Original subtitles

Hello, welcome to Gardeners' World.

I'm popping some zinnias here

into the Jewel Harden.

This one is Purple Prince.

These are a bit late and we've grown them from seed but didn't sow

the seed when we normally would do, which would be the beginning

of April.

However, it's not too late to add colour to the border,

because there's no doubt about it,

that we go into a slightly different season.

All that freshness of summer that lasts well into July is now over

and that won't come back till next spring.

But summer itself in the garden

has still got masses to offer, and not just till the end of this month,

but really right into October nowadays.

So it's important to nurture what you have and also to keep adding.

It's absolutely not too late to have new plants coming through,

adding another floral dimension.

These should flower in about two to three weeks' time

and then go on until the first frosts.

And if you haven't sown them from seed yourself, garden centres

and nurseries will have a good choice of tender annuals.

And remember, they don't respond to light,

so the fact the days are getting shorter won't inhibit them at all.

As long as it remains warm enough, they will flower.

Coming up on today's programme -

Adam visits Sissinghurst to see the dramatic restoration

of an original part of that glorious garden.

How does it all hold together?

You look at little groups like the achillea there, they sit

as a big group, then they just drift off slightly

and then they drop down,

so they lead the eye and they draw you around.

Whilst most gardens can look good in high summer, we visit

a garden that is designed to look great

all the year round.

Winter is an incredibly important season to have something

good to look out on.

In England, it lasts a flipping long time,

so I would look for a few key plants that would look good in each

of the seasons.

And I shall be pruning my shrub roses unseasonably early.

Last week, I began to plant up the west side

of this new summerhouse.

Well, today it's East Side Story.

An east-facing aspect -

and it could be a wall,

it could be part of your house, or even just the whole garden -

gets the morning sun but gets no evening sun at all.

It might get a little bit from the south.

So the light that it gets, and even the heat that it gets,

is much cooler than on the west side.

But, and this is really important,

it's not a separate piece of the garden.

You know, either side, I want the same themes going.

I want it to tie in with the rest of the mound and the colour scheme,

which is pale yellows, light blues.

I want the whole thing to cohere and feel one garden.

Now, I'm starting off with a rose.

This is Vanessa Bell. I love this rose.

And I've put it here because we've got it on the lower terraces

of the mound.

Last year, this was flowering on Christmas Day,

and there's no reason to suppose why it may not do that.

So, Vanessa Bell, which also has good fragrance,

I've placed underneath the window, so I can open the window and there

will be these beautiful flowers and that lovely fragrance.

Now, beyond it, I'm going to put a honeysuckle.

This is a variety with a lovely

yellow flower, wonderful fragrance,

really good colour,

and honeysuckles are great for a shady aspect,

because these are woodland plants.

Their feet like to be cool and then they climb up towards the light.

So I'm going to put this at the far end.

That will take quite a lot of shade.

Look how brilliant these plants are.

This is a yellow foxglove, called Lemoncello,

exactly the colour that I want,

and the plants are stonking, really lovely.

And I want these to rise up through. Now, I'm not planting in clumps.

I'm threading plants through the space.

So I'll pop those like that.

I said it last week when I was planting up the other side,

but it's worth repeating.

Place all your plants in an area before you plant any of them.

Play with their arrangement, think it through, go and have a cup

of coffee and come back and have another think,

and then, when you feel happy, plant the whole lot.

Chances are you'll move some of them anyway,

but it's much easier to move plants around when they're in their pots

than once they're in the ground.

Now, to inject a little bit more blue height,

I've got some campanulas.

This is Campanula persicifolia.

And like the foxgloves,

these will rise up and give

that blue height, and of course, these wonderful bells.

I'm going to pop these individually.

That's going to fill that gap there.

Yeah, it's beginning to assemble.

When I'm placing plants like this,

I certainly don't have a planting plan.

Now, that does mean that you're going to get it wrong sometimes

and you are going to have to move plants,

but with a bit of experience, actually, you get used to the idea

of moving pots around until it feels right.

Now, Adam has paid a visit to Sissinghurst Castle in Kent -

one of the most famous gardens in Britain, if not the world,

and yet they have only now completed

a project and made it arrive

where it was intended to be back in the 1930s

when the garden was begun.

Sissinghurst is, to many,

the essence of an English country garden,

with flower-filled rooms created by the famous Vita Sackville-West

and her husband, Harold Nicolson, back in the 1930s.

This is the Cottage Garden.

It looks absolutely glorious.

Think about it.

You know, Vita was an author, and Harold was a diplomat.

They were totally self-taught, which makes this even more impressive.

But, like most of us, not everything they tried

worked first time round.

As keen travellers, Vita and Harold spent a lot

of time in Greece, and there's echoes of it all around the garden.

But the island of Delos, a religious site in classical times,

was a favourite.

They loved the ancient ruins and the feel of the landscape so much

that they decided to create a Delos Garden right here in Kent.

On this shady, heavy ground, their efforts failed,

and the garden soon reverted...

..but more than 85 years on, Sissinghurst decided

to honour the dream.

So they reimagined and built the Delos Garden,

and this is what they've created.

Delos is a dry garden full of Greek artefacts, arid plants

and stone terracing.

It looks effortless, but it was anything but.

Troy Scott Smith is the head gardener who prompted the project

back in 2013.

Troy, it feels incredible, but how did it all begin?

I wrote... Perhaps you'd call it, like, a manifesto,

and the idea with that was two things, really - bringing beauty

and romance back. Yeah. Just a point.

I've had a walk around today. You've nailed that. Good!

Yeah, it was really important.

I mean, of all the gardens that I know, I think Sissinghurst

should be about those qualities.

And the second part of that manifesto was really to bring about

a garden that felt much more in tune and authentic to Vita and Harold.

And the way Delos had evolved over the decades,

it was very far from their original vision.

But in such an iconic garden, it's taken years of research,

a big team and the help of a garden friend.

So, when it came to sort of designing and creating it,

you got Dan Pearson involved.

I invited Dan to be what we call the garden godparent role.

I love that. Yeah, gardens adviser, if you like. Yeah. But with Delos,

you know, the scope of the work that we were going to undertake,

it became obvious that we needed Dan and his studio

to get their expertise, really.

Let's look at the practicalities of it all.

What was the soil like? What direction does it face?

It's completely the wrong place to do it.

It's north-facing, you know, it feels hot today,

but north-facing, clay soil,

angled away from the sun,

fierce winds that bite in the winter.

How did you go about it?

So, initially, we had to put a drainage system in.

So we dug down into the clay,

laid perforated pipe that was surrounded

with geotech style and shingle, and then really bringing

in a really free-draining soil.

So we've used, again, the same Kentish ragstone for all of these

elements, so these big boulders,

the stones we're standing on, the aggregate here, and also

the material in the soil make-up.

So it's about 50% crushed ragstone,

25% brick, and then also free-draining soil, 25%.

That same soil mix and stone also solved the bigger problem

of the garden sloping north.

So, how did you get...

..expose, I suppose, the area to more light?

Yeah, well, hopefully you can see here, Adam,

there's raised terraces -

brings the plants out of the wet clay,

and then by battering the soil,

facing the sun in the south,

all of that slope now is getting maximum light,

or as much as possible,

just like you would with a deckchair on the beach,

you face it into the sun,

rather than facing this way, where it would get natural shade.

It's a clever solution, allowing them to test more gardening

boundaries and showcase more arid planting.

And I do love the fact that actually, you know,

you've created a beautiful garden,

but actually, in reality, you've also put together

a living experiment. I hope so.

I hope that's what it is.

I mean, looking forward, we'll certainly be, you know, trying

to learn from this kind of planting.

And I hope, you know, other people will do so as well.

Sissinghurst is full of English red brick and traditional oast houses.

How do you create a garden

that's alien to all the other spaces around it?

Carefully, he says. Look at the stonework at the back end of

the garden, the pillars,

look at how they connect to the vertical outside,

not just in vocality, but also the stone colour.

And then if you imagine, they took out all the height,

which left them with a big sky,

and on a day like today, it's fantastic.

But then they had to put height back to provide dappled shade.

But not just that - they then had to connect to the landscape.

So you look at the trees and they connect.

The poplar behind me is brought in by the oaks.

And that sets this lovely sort of structural canopy for the rest

to be created from.

The design echoes an old ruined street of Delos,

with rough goat-track paths between the tiers.

There's a lot of stonework.

You know, I've got different types of walling behind me -

rubble walling, here we have coarse,

we've got natural boulders, we've got things

with flame finishes on it. We've got sawn finishes.

We've got cropped finishes.

When you're just sat here, it gives your eyes loads to feast on,

and that's before you add the plants.

That said, if they were different materials, it would start to look

uncomfortable, too busy, and it wouldn't give you this lovely

sort of platform to then plant.

The planting looks simple, with swaying grasses

doing their business and repeating colour.

They turn the landscape of Delos into an amazing garden.

A lot of these I grow at home in the Gravel Garden, but how does

it all hold together?

You look at little groups like the achillea there, they sit as a big

group, then they just drift off slightly and then they drop down,

so they lead the eye and they draw you around.

And then to mingle with that are the lavenders,

and then they repeat again and then that blue gets picked up.

So you've got this constant sort of feast for the eyes,

and you're just naturally drawn around this garden.

And then, look, you get these focal points that, bang, stop you.

The pomegranate over there, that won't be everybody's cup of tea,

but it's history, you know, it adds atmosphere.

And I think it's things like that that help make places

like this special.

And I think, as time goes on, it's going to become

even more special.

If Vita and Harold are looking down on their old Delos dreams, I reckon

they'd be pretty pleased with the results.

I remember visiting Sissinghurst

40 years ago, and Delos then was clearly

sort of out of place, it wasn't really visited or talked about,

but on the other hand was respected, because that was what Vita

and Harold wanted, so it's very exciting to see that realised fully.

How it integrates with the rest of the garden,

I'm not sure I can imagine, but certainly I am sure I'd love

to go and see it.

Now, I always prune my blackcurrants immediately after harvesting

the fruit, and this gives light and air, so that the new growth

will ripen and that should bear some fruit next year,

cos blackcurrants, unlike redcurrants, white currants

or gooseberries, produce their best fruit on young growth.

So, on first year of growth, the very best is usually on second year

of growth, then it starts to tail off,

and by the fourth or fifth year, it's producing hardly

any fruit at all.

So the pruning pattern is to take out a third of the bush, removing

the oldest third of the growth every year, so you renew it every three

or four years, and that way you get maximum crop from it.

And unlike redcurrants, gooseberries or white currants,

you don't just prune back to a sideshoot.

You go right down to the base and cut off the oldest third

and remove it completely.

But you can see that the older growth is harder, it's dark brown,

and then you've got the next stage of growth and then on, and this will

keep a better shape. You don't want it to sprawl too much.

So you can do this in winter if you want,

but I've found it's more effective if you do it now.

And one of the things I love about this job is that even the wood,

when you cut it, smells pungently

of lovely blackcurrants.

Gardening like this here at Longmeadow is pretty easy.

The soil is rich, the plants are happy,

the weather is never too harsh.

However, there are places where gardening can be quite robust.

Anna Leersen has sent us this film from her garden in Oban,

on the west coast of Scotland.

Hello! Hello! Welcome to our garden! Welcome to our garden!

We moved into our rental house here in January of this year,

and were very keen to start gardening.

We bought a pretty cheap greenhouse online,

but it kept blowing away in...

WIND RUMBLES

..as you can hear, pretty strong wind.

This is actually quite a calm day today.

We got so fed up with having to rebuild it every time

that my partner decided to build us this.

We salvaged the panels,

and we've actually used some

of the struts as supports for our plants,

but, as you can see, things

have really taken off since then.

We've got tomatoes, lettuce, dill.

And what's this one, Saoirse?

I don't know.

Cabbage. Cabbage. Cabbage!

As you can see, we've also got a bunch of shelves.

Yes, we have. We had so many,

in fact, that we decided to make a shop.

Do you want to show them the shop?

It's out the front.

So we made a little free shop with all our spare plants.

We advertised what we had on offer and how to look after them, and put

them all in pots outside the front gate.

They all found happy homes within a few days.

So today we're adding our last couple outside

with some extra paintings.

Thanks for all the tips, Gardeners' World.

Bye!

Bye. Bye.

ANNA LAUGHS

I love Anna's spirit.

I know the west coast of Scotland quite well, and it's one of the most

beautiful places on this Earth, but it can be awfully harsh

and you certainly need to be an optimist to try and garden there,

but she seems to be succeeding.

Now, for me, it's time to prune my roses.

And for a lot of people, this is quite an unlikely statement,

because we've got used to this idea that rose pruning is something

you do in late winter or even early spring, but that was based largely

on growing Hybrid Teas, which dominated roses throughout

the 20th century.

But if you're growing Gallicas, Damasks, Albas, Bourbons,

all the wonderful old roses that fill the Cottage Garden here

and have become increasingly popular over the last 20, 30 years,

the best time to prune them is immediately after flowering.

And in fact, there's a pretty good rule of thumb.

If it is single-flowering, prune when that flowering is over.

If it is repeat-flowering, prune when it's dormant.

Now, this rose here is a good example.

This is a Damask.

It's called Kazanlik,

and it's one of the oldest cultivars known to man.

I've got just one little flower in there.

You can see it's a soft, beautiful

pink, multi-petalled, very fragrant.

But the problem I've had with this, for this year and last year,

is that the flowers were almost totally hidden by the new growth,

because instead of pruning immediately after flowering,

I, as I've sort of done for so many years,

have been pruning in winter.

And that has meant we get very vigorous new growth,

but it's not ripe enough or ready enough to carry flowers.

And they've literally hidden the flowers

that were growing underneath.

So I am going to go back to basics

and prune all my once-flowering roses,

which are most of these here in the Cottage Garden now.

So that's what I'm going to do now.

I've just got a pair of shears. This will do the job perfectly well.

I don't need to agonise any details about cutting,

just give it a snip.

And don't prune too hard, just prune it back lightly.

No more than a third of the plant.

And if you do prune too hard,

you will get less good flowering next year,

because you'll weaken the plant.

There will be fewer leaves, less photosynthesis,

and that means the plant will become less nourished

to produce buds next year.

And just remember that roses are tough.

There's no great mystery about pruning them.

If you just apply this principle -

if they flower once, prune them after flowering, now, in August,

and if they're repeat-flowering, keep deadheading them

for as long as possible and then do their pruning

when they're dormant,

January, February usually being the best time.

Now, of course, these roses have their moment of glory in June

and early July, and then it's over, and it's well worth looking

after them for those few glorious weeks.

But the real skill of a good gardener is to keep the garden

looking good all the year round.

And for a lesson on how you might do this, we went to visit

St Timothee, a garden in Maidenhead in Berkshire,

owned by Sarah Pajwani.

We moved here 14 years ago,

and, no, I wasn't really a gardener.

I had had two houses with very small sort of square gardens

with a little border round the edge,

and I'd basically just tried to maintain them.

And then we came here and it was...

..it was really exciting.

So, slowly, slowly, we worked our way round,

planting those borders up.

It has been a labour of love.

It's been very slow.

And that's what we've been doing for the last eight years.

So, I love grasses.

They're wonderful at capturing the light, they bring a movement

and softness into the garden.

But I also love so many of the classic English plants,

you know, like the foxgloves, the roses.

I adore roses.

And I think they can combine beautifully.

I came to realise, looking out on the garden, that winter

is an incredibly important season to have something good

to look out on, cos it lasts...

In England, it lasts a flipping long time.

So I would look for a few key plants that would look good in each

of the seasons,

and I usually started with winter.

Having put lots of grasses into the first border we dug out,

the second borders we dug out,

I decided we'd put a long kind of curvy backdrop

of a shrub called Cornus Midwinter Fire.

For much of the year, it's looking pretty nondescript.

It's a sort of green backdrop.

It's not the star - the colourful plants are the star - but from...

Well, probably from October on, when its leaves turn

a buttery yellow, and then particularly in November, December,

January, February, the leaves fall off and you're left with these stems

that go from yellow at the bottom,

through orange, through bright red.

I'd say it's the star of the entire garden.

Then, in the spring, we've got the bulbs.

There's crocuses, daffodils, tulips and alliums,

and that kind of, like, goes from February, March, April, May.

So things tend to build through the year, and June, you kind

of reach this wonderful peak with the roses, the geraniums.

Everything's out, everything's looking full, packed, exciting.

and then we come to July,

and that's what I think of as the tricky bit,

because lots of the flowers that have looked so fabulous in June

are starting to really fade.

So that's when I have turned

to Dieramas, which they're only out

for three weeks, but they are absolutely spectacular

when they're out, deep pink.

Heleniums, orange kind of colours, they'll be out,

achillea and echinacea.

So they're my sort of go-to plants for kind of making things

just about OK in July.

One of the things I look for in terms of sustaining

the interest throughout the months are flowers that just keep

on going, and penstemon are definitely one of them.

This is Penstemon Raven.

Lovely deep wine colours, comes out in June, and for as long as I keep

deadheading it, will carry on until at least the end of November.

Even easier, and just as long,

are some of these little erigeron daisies.

They start flowering in June, they carry on till the end of November,

and no need to deadhead those. Lovely little colour.

Gaura going along the sweep there.

Gaura lindheimeri, again, starts in June and goes right through till

the end of November.

The late summer stars here, so August onwards,

but through September, through October, tend to be things

like the asters.

And the Japanese anemones.

The sedums, they'll be out in October.

And the tender salvias.

It's not that the garden is always looking absolutely perfect every day

of the year, but for me, what's important is that there is enough

interest at all times.

I think learning about the plants has been as much a joy for me

as actually seeing some of the end results.

So, actually, creating this garden has probably taught me

how to be a gardener.

I've got the luxury now of tinkering.

It's what I love.

That tinkering phase of a garden

is always very satisfying, although,

in fact, in my experience, you pass through that,

after a certain amount of years,

when you suddenly realise that you want to make big changes,

or the garden NEEDS big changes,

and then that's another whole process.

So that pleasure is yet to come.

Now, I've got a problem here in the Cottage Garden

that I've never had to deal with before,

and you can see where it is.

It's the clematis.

And it's not just this clematis.

There are four along the back, this north-facing border,

that have suddenly and dramatically wilted.

There is a fungal disease called clematis wilt,

and that can be equally dramatic.

You can just see vague signs in the morning, and by the next day

the whole plant will be reduced to darkened shreds and tatters.

But clematis wilt tends to affect the large-flowered varieties,

most of those that we lump together in Group 2, which tend

to flower from late May to early July.

And also it is most likely

to hit fairly early on in the growing pattern,

sort of early June is a classic time for clematis wilt to affect.

Now, if you do get that, it's serious, but it's not disastrous,

cos you can cut them off at ground level,

burn the affected plant material and it will regrow from below the soil,

which is why you always plant clematis deep.

However, I don't think this is clematis wilt.

These are all Group 3 clematis.

And look, this one here hasn't been affected at all.

What I think we have here is a perfect storm.

We had a very dry April,

we've then had a reasonably wet May and June, but not exceptionally so.

And these plants, Group 3, were cut right back,

put on a surge of growth and were just about to flower

when they flopped dramatically.

And that is because they simply haven't been able to

take up enough moisture.

And particularly if there's a bit of slug damage to the stems

or the stems are very thin.

They've got to supply moisture to a big plant,

particularly when flowers are coming out,

and that's when there's really demand.

And I've always taken it for granted

that our soil has plenty of moisture,

but it was just too dry,

whereas this one has got stronger stems

and obviously just better water, it's not so dry.

And that quirkiness is not at all unusual.

Two plants side by side can behave differently.

OK, time to cut back.

Right down to the ground.

There we go, poor thing.

Right.

Still to come on today's programme...

..we visit a cut flower grower, who specialises in perfect dahlias...

To get a spectacular bloom like this on a nice, long stem,

what we do is disbud, which means taking out the side shoots

as we go down each leaf node.

..and I'll be reviewing my summer containers.

But first, we join Alexandra Andrews in her garden in Nottingham.

Hi, I'm Alexandra, I'm from Nottingham,

and welcome to my urban oasis.

I'm wearing oxygen,

that's because I have cystic fibrosis,

which is the genetic condition I was diagnosed at birth with.

Unfortunately, I get tangled up in the plants a lot.

I've beheaded a lot of flowers.

But I think that they forgive me.

I'm proud of the fact that I do do everything myself.

I might struggle, but I do eventually do it.

I've done what everyone says they shouldn't do

and buy one of everything.

I just love different textures, different colours.

And it excites me every day that things change.

It keeps me going, knowing that I have to be well,

because I need to see this flower.

This is my mimosa tree, which they said wouldn't survive.

When it does bloom, it's beautiful little yellow flowers

and it survived and I love it.

This is my favourite, here.

This bottlebrush, the bright pink,

which, I'm sure you will agree, is beautiful.

And then, when I'm not feeling well,

I'll come down to the bottom of my garden.

It's very private and it's like little oasis, really.

And I kind of rejuvenate and it feels like it's healing me.

I hope I've inspired you all to have fun in your gardens,

whatever your limitations.

I'm going to continue to feel the mini miracles that occur for me

in this green space.

Well, I think your garden looks lovely, Alexandra, and I'm so glad

it gives you such pleasure.

This is a hydrangea called Runaway Bride,

and it was plant of the year.

And there are lots of really good things about it,

it flowers and flowers and it's easy to grow -

I've got a couple here growing in pots, but there is a problem.

The new growth, which is very healthy,

is growing up above the flowers and hiding them,

which rather makes a nonsense of the plant,

because if you can't see the flowers,

then there's no point to it.

So, I'm cutting them back. And this is all part of a trial,

really, because I've only just started to grow this.

So, if I cut back the new growth so I can see the flowers,

that shouldn't damage it in any way

and should still provide material

for next year's flowering.

And if it doesn't, then that is a flaw with the plant.

So, let's hope that this slight remedial treatment

will get the best out of it.

Let's cut that back a little bit more. And there.

Right. Now, I can have a good look and enjoy the flowering.

And of course, these very white flowers here

in the Writing Garden are perfect.

These are just a bunch of petunias and helichrysum

which I had left over and I put in a pot and they're doing fine.

But the real stars, that you can't miss, are the lilies.

This is Casa Blanca.

It's about the biggest white lily you can grow.

And, trust me, the fragrance

is heavenly.

It's just filling the air.

But it isn't very subtle.

It's very white, it's very big,

the fragrance is very loud.

It's brash.

And I considered putting it in the Paradise Garden, but actually,

it would be the wrong choice, it's too overwhelming for there.

But here, it works well.

And a tip is, if you've got a very white plant,

or any plant that's very monochromatic,

put it against a dark background and that will work much better

than if you try and blend it in,

because they're really hard to blend.

These Casa Blanca lilies are definitely the most

starkly dramatic pots that we've got in the garden at the moment.

But we use containers as a very important part

of the garden at Longmeadow throughout each season,

but never more so than at this time of year.

Here in the Herb Garden, I've got some new containers this year,

and one of the ones that's been really successful,

in quite a modest way, is this pot,

which is filled with Mediterranean herbs.

It may look as though it's stashed away a bit in a corner,

but that actually isn't the case.

That is the sunniest, most protected site in the whole garden.

And that's what you have to do with Mediterranean herbs -

give them sunshine and poor soil.

The second is just as important as the sunshine,

otherwise, they grow too lush.

Now, I moved the troughs into the herb garden

earlier this year and I've planted this up with thyme.

But the thing about thyme is that it really, really does need

perfect drainage, poor soil and full sunshine.

And the minute it's finished flowering, just cut it back

by about half, like that.

And that will encourage a nice, compact plant.

Although I'm cutting the thyme back,

I'm leaving the marjoram.

Bees love it.

It's positively buzzing and humming from morning till night.

So, of course, I'm not going to cut it back until the flowers are over.

Then, when the flowers are finished and it's no longer

any use to the bees, then I will cut it back really hard -

actually, rather harder than I'm cutting the thyme -

because marjoram is much better adapted to this climate

and will recover and grow back successfully.

This agapanthus is performing superbly,

in quite a small pot, really.

It's called Bridal Bouquet.

They do need watering,

so I water this every week

and when the flowering is over,

cut off the seedheads

and then feed it once a week with liquid seaweed.

And go on doing that until autumn,

and that will ensure that next year's display is equally as good.

We have a number of really big pots here in the Jewel Garden

and they have to earn their keep.

In spring, we fill them with tulips and wallflowers

and that intense colour.

In summer, we really go for scale as well as colour.

And obviously, you get this if you use plants like cannas

or gingers or even a really vigorous dahlia.

But to get a canna to grow really happily in a container,

you need to have a truly rich compost.

If I was only growing a canna in this pot,

it'd be no trouble at all.

But to complete that external floral arrangement,

I've got other plants.

And cosmos - this is Cosmos Dazzler -

grows really well in a pot, looks fantastic

and complements the canna really well.

However, cosmos, which come from Mexico,

don't need a rich soil.

So, when their roots reach this nectar,

this intense richness,

they respond by growing much bigger than normal.

However, you can control that simply by pruning them.

Now, that will encourage sideshoots to grow from the cut point

and the sideshoots will have more flowers.

So, with a little bit of management and attention to detail,

we can keep these pots looking really good,

right through into autumn.

In these pots, dahlias are providing most of the colour,

although the ginger behind will flower in a few weeks' time

really dramatically.

But to keep these dahlias going,

it is so important to deadhead.

And if you're uncertain when a dahlia is in bud

or is finishing flower, there is one thing you want to look for.

When it has finished flowering, and this is very obvious,

the shape becomes elongated, even conical.

We can take that back.

I'm going to go right down,

down, down, down

and cut.

Whereas here, you can see that is a bud that hasn't yet opened.

So, if it's round or button shaped, then that is a bud.

If it's elongated, and often pointed,

then that is a spent flower.

And of course, as soon as that happens, it's developing seeds,

so it's taking energy away from new flowers.

So, keep deadheading dahlias right into autumn.

Now, I love dahlias and we do grow quite a lot in the garden here,

but we're after the mass effect,

we're not really focusing our attention on any one plant,

let alone any individual bloom.

But it's worth now repaying a visit to the cut flower farm

of Richard Ramsey, in Crawley, in Sussex, because although he does

grow thousands of dahlias, he puts full attention on trying to make

each bloom as perfect as possible.

Today, I'm cutting some Cafe Au Lait for a florist.

We will probably harvest this year something around

30,000 high-quality stems.

Our market is the top-end event florists.

Our customers expect perfection,

which is what we try to give them.

Mostly, they're looking for big blooms because a lot of

the work event florists do is in big, spectacular locations.

Cafe Au Lait was publicised in a Californian bridal magazine,

I guess around ten years or so ago,

as the bridal dahlia, because of the colour.

I think they're just such a variety of shapes, sizes and colours,

you can have half a dozen red dahlias next to each other,

actually, they're all different kinds of reds.

So, it's the subtleties in the plain-colour dahlias

that make them very special.

And then, when you get something like the one

we're sitting amongst now, it's called Aljo,

you get the different nuances of colour in the same flower.

But they range from the pompons that are about 20cm in diameter,

up to the giant decoratives,

which will be 30cm plus.

So, very big flowers.

They're incredibly versatile plants for the garden.

We produce around 6,000 to 7,000 rooted cuttings each year,

because growing from tubers, you don't get that same colour,

intensity or vibrancy.

So, this is a dahlia called Gay Princess,

which is the same as the pink one across there, in the garden beds,

but this is grown from a rooted cutting.

And this is one of the flowers we've cut from there to show you

the difference between growing from a tuber

and from a rooted cutting.

So, the farmed flower has greater

intensity of colour.

The glow from the centre is more

intense than it is on this one.

This is just largely pink and a bit of white.

This has this creamy glow coming from the centre as well.

So, the whole flower is showing more vibrancy.

Englehardt's Matador, that that is grown from the roosted cutting

has this much richer, more intense colour.

And, in fact, the flower that comes from the tuber, some people

would have difficulty believing it's even the same variety,

it's such a paler imitation.

So, if you're thinking about entering your local show

later this year, the dahlia section,

make sure you're growing your dahlias from rooted cuttings.

To get a spectacular bloom like this, on a nice, long stem,

what we do is disbud, which means taking out the sideshoots

as we go down each leaf node.

I just push them downwards so that we don't break the skin

on the stem that's coming up there.

It just becomes an automated process.

You walk along the bed and, doesn't matter what you're doing,

sideshoots, out they come.

Well, call it the dahlia eye.

And I don't think I can explain exactly what it is,

it is just knowing what is right and what isn't quite right.

So, when I cut ten stems to go off to market,

they have passed the dahlia eye test.

I can do it and my granddaughter Jemima can do it...

Yeah, they're good.

..but nobody else can.

This is a good example of a dahlia because the petals are evenly spaced

and they're equally sized and the petals in the middle

are nicely grouped.

You kind of have to think about what it looks like,

the patterns of the petals and things.

But also it's kind of like,

"Oh, this one's good, this one's less so,"

then kind of just going with your gut as well.

We see them every day and even I think,

"Wow, that looks spectacular,"

after donkey's years of growing them.

So, when other people come here and can enjoy them as well,

that's good. That's good.

And, hopefully, we encourage more people to grow dahlias.

It's interesting about the difference between the flowers

of rooted cuttings and tubers but, to be honest, that difference

in the context of a garden probably is not terribly significant.

But, if you're selling individual blooms and they've got

to look at their very best, 10% is going to be really significant.

Now, from dahlias to Cucurbit Corner.

This is the site of our old compost heaps and,

this year, I've grown courgettes,

squashes and pumpkins

and cucumbers, all members of the cucurbit family.

Last year, our courgettes were a disaster, we had hardly any.

So, this year, I grew extra plants, and I planted eight plants.

And this is a stonking year.

I've got one here, this is the ideal size.

There you are, the size of a large sausage,

the flower still on the end,

that will be really tasty.

That's about as big as you'd want it to be.

Any bigger than that and it gets more watery

and you lose some of the flavour.

I've got one here which is distinctly outsized.

Now, I harvested these just a couple of days ago,

these haven't been left for weeks.

Now, that isn't even all the courgettes from one plant,

and I have eight.

So, you can multiply that by about ten, which is what we're getting

at least every week.

What do you do with them?

Give them away, of course.

You eat them, you make soup.

You fry them, you spiralise them,

they make very good pasta -

there are lots of ways of eating a courgette.

But, in the end, if there's a glut, don't feel ashamed

if you end up doing as I do and putting some on the compost heap.

It all goes through the system.

It will all create goodness that comes back through

and - who knows? - next year, we may have a more tricky harvest.

Now, the squashes are growing up these supports.

If you haven't grown squashes or pumpkins before,

it's tempting to get very excited by the amount of growth,

and they really can cover a lot of ground.

However, a successful plant will only provide you with

three to four good squashes or pumpkins.

Five is the maximum, in my experience, and three is good.

So, this is a Blue Hubbard, a lovely squash with this

sort grey-blue skin, really good taste, stores well.

Now, at this stage, I probably don't want to leave more

than half a dozen fruits on the plant.

And the best way to control that is, don't pick off the fruits,

but actually just cut the plant back.

So, this has reached the top, I can just go like that.

Don't want go mad about it, but we don't need...

I can prune that back.

I don't want that to go in there, so I'm going to prune that.

Don't panic. At this stage, there's an awful lot of growing to go on.

And, August and September, the plants will grow,

the fruits will get bigger and none will be ready to harvest

until the end of September, so you've got plenty of time.

But we're already harvesting cucumbers.

Outdoor cucumbers have thicker skins than indoor types.

I've got some growing indoors with a thin skin,

but these have done well. They are doing well.

I could harvest this perfectly.

This is a variety called Swing, and you can see it's got this

rather knobbly skin, so you have to eat it peeled,

but the flesh is sweet and good.

Now, next week is National Allotment Week and we thought

we would celebrate by putting together a montage

from clips of your allotments that you've sent to us.

Hello. I thought you might be interested

in seeing my allotment today.

It's a bit wild, a little bit unkempt -

probably a bit like me, really - but I like it.

Throughout April, we've been super-busy,

ticking lots of jobs off of the list.

I've put in some onions and shallots.

These sweet peas went out.

And then, what do we do?

Let's cover it up.

This is my piece of heaven.

This is the first year we've grown baby sweetcorn,

so I'm actually really pleased with them.

We're growing some cucumbers, some courgettes and one big marrow

that I have named Marilyn.

Connie, my six-year-old,

really wanted to grow

some sunflowers.

And look, they're nine foot tall!

These are our blackberries.

I'm going to eat one now.

They're yummy.

And this is a watermelon.

Lovely cherry blossom.

And I found a big pickle.

I'd like to share with you my two passions - gardening and painting.

I work with textiles and natural dyes, and I love extracting colour

from plants and roots.

Like lots of people in cities, I don't have a garden,

so this has been rally valuable for me to come outside.

Yeah, allotments during this lockdown

are an incredible source of relief.

One of the amazing things about having an allotment

is the sense of community that we have here.

This allotment has been my saviour, really.

It's a bit bonkers, a bit wild.

Best thing in the world.

Bye!

I have never visited an allotment that didn't have both

that sense of communal spirit

as well as the deep personal, private satisfaction

of each allotment holder.

They are wonderful places and we should treasure

every one of them, and make more, too.

Now, I think the Dry Garden is looking pretty good at the moment,

and that is because it's so limited.

If you have perfect soil,

best possible aspect,

limitless choice of plants,

you'll probably make a pretty good garden.

But the chances are, it won't really be ideal

because gardens tend to work best

when they have to cope with limitations.

It could be the wrong aspect, or the soil is a particular type,

or the shade, or it's too dry, too wet, whatever.

And the Dry Garden, where we have the worst soil

of the whole of Longmeadow - it's very, very thin, it's very shallow

and then stony - means that only certain plants will grow here.

But those that will are really well-adapted to these conditions,

so they thrive.

So, take the fennel, for example -

this lovely zigzag lines with its stems -

they're much smaller out here than they are in the back.

In the Herb Garden, where we've got fennel,

some of them are ten foot tall.

These are a third of the size,

but they're growing strong and upright and are really happy.

And the tansy with the lavender.

When I planted the lavender on The Mound,

I put in a huge amount of grit and I sort of hoped

it would come through cos it was so wet.

Here, bunged a lavender bush in, it's been there for about ten years,

I hardly ever touch it and look, it's completely happy.

And the combination of the tansy and the lavender

is as good as anything I could have come up with.

So, if you accept the limitations, work with them.

It's the same old story, right plant, right place.

Don't try and force anything onto a situation

where it's not going to be happy.

The chances are, the garden will be a lot better as a result.

Now, I don't know, you may have the perfect garden,

but you're still going to have jobs to do,

and here are some for the weekend.

Now and in the coming weeks is a good time to take

semi-ripe cuttings from plants like rosemary or lavender.

Choose nice, straight, fresh growth, cutting just below the new wood.

Strip off most of the leaves,

make a clean cut below a node,

and bury it in gritty compost.

Water it well and put it somewhere warm.

It'll root in a few months

and then must be stored over winter

before planting out next spring.

To ensure a supply of salad leaves in autumn, it's important to sow

the seeds now because, as the days get shorter,

the seedlings take longer to develop.

Sprinkle the seeds of plants like rocket, mizuna

or lettuce like Rouge d'Hiver

onto peat-free compost,

cover, water,

and then, when they germinate, prick the seedlings out,

ready to plant into place in about a month or so's time.

Plants like foxgloves and poppies that have finished flowering

are busy forming seeds.

And before they drop, it's a good idea to collect your favourites.

Use a paper envelope, not plastic,

label them clearly and simply shake some seeds into them.

Seal it and put it somewhere cool and dry

until you're ready to sow.

Made quite a few changes to the Paradise Garden over the last year.

I added in this scabious.

It's Black Knight.

It was sown last September.

I planted it out fully two months ago,

so it's been a long, slow process,

but well worth the wait.

That richness and these domes of flower are perfect.

And I also took out the grasses that had been here originally,

that Stipa tenuissima,

and I've replaced them with a pheasant grass.

Now, all these were seedlings I took from around the garden,

they're doing very nicely.

Because they make a fountain shape and they hold their shape,

and that's perfect as a counterbalance

to everything else that's going on -

the verbena, we've got gaura, we've had roses.

And the lilies were spectacular,

but they've done their stuff.

And the thing to do with lilies is,

now that the petals have fallen and the seedheads are there,

is to take off the flowering heads.

Just prune them, like that,

so that none of the energy is going into making seeds.

I will now move these, put them somewhere where they can quietly

absorb some sunshine, put all that goodness into the bulb

for next year's display.

Now, I have to replace it with something - don't quite know what -

but whatever it is, it won't be today,

because we've run out of time.

And I shan't be here next week because I'm taking a week's holiday,

which I haven't done for ages.

And I know I'm going to spend it

pottering around here in the garden - heaven.

And, of course, there will be a programme which will be hosted

by Carol and Nick, who'll be looking at how to make

every space count.

And that will be on at eight o'clock next Friday,

and I will be back here with you at Longmeadow in a fortnight's time.

So, until then, bye-bye.