Episode 1 The Beechgrove Garden

Well, hello, and welcome to Beechgrove, 2017,

and the team are all here, ready, waiting to deliver the goods.

But what a winter we've had! It varies all across the country.

George, do you want to start?

Well, yes, Edinburgh, it started off quite mild.

It was very cold in November and into early December.

Frost three or four nights, you know, scraping the windscreen.

-Brian?

-Scone, well, the winds have been cold,

but luckily for me, there's been no damaging winds, no trees down.

-Touch wood.

-Touch wood, aye. Like that.

What about you, Carole?

Well, here in the garden, the coldest temperature -6,

which I think is quite interesting.

So not particularly cold.

And across the UK, we've got this concertina effect

of the snowdrops and the crocus and the daffodils

all flowering together.

Yeah, yeah. And what's it been like in Gloucestershire?

Well, Gloucestershire, you see, we had a very mild autumn.

So November was just unbelievably mild.

And then come January, boy, did it get cold! I mean, it really dropped.

-5, -6, virtually every night.

But that cold period just seems to have really cranked those plants.

I mean, they are full of enthusiasm for growing.

They think winter has finished. They're in action.

-There's nothing stopping them.

-You were talking...

Who was talking about the magnolias in Cornwall?

That's right, well,

they started flowering on the 28th February

and the idea there is that when you have 50 flowers out

on Magnolia campbellii, I think it is,

that's a sign of spring.

And then, you know,

they test it and see how far up the country it's going, and how quickly.

Now, spring is supposed to come at walking pace, isn't it?

But the fact of the matter is that there are those,

the statisticians would say,

"We've got 10 more days of a growing season."

It depends where you live. I mean, I have had the snow shovel out once.

-4 has been its cold.

But I see cold winds are very telling on plants.

And the point that you make, Chris, that they're all raring to go,

we've had a mild time.

What's going to happen when we get the spring frosts?

And, Jim, you might need the snow shovel again,

cos it's snowing in Glasgow at the moment.

THEY LAUGH

This is true. I won't put it in the loft, then.

I'll keep it by the garage door. But there you are.

There's a lot of things to do. There's a lot of things happening.

And it's time we got on with it.

With my secateurs and shears,

it's all about pruning and cutting back this week.

And aren't these snowdrops lovely?

It's maybe a little bit chilly to do a spot of gardening,

but doesn't it encourage you to get outside

and appreciate these little gems?

And that's exactly what I'm going to do this week.

Continuing the sort of climate thing, George,

we started the programme talking about

the differences all over the place.

And it's not so very long ago that the headlines in the paper

were that we were running out of vegetables, because sadly,

the Mediterranean countries were having a real bad do, weren't they?

Well, they had heavy rainfall, they had snow, they had frost.

What? The courgettes were wiped out, the calibraise.

Imagine being rationed to only three iceberg lettuce!

-How old are these?

-22 weeks.

These were planted at the end of the last series. Under cover all winter.

-Look.

-So we finished the outdoor veg and these are already in.

We've got some magic stuff here.

Now, that's that Cavalo Nero,

which we can eat as the dark green leaves

or you can have these wee short shoots.

-We've got this.

-The magic kale. They've just discovered it.

We've been eating it all our days sort of thing. Nice bit of broccoli.

One or two wee shoots here.

I think the daddy of them all is the pak choi.

-It loves it!

-It loves this cold weather, the cooler weather.

So the continuity from last autumn's veg,

-and then we've got this lot.

-And once we've eaten this...

-We're not finished yet.

-We're not finished, it's outside.

THEY LAUGH

Planted at the same time, so the same age, but outside.

Less protection, not so far forward,

and that's just exactly what we want, isn't it?

Yes, because then we finish those, we go on to these,

but look at the pak choi! Look at that. Isn't that good?

I mean, so, the staples for winter used to be tatties, leeks,

-onions, carrots, you know...

-Boring.

But now we're used to all these fancy veg.

And we think,

"Oh, my goodness me, what are we going to do

"when they have troubles?"

-There we are.

-You can grow them here.

-Grow them yourself.

And so the continuity must be continued

because the main veg plots,

the two of them have been covered already,

that's to prevent them being wetted and rewetted

so that the temperature comes up because planting potatoes,

and getting in some of the root crops.

Now, these are Maris Bard.

This is one of the early potatoes, and we've had these chitting

somewhere nice and warm and airy, and look.

Lovely little sprouts on those already. Look at that.

-You said sitting.

-No, chitting. Sitting chitting.

THEY LAUGH

-Our message is, grow your own!

-Do it yourself!

-Yes.

Don't wait for the supermarket.

It's the middle of March, and don't these catkins

on the Contorta hazel look absolutely beautiful?

But also at this time of year,

it's very busy in the garden,

and lots of jobs to do.

And high on my list is some pruning and cutting back

of a variety of plants

that can be done over the next two or three weeks.

Well, another plant that is looking absolutely gorgeous

at the moment are the hellebores.

Just look at those flowers.

Value for money plants at this time of year because these flowers

can last for one or two months.

But the job in hand is all about cutting back this old foliage,

evergreen foliage, so this is the foliage from last year.

But you can see how now they are starting to look a bit diseased,

dying back.

And if you want your plant to stay healthy and happy,

we need to cut these back.

Right back, all the way round.

And it's the kind of job that you can do with other plants

as well, so, for example, the evergreen ferns, like Aspleniums.

Cut those back, and then you'll see the new fronds coming through.

And you can see, once I tidy up the plant,

you can fully appreciate that it makes a much better job.

But we also picked up a really nice tip from Ann Fraser

at Shepherd House.

Because if you want to fully appreciate these nodding flowers,

if you put a little mirror underneath, just look at that,

and you can walk past and you can see the flower

without holding it up.

From cutting back the old foliage from last year,

on this particular plant,

it's all about cutting back the woody stems from last year.

This is a Hypericum.

And I'm going to go right down to the base.

The variety is called Elstead, and the whole idea is,

by cutting these back,

what we want to do is encourage lovely, new growth

that's going to be nice and healthy and have a beautiful display

because this plant, as far as I'm concerned,

is, again, value for money

because you have yellow flowers followed by tiny little berries.

They are a sort of a salmony-red colour.

And so you've got interest for most of the year.

Now we're moving on to some more woody stem pruning

of a completely different nature

because this is our willow fedge.

I suppose, basically, it's a hybrid

between a hedge and a fence.

And this is what I'm aiming for, in other words,

this has already been pruned back,

but here you can see what it was like.

This is the growth that was put on last year,

so I'm wanting to reduce the height.

And you do, you go right back...

..maybe just leaving a couple of buds...

..so that it can sprout again.

The same with the sides.

So, I mean, the whole aim is to have this sort of very narrow form,

and very sort of vertical fedge effect.

Now, don't throw these away, because they have lots of wonderful uses.

For example, if you've got any gaps, you could use the rods

and put them in there, and, hopefully, they should root.

Having said that as well, you can take hardwood cuttings

so you could use them as other plants around the garden.

You can also use them for willow reeds and finally,

something that we've tried in the garden at the moment,

is we've used them for plant supports around hyacinths.

And it looks really attractive.

I'm now going to be doing some lighter pruning.

And it's all about the heathers. This is a Calluna vulgaris.

This flowers in the autumn time.

Now, I don't want to confuse you, but as a general rule,

heathers get pruned immediately after flowering.

But in the case with autumn flowering ones,

you can enjoy those old flowering spikes over the winter time

because they won't put on any growth,

but NOW is the time to prune BEFORE they start to grow again.

And it's very light pruning, because what you do is

pick a flower spike like that, and you are pruning just below.

But it would take me absolutely ages with my secateurs.

And the best thing is to get yourself some hedging shears,

and just go across like this.

Now, this is quite an old plant here.

But because we've been doing this pruning every year,

it keeps the plant nice and fairly compact,

and stops it going too woody.

And just to show you that heathers do flower at all times of year,

I've got this lovely example here of Erica carnea,

so winter flowering-cum-early spring flowering.

So as soon as that one finishes,

we'll do exactly the same as we did with the Calluna.

It's not just about cutting back foliage and flowers,

we can also have a look at some fruit.

And these are our autumn fruiting raspberries.

Now, to me, this is a similar pruning job

as we just did with the Hypericum.

In other words, these are the fruiting canes from last year.

And we cut them hard back. Every single cane...

..gets cut back.

And then what happens is that they put on new growth from the base

and those will be the canes

that will produce the raspberries for this year.

But I also want to show you our summer fruiting raspberries,

because it is a different pruning technique.

They were pruned in the autumn time,

so these are the canes that were cut hard back,

those were the ones that had the fruit on.

And these canes that grew last year will bear the fruit this year.

So DO know which type of raspberry you have,

because if I cut those back,

I'm not going to get any fruit in the summertime with this variety.

So, Carol, you've been awfully busy,

but there are still plenty of jobs to do in the Alpine Garden.

And, you know, the Alpine Garden, Brian, is looking fantastic

because you only started to revamp this about this time last year.

And the daffodils are gorgeous, aren't they?

They've come on really well, and they are, hopefully,

looking how they should look in the wild where they're up the top

and they're just self-seeding their way down the scree there.

I'm really liking how the purple of the Saxifrage

is going with the daffodil there.

Real ground-hugging plant, and a rather specialist Primula.

The lilac with the silvery foliage.

-Really nice.

-It's a winner, definitely.

OK, you said we've got jobs to do, so what's first?

So at this time of year,

just before the alpine plants are kicking into growth,

this is when we want to get out with

a bit of fertiliser and give the ground a wee feed.

And it's a well-balanced fertiliser.

Yes, it's one that's definitely not high in nitrogen.

If we get high in nitrogen,

it's going to produce soft, lush growth

and as Jim says, if we get a hard frost,

it's just going to kill these plants.

I think we still will get frost, Brian.

And when you sprinkle it on,

being a little bit careful to avoid the foliage.

Yeah, you just want to sprinkle it around them,

and just onto the gravel.

And what I would personally do,

is I am just going to water this in straightaway.

I mean, obviously, if you know it's going to rain, but that way,

-it's getting direct, isn't it, to the plant?

-Exactly.

It's going to get washed through the gravel right into the roots.

And the worms.

I think they've been a little bit active because we are seeing,

I mean, for example, by the Saxifrage,

you can see a bit of soil there.

There's a little bit of soil here.

Once you've fed, then it's a great time

to just look for these little patches

and give it a wee top dress.

And that's a good tip, I think,

because that's going to keep the weeds down.

And, you know, people can mulchen their borders as well.

What about the seed-sowing, though?

Yes, at this time of year,

it's still a great time to do a last-minute Alpine seed-sowing.

So there is two ways we can do it.

We can either do it in a pot,

put them into a cold frame and grow them on,

or we just go straight to source,

and we sow them direct into these crevices.

Which is perfect, cos, I mean, it's just tiny little nooks

and crannies that you're sowing this in. A little Aquilegia?

Aquilegias are great at self-seeding as well, so, hopefully,

that will self-seed itself as well, all around there.

And, Brian, you've got quite a few specialist seeds here.

Where did you get them from?

So these seeds are from the Scottish Rock Garden Club.

I'm a member, and when you are a member,

you have access to the seed exchange,

and you can get hundreds and hundreds

of different Alpine plants for you to grow on yourself.

This time of the year is a point when you really get to see

a garden's structure, the way it's divided and compartmentalised.

And you know what they say.

A garden with good bones is bound to produce

a good garden during the summer months.

So now is a good time to think about how you create divisions

within the garden's space.

There are lots of ways of doing it, fences, walls,

but think a bit laterally.

Hedges and even trees all come into the equation.

And this is a prime candidate.

This is a lime, Tilia Pallida.

One of the exciting things about the way this grows is

that if I turn it that way,

you can see it's got an incredibly flat profile,

whereas on that axes, it's got all of these nicely layered branches.

And that means it's perfect for training and pruning into,

well, a hedge in the sky, really.

A screen which hovers above all your other planting,

and, perhaps, above other fences like this one we've got here.

How do you go about pruning it?

Well, you employ a principle called pleaching,

or some people call it plashing

which was first described by Julius Caesar in 60 BC,

so it's not exactly a modern event.

Now, what you have to do is think of the frame

on which you want the tree to exist.

And I've created, just out of six-foot-high bamboo canes,

a simple six-foot square, then a series of laterals,

each one of those laterals will be a layer of branches.

And you need the cane representing your trunk as well.

So, I'll put another layer in there, so we've got one, two, three,

four, five laterals and then the trunk coming through,

all of that's zip-tied together...

..which is a good way of making a good, strong connection.

Zip-tied all together, and then,

to create a bit of structural rigidity in the diagonal,

you can lay...

some diagonal canes in as well.

So that will give you your basic support

to which you train and prune your plant.

And in order to fasten the plant to it, I've got one at this end.

Here's my basic tree.

Exactly the same, this is Tilia Pallida.

On the framework...

..there...

..is the frame.

It's a good, strong structure.

And that will provide me with the basis for the tree.

Lay the tree down and then using some of the flexy coil,

this is good because it doesn't stress the bark of the tree

when you fasten the cane to it,

you first of all start off by...

..tying in all of those verticals.

So the trunk in to the vertical canes, all the way up.

And then you gradually work your way up the tree,

looking for branches to tie in to the horizontals.

So, for instance, this one here...

They are quite flexible at this time of the year.

You could easily tie down into that structure there.

Similarly, it's a bit of a weaker branch, but, you know,

early in the season this will produce lots of growth.

Tie in there, and come up to the next layer.

And tie that one in. And so you work your way up the tree,

because, essentially, what you are looking for

is the vertical and then five sets of horizontals.

When you get to the top, you will find that your young tree

will probably massively overshoot, and that's fine,

because you can just prune it off at the nearest bud.

Now, in order to see what it looks like when it's finished,

here's my first year pleach.

Put in the ground, short stake,

couple of ties, and you can see the bamboo cane structure,

and then I've got these branches tied in all the way to the end.

Once they reach the end,

it's been pruned off at a bud because then all of these buds

will produce side shoots

and it's on those that you'll get your massive greening.

And you'll be surprised just how verdant this hedge becomes,

even in one season.

And this process of pleaching

is one of these ideas that were seen

all the way through medieval gardens,

a way of dividing the space up

and creating a wonderful green division,

a sense of lushness against the hedges and fences.

And, of course, if you want to do this,

you have to do it in the spring

when the buds are forming and when the branches are nice and pliable.

Something else you have to do in the spring, of course,

is to get out and enjoy snowdrops,

which is exactly what Carole's been up to.

One of my favourite plants is the common snowdrop,

Galanthus nivalis.

And it always appears in late winter.

Now these drifts here

at Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire

create a wonderful display.

The little flowers maybe appear rather delicate,

but they're incredibly hardy.

And, when they're in full bloom like this,

it's a cheerful reminder that spring is on its way.

But it's not the snowdrops at Fyvie Castle

I've come to see today.

Instead, I'm making a short journey to Rothienorman

to meet Helen Rushton.

She's a snowdrop collector,

otherwise known as a galanthophile.

And her garden has hundreds of different varieties.

Helen, when did you become a galanthophile?

I think I must have started about 15 years ago,

with the first couple, and then I've just kept adding to them.

-And now I've ended up with quite a few.

-You say quite a few.

-How many do you think you have?

-Somewhere around about 350, I think.

Oh, my goodness, that's an awful lot.

And why the fascination, then, with snowdrops?

I think because they are the first flower to come up in the spring.

Everywhere's brown, and then, all of a sudden,

they come through, and you know spring's on the way.

I totally agree with you.

I think, as gardeners, we appreciate that, don't we?

So this one, for example. What have we got here?

This is Robin Hood, and this is one of my favourites, actually.

And I particularly like this one

because of the markings on the inner petals.

It looks like a little face to me.

-Yes, it does, doesn't it?

-Absolutely gorgeous.

And, actually, it's all about attention to detail, isn't it?

Because there's such variety between them.

Yes, there is, there's quite a lot of variety.

-So I think we should have a look at some of those varieties now.

-OK.

So I've gathered here a selection

of different snowdrops from the garden

so that you can see the different leaf shapes

and the flower shapes as well.

So this is the widest one that we've got in the garden,

this is krasnovii.

-And it's a lovely bright green, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

-Very shiny.

And the next one along is a plicatus leaf,

and you can just about see the little pleating along the edge.

Oh, yes, very different.

And, finally, this very narrow, again, back to the glaucous form.

Yes, this is almost like a blade of grass. This is gracilis.

-It's got a nice little twist, hasn't it?

-Yeah.

So what about the flowers?

-I mean, what a variety you have here.

-Hm.

Well, everyone expects them to be three white outer petals

with three inner petals, perhaps with some markings.

But they do vary a lot.

So this one generally points upwards. Her name's Funny Justine.

Nice name.

Going quite green?

Yes, more of a pagoda shape, I think, and that's South Hayes.

Really pretty. And greener still.

Yeah, that's Green Tea, it lives up to its name.

Not so sure, Helen, about that one.

Well, that's a love-it-or-hate-it snowdrop, I think. That's Narwhal.

Some people do like it and some don't.

And, again, with the twisted spade at the top.

I'm sure lots of people have asked you this,

but of your 350 varieties that you have,

or cultivars, do you have a favourite?

Well, at the moment,

the snowdrop that's out that's my favourite is Diggory,

and I like that one because of the big petals,

-and they're almost like seersucker fabric.

-Oh, sounds lovely.

Now, you're open, aren't you?

You have visitors coming round to the garden

-and looking at your snowdrops.

-That's right.

So what we've actually done now

is we've built a stepped raised bed and in there,

we've collected together a variety of different forms

so people can compare them.

-And they are all beautifully labelled.

-Yes, that's right.

So we finally go on to the yellows, very different.

Well, yes, this is Lady Elphinstone,

and she is a lovely little yellow double snowdrop.

Sometimes she comes up green if you disturb her,

but she's quite reliably yellow here.

-And to me, it looks like a bit of a petticoat.

-That's right, yes.

And the last one, really yellow at the top.

That's Primrose Warburg, and she's another one of my favourites.

And I'm sure you have quite a collection of yellows, don't you?

Well, I've actually gathered 16 of my yellows together in one border.

-Shall we go and have a look at them because the sun's shining?

-Yes.

Gosh, with the sunlight,

I can actually see quite a bit of yellow here.

Another one yellow at the top?

Yes, this is Spindlestone Surprise

and it's also yellow inside.

Oh, it's gorgeous, isn't it?

Now, all of these seem to be growing in pots. Why do you do that?

Well, they are actually aquatic pond baskets,

and we do it for two reasons.

We have a lot of bank voles and moles

that burrow through the borders

and so they lift the bulbs and scatter them.

And also, in the summer, when we want to lift and divide

some of the pots, they're easy to come out.

So you lift and divide in the summer, rather than...

-We very often say lift them in the green.

-That's right.

Well, we lift them in the summer because they're dormant

so there's no foliage to attract pests.

And also, you are less likely to damage the bulbs.

OK, now, also because these are hybrid,

-they're not good to come through from seed, are they?

-That's right.

Actually, when they finish flowering,

we go along afterwards and pull off the seed pods

so that they don't self-seed amongst the original bulbs.

And with 350 varieties, you've got a lot of work there.

That's right.

In the greenhouse here, we've got a range of snowdrops

that like it a bit drier through the winter.

They can stand any amount of temperature, they are fully hardy.

But they don't like sitting in the wet.

Something like this reginae-olgae hybrid

would originally have come from Greece,

and so they like it drier.

But, as you say, perfectly hardy,

so if you had the right conditions, you could still grow them outside.

That's right, yes.

Now, I've heard some ridiculous prices for some of these bulbs,

you know, some of the specialist varieties.

We like to bide our time, I'm afraid,

and wait for them to come down in price considerably.

But a recent one, a Golden Fleece, that went for over £1,000.

A lot of money, a lot of money.

But, you know, if somebody wanted to start off a wee collection,

what would you recommend?

I'd go for one of the hybrids again, something like Magnet or Sam Arnott

or Viridapice because they bulk up quickly,

and they are different to the common snowdrop,

so you can see that they are different.

Well, Helen, I've really enjoyed my day,

and you have shown me such a range of snowdrops.

-They really are beautiful.

-Oh, thanks for coming.

-Thank you.

I guess many of you will have had bubble polythene on your glasshouse

to insulate it over the winter months

so that you're not spending too much on heating

if you are growing stuff in there.

This is the time of year now

when you've got to decide when to take it off

because the plants really desperately need

all the light they can get.

The choice is yours.

I'm thinking that we should be starting to take this off now.

Well, isn't this a pretty sight? The crocus in flower.

Now, we planted these back in September,

naturalising them in the grass, it was a bit fiddly,

there were 150 of these to plant, but well worth the effort.

And these now should come up year after year.

Well, they've set me a challenge this year, and that is to

grow a salad for every week of the session that we are here.

So we'll have to be a wee bit imaginative this week.

However, we are going to do that in the Small Space Garden

and this is the area that we are using.

And we're just going to feed that with some fertiliser

because we want to get as much growth

on to the plants as we possibly can.

Cos the idea is that I want this fertiliser

to be as near the top as we can

so that the seedling roots get into it

as quickly as they possibly can, grow really big,

and we can harvest salads for every week of the session.

So these dead flowers of the astilbe,

they've looked good over the winter, and provided some interest,

but we're needing to cut back the foliage now,

and we better do it quick before we damage any of the new shoots.

Slugs and snails are active surprisingly early in the season,

especially given the mild winter we've had in some parts.

So take action now.

In this particular case,

I'm using ground and composted sheep's wool,

and that's because it's not toxic,

but it does have a rather sort of irritating follicle on it.

Scratch it round the plant, water it on,

and that's the job done for the season.

Right, you know you've set me a challenge

of producing a salad every week?

Well, I have just sown them this week,

so there's no way we are going to eat them,

but I went round the garden, and I have selected some weeds

and plants to eat, all edible, so this week, it's eat your weeds.

-Me?

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

-So what's in here is, that's a bit of cleavers.

-OK.

-What have we got for you, Jim?

-Bishop's weed, maybe?

Bishop's weed is there, maybe. That's it.

-There's some bishop's weed there.

-Bishop's weed, good lad.

-What have you got for me, George?

-Anything at all.

Hairy bitter cress or chickweed.

-Hairy bitter cress?

-Let's see if I can find some.

-Take that.

As you'll notice, I've not had anything, which I think is fair.

What's it like?

I tell you what, this will also help to bridge the gap

-if there is a shortage, won't it?

-I could market this.

-But as usual...

-That is bitter!

THEY LAUGH

As the name suggests.

Well, I think it's the dressing that's very important.

-But the bishop's weed's fine.

-It's not... It's not good.

-Is it not?

-It's not good.

-Well, I'll try growing them, then.

If you've got nothing else, you'd be thankful.

If you would like any more information

on this week's programme,

then it's all on the factsheet,

and you can get that on our website.

-You've stolen my lines, Brian.

-Oh, Carole, sorry.

Actually, next week, I'm going to a very interesting garden,

it's a topiary garden in Aberdeenshire, Monymusk.

And I'm playing with a few plants in a slightly alternative way.

Well, I shudder to think what that's going to be like. Oh, blimey!

-And I suppose it will be more salad from you?

-Yeah.

Well, I'm back in the glasshouse,

just in case the weather is not so good.

-Until we see you next time, bye-bye.

-Bye.

-Bye.