- 5/17/2025
Gardeners World S58E10
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00:00Hello, welcome to gardener's world. Here in the cottage garden there's still a lovely
00:24blue froth from the forget-me-nots. They just create this mist you get by the river early
00:30in the morning. It just seems to float in and amongst all the other plants. Now forget-me-nots
00:37are a biennial, which means that they set seed in the spring and early summer of one
00:41year, produce young plants, go dormant over winter, and then flower the next year. And
00:48after they've flowered and produced seed, the parent plant dies back. And I've also
00:53got another biennial, a foxglove, just to fill the gaps. And foxgloves are perfect because
00:58of course they rise up and come through the underlayer and compete with the roses. So
01:03I'm going to pop this in the gap. And you can buy these now. This is a native foxglove,
01:10Digitalis atropoperium, which means it has purple-pink flowers and will move the garden
01:16on from this early spring phase of tulips and blossom and forget-me-nots into early
01:22summer, where the roses will be at their best. Now, coming up on today's programme.
01:30Carol continues to inspire us to create seasonal planting combinations in borders and pots.
01:36Surely late spring has to be just about everybody's favourite time in the garden.
01:43How can you resist it? We meet a man whose garden became a lifeline when he was most in need.
01:50Early in 2018, I experienced my first major mental health crisis. The garden became
01:58sort of sanctuary and school. I'm crying, but it was actually brilliant.
02:04Ashley Edwards travels to Hawker Hall in Cumbria to compare gardening techniques on a much grander
02:10scale than he's used to in the city. Oh my goodness. Look at the size of that. That is a
02:16beast of a tree. Absolutely. It's incredible. I need to touch it. You can feel the energy.
02:22And we visit the Alpine Garden Society as they prepare their colourful containers
02:28for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. So our display at Chelsea this year is going to be centred around
02:34troughs and containers. No matter what sort of space people have got, we want to be able to show
02:39these are the plants for you.
02:41I'm digging up bulbs that I had planted last November,
03:09specifically for cut flowers. This bed was filled over winter with a mixture of tulips and daffodils
03:19and I use these cut flowers for the house. But they're over now, so it's time for a change.
03:24I would recommend if you're growing bulbs as cut flowers, buy new bulbs every year. And then the
03:30old ones can be recycled. I will pot them up today using old potting compost and leave them to slowly
03:38die back. And then when they have, I can store them and plant them out wherever I want them
03:43in autumn. Having freed up the space, I now want to use it to raise another crop of cut flowers
03:50and I'm going to do it from seed. If you're sowing seed, it is worth going to some trouble to weed
03:57properly. So you don't have to weed amongst tiny little seedlings. And what do you think, Robin?
04:02Oh look, there's a worm. There you go, there's a lovely worm for your little ones.
04:08Oh, you ate it? I suppose you need it.
04:15Fearless.
04:23I've decided to fill this bed with cosmos. There are two reasons for that. One, I love cosmos.
04:28They make fabulous cut flowers and it means I don't have to raid the borders. And two, and perhaps
04:34this is the most pertinent, they thrive in poor soil. They love good drainage and they will flower
04:40much better in poor soil than in rich soil where you'll get bigger plants but no more flowers.
04:46Now, draw a drill down either side and I'm going to start with double click cranberries. It's got
04:55a mass of petals and a raspberry colour. Now these will flower a bit late in the season
05:03but they will go on the flowering into November. They're affected by cold, not light.
05:16I've got a packet of mixed cosmos and I'm going to broadcast these so that they can grow in
05:23different colours but within the same strip. And I've got sonata cosmos mixed. Sonata cosmos
05:31have shorter stems and often can be quite good as cut flowers as a result.
05:41And just rake over it lightly to cover the seed. And there we go.
05:54The seeds need to be moist to germinate so if it's very hot and dry you'll have to water them
05:58every day. Otherwise weekly will be fine and cosmos are tough. They're adapted to dry conditions.
06:06You should start to see the seedlings in about two weeks time and they will be ready to flower
06:11round about end of July, middle of August depending on the weather and go on flowering
06:16long into autumn giving us a supply of plants to pick and display inside the house.
06:24Now a few weeks ago we went down to Carol's garden to see the very best of her early spring plants.
06:30Well now it's time to return and be inspired by her selection of the very best late spring flowers.
06:44Surely late spring has to be just about everybody's favourite time in the garden.
06:50How can you resist it? Everything is just bursting forth, wonderful foliage and
06:57every day new flowers open. There are so many treats to be had.
07:12This plant is adored by the bees but also by me. It's a dead nettle. Its name is Lamium
07:19ovale. I love its stature. I love the individual flowers. They're in whorls around the stems and
07:27when you examine just one flower it's almost like an orchid with these lovely sort of speckled lower
07:35petals and the bees land on those into the centre, extract the nectar, get covered in pollen,
07:43pollinate it at the same time and thus we have loads and loads of them all over the garden
07:51because it self-seeds beautifully.
07:58For years I wanted to grow perennial honesty from seed. I tried several times but eventually I was
08:05successful and I have to say at this time of year it's one of the best plants. It's full of these
08:12beautiful white blossoms. Eventually it will make seed pods, these rather gorgeous elliptical
08:20seed pods and what a lot you get for your money. Beautiful flowers now
08:26followed by gorgeous seed pods later on.
08:32At the beginning of spring I planted a container with daffodils, gold lace primulas and anemones.
08:43This time in my container I've really gone big. I want it to be spectacular and what's more,
08:50I want it to last for ages. All the plants I'm putting in here are perennial so they'll go on
08:56right the way through late spring, summer, autumn and what's more they'll pop up again next year.
09:04All the plants love really sharp drainage so I've added masses of grit to what is really
09:10very good compost. I love this combination, this Ascabius butterfly blue beauty and I'm
09:17accompanying it with a catmint and a pita. To complete the picture I want to use this little
09:24Mexican daisy. It's irrigarum carvincianus and it's such a versatile plant. You can use it
09:33in walls, at the top of walls, anywhere where it's really sunny and well-drained but I think it's
09:40going to be utterly perfect here. Now all these things are going to grow and fill in beautifully
09:47and with a bit of luck this is going to drape itself over the top of a copper pot as well
09:53and it will flower continuously and within weeks all these plants will meld together and they'll
10:01all start to flower and really burgeon and give food and drink to all sorts of beneficial insects.
10:10So
10:26well this garden I call the brick garden simply because all the paths here are made of bricks.
10:33Every so often you come around a corner and you look at a bed and you think
10:37oh something's taken over here and that's exactly what had happened in this corner. Geranium nodosum
10:45and cricosmia, they're both beautiful plants in their own right but they're real thugs sometimes
10:52and that's what had happened here. So I've taken them out, I've dug the whole thing over and
10:58introduced masses and masses of my very best compost and now I'm ready to plant. I've chosen
11:06plants of course that are going to love living here and this is the fun bit actually placing the
11:11plants. Now when you're doing a new planting like this it's great to have brand new plants
11:21but it's also lovely to use things from all over the garden and I wanted specifically to use this
11:28lovely iris. It's Iris pseudocorus variegatus, a variegated form of our own native yellow flag
11:35and aren't those straight leaves with these big cream variegations just so splendid and I think
11:42it's going to go so well with the plants I'm putting in from elsewhere. Now if you were planting a
11:48Germanic iris you'd have to make sure those rhizomes were exposed and facing the sun but here
11:54it doesn't matter how deep they go, in fact this is an iris that lives in water as well
12:00but it's going to adore this heavy clay soil of mine. Now I'm going to start with the first of my
12:08new plants. This is a Euphorbia spurge, it's Euphorbia amygdaloides purpurea so it's a purple
12:16leaf version of our native wood spurge and in nature this is just the sort of place where it
12:22grows. Dappled shade, decent humusy soil underneath from all those trees above so it's perfect
12:34and for a bright splash of colour this big yellow daisy, Deronican harpercrew, is hard to beat.
12:42Look at this, this is my Piastre roisistante, it's Hosta Francis Williams, it used to be called
12:56Aurea marginata for obvious reasons, all these leaves are sort of edged with brilliant golden
13:03yellow. Now loads of people think that you can't grow hostas in sun but although this is a sort of
13:11half sun half shade place it'll do absolutely fine. The only hostas that you shouldn't grow
13:18in really full sun are the golden-leaved ones because they'll just scorch.
13:30Could you possibly have a better grand finale to late spring than this beautiful shrub,
13:38it's Hexacorda the bride, it's just burgeoning with these glorious blossoms and if you look
13:46carefully at each one it's got a green centre and to me that's just heart-melting, white flowers
13:53with green middles. It's a member of the rose family, it's incredibly easy to grow and it's
13:59very very beautiful and of course when you come back it will have lost all these petals, they'll
14:07all have fallen to the floor but elsewhere in the garden everything's going to start bursting
14:14into flower.
14:29Good boy.
14:39Well as Carol said we will be joining her in a few weeks time when the early summer plants are
14:48really coming into their own but for the moment I'm just loving this late spring, this is my
14:53favourite time of year, no question about it and when the hawthorn blossom comes out
14:59then you know that summer is inevitably going to come and of course there is that saying
15:05ne'er cast a clout till the may is out and a clout being clothing,
15:09may being the hawthorn blossom, so for me it's shirtsleeves from now on.
15:18So
15:30now these are the grass borders but they're not only grass, lots of other things in here although
15:36I love the way that the grasses now are really adopting that lovely fresh green
15:42and at the moment there are a few alliums, we've got the shuttlecock ferns, I let cow parsley come
15:47in, the Irish sabirica are starting to flower and then there are things like this which is
15:52the ferula communis, the giant fennel which actually I need to prop. Unlike a normal fennel
15:59it's monocarpic which means that once it's set seed it dies. It can take quite a few years before
16:09it will flower and set seed so it's not an annual and grow almost as fast as anything else you can
16:15plant. This will grow inches in a day which means it tends to be a bit floppy.
16:22I have to say this is the first bit of staking I've done this year.
16:28There we go and I want to add some sunflowers but not annual sunflowers which I grow in the
16:34jewel garden but perennial ones, helianthus. This is helianthus mismellish which was cleared
16:44as part of the clear out of the jewel garden. That can go there. I do love the way that the
16:53grass borders at this time of year are all these shades and textures of green, all the different
16:59vertical lines and the shapes of the leaves. Some are glossy and some are matte and some look a bit
17:06wrinkled. All that is at its best at this time of year before flowers come in and spoil the
17:12whole picture by looking beautiful. Very upsetting.
17:16Now this soil is as dry as it ever is here at Longmeadow and normally it's like this in September.
17:37Now sometimes getting plants out of bags can be tricky and you can see that the bag has shaded
17:44the growth so it's very etiolated. There we go. Let's go like that.
18:01This particular helianthus will grow in this garden two meters tall so by the time it's
18:06flowering it'll be matching everything else around it and then will spread steadily.
18:15Now this is Mental Health Awareness Week and last summer we went to Oxfordshire to visit
18:22Elliot Neep who found that his garden proved to be a source of great solace and healing.
18:30Welcome to my garden in sunny South Oxfordshire. This is a traditional English garden divided into
18:37various rooms. We have a cottage garden at the front, a kitchen garden to the side and we have
18:43a rather romantic flower garden to the rear. The whole garden is a triangular third of an acre plot.
18:49It's on the north side of the garden and it's a bit of an open-air garden.
18:54My name is Elliot. I'm a fairly new gardener, just about six or seven years experience now
19:01but I've learned a hell of a lot in that time. Before that I was an international wildlife
19:08photographer, travelled all the way around the world and I was a photographer for a
19:13couple of years. I was a photographer for a couple of years and then I was a photographer for a
19:18couple of years and then I was a photographer for a couple of years and then I was a photographer
19:22travelled all the way around the world. In the Arctic I travelled there mostly for polar bears
19:27and we went to Antarctica for the penguins. In India where I actually met my partner Jack, I was
19:32there photographing tigers. We moved here in 2014. The garden was very overgrown, just walls of ivy
19:43and privet everywhere, lots and lots of brambles that needed digging out and it was a real sort of
19:48real endeavour just to sort of take the garden back to bare bones and to start again.
19:59We're standing in the cottage garden right now. We've added eutopory and then in between we've
20:04planted alchemilla mollis, salvia caridona, lots of hardy geraniums. It was a very very dry garden.
20:10We had to mulch heavily year upon year just to build up the moisture retention in the soil
20:16but it was so effective we can actually plant things like
20:19astrantia that require a bit more moisture around the roots.
20:33Early in 2018 I experienced my first major mental health crisis.
20:40You know, there are certainly worse places to be sort of holed up and the garden became
20:47sort of sanctuary and school at the same time. And then the winter of 21 and 22 I was
20:58almost catatonic with a depressive state.
21:01Jack saved me. She got me the help I needed. It turned out that I was bipolar.
21:12With the new medication it was like someone had thrown the light switch in a stadium.
21:24I'm crying but it was actually brilliant.
21:27You know, the garden does nurture you and I think this has all just happened at just the right time
21:36because now I've got my camera out again, it's dusted off, I'm taking photos of the garden and
21:42plants and I've got a new life. I've got a new home. I've got a new family. I've got a new
21:52plants and I've got my passion for photography back as well.
22:02We're now in the kitchen garden. It's just six raised beds
22:06made of scaffold boards and fence posts. There's no rotation, it's all no dig. All I do
22:12is make my own compost and I spread the compost on all the beds in November
22:17and that's it for nutrition for the year.
22:20There's very, very few weeds in here and one of the benefits of the mesh covers,
22:24it keeps all those annual weeds that are blown in, keeps them out. And a really good part of
22:29no dig is that you're not constantly churning the soil up and bringing old weed seeds to the surface.
22:35I'm going to pot on one of my hostas that I've made from a division from one of those down there.
22:40It's a blue halcyon. The question I get asked most probably about the whole garden is how I
22:44keep the hostas looking so good. And there's a few things that I do every year. When you see
22:49the shoots just nosing through, I tip the pot on its side and I'm going to put a little bit of
22:57And there's a few things that I do every year. When you see the shoots just nosing through,
23:03I tip the pot on its side and I look at the drainage hole underneath because that's where
23:07the slugs and snails will overwinter. They're really, really cunning and the crop that you put
23:13in there, they're normally hiding in there. Once I've checked for slugs, it's a sprinkling of just
23:19basic fish blood and bone meal and then a fresh dress of good quality bark-based compost. It's
23:25weekly waterings, rain or shine. The other thing I do is once we reach sort of June, you'll see the
23:33flower spikes start to come out. It's a really exhausting process producing a flower for a plant
23:37and once they're pollinated, the plant's job is fundamentally over and it can start shutting down
23:42for autumn. So you'll see the leaves going yellow and they'll lose their shape. But if you cut the
23:47flower stems out, the leaves stay fresher for longer.
24:05So now we are in the flower garden and this followed straight after the no-dig kitchen garden.
24:13I thought, well, if you can do no-dig with vegetables, why can't you do no-dig with
24:19ornamentals? And all I did was literally chop a hole in the turf, a sprinkle of mycorrhizal fungi,
24:27put the plant straight in and then around the plant was cardboard to kill off the grass and
24:33exclude daylight and then a mulch of compost and that went over all the garden. Six months later,
24:40the cardboard had completely rotted away, the grass was dead and the garden was absolutely
24:46boomy. Before this was a flower garden, it was just lawn and you would be lucky to see a single bee.
24:57The vast majority of plants here are single, open or multi-headed or tubular flowers,
25:03great for pollinators and, I mean, it's alive with bees right now. Everything's just buzzing.
25:14So the first plants to go in were all the herbaceous perennials. I'd grown a lot of the
25:19roses from cuttings. They went in next and then we added trees towards the background as a sort
25:26of a next phase. Now I think this border is about six metres deep and along the back we've put
25:33really towering herbaceous perennials like giant scabies and eupatorium and valerians
25:39and then in between we've put a lot of ornamental cherries and two birch trees and also two weeping
25:48pear trees. I imagine it's going to get quite crowded in a few years but it just means we
25:54have something going on almost all year round. It's a wonder that you can turn a piece of
26:05grass into something so joyous in such a short period of time. In those dark times,
26:15being able to just come out here, get your hands in the ground, feel the sun on your back
26:23and just, you know, just look at something that you've grown from seed or smell a rose.
26:32Watch the bees. It's a real tonic.
26:40I am just level and positive and
26:53and I'm happy.
27:12I don't think anyone could fail to be moved by Elliot's story and it will be familiar to many
27:19people, myself included, and there is something about the garden and nature that you have to be
27:27truthful to and is truthful back to you and that's a kind of mysterious but very powerful healing
27:33force and his hostas look pretty good and if you remember I am doing a kind of informal trial here
27:42with hostas because I get so many people telling me that their hostas are devastated by slugs and
27:48it turns out that nearly always they're being grown in pots and my theory is that when you
27:55grow hostas in a pot they get stressed and a stressed plant is more likely to be attacked
28:00than one that isn't stressed so there are a number of things to do to avoid stress. First of all is
28:05have a big enough pot. If a hosta's roots are constrained, they're not getting enough food or
28:10enough water, then that's going to cause stress even if you can't see it above ground. Number two,
28:17give them a rich compost. I mix lots of garden compost in with mine and I've mulched these
28:23with another inch or two of garden compost so there's plenty of food and then water them.
28:31Now Elliot says he waters once a week. I water every day if it's hot and dry and at least every
28:38two or three days whatever the weather and they should grow healthy and happy and not be attacked
28:45by slugs, but we'll see. Watch this space.
28:50So
29:12all winter this greenhouse supplies us with our fresh greens but I've cleared the decks now
29:18because I want to start planting out tomatoes and I've got some here, this is Gardener's Delight,
29:23which are destined to be grown outside but I won't put them out yet because it was almost
29:28a frost last night, there was a frost the night before and it's that variation in temperature
29:32between very cold at night and really quite warm during the day that tomatoes don't like.
29:36However, I've got other varieties here which do much better in my experience with as much heat
29:43as possible. This is Costoluto Fiorentino, fantastic, heavily ribbed beefsteak tomato,
29:51one of my favourite tomatoes of all. I've also got another variety here called Black Crim,
29:56again delicious but all needing heat.
30:03Now the technique for these is very simple, you dig a hole, make it a nice deep hole
30:08so it's deep enough to bury to the height of the first leaf. Now that matters because it's going to
30:15anchor it steady in the soil and tomatoes grow roots from the stem if they're underground,
30:22so you get more roots, they'll feed better, they'll anchor better, everything benefits.
30:27So we take the string, what I like to do is just make a knot, it's a very very simple knot like that,
30:34push it down so it's taut, take your tomato, stick it on top, and then just backfill.
30:45Firm it,
30:52and as it grows you just twist it around and that holds it and then just keep going.
31:05Now you'll see that I'm planting these quite close together, slight stress will give you
31:12more tomatoes and slightly less plant and essentially that's what you want.
31:18So being slightly closer together than you might expect is a good thing.
31:27Firm that in well, really firming it in.
31:35Because I've been growing salad crops all winter, a lot of nutrients been taken out of the soil,
31:40so dug it over and added quite a lot of garden compost.
31:45And after I finish planting I will water these in really well and then water them regularly. If it's
31:52not too hot it could be as little as once a week, but in hot weather it might be every two or three
31:56days.
32:08I don't know what you think you're doing up there.
32:23So
32:31now since last autumn the jewel garden has been through big changes. The main thing is to return
32:39the jewel garden to its original freshness. We hadn't really touched it for about 10-15 years,
32:45it just did its thing, it was pretty spectacular, but wasn't really going anywhere. And I've got
32:50lots to add in here. Now what I have here are some lupins and this is a variety called Masterpiece
32:57and I love the intense purple and it's just flushed with a kind of rusty bronze colour.
33:04Now lupins are not rare but I've never grown them in the jewel garden before. But lupins come in a
33:10whole range of colours and I think they'll do very well here. They come from the west coast of America
33:16on the grassy plains where it gets hot but not blisteringly hot
33:22and they're very adaptable but they do need about half a day of sunshine.
33:32Right let's take this out of the pot. Obviously buying plants big like this is a little bit more
33:39expensive but it does give you that instant hit of colour and they're not difficult to grow from seed.
33:45If you sow now you could plant them out next spring but having these spires of flower are
33:50absolutely fantastic. Now I will give these a good soak but they will grow about twice this size
33:57and keep producing spikes of flower for another three to four weeks so they're a really good link
34:04between the early spring flowers and then those of summer as we move into June.
34:11Now Hulker Hall is in the Lake District in Cumbria and it's one of our grand gardens
34:18and Ashley Edwards went up there to pay his first visit.
34:30I've been a head gardener for over six years now and in that time I've spent most of it
34:35in the City of London but I love to visit other gardens and improve my knowledge.
34:41I've travelled five hours north to be here at beautiful Hulker Hall. The climate is definitely
34:47different to what I'm used to down in South London. I'm going to meet the gardening team
34:51and see how they look after this garden in this beautiful landscape.
35:05The first impression of this garden is what a grand place. I love the clipped topiary hedge there.
35:14It's a very organic shape and it opens up into this formal area. You've got clipped domes and
35:19all different shapes. I mean look at this, this incredible pear. How old and gnarly is that? It's
35:24covered in moss. I mean that's taken generations to get it like this. It makes me excited to see
35:29what else the gardeners have done here. Head gardener Matthew Murgatroyd understands exactly
35:40what it takes to get a garden of this scale ready for its busiest season ahead and we
35:45are adding a new specimen to the ancient 25-acre arboretum. Matthew, what are we planting today?
35:53So we've got a silver birch. All right let's get it in then. Exciting.
35:57How long you been here Matthew? I've been here about two and a half years now. I did a decade
36:02at Highgrove. Decade? Absolutely loved it. Learned so much but it was just such an opportunity to
36:09come here and bring back all that learning to a new garden which is just full of such heritage.
36:17Although we're surrounded by these magnificent plantings, we're still planting new, we're still
36:23changing, we're still seeing what works and what doesn't work and tweaking things.
36:27This is the exciting bit. There we go. That is not bad at all. Look at that.
36:33Almost perfect height. Somebody would think this is our job, eh? Yeah. Okay, nice.
36:38Ashley, no visit to Holka is going to be complete without paying homage and respect to the Holka
36:43Great Lime. Oh my goodness. Look at the size of that. That is a beast of a tree. It's 400 years
36:50old. Well we're talking about legacy. I mean this is a real legacy. Whoever planted this has left a
36:54long, long legacy. Absolutely. It's incredible. I need to touch it. I'm going to touch it.
36:58I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it.
37:01I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it. I'm going to touch it.
37:04You can feel the energy. The responsibility for you to look after this. It's an absolute veteran
37:16and at night, on a stormy night, this is the tree I worry about and is it going to change forever?
37:22Amazing. I'm so glad I came to see this. It's stunning. The width of it. Incredible.
37:28The grounds are beautiful, but for me, the true measure of any great garden is what you'll find
37:33behind the scenes. The engine rooms of the gardens. I've got serious compost envy right
37:38now. Look at this leaf pile. This is great, isn't it? This is the leaf that we harvested
37:43this year. Okay. And then last year's is here and it's going out into the garden. Yep.
37:48So we've nearly used it all actually. Amazing. And then the system that I used at Highgrove,
37:53I've bought over here and we turn our green waste every two weeks, keep it hot,
38:00very quick and then nine weeks time, 12 weeks time, it's ready to go.
38:09The compost is used across the garden and is a vital ingredient when a team are developing new
38:14areas. Nice. Look at this. Great. I'll get you to load it up. Black gold.
38:20There you go. One more. Lovely. Thank you. Cheers. Right. I'll take this over to Jacob.
38:30Jacob, hello. Hi. Where would you like this? Yeah, just here, please. Yeah. So this is exciting. A
38:34brand new border. Yes. The concept going forward is for mixed herbaceous and shrub plantings with
38:42mixed herbaceous and shrub plantings with a focus on scent really,
38:48as well as autumn colour and autumn scent with the toffee apple tree at the end.
38:56Wow. Look at this. So what's really interesting here is that Will and Chloe have planted in big
39:02swathes. When you have a border like this, you can't just put one single plant in,
39:06you have to have blocks and drifts of plants going throughout.
39:10Jacob told me that the theme of this border was scent. And you can see some amazing actae over
39:16there. They have this lovely dark leaf, which will contrast with the white flower. And to me,
39:21this smells like bubblegum. It can be a bit sickly sweet, but that's going to pack a punch.
39:27As you walk along the border, it changes conditions. So you can see here is very open.
39:32This will be a very sunny border. But then you have this dawn redwood at the back, which will
39:36create dry shade. And that can be really tricky. But one plant that doesn't care about dry shade
39:43is epimedium. I mean, look at this, this beautiful dainty flowers that will do really well in this
39:49place. And that's going to add some real interest. As well as creating new displays, managing
39:57existing beds and borders is a constant challenge. And today, Matthew's team are creating plant
40:02structures to support the fast emerging herbaceous perennials.
40:07Hey, Chloe. I bought some more pea sticks. Oh, lovely stuff. I'm hoping you're going to show
40:12me how to do that. I've used pea sticks before, but I've never weaved them. Okay. Yeah. If you
40:16try and get some really nice branching ones. Yeah. Okay. That will make a really nice support.
40:21This one is probably good, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right. Let's get a couple of these.
40:26All right. What do I do first? Okay. So this hazel is a little bit stiffer because of the
40:30drier weather we've had. So potentially a really good trick is slightly bend it before you put it
40:35in. Okay. So like if you grab some and like almost like gently sort of manipulate the wood
40:41and that will allow for easier twisting. Okay. Is there anything you could do to keep it more
40:47supple then? Yeah, absolutely. So you can soak it before you use it or you could use it slightly
40:52sooner after composting it. All right. I guess stick this one in. Yeah. So pop a couple on the
40:56ground. Yeah. Okay. And I think four or five. Yeah. Yeah. If you can make it look like a bit
41:05more, I think sculptural, it kind of like it's a bit more pleasing to the eye. And then when
41:09the flock starts growing through it, it's kind of really nice. From the clip hedges and formal
41:20gardens to the ancient trees in the Arboretum, Hulker Hall is a vast space to manage and a
41:26world away from the gardens I'm used to in London. Something that really strikes me from my visit
41:31today is the generations that have shaped this garden and continue to. The gardeners here,
41:38they're not just thinking seasons ahead. They're actually thinking hundreds of years ahead with
41:42tree planting and border changes. And that's the most exciting thing about being a gardener.
41:47It's not static. It's constantly evolving.
42:09I have been to Hulker Hall a couple of times, but not for a while. So obviously,
42:13having seen that, I need to go back because there are exciting things happening there.
42:37These are all salvias that were in the jewel gardens, and we lifted them. To be honest,
42:41we didn't lift them because we're revamping the jewel garden, but because salvias do not overwinter
42:46happily in this garden. So they've been kept in a greenhouse, and you can see this is Amistad,
42:50the most famous of them all. It's already flowering because it's been in the greenhouse,
42:54although it's been hardened off for about 10 days. So what I'm going to do is place them in
42:59the middle of the beds, and if they look okay to me, then I'll go around and plant them.
43:04Look at that. Up above, we've got at least 20 buzzards circling in a thermal.
43:11I know they're cultivating the fields all around us,
43:14and buzzards often will eat beetles and worms as much as anything else. So it could just be that,
43:20but I've never seen that before. How extraordinary. It's like seagulls.
43:28So let's start with Amistad.
43:33If I pop that, I think, down here, salvias love sun, heat, and good drainage. This will grow up
43:41tall, and the great thing about the jewel garden is that it's big. It grows up, so if smaller
43:47plants have to go to the edge, you need big, robust stuff in the middle, and Amistad is big and robust.
43:52So this is Garanitica, which is blue, and it used to do really well in this garden. There's
44:03been a little bit more hesitant recently, so hopefully that will come back. If I put that in
44:08there. These three are Salvia curviflora, which is only marginally acceptable in the jewel garden,
44:22because some people would say it's pink. I would say it's magenta, and magenta
44:26is one of those colors that sets off all the colors around it.
44:34It's not nearly as big as Amistad or Garanitica, so I'm putting these nearer the front.
44:52Now, normally, I'd recommend cutting these back, but because this is a jewel garden,
45:05it has to rise up above the plants around it, so I've learned over the years it doesn't matter
45:11if the plant is bare for the first one or even two feet. What really matters is what's going on
45:16up here. I've got about three more I'm going to plant, but while I am planting,
45:22we're going to go to Pershall and join the Alpine Garden Society as they prepare for Chelsea.
45:29Okay. Straight down the barrel. Okay. Oh my God. Oh my goodness, it's a real close-up.
45:52We've got a lot of octogenarians and upwards,
45:55but it's got to be an average age of 70s, I would think. Unfortunately, it's about 65.
46:02I'm one of the youngest. We used to be classed as the young ones. We do have a bit of an aging
46:11population, and we need to make it a bit more exciting. And that needs a lot of younger
46:17inspiration. I'm Rob Amos. I am president of the Alpine Garden Society. Traditionally,
46:27alpines are defined as plants that will grow above the tree line in mountains. And certainly,
46:33the Society is interested in those plants. But as far as we're concerned, an alpine is any sort of
46:40small, hardy plant that will happily survive in a British winter. Yeah, we're not fussy when it
46:46comes to alpines in the Society, whether it's big and blousy, or small and sophisticated. You
46:52can use them for structure. You can use them to create habitat. You can use them for ground cover.
46:57You can use them as a centerpiece. Alpines are just the perfect garden plant.
47:06This time of year, you can see the pulsatillas, which are a particular favorite of mine,
47:11either in flower or just with those really nice seed heads. We've still got some primulas in flower,
47:17which anyone can grow. There's still a few narcissus dotted around. There's also some
47:22saxes still in flower. And then in the alpine house, of course, we've got our loessias now,
47:26really, coming to the fore as well. Certain aspects of this garden are a little bit
47:36traditional. The tufa bed, the... I can't remember what it's called.
47:43With the rocks on the side. Crevice, I should guess. So yeah, so with the tufa bed, with the crevice beds,
47:52they're well established. And there's certainly excellent habitats for alpines, but they're sort of
47:59last century's alpine garden. And what I want to achieve is a more sort of contemporary focus
48:07on things like gardening for wildlife, providing habitats for pollinators, that sort of thing.
48:12And again, alpines are excellent for that because you can have alpines in flower all year round.
48:18So yes, I'd like to sort of see the AGS really making the case for alpines in the modern garden.
48:24We're very lucky at the Society to have a group of volunteers who will come in
48:28regularly to keep on top of the garden.
48:33This garden was possibly in danger of being lost. It was fairly run down. So I thought,
48:40if we could get a group of volunteers together, we could perhaps at least keep the tide back,
48:46if nothing else. And to my surprise, when I asked everybody, we had about 12 people come forward
48:54to come and help as volunteers. They just keep on coming back. It's lovely.
49:02I particularly enjoy just getting my hands dirty, doing the practical stuff.
49:07But the camaraderie, the friendship, we all come together once a month and,
49:11you know, we talk to one another about the plants and the trees and all that.
49:14You know, we talk to one another about the plants, about the garden.
49:17I'm trying to get rid of these dreadful mascaras.
49:20Yeah, we've had those for a while.
49:23They're lovely when they're out. You've got this sea of blue.
49:26We're thinking now very much, well, you know, how do alpines fit in the 21st century?
49:32And it's also about how we can use alpines to engage different audiences.
49:38If we aren't able to recruit new younger members, then like a lot of clubs and groups,
49:44things are going to fold. So I think we've got to adapt, really.
49:49Obviously, having a new younger president like Rob is fantastic for the society.
49:54He's keen. He knows his stuff. He's had a love of alpines for
49:58many, many years. And I think he's going to be a breath of fresh air.
50:04Well, I'm not sure my views differ significantly from sort of the more traditional alpine garden.
50:12I suppose I'm more about taking alpines beyond the garden, really showing people this is such
50:18a fascinating group of plants that's something you should be really interested in.
50:22Even if you haven't got a huge garden, there's going to be something you can grow.
50:28So our display at Chelsea this year is going to be centred around
50:31a collection of troughs and containers.
50:37So what Anne's doing, I think, is offering an opportunity for the general public to see
50:43the fun in growing alpines, you know, and how anyone could create a little garden.
50:49People just think they're hard to do until they actually
50:53see something like this put together. And then they think, oh, I can do that.
50:57There for the fun bit. A little bench. There you are. Sorted.
51:10We've done larger display gardens in the past, but as I say, we're really about now showing
51:15people how to do something different. No matter what sort of space they've got,
51:19we want to be able to show them we're the society for them. These are the plants for you.
51:27So. Well, I look forward to seeing the display at Chelsea, which is next week, very soon.
51:45These are agapanthus. I'm just taking out spent flower stalks, which are very spiky and sharp,
51:51and you can see the white on them is because these have been stored over winter in a dark shed,
51:57and they just haven't had enough light. They love bright sunshine and well-drained soil.
52:03If you can give them that, they'll grow anywhere. Now, if you're looking there,
52:06you can see that these fleshy rhizomes are very congested. So it's time to take them out the pot
52:12and repot them. Now is the best time to do it. Agapanthus flower best if their roots are
52:17constrained, but not so constrained that they can't take up any nutrients at all. So it's a fine
52:23balance. But I'm going to see if I can take this out. And I warn you, it's tricky and it doesn't
52:28always work. First of all, let's take it and see if they'll tip out. I think the chances are almost
52:33nil. Oh, I don't know actually. That sounded good. Let's try it. Yes, fantastic. Right, there we go.
52:55Now, if I lift that up, you can see it's root bound. So it needs a bit more space. So I'm
53:02going to divide that up and repot them. And this is where this comes in. This is the best tool for
53:07dividing an agapanthus, an old saw. If I just go halfway down like that, off we go.
53:22So what we're going to reveal is the inside, which is the soil worked in amongst the roots,
53:30but the feeding roots have got very little, if anything, to feed off.
53:37So I'll put that in the bottom. Mix up a really gritty mix of potting compost.
53:45So you can see I've added lots of grit.
53:47Now, if I put that in like that, perfect. Just break these roots. By breaking them,
54:02I will stimulate them to grow new roots. So we'll go down in there.
54:17I will water that in. The plant has rejuvenated and therefore over the foreseeable future will
54:22give me more flowers. But only do this, I would say, every three or four years should be necessary.
54:28Right, I'm going to pot up that and I'm going to divide this one. And while I'm doing that,
54:32here are your jobs for the weekend.
54:34If you're growing potatoes, it's a good idea to earth them up. This means drawing up the soil
54:50to cover any emerging foliage and thus protecting it from late frost. At the same time, it will
54:56protect any emerging tubers from being exposed to light, which will turn them green and therefore
55:02inedible. Most tulips have finished flowering by now and are busy setting seed. But it's a good
55:17idea to snap the seed heads off, but leaving the stem, so that all the energy can go into
55:23producing new bulbs and therefore increasing the chances of them re-flowering next year.
55:37The secret of growing lettuce in summer is to keep a constant supply without having a glut.
55:45Way to do that is to sow little and often. Now, you can sow direct, but I like to sow the seed
55:52thinly on a seed tray, cover them over with vermiculite or more compost, and then soak
55:59them in a tray. And then after they've germinated, I can prick out the seedlings
56:04and plant them out when I'm ready.
56:22The spring garden unfolds in stages. It starts with the snowdrops around about Christmas time,
56:27January, and then you get daffodils and the hellebores and pulmonary and the big fritillaries.
56:33And now it's reached its final stage, where it is dominated by a lovely white froth of cow parsley.
56:41Now, it's a weed. The seeds are brought in every year by the flooding. It's a biennial,
56:48flowers, and looks wonderful. And to be honest, it's one of my favorite plants in the world.
56:54I couldn't possibly grow a garden plant that is as lovely as this, especially en masse.
57:00So it's a welcome weed in the garden. I'm backed by the primrose-colored roses,
57:06Rosa canterbrigensis, Rosa hugonis, that I planted 30 years ago. The whole thing for me
57:12is a few days of absolute heaven.
57:26Now, that's it for today. I shan't be here next week because I, like so many of us,
57:32will be at Chelsea for the Royal Horticultural Society's flower show, where I will be unveiling
57:40my first Chelsea garden, the dog garden. And I thought I'd just give you a little glimpse
57:47of how we've been getting on in the making of the garden.
57:50Your first ever Chelsea garden. No pressure there then.
57:54I once said I would never, ever do a Chelsea garden. It's a huge amount of pressure.
57:58And the man who is bringing it all to life is Jamie Butterworth. He knows what he's doing,
58:03doesn't he? I sincerely hope so. One of us needs to.
58:08I have learned a lot about Chelsea gardens doing this, because however much you think you know,
58:13you cannot imagine the level of detail you have to go into. And it's just deepened my...
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