The Beechgrove Garden 2024 episode 16
The Beechgrove Garden 2024 episode 16
Transcript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.
00:16On today's show, top tips for tall prairies and this month's cut flower collection.
00:23I'm in my flower bed, keeping the colour coming all summer long.
00:29I'm going to show you how to sharpen up your topiary technique
00:33and what you should be doing right now to your laburnum and wisteria.
00:41But first, look where we are Kirsty, we're back in our newly created hugelkultur bed.
00:45Yeah, we created this in spring and hugel in German means mound or hill
00:50and it's an instant way of making a cheap raised bed.
00:53So we used lots of material lying about in the garden, branches, straw,
00:57bits of bracken, leaf mould, grass clippings and we've mounded it up
01:01and then created a fantastic planting base.
01:04Yeah, I think it's great, it's just putting pretty much rubbish to good use.
01:08And what's happening underneath the soil is it's all just decomposing and breaking down
01:12and feeding these pumpkins because pumpkins like a lot of feed because they're good plants.
01:16Yeah, they're very hungry and what we've put in is three different types of pumpkins.
01:20So this one is casparita, it's a much smaller, more ornamental pumpkin.
01:24We put it on a table. Then this one is a gold speck, so again, small.
01:28But the one at the far end is called black footsuit and it's going to be a big edible pumpkin
01:33which starts green but can turn a nice orange colour.
01:36And I think, you know, you see we've got the blue hoops there and that's because
01:39it has been a wee bit chilly, so if it does get a wee bit cold, we put a bit of fleece over
01:43because you do need a wee bit of warmth and they're maybe a bit slow, the pumpkins, this year.
01:47Yeah, but we're starting to see flowers and fruits forming, particularly on this one here
01:51and a bit of heat, as you say, keep them well watered and fed.
01:54We're going to see nice fruits this autumn.
01:56And with the water, and it's really important, what the gardening team's done is
01:59they've sunk two pots in between the plants and it's important to just directly water the pots.
02:04One so that if we were just to water the soil, it would probably create a landslide
02:08and just go off the top and not really affect the plants.
02:11But also it's important to water the pots because if you water the foliage,
02:14there's a chance of fungal diseases like powdery mildew.
02:17And even using a liquid seaweed feed would give them an extra boost this summer.
02:21Get them a good size.
02:22And we might want to put a bit of straw underneath them, that'll help prevent the fruits from rotting.
02:27And actually, it's looking pretty weed-free, isn't it?
02:29I know, it's great. Maybe we need to get us a try on the allotment.
02:31Yeah, so I've got a bit of deadheading to do, Callum, so I'm going to leave you to it.
02:35You enjoy yourself.
02:36See you later.
02:48So now it's time to look at the laburnum that was flowering beautifully this spring
02:52with lovely long hanging flowers.
02:54It's put out this new growth now,
02:57but you don't want to be doing any formative pruning at this time of year on the laburnum
03:01because if you pruned it too early in the summer, it would bleed and that would damage the whole plant.
03:07Now, the best time to prune would be in the lead up to Christmas time.
03:11So in that winter period, you'd then be able to do a big structural prune,
03:15tying in a lot of this whippy growth, checking for any dead or diseased or crossing branches
03:20and cutting them back.
03:22But a job that you can do right now is to deadhead the flowers.
03:26So the whole plant is highly poisonous.
03:30So that's from the leaves to the seeds.
03:32And if you've got pets or children in your garden,
03:35what you can do at this time of year is to cut where the flowers have been
03:39and the seed is starting to form.
03:41So you can take your secateurs and cut them off.
03:45And that just saves any of the seed forming.
03:47And they're kind of a bit like, almost like a bean where the seed would form.
03:52So just nip them off and then you don't have any worry of the seed lying around in your garden.
04:09So another shrub that is a climber which needs pruned at this time of year is wisteria.
04:14Now wisteria is much loved.
04:16You'll see it growing up houses, over arches, pergolas.
04:19You can even have it as a standard tree in your garden.
04:22It has these lovely long purple, white or pink flowers in the spring.
04:26They are sweetly scented.
04:28But right now it has a lot of this summer whippy growth.
04:32And you have two periods in the year when you want to be pruning it.
04:36Now pruning it in July will allow the light into this shrub
04:40and it will allow the wood to thicken.
04:42It will allow lots of air movement so there's no disease.
04:45And with that thickening of the wood you'll then get lovely flowers next year.
04:49So in July you want to be looking for this flowering spur.
04:54So that's where the woodier part of the stem is.
04:56Then you'll notice this is where the green part is coming out with new buds and this long whippy growth.
05:02So from here you want to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 buds along.
05:09And then you want to be taking your secateurs and just cutting just above that growing point.
05:14Now you might be too busy this summer and you might not have time to do that.
05:18So the winter prune is crucial for the flowers.
05:21So that you would do in about February time.
05:23Again you would come back to that flowering spur.
05:26But then you would only count 1, 2, 3 buds.
05:29And here is where the thicker buds are and that's where the flowers form.
05:34So that pruning in winter is crucial for those flower developments for next year.
05:39Now it's time to go over to Old Schoon and catch up with Brian.
05:54A garden lawn.
05:56But you know what? It actually fascinates me.
05:59I don't know any other aspect of gardening that courts so much different opinion on what we do with our lawns.
06:06How we care for our lawns or don't care for our lawns in a lot of cases.
06:10And how much time we've got to spend looking after our lawns.
06:13But you see our green and luscious lawns. They're the envy of the whole world.
06:18I know we like to moan about the weather.
06:20But it does help get that look with that moisture and that heat.
06:24There's a nice little balance.
06:26Some gardeners, they're so keen, they manage to get that classic stripy look.
06:31They can even putt on it.
06:33That's a luxury lawn. It takes a bit of effort.
06:35More than the cutting which sometimes can be every second day.
06:38There's additional weeding, feeding, aeration.
06:41And then you've got the gardeners that are at the other end of the scale.
06:45They're the ones that would just rather rip it up and gravel it all over.
06:49I'd say for myself and the vast majority of gardeners out there, we're somewhere in between.
06:54We like to use our lawns to link the showier parts of our garden together.
06:59To show off our borders. To hang out our washing.
07:02And for the toddlers to take their first steps on.
07:05But that doesn't mean we can't have a good lawn too.
07:07And with the right care and attention, they can be looking at their best too.
07:25With the constant growing and cutting, growing and cutting that the grass has to do over this summer,
07:31it can take quite a lot of energy out of the plant.
07:33So a wee bit of feeding wouldn't go amiss.
07:35Another simple change we can make is just by changing our mowing regime
07:40and by cutting that little bit more often.
07:43So what we need to remember is every time we chop the grass,
07:48that poor plant is getting a wee shock.
07:51The longer the interval between we're cutting the grass,
07:54the more grass we're going to take off, the bigger the shock.
07:57So if we can up our game to cutting the grass maybe twice a week,
08:01then we're always just trimming the lawn.
08:03We're always just nicking the grass. We're never taking large chunks off it.
08:07So the plant will get used to it.
08:09Believe it or not, it'll start to feel like it and it'll always just grow a dwarf habit.
08:13And that way it's going to encourage the grass to grow and send out side shoots
08:19so you're going to get a nice thick lawn full of grass
08:22and there's no room for any weeds to grow.
08:25And that then leads us to the height of cut.
08:27With the grasses that I've grown in my lawn,
08:30it doesn't want to be treated like the luxury lawn and cut really, really short.
08:34So what I want to do is set the height of more,
08:37so I'm leaving about two and a half centimetres,
08:39or one inch if you're using old money.
08:42And that means the grass that I'm leaving behind,
08:44the length of grass that we've got,
08:46it can function properly just like a plant should.
08:50So here's one wee tip for you.
08:52We all go on holiday at this time of year
08:54and when we come back a fortnight later, our grass is like a jungle.
08:58Instead of going in and scalping it straight down and doing it some damage,
09:02take your time.
09:04Why don't you raise the height of cut a year more
09:06and so the first time you're just giving it a wee trim
09:09and then three or four days later you can just bring it back down to your usual height setting
09:13and then go on from there.
09:15And why don't you give a go for the rest of the summer that twice a week?
09:18It's going to be good exercise for you as well.
09:21And finish up round about mid-August, early September
09:24and then we'll move on to the autumn regime.
09:27Now there's also another option for you
09:29and that's the no-mow lawn.
09:46Lots of us are taking a much more relaxed approach to our lawn care
09:50and simply not cutting it at all these days.
09:53I must admit this is something that I started doing about a few years ago
09:57and it was so I could spend a bit more time with my kids rather than always out in the garden.
10:01But it's only now, a few years on, when I'm seeing all these wonderful wildflowers
10:06that I did not have a clue were hiding in the lawn
10:08that I'm really beginning to fully appreciate the benefits to the biodiversity that this brings us.
10:14I do actually do a wee bit of cutting in here.
10:16I do have a wee regime.
10:18The middle section, that ribbon, I don't cut at all.
10:21I just leave it to grow long and everything can come away from it.
10:25The section on the outside I cut every three weeks at the highest setting
10:30and then there's a meandering path and I cut round the edges with the mower every week
10:35and that just helps frame this area so it doesn't look like I've just abandoned it.
10:41One of the negatives of doing this though is the opportunity for the more thuggier weeds to get in is there
10:47and I'm talking about maybe docks and thistles.
10:50There is one that I want to take out today.
10:53This weed down here is called ragwort and it's what's known as an injurious weed.
10:58So if you keep cattle in any way then you probably know all about this weed
11:01and it could be quite fatal if any of your animals eat it.
11:05Now I'm a dog owner.
11:07The research that I've been doing is a wee bit inconclusive
11:10but I'm not going to take any chances and I'm going to dig this thing out.
11:21There you go. I told you lawns were fascinating.
11:36This year I set myself the challenge of growing some homegrown cut flowers
11:41for June right through to hopefully November
11:43and for June we've got some lovely peonies and iris that we cut and we took inside and enjoyed them in the vase.
11:50We're into July now and we're hopefully going to get some cosmos
11:54and you can see with that cosmos there it's just starting to burst up
11:57and once you get one we're going to get a sea of cosmos that will be looking beautiful.
12:02For August there's not much to do right now for the gladioli
12:06just apart from giving them a good water and keep on top of the feeding once a week
12:10with a liquid seaweed fertiliser.
12:12For September though, as daily as, now they're already producing some beautiful blooms
12:17not to worry by September we'll still be getting plenty of flowers for them.
12:21We just need to make sure we keep on top with supporting them
12:24because if we get a wee bit of gust of wind they'll break off at the bottom
12:27and you could lose half the plant.
12:29So all we've got is four posts in each corner of the plant
12:32then we just take some twine, I tie it onto the first post
12:36and then just wrap it round each one and then a final tie on the last post.
12:44Just make sure it's nice and tight.
12:48You don't want it where it's sort of loose because then it's not doing its job.
12:52That is then just going to contain the dahlia plant in with
12:55so if we do get a bit of wind at least it's got the ropes to bounce off on
12:58and as the plant grows we'll add in as much twine as we need.
13:03For October we've got rubeccia.
13:05Now you can see the plants aren't looking great at the minute
13:08they're already starting to flower
13:10but what we're going to do just to really help improve the plants
13:13and boost them out so we get more flowers
13:15we're just going to break off all the flowers and buds now
13:19that's going to allow the plants to really establish themselves
13:22and become big and bushy and we'll get more flowers later in the series when we want them.
13:27A wee bit of bed maintenance though is to hoe the bed.
13:31Now we treat this as a blade because that's what it is
13:34so we want to keep this nice and sharp and this will make it easier for you and help you.
13:39So you'll just go in and very lightly tickle the top of the soil
13:46cutting the plant off of the roots
13:50and then you just leave the leaves of the plant on top of the soil
13:55and then that's going to on a hot day dry them out and kill them off.
13:59Now if you're to do this on a wet day I wouldn't bother
14:02because if you leave the plants there's a chance the roots will regrow and they'll just grow away again.
14:06So hoe on a dry day.
14:08It's also just going to loosen up the soil to allow the water to penetrate through it
14:12to get to the plants more and it also just neatens up the bed doesn't it.
14:18There we go, that'll do that now.
14:21And November's flower is spray croissants.
14:24Now these ones will easily be damaged by the wind so as soon as you can get the supports in.
14:29All we're doing here is two canes with your cane toppers to protect your eyes
14:33and we've got just a wire hoop that we've made ourselves, we've added that in.
14:37Now you can either as the plant grows slide it up or just add in more wire
14:42and that'll support it really well.
14:44But you can see on this one here we've got some aphids, we've got a bit of black fly.
14:48Now from here on you can just break off this stem and get rid of it how you feel appropriate.
14:53You could use your fingers and brush them off.
14:56Or another good way is if you turn your hose to the jet function on it
15:00and then you could just blast them off.
15:02And then what you get is a wee bit of petroleum jelly
15:05and then just wipe that onto the stem and it creates a kind of barrier
15:10that will stop then any sort of bugs going up towards the beautiful blooms
15:14and then nibbling away at them.
15:16But we'll come back here later in the series to see how the cut flower bed's getting on
15:20but it's time now to go visit a garden in Blairgowrie.
15:29As part of a larger rewilding project, Dave Marrick and his family
15:32have been transforming their walled garden at the Banff Eco Estate
15:36into a permaculture paradise.
15:41Well, we moved to Banff in 2018.
15:45However, the garden was another proposition which arrived a number of years later.
15:50When I first saw the walled garden itself,
15:53I think Sophie took me through a doorway on the north side
15:57and it felt like I'd stumbled into this kind of magical realm
16:01and I was aghast that nobody was doing anything with it really.
16:05So when taking this garden project on,
16:08it was kind of partly under the guidance of a local permaculturalist called Kate Everett
16:12and she sort of got me interested in the subject of permaculture
16:17which led me into the sort of appreciation of growing food
16:21intermingled together to create something sculptural
16:24and closer to what one finds in wild natural habitats.
16:36So here we are in the eastern side of the walled garden with the west-facing wall
16:42and the heat properties of walls like this
16:45is that they obviously retain heat and then emanate heat at night time
16:50which allow plants to also flourish a lot more.
16:53So I decided that really here should be like a little snapshot
16:57of a kind of polyculture, a kind of mini forest garden or foraging garden
17:01and it sort of shows what you can actually do potentially on a small scale.
17:05It's not quite there yet, there's some bare patches over here
17:08but what we can see over here is that we have fruit trees
17:12like the pear trees here which are actually fruiting now
17:15in their kind of very young age which is very nice to see.
17:18These are concord pears.
17:20Underneath those is a lovely bed of wild strawberries
17:23which I had transplanted from another area of Banff
17:25and I've actually placed wild strawberries in there
17:28all over the place and they spread beautifully.
17:31They create a lovely ground cover, protect the soil
17:33and obviously provide you with food as well.
17:35Then we have like berry plants like Worcesterberry and Gooseberry
17:40and these have often very nice fungal relationships with the roots of fruit trees
17:45so they can be nice companions with each other as well.
17:48Then we have Sweet Sicily with its beautiful licorice pods
17:55and its beautiful edible leaves and flowers.
17:58A very wonderful replacement for things like aniseed, fennel in cookery and in salads.
18:05Absolutely, that's actually one of my favourite plants in the whole of the walled garden.
18:10So this is really just like a sort of snapshot of what you can achieve
18:14in a small space with huge amounts of plants all providing food
18:20and gradually it's just becoming its own entirely forageable strip
18:24just in a very, very small area.
18:36Well, welcome to my polytunnel which is a bit of a mess, I have to apologise
18:41but there is a little bit of method in the madness
18:44as what I'm trying to achieve this year is to see how things can self-pollinate
18:49and produce like an endless amount of food.
18:52That does include a little bit of potato back here.
18:55These are blue Anneliese potatoes.
18:58Then there are carrots which have been flowering and going to seed
19:01and then we have white mustard which has been self-seeding like crazy
19:07but then it does provide an eternal sort of supply of food
19:11but at the same time its purpose as green manures can be also used here
19:17by it rutting down into the soil.
19:19Ideally you should be cutting that before it flowers
19:21but I like to see the flowers emerge and to be able to be part of the kind of pollination process of the tunnel too.
19:29Nevertheless, I mean I've been gradually removing it a bit more
19:34because I want to see some of these other self-seeding plants emerge
19:37such as the self-seeded rockets.
19:39And we also have brassicas which are going to flower and seed too.
19:44I've been removing some of them but I kind of feel attached to them as well
19:48because they have beautiful flowers
19:50and earlier in the season are incredibly tender, beautiful things to eat
19:54like kind of spears of broccoli meets asparagus.
19:57Very, very nice before they've kind of reached this stage.
20:00This is like an infinite supply of food which also helps mulch down into the soil
20:06and if you don't take it all away and you leave some of it on the soil surface
20:10obviously you don't want to have too much of it
20:11but that can help rot down into the soil and provide nutrients and soil structure and microbial activity.
20:18This garden project is so huge that I'll never be able to make enough compost for the whole garden
20:23so any kind of method that I can try to help alleviate that I will go for.
20:36Well welcome to the forest garden area of the walled garden.
20:40It's arguably the most expansive and the most ambitious of all of the sort of self-contained projects in the whole garden.
20:48And much like the strip found in the eastern part of the garden
20:52is all about species which can relate to each other, can help each other
20:57or even just simply coexist on any level, aesthetically too, just as in any garden.
21:02This is what really makes me feel happy to be in and around a kind of mixture of these forageable plants
21:08with all these beautiful flavours and colours and textures
21:11but here we have that on this kind of more ambitious scale with all these other larger layers
21:16of giant trees and fruit trees and large bushes and shrubs
21:21all emerging in and amongst all of that kind of lower stuff.
21:25So really it's my favourite type of garden and I think it's a lot of people's favourite type of garden
21:32because it just sort of has everything.
21:34It has the beauty, it has the food, it has the wildlife and pollination and the colours.
21:39This is an early stage and an early form of that
21:42and hopefully in the coming years we'll see it mature and turn into something really beautiful.
21:56Custie, we've got some top tips for topiary coming up
21:59but first I want to take us right back to the start of the series
22:02where myself and Lizzie was in the glasshouse and these box balls were looking terrible.
22:07They were yellow, brown, really hungry.
22:09They were just needing a bit of TLC so that's what we've done.
22:12We've knocked them out of the pot bound pots.
22:14We've put them into this bigger pot, fresh compost, better feed
22:17and just look at them, they're luscious, lovely.
22:20That just shows you a bit of patience, giving them that extra room into a bigger pot.
22:24The feeding, look at them now, so lush and green and happy.
22:27So what we're just doing now is we're making sure that to give them a good water
22:31they don't dry out and they're getting a once a month liquid seaweed feed
22:34and we'll come back at the end of the series to see how they're getting on again.
22:37And topiary, if you've got any in containers this summer, feeding them, watering them
22:41is really important to keep them that nice lush green colour.
22:44And topiary, if you've got any in containers this summer, feeding them, watering them
22:47is really important to keep them that nice lush green colour.
22:49is really important to keep them that nice lush green colour.
22:51But right now is the perfect time, the middle of summer, to be doing topiary pruning
22:55and what you want to look for is that new growth.
22:58You want to do it after the risk of frost has happened.
23:01If you were to do it when there was frost still around, you might damage the plant
23:05and now is the perfect time when you can see that new growth coming up.
23:09And the best way to identify the new growth is the lighter green foliage is the new growth.
23:14The darker green, which is below, is old growth and it's the light green stuff that we want to cut off
23:18and because there's not much light green, you want to just do it little enough
23:23and cut a wee bit, step back, have a look.
23:25Because if you start cutting the darker green stuff, then you're going to create bald patches.
23:29And the number one important thing is to have the sharpest shears or pruning secateurs as possible.
23:36You kind of want to use the tip of the shears and you want to be making sure
23:40they're nice and clean before you start as well.
23:42You don't want any of the leaves to be sort of torn or half cut
23:46and then that would allow disease to go in.
23:48You want to cut them, not crush them.
23:50Yeah, so what I like to do is to turn the shears over so that they rest on this part of the shrub
23:55and then do your clipping there.
23:58And then that allows you to then do a bit of a shape across it.
24:01And as you say, you can stand back from it, look at it and make sure you don't take too much of it.
24:07You can always cut again, you can't stick it back on.
24:10And you might want to, you're going to have a lot of clippings,
24:12you might have quite a lot of topiary to do, so put a tarp down around the shrubs
24:16and then that will be much easier for tidying up afterwards.
24:19And you know, if they are looking a wee bit yellow or something,
24:21well, what to do is they're just needing a feed.
24:23So give them a good mulch, maybe two inches of compost around the base of the plants
24:27and that will give it a good feed.
24:28And all the mulches you're using is bought in compost, maybe some leaf mold or homemade stuff.
24:33Yeah, and you want to be mulching your borders every February and March.
24:37You know, soil is the most important thing to have happy, healthy, green plants.
24:42And these are such a great structural element, particularly in the wintertime,
24:46great focal point when many perennials have died down.
24:49And if you shape them right now, they're going to look really good in the months to come.
24:53Right, let's get trimming.
24:56I think I'm going to win.
25:08Time now for this week's handy hints.
25:10If you're wanting to do a wee bit of border development this autumn,
25:13well, by the time it comes to doing it,
25:15you've forgotten what plants are encroaching on each other and how the border looks.
25:19So what to do, take a picture right now
25:21and when you come to do it, you can back reference with your picture.
25:29Now you may wonder, why on earth am I wanting to feed my lawn?
25:33Now you may wonder, why on earth am I wanting to feed my lawn?
25:37When we cannae keep up with the growth as it is at this time of year.
25:40And it's actually very important.
25:42If you think about your poor grass, it grows, we cut it.
25:46It gets quite exhausting for the poor, we think.
25:48So it's quite important that we give it a wee boost in nitrogen during spring and summer.
25:52And what that'll do, that'll help create that lovely, tightly knit turf.
25:57It means there's no room for weeds or moss to grow
26:00and you've got a cracking little lawn.
26:02Which is hopefully, when the sun comes out later on in the year and it's a wee bit dry,
26:06it'll be able to cope with.
26:12A wonderful statement shrub to grow is this Sambucus nigra black lace.
26:17It has this lovely, delicate foliage in this deep purple.
26:21It has pink scented flowers and it's just a wonderful shrub to grow.
26:31Well Callum, that's all we've got time for this week.
26:33But before we go Kirsty, we're in Lizzie's zigzag border.
26:36Now she really wanted to create a haven for the bees
26:38and I tell you what, she's certainly done that.
26:40Especially with the poppies there.
26:41Yeah, and just such vibrant colours.
26:43And as you say, the bees just buzzing around in there.
26:45And I particularly like this herbaceous perennial she's put in.
26:48A nice pinhead cushioned flower.
26:50Pale pink astragalus.
26:52And I think it's just a lovely, lovely shade of green.
26:55And I particularly like this herbaceous perennial she's put in.
26:57A nice pinhead cushioned flower.
26:59Pale pink astrantia.
27:01Now George will be here next week joined by Lizzie.
27:03And George will be up in the fruit cage where he's pruning
27:06the Logan and Tay Berries we planted the year before last.
27:09And if you'd like to see us planting the Logan and Tay Berries,
27:11well click on the BBC iPlayer where you watch Programme 24 of the 2022 series.
27:16And they'll be back in the veg garden harvesting brassicas
27:19and telling us what to do with our cherry trees at this time of year.
27:22But from me and Kirsty, bye for now.
27:24Bye.
27:54.