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Gardeners World 2025 Episode 3 (S58E3)
# Bill Duncalf
#David Leighton
#Gardeners World - Season 58
#Geoff Hamilton
#Percy Thrower
#Peter Seabrook
# Bill Duncalf
#David Leighton
#Gardeners World - Season 58
#Geoff Hamilton
#Percy Thrower
#Peter Seabrook
Kategorie
📺
TVTranskript
00:00Hello. Welcome to Gardener's World.
00:24These pots have spent the winter undercover.
00:28I put them in the bus shelter in the paradise garden.
00:30And that is to protect them from rain, not cold.
00:35Increasingly, I'm growing tulips in pots rather than in borders,
00:39particularly with the way that the climate's changing
00:42and our weather is getting wetter and wetter,
00:45because tulips hate sitting in heavy, wet soil,
00:49particularly when it's cold.
00:51So, by growing them in pots, I can give them the drainage that they need.
00:56But even then, if they sit outside all winter with the rain coming down,
01:01they're bound to get soaked.
01:03But now that the shoots are emerging and there's foliage,
01:06it means that there is sunlight.
01:08And so I can put them out where they're going to be,
01:11and then they can get maximum light.
01:14A bit of rain won't hurt them.
01:16Very soon, they should be flowering.
01:19And we'll get the sort of display that I love.
01:24And the bigger pots, which are much too big to lift and move,
01:27I've protected from the squirrels and the rats and the mice and the birds
01:31with rose pruning.
01:33So I need to remove those, because once these are out,
01:36and the weather warms up a bit, these will grow fast.
01:39And by the middle of April, this should be gloriously alight with colour.
01:45And because it's a cottage garden, they'll all be pastel colours,
01:49pinks and pale yellows and lilacs.
01:52But despite the softness of the colour,
01:55it sings out on a spring day.
01:58Now, coming up on today's programme.
02:03Nick visits a garden in Essex to discover how matrix planting
02:07can be used to best effect.
02:10People think of this style of gardening
02:13as being very much kind of late summer and into autumn interest,
02:17but actually what you've created here is truly year round.
02:20Yes, maybe just by looking at it, it looks very complex,
02:23but actually when you think about the different layers,
02:26it's actually quite easy to understand.
02:28We meet a grower in Dorset,
02:30whose love of dahlias has grown and grown.
02:34I bought my first dahlia and it was a bright pink one,
02:38and I was very taken with it.
02:39The next year I had seven dahlias,
02:41and then suddenly I had three hundreds,
02:44and then it was, I think, 600 and then a thousand.
02:47Francis heads to a community garden in Bradford,
02:51the 2025 UK city of culture,
02:53which provides a welcome for all the community.
02:57Oh, I love it here. It's absolutely lovely.
03:00Everybody's so friendly.
03:02Different cultures.
03:03We learn about each other's cultures,
03:04like we had a pakora day here.
03:06Yeah, that was amazing.
03:08That was really nice.
03:09And then we made apple crumble.
03:11Apple crumble.
03:14And I shall be doing some fairly dramatic remedial action
03:17on my new lawn.
03:18I suspect that most of you will recognise this,
03:33even when it's empty like this, as the Jewel Garden.
03:37And it's been the Jewel Garden for the last, oh, 28 years.
03:42But, of course, it hasn't always been the Jewel Garden.
03:45When we came here, there was no garden at all.
03:47This was an open field.
03:48There was a very bad tempered horse down the far end.
03:50It was brambly and tusky.
03:51And it took me a full year to clear it.
03:52And then I decided I would make a big circular lawn
03:54and I planted a yew hedge all the way around.
03:56Funnily enough, I knew all the way around.
03:58I knew all the way around.
03:59I knew all the way around.
04:00I knew all the way around.
04:01I knew all the way around.
04:02I knew all the way around.
04:03I knew all the way around.
04:04Even when it's empty like this,
04:05that's the Jewel Garden.
04:06And it's been the Jewel Garden for the last, oh, 28 years.
04:08It took me a full year to clear it.
04:09And then I decided I would make a big circular lawn
04:13and I planted a yew hedge all the way around.
04:16Funnily enough, I knew almost from day one
04:18that it wasn't going to work.
04:19I just had this feeling that I was doing the wrong thing.
04:21So I thought, OK, cut my losses, let's do something else.
04:24And we decided to be radically different.
04:27We would make a garden that celebrated our years doing jewelry
04:31in the 1980s.
04:33And we'd worked with rock stars and home stars and royalty
04:37and it was glamorous and it was fun.
04:39And so we thought, OK, we'll make a garden
04:41where the plants are all jewel-like.
04:43And of course, that just means choosing your colors.
04:45Because we had ruby and amethyst and sapphire.
04:48In fact, we had all the jewel colors.
04:50Now, the point of telling you that story is that
04:52when you're making a garden, when you're making a border
04:55or even a small bed, even a big pot,
04:58it needs to have some kind of theme or story
05:02that you can work with.
05:03It could be color, it could be texture,
05:05it could be a type of plant, it could be grasses or alpines.
05:08It doesn't matter.
05:09Now, in this case, it's jewel colors.
05:12And it worked well.
05:13It looked great.
05:14But it was gradually losing its oomph.
05:17So last year, I thought, OK, let's redo it.
05:21Let's have a rebound.
05:22And we took everything that we could out
05:24and then we thought, well, we'll start again.
05:26Doug had been true to the jewel garden,
05:28but rebuild with a freshness.
05:31Now, you may notice there are an awful lot of green shoots here.
05:35Those come from allium, allium purple sensation.
05:38And it's the weed of the jewel garden.
05:41But as weeds go, it's a pretty good one to have.
05:44The next step is to bring back the herbaceous plants
05:47that we've lifted and stored over winter.
05:50But before I do that, we're going to join Nick on the other side of the country,
05:54a very different garden to Longmeadow,
05:56different soil, different climate, different approach.
05:59But it also uses a strong theme.
06:01And the result is magnificent.
06:04When planning any garden, it's always worth spending some time
06:12thinking about how your beds and borders will look all year round,
06:16not just at the height of spring and summer.
06:19As the light fades, air cools and plants die back,
06:22this is when structure and form take centre stage
06:26to retain a sense of drama.
06:28And this garden manages to squeeze every drop of life and excitement
06:35from the soil before the season starts to change
06:39and we turn our attention to winter.
06:47It was designed by Stefano Maranas,
06:49who brought his experience of working in Italy and the Netherlands
06:52here to Braintree in Essex.
06:58Now, Stefano, this garden is looking absolutely glorious today,
07:03especially with this autumn backlight.
07:05But actually, when you arrived here, it was a completely blank canvas, right?
07:09Yes, indeed.
07:10When we came here in April time, three years ago,
07:12it was only 300 square metres of a bare lawn.
07:15But instead, we designed a garden where we create plant communities
07:20combining grasses, perennials, shrubs and trees,
07:24as well as obviously the bulbs.
07:26These layers were all combined and you see in this result.
07:29But they don't, of course, all arrive at once.
07:31You've got successional planting that sort of comes and goes through the year
07:34and then plants that will carry on all the way through the winter.
07:36Yeah.
07:37And I think that's the beauty of this type of naturalistic planting,
07:39where you have different layers emerging as well as disappearing.
07:43The garden sits beautifully within its own right,
07:46but it's against the backdrop of a very big black barn.
07:49And so how have you got that to work?
07:51Well, as we couldn't compete with the volume of the house,
07:54we took inspiration, we looked at the details,
07:56sort of this timber cladding,
07:58and then we drew these lines of the Prunus Lusitanica hedging,
08:01which is kept clipped,
08:03and it runs much more concentrated from the courtyard,
08:06comes out and then it feathers out as you move away from the house.
08:10So it's sort of taking the architecture into the landscape with plants.
08:13Indeed.
08:14Indeed.
08:15I think a lot of people think of this style of gardening
08:18as being very much kind of late summer and into autumn interest,
08:22but actually what you've created here is truly year round.
08:25Yes.
08:26Maybe just by looking at it, it looks very complex,
08:28but actually when you think about the different layers,
08:31so you have the perennials, you have the bulbs, you have the shrubs,
08:33you actually see each component and it's actually quite easy to understand.
08:47The garden envelops you with a rich sense of abundance
08:50the moment you walk through the gate.
08:52And this effect is achieved through the use of matrix planting.
08:56The essence of what a matrix planting is,
08:59is all about creating a community of plants that support each other.
09:03So to break that down a bit, the planting here,
09:06there's nearly 3,000 perennials planted in here,
09:09of which around about half are grasses.
09:11And grasses are absolutely key to a matrix planting.
09:15They provide the ground cover,
09:17they provide the support for the perennials which emerge up through them.
09:21And so looking through this area directly in front of me,
09:24there's repeated grasses, but coming up through them
09:27are a succession of different perennials and annuals.
09:30So for example, in front of me here, this is Galenia trifoliata.
09:33It looks fabulous with white flowers in summer,
09:36it's taking on these gorgeous autumn notes now,
09:39and then the seed heads will last well into winter.
09:42Then looking further back into the garden,
09:44you've got fabulous spots of colour,
09:46even in autumn with the asters that repeat all the way through.
09:49And so with that clever combination of grasses as key structure,
09:53and then emerging ephemeral plants, some self-seeders,
09:56some bulbs and some perennials,
09:58you set up a fabulous plant community
10:00that has a succession of colour and interest nearly year round.
10:04Something that's absolutely vital to make matrix plantings work well
10:18is to have long flowering species,
10:21which you repeat all the way through the planting.
10:24And there are great examples here.
10:25In fact, an old friend and a new friend.
10:28Down here, the old friend is Tilbagia violacea.
10:31Now it's a plant that comes from South Africa,
10:33and you can probably recognise it.
10:35It's an allium relative, sometimes called society garlic.
10:38But what's brilliant about it is it manages to flower from June
10:42all the way to November non-stop.
10:44Beautiful thing.
10:45Now the new friend back here is a plant known as mountain mint,
10:50and it comes from the US.
10:53But it's very closely related to our mints.
10:55In fact, it's in the Lamiaceae family.
10:57And the leaves are absolutely packed with this minty essential oil,
11:03which smells absolutely delicious.
11:05But here in a matrix setting, it's the perfect plant.
11:08It manages to hold itself up brilliantly.
11:11It flowers over an incredibly long season
11:13and is absolutely loved by pollinators.
11:15And then going into winter, as it drops its leaves,
11:18these seed heads take on lovely Burmish tones
11:21and they will last all the way through winter.
11:29And the garden is packed with plants
11:31that perform long after the flowers have faded.
11:42One of the things that gives this garden
11:44such great seasonality and longevity
11:46is the choice of perennials that have looked fabulous in summer,
11:50but produce amazing seed heads
11:52that will last all the way through winter until spring.
11:55Things like this Flomis just here.
11:57It's really good for bird food as well.
11:58This Asclepias down here with these wonderful conical heads.
12:02You've got this Limonium with this sort of seafoam quality
12:05which will roll all the way through winter.
12:07And then finally, this Oryngium.
12:09It's in flower now, but it will slowly take on
12:12kind of burnished brown and beige tones
12:14and it looks absolutely fabulous carrying a hoarfrost.
12:23The repetition within the garden creates a rhythm
12:25as you move through the space.
12:30Even when species change,
12:31Stefano has carefully selected similar forms.
12:34I know that you've really sort of punctuated the space
12:40with a series of different multi-stemmed trees.
12:43Why do you use them in that way?
12:45They provide a bit of privacy.
12:46They filter the lights
12:47and they create a lovely double shade
12:49underneath which you can see it.
12:51The species that you've selected,
12:54things like the Circus siliquestrum
12:56or the coloritaria over here,
12:58are really plants that have great seasonality.
13:01They do many things,
13:02but they have fabulous autumn color.
13:03How important was that in your choices?
13:05Yeah, they have definitely strong colors
13:07and they start the season with the flowering
13:09and they continue into autumn with the strong autumn colors.
13:12But also in winter,
13:13when they're completely bare without the leaves
13:16and the seed pods,
13:17they still have this sort of sculptural qualities
13:19that are beautiful to have dotted within the garden.
13:30Well, I have to say it's been such a pleasure
13:32to spend time in this garden today.
13:34The matrix that you've built
13:35has kind of set up this incredible ecology
13:38that sort of equally balances pollinators,
13:41people and plants.
13:42And I think as a whole,
13:44it's a fabulous garden
13:45that all of us and everything wants to be in.
13:48Well, thank you, Nick, for that.
13:49We do look forward to see
13:51how the garden develops throughout the years.
13:53Here are the years.
13:54I really do like the matrix approach and I'm going to use that
14:22to a certain extent in the Jewel Garden, but in a different way, or at least with different plants.
14:27I'm going to start with these.
14:29This is a Rebeckia, Rebeckia laciniata herbstone.
14:34It's a really dramatic, strong, vertical plant with wonderful bright yellow daisy flowers
14:40that will flower from July right through till October.
14:44Now, all these came from two or three clumps that had developed in the Jewel Garden.
14:50I lifted them, divided them.
14:53So we've got 40 plants, each of which will cost us about a tenner in a garden centre.
14:58So I'm going to lift these and we can start replanting.
15:03Because they were only put in a few months ago, they come out very easily.
15:20Now, you can see here that alliums are growing up in amongst the roots of the Rebeckia.
15:27Now, I can live with an allium popping up, but if this were bindweed, or ground elder, or couchgrass,
15:35it would be crazy to replant this and say, oh, it's only a little bit.
15:39What you need to do in that case is to wash the roots, wash all the soil off,
15:45and then you can see the alien roots because they will look different.
15:49I'm placing these in groups of three.
16:17And generally, odd numbers always looks more natural.
16:22I know that on my soil, in this garden, these Rebeckias will grow two metres tall.
16:30And it is important when you're constructing a border or a garden
16:33to really take into account the soil, the aspect, the exposure to wind.
16:39Nothing stunts growth more than a cold wind.
16:41The better you know your garden, the more likely it is to succeed.
16:46So, for example, what plants do well in your ground?
16:49Don't try and waste time and energy growing things that don't want to be there.
16:54Now, I like to place everything before I plant anything.
17:06But if you've lifted them from the garden and are transplanting them,
17:11on a day like today, which is quite dry, the roots will dry up.
17:14So I need to get them in the ground.
17:15And I'll give them a good soak when I've planted everything.
17:26Now, if I plant it here, in the front, it blocks the view through.
17:31As a rule, it's a good idea to put your taller plants
17:34near the middle or the back of a border.
17:37But not religiously.
17:41For example, the delphinium grows tall as the rebeckia.
17:44But the flowers are tall rather than the plant itself.
17:48And I cut them back after flowering in July.
17:52So I get a good display in the front.
17:54It's dramatic.
17:55It's near the border.
17:55I can look through it to what else is going on.
17:57Then cut them back hard.
17:59And then all is revealed.
18:00Whereas the rebeckia, I take a while to grow.
18:03They don't start flowering till July.
18:04So they're going to fill this space, not have anything other than flourish to look at,
18:08and then be in flower from July through to October.
18:13And obviously, if you have structural planting, like this hornbeam,
18:18anything behind it that isn't taller is lost.
18:21You won't see it.
18:22So mix your heights.
18:24Think them through.
18:25You've got to think of color, too.
18:27The color of these is a good, strong egg yolk yellow.
18:30And yellow works really well as the opposite to purple.
18:35It makes purple look more purple, and purple makes yellow look more yellow.
18:39Orange is the opposite to blue.
18:41So by using opposites, you intensify color.
18:45And then finally, and perhaps most importantly of all you're thinking about, rhythm.
18:50I don't plant symmetrically here in the Jaw Garden.
18:52We have the same plants roughly in each of the eight beds, but not in the same place.
18:58So you're picking up color.
19:00You're picking up height and movement and even fragrance sometimes.
19:04And that gives it a kind of dynamism.
19:06That's what makes a border come alive.
19:08So having the chance to redo the Jaw Garden like this, I think, is wonderful.
19:14I'm going to make the most of it and really enjoy it.
19:17Now, one of the plants that we definitely use here in the Jaw Garden a lot are dahlias.
19:22And we grow quite a lot.
19:23But nothing like as many as the grower that we went to visit last summer down near Lime Regis.
19:30There must be a dahlia for everybody, I would have thought.
19:40There are so many different colors, so many different shapes, so many sizes.
19:44Whether you want great tall dahlias to put in a vase in your house or you want little bedding dahlias,
19:49there really is something for everything.
19:53I'm Anna May and I live in Dorset and I grow lots of dahlias.
19:57I bought my first dahlias at the Horticultural Society locally and it was a bright pink one and I was very taken with it.
20:08The next year I had seven dahlias and then suddenly I had 300 and then it was, I think, 600 and then 1,000.
20:16So, as you can see, I was very taken with that first dahlias.
20:23The garden was full, so I asked my husband if we couldn't just dig a little patch.
20:27In one of the fields and the little patch got bigger and bigger and so I went from the little corner of the garden to a few years later having seven great long rows of dahlias.
20:39A lot of people come and visit, they come to choose their dahlias, whether it's for weddings or parties and so I do like it to look nice when they're here and so I've decided that rows in colour order works best and this year I think we've got the order right.
20:57But sometimes you get a pink and white row and here we've got a rosemary's dawn plant and yet here we have a little quarter of it, maybe less than a quarter, reminding me that actually it should be rosemary's blush.
21:13It's sort of winking at me and going, you've actually got no control, I will do what I want.
21:18Dahlia's will grow in most situations but there's a few things you do probably want to bear in mind.
21:30When you first pot up your tuber you'll give it a bit of water just to get it going but don't give it too much water.
21:36Keep it somewhere that's bright, it needs light to get going, make sure there are no slugs or snails anywhere in your greenhouse, your polytunnel, near your windowsill, wherever you're growing them, you've just got to keep an eye out because as soon as those little green shoots appear that you will be so excited about, so will the slugs and they will be after them.
21:59Some of the dahlia's do get very, very big, so this one is perfect if you want to put it in a pot or at the front of a border.
22:11This little one is small world, charming, look at these little tiny flowers, absolutely sweet.
22:18And look at all the buds, you're going to get 50, 60 flowers off this easily in the season, so it's fantastic value, they are just so generous, they're the best.
22:29So deadheading is very important to encourage lots of flowers all through the season and I like to cut the stem quite low, really very low actually.
22:41Instinct would say cut here because this one is on its way but I'm not going to do that because then I will get the next stems growing from here which won't be very long and I'd like longer ones.
22:51So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go all the way down here and cut here even though it means I've sacrificed this and these two which seems a shame but it means I will get much better stems growing in the future instead of one short one from there.
23:11It's painful because you know what you're losing but you've got to do it, it's worth it.
23:15So this is sort of my experimental bed, this is where I will plant seeds, complete unknown quantities every year.
23:32So they could be seeds that I've saved or I've been given from other people's dahlias or I've bought from somewhere and I planted all of these in April so they're doing really well and you get surprises, it's very exciting.
23:46So this one, it's that sort of corally peachy colour which I absolutely love and it's got this extra double layer of petals.
23:55I mean it's extraordinary, I don't think I've seen anything like this.
24:04So as well as growing dahlias in the field and in the experiment beds, I grow them in the borders in the garden and this is totally tangerine which is a gorgeous anemone.
24:14I mean just look at the shape of that, isn't that just amazing? Absolutely lovely.
24:18And this one, you can see here, there's a little bit too much going on on this stem and rather than having what, I mean I think about seven or eight slightly weedy looking flowers, I would rather this bud here, take these little buds off, take these little buds off.
24:37I think I'm going to take all of that off in fact, but I might take all of that off.
24:41And then you see this stem has now just got three buds to focus on, so it will be a better stem and it will have better flowers.
24:53These are my thumbnails, every week I probably disbud 10,000 little tiny buds off the dahlias and I can't get the colour of the sap out from under my nails and so I will probably look like this till Christmas.
25:11You want to pick the dahlias at just about the right time to get the most out of it because I think you'll get a good four to five days in the vase if you look after a dahlias and so we'll pick it when it's about two thirds open, so I will either pick first thing in the morning or in the evening and then I'll leave them in buckets of cold water in a cool dark place to condition because then they can get fully hydrated and then you really will get the best out of them.
25:41Aren't they just beautiful and to think that these all come from something that looks like a grubby little potato.
25:51I mean, they're just exquisite.
25:52All plants have people that love them dearly but some plants seem to attract a sort of extra depth of passion and interest, not to say sometimes obsession.
26:20I think dahlias are one of them.
26:22Now, I love dahlias and I've got quite a few but at this time of year it's time to get out the ones that you stored or if you're buying dahlias, now's the time to do certain things because it's too early to plant them.
26:35The risk of frost is too great but what you can do and what we do is pot them up and they will grow and soon as the last frost has gone you can plant them out and you will get flowering dahlias two, three, sometimes even four weeks earlier than those that are already in the ground.
26:51This is one that's called Verones Obsidian also sold as Honka Black and the reason why they're called that is because they're such a dark burgundy that they look black with quite thin petals and a bright egg yolk yellow centre.
27:05They're really dramatic and you can see a really good set of tubers check them to see that there are no damaged tubers when you buy them or if you're in store make sure there are none rotten and they should feel plump and firm.
27:21I mean that is really good, I'm very happy with that, masses of tubers.
27:26Now at this stage get a pot, obviously old pots recycled, put a little bit of compost in the bottom, doesn't need too much, it's not going to be in the pot for terribly long.
27:42Place the tubers in it like that, you don't need a great big pot, just an inch or so around the outside is plenty.
27:50And do it so that the top is just a bit below the surface and then pack compost around it.
28:00And don't use old compost, it needs to be fresh peat free compost.
28:04It doesn't matter if the tubers are near the top, whereas when you're planting them outside you want them to be deeper than that.
28:11Label it.
28:13I will put this either in a corner of the greenhouse or a cold frame is fine.
28:20Anywhere that's frost free and light and a windowsill obviously would do the job.
28:24Let it grow and then as soon as the frost are passed outside I'm going to have these flowering good few weeks earlier than those already in the ground.
28:34Now, still to come on today's programme.
28:37Frances visits a community garden in Bradford specialising in bringing people together.
28:43It is really important that we have things like this where people can come in, spend time learning about gardening and they can also spend time learning about cooking and about health and nutrition.
28:53Some of it is about the companionship and the working together.
28:57Yeah.
28:58And we visit a gardener who has squeezed 35 trees into his back garden.
29:04I do have a bit of an obsession.
29:07I've probably got a few too many for a garden this size.
29:10We've had to bring in a one in or a one out policy.
29:14He sometimes sneaks trees in without me noticing or he thinks I don't notice but I always do.
29:21That'll do.
29:39I'm preparing this piece of ground to sow broad beans.
29:42Now, broad beans are one of the very few seeds that will germinate when the temperatures are quite low.
29:48If you're not sure which vegetables to sow early in the year or if the ground is wet and cold, broad beans are a good bet.
29:55There are many, many different varieties and if you're sowing earlier, then aquedultery will certainly be a good bet.
30:01I've also got a red bean, which is very decorative when you pick it, but I love the crimson flowered ones.
30:09So, I'm going to stick with the crimson flowers for the moment and I'll sow these later for succession.
30:14So, prepare the ground, getting a nice tilt.
30:17I've added quite a lot of compost already. I did that about a month ago.
30:21Just as a mulch. Didn't dig it in.
30:24So, I use a board for my spacing. Just a straight scaffolding plank and that's a good width for a double row.
30:39A double row always works best for me and in principle, each seed, therefore each plant, wants to be placed about six to nine inches apart.
30:51Now, what I'll do is I'll place them and just push them into the ground.
30:56There's something very meditative about systematically and rhythmically sowing vegetables outside with the soil.
31:22Where they're going to grow, a robin singing and blackbirds, is incredibly, for me, incredibly healing.
31:31It's restorative. It creates a sort of foundation of, I suppose, happiness.
31:38Well, you know, joy. Simply from sowing broad bean.
31:43For the second row, you do need to leave room to get in there and harvest them.
32:06So, what I do is flip. One, two, and then three.
32:12And that's going to be a very dirty board if I do that. So, I'm going to slide it over like that.
32:16So, I've got that much space between them.
32:18And actually, one way of using that space, which will otherwise be wasted, is you can sow a line of radish down in between them.
32:25Or maybe plant some lettuce if you've got some little lettuce plants that have been growing on.
32:29Because those you can harvest before you need to get in there and walk all over it to pick the beans.
32:35I'll put another row in here.
32:37And, of course, as part of the rotation of vegetables, the first plant to go in a freshly composted plot are legumes.
32:45That includes beans of all kinds and peas.
32:48And they fix nitrogen from the air, so they're adding goodness to the soil.
32:53And they should be followed by brassicas.
32:56And that, of course, includes all types of cabbage and kale and Brussels sprouts.
33:01And they really like nitrogen.
33:03And then, after that, you follow the brassicas with the carrot family.
33:08That's parsnip, celery, parsley, carrots, which don't like fresh compost or manure.
33:16The crucial thing is try to avoid growing the same thing on the same piece of ground,
33:22certainly for more than two years, and ideally not in successive years,
33:26because you're avoiding a build-up of any kind of disease.
33:29Keep moving things on.
33:39I've said how important growing vegetables is to me, promoting a sense of well-being.
33:45And Francis went to visit a project in Bradford, this year's UK City of Culture,
33:52where they are promoting that healing and well-being through the raising and growing of superb vegetables.
34:02Tucked away in a public park near Bradford City Centre is Wipsy Community Garden.
34:19Established in 2013.
34:21In 2017, it was revamped and run as a new charity.
34:27A team of volunteers ensures the 2.6-acre site is able to keep up a supply of delicious produce for the local community.
34:36And the huge amount of fresh fruit and veg grown here is in constant demand.
34:43First impressions, there are two things I notice here immediately.
34:47Number one, it is absolutely full of growing.
34:50There are three polytunnels, there's an orchard soft fruit area, there's an apiary,
34:56and there are so many raised beds all crammed with vegetables and salads.
35:00But the second thing that I notice is that the atmosphere here is so warm and so welcoming.
35:06Much of the produce grown is sold on site, but today they are preparing an order from a local grocery store.
35:16An extra challenge for Dan Thistlewood, who's in charge of the panoply of fruit and veg grown here.
35:27Hi Dan. Morning.
35:28You're picking for the order, are you?
35:30I am, I am. I've got two kilos of salad to pick this morning.
35:33Oh, excellent. I mean, I can give you a hand. I haven't got snips, so I'll just do it nice and slowly.
35:36No, you're fine, you're fine.
35:38And you're in charge of growing all the produce here?
35:40Yes, this year, yeah. Yeah, we've got three polytunnels and about 150 beds.
35:45So yeah, we need to keep on a good rotation, but we've got all sorts of different fruits and veggies going on at any given time.
35:50And how do you guarantee there's always something growing?
35:53So, my main method is to over-sow. At any given time, I've got five or six beds of salad in the ground.
35:59I've got three or four module trays up there of seedlings on the go.
36:03I've got salad in the ground that is just freshly picked.
36:06So this is only, I think, the second week we're picking this one.
36:08So how do you pick your varieties? Is it sort of like the pious yield or the most dependable ones?
36:15We are very much a make-do-amend kind of site.
36:18I inherited a fridge full of seeds, so I'm basically going with what's there.
36:22I'm not particularly worried about sow dates or best before years.
36:25The majority of these seeds were well out of date when we planted them, and they're making some beautiful crops.
36:29And obviously part of your job is growing veg, but a big part of your job is kind of looking after the people who come here as well, isn't it?
36:35Yes, yeah. I mean, we have people from about three or four years old up to about 83, 84 years old.
36:40We've got all different walks of life. We've got all different cultures, all different religions.
36:44We've got a lot of people that I think otherwise wouldn't even talk to each other on the street.
36:48They come in here and we all work as one big happy family, really.
36:53This is a garden that actively welcomes anybody and everybody,
36:58which means you never know exactly who you'll find on any given day.
37:03Behind one of the polytunnels, volunteers Shaheen, Derek and Carol are preparing beds for the next crop.
37:10How long have you been coming here?
37:13I've been coming here for about one and a half years.
37:16Right. And you enjoy it, presumably?
37:18Oh, I love it here. It's absolutely lovely.
37:20Everybody's so friendly.
37:22You know, you're socialising as well, really, because you're making friends when you're here.
37:26And you're learning lots of things, because whatever I learn from here, I go home and I do it in the garden.
37:31Yeah. Bradford's obviously a really diverse city, but do you think that having everyone in a garden like this in one place helps to build the community in it?
37:39It does. It definitely does.
37:41It definitely does.
37:42Yeah, it does.
37:43Meet different people, don't you?
37:44And I think, yeah.
37:45Yeah, it's...
37:46Different cultures.
37:47Different cultures.
37:48We learn about each other's cultures, like we had a pakora day here.
37:50Yeah.
37:51That was amazing.
37:52Didn't it?
37:53That was really nice, wasn't it?
37:54We made apple crumble.
37:55Apple crumble.
37:56Yeah, yeah.
37:57That's two together.
37:58Shows that you can do it.
37:59Yes.
38:00It can happen.
38:01Yes.
38:02And you can live together in harmony.
38:03I must have been missed out on the apple crumble, you know.
38:05You missed out on the apple crumble?
38:06Did you?
38:07Yeah.
38:08Nobody saved you any.
38:09Nobody told me.
38:10Yeah.
38:11Well, I hope you had some of the ginger cake that's floating around today.
38:13I will be.
38:14I will be.
38:15Good, because that's delicious.
38:17One person with no time for the delights of ginger cake is manager Jen White.
38:22Busy in the kitchen, making sure today's order is ready on time.
38:28So, tell me about this place.
38:30You're clearly producing lots and lots of vegetables.
38:33We do.
38:34Tuesdays are hectic morning.
38:36And how many people from the community kind of come and use this space?
38:40We're actually really popular and there's hundreds of people.
38:43We've got 40 active volunteers who come every week and contribute the time.
38:47We're in the middle of Bradford.
38:49It's quite shocking to think that because it's a little oasis.
38:52But within Bradford, there is a high level of poverty
38:54and people do struggle to find healthy foods for themselves and their families.
38:58So, it is really important that we have things like this where people can come in,
39:02spend time learning about gardening,
39:04and they can also spend time learning about cooking and about health and nutrition.
39:07Some of it is about the companionship.
39:09Yes.
39:10And the working together.
39:11Yeah.
39:12Outside, volunteers Brian, Daz and Rebecca are planning for the longer term,
39:20operating a fairly unusual looking piece of equipment used for sieving soil and compost.
39:25As you can see, the thinner stuff is falling through the finer mesh.
39:35The bigger stuff that we don't want in with a normal soil is going through at the bottom.
39:39And that's your difference in the two.
39:42Oh yes, look at them.
39:44Yeah, that's brilliant.
39:46It's quite a contraption, this.
39:48It's so much quicker and so much easier than the classic sieve where you're doing it by hand.
39:54When I came here, that's what they were doing.
39:56So, found them cycle wheels in one of the sheds down there.
39:59We knew we had the mesh.
40:00Right.
40:01These are some old greenhouse parts.
40:02Oh yes, yes.
40:04And cost what to make?
40:05Um...
40:06Zero.
40:07The morning.
40:08A couple of cups of coffee in the morning.
40:10A lot of coffee.
40:11I'd say that's a bargain.
40:12A lot of coffee.
40:13So, when did you first start coming here?
40:16I started, um, just over a year and a bit ago.
40:20I had a...
40:22Well, I had three heart attacks.
40:24I was in hospital for 11 days.
40:26Came out, tidied a lot of the things out of my garden shed and various other things,
40:31thinking, well, you know, this is...
40:33Got to be careful now.
40:34Looked for somebody to give it to, because I had all sorts of spades, shovels, you name it.
40:39Mm-hmm.
40:40Found this place, rang them up.
40:42I did, literally.
40:43A couple of days later, I came up, had a look.
40:45I explained to them that I couldn't be walking up and down the sites.
40:48I can't dig.
40:49I couldn't do anything like that.
40:50But certainly, helping them out, you know, repairing things.
40:53Yes, I could do that.
40:55Daz is a grafter.
40:56You know, he's the type.
40:57So, between us, I could say, right, I need to do this.
41:00Yeah.
41:01Daz would be there with me.
41:03So, this place has changed your life, really?
41:05Oh, completely.
41:06It's like another world.
41:07Yeah.
41:08I can see.
41:09You just escape reality and just come here and it's just like it's...
41:11You know, it is like utopia in a lot of ways.
41:14Yeah.
41:15It's just nothing out there can bother you.
41:17You're just here at peace.
41:19Lovely.
41:20Lovely.
41:21Yeah.
41:22Just get on with it.
41:23We get so used nowadays to hearing people say that gardening is good for you.
41:34It's good for your mental health.
41:35It's good for your physical health.
41:37But you come to a garden like this and you speak to the people here and they actually use
41:41the words, this garden has changed my life.
41:44And suddenly it brings home how we shouldn't take that for granted.
41:48It's so important.
41:49It can really change the way that we are and bring whole communities together.
41:54We should never underestimate the power that a garden can have.
42:21I think France's point is a really good one because we know now that there are lots of
42:27community projects and they're all doing good work.
42:30But for the individuals involved, they're the only project.
42:33And their transformative effect is really profound.
42:37And that's what's to be celebrated.
42:40Now, this is the long walk.
42:44This is a long strip between the busyness of the cottage garden and the intensity of the jewel garden.
42:51It's a breathing space.
42:52But for the last 10 years, we've had box cones with alcamilla mollis running either side of the path that went all the way down.
43:00But then box blight devastated the cones.
43:03And last year, we dug them all up, put in drainage and made what we wanted to be a lawn.
43:09And the idea was my grandchildren could come here and run up and down and ride their bikes and kick a ball and generally muck about and play.
43:17But you can see part of it hasn't endured well over winter.
43:22Compaction, shade and too much water has really caused problem.
43:28So I've got a machine here that will help out.
43:31It's an aerator and you can hire it and it will take out plugs of soil, spread those plugs on the ground.
43:39That will let oxygen in and also loosen the soil.
43:43So, let's get this machine going.
44:09You can see it's pretty dramatic and very effective.
44:16It's pulling up lumps of soil.
44:19They look like goose droppings.
44:22But these little plugs of soil that it's taking out, if you can crumble them between your fingers,
44:30all you need to do is brush over the whole thing or use a wire rake and that will even them out and break them up and they'll go back down into the holes.
44:37If, like these, you squeeze them between your fingers and they just mould, a bit like plasticine,
44:44then you need to let them dry out.
44:46Leave them on the surface, daylight today, may even just be a few hours.
44:49But now is the best time of year to do this.
44:52And if you can't get a machine, this is only the second time in my life I've used one of these machines,
44:56just get a fork and work it in.
44:58But that is hard work and you do need to really go as deep as you possibly can.
45:03Either way, just remember the three tenets of really good grass.
45:08Sunshine, water and drainage.
45:12And probably drainage is the most important of the lot.
45:16Now I can top dress the lawn using a seed mix,
45:20but I am going to wait until the overnight temperatures warm up a little bit and then the seeds will germinate.
45:26We're going now across to the other side of the country to join Nick Phillips and his family in their garden near Cambridge.
45:34And I know that grass is not very high up on Nick's gardening priorities.
45:41I have to say, having a garden where we can just get outside, enjoy the fresh air, enjoy the wildlife,
45:51has been really, really vital for us as a family.
45:55We're very, very lucky to have this space.
45:58My name's Nick. Welcome to our garden in Cambridgeshire.
46:03I live here with my wife Hannah and our baby Max who's five months old.
46:12We moved here about three years ago.
46:15The entire area was covered in weed suppressant membrane and about a foot of gravel.
46:21I started peeling back some of the membrane and it was like a bit of an archaeological dig.
46:26You could see there was a garden here before.
46:33This is the drought resilient part of our garden and we've got really, really difficult conditions.
46:40We're in Cambridgeshire, which is one of the driest parts of the country and it gets absolutely baked.
46:46But also, to add to the challenge, we're on really heavy, deep clay
46:51and that gets super wet and waterlogged during the winter.
46:55We had to choose plants that were really robust and resilient to all those different conditions.
47:00One of my absolute favourites, though, has to be the Olympic Mullane, which is behind me,
47:04which is such a majestic plant.
47:07It starts one year relatively low to the ground and then the next year it sends up this huge flower spike.
47:12It flowers for many months. It's just going over now.
47:16But even when it's finished flowering, it's hugely architectural, looks great all through winter
47:22and is a really, really good food plant for lots of different wildlife.
47:25So, yeah, I really love that plant.
47:27So, I do have a bit of an obsession and that is trees and I absolutely love planting trees.
47:38I've probably got a few too many for a garden this size.
47:41I've got about 30 or 35 different trees. I've lost count, to be honest.
47:47I've got pomegranate. I've got spindle tree. I've got Persian ironwood.
47:54A dawn redwood. Cherry tree. A persimmon tree.
48:00A small tree called Salix magnifica, which has amazing, beautiful leaves.
48:05I've got wedding cake tree. Gosh, the list. I've got many more.
48:11I don't remember what else I've got.
48:14Oh, yeah, I forgot a few in the back, but yeah.
48:19We've had to bring in a one-in or a one-out policy.
48:23He sometimes sneaks trees in without me noticing, or he thinks I don't notice,
48:29but I always do.
48:32Probably not my finest moment, but when I sneaked in some extra trees
48:35when my wife was on a hen do.
48:37I was coming back from my hen party and then, as I arrived back,
48:42I saw Nick sneaking round the corner carrying a large pot,
48:45which contained the crabapple tree.
48:48So, yeah, always managing to just squeeze another one in there,
48:51if at all possible.
48:52Our garden is about 40 metres long by 15 metres wide.
48:59From a tree point of view, that might seem not particularly big,
49:03so we've really had to think about lots of different techniques
49:07we can use to try and bring trees into the garden.
49:10So this is what's known as a pillar apple tree, or column apple tree.
49:17And basically what that means is it grows vertically up,
49:20doesn't get very big, and all the fruit are just around the main trunk.
49:24So this will only grow maximum of about another metre,
49:27and this is as wide as it's going to get.
49:29You don't get as many apples on them, obviously,
49:32but you can grow a wide variety of different types
49:36in a very, very small area.
49:42One of my methods to get more trees into the garden
49:45is to buy dwarf cultivars.
49:47So these are trees which don't get very big at their adult height.
49:51And we've got two here.
49:52We've got ginkgo, and we've also got a katsura tree called global.
49:57And both of these, the normal species, could get bigger than 30 metres.
50:01Huge, far too big for this garden.
50:04But these will barely get bigger than they are now.
50:07So you can have them in your borders,
50:09you can have them on your patio,
50:11you can incorporate them anywhere.
50:13The thing I love about the ginkgo,
50:15firstly it's called troll, which I think is a really, really cool name.
50:18But also when Max is a bit older,
50:20I want to be able to tell him about how this tree was around in the dinosaur's time.
50:23If you're planning to get a dwarf cultivar tree like these,
50:27because they're smaller, they often have smaller roots,
50:30which means you do need to really keep on top of things like watering.
50:33And they love nothing better than a good annual mulch every spring,
50:37which helps really keep the moisture in and gives them some nutrients as well.
50:50This is another technique you can use to get more trees into your garden.
50:55So these are Himalayan birch,
50:59and I absolutely love these trees.
51:01They have the most amazing trunks.
51:03And what I've done here is I've planted three trees really close together.
51:08And that does mean that they will actually compete with each other,
51:11which might sound a bit strange,
51:13but the great thing about that is it restricts the height of all three.
51:17So you can have a fantastic tree species in a small space,
51:21and it also looks like a multi-stem tree, which is quite expensive.
51:25So it's not only cheap,
51:27but it's also a great way to get more trees into your garden.
51:34Just behind me here is an example of a really good, impactful tree for a small space.
51:39It's probably my favourite tree in the world, certainly my favourite tree in the garden.
51:44It's called a paperbark maple.
51:46And this one's only a youngster.
51:48So it's only about two and a half years old.
51:52Paperbark maples have so many seasons of interest.
51:55So you've got fantastic autumn colour.
51:58When the leaves come out in the spring, they're really, really vibrant.
52:01And it has this, one of the best things about it,
52:03is this peeling bark, which is this really unique feature.
52:06And it just looks stunning, even in the winter.
52:11What we're really hoping is the garden will evolve over time.
52:15And one of the things which is so important is shade,
52:18and something to keep you cool.
52:20And trees are just brilliant for that,
52:22because they not only provide shade,
52:24but they actually cool the air around you by evaporating water off their leaves.
52:28So it's one of the best things you can include in your garden
52:31if you really want to create somewhere that you can enjoy all year round.
52:36Nick's done an amazing job on the garden.
52:39It's just been really wonderful to see how the garden has changed,
52:42and to see it come to life, really, in such a short space of time.
52:47I'm really hoping that we leave a bit of a legacy in this garden.
52:54I mean, trees are a bit like keepers of time.
52:56You know, they'll be seeing things, you know, in over centuries.
53:00And so I'm just really excited by the huge number of trees we've got in this garden,
53:04and we'll leave, effectively, a little mini forest garden.
53:08I'm super passionate about including trees in the garden,
53:11and I encourage everybody to do so.
53:12I think Mick is completely correct in saying that every garden can have at least one tree.
53:26The only thing I would say is just find out the mature size of the tree that you're planting.
53:45And if, when it's mature, which might be in a hundred years' time,
53:49it's too big for the garden, then think twice.
53:51So, for example, this is a wild cherry, a gin.
53:55And if I had my time again, I would never plant this,
53:58because they cast a big shade, they suck up all the moisture, they drop branches.
54:03But there are lots of smaller trees that are wonderful.
54:07Aces and crab apples and hawthorns and so many,
54:10and, of course, you can prune and shape.
54:12So don't be put off planting trees.
54:14Just bear in mind that some of them grow very big indeed.
54:21Now, here are your jobs for the weekend.
54:33If you're growing tomatoes this year and you sowed the seed earlier,
54:39they should now be ready to prick out.
54:42When they have a true leaf,
54:43it's time to give each seedling its own individual growing unit.
54:47Hold it by a leaf, never by the stem,
54:50because if the leaf breaks, at least that can be replaced.
54:53Take as much root per plant as you possibly can,
54:57and then carefully put them into an individual pot or plug.
55:02And then water them, put them somewhere warm and sunny,
55:06so they can grow on in the coming weeks into nice, sturdy young plants.
55:19Hydrangea paniculatus, like the limelight,
55:22produce their flowers on new growth.
55:26This means they can be pruned as hard as you like at this time of year,
55:30and they will still flower.
55:32I prune back to a framework,
55:35removing any damaged old or crossing branches while I'm about it.
55:39And this will provoke the new shoots that will carry their flowers in the summer.
55:44Lace caps and mop heads produce their flowers on previous year's growth,
55:49so shouldn't be pruned so hard.
55:51And if you're not sure which is which, best not to prune at all.
56:03If, like me, you've been storing your pelargoniums over winter to protect them,
56:07now is the time to take them out, look them over and cut them back.
56:11And don't be frightened to do this hard, because that will produce lots of new shoots
56:15that will carry a really good display.
56:18If they already have fresh shoots, these can be kept for cuttings.
56:23Pop them in a jar of water.
56:25Very often they'll root in that and then can be potted on.
56:28Or can be potted on into a very free-draining compost,
56:32and then they can root.
56:50In a way, what I'm doing now is an extension of the revamp of the Jewel Garden,
56:54because having cleared the grass borders and cut them back,
56:57it's a little bit early to be adding any new grasses or dividing any that we've got.
57:01And I've taken out quite a lot of Iris Sibirica from the Jewel Garden.
57:05Iris Sibirica has got grass-like foliage and wonderful sapphire blue flowers.
57:10And Iris Sibirica loves this garden,
57:13because it likes fundamentally damp conditions,
57:16whereas the bearded irises we really struggle with.
57:20But they only flower for ten days, two weeks, in May and very early June,
57:25and then that's it, and you have a lot of foliage.
57:28And the foliage looks great in here, but not so good in the Jewel Garden.
57:34They need to be fairly near the front, because the grasses grow very big,
57:38and they'll crowd the mouth otherwise.
57:40Now, look at this. Look at that.
57:44That, for the uninitiated, is bindweed.
57:50This is one of the worst weeds you can have in the garden,
57:53because every tiny little bit of root, and it's very brittle,
57:58you can just snap it easily in your fingers, makes a new plant,
58:02and it gets in amongst the roots of other plants,
58:05and can become like a great mass of spaghetti.
58:08What we tend to do is put these on the bonfire and burn them.
58:11But we have got bindweed in here, so now also, if I come across it,
58:15a really good time to dig it out there.
58:17Well, that's it. All we've got time for today.
58:20But before we go, just to remind you that on Sunday,
58:24one o'clock in the morning, the clocks go forward,
58:27so we get another hour of glorious evening sunshine in Wishter Garden.
58:33And I will see you back here at Longmeadow next Friday at eight o'clock.
58:38So until then, bye-bye.
58:40Bye-bye.
59:10Bye-bye.
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