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  • 2 days ago
The Beechgrove Garden 2025 episode 13
Transcript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. And we're starting off this week with one of those
00:19jobs that's going to need done all summer long if we want to keep these plants flowering and
00:22that's deadheading. I find it quite enjoyable deadheading and I was always taught with roses
00:28it's count five leaflets down so one two three four five and then just cut at that sort of node
00:36just there the growing point where it'll come back. Yeah and that'll help keeping your rose nice and
00:40bushy as well. Lots of other plants that are going to need deadheaded, dahlias, sweet peas, I can see
00:45the lupins they're needing a wee tidy up and you might even get a second flush of flower. Aquilegias
00:50I would definitely deadhead them otherwise they're just going to seed all over the place. Yeah and
00:54this shrub rose behind me here is a lovely wild rose big open flowers it's great for the bees you
01:00can hear them in there at the moment and then we're going to have the rose hips they're great in the
01:04autumn for the birds so I wouldn't deadhead that one. Yeah just lovely eh? Coming up on the programme
01:11we are tidying up the herbaceous border gardening for giant appetites at the zoo and Callum is planting
01:24leeks in Leaven. Kirsty can you believe we're nearly through June already? Halfway through the series.
01:33I know what's happened it goes so fast doesn't it but this is the point in the year where we've had
01:38that spring burst of colour and everything's so vibrant but you get to June and you sort of think
01:44maybe my garden's lacking a bit of colour before we get into that mid-season big burst of colour
01:49with all the herbaceous borders and what we've created here at Beechgrove is a June border so that's
01:55all the perennials that are looking cracking right now in June that you can have in your garden. Yeah first
02:00stops the Siberian iris I do like them they're maybe a bit more easier to manage in your garden
02:05than the bearded iris you know those rhizomes that sit on your soil. And they're just beautiful and as
02:10you say they can stand up to a bit more weather compared to that bearded iris that's much more
02:15blousey isn't it? Yeah and as we've just been looking at I think now's the time to get in and maybe tidy
02:20up all these sort of spent flower stems just give it a wee tidy up. And I suppose the only reason to keep
02:26seed heads would be if you're wanting that seed to grow more irises. Yeah and it's a lot tidy and I
02:31think the sword like foliage is just perfect on its own but good back foil for other plants. Nice structure.
02:37So now what we've got here is a peony which is called my love and it's just really blousey and just
02:43those classic beautiful flowers right now and they're just so showy it's a long-lived perennial but if you
02:49want some for cut flowers the best time to harvest them is when that bud is squishy like a marshmallow and
02:54then you could cut that now and put that in a vase. Oh perfect but they're quite weighty they're
02:59quite heavy so we've got this wire support here and you're just easy to pop in it goes around the
03:04peony and it just keeps these peony flowers from flopping over. Well what we've got is some gaps in
03:10this space so I've just tried to plug that with a few perennials that look really good at this time of
03:14year. This is a unusual nepita because it's pink so it's called Amelia so not your classic blue purple
03:21nepita that you're used to. Yeah it looks quite soft pink I think it'll be nice but I think here
03:26I'd probably prefer the traditional blue maybe go nice with the white and the yellow of the peony no?
03:31You are hard to please Brian. And then you've got another cracker here. So this is a ringium big blue
03:37it's going to have these striking blue flowers loved by the bees nice sort of silver architectural
03:42foliage a real striking plant that will come back year after year. Yeah I think this is one of those
03:47statement plants in the garden you only need one and I'll get everybody who visits it talking about
03:52it but you know what this is reminding me I got married in June and this was my my buttonhole. Well
03:57they certainly last a long time and you could actually cut that stem and have it as a dried flower.
04:01Very nice. Now I must admit I do like height in the garden and I think one of the perfect plants
04:06we're going to have here for June is a rambling rose this is sunny silhouette. Now I must admit I think
04:12this is quite unusual this pole it's like a washing pole with a couple of wooden panels on it but I
04:17think it'll be quite useful but when you're planting a rose we need good soil. So we're going to put some
04:21manure in first into the planting hole and then that will just keep the rose well fed. Good and then
04:26when it comes to planting a rose in a pot if you can see the union here this is where they're grafted
04:32and then this needs to be covered with about what four centimetres a couple of inches of soil?
04:37Just that little bit covered here. So we're going to pop that out.
04:40It's got nice healthy roots.
04:45And how often do you think you'll have to tie this in do you think?
04:48Well it gets up to 1.8 metres and I would like this whole thing covered so it doesn't have that
04:53sort of tendrils like a sweet pea will have so we're going to get a bit of string
04:58and sort of tie it in. You might want some manure around the base as well.
05:02Do you want to know a final wee trick that I got taught? So this is the sunny side of your structure
05:07you plant on the shaded side and then that way the foliage gets encouraged to go towards the sun
05:13so you get that all-round coverage. So it'll just wrap itself all the way around this structure but
05:17what I'm noticing is a wee bit of a gap there maybe in the future you might want to put a clematis
05:23intertwined with the rose and then you get double amount of flowering.
05:26So I suppose final water it in, give it a good drink and then we'll look forward to next June.
05:43Now it's time to find out about a bit of gardening that goes on behind the scenes
05:47in an organisation better known for its animals. We're off to the zoo!
05:56Edinburgh Zoo has deep horticultural roots. Before it became a zoo in 1913, part of the site was a plant
06:06nursery and nowadays planting is used to both grow foodstuffs and to reference the natural habitats of
06:12its animal residents. Gerry Marris is head gardener. A lot of people come to see the animal and they
06:21don't really take into account like the work behind what's needed to recreate an environment for the
06:27animal and also the fact that how much how much work is involved in feeding an animal as well. We grow
06:35all these plants and feed the animals daily with it. We supply a supplement on top of the normal animal diet.
06:50We're at the top of Edinburgh Zoo, we're in our willow nursery and basically what we do with the
06:56willow nursery is grow loads of plants for what we call brells for the animals and brells is basically
07:04an additional supplement to go on their normal diet. And here as I say it's all willow. This is
07:12Osea or Salex Viminalis. We're looking for the more mature stems. So on this plant I would use this one
07:24here and I would basically cut it to a dormant bud which you can see down the stem. We'll grow it for another
07:33two or three years and it should be thick enough to feed an animal again. First of all what I do is do
07:39a cut slightly above the the bud I'm leaving and do a almost like an undercut on this side making sure
07:49you go at least about half way so it doesn't tear when you do your final cut. So there's your undercut in,
07:57you then go across to the other side
08:01and cut that way
08:02and that way it didn't tear. If you cut it, if you don't do your undercut first and you just cut it
08:09from the other side you'll find that the bark will tear right down. Once you've done that, so that's ready
08:15for the animal, you then cut just above your dormant bud and slightly angled so when it does rain the water's
08:28not just going to sit on top of the plant. It will drain off and this is where it's tricky because
08:34it can tear here like that and it gives you a clean cut. You can see food can be there.
08:51It's certainly a perk of the job aye. Yeah this guy, he's so cool. It's Khabib's favourite part of the job.
09:07Indian rhinos are a browsing species so their main thing that they eat is vegetation trees so he
09:13he loves getting the browse, it's his favourite part of the day. Once he's finished with all the
09:19foliage with the biggest stems, he will strip the bark off it and once they've dried up and been
09:27taken to the top of the hill we will use it for things like weaving fences. We'll maybe even use
09:34it for branching as well if it's thick enough so none of it gets wasted. The zoo's two giant pandas
09:41have returned to China. Taking up their home will be two sloth bears and new residence means new planting.
09:49We've had to kind of just change it a wee bit from looking less like China and more like India and
09:57Sri Lanka but bearing in mind we're on a hill in Edinburgh. So these are some of the selection of
10:05plants we've decided to go with to try and create a jungle theme for the animal. So we've got a lot of
10:13Tetrapanax which is this guy here, Trachycarpus which gives you that jungle effect but what we are
10:23aware of is the bear will likely, because it's quite a delicate plant and it's only wee, the bear will
10:27try and trash it. So to counteract that what we're trying is we're using plants basically which have
10:34got a lot of thorns and stuff like that. So we're using Berberus, this is Berberus ottoensis,
10:41so we'll use that and what we'll do is we'll try and krill out the more delicate plants and hopefully
10:46they will survive and the bear also, the bear will like the berries on this and we're using Mahonia
10:54which is this guy here. And this produces a purple berry after it's finished flowering in the spring and
11:05is edible. So hopefully the bear will choose to destroy these plants and eat the berries rather
11:14than give a more tender plant should we say, maybe a chance to mature and grow. This plant here is
11:23Acanthus mollus, although it looks prickly because it's mollus basically that means it's soft and the
11:29reason why we chose that is because in itself it's a nice plant but also because it was a bit of fun
11:35because it's common name is bear's britches and obviously with the sloth bear. Still in the sloth
11:41bears and what we've done we're at the bottom and what we've done here is we we had an original pool
11:46for the giant pandas so we decided to adapt it a bit because the sloth bear likes to bathe as well.
11:52So what we've done is we've created kind of like almost like a rock face, a natural rock face,
11:58although at the moment it doesn't look natural, it's work in progress. So we've done all the stone
12:04work and what we will do is we'll soften all the edges of the stones with plants and then we will
12:13put yogurt onto it and what yogurt does basically it will give it a few days or a few weeks it will
12:20create a moss and it will give you that kind of like it's been here for ages look.
12:25From the dune border I've come over to this collection of herbaceous perennials right beside
12:38the pond. Now just to explain herbaceous perennials they don't produce a woody structure like our trees
12:44and shrubs do but they come back from the ground after a winter's rest every year for us. Now the peonies
12:51and the likes of delphiniums and the dahlias they produce lush growth every year in big blousy blooms.
12:58If we didn't give them a bit of additional support like a bamboo cane or a bit of netting for the
13:03plants to grow through then the chances are the first storm that comes a bit of wind a bit of rain
13:08they're going to damage our display and ruin it for the summer. Whereas the herbaceous perennials in this
13:13border they're slightly different they've got the erect stems that keep them standing up without any
13:18support. We've got the lovely purple foliaged Actaea. His name's actually Black Negligé. The colour
13:25is actually virtually black as you'll get. It's a great little foil for other colours to work against.
13:31A nice wee plant that just seems to come out the last couple of days. This is Baptisia australis.
13:37I love that it's kind of got a lupin effect to it as well. I really like that one. But not as much as
13:42these Veronicastum. I think they definitely have to be my favourite genus of plants. I love the whorls
13:48as you get with the stems and already you can see the lovely flowering spikes that are going to form
13:53and I like they do a little twist and a wee curve as they're following the sun as well.
13:57And then at last there's a brand new plant to me. This one's Amzonia, the eastern blue star. I love that
14:03pale blue colour that you get there. Now the good thing about these plants, see when I first started
14:08gardening, in winter time you would chop them all down to the ground. But now we look at them
14:13with a wee bit of difference. The fact that they can stand up on their own two feet will leave them
14:17in the border over the winter for a bit of winter interest and they're also brilliant for providing
14:22a bit of shelter and a bit of food for the insects and other wildlife too. However, there is a wee trick
14:29going on here that we've not really noticed up until now. All may look well but we've got these foxgloves
14:37and we've got the oxide daisy as well. Now they've been quite cheeky, they've actually come in and
14:42taken advantage of a few little gaps but because it all looks quite natural we've never really noticed
14:47but now's the time to go in and do a wee bit of work. Now it does feel a wee bit harsh but I reckon we
14:54need to take all these plants out because I can see some crackers in the background. So I'm afraid
14:59it's in with a fork
15:05and then out with these guys so we can reveal some of the nicer plants that are actually supposed to be
15:09here. Now already we're starting to see a wee difference. Next I'm going to work on the foxgloves
15:16but for this I'm going to put on a pair of gloves. Okay never be too careful because all parts of this
15:21plant are poisonous. So better to be safe than sorry. Now the foxgloves does seem a wee bit of a shame
15:30but I'm going to take the likes of that dark pink one out. There's a crack in the apricot coloured one
15:36down at the bottom. Do you know what? I'm not going to be too hasty with that one because they do have a place
15:41and if I don't want them to self-seed all around the garden well I can just tidy them up when they're
15:50finished flowering.
15:59So there we go that's a good wee start and by doing so already I've got the sanguasorba but I reckon I
16:07could see a wee trifolium in there and a penstem in that I didn't even know that we had. So there's
16:12a lot of things hidden in here so it's already turning out to be a worthwhile exercise.
16:19Now I don't want to be too hasty. I could go out to the garden centre straight away and pick up a
16:24few plants that I think looks good but I think now that I see what's in here I want to just take my time
16:29study the border and get the plants that I really want to fit perfectly in here. So this is a wee trick
16:35that I do every year. Round about springtime I always get a few packets of hardy and half hardy
16:40annuals and I like to sew them on and grow them on for such instances. So these are plants like the
16:47cosmos. This is a wonderful little plant I've pinched out the tops now and it's starting to get a nice
16:51bushy plant. That's a lovely white flower with a pinky red edge that one's picatee and then we've got
16:56a delphinium here a good old-fashioned larkspur with white flowers and then we've got a cracking
17:01calistephus. This has got an aster flower a lovely apricot colour and these are all going to get
17:06about one metre tall so they'll be perfect in the front of the borders here and I'm going to work my
17:11way down this whole border plugging in gaps and they will just be temporary gaps they'll do me for the
17:16summer they'll do till the first frosts come and then that'll just wipe them all out and then that's
17:21when I can start working on them and if you're into your cut flowers there's a nice wee selection too
17:25that you can do some pickings for your indoor displays so now back at the hugel bed that Calum
17:41and I created last year and hugel in german means mound or hill and that's what we've created here
17:48and it's using dead materials that you might have lying around at home so everything from branches to
17:54some straw grass clippings bit of compost dead plant material you might have cut back and we've layered
18:01that up to then create this lovely mound that is decomposing and it's great looking at it a year on
18:07you can see it's all starting to rot down it is becoming a wee bit uneven so what we're going to do
18:12right now is just top it up with some well-rotted manure which has lots of worms in there and you can
18:18see them and that's going to provide lots of nutrients for the new crop that we're going to put in
18:23this year it is going to have lots of decomposing matter in there and it'll be great for heavy
18:29feeders so what we've got is a cucumber which is supposedly meant to be able to grow outside so we're
18:37going to trial that up here in Aberdeen and see what it's like it's called market more and it'll
18:42hopefully produce lots of nice cucumbers for us and we're just going to plant that on the sunnier side of
18:49the mound in this hugel bed it's small at the moment but it'll actually start to cover that whole
18:54space on that side of the mound the sunnier side will allow it to ripen the cucumbers and really
19:01just have a huge amount of growth then what we've got is some swiss chard this is great in stir fries
19:08or as a salad crop it's a nice variety called candy stripe it has lovely pink stems so we're going to dot that
19:15along the shadier side of the mound now we're putting this on the shadier side because we don't want
19:21it to bolt too quickly so we'll just pop them in and we'll see how they grow and just put that in
19:36and then all we've got to do is just give it a nice water in
19:39and allow these to settle and they're going to love that well-rotted manure that we've added to
19:45this hugel bed and it's great value for money so you don't have to go and buy all that compost or
19:51that organic matter so now it's time to go and catch up with Callum on his allotment in Leaven
19:56welcome back to my allotment as you can see since you were last here there's been a few changes
20:08i absolutely adore hanging baskets so i've added a few more in but and i can't believe i've done this
20:14as when i was planning out the plot this year when i went to plant it out i remembered that i
20:19didn't have a space for my beans and peas so i've taken some drastic measures i've shortened the paths
20:24a wee bit so i could still get my wigwams in so i could get a pea and bean harvest this year see
20:30there's always a way
20:39right now is your absolute last chance to be planting your leeks out on the plot so
20:44george had some spare leek seedlings so i got a few of them and i think that's what allotment
20:49growing's all about if you've got some spare after you've planted them don't compost them or chuck them
20:54out share them with your neighbors so the variety is musselbrut and this is a good reliable variety
21:00and it's also rust resistant so when we go to plant our leeks out they're like a well fertile soil so i
21:06knew i didn't do like i did with the peas and forgot about them i knew that i was going to be planting
21:11leeks in here so i've dug in some well rotted manure and that's going to make it really fertile
21:16we don't just dig a hole and plant the leek seedling in we use something called a dibber now
21:21when doing a bit of digging i actually broke the shaft of the spade so i didn't throw it out i
21:28thought you know what that's going to be perfect for the leeks and using it as a dibber so we want
21:33to make about a 20 centimeter hole in the ground
21:40perfect about 10 centimeters apart
21:42and if you were planting a rose the rose would be 30 centimeters apart so we just go in twist the soil
21:54till we get a hole in the ground there we go and then we take our leek seedlings and we put one
22:02per hole by doing this this is going to allow us to get a bigger leek and a blanched leek and i don't
22:10then go and just backfill the soil back into the holes we take the rose off the watering can we put
22:17our thumb over half of the top and then we do something called puddling just till the hole's filled
22:25and then the soil will just fall back round naturally and fill it in
22:32i'm going to plant a full row in here and we can start harvesting these
22:35from autumn right through the spring well depend how quick i eat them i will as our young plants
22:42give them a decent amount of water now but as they establish i'm only going to water them when they're
22:47really dry and make sure to keep the space weed free
22:54when you first visit me on the allotment this year you may remember that we were sowing peas into
23:08guttern and then we suspended the pea guttern from the roof that's so the mice couldn't get anywhere
23:13near it and so they get a really good start to their life since then i took out a wee trench and i just
23:19slid the compost and the peas into the trench at the bottom of this mesh by doing that there was
23:24less root disruption but you can see that i've got the mesh coming outwards rather than inwards my
23:31thinking behind that is is that we're hopefully going to get a bit of a straighter pea because it's
23:35more of an angle this way with hopefully a bit of help for gravity but also they're going to be more
23:41visible and if they're more visible they're going to be easier to harvest because i really love a
23:46homegrown pea and i don't want to miss one pea pod but you can see down here that there's maybe a
23:54wee bit of potential wasted space you know open ground so what i've done and what we're going to
24:00do is something called a catch crop and what a catch crop is is planting two crops in the one space
24:06so the peas is the slower crop and then planting stuff like lettuce and spinach and a wee bit of
24:13radish in there fast maturing crops as well so the peas will get a harvest about mid-august but we're
24:20going to get an abundance of harvest just from this wee space here at the front before that but
24:25something new for me that's going to go in this space is seed tape never tried this before and i tell
24:31you what this is going to be great for getting kids into horticulture because pretty much the job's
24:36already done you know the seeds could be a wee bit fiddly because they're that small well the seeds is
24:42already in this biodegradable tape and they're already at the correct spacing so there's going
24:47to be no thinning out no sort of a load of radish at the top and hardly any down the bottom you know
24:53quite sparse so all we do with this is we take out a wee drill about an inch deep and then roll out
25:03the seed tape and we'll just cut that there
25:18and then just cover that back over
25:21and then in about a month to six weeks time we'll be harvesting some radish
25:40well kirstie it's been may since you were last at your competition border you must notice the difference
25:45they're all looking well and just a wee reminder you're up against all the other presenters ruth
25:50lizzie callum to produce the most colorful and productive border you're going to be judged by
25:56carol in september everyone's got a theme what's your theme here again well i've gone for unusual
26:02veg that you can't buy in the supermarket that's lovely purple and lime green and really gone for
26:06color contrasting design here so what i've got already is sweet peas so i think that well-rotted
26:12manure has really helped to give everything a boost yeah good feeding the soil that's what we
26:16need it's all about the soil get the roots into there but you're right your sweet peas are looking
26:20great tie them in as well they'll be looking even better and we've got purple cauliflower
26:25call rabbi purple brussel sprouts a nice kale called red boar and then lime green zinnias dotted
26:32through there what's that wee red thing secret weapon that's like a lovely annual that's called
26:37amaranthus and it's called marvel bronze and that's going to have amazing purple flowers too
26:43i like that nice wee clever trick but you've still got another wee gap that ain't going to go down
26:47well with the judge well so to plug that gap i've put in a lovely lime green nicotiana so the tobacco
26:53plant it's an annual has these beautiful flowers and that'll really just balance between the veg and
26:59the flowers which it's great for wildlife too yep what else have you got on so all i've got is this
27:04purple spinach to then dot through this last area of the veg plot and this is going to be great in
27:10salads and just look at the color of that yeah that's a stunning color that's quite a big leaf
27:15it'll be fine it'll look good well i must admit kirstie i know i've said this quite a few times
27:22this series but i do think you do have a wee edge but didn't tell the others i didn't want to get in any
27:27trouble well kirstie the sun's out just now but earlier on it was absolutely chucking it down but
27:45that meant we got to finally try out the rain garden well it's great to see it in action and
27:49the herbaceous looks wonderful it's really easy to do in your garden do you know what i'm really
27:54chuffed none of the gravel's washed away the whole thing seems to be holding itself together
27:58just soaked up like a sponge yeah one for the future do you think definitely and really important
28:03in our gardens going forward with climate change well that's all we've got time for this week next
28:08week's an important week in the beach grove calendar no it's not just because callum's going
28:13to be joining me we get to harvest our first early potatoes and there'll be top tips on how to make
28:18your lawn look amazing all summer long don't forget you can catch up with every episode of the series
28:24so far on the bbc iplayer but other than that that's all for us just now bye bye
28:48you