Original subtitles

BIRDSONG

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World.

Don't you love the weather?

Last week I was talking to you,

the sun on my back, and it was glorious.

But we have had the most horrendous downpours

and it's just flattened an awful lot of things.

This rose, Munstead Wood, has been performing beautifully

and the scent is incredible,

but that rain has really battered things.

So what I'm going to try

and do here is just give it a little bit of support.

I'm going to wedge a cane just under that strong stem and then I'm

going to tie it in,

and that will just help it through the next few weeks.

This time of year is all about going out, deadheading, keeping

an eye on things just to get the best out of your garden.

It's that morning walk round with a cup of tea,

is when you see what's been going on overnight.

Coming up on today's programme...

Nick explores a vast collection of ferns at Kew Gardens

to discover more about these mysterious Jurassic plants.

This extraordinary Angiopteris is one of the plants that was

clearly around during the time of the dinosaurs.

You can just imagine Triceratops making its way through this

mass of huge foliage.

Down in Brighton, we catch up with Kate Bradbury in her wildlife

friendly garden and discover her unique recipe for hanging baskets.

It's a bit of an experiment.

I've got a bit of red clover in the middle,

and then tucked into the sides here I've got bird's-foot-trefoil

which I'm hoping will just drape down like big curtains.

And I will be making a window box with a little bit of a difference.

So, the first job I want to crack on with today is getting some

height in the back of this border.

But remember last week,

I was adding height to a sunny part of the garden.

This is a lot more shady.

When you talk to people about shade and planting in shade,

it can be a little bit confusing.

I'm going to classify this as partial shade.

The sun comes up in the morning

and it gets a decent little dowsing then, it'll always be dappled

so through the day it's going to get little glimpses of sun.

So the next thing is the soil.

You might think because here, you know, big trees behind me and it's a

reasonably shaded area that it's going to be dry, but no, it's not.

It's at the bottom of a slope and the soil tends to hold

the moisture pretty well throughout the year.

But then when it comes to choosing plants,

how do we get that little bit more out of that planting?

So if you look at what's in front of me, first of all I've got

aruncus, lovely flower now, but quite an interesting leaf shape.

Coming in front of me, Gillenia,

interesting leaf shape, but look at the stem colour.

And then if we come across, and this one is a bit of a mouthful,

it's called Kirengeshoma, but look at the leaf shape.

But also, look at the stem colour. Different again.

That, by the way, has got this beautiful yellow flower,

and it's sort of bell-shaped.

Now, if we move back to the Gillenia, look at the flower shape.

It's just different from the kirengeshoma.

And then over there, the aruncus is different again, it's feathery.

And that for me is how you add extra details and interest to your garden.

So the first plant I want to put in is this Thalictrum,

and it's called flavum glaucum.

And you can see that leaf shape is different.

Flower wise, it's a really nice soft yellow.

So that will get to one metre, 1.5 metres,

depending on the conditions of your garden.

I'm going to leave the cane in this year with this plant because it is

one of those plants that, if I take that cane out, you can guarantee,

especially with the variable weather,

that it'll end up getting snapped.

Next year it will clump up,

and it will be a really strong plant that might not even need support.

Coming across to the next one, so this is Patrinia,

and it's called punctiflora.

It grows to about, again, one, 1.5, depending on conditions.

Lovely yellow head.

This'll grow quite happily in deeper shade than I've got here.

And the same soil conditions.

So, there you go.

Let's get that in there.

Get this last one in.

So the last one is called Actea yesoensis.

Beautiful foliage plant.

It's a smaller version in a lot of ways of the aruncus, but that'll

give me a nice repeated pattern through the back of the border.

Height wise, it's going to get up to a good 1.2 metres plus.

Flower, a lovely sort of white.

But it's got a berry that follows on.

I think the last thing with any herbaceous perennial is how

is it going to see the season out?

Is it going to sort of die gracefully,

will it hold its form all the way through the winter months?

And if it will and you've got, you know, a smaller garden and you're

trying to get that much more out of it, then ask that question.

So let's get this last one in the ground.

All I've got to do now is give those a really good

watering in, that will settle the soil around the roots

and they'll be away and I can enjoy them for the rest of the year.

Now, we're going to find out a little bit more about a plant that

is well and truly happy in shady conditions, and that's ferns.

Nick has gone to Kew Gardens to look at their collection.

Brits have had a fascination with ferns ever

since those early Victorian plant hunters started bringing them

back from exotic climes.

Now this, coupled with the fact that as a nation we started to embrace

our own native ferns, led to fern fever,

and it's just as prominent in our homes and gardens today.

Ferns are an incredibly diverse group of plants from a wide range of

environments with an endless variety of leaf shapes and patterns.

They add an understated elegance

whether used alone or to enhance other plants.

There are over 10,000 species of ferns in existence across the world.

This is maidenhair fern, it makes a fabulous house plant.

And one of the reasons it gets that name is

because it has these superfine almost hairlike stems.

So if you look at the plant from a distance,

it almost appears as though the leaves are floating.

Now, it comes from South America which means it needs to

stay at least +5, which means it's ideal as a house plant

and it particularly likes to be in quite high humidity, so it

will work well for a bathroom or the like,

where it can be in indirect light.

If you want to up the ante, then it might be worth considering

growing its big brother.

And here it is, over here.

This is Adiantum trapeziforme

and it is about five times the size,

but what makes it truly special is the new leaves that have this

beautiful sort of salmon quality to them as they emerge.

Now, it likes similar conditions to its little brother,

but you're going to need quite a big bathroom.

This is Oceaniopteris gibba.

It's one of the very best tropical ferns.

It comes from Fiji and it's a relative baby

compared to other tree ferns.

It'll go up to about 1.5 metres high.

Now, of course, coming from the tropics means

that it needs an absolute minimum of 15 degrees,

so it's ideal for a conservatory

that you keep sort of high levels of moisture in.

Now, in terms of keeping it happy,

it wants to be in a fairly dappled shade,

it needs a quite acidic soil

and in terms of the compost that you use,

something like a well composted bark would work extremely well.

And for me, the thing that makes it really special,

really beautiful, is these unfurling crosiers,

having this beautiful sort of peach-flesh tone to them.

What a lovely exotic fern.

Bringing newly discovered ferns back to the UK was a delicate

and often frustrating task for early plant hunters,

who couldn't always ensure their survival.

The invention of Dr Ward's ingenious Wardian case was a breakthrough.

This glazed box, or mini glasshouse provided enough essential light

and humidity for plants to survive many months on long journeys,

and for ferns in particular,

it protected them from the salt-laden winds

they'd experience at sea.

It also gave botanists clues on how to cultivate fern species

and enable them to flourish in giant glasshouses like this one.

So, Alice, we're surrounded by these fabulous ferns,

such range and diversity.

They're one of the most ancient plants, aren't they?

Yes, so ferns evolved about 400 million years ago,

so well before flowering plants.

So they were around at the time of the dinosaurs.

They were around in time of the dinosaurs

in some different forms, yeah. Amazing.

And just looking at the range here,

they do have certain commonalities, don't they?

Because, of course, they don't produce a seed.

No, so they reproduce from spores on their sori,

on the underside of the fronds and the spores come out of there.

I mean, this patternation is beautiful,

but this is literally it getting ready to propagate itself. Yep.

The spores are being produced in these little bodies on the

back of the leaf and they basically float out into the atmosphere.

They need to then land in a pretty moist environment

and then they go through the most extraordinary

and complex life cycle in order

to produce a brand-new little baby fern.

When it comes to propagating,

either hardy ferns or the tropical ferns that we grow as house plants,

there's a lot more straightforward techniques that you can use.

Some ferns like woodwardias will make a bulbil

on the underside of the frond,

which sort of weighs down the tip of the plant

and then they'll then root out and sort of make another plant.

And then they sort of travel around like that. So they leapfrog along.

So it's almost like stolons in a strawberry... Yes.

..that it can sort of, you know, make its way across the landscape.

Yes.

If you think about some of our hardy ferns,

things like the shuttlecock fern,

that's very simple to deal with in spring. It's just a case of

digging up a complete plantlet and moving it elsewhere in the garden.

It would be very easy to assume that ferns all come from cool, damp

forest situations, but of course, their distribution is global.

And this, down here, comes from tropical Africa.

And it's called Pteris dentata

and the reason for its name refers to these particularly dentate

or marked leaves,

which have got that lovely tooth-like quality to them.

Now, for me,

what makes it special as a fern is it has this very, very

light limey colour to it, which is a beautiful contrast to other ferns.

And an added bonus is it keeps producing leaves all the way

through the year, so it's got that lovely freshness.

Now, in terms of growing it at home, it's a tropical fern,

so it needs to stay plus ten.

It'll very happily grow in a cool conservatory,

and like most other ferns,

if you mist it once a day, you'll keep it a very happy.

This extraordinary Angiopteris is one of the plants

that was clearly around during the time of the dinosaurs.

You can just imagine Triceratops making its way through this

mass of huge foliage.

Now, it's a plant that comes from Madagascar,

but it's also spread across, through to the South Pacific islands,

and there are two things that make it truly extraordinary.

First of all, these fronds, these leaves, will go up to 8m long,

so it's truly, truly vast.

And secondly, it has the most extraordinary

spore distribution technique.

And the spores actually explode off the back of the leaves.

The other thing that I love about this plant is the base of it.

Look at these, they literally look like dinosaur feet.

Ferns are adapted to such a wide range of environments

that there's sure to be one which will thrive in your home.

I think what blows my mind about ferns is to think that

some of those plants were around

when dinosaurs were walking the Earth.

And I think Nick's right.

You'll find one that suits a lovely little shady spot in your garden.

What I'm doing here is dealing with what the wind

and the rain has done, clearing things up.

But I'm just mulching as I go through,

and I'm using composted bark and I'm putting about 40-50 mm on,

which is just shy of a couple of inches.

Because this polystichum -

and though it's quite happy in slightly drier conditions,

the soil here is not great.

So, not only will I help keep the weeds down,

keep the moisture in,

but I'll improve the soil over a period of time.

And it's a great time to do it.

Because the ground is wet after a lot of rain,

I know that I'm going to actually contain that moisture in the soil.

And now, we're off to visit the first of your gardens

and we're going to meet a viewer

that does not let anything in her garden go to waste.

Hello, my name is Haruna and this is my garden in South London, Dulwich.

One of the best things about it is this huge oak tree,

which is actually not in my garden.

It gives me masses of shelter and privacy,

there's loads of wildlife in it and I love it.

The leaves collect behind my shed

and produce an inexhaustible supply of leaf mould.

I can use it sieved to make compost

and I can use it also unsieved just as a mulch around my plants.

I garden on very heavy clay, so I need a soil conditioner

such as this to break up the soil and improve the structure.

And this is the lovely leaf mould that I'm left with.

My children are grown-up now so they no longer need the swings,

so I decided to plant a raised bed beneath the swings

and use the structure as a support for canes.

This is my front garden, and here I grow chives,

different varieties of thyme, Swiss chard, oregano, marjoram

and different varieties of sage and not forgetting the rosemary.

When you pick or rub the plants together, it releases the oils

and the smell...

SNIFFS

..is absolutely sensational.

During the lockdown, I put a sign up on the fence inviting

people to come in and take their own herbs for free.

I really hope you liked some of the ideas in my video. Goodbye.

Haruna, you look like you are creating some cracking stuff.

And I will tell anybody, if you've got the room, then actually,

creating leaf mould is fantastic.

I call it garden gold.

And talking about leaf mould and growing medium in general,

you might have read or heard in the press over the last 4-6

weeks that the Government are going to phase out the use of peat.

So, if you're used to gardening with peat

and you've been doing it for years on end,

this is now a different material that you will be working with

in the long term.

But as a gardener, can you garden without peat?

Yes, hand on heart, I think you can.

I've been doing it for a long, long time.

I've had some disasters and I've had some real successes,

but I've got myself to a place where I can happily garden without peat.

And I thought it would be interesting just to get

my hands on a few bags of different peat-free multipurpose composts

and see what they were like.

And even I was slightly blown away by the difference in them.

I put my hands in these,

straight away, you can see that these mixes are made

of different materials.

Here I can see that there is wood fibre in there,

there's even some soil.

And moving here, I can see there's a bit of horticultural sand,

composted bark.

And then here, I can see the coir in it straight away, composted bark.

But also, the texture of them is changing and I go across to the

end, here, and this is a lot coarser and there's grit in it.

But they are all multipurpose composts, which means that you

and me will go into the garden centre and we'll pick up a bag

and we'll think that it's going to do every single job.

And in reality, it doesn't always.

So if you think about seeds, to start with, well,

I'd be looking probably for a finer compost, so actually,

if I was going to choose, I'd probably go to this one.

It's quite fine and I probably won't have to sieve it.

But then, if I went across and this is what I had, well,

that's fine, I'd just sieve it through

and I'd make myself a fine seedbed.

So, for me, I'd use it as the base.

That's my starting point, that's the main medium that I'd use.

And then I'd think about it a bit like baking a cake.

I can't bake a cake just with flour,

so I have to add other ingredients.

So I've got my cupboard full of ingredients and depending on,

you know, the sponge or the chocolate brownie or whatever it is

that I want to make - yeah, I do bake a little bit - I'll add to it.

So, I've got some horticultural sand and then horticultural grit.

They all do slightly different things.

Perlite, which is basically a volcanic rock.

And then I've got topsoil.

Most of it I get in a bag.

And also composted bark. So that's my ingredients

that I start to add to my peat-free mixes.

So, first thing.

We're in the garden,

we want to pot something on and we want to keep it there longer term.

The first thing I'm going to do is just take a random

peat-free mix and we've got one pot of that.

And think about the hosta, what does it love?

Probably a decent amount of moisture around its roots.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to add, at the moment,

about half a pot of topsoil and then see what that's like.

I think, yeah, that's not too bad at all.

Now what I'm going to do is add a little bit of composted bark

and I think that'll actually help with the moisture retention.

And also, I can already feel that, you know,

it'll hold the moisture really, really well.

What I am going to do is just do another half a pot -

I hope you're writing this down -

of peat-free compost.

Let's get that in.

So now, look, we've got a nice mix

ready to go.

So now, let's take our pot...

..a little bit of mix in the bottom, there,

and I'm making sure the pot's not too big.

And then I'm just going to fill in around the sides.

But you can see I'm thinking about the plant

and I'm thinking about the conditions

that it might want to be in in the long term.

So that's potting up.

Another thing we do at this time of year is taking cuttings.

For cuttings, in reality, I want to keep it nice and open.

So I might possibly go to gravel, but I don't now,

I tend to use perlite.

We use about 60-40, so about 40% of the perlite.

And it might sound like a lot,

but I'm going to keep this nice and open.

And to test it, once I've done...

..squeeze and it falls open.

I know now that will be nice and open

and the roots will get going quickly.

So, there you go, that's just a couple of jobs that you might

do in the garden and how I would use peat-free to do it.

And it is just my take.

What I do know is over the last 30 years,

using peat-free hasn't really affected what I get from my garden.

And now, we are going to catch up with wildlife gardener

Kate Bradbury in her own garden, showing us

exactly what we can do at this time of year to encourage wildlife.

When our gardens start buzzing,

it's so satisfying knowing we're providing good food and homes

for the insects.

But when I built my pond, my dream was for newts, toads and frogs.

Frogs are the next layer up in the food chain

and definitely a gardener's friend.

They breed in ponds and will sniff out a new one to see if it suits.

And guess what? The frogs found my pond for the first time this spring

and laid masses and masses of frogspawn.

And now, my pond is full of tadpoles.

Eggs and tadpoles make great food for other species,

so only about one in 50 grows into a froglet.

And when the froglets emerge from the pond in midsummer,

they need damp, dark habitat to shelter from predators,

which is why I've made them this log pile, which is

less than 2m away from the pond.

But then, when they're in the garden,

they in turn eat loads of pests and other beasties, like small slugs

and snails, flying insects and beetles.

So it's a win-win situation for the frogs and the gardeners.

I fringed the end of the pond with plants like crane's-bill

to give the froglets cover as they clamber out.

But I'm hoping this water forget-me-not and brooklime

will also attract new visitors.

The reason they're here is because newts use them to lay their eggs.

Unlike frogs and toads, newts lay eggs individually and they fold

them into the leaves of plants like brooklime and water forget-me-not.

So I've planted in the hope that I can attract newts

to come to the garden.

They're not here yet, but just like the frogs,

if you build it, they'll come.

And when they do come, I'll know they're here,

because the leaves of these plants will be folded over -

each one of them containing a little newt egg.

As most amphibians walk into your garden, the more gaps under

gates or holes in walls you can give them, the happier they'll be.

In a little garden, providing homes

and food all year can be a challenge, but there are tricks.

This pulmonaria has been feeding bees in the spring.

But now it's gone over and, by cutting it back,

I can fit in new pollinating plants.

So this is poached egg plant.

It's an annual with white and yellow flowers -

absolutely beloved of solitary bees.

I'm going to plant a few just around the pulmonaria here.

It's going to fluff up, it's going to flower,

it's going to provide loads of nectar and pollen and then,

when the pulmonaria needs the space back,

these will have gone over and I can just whip them out.

I grow loads of these. They're really easy to grow from seed.

They're so useful for bees and I can just dot them

around whenever there's a space that needs filling.

They'll definitely go here, too,

once I've chopped back this leggy Cerinthe, or honeywort.

And since I've built my garden, it's also inspired neighbours to

plant up theirs, so there's even more colour nearby.

It's really heartening to see

all these brilliant bee-friendly flowers in action.

As well as making more space for plants, there are ways to

provide even more flowers and, this year, I'm on a new mission.

This is a hanging basket with a twist,

because I've made it specifically for wildlife.

It's a bit of an experiment.

I've got a bit of red clover in the middle and, then,

draped around the edges, I've got more poached egg plant.

Then, tucked into the sides here, I've got bird's-foot-trefoil,

which I'm hoping will just drape down like big curtains.

This is just coming into flower now.

The poached egg plant here has got loads of buds on it.

It'll probably be in flower for between four and six weeks.

But for the bees that come after,

I'm planting up a second hanging basket with smaller plants,

which will carry the season through and provide bees with

a really good source of pollen and nectar until late summer.

Bird's-foot-trefoil is a really good all-rounder,

loved by bees and the caterpillars of the common blue butterfly.

This is red clover, which is a fantastic bee plant.

And the flowers are composite flowers and they have long

corollas, or flower tubes,

so they're perfect for long-tongued bumblebees.

So the really big, fat bumblebees you see going into foxgloves, those

are called garden bumblebees and they've got really long tongues.

And the little gingery ones are called common carders.

They're the ones that will visit the red clover - hopefully -

in my hanging basket.

And I've put it here because I'm a bit of a bee geek

and it's right next to my bee hotels.

And not only do I want to look at the bees visiting the flowers

and going straight to the bee hotel,

but I'm hoping it might attract new species, too.

First, though, I'll have a well-deserved sit down.

The most important thing I've learned since creating this

wildlife garden is that you have to take time to sit and enjoy it.

Because that's how I get to learn so much more about the wildlife

that's already here, as well as see the new species when they arrive.

Kate, I totally agree with you.

And I promise, I do actually sit down occasionally

and enjoy the garden.

But I've been thinking - if I had to pick one favourite thing

about creating this garden, it's got to be the wildlife

that comes in and enjoys this space with me.

And this is a bee hotel. It's actually mark 2.

I put one up last year, which is just along there. And I put so much

research into the mason bee and the size of the hole that you needed.

And I needed to sand it out and make sure it was clean

and it pointed the right direction.

Put it up and within two weeks, a leafcutter bee had moved in.

And I'm hoping that this gets occupied very soon.

I think us, as gardeners, we know how important the spaces

that we create are for wildlife.

But so do young people.

Also, so do BBC Radio 2, because they're running a competition

called the Big Bee Challenge.

And it's for young people from six years old to 12 to design

a garden that will encourage and provide for bees.

And the winner will have their garden built

at an NHS unit for young people. But you haven't got long.

The competition closes on Monday, the 5th of July at 6pm.

Have a look on our website. All the information is on there.

But please, please, get stuck in. Have a go.

You never know, you might win it.

Now, still to come on today's programme...

We visit the Isle of Man,

where its unique climate makes it a paradise for gardeners.

We have the Gulf Stream running past us, so we don't get

the cold temperatures that you would associate

with other parts of the UK.

I think people are extremely surprised

by what we are growing here.

And for those that want to squeeze a little bit more from their space,

I'll be building a window box.

But first, we meet a viewer that has transformed their backyard

using pots.

Hello, everybody, my name is Julia

and I live in Barton-under-Needwood in Staffordshire.

Today, I thought I'd show you some of the things that I've been

doing in my backyard.

So up until a few months ago, my backyard

was really just all brick and pavers.

But what I really want to do is create this almost little

Mediterranean pot garden.

This is my herb area, which is underneath my kitchen window.

I'm not so great with watering my hanging baskets, so I've done grass

hanging baskets this year, which are actually looking really good.

I've also found a massive love for hostas.

I've always liked hostas and I had about five or six in the back

garden that were getting rather big,

so all these ones, this year, you can see

have been divided off six plants.

That was an old Christmas tree that was bought to go in my office

last year, and I've salvaged it and it's doing really, really well.

This is my little sanctuary, at the moment,

where I can just come of a morning or an evening and have a cup of tea.

It's been really good, as well,

because it's taught me how I can make use of plants that are getting

rather squashed and crushed under bigger plants within my garden.

So this space that, before, was really not very interesting is now

a real lovely, cosy haven.

Julia, I thought your hostas looked absolutely fantastic.

They're a lot better than mine.

Mine have been absolutely mullered by the slugs and the snails.

Now, not a lot of people know this, but during the winter months,

I actually enjoy locking myself in the shed and carving -

making things out of timber and stone.

So, this year, I came up with an idea for some window boxes.

So I'm going to show you something. This might be a little awkward,

because obviously, he's not going to move.

There we go. It's a box that's got a series of sections in it.

You could put a pot in there quite simply, or,

what I'm going to do is plant each space

and then, when something goes over, you can actually tease it out

without disturbing everything else.

He's definitely not going to move!

So I don't know how quite how we're going to do it.

Come on, little fella.

Right, down there, good boy.

So, you're going to need a front and you're going to need a back.

The timber that I've used is oak, but you could do this with

soft wood, paint it and detail it as you want.

Thickness-wise, I've gone for 2cm thick

and then the depth of my timber

is actually 20cm.

That depth is great for the planting,

but also, to put a pot in, as well.

And then, the length of this is actually 113cm long.

So each compartment is 20cm by 20cm.

And that allows me to put my ends inside my timber.

It's going to be a lot better for the timber

and actually, visually, just looks better.

Then, my dividers are actually, obviously, 20cm from front to

back, but they're only 17cm high.

So you can properly just see that I've set them down very slightly.

So that when the box is planted, it still looks like one complete box.

So fix at each end

just to hold everything in place.

Once you've got the sides, the back and the base in place,

the whole thing holds together really well.

So once I've got my back and my base and my sides on,

I can then offer up the front.

So for me, the brass screws on the front

just give it a lovely bit of detail.

Right, so, the divides are going in.

So ultimately, the divides have got four fixings -

two front and two back.

So, there you go. That's the last one and it's solid.

The last little detail, which is slightly indulgent, is the carving.

Just to create a bit more interest

all the way along.

I honestly do get the same thing from this that I get from gardening.

There you go.

All I need to do now is drill a hole in each compartment

just for drainage.

But while I'm doing that, we've got another chance to catch up with

Roger Butler from Kent, who does love a hydrangea.

Well, I started growing plants when I was eight.

My aunt grew chrysanthemums and dahlias, and I quite liked them

and I started growing them myself.

And since then, I've moved onto growing trees and then shrubs

and hydrangeas have become a bit of a speciality.

The interest in them commercially sort of exploded

about eight, ten years ago and for five years, we've been

expanding our range and growing more and more different types.

And I think we've picked a winner.

They're not grannies' plants any more.

They give such a wide range of colour.

They start flowering naturally in the spring

and you've got colour right the way through till the autumn.

The bunch of hydrangeas that I've just cut features some

mopheads, which is this type of hydrangea,

and two lacecaps and one double-flowered variety.

This one here is a mature flower

of a variety called Berlin.

The next one here is Glam Rock,

which was the plant of the year a few years ago.

In America, they call it Pistachio, which I think is quite appropriate.

I've got a small-petalled variety, which is Ayesha -

again, a mophead.

This is Rotkehlchen, a German variety - lacecap.

Very nice, reliable, quite easy grower.

In England, lacecaps sell better than mopheads and,

on the Continent, they struggle to sell the lacecaps

and everyone wants a mophead.

But I like them all.

I'm sorry - you're going to struggle to pin me down to one variety.

Well, the unusual thing is that the soil decides

the colour of the plant.

These two plants here are the same variety -

they're Magical Revolution.

And the only difference between these two plants is

the compost that they are growing in.

This pink plant has been growing in an alkaline soil, whereas the

blue one is growing in an acid soil

with added aluminium sulphate.

Of course, if you grow it in a container, it's easy to

control the soil pH.

And if you plant them in your garden, it's pretty much

pot luck as to what colour they'll be in the coming years.

They'll probably stay blue or pink for the first year, but,

as the soil affects them, they'll go to whatever the soil type allows.

Your best bet, if you want a hydrangea that stays the same

colour, is to plant a white one,

because the acidity or alkalinity of the soil doesn't affect the colour.

The word hydrangea comes from Greek

and it comes from two words - one of them for "water"

and the other for "vessel" or "container".

So it's giving you a clue they need quite a lot of water.

If you want to grow the very best plants, they need to be

in slight shade in a very organic compost,

and they are quite hungry. They need quite a lot of feed.

Paniculatas are fine in full sun

and they'll grow virtually on most soils.

Some of them grow to 10ft, 12ft.

I love my plants and I grow a lot of plants.

My wife sometimes says to me that I won't sell some of the plants

on the nursery because I like them so much.

And she's right. She's absolutely right.

Roger, I agree with you. They're not a granny's plant any more.

I'm partly saying that because I absolutely love them

and I can't stop buying them.

So, window box.

I've gone back to the box that I made earlier.

This has been oiled, so it will last that bit longer.

I'm going to plant this up with a series of herbs.

The first thing I'm going to do is just put some horticultural grit

in the bottom of each.

What you don't want is the water sitting at the bottom -

partly for the wood, but also the roots on your plant.

And then, I've done a really sort of good, gritty mix.

So most of these herbs like well-drained conditions.

There's probably about 40% grit

and the rest is a peat-free compost.

The first thing I'm going to put in is the sage.

Obviously, because I've got the compartments, I'm always going

to contain the roots, which means it'll contain

the size of the plants. But they'll last quite a long time in here.

And when I feel they're starting to get really contained within

this confined area, what I will do is I'll start feeding it.

So I will liquid feed this probably twice a year.

The next one I'm going to put in is the marjoram.

I know they're just a simple little herb mix,

but what I'm trying to do

is just vary the foliage again.

The next one is rosemary.

This will be a plant that you'll read the label

and think it's too big for this, but it won't be.

You can start to see the whole thing coming together.

Now, this is just a thyme. It's called Silver Posie.

You could grow all sorts in here.

The lovely thing with this is that you can chop and change.

You know, I could tease that out, put something else in

if that got too big. Don't need to disturb these.

Whereas, actually, one box, they would all start to mat together.

Now, I'm going to put some parsley in.

Parsley doesn't need it so well drained.

I think that's the last little trick -

is that you can control the compost type, your mix types,

in every single container.

So here, I've used a mix that's got composted bark in it

and less gravel.

And there you go, that's the last little one going in there.

What's lovely is it just keeps all the compost in place,

but really sets the plants off.

There you go.

I hope that's given you a few ideas.

I have just the spot for it.

I'm going to get someone to help me move it there

and I'm not going to water it until it's finally in place,

because it will, at that point, be a little bit heavy.

Now, we're off to the Isle of Man to see a rather beautiful garden.

I'm Adam Quayle and we're at the Milntown estate on the Isle of Man.

I've been garden manager for the last four years

and I absolutely love working here.

The grounds have undergone a considerable transformation.

The walled garden was actually, originally, an orchard.

All there was was the large camellias

and rhododendrons which were around the perimeter.

Everything inside has been planned and planted in the last eight years.

The microclimate on the Isle of Man has influenced what we are

growing here, and being so far north, you wouldn't associate that.

We have the Gulf Stream running past us,

so we don't get the cold temperatures that you would

associate with other parts of the UK.

We have Dodonaea viscosa Purpurea,

with its lovely, lush purple foliage.

We have Echium pininanas with their beautiful, tall

flower spikes that are just laden with bees.

We can grow Aeonium arboreum.

Their hardiness zone is H1c,

which you would only be putting them out in the summer months

in other parts of the UK, but we overwinter them outside.

So here we have some Aeonium arboreum cuttings.

It's a semi-succulent.

And we will take all the bottom growth from them

and then that would be our cutting ready.

What I'll do, though, is set these aside for a day

to let the actual cut heal over to stop infection.

Now, what I would do is some horticultural grit,

compost mix,

make a hole. Just a few cuttings in each.

Now, you'll leave this.

You'll give it a good water after

and then you'll leave it for six weeks

and this will have rooted.

And what you're left with is a nice, healthy aeonium plant.

You see all the foliage has come back on the bottoms.

I think people are extremely surprised

by what we're growing here.

They usually ask a lot of questions on how we can grow it

and what special things we do.

Do we fleece the stuff over the winter, do we wrap them,

do we bring them in?

And fortunately, we don't need to.

So here we are in the Jungle Walk -

this being one of my favourite areas in the garden.

It's an architectural element that we've added to this area.

We've planted Dicksonia antarctica

with its bare stems

and its beautiful lime-green foliage.

And then, we've underplanted the entire area with dominating

leaf forms such as Astelia Silver Shadow.

We've got libertia

and various forms of pulmonaria.

Another unusual tender plant that we have

is Geranium reuteri.

It was Geranium canariense,

due to the fact that it comes from the Canaries.

And that grows prolifically on the Isle of Man,

but particularly in these gardens.

So here we have the Fuchsia magellanica - considered to be

the Manx fuchsia, just because it's naturalised so well.

It was brought over in about 1850

and then it's just spread from there into the woodlands, the hedgerows.

It's done so well on the island,

because we do not have the cold winters.

So they will just keep going and going and going.

And we have some 12-15ft specimens.

Say you've got a large fuchsia in your back garden

and you're unsure what to do with it, you can

elevate the whole lot and you'll be able to underplant, then.

So if you want to plant shade-loving plants, then you can do so

and it's making an area more accessible.

So what I'll be doing is pruning off all the lower growth

and lifting the canopy.

And you continue that up

until you're happy with the elevation on the plant.

I particularly like the fact that you can see the stems.

It gives you an architectural element.

My ambitions for Milntown is that we create this place of beauty

to put something in place that

future generations can come to appreciate.

Wow. They're foxes. Are we going to do some weeding?

I have three small children.

My young girl, Evie, she's only two and a half and she comes out

and she helps me weed and she loves getting her hands dirty.

Dig, dig. No. Dig.

Ah, you're doing a good job.

Yeah. Aren't you? Yes.

Yeah. Dig. Dig!

Dig, dig.

HE CHUCKLES

When I first started at Milntown, it was a job.

Then it became my passion.

Then, my hobby.

And then I moved, I got a cottage on site

and then it became the place that I live.

It's amazing.

I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Or work anywhere else.

Now, that is a garden that I need to pay a visit to.

But aren't we lucky in the UK

to have that huge variation in conditions, which allows us

to grow so many varieties of plants?

Last year, I took a bit of a gamble

and planted some ginger in the garden -

mulched it and crossed my fingers.

And I thought, because of the winter we'd had, I'd lost it.

And one morning, I came out with a cup of tea and I saw it.

And this ginger was coming out and I gave it a little jump.

So what I've got is I've got one, two, three clumps.

And I've got some more over there.

So I want to add this one just to keep that rhythm going.

So I think

that's going to work really well in there -

that contrast between those two foliages.

And again, if you didn't want to plant something like this

in your garden, it works well in a pot

for a bit of late colour.

And I'd love to tell you the variety of my gingers,

but I lost the labels.

If you want to do something like this and put it in the garden, just

check out how hardy it is, because some are a lot hardier than others.

So there you go. I'll just give that a really good watering in.

But you can see, as that grows and fills this space,

the contrast between those two leaves is going to be fantastic.

And even looking back towards you, with the little quaking grass,

that is a combination I think is going to work really well.

And now, we're off to Epsom in Surrey for the last of your gardens.

And we're going to meet a viewer

that has grown one of my favourite climbers.

Hi, I'm Jane and this is my garden.

I'd like to show you my wisteria.

It's a white wisteria, probably a floribunda,

and it starts here and it goes all the way around the house

and half the garden.

I planted it 27 years ago and it's very special to our family,

because it first flowered five years later on the birth

of my youngest daughter. And it's flowered every year ever since

in May and June.

This is the sheer weight of the white wall.

Full of bees buzzing around.

There must be about 100 bees or so in there at the moment.

And then I've managed to extend it along the back of the house

and down the fence.

And I don't know where it's going to stop yet.

The smell is absolutely amazing.

The perfume is wonderful.

And this is my favourite place to sit

with a cup of tea, because we can see up into the wisteria.

And then you can see through to the white wall

and the rest of the garden.

It's so magical to be in this tunnel.

Thank you for watching and I hope

you've enjoyed it and goodbye.

Jane, you seem to be getting as much joy from your wisteria as I do mine.

But I would say yours really is a cracker.

Mine's gone over now, but as that goes, something else arrives

and for me, at the moment, it's this little collection in front of me.

You've got the astrantia.

Lovely sort of white, paper-like flower with a pink flush.

Grasses coming up through it.

But my favourite bit is the way

that the seed heads of the geum have sat

amongst the astrantia.

The only problem is - this pulling me because of its beauty -

means that this rheum at the back here has caught my eye.

It needs a little bit of work.

You could say I've been sharing that with slugs and snails.

But, if you look closely in there,

you can see there's new growth.

So what I'm going to do is cut that back,

give it a mulching around and it'll come good later on in the season.

But while I'm doing that,

here's something you can be doing at the weekend.

Hardy geraniums like Geranium phaeum

can look a little bit untidy after they've finished flowering -

like this one that's flopped over the path.

But if you chop them hard back,

right down to the ground,

they'll put on a new flush of growth in a matter of weeks.

It's not too late to get some kale going for winter.

I like to start mine off in a tray

of compost which I water beforehand.

Sprinkle the seed over the top

and lightly cover with a fine layer of compost.

Germination will only take a few days

and there's no need to provide any heat.

To spruce up your garden and help prevent grass from invading

your borders, it's worth giving the lawn edges a regular trim.

I use a pair of long-handled shears for the job.

But garden shears would work just as well.

Is there anything that says summertime more than

strawberries and cream? I think not.

But also, something else that says summertime to me

are the flower shows.

And you'll be pleased to know that

the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival is back.

And the coverage starts next Wednesday,

and I, for one, am chuffed to pieces,

because it will be lovely for me to catch up with some old friends.

So, hopefully, I'll see you there.

That is about it from us. I hope you've enjoyed

the last couple of weeks, because I have really loved

sharing the garden with you.

Monty will be back next week at nine o'clock.

In the meantime, look after yourselves.