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I believe a really good way to understand a culture is through it's gardens.
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This is an extraordinary journey to visit 80 inspiring gardens from all over the world.
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Some are very well known like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.
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And I'm also challenging my idea of what a garden actually is.
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So I'm visiting gardens that float on the Amazon, a strange fantasy in the jungle.
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As well as the private homes of great designers,
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and the desert flowering in a garden...
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and wherever I go I shall be meeting people that share my own passion for gardens
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on my epic quest to see the world through 80 of it's most fascinating and beautiful gardens.
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This week, my travels have brought me to the continent
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with the most diverse climate and range of landscapes on this planet,
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and which is home to more than 50,000 species of plants only found here.
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This is a land almost twice the size of Europe.
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South America.
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One of the ways of trying to get beneath the skin
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of this vast continent
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is to work out what people's concept of a garden actually is.
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And I also want to find out what it is that drives people to make gardens at all,
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when their natural landscape is as beautiful and dramatic as this.
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I'm starting the first leg of my journey in Rio de Janeiro,
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to see the private garden of Brazil's greatest artist,
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before travelling by boat to the floating gardens of the Amazon.
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Heading back south, I'll go to Argentina
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to visit a traditional 'estancia' in the Pampas,
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before finally ending my journey on the Pacific coast of Chile
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where one man has created a garden completely in tune with the landscape.
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So, I arrive for the first time in one of the world's great cities,
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Rio de Janeiro.
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Now, the Brazilian climate varies from hot and arid in the interior
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to hot and sticky in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon jungle.
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So I had expected, for my first visit to Brazil,
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not just all the conventional features of Rio to be there,
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colour, bronzed bodies, dancing, that kind of thing,
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but above all lots of sunshine. After all, it is supposed to be summer.
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Every image of Copacabana beach is of beautiful bodies, sunshine,
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packed beaches...
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Well, this is Copacabana beach, and I've got rain.
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And not a soul...
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Not a thong in sight!
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But the reason I'm on the beach in this terrible weather
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is to visit my first garden, the famous Copacabana promenade,
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designed by Roberto Burle Marx in 1970.
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Burle Marx was Brazil's most eminent landscape architect and artist,
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and he radically combined his paintings with the landscape of Rio's pavements and parks.
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He took the lines and the swirls
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that were so familiar from his paintings and his other artwork,
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and applied them to the surface of the Copacabana.
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That went on...
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..and on....
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..and on...
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..and on.
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The scale is simply enormous
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and amounts to a two and a half mile long abstract painting.
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There can be few gardens best seen from the 27th floor of a hotel.
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What we're looking at is one of the largest public gardens in the world.
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And in my opinion, a garden it surely is,
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as clearly municipal and as public as bedding on a roundabout.
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It's not just Copacabana's promenade
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that's suffused with Burle Marx's brilliant creativity.
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From the late 1930s until his death in 1994
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he added much to the quality of Rio's life
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by designing many radical, elegant and invariably stimulating public spaces in the city.
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These fabulous abstract spaces are not the only reason why Burle Marx
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is one of the most important garden designers in South America.
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He also personally revolutionised gardening in Brazil.
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And to see how, I am heading now 40 miles out of the city
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to visit his own private garden.
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Burle Marx loved Brazil's native plants.
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In 1949 he bought this 90-acre estate
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to experiment with what was then a revolutionary idea -
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the introduction of some of Brazil's indigenous plants to its parks and gardens.
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The garden, known today as the Sitio,
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became his life-long passion.
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Have a look at this...
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non stick!
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Although Burle Marx was obsessive
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about championing plants local to Brazil
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this garden has many species from all over the world,
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and he was very clear about the role of a garden.
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It was nature designed and controlled by man for man;
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and in other words a wholly artificial space,
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and this is no exception.
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In his garden as in every part of his life,
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Burle Marx was a compulsive designer and collector,
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and everything he did at the Sitio,
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from planting to entertaining, was on an heroic scale.
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This area which was designed by Burle Marx specifically for parties
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is big but it's recognisably domestic.
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And this pergola which he created to house the jade vine he was given,
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it's very big and very eccentric to do such a grand gesture just for one plant.
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But then you just go a few more steps
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and you come through here and suddenly all the rules are changed.
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I'm in completely different territory
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and I don't see this as a gardener or horticulturist,
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but almost like a child at the edge of a forest,
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because this isn't the experience of a garden,
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it's the landscape of a dream.
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And although it seems extraordinary now,
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Burle Marx's dream to protect and celebrate Brazil's tropical plant life
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was actually considered more revolutionary in its day
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than his abstract painting or landscape design.
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At the age of 19 Burle Marx went to Europe to study art for a year
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and he left behind him a Brazil whose gardens faced Europe.
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They were heavily influenced by them,
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formal, Victorian and bearing no recognition
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of the extraordinary plant life of the South American continent.
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Whilst he was in Berlin, Marx visited Dahlem Botanic Gardens
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and was stunned to find Brazilian plant species
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growing as curiosities in the glasshouses there.
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He suddenly thought this is mad,
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"Why am I looking at these plants here
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"when we should be growing them in our gardens back home?"
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It was really from that point that he began this process of designing modern gardens
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using the plants that were on his doorstep,
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on the South American continent,
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and above all that were Brazilian in every way.
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Burle Marx became obsessed
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with collecting and protecting these native plants,
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and the Sitio contains more than 3,000 species of tropical flora
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that he collected during his plant expeditions.
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Robeiro Diaz, the director of the Sitio, used to accompany him on his expeditions.
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In one of those excursions we went to Bahia and when we came back
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he said, "Everyone goes to the Sitio with me now!"
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So we came, he called the gardeners,
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and the truck that was filled with plants...
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And then "These there! Those there!
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"And there and there...
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And he composed
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the garden with those plants.
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So as soon as he found them in the wild,
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he wanted to immediately use them and create with them.
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Yes, he had to experiment with plants because when you pick up plants
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and nature, unknown, it comes not with a manual of how to plant it.
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He had to plant it to see how it would behave.
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There are more different species of bromeliad in Brazil
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than anywhere else on earth.
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And other than a pineapple we tend to come across bromeliads
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as house plants or something in a conservatory.
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Whereas here of course they grow anywhere and everywhere,
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and they are extraordinary things.
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Because their roots don't take in any nutrition at all...
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they simply attach the plant to whatever surface it's growing on.
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And all of them collect water at the base of their leaves...
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what amounts to a tiny lake...
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with its own complete ecosystem inside it.
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You'll have frogs and insects
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that never leave that individual bromeliad.
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Their whole life is spent within it.
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And that miracle... to come down into a garden
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and be used with all this exuberanceand colour and life!
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It's fantastic!
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I love the relationship here between small details
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and the big block planting that Burle Marx is famous for.
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He was well known for saying if you wanted people to appreciate a plant
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it was no good just planting one of them.
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In order to see it properly, they had to have lots of them.
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I love the textures.
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The way textures on the trunk of a tree will match.
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Or the colours of the water will pick up the colours of the leaves.
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And it's those tiny details expanded out by the vigour of the planting here in Brazil,
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together with the vigour of his imagination
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that is one of the things that makes this place so extraordinary.
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Burle Marx bequeathed the Sitio to the people of Brazil
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as part of the Burle Marx Foundation,
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and although he designed over 2,000 gardens,
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this is, I think, where his genius is best displayed.
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But now I am leaving here to follow in the footsteps of the great man
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and head north into the rainforest.
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My first visit to the Amazon basin exceeds any previous experience.
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All its statistics are superlatives.
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It produces 20% of the planet's oxygen
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and also contains more than 20% of the world's fresh water.
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Its 1.5 million square miles contains a third of the world's total rainforest
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and with an estimated 50,000 species of endemic plants
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it makes Brazil the most bio-diverse country on earth.
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I arrive in the middle of the dry season and it's unbelievably hot.
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But any romantic notions I may have harboured
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about my arrival in the remote Amazon,
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quickly evaporate as I find myself in a large noisy, commercial city
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right in the heart of the jungle.
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This is Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas.
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On the banks of the Rio Negro,
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and it is one of the gateways to the whole Amazon region.
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And it started life as a rubber trading port.
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The rubber came in from the jungle and the city that grew up
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around that trade was elegant and had real colonial charm.
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The Opera House, built in 1879 by Joseph Eiffel, of Eiffel tower fame,
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attests to the wealth brought by the rubber trade, now long gone.
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Yet still, forest people are drawn here by the hope of work.
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Today the population of Manaus is more than 1.5 million;
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that's bigger than any British city outside London.
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But the lure for the modern visitor
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is the same as for the original 18th century rubber traders.
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And that is what is out there,
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which is the richest selection of plant life on this planet.
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I'm looking for the Cassiquiari.
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I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, but it's one of these boats.
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I hope it's a nice one.
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There are at a rough estimate at least 50 or 60 such boats.
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Cassiquiari.
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That's her.
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Very charming. Hello.
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Hello, I'm Monty, nice to meet you, can I come on?
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Welcome aboard.
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Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
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We leave the city and moor out in the river
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as the light drops quickly away into the darkness of the steamy tropical night.
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It'll be morning before I see my first unfettered views of the mighty Amazon.
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As day breaks, the river reveals itself in all it's glory.
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It is unimaginably huge.
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The river system has 11,000 tributaries,
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of which 17 are more than 1,000 miles long.
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Before I could set off for the day
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there was an unexpected problem to deal with.
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Now we had a slight mishap on my way here,
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because at Sao Paolo I picked up the wrong suitcase, identical to mine.
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And when we got on the boat and opened it out,
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instead of seeing all my gear, my clothes, my washing kit and all the rest of it,
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there was a large collection of saris and sequin-encrusted jerseys.
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And there's obviously some poor woman, desperate for her clothes.
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It left me with a problem because I was about to go down the Amazon.
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All I had was the suit I travelled in and nothing else at all.
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Luckily I managed to borrow these clothes.
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SPEAKS PORTUGUESE
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I don't speak Portuguese but I guess she's probably saying that
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it looks very nice but a nice pink sari would've been more fetching!
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OK. Are we ready?
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Managing to resist the lure of a pink sari,
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I'm off to explore the Amazon.
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With over a fifth of the world's plant species thought to be growing here,
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I wondered if people who live here need to garden?
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My guide Ivano assures me they do,
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so he takes me to meet a river community.
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Ah, look... look at the dogs.
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The water levels in the Amazon can rise and fall by as much as 30 feet according to the season,
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so all these houses float on the river to accommodate the changing levels.
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This is the last place I would expect to find a garden
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but then, astonishingly,
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one floats by.
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The floating house
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is very nice to live because when I was born my parents live in a floating house.
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You were born in a floating house.
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Yes, I was born in a floating house.
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There's budgerigars! Ah!
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You can see now that this house with a garden...
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Balanced on these vast logs, these trees,
247
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:52,320
and then boxes and containers stretched across them.
248
00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:55,480
Most of the plants are medicinal plants.
249
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And some vegetables that they can eat.
250
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,360
There are onions... in an old boat!
251
00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:03,520
Fantastic!
252
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,440
It's much easier to get around on the river
253
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,360
than trekking through the jungle,
254
00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:11,680
so the houses are floating on the river too.
255
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:13,600
But with the massive change in level,
256
00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,320
these floating houses move quite large distances.
257
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:18,800
Wherever a house goes, the garden must follow.
258
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,280
Those trees there. Are they floating too?
259
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:26,240
Yeah, they are very interesting these gardens
260
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:30,160
because it's incredible how the gardens can support a tree like that.
261
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:33,600
Like coconuts trees and lemon and cashew nuts.
262
00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:40,160
- So these big trees are growing in what we would call containers floating on the water.
- Yeah.
263
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:44,560
We drop by the local shop,
264
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:47,920
where the owner grows fruit trees aboard their floating garden.
265
00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:52,440
- E Monty, Dona Sebastiana.
- How do you do?
266
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,280
This is beautiful, look her house.
267
00:18:56,280 --> 00:19:00,320
- It's a beautiful house.
- Very typical. Look at the kitchen. Very nice kitchen.
268
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:02,280
Out the back is Sebastiana's garden.
269
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:05,400
Amazingly, it is an orchard of really quite large trees
270
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:08,880
bobbing about on a pontoon chained to the house.
271
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:10,040
This is fantastic...
272
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,440
these are big plants, aren't they?
273
00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:15,200
How much soil has she put into the containers?
274
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:29,440
She use a bag like these and she use like 30 for to get the soil.
275
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:31,800
30. So the roots don't go down in to the water?
276
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:34,320
No they stay on the soil.
277
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:37,360
And you water it from the river? She'll splash it off in.
278
00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:40,560
Yes, she's going to show us how she waters from the river.
279
00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:48,120
Right.
280
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,040
Does she have to water all her pots every day?
281
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:03,000
- Yes, twice every day.
- Twice a day.
282
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:08,880
- Presumably in the rainy season she doesn't have to do that?
- No, no.
283
00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:11,440
Tell me what she has here...
284
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:20,000
Verbena, carambola, cashew, banana.
285
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:24,880
All growing in little boxes floating on the river is an amazing thing.
286
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:27,000
It's an amazing thing.
287
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:34,120
She loves plants and she cannot plant in the land because of the flood jungle.
288
00:20:34,120 --> 00:20:39,920
So if she wants to have some trees by side of the house it has to be like that.
289
00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:49,840
People who garden on the river have fewer constraints than you might imagine
290
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:54,360
and can grow nearly as much as anyone on dry land, including vegetables.
291
00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:57,520
Combined with fresh fish from the river it seemed
292
00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:02,080
to make for a superbly healthy diet and very attractive lifestyle.
293
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:10,960
But I met one householder preparing to sell up and move to the city.
294
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:18,440
Now she's going to move to Manaus will she still have a garden?
295
00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:23,080
She's going to take it.
296
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:27,720
Only the house is for selling. Not the garden.
297
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:31,560
- Which is her favourite plant?
- The rose.
298
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:35,360
Cos it's like a queen in the garden.
299
00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:39,480
It's like a queen in the garden. That's a very beautiful thought.
300
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,200
Flowers are actually a rare sight in the Amazon
301
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:47,680
because there isn't one distinct flowering season and flowering plants bloom unpredictably,
302
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:51,480
and usually out of sight at the top of tree canopies where there's light.
303
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,840
So in these floating gardens, any bright showy flower is always very popular.
304
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,840
So what do we have round here?
305
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:07,920
- She has plants, piggies.
- Piggies!
306
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:12,680
I love piggies. 6 pigs, floating.
307
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:14,560
Fantastic.
308
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:16,880
I too keep pigs and love growing vegetables.
309
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:21,880
So whilst I like roses, I love her pigs and I admire her vegetables.
310
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,240
Obrigada!
311
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:41,000
The sun is about to drop and when it does go it just falls out of the sky.
312
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,320
You're left in pitch blackness.
313
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:47,840
And the main thing today, other than the vastness of this place
314
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:52,040
and the unimaginable scale of everything, including the heat,
315
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:58,000
is that the desire to garden seems to be a completely basic thing.
316
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:02,400
It doesn't matter if you're on the middle of one of the biggest rivers on this planet.
317
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:07,400
Still people are making gardens in old canoes and boxes of wood,
318
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,320
with soil they've had to hump from different parts of the land
319
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,360
and get into a canoe and row it over and empty it out.
320
00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:17,800
And still that urge to grow things,
321
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:22,600
in the most unlikely of situations, seems to be a basic instinct.
322
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,840
The next morning I set off to go into the jungle.
323
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:48,200
We all now know that this habitat is highly threatened,
324
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,640
but I'm still hoping to find some of the plants
325
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:55,200
Burle Marx fought so hard to conserve in his Sitio garden near Rio.
326
00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:10,040
Before you come to the rainforest you're hit over the head with statistics.
327
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:13,800
But there is one that is really striking,
328
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:18,680
and that is that one hectare of virgin rainforest in the Amazon
329
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:24,720
has more species of trees than the whole of North America.
330
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,880
It's remarkably easy to get lost in the jungle,
331
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,400
even on a modest little jaunt like this,
332
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,360
so I've enlisted the help of Mo,
333
00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:37,960
a local guide who's lived in the Amazon jungle all his life.
334
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,960
Mo explained to me the reason for the extraordinary flaring buttresses
335
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:44,400
of many of the jungle trees.
336
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:52,200
The land here is so poor that this tree doesn't have a deep root,
337
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:58,640
so it needs this support, the system of roots to support the tree.
338
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,840
OK, you have very, very shallow soil,
339
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:08,320
but how does these enormous trees and this mass of life sustain its fertility,
340
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,760
because it must be making great demands in nutrition and in water.
341
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,360
- Water we have enough.
- Right.
342
00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:18,840
They live from what the other trees leave.
343
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:25,200
What they have is a big exchange of nutrients.
344
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,400
What one lose, the others get.
345
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,120
In the intense heat and humidity of the tropical rainforest,
346
00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:35,760
specially-adapted fungi and bacteria
347
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,400
rapidly break down fallen leaves and wood.
348
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:45,040
This releases nutrients which are immediately taken back up by the plants.
349
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,920
This process almost completely by-passes the soil,
350
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:51,360
leaving it almost devoid of organic matter,
351
00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:53,680
shallow and with hardly any nutrients.
352
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,000
You have the roots right on the surface
353
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,440
and a very very thin layer of soil.
354
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:06,960
So the whole of this vast forest with these enormous trees
355
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,000
is supported like in a tray.
356
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:13,360
What's this?
357
00:26:13,360 --> 00:26:15,320
Oh! This is a brazil nut fruit,
358
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,000
if you open it up there are like 20 nuts inside.
359
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,200
Really? Let me have a look at that.
360
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,040
Yes. Try to cut it.
361
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:24,720
So you just, just...
362
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,520
Put in the ground. It's very hard.
363
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:28,000
- Is it?
- Yeah.
364
00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:38,080
Now you can see the nuts in there.
365
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,720
So inside this very, very hard shell
366
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,240
are a series of nuts with very, very hard shells.
367
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,680
Is there an animal that breaks through that?
368
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,840
Yeah, a very interesting point. There is a little hole here.
369
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:54,160
What happened we have an agouti, like a little kangaroo
370
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,240
with big backside and small hands but very sharp teeth,
371
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:03,280
that come and eats two or three of those seeds and then buries the rest.
372
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,120
He intends to return, but the animal has a very poor memory.
373
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:09,240
So for this reason grows the Brazil nut.
374
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,200
Without the help of the agouti they cannot grow.
375
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:20,440
Countless species in the rainforest are dependent upon this sort of complex, symbiotic relationship.
376
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:27,600
But, over a quarter of a million square miles of this delicate ecosystem
377
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,240
have been ruthlessly cleared in the past 40 years alone,
378
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:36,160
which has accelerated a process that began with the first European settlers in the 15th century.
379
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:41,720
They were convinced the obvious lushness of the rainforest was due to rich soils.
380
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,880
As indeed it would have been in the temperate forests of Europe.
381
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:52,120
So, they cut and burned vast tracts of forest in an attempt to create farmland.
382
00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:57,040
However, this cleared land only supports crops for a few years.
383
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:01,240
Once the trees are gone, the soil has no protection from the equatorial rains,
384
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,400
which quickly wash away the ash and the few remaining nutrients
385
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,800
and the blazing sun desiccates the essential bacteria and fungi.
386
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:11,440
It is an ecological disaster.
387
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,400
This is now clearly understood,
388
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,240
but nevertheless still continues to happen.
389
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,800
Exhausted land is quickly abandoned and virgin rainforest once again
390
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,400
sacrificed at the altar of ignorant greed.
391
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,040
However, a new discovery offers an ember of hope
392
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:37,080
that could revolutionise the way the rainforest is farmed in the future,
393
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,320
working with the forest to create sustainable fertility.
394
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:47,280
Recent science has shown a very, very small percentage of Amazonia,
395
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:52,680
about 0.2%, but which still amounts to 50,000 sq km,
396
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:58,240
is composed of pockets of very rich black soil.
397
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:00,600
How on earth did that get there?
398
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:08,440
This deep, black soil, known as 'terra preta', is extremely fertile
399
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:13,360
and, because it contains pottery shards and organic matter dating back to prehistoric times,
400
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,800
scientists believe it is man-made,
401
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,960
built up artificially over thousands of years.
402
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,600
And the key to its fertility lies in the charcoal,
403
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,440
which can retain nutrients.
404
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,120
These then remain stable in the soil and don't leach away.
405
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,080
The furious heat from conventional slash and burn
406
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,400
quickly reduces plant material into ash
407
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,400
which leaches its goodness almost immediately.
408
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,600
But charcoal, made from a much gentler smouldering fire lit in the rainy season,
409
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,920
acts as a sponge for nutrients, holding them in the soil.
410
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,080
It's thought native Amazonians used this system long before settlers arrived
411
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:53,920
to transform some of the world's worst soil into some of the best.
412
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,560
There are still some tribes that practise similar techniques.
413
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,000
The Satere-Mawe tribe use the rainforest for all their daily needs,
414
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,840
and Bacu and her village want to share their knowledge
415
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,240
and show visitors her ancestors' way of growing things.
416
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,920
Mo is taking me to meet her because, for generations,
417
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,440
this tribe has been using fire to create compost
418
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:22,840
and to cultivate their poor rainforest soils.
419
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,040
Hello.
420
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,280
So what's she doing here?
421
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,800
She's using the old spoiled wood, it's not the good wood,
422
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,680
the spoiled wood, to make fire.
423
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:48,880
She takes the ashes for the plants to grow all the plants she needs.
424
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,280
Is she just putting the ash straight on,
425
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,160
or she is adding any other the soil?
426
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,880
SHE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE
427
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,600
The ashes she's using there, she gets some of the dead wood,
428
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,120
and puts them together, she says, not to get too strong, too acid.
429
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:13,200
I see. So it's just when she plants the plant.
430
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,360
SHE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE
431
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,440
When the plant is ugly, she has to do that over!
432
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,520
So you make it a good plant by using it.
433
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:31,360
Bacu slowly burns the mixture of dead wood and organic matter,
434
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,240
like her ancestors did, to create a soil conditioner
435
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,680
to propagate and raise healthy plants
436
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,560
in her small garden, year in, year out.
437
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,800
Can I see how she uses it in the garden?
438
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,680
THEY SPEAK PORTUGUESE
439
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,000
There is wood from the palm.
440
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,960
But she brings a different one to mix.
441
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,400
And then she says she's going to plant.
442
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:04,720
This is a thing that she uses for worms.
443
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,000
If you have a parasite in your intestines.
444
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,040
So she's taking a cutting?
445
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:12,600
Just a branch. She breaks a branch.
446
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,440
But she puts a little earth in here before she breaks,
447
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,240
so they have little roots already.
448
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:24,320
It makes roots presumably because it's so warm and moist, it wants to make roots.
449
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,240
Tell me, how long ago did she break that branch off?
450
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:31,400
Two days ago.
451
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:36,440
And it's started to put roots out already, in the air, with just a little soil round it.
452
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,480
From where I live, that is incredible.
453
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,680
There are very few plants that will do that.
454
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:47,360
Este esta de marejar e para xampu e tambem para criancas...
455
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:49,600
I understood "shampoo". And this one?
456
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,800
E remedio para gente que fala muito.
457
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:57,120
This is a plant she calls "shut-up".
458
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:01,760
This is to give to for people who talk too much.
459
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,680
Very useful plant! A very, very useful plant, that!
460
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:11,600
Before I go, I have the obligatory song and dance put on for visiting tourists.
461
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,160
But Bacu's intimacy with the forest is real and profound,
462
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:16,920
and not just a tourist display.
463
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,720
And her age-old knowledge, handed on to the children,
464
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,520
holds hope for the sustainable future of the rainforest.
465
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:52,240
Today has been really interesting because it's shown how quickly
466
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:56,320
you can lose that incredible knowledge that people have.
467
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:02,160
And if we undervalue that, and somehow regard it as worthless
468
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,440
once we've got mechanisation or industrialisation,
469
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:10,040
all the skills that you need to care and to work with a place
470
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,600
as complex as the jungle, go alarmingly quickly.
471
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,200
It's scary how we've lost what we need
472
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,840
to live in harmony with a place like this.
473
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,360
And yet it doesn't need us, of course, it doesn't need us at all.
474
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,800
It's time to end my all-too brief visit to the Amazon
475
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,480
and go to a landscape that couldn't be more different.
476
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,320
I'm heading south to Argentina now,
477
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,960
to see how gardening was crucial in enabling European settlers
478
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,480
to take root in a very inhospitable region.
479
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,800
Argentina runs down from the Andes
480
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,040
to the windswept featureless plains of the Pampas.
481
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:12,320
I'm starting my visit in the country's elegant capital,
482
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:13,560
Buenos Aires.
483
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:23,280
The name "Argentina" is derived from the Latin for silver, "argentum",
484
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,800
and was given by Spanish conquerors in 1524
485
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,560
who claimed that the mountains were rich in the precious metal.
486
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,440
This sparked a silver rush and, over the course of the next 300 years,
487
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,200
Argentina saw a mass migration of southern Europeans in search of a better life.
488
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:48,880
The city does feel to me as though it's got a European feel to it.
489
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,680
It's hard to place exactly but there is something distinctly European.
490
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:57,400
And I think it's as much to do with the avenues and the parks and the trees.
491
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:02,040
And the responsibility for those is directly down to one man.
492
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,920
The parks and broad tree-lined avenues of Buenos Aires
493
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,920
were designed by a French landscape architect called Charles Thays.
494
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:16,960
In 1889, when he was 40, he came here on a visit,
495
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,320
fell in love with the country and spent the rest of his life here.
496
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:26,080
It's directly thanks to him that the modern city has inherited
497
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:31,080
the green spaces and sheltering trees which it benefits from today,
498
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:35,440
as I learnt from his grandson and namesake, Carlos Thays.
499
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:40,040
TRANSLATION: He learnt the art of landscape design in Europe,
500
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:46,080
and saw the cities of London and Paris were tree-lined, and full of parks.
501
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:52,560
There were absolutely no trees and parks in Buenos Aires when he arrived,
502
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:57,280
so he planted 1.2 million trees in the streets of Buenos Aires.
503
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,400
Although the city has a distinctly European feel,
504
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:04,360
the trees that Charles Thays planted
505
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,000
were often species native to South America.
506
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,880
And none is more magnificent than this beautiful giant.
507
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,880
This is one of the most wonderful trees I've ever seen.
508
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:21,800
It's a gomero, rubber tree.
509
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,360
Apart from the fact that it's enormous,
510
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,320
it has great significance because it was the first tree,
511
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,360
apparently, planted here in Buenos Aires.
512
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,200
And, in the 200 years since it was planted, it has become vast.
513
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:38,400
In the middle of this incredibly noisy, busy city,
514
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:42,360
it's a symbolic stately presence.
515
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,880
The influence of Charles Thays's tree-planting
516
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,200
can be felt throughout the city,
517
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,240
but it also extended into the countryside.
518
00:37:54,240 --> 00:37:57,480
So tomorrow, I am going to head out to wilderness of the Pampas.
519
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,280
The open, even bleak, landscape of the Pampas,
520
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,840
is the territory of the beef barons.
521
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:19,640
It is where European settlers turned these wind-battered but fertile flatlands
522
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:21,760
into a very successful rural economy,
523
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,640
based around huge cattle ranches called "estancias".
524
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,200
As they prospered, the owners of the estancias
525
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,080
built themselves impressive houses and grounds.
526
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:39,280
I've come to see Estancia Dos Talas, a remnant, albeit somewhat reduced,
527
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:44,400
of a golden age when this European elite transformed Argentina.
528
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,160
Estancia Dos Talas was built in 1858 by Pedro Luro
529
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,560
who came to the country at 17 without a penny to his name.
530
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,360
But through a combination of graft and guile,
531
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,760
became one of the most important landowners in Argentina.
532
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:17,240
The estancia came into the family by the most extraordinary route
533
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:22,080
because Don Pedro Luro was offered the job of planting trees.
534
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:24,000
And he was going to be paid in land.
535
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:25,800
So many trees, you get so much land.
536
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,400
The owner then went away to Europe for three years and, in his absence,
537
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,520
Don Pedro planted trees like a man possessed.
538
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:33,960
Tens of thousands of trees.
539
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,360
And when we came back, the owner found the only way he could pay him
540
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:38,920
was by giving him all the land.
541
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:45,320
The case went to court, Don Pedro won and he found himself with 17,000 hectares of the Pampas.
542
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:02,840
This is a pigeon house.
543
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:08,160
And every self-respecting big house or farm house
544
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:09,760
had a pigeon house in England.
545
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,160
But it's a European thing.
546
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,280
And apparently the stone,
547
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:17,680
these ledges for the pigeons to go on, was brought in from Europe.
548
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:22,440
It's old red sandstone which is what my house in England is made out of!
549
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:24,240
It doesn't exist in South America.
550
00:40:24,240 --> 00:40:26,360
It was all shipped over here.
551
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:33,280
And the most ornate fabulous building, occupied now by bees.
552
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,040
What a lovely building.
553
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:40,560
At the start of the 20th century, Buenos Aires's top landscape architect,
554
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:42,880
who was of course Charles Thays,
555
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,480
was commissioned to draw up plans for a 75-acre park.
556
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,080
The estancia has remained in the same family,
557
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,600
and Sara de Elizalde, the current chatelaine,
558
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,840
showed me Thays's original plans for the design of the garden.
559
00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:01,720
This is a highly fashionable design in June 1908.
560
00:41:01,720 --> 00:41:06,880
Did he oversee the execution of it?
561
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,200
TRANSLATION: When Charles Thays started to supervise the work
562
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:15,240
he came here and saw that many trees had already been planted.
563
00:41:15,240 --> 00:41:20,360
So, he designed the garden to incorporate those that were already here.
564
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,760
It must be quite a responsibility to feel you have
565
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:32,760
this exceptional design and garden that it is your duty to look after?
566
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:38,200
Well, my husband Luis feels that it is a legacy
567
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,560
to maintain the whole estancia, but especially the park.
568
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,240
It is something he has in his blood
569
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:49,160
and he suffers a lot whenever there is a storm and a tree falls down.
570
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,160
He fights hard to keep everything in good condition.
571
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:57,800
To appreciate this vast garden, Sara's husband, Luis de Elizalde,
572
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,920
suggested that I explore his estate on horseback.
573
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,280
I don't often get the chance to ride,
574
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,800
but there is no better way to get round
575
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:13,160
and see some of the 1,400 hectares, or 3,500 acres, of the estancia.
576
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:18,680
Things like this avenue, the scale of it, is extraordinary.
577
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,640
- And these trees are what?
- Casuarina.
578
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,920
The beautiful thing of these trees
579
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:29,360
is that, when the wind blows, it produces the sound of the sea.
580
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,160
I know, I heard it this morning!
581
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,240
But I didn't realise it was these trees causing it. How fabulous.
582
00:42:35,240 --> 00:42:37,720
I imagine that on the Pampas
583
00:42:37,720 --> 00:42:41,440
the original settlers must have felt so exposed.
584
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:46,320
Yes, they had only the tala, but the tala doesn't grow over six metres.
585
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,680
- A tree, but a small tree.
- A small tree.
586
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,600
So these were planted as windbreaks,
587
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,880
and obviously very beautiful avenues.
588
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,280
Was it practicality first and then beauty?
589
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,800
They loved planting long avenues, and wide,
590
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,160
just to make them important.
591
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:11,960
The whole park is carved into these great avenues, dividing the woods into blocks.
592
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:16,720
Some have clearly been clipped but are now grown out so they have become dramatic tunnels.
593
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:22,680
They also provide vital protection on this completely exposed landscape.
594
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:29,800
Charles Thays's park can't possibly be maintained today in the style
595
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:34,040
that needed 16 gardeners to tend it in its pre-war heyday.
596
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:39,200
But it has matured to become a rambling, overgrown but magical garden
597
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:43,720
dominated by more than 50 species of superb trees,
598
00:43:43,720 --> 00:43:48,000
including an avenue of dead but still magnificent elms.
599
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:56,600
It's big and it's flat.
600
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,120
Immeasurably, literally immeasurably.
601
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,080
One big field.
602
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,720
Between the fences, we are talking about 60 hectares here.
603
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:09,600
So each field is about 60 hectares?
604
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:13,080
- 60, 70. From 100 to 60.
- Right.
605
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,680
So the Pampas has been like this forever,
606
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:20,520
but presumably the grazing affects the grass and what's grown here.
607
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,560
If it's left ungrazed, how does it turn?
608
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:26,840
Because trees don't grow on it.
609
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,040
Yes, but grass does.
610
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:35,560
Because it's the soil is so good, so good that we never fertilise this.
611
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:37,960
And the grass just keeps growing and growing.
612
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,440
- That's why the Pampas, it's mainly for cattle.
- So it's cattle.
613
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:44,040
Cattle, cattle and cattle!
614
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,640
There are a few trees to be found growing naturally on the Pampas,
615
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:56,560
but they are small, and very tough.
616
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:58,840
Anything much bigger than a blade of grass
617
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,960
has difficulty surviving because of the constant wind.
618
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,680
It's not hard to see why these vast shelter belts
619
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:06,840
were planted around the edge of the park.
620
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:15,040
The last storm, Katrina, went through New Orleans.
621
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,360
And the tail of that wind, if you look on the map,
622
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,800
came through and put them all down, at once.
623
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:24,800
Pomp, pomp, pomp...
624
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,600
You must have come down the next morning and...
625
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,440
140 km the wind.
626
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:31,960
Really?
627
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:37,120
Do you feel you need to replant it, to recreate...?
628
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,240
Of course!
629
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:41,120
If God gives me the time, I'll do it!
630
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:09,800
The reason that I came to Argentina was to see the Pampas.
631
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:13,560
And of course, I accept there much more to the place than that.
632
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,200
But I really wanted to see how you could garden
633
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:21,480
in a place of such vast, flat almost emptiness.
634
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:26,160
Charles Thays did not shut out the Pampas completely.
635
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:29,960
He carefully plotted sunset and sunrise and left openings
636
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:33,680
in his planting to view them and make them part of the garden.
637
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:37,760
And the existence of this huge garden is, I think,
638
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:44,200
a defiant expression of mastery over this fertile yet intimidating space,
639
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,880
imposing, for a while at least, a European culture upon it.
640
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,720
But it's time to leave the Argentinean Pampas
641
00:46:54,720 --> 00:46:57,440
and continue on to the final stage of my journey,
642
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,720
to a country of startling contrasts - Chile.
643
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:09,360
Chile is 18 times longer than it is wide.
644
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:15,360
It has 4,300 miles of coastline and is 180 miles across.
645
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,320
The Andes flank the entire length of the country,
646
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:28,000
and the arid plains of the Atacama desert seal the north.
647
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,240
To the south are the ice flows of Patagonia.
648
00:47:32,240 --> 00:47:38,280
I want to find out how Chilean gardeners are inspired by such dramatic backdrops.
649
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,640
I suppose if you got enough time the best way to see this country
650
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,760
would be to go from the far north right down to the frozen south,
651
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,480
but I've decided to take a slice across the country,
652
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:50,040
from the Andes to the Pacific.
653
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,880
Botanically speaking, Chile is like an island
654
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,040
with new plant material unable to enter from any direction,
655
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,000
and it has such extreme environments
656
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:04,040
that an incredible range of endemic plants thrive here.
657
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,440
The Chilean palm is one of these.
658
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:14,360
Their trunks shrink and bulge with age as they put all their energy into producing fruit.
659
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,520
They're also extremely slow growing and live to a great age.
660
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,960
This veteran is thought to be the oldest palm tree in the world
661
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,240
and is more than 1,000 years old.
662
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:32,280
But the palm was almost exploited to extinction because of its sap,
663
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:35,640
which was extracted and then boiled up to make syrup.
664
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:40,440
This is illegal now, and today the palm is the national emblem of Chile.
665
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:55,840
Wet!
666
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:57,760
THUNDER RUMBLES
667
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:02,040
Near the Campana National Park, a local hacienda has been trying
668
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:05,200
to protect the Chilean palm and increase their numbers.
669
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,680
They collect syrup, but only if a tree falls naturally,
670
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,840
and the owner has invited me over to try this for myself.
671
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,200
Salud.
672
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:20,840
I hope it's not medicine.
673
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,280
Es muy dulce, pero muy rica.
674
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,680
As they say where I live, "something different".
675
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,840
It is like drinking treacle.
676
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,360
It's a very big glass, but I will endeavour.
677
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:53,800
Charles Darwin visited Chile on the voyage of the Beagle,
678
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:55,960
and he noted the Chilean palm
679
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:58,920
and he said he thought it was a remarkably ugly tree.
680
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,800
Well, each to their own, but I think he was wrong.
681
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:04,760
I think there's something really splendid about them,
682
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,680
and I love these great elephant's feet of the trucks.
683
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:12,080
It may be not worth travelling in the Beagle round the world
684
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:14,840
just to see these but certainly worth a stop-off.
685
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,160
At last the rain stops, and I get back on the road.
686
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,520
One of the real treats of travelling
687
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,880
is when you come across plants you've nurtured in your garden growing wild,
688
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,280
and these eschscholtzias are just spilling down the hillside.
689
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:51,800
They're everywhere!
690
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,360
And they're just as exotic as something you'd find in the jungle.
691
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:00,480
These eschscholtzias are not native to Chile,
692
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:05,680
but they do love it here and have naturalised from their home in California.
693
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:13,080
For my final garden of this trip,
694
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:16,240
I'm bound for Los Vilos on the Pacific coast
695
00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:22,240
to meet a Chilean designer whose gardens celebrate the native flora of his homeland.
696
00:51:22,240 --> 00:51:26,440
It's by a man called Juan Grimm, Chile's leading garden designer,
697
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:28,360
very well known in South America.
698
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,360
He's modern, he's contemporary.
699
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:32,800
The site is supposed to be really dramatic.
700
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:36,240
And I know that he's passionate about using Chilean plants,
701
00:51:36,240 --> 00:51:40,520
of combining the landscape and house with indigenous species.
702
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:59,440
The first thing that is striking about Juan Grimm's garden
703
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:04,160
is it's hard to see where the garden begins or, indeed, where it ends.
704
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:16,360
There are certainly no showy displays of flowers
705
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,480
and no neatly defined borders,
706
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,960
just an infinitely sophisticated use of local plants,
707
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,400
gently coerced into colonising this rocky site,
708
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:27,280
which tumbles into the Pacific.
709
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:34,880
When I was a child, I really remember the sensuality,
710
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:36,280
how the landscape
711
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:40,040
touched the leaves, touched the rocks.
712
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:41,880
I loved that when I was a child.
713
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,280
The garden swells up from the very edge of the sea
714
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:50,840
in an unbroken, flowing progression lapping around the house.
715
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,320
Every part of the landscape, including the sky and sea,
716
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,000
seemed to be part of the garden.
717
00:52:57,360 --> 00:52:59,640
I'm interested in following this idea
718
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,960
of where a garden begins and ends.
719
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:08,000
How do you phase the garden out into a big landscape like this sea
720
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:10,280
- or into woods or whatever?
- Mm-hm.
721
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,800
Your sight doesn't have limits.
722
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,360
Even though it's a small space,
723
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:20,080
you can borrow the tree from your neighbour.
724
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:25,040
Or in this case, you don't feel where the sight ends.
725
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:28,760
- So, you're looking to use the landscape?
- Absolutely.
726
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,960
The landscape says to you what you have to do,
727
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:33,840
and that's the important thing.
728
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:51,920
That covered wall looks, actually, remarkably like a clipped hedge.
729
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,320
Uh-huh, yes. That's the idea.
730
00:53:55,320 --> 00:54:01,080
I left this window here in the hedge because this plant was here
731
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:05,480
but was very small, but in ten years it has grown.
732
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:10,040
And I like to see the landscape very far from here.
733
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:14,360
I think it's very important to have references for the landscape.
734
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,720
- And fundamentally, you use native plants here.
- Native plants.
735
00:54:17,720 --> 00:54:19,360
All of these are native plants.
736
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:23,760
They resist the wind and the salt of the ocean.
737
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,160
It must have been quite a challenge making the steps,
738
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:33,680
- getting a route through the garden.
- Uh-huh.
739
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:38,240
Yes, and I think it was very important
740
00:54:38,240 --> 00:54:41,560
not to see the stairs from the house,
741
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:43,760
and that's why I plant all the shrubs.
742
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,800
How long did it take until the shrubs
743
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:50,120
formed the bulk and the volume that you needed?
744
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,160
Five years, more or less.
745
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:55,840
And the swimming pool. Was this part of your original plan?
746
00:54:55,840 --> 00:55:00,080
I always wanted to have a part of the ocean, like an eye of the ocean.
747
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:02,160
It makes you conscious with the house.
748
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:04,520
So looking back up at the house...
749
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,160
..you've got the hard lines and then softness,
750
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:11,960
just everything organic in shape and form.
751
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,240
The house is inside the plants.
752
00:55:14,240 --> 00:55:17,240
It emerges from the rock and from the plants.
753
00:55:17,240 --> 00:55:20,480
So the house is growing with the plants.
754
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:22,880
To what extent have you planted up the rocks?
755
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,840
All these plants near the swimming pool, I plant them,
756
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:30,080
and some of those I planted around there because it was very dry there.
757
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:34,240
But all the plants that grow in the rocks, they grow spontaneously.
758
00:55:34,240 --> 00:55:36,800
I tried to be more natural.
759
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,280
All these flowers you see here, the alstromerias,
760
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:43,400
when I watered this part of the garden,
761
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:47,320
the seeds came here and they grew here.
762
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:52,240
I love the way the garden gently and without any self-consciousness
763
00:55:52,240 --> 00:55:56,920
goes completely to nature, completely wild,
764
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,720
in the space of, what, ten metres?
765
00:55:59,720 --> 00:56:04,240
I like how the plants are very green,
766
00:56:04,240 --> 00:56:08,880
and the green starts to disappear here, and the rocks the other way.
767
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:11,000
Too much rocks and the rocks disappear.
768
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:14,280
Presumably that relationship between the green and the rocks
769
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,200
and the ground changes all the time.
770
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:19,640
Do you manage that or do you let it happen?
771
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,840
Well, just a little. I put some plants.
772
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:25,080
You see those yellow one there?
773
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,400
That's a native plant. I put it there.
774
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,640
And some of the shrubs also.
775
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:34,400
So minimal intervention, minimal gardening, for maximum effect.
776
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:35,920
That's the idea.
777
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:40,960
You know, I think Juan Grimm's garden is one of
778
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:45,120
the most beautiful and brilliantly conceived that I have ever seen.
779
00:56:45,120 --> 00:56:48,400
It is a glorious masterpiece.
780
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:52,160
And more than that, I'm sure that his use of native plants,
781
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,440
working with the landscape rather than trying to dominate it,
782
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:58,480
is the key for any sustainable future.
783
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,200
This journey has shown me fascinating gardens,
784
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,360
created in such incredibly diverse natural conditions,
785
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:12,960
that you can hardly believe that the same landmass can harbour such varied places.
786
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,040
But in all those places,
787
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:23,400
you have this common desire to create something from nature
788
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:26,040
that is domesticated and yet in tune with it.
789
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:30,840
And I think this is the really extraordinary, exciting thing about South America,
790
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:38,200
that it has very recently realised that it must work with its surroundings respectfully,
791
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:44,680
and yet what it does have is that intense enthusiasm and creativity which is very, very exciting.
792
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:48,440
This has been my first trip here, but it won't be my last.
793
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,600
My next journey will take me across the Atlantic
794
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,880
to see what the United States of America is doing
795
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,160
with all its wealth and power in the garden.
796
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,720
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
797
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:18,760
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