.

Yeah, just pick up a couple of bags of sand and give it a go.

What about if you were to pick out something?

I do like the water feature because, probably most importantly,

it shows what you can do with different gravels.

-Yeah, no water, actually.

-Exactly!

-It's just gravel and slate.

And then, the finishing touches here.

Although this is the mountain,

these are the alpine troughs that you've almost hidden, in a way.

Exactly. Mission accomplished was to hide that '70s trough

and I think we've done it.

And just the finishing touches with one or two plants.

Yeah, we've got a beautiful little hosta here, Blue Mouse Ears,

-and what about that colour of that?

-Absolutely stunning.

But that little one there?

A wee clematis.

Most people expect the big ones at this time of year, but look at that.

Yeah. So, you'll plant those, get the gravel on, that'll be it.

I mean, I think it looks beautiful now, but once these plants get more

established and close it a bit more,

-it's going to look absolutely superb.

-I hope so.

Welcome to my little eight-by-six

and thank goodness for that bit of shading on the roof,

and the lovely thing about this system

is when it's dull, you can take it off.

It's a wee bit more of a bother,

but it gives the right kind of atmosphere in here.

It's eight-by-six time and it's a little greenhouse

that's being run almost like my own at home.

What I've got this side is cropping plants and we are using this

self-watering device, but the interesting thing this year

is I've got two tomatoes, a cucumber and there's a pepper going in there.

So, will they live together and work all right? It remains to be seen.

So, remember, there's a reservoir there.

So you put the water in there, you mix up the liquid feed

and you pour it in there,

and then a bit of capillary matting there acts as a wick.

That goes down on there, fill it up with compost and there it is.

So it gets watered from underneath and you can water in through here.

That shows you the reservoir.

The point being, of course, all the plants have got different

requirements, but they will get the same liquid feed.

It remains to be seen. We'll see what happens.

I think it'll work perfectly well.

Moving round in this direction, this fella here -

we've had a few people interested

in our beer cooler system of heating.

It's a geothermal system

where the beer cooler, instead of cooling,

has the terminal switched and it heats instead.

Out at the back of it, right away,

about 10m into the woodland garden there,

runs a water pipe, and then comes back again,

and they're about 60cm below the surface.

Warmer temperatures underneath,

where there's a change and a difference,

it will pick that up,

and the only electricity we're using is to run the little pump

that pushes the water round and then out the fan comes.

And it's kept this above seven - it's a DIY fella's job,

this is, really.

You can't pick this up off the marketplace at all.

Now, then, when it comes to this time of the year,

the important thing is keeping a moist atmosphere

and one of the ways you can do that at the bench

is to put down the plastic here, and then capillary matting on top.

Keep the matting damp

and you've got this nice, lovely, growthy atmosphere,

and you can add to that by regular spraying

with a little spray, like so - absolutely stunning.

Now, the interesting thing about this

is I have another bottle that I can fill with insecticide.

Just switch the top and I can get in there

and get the little greenfly, no bother at all.

Now, what happens when your plants, like your pelargoniums,

kind of fall to bits, a bit?

It's lost its shape.

This is the variety Welling, and isn't that stunning?

So what I shall do is take some cuttings from this plant,

cut it back and give it another go, but it won't matter.

As soon as the cuttings are rooted, we're away - no problem.

Just like these, here, which I've been doing

in a little propagator, like so -

pelargoniums, fuchsias and so on.

There they are.

Now, I'm away to pot these up.

The point is that when you have disturbed a root system,

you should put a plant back in the environment

in which it's been living, ie in a closed case.

Now, patently, if I pot all these up, and all these up,

there's not going to be room.

So customarily, what you would do,

a week or so before you're ready to pot them,

is to stand that plant, that pot, out on the bench,

so that when you pot them,

it goes back in the bench in the same atmosphere.

So there we go, that's going to keep me busy for a wee while,

and just as I'm saying that, I caught these little cyclamen.

They're now ready to be dried off.

Put them on their side, under the bench...

Put them on their side so they don't get any dripped water in them,

and they can dry off and start them again in the autumn.

But I must get these cuttings, absolutely, get them potted up.

Now, Jim was talking a little bit about the shading

and the heating in his eight-by-six greenhouse.

Mine is slightly different. I've got a paint-on shading.

It was really effective last year, and it's very simple

because you do paint it on,

and then, come the end of the season,

you can just rub it off with a brush,

and the heater - it's an electric fan heater, works really well.

When it gets up to temperature, it then gives out cold air.

Now, Jim was also speaking about resting the cyclamen.

I want to have a wee look again at our amaryllis.

It's our second year.

One is still flowering - that variety is called Ambience,

and looks lovely, but most of them have gone over.

Now, you don't give them a rest.

What we've got to do is encourage them to grow,

and to start off with, as soon as it's finished flowering,

we want to cut this flowering spike right down.

And you need to keep feeding them -

we are feeding them at the moment,

just with a general-purpose house-plant fertiliser,

which has roughly equal amounts of MPK, and then,

come the midsummer, that's when you move on to that high potash,

something like a tomato fertiliser,

and that will help to form the flower for yet another year.

Now, this is looking rather nice at the moment.

I'm really pleased with the oxalis, for example,

which we repotted back in April.

Things like the Iron Cross, for example,

I think has beautiful foliage, and we've got some flowers as well.

And speaking about flowers, look at this lobelia.

This was a lobelia that we grew last year,

a new variety that doesn't set seed, so you have to take cuttings,

and the variety is called Waterfall Blue Ice.

That makes a really nice contrast with the oxalis there.

Then over this side, slightly disappointed -

I think it's all to do with the temperatures at the moment.

Our zantedeschia collection, there is only one tiny little spike

that's starting to come through, but hopefully now,

because the temperatures are warming up,

that we will see some growth.

It's the same, a little bit, with the eucomis,

or the pineapple lilies, look - it's just starting to come through.

That one maybe looks a lot better.

We've also got plants that we've sowed for seed,

so they're temporary bedding, really, they're just annuals,

and we've got things like the amaranthus,

there's some pricking off to do.

We've got the balsam.

And because the amaryllis at the back are going over,

I want a bit of display to replace that,

so I've got this new container and this just...

Once I've got it planted up,

that will just pop into those holes

and I've got two climbers - again, grown from seed -

which are just annuals.

I've already put in the Cobaea scandens -

I shall get maybe three in there.

The common name is cup-and-saucer plant.

And also, I'm going to be adding some bergia,

Black-Eyed Susan, and this variety,

it says, has really large flowers.

So, lovely black eye, and then orange around the outside.

I've come to the west coast of Scotland, near Helensburgh,

for my garden visit, and the weather today is going to be fabulous -

maybe temperatures up to 20 degrees.

The climate here, combined with the acidic soil,

gives it perfect conditions for growing all types of plants,

and I'm going to see Mike and Sue Thornley,

whose garden is full of horticultural delights.

Mike and Sue have been at Glenarn for 30 years.

Both architects before retiring,

they're passionate about restoration.

This is evident in their garden,

which is full of rhododendrons planted since the Victorian era.

This is Rhododendron lindleyi and it has,

I think as you probably recognise, absolutely fabulous scent.

It's absolutely stunning, Mike.

It's a shame people can't smell that from the telly.

It is, but they can see it, and apart from the scent,

it has this amazing corona of flowers.

Not particularly hardy, though.

No - well, hardy in this town,

because of the influence of the sea,

which protects us from the frost and so on. But you'd have difficulty

growing it across on the east side of the country.

Yeah, the conservatory, I think.

-Does it comes in different forms?

-It does.

There's a version that has wonderful pink stripes, a bit like ice cream.

It's called Geordie Sherriff, after George Sherriff,

who'd collected it originally in 1938 on the Tibetan border.

Now, you've so many rhododendrons here,

but any others that you would pick out in this area?

Well, yes, I would, and it's another George Sherriff plant.

It's Rhododendron viscidifolium.

When he saw it, he thought, "This must be something new."

And when it eventually flowered in the garden

and the parts were sent to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh

for identification, it was proved to be a new species.

So, the one we have here is the first into introduction.

This is Rhododendron johnstoneanum,

another of these very tender rhododendrons

-that we can grown outside.

-And beautiful bark on that one.

Yeah, but no scent - but rigidum next door has a great scent.

And we've kind of caught that one at a peak condition, I'd say.

Now, this is a fascinating structure.

Well, this is our shade house.

It's built on the foundations of an old greenhouse, you can see that,

but it wasn't here when we arrived,

it was just a tumbledown shack.

So, we decided to put the roof on it

and a place where we could put my little cuttings, as they grew on.

-And it works really well.

-You can see some very small ones in here,

and some bigger ones, even up to flowering stage, after three years.

And isn't it a pleasant environment on a day like today?

It is! It's cooler, it's good protection from the wind,

but, of course, the rain comes through,

and you don't have to water, really, so it's excellent.

-And roughly about 50% cover?

-Yes.

The only problem is Mike decided it had to be white,

-so he has to paint it.

-It's his job.

-It's certainly his job.

We've been growing tulips in the vegetable patch for years.

You can see the variety you can get in tulips.

I mean, there are double ones, there are frilly ones,

there are parrots, there are lilies...

-And it's the variety of colour, as well.

-They're terrific, aren't they?

I mean, I try and organise them into groups

that I think will look good,

and take notes on what has worked for another year,

but when they go over, I take the heads off.

-Yes, a deadheading.

-Deadhead them.

Then I individually dig them up and put them into boxes,

all of one type, put them into the greenhouse and let them dry off.

And what happens after you take these out?

What goes into the veg patch?

Well, we dig in the manure and put in the courgettes

and the squashes, and it's a great place to grow those.

-So, the cycle keeps going?

-That's right.

Wow, look at this colour!

That's quite a colour combination, isn't it? The pink and the red.

It is, but look over there - that's rather more subtle.

-That's meconopsis.

-She's a gem.

That's mobcap. Yes, she's lovely.

It's quite a few years, Sue, since I've been round your garden,

and the rock garden, to me, has changed a lot.

Yes, we've worked in here over the last ten years,

but we've put in these paths to make a bit more structure,

so we could work on the beds, and then, more recently,

we have put a deer fence right round it.

So, presumably, now you're growing a few gems?

Well, look at this one. This...

I don't know if the deer would have fancied it, but it's quite

unusual, isn't it?

Now, I'm going to take a stab at this.

-Podophyllum. Podophyllum.

-Yes.

I don't know the species, though.

This is aurantiocaule. It's beautiful.

Look at those little white flowers nestling under there.

The flowers are gorgeous, but I also think the foliage, like umbrellas...

It is, and it comes from a very wet part of the world

so it forms a big umbrella towards the end of the season.

-And what a backdrop.

-I know.

This is dwarf williamsianum. Rhododendron.

After 80 years, it's not such a dwarf, but quite Japanesey.

-And like little lily pads, I think, to the foliage.

-Yes, it is.

So, this is really your kind of reinventing the rock garden.

Well, we are trying to.

We're working, obviously, from the original structure that the Gibsons,

the previous owners, worked in the quarry here and developed

this as a rock garden and it is quite an amazing little space.

You can see where the stone was taken for building the house

originally and all the little pockets that are left.

And look at the way the acer just sits in there snugly.

I know. I know.

Well, it sort of has a wide range of habitats, lots of little ledges.

Some of them are wet, some of them are dry.

And this sciadopitys, umbrella pine,

isn't what you'd choose to put in a rock garden,

as high as it is, but it creates another world behind it for ferns

and other kinds of primulas that like that sort of shade.

Yes, the shade-loving plants.

And the corydalis is very happy spreading.

It's too happy.

-It, unfortunately, becomes a bit of a weed.

-But a beautiful colour.

It's great.

We could stay here for hours, Sue,

-but I think we should maybe find Mike.

-Let's do that.

-There he is. A bit of pruning, I think, is going on.

-Yes.

And finishing off with this magnificent magnolia.

Yeah, this is magnolia Star Wars.

It's only been planted for about 12 years

and that's one of its advantages.

It doesn't get too big, but it comes into flower very quickly,

maybe after two or three years' planting.

-Does it last long, as well?

-Yeah, that's another advantage.

-Succession of buds.

-Six to eight weeks sometimes, if you're lucky.

-And the shape of it, I mean, it looks a bit like a star.

-Yes, it is.

And it's called that because the petals, or tepals, as

we should really call them, fly off in different directions.

-Pretty extraterrestrial, really.

-And good, maybe, for a small garden.

Spectacular for a small garden.

Now, speaking about gardens,

I mean, your garden is open for how many months of the year?

For six months of the year, 21st March to 21st September,

every day, dawn till dusk.

But there are lots of other gardens.

Look at the Glorious Gardens of Argyll,

that group, which is throughout the whole area,

and I'm the secretary.

Well, it's a wonderful scheme and, you know, if you have

weather like this, I think you're going to have thousands of visitors.

-Thank you so much.

-It's always like this, Carole.

-Thank you.

It's time to be cruel to the vines, reducing the shoots to one per node.

Take that one away, like so.

Take that one away, leave one single one. Here's another.

Take one away. There you go.

Well, this is back to my windowsill gardening

and you might remember three weeks ago,

I had these four little seed balls,

put them in a pot and this is the result.

I've got a whole mixture of salads here, from mustard to rocket,

even kale, and I reckon you can pick that,

cos it's a cut-and-come-again for several weeks.

Avoid some backbreaking weeding and take advantage when the sun's out

and there's a little bit of wind and do some hoeing.

This will bring the weeds to the surface.

Be careful around your shallow-rooted shrubs,

you don't want to damage them.

Little and often.

Now then, Mr Cunningham, have you enjoyed your day

in the garden with us?

I've fair enjoyed myself, thanks for having me.

Fairly speeds by, doesn't it, when you're enjoying yourself?

There's plenty to do, it's all varied.

And your Alpine Garden looks brilliant, I think.

Well, indeed it does, but we're not going to be here next week.

We're off to Gardening Scotland, Ingliston.

Looking forward to that.

Yeah, can't believe it's come so quickly again,

and such a variety of plants, from cacti to clematis.

-Don't forget the alpines.

-Lots of them too.

-Well, that's about it.

Well, but if you want any more information about this week's

programme, all those plant names, it's all in the factsheet,

and the easiest way to access that is online.

My advice to you is forget Chelsea, join us at Gardening Scotland

next week and get a real flavour of what it's all about.

-Until we see you then, bye-bye.

-Bye.

-Bye.