The Beechgrove Garden 2024 episode 14
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. There's lots going on right now so why not get away
00:18from it all, clear your head and join us in the garden.
00:24Coming up, now's the time to take softwood cuttings, we show you what to do. Also, how
00:31to put grass cuttings to good use, creating a herb garden for your window sill and this
00:39week I'm at Old Schoon where I'm exploring the wonderful world of Heucheras.
00:45But first, I'm here with Ruth and she lectures horticulture at Scotland's Rural College
00:54in Edinburgh. So I specialise in integrated crop management which is really thinking
00:58about the underpinning of science into everything that we do within horticulture but particularly
01:05focusing on fruits and vegetables, flowers and also weed management too.
01:10Oh well, that's perfect because we get lots of viewers asking how to manage this particular
01:16weed here which is of course horsetail. Yes, absolutely, also known as marestails
01:20in Scotland or equisita marvens, it is a prolific weed shall we say. Once it's there
01:29it is really difficult to get rid of for a couple of different reasons. So one is that
01:33it can spread via spores through the air which is really unusual actually, it makes it really
01:38interesting as a weed because it's actually more similar to ferns than it is your typical
01:42flowering plants. Very, very old and really ancient but in addition to the spreading via
01:49spores it also produces these underground rhizomes, these modified stems as well which
01:55makes it much more challenging. Yeah and you've got a little bit of an example here.
02:00Yes, absolutely. So this is just the sort of typical structure, you've got your root system
02:05here but what it's just starting to do at this time of year is put on some fresh rhizomes. So
02:10these are modified stems that will actually grow under the ground and at each of the individual
02:16nodes will start to put roots down but also can put new stems on. So it's kind of a silent
02:22creeper under the ground and you don't know where it's going to go. The thing with pulling it up is
02:26fine and it's good for if you're trying to just get rid of quite small juvenile plants. If it is
02:34much more established however it can be a little bit more difficult to manage from that perspective.
02:39So what you would want to do is just use a hand trowel or a fork and you're going to be wanting
02:44to look for the rhizomes where possible and actually just tease them up from underneath.
02:49If you break those rhizomes it will produce new plants. This is why it can spread so so quickly
02:54and so easily under the ground. So you would really want to do it carefully, very slowly just
03:01making sure that you're getting the whole plant to come out. But if you are an allotment gardener
03:06that's a very different thing because you might have a big open patch and this is where we could
03:10think about suppressing it. So from that perspective what we can do is just cover it
03:15with membrane and cardboard and anything you can to just block out the light as much as you
03:22possibly can. Yeah and you need to remember that if you are going to make a difference during that
03:27suppression period it needs to be at least for a whole season if not two to really make any sort
03:32of difference to it. Absolutely like we said it is the ultimate survivor so you want to keep the
03:38light out as much as possible. It may even still creep until it finds light which is just the
03:44nature of it but at that point you can then start taking out those really small shoots that start
03:49coming up and sort of pulling those but the bulk of the plant should be completely suppressed.
03:54It is such a busy time of year in the garden at the moment. Not only are we already starting to
04:00harvest our fruits and our vegetables but I'm already thinking about next year as well. So this
04:06is where we're talking about softwood cuttings. So by softwood what we're talking about is that
04:11really fleshy, very soft wood that's been in the garden for a long time. So this is where we're
04:17talking about softwood cuttings. So by softwood what we're talking about is that really fleshy
04:23flush of new growth at the top of your plant that we're going to be able to cut from and put into a
04:30pot. Hopefully it will root and then we have new plants. In advance of doing that we want to make
04:35sure that we have everything ready and that's a key part of taking softwood cuttings because they
04:40will wither very quickly and we don't want that to happen. So we want to make sure that our
04:45cuttings are in a bag as soon as you take them. Keep it nice and tight. So here I've got the pots
04:51with a nice cutting mix. So about a 50-50 ratio of perlite and peat-free compost. I have all the
04:56tools that I need as well. So I've got my snips and I've got something to use as a dibber to
05:01create the holes. So now we're good to go. So this here is what we're talking about and what we can
05:09look at is the older part. This is what we do not want to use. So what you can see here is that this
05:16part of the plant has already started to lignify so it's maturing. We don't want this. What we want
05:22is this nice bendy fleshy growth at the top. So here we have all of the nodes where we have leaves
05:32coming out of. These are the growing points. So in order to prepare our cutting we want to think
05:38about the top and we just count down and with penstemon, which this is, it's quite a handy one
05:45because you can count down about four nodes. So we're going to go to one, two, three, four and we're
05:51just going to cut directly below that. So now what we have here is the cutting itself. So it's about
05:5910 centimetres long and that's perfect for a herbaceous cutting. We're just going to remove
06:05the leaves from the base of the cutting
06:10and what that will do is reduce transpiration. So transpiration is the process by which plants
06:17uptake water from the roots. It travels up through the stems and out through the leaves
06:22and the faster that that happens the quicker your plant will wither. So we need to work really
06:27quickly getting our cuttings prepared. So now that we've done that the next thing we need to do
06:33is just pinch the top out and what that will do is just redistribute the hormones in the plant
06:40from producing shoots to producing roots. And the final step will just be to reduce this leaf
06:48material even more. So you can just use your snips to cut these leaves in half and that will just
06:55reduce even further the rate of transpiration from the cutting. And all I'm going to do now
07:02is just use, this is just a piece of bamboo, you could use a pencil or a pen or a dibber if you
07:08have one and just in my pot I'm just going to create a hole down the side of the pot.
07:14There's quite a lot of research to show that if you put your cuttings down this side
07:18what that will do is when the new roots form it will sense that there's a barrier there and it
07:23will just encourage even more roots to come through so you'll have an even more successful
07:28cutting. So this just goes straight in there like so down the side and you can just work your way
07:35through all of your material and get them all in ready to go and then there's a final step.
07:41So I've mentioned transpiration so what we need to do is just make sure that we're watering. This
07:46is quite a dry mix here which is good but we need to ensure humidity. And there's a couple of
07:54different things that we can do next. One is you could use a heated propagator if you have one
07:58but if you don't, fear not, what we can do is just use the plastic bag that we used before,
08:05clear plastic, pop it over the top of the container like so
08:12and just use an elastic band around the base just to keep that on nice and snug like that.
08:21What we can then do is just pop that somewhere not too sunny but nice and warm. What we want to do
08:28is encourage lots of bottom heat to get those roots really starting to grow. If you are using
08:35the plastic bag method you just want to remove it once a week or so just to aerate the bag again
08:41and just keep an eye on any of your cuttings that might have rotten in the process so just keep
08:47removing anything that doesn't look particularly good and hopefully we'll have lots of plants for
08:52next year. Now we go over to Brian Cunningham at his garden at Old Scoon where he is having a look
08:58at heuchera.
09:11It really feels like just now that the garden centres are like sweet shops, they're so full of
09:16plants it's perfect for us especially when it comes to creating our summer displays because
09:21it means we've got such a larger choice that we can choose from maybe away from the traditional
09:25summer bedding. So this little display that I've created here it's actually three containers, I've
09:31got two small at the front and a larger one at the back just to give me that extra height, that wee
09:36dimension. The first plant that I'm using this is Lobelia starship scarlet. Now as the name suggests
09:42it's probably going to have lovely reddy flowers in a few weeks time but it's actually the foliage
09:47that I'm more intrigued with. I love the way it's that sort of maroony and green colour and it just
09:52blends in with the whole tone of the display that we've created here. You can't be lost without
09:57Adelia, this one's dreamy days and I do love the way the chocolate cosmos is just waving its way
10:03through this. Now this last plant that I'm putting in I'm fair tickled with, this is a heuchera.
10:10Now there's been a lot of work going across in America creating lots of new varieties,
10:15this is a wee belter here, this is frilly and it's going to be perfect for a container
10:21but there's so many more out there I need to learn to not be so judgmental
10:25so I thought in true beech grove style I'm going to have a wee plant trial.
10:40Heucheras or coral bells as they're also known, they're tough plants. They don't like the extremes
10:47so if you've got a soil that holds on to the moisture but has got good free drainage then
10:51this is a good plant for you. They can take full sun but they also like a bit of partial shade
10:57so they're a great little plant for many versatile garden situations but let's be honest it's all
11:03about the exciting colours of the foliage that we really want to buy these plants for and have
11:08them in our garden. They're also evergreens so that means they're going to keep on to the foliage
11:13all year round, might look a wee bitty battered but come Christmas when it's a wee bitty dark
11:17this is exactly the kind of plant that we need in our garden. Let's take a closer look at the foliage
11:22though, look how plain this one is, beautiful colour, this is black pearl and what I really
11:28like about the foliage is look at the waves, look at the wee shape of it, just gives you that wee
11:33bit of feature but if you're wanting something with a wee more subtle effect this is the marbled
11:39foliage of midnight rose. I quite like that, not too much in your face and then we're going to the
11:45extremes now. I do like this one, this is where you get to see all the veins of this green spice.
11:52Isn't that a stunning little one and even underneath the foliage as well you still get a
11:56bit of feature so when the wind's sort of wafting over them it's going to ruffle it up and you get
12:01to see all parts of the leaves. But such an array of foliage, such an array of colours, which one do
12:06you choose? Now we've seen what they look like on containers but what do we do with them in the garden border?
12:22There's a couple of things hookers are good for in the garden, the first one is for planting in amongst
12:28your taller plants and the second is for ground cover and this combination I hope I'm going to be
12:35able to do a bit of both. This variety is called lime marmalade and I've specifically chosen it for
12:43here for the way it's going to complement perfectly this pink parfait Siberian iris. I think that's
12:50going to be a lovely combination. If you do want to grow them for ground cover, check the size how
12:59far it's going to spread. So this one here is about 45 centimetres so when I come to planting the second
13:07one I'm going to choose maybe about 20 centimetres and always choose one that's a nice tight compact
13:13variety or maybe one with larger leaves because that'll help exclude some of the light. A couple
13:20of things that we're going to need to look out for, hooker leaves they can attract a bit of rust
13:27so they'll maybe have little gingery spots on them. If that happens then maybe you've chosen
13:33a variety that's needing a wee bit more space in between the plants because getting that ventilation
13:37through them is one of the things that helps prevent rust and the second thing when you're
13:42growing in containers have a wee peek out for the larvae of the vine weevil because that'll
13:48munch away at the roots if the compost is too wet and then your plants is going to plop off and die.
13:55Other than that I'm looking forward to see how they're going to progress the rest of the summer
13:59and more importantly over the winter time but because these plants are being grown locally
14:04by Scottish growers I've got a feeling they've got every chance that they're going to do well.
14:10Do you know what? I think I'm starting to be convinced.
14:18So one of the big projects this year at Beech Grove was to give the herb garden a bit of a
14:30makeover. Now there's nothing like the scent of fresh herbs in your cooking but you know not
14:36everybody has a space like this to dedicate to herbs so what I'm going to do today is I'm going
14:42to sow some varieties that you can keep on a windowsill which are really handy for adding to
14:48your cooking as you're going along. So to start off with I've got some homemade compost from top
14:54soil and some leaf mold so it's a really good mix and a great medium for growing herbs in.
15:00It's got a drainage hole in the bottom and they're all going to do really well on nice
15:06well-lit sunny windowsills. So some herbs that you might like to sow are basil. I am going to
15:13sow it really quite thinly because I'm going to thin out all the ones that aren't needed and
15:25I'll probably get maybe two to three healthy basil plants in the size of this tub here.
15:31Next I'm going to grow some chives, sprinkle the same in there
15:38and thirdly I've got some parsley, great for adding to stews, garlic bread and I'm quite
15:50looking forward to being a little bit adventurous and maybe trying some herb salt this year.
15:57Once you've done that give it a little sprinkle over with some compost, just make sure that
16:04they're all covered, put it on a really nice well-lit windowsill in the heat of your home
16:11that is going to germinate in a couple of weeks and they're going to produce really nice healthy
16:16plants that you can get lots of harvest from. Now lots of people and myself being included in this
16:24are seduced by the lovely fresh herbs that you find at the supermarket but you know once you've
16:31cut them back they don't really last, they only last one or two weeks but what you can do is you
16:38can see when I take the plant out of the pot there's not enough nutrients for the plant to
16:44reproduce new leaves so a little trick you can split the plant up really nice and carefully
16:56and you can see once you start doing this actually how many plants there are in such a
17:03small amount of space. Now you want to be really careful about the roots but I think
17:10split that bit there again
17:19and there you can see one tiny little plant with a good root system but what you can do
17:23is you can then pop this up into some new compost and then hopefully that will provide the plant
17:36with more nutrients, it's going to be happier and it's going to produce more leaves that you can then
17:42use in your cooking but you know instead of just one plant you've probably got three or four that
17:47you can use but if you've got some outdoor space in a balcony and want to use a large pot to plant
17:53up some herbs make sure that you are going to choose herbs accordingly that like the same
18:00soil conditions so put your thymes, your rosemary, your sages all together that like that free
18:06draining soil and choose tarragon, parsley, dill that like that moisture soil and then make sure
18:16that you keep your mint completely separate so that it doesn't invade everything.
18:21Now it's time to go and visit a garden really close to the seafront.
18:29Sandra Taylor moved to a seaside cottage in Lower Largo on the Fife Coast in 2004.
18:35Since then she's coped with the local growing conditions to design and plant out a fantastic garden.
18:40This is a seaside garden although this is the back garden and we're sheltered from the sea
18:46by the terrace of houses and that does give a surprising amount of shelter. We're in Largo Bay
18:53which again is a relatively sheltered area despite being on the Firth of Forth and so I'm lucky in
19:00all the plants that I can grow although we do get harsh temperatures in the winter. My hot
19:07compost bin can struggle to keep hot but by and large plants grow reasonably well.
19:15Our house is built on sand and the garden's the same.
19:20This border behind me is probably one of my favourite areas in the garden and it's because
19:24it's grown into such a full and lush border, a bit like a plant amphitheatre. It started
19:32really differently around 20 years ago though. I had very few plants, just a few small plants
19:39and now I've got a lot of them. I've got a lot of them in my garden and I've got a lot of them
19:45differently around 20 years ago though. I had very few plants, just one or two geranium like
19:51geranium rosanne down here and the hydrangeas which I grow from cuttings and the echinops
19:59at the back there that the bees love and of course the astrantia which I love. I've got various
20:05kinds of astrantia here. I know they're not everyone's favourite flower but I love them
20:11in a border. It's somewhere where we like to sit
20:14in the evening and enjoy hearing the bees buzz looking at this border.
20:30And this area of the garden annoyed me a bit because on the path, bare fence, there were no
20:35plants and in the evening it does get the sun. So I thought okay let's try putting a drain pipe
20:43up here and see what will survive in quite a shallow area of soil. I change it about each
20:50year. Last year I had lettuce seedlings which worked really well up until the pigeons found
20:56them. They tend to sit up here. So this year, moved away from veg and I'm going for flowers
21:03and grasses. I've got these brisa maxima which I think are lovely. They just nod and sway in the
21:11breeze nicely and some other grasses down here that aren't out yet. Panicum, not the usual panicum
21:17frosted explosion that you see a lot but this is panicum sprinkles which I haven't tried before.
21:23The sweet william I grew from seed and they were a little bit of a surprise because I didn't know
21:28they were quite so tall but it adds a bit of colour and all in all I'm really quite pleased.
21:44This area here used to be a vegetable plot which worked well for a few years but I wanted to change
21:51things around and I've always loved box hedging. I suppose I wanted a little bit of Versailles
21:57in the garden. So here I have four box beds and I planted them up oh it must be seven years or so
22:05ago now and it was quite comical when I planted them because they were tiny little plants. It
22:11didn't look like a hedge at all but as you can see they've grown and they get cut twice a year.
22:17I've just cut them earlier in June and they filled out nicely and what I love about this area is the
22:24formality of the box beds and then I fill them with a jumble of annual plants. Earlier in the
22:31year I had tulips and the alliums as you can see are just going over but very shortly all the annual
22:37plants will begin flowering. Things like what have I got here oh I've got some syrinth
22:43which is a fabulous plant it's flowering now and I'll get seeds from that later. I've got some
22:49larkspur, some mixed larkspur in the middle and of course cosmos over there that should be a riot
22:56of colour and oh one of my other favourites amaranthus. Oh and I love this, I love this. This
23:02is a Mexican fleabane or erycheron and it sits in our old chimney pot and I think it just
23:09sets the area off rather nicely.
23:12In a small garden and loving plants it's difficult but I cope with that by planting quite closely
23:21so there are good things and bad things about that. Planting closely means that the plants can help
23:27support each other so I don't need to do a lot of staking but it does mean that you have to edit
23:34things out quite often and I do that quite regularly usually in the spring or the autumn.
23:40My husband and I divide our gardening duties up really quite clearly. I do all the gardening
23:48and he enjoys the garden usually with a glass of wine in his hand and that suits me fine.
24:03So we are at the height of grass cutting time right now especially with all the rain that we've
24:14had and we have so many clippings. There's lots of different things that we can do with them isn't
24:19there? Yeah there is, I mean you can put them in your various coloured bins and the councils are
24:23going to take them away from you or you can use them as a compost but what we're going to do today
24:29is we're going to use them as a mulch. Now what I mean by that is that we're spreading a layer of
24:34organic matter across the top of the soil around our veggies to suppress weeds and also retain
24:41moisture in the soil. So what you want to do is you want to lay the grass clippings around the
24:47plant leaving a nice ring around the stem and the base of the plant. You don't want to get too close.
24:53You want to layer it to no more than 10 centimetres thick because that is not going
24:59to be very good for the plant it could cause some rot around the base of it. Yeah and leaving that
25:04space will also help with the rain being able to penetrate down through prevent it from getting
25:08slimy but allow that rainfall to really get into the root systems of the plants as well.
25:14The other really fantastic thing about using clippings is that they are full of nitrogen
25:19and we are here in the brassica patch and brassicas are renowned for being nitrogen hungry
25:25plants. So this is actually a really good way of adding that nitrogen back into the soil
25:30and a really sort of cost effective way to reduce the need for synthetic fertilisers as well.
25:36There's a bit of a misconception around using grass clippings because people think that you
25:41know they're going to add seed into the soil around their vegetables and weeds are going to
25:46start to grow but if you are using your grass clippings and you're cutting your lawn every week
25:52and then using those clippings there isn't going to be any grass seed in those clippings so it's
25:59a really safe way of mulching. I suppose it's not just about what you can see on the surface
26:05it's also what's going on underneath the soil as well so adding these clippings will help to feed
26:10the earthworms too that are that are living within the soil so the soil biology will really benefit
26:17from this too so those earthworms as they get bigger because we're feeding them they will then
26:22start to penetrate through the soil really opening up the structure and helping the root system of
26:28our brassicas to really sort of penetrate down and then at the end of the year we'll harvest all this
26:33off and then we'll just turn all of these clippings into the soil getting ready for for next year.
26:39Brilliant. Yeah.
26:51Well we're here in the Picket Fence Garden and it is in full bloom just look at these
26:56peonies nip on beauty and that geranium down there is looking fabulous. Absolutely it is
27:01incredible and not to mention these delphiniums towering behind me aptly named Pacific Giant
27:08already taller than me but that's not difficult. Well that's all from us for now. Next week George
27:13and Carol will be here and they'll be in the Wildlife Garden and if you want to see how that
27:18was planted at you can go to the iPlayer and look at episode 5 and 14 of last year and you can see
27:25the whole of this series there as well. But from us it's bye for now. Bye.
27:55you