- 6/27/2025
Beechgrove Garden S47E13
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. And we're starting off this week with one of those jobs
00:19that's going to need done all summer long if we want to keep these plants flowering and that's
00:23deadheading. I find it quite enjoyable deadheading and I was always taught with roses it's
00:29count five leaflets down so one two three four five and then just cut at that sort of node just
00:36there 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 the
00:46lupins they're needing a wee tidy up you might even get a second flush of flower. Aqualegias I would
00:50definitely deadhead them otherwise they're just going to seed all over the place. Yeah and this
00:54shrub rose behind me here is a lovely wild rose big open flowers it's great for the bees you can
01:00hear them in there at the moment and then we're going to have the rose hips they're great in
01:04the autumn for the birds so I wouldn't deadhead that one. Yeah just lovely eh. Coming up on the
01:11program we are tidying up the herbaceous border gardening for giant appetites at the zoo and
01:22Callum is planting leeks in Leevan.
01:28Kirstie can you believe we're nearly through June already halfway through the series. I know what's
01:34happened it goes so fast doesn't it but this is the point in the year where we've had that
01:38spring burst of colour and everything's so vibrant but you get to June and you sort of think maybe my
01:44garden's lacking a bit of colour before we get into that mid-season big burst of colour with all the
01:49herbaceous borders and what we've created here at Beechgrove is a June border so that's all the perennials
01:56that are looking cracking right now in June that you can have in your garden. Yeah first stops the
02:01Siberian iris I do like them they're maybe a bit more easier to manage in your garden than the bearded
02:06iris you know those rhizomes that sit on your soil. And they're just beautiful and as you say they can
02:11stand up to a bit more weather compared to that bearded iris that's much more blousey isn't it. Yeah and
02:16as we've just been looking at I think now's the time to get in and maybe tidy up all these sort of spent
02:22flower stems just give it a wee tidy up. And I suppose the only reason to keep seed heads would
02:27be if you're wanting that seed to grow more irises. Yeah and it's a lot tidy and I think the sword like
02:32foliage 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 want
02:49some 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 quite
02:59heavy so we've got this wire support here and you're just easy to pop in it goes around the peony and
03:04it just keeps these peony flowers from flopping over. Well what we've got is some gaps in this space so
03:11I've just tried to plug that with a few perennials that look really good at this time of year.
03:15This is an unusual nepita because it's pink so it's called a mulia 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 I'd
03:26probably 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 it's
03:37going to have these striking blue flowers loved by the bees nice sort of silver architectural foliage a real
03:43striking plant that will come back year after year. Yeah I think this is one of those statement
03:47plants in the garden you only need one and I'll get everybody who visits it talking about it but
03:52you know what this is reminding me I got married in June and this was my buttonhole. Well they certainly
03:58last a long time and you could actually cut that stem and have it as a dried flower. Very nice. Now I
04:02must admit I do like height in the garden and I think one of the perfect plants we could have here for
04:07June is a rambling rose this is sunny silhouette. Now I must admit I think this is quite unusual this
04:13pole it's like a washing pole with a couple of wooden panels on it but I think it'd be quite useful
04:18but when you're planting a rose we need good soil. So we're going to put some manure in first into the
04:22planting hole and then that'll just keep the rose well fed. Good and then when it comes to planting a
04:28rose in a pot if you can see the union here this is where they're grafted and then this needs to be
04:33covered with about what four centimetres a couple of inches of soil. Just that little bit of
04:38covered yeah. So we're going to pop that out. It's got nice healthy roots
04:45and how often do you think you'll have to tie this in do you think? Well it gets up to 1.8 meters
04:50and I would like this whole thing covered so it doesn't have that sort of tendrils the likes a
04:55sweet pea will have so we're going to get a bit of string and sort of tie it in. You might want some
05:01manure around the base as well. Do you want to know a final wee trick that I got taught? So this is the
05:06sunny side of your structure you plant on the shaded side and then that way the foliage gets encouraged
05:12to go towards the sun so you get that all-round coverage. So it'll just wrap itself all the way
05:16around this structure but what I'm noticing is a wee bit of a gap there maybe in the future you might
05:21want to put a clematis intertwined with the rose and then you get double amount of flowering. So I suppose
05:28final 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 in an organisation
05:49better known for its animals. We're off to the zoo. Edinburgh Zoo has deep horticultural roots.
06:01Before it became a zoo in 1913 part of the site was a plant nursery and nowadays planting is used to
06:08both grow foodstuffs and to reference the natural habitats of its animal residents. Gerry Marris is head
06:16gardener. A lot of people come to see the animal and they don't really take into account like the
06:23work behind what's needed to recreate an environment for the animal and also the fact that how much
06:30how much work is involved in feeding an animal as well. We grow all these plants and feed the animals
06:38daily 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 browse for the animals and browse 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
07:16Viminalis. We're looking for the more mature stems. So on this plant I would use this one here
07:25and 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
07:49sure you go at least about halfway so it doesn't tear when you do your final cut. So there's your
07:56undercut in you then go across to the other side
07:59and cut that way and that way it didn't tear. If you cut it if you don't do your undercut first
08:08and you just cut it from the other side you'll find that the back will tear right down. Once
08:13once you've done that so that's ready for the animal you then cut just above your dormant bud
08:20and slightly angled so when it does rain the water's not just going to sit on top of the plant it
08:30will it will drain off and this is where it's tricky because yeah it can tear here like that
08:39and it gives you a clean cut.
08:41You can see food Khabib there.
08:59It's certainly a perk of the job aye. Yeah this guy he's so cool.
09:04It's Khabib's favourite part of the job. Indian rhinos are browsing species so their main thing that they
09:10eat is uh vegetation trees um so he he loves getting the browse that's his favourite part of the day.
09:18Once he's finished all the foliage with the the biggest stems he will strip the the back off it
09:24and once uh once they've dried up and been taken to the top of the hill we will use it for
09:31things like weaving fences we'll maybe even use it for branching as well if it's thick enough
09:36so none of it gets wasted. The zoo's two giant pandas have returned to China taking up their home
09:44will be two sloth bears and new residents means new planting. We've had to kind of just change it a wee
09:52bit from looking less like China and more like uh India and Sri Lanka but bearing in mind we're on a
10:01hill in Edinburgh. So uh these are some of the selection of plants we've decided to go with
10:07to try and create a jungle a jungle theme for the animal. So we've got a lot of uh tetrapanax which is
10:15this guy here uh trache carpus which gives you that jungle effect uh but what we are aware of is the
10:24bear will likely because it's quite a delicate plant and it's only wee the bear will try and trash it so
10:29to counteract that what we're trying is we're using plants basically which have got other thorns and
10:36stuff like that. So we're using berberus this is berberus ottoensis so we'll use that and what we'll
10:42do is we'll try and crowd out the more delicate plants and hopefully they will survive and the bear
10:48also the bear will like the berries on this and we're using mohonia which is this guy here
10:58and this produces uh a purple berry after it's finished flowering in the spring and it is edible
11:07so hopefully the bear will will choose to destroy these plants and eat the berries rather than and
11:14give a a more tender plant should we say maybe a chance to to mature and grow. This plant here is
11:23acanthus mollusk although it looks prickly because it's mollusk 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 bears 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 for
11:46the giant pandas so we decided to adapt it a bit because the sloth bear likes to bathe as well. So what
11:52we've done is we've created kind of like uh almost like a a rock face a natural rock face although
11:58although at the moment it doesn't look natural uh it's work in progress so we've done all the stone
12:04work and what we will do is we're soft to know the soft know the the edges of the stones with plants
12:10and then we will uh put yogurt onto it and what yogurt does basically it will give it a few days
12:18a few weeks it will create a moss and it will give you that kind of like it's been here for ages look
12:33from the dune border i've come over to this collection herbaceous perennials right beside the pond
12:39now just to explain herbaceous perennials they don't produce a woody structure like our trees and shrubs do
12:45but they come back from the ground after a winter's rest every year for us now the peonies and the
12:52likes of delphiniums and the dahlias they produce lush growth every year and big blousy blooms if we
12:59didn't give them a bit of additional support like a bamboo cane or a bit of netting for the plants to grow
13:03through then the chances are the first storm that comes a bit of wind a bit of rain they're going to
13:08damage our display and ruin it for the summer whereas the herbaceous perennials in this border
13:14they're slightly different they've got the correct stems that keep them standing up without any support
13:19we've got the lovely purple foliaged actea his name's actually black negligee the color is actually
13:25virtually black as you'll get it's a great little foil for other colors to work against
13:31a nice wee plant it just seems to come out the last couple of days this is baptisia australis
13:37i love that it's kind of got a looping effect to it as well i really like that one
13:41but not as much as these veronicastrum i think they definitely have to be my favorite genus of
13:46plants i love the whorls as you get the stems and already you can see the lovely flowering spikes that
13:52are going to form and 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 color 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 with
14:13a wee bit of difference the fact that they can stand up on their own two feet will leave them in
14:17the 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
14:36fox gloves and we've got the oxide daisy as well now they've been quite cheeky they've actually come in
14:42and taken 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
15:01it'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 here
15:10now already we're starting to see a wee difference next i'm going to work on the fox gloves but for this
15:17i'm going to put on a pair of gloves can never be too careful because all parts of this plant are poisonous
15:23so better to be safe than sorry now the fox gloves 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 colored one down at the bottom
15:37do you know what i'm not going to be too hasty with that one because they do have a place
15:44and if i don't want them to serve seed all around the garden
15:48well i could just tidy them up when they're finished flowering
15:59so there we go that's a good wee start
16:01and by doing so already i've got the sanguasorba but i reckon i could see a wee trifolium in there
16:09and a penstem and that i didn't even know that we had so there's a lot of things hidden in here so
16:13it'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 center straight away and pick up a few
16:24plants 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
16:35trick that 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 kraken
17:01calistephus this has got an aster flower a lovely apricot color and these are all going to get about
17:07one meter tall so they'll be perfect in the front of the borders here and i'm going to work my way
17:11down 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 frost 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
17:39so now back at the hugel bed that calum and i created last year and hugel in german means
17:45mound or hill and that's what we've created here and it's using dead materials that you might have
17:51lying around at home so everything from branches to some straw grass clippings bit of compost dead
17:58plant material you might have cut back and we've layered that up to then create this lovely mound
18:03that is decomposing and it's great looking at it a year on you can see it's all starting to rot down
18:09it is becoming a wee bit uneven so what we're going to do right now is just top it up with some well-rotted
18:15manure which has lots of worms in there and you can see them and that's going to provide lots of
18:20nutrients for the new crop that we're going to put in this year it is going to have lots of
18:26decomposing matter in there and it'll be great for heavy feeders so what we've got is a cucumber
18:33which is supposedly meant to be able to grow outside so we're going to trial that up here in aberdeena and
18:38see what it's like it's called market more and it'll hopefully produce lots of nice cucumbers for us
18:45and we're just going to plant that on the sunnier side of the mound in this hugel bed it's small at
18:52the moment but it'll actually start to cover that whole space on that side of the mound the sunnier side
18:57will allow it to ripen the cucumbers and really just have a huge amount of growth then what we've got
19:05is some swiss chard this is great in stir fries or as a salad crop it's a nice variety called candy
19:12stripe it has lovely pink stems so we're going to dot that along the shadier side of the mound now we're
19:18putting this on the shadier side because we don't want it to bolt too quickly so we'll just pop them in
19:25and 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
19:41and allow these to settle and they're going to love that well-rotted manure that we've added to this
19:45hugel bed and it's great value for money so you don't have to go and buy all that compost or that organic
19:51matter so now it's time to go and catch up with calum on his allotment in leaving
20:04welcome 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 didn't have
20:20a space for my beans and peas so i've taken some drastic measures i've shortened the paths a wee
20:25bit so i could still get my wigwams in so i can get a pea and bean harvest this year see there's always a way
20:39right now is your absolute last chance to be planting your leeks out on the plot so george had some spare
20:46leek seedlings so i got a few of them and i think that's what allotment growing's all about if you've
20:50got some spare after you've planted them don't compost them or chuck them out share them with your
20:55neighbours so the variety is muscle bra and this is a good reliable variety and it's also rust resistant
21:02so when we go to plant our leeks out they're like a well fertile soil so i knew
21:07i didn't do like i did with the peas and forgot about them i knew that i was going to be planting leeks in
21:12here so i've dug in some well rotted manure and that's going to make it really fertile we don't
21:16just dig a hole and plant the leek seedling in we use something called a dibber now when doing a bit
21:23of digging i actually broke the shaft of the spade so i didn't throw it out i thought you know what
21:28that's going to be perfect for the leeks and using it as a dibber so we want to make about a 20 centimeter
21:36hole in the ground perfect about 10 centimeters apart and if you were planting a rose the rose would
21:46be 30 centimeters apart so we just go in twist the soil till we get a hole in the ground there we go
21:57and then we take our leek seedlings and we put one per hole
22:05by doing this this is going to allow us to get a bigger leak and a blanched leek
22:09and i don't then go and just backfill the soil back into the holes we take the rose off the watering can
22:17we put our thumb over half of the top and then we do something called puddling just till the hole's filled
22:23and 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 from autumn right through
22:36the spring well depending how quick i eat them i will as our young plants give them a decent amount
22:43of water they now but as they establish i'm only going to water them when they're really dry
22:48and make sure to keep the space weed free
23:03when 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
23:18just slid 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 with 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 wee
23:54bit of potential wasted space you know open ground so what i've done and what we're going to do is
24:00something called a catch crop and what a catch crop is is planting two crops in the one space so the peas
24:07is a slower crop and then planting stuff like lettuce and spinach and a wee bit of radish in
24:14there fast maturing crops as well so the peas will get a harvest about mid-august but we're going to
24:20get an abundance of harvest just from this wee space here at the front before that but something new for
24:26me that's going to go in this space is seed tape never tried this before and i tell you what this is
24:32going to be great for getting kids into horticulture because pretty much the job's already done you know
24:37the seeds could be a wee bit fiddly because they're that small well the seeds is already in this
24:43biodegradable tape and they're already at the correct spacing so there's going to be no thinning out
24:49no sort of a load of radish at the top and hardly any down the bottom you know quite sparse so all we
24:54do with this is we take out a wee drill about an inch deep and then roll out the seed tape
25:09and we'll just cut that there
25:11and then just cover that back over
25:25and then in about a month to six weeks time we'll be harvesting some radish
25:38well kirstie it's been may since you were last at your competition border you must notice the
25:45difference they're all looking well and just a wee reminder you're up against all the other
25:49presenters ruth lizzie callum to produce the most colorful and productive border you're going to be
25:55judged by carol in september everyone's got a theme what's your theme here again well i've gone for
26:01unusual veg that you can't buy in the supermarket that's lovely purple and lime green and really gone for
26:06colour 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 tying 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 well
26:47with the judge well so to plug that gap i've put in a lovely lime green nicotiana so the tobacco plant
26:54it's an annual has these beautiful flowers and that'll really just balance between the veg and the flowers which
27:00it's great for wildlife too yep what else have you got on so all i've got is this purple spinach to
27:06then dot through this last area of the veg plot and it's going to be great in salads and just look at
27:10the color of that yeah that's a stunning color that's quite a big leaf it'll be fine it'll look good
27:17well i must admit kirstie i know i've said this quite a few times this series but i do think you do
27:24have a wee edge but didn't tell the others i didn't want to get in any trouble
27:41well kirstie the sun's out just now but earlier on it was absolutely chucking it down but that meant
27:45we got to finally try out the rain garden well it's great to see it in action and the herbaceous
27:50looks wonderful it's really easy to do in your garden do you know what i'm really chuffed none of
27:55the gravel's washed away the whole thing seems to be holding itself together i just soaked up like a
27:59sponge yeah one for the future do you think definitely and really important in our gardens going forward
28:04with climate change well that's all we've got time for this week next week's an important week in the
28:10beach grove calendar no it's not just because callum's going to be joining me we get to harvest our first
28:15early potatoes and there'll be top tips on how to make your lawn look amazing all summer long don't
28:21forget you can catch up with every episode of the series so far on the bbc iplayer but other than that
28:27that's all for us just now bye-bye
28:40so
28:57you
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