Gardeners World S52e24 23-08-19
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, welcome to Gardener's World.
00:16This dahlia, called Rothsay Revler, is one of my favourites, because not only are the
00:20individual blooms lovely with their white, and this is just one plant, and it produces
00:25masses of flowers from mid-summer right into autumn, into November if we're lucky and the
00:31frosts don't come.
00:32And I've planted them in the extensions to the orchard beds that we made in May.
00:37Now by and large, the plants in here are quite small, they're young, and it's going to take
00:41them a few years to get to their full size.
00:44But if you add a dahlia like this, straight away you're giving it heft and dynamism, and
00:51that's exactly what a border like this needs.
00:55Now, coming up on today's programme.
01:01As colour in the garden becomes ever more precious at this time of year, Nick Bailey
01:06explores the delights of late flowering clematis.
01:09We meet a plantsman with a passion for the humble house leak.
01:15And I will be adding some coneflowers to my cottage garden for even more late summer colour.
01:34The herb garden has been performing wonderfully well, and like all herb gardens, it doesn't
01:39need very much attention to both look good and supply you with lots of herbs.
01:45But it's important now to give it a little bit of attention, because otherwise, even
01:50though it's fine for another few months, there's a real danger it'll suffer as soon as the
01:54weather turns.
01:55And the bees love it, so I don't want to cut those back.
01:59This is thyme, it's finished flowering, it was beautiful when it was in flower and the
02:03bees loved it, but you can see if you don't cut it back, this is what happens, that has
02:08all died back.
02:10Thyme hates shade of any kind, even from itself.
02:15So at the very least, go across the top like this, and I can tell you the smell as I do
02:21this is really exotic and lovely, it smells of hot sun.
02:28Get in there and cut out the dead material.
02:33Thyme is actually a shrub, and it wants to become woody.
02:38You've got to keep cutting that shrub back.
02:40OK, let's get in there.
02:43And if you're thinking of making a herb bed or herb garden, resist any temptation to improve
02:49the soil in any way.
02:50If anything, you want to make it worse, and they will grow much better for it.
02:54There will be some more growth before summer is out, but nothing like as vigorous as next
03:02year.
03:03I will have to do this again, but I don't want to take it all off straight away because
03:13I want to have more leaves.
03:15But immediately I've got air around it, and that's the most important thing.
03:19At this time of year, it's also a good idea to take some rosemary cuttings.
03:24You can see the rosemary has grown very well.
03:25This is a variety called Miss Jessop's Upright.
03:29Rosemary wants to grow up straight and tall, but to make new plants, all you have to do
03:34is snip off a leading growth with a little bit of brown wood in there too, strip off
03:41most of the lower leaves, stick that into a pot of gritty compost, and put four or five
03:47around the edge, and the chances of those rooting are very high.
03:51Rosemary is easy to take cuttings from, and that will give you nice new plants to plant
03:55out next year.
03:58If you're growing mint, and you should because it's wonderful, do not grow it in the soil
04:03along with the other herbs because inevitably it will spread and take over the whole plot,
04:08and it's really hard to get rid of.
04:10And another tip is if you're growing different varieties of mint, grow them in separate containers
04:16because if you put them in one pot, the flavours intermingle and muddy each other, and you
04:22end up with one sort of vaguely minty taste other than the lovely distinctive flavours
04:28you get if you grow them separately.
04:31Now at this stage I have a choice.
04:33I can either go through the whole herb garden, cut it all back, it will look very different
04:38but the quality of the herbs will be greater, but it will look a little bit like someone
04:43who's had a serious haircut, and I like the softness.
04:49So what I'm going to do instead is just do one or two plants, let them regrow, and then
04:54do one or two more, and keep doing that over the coming month.
04:58So by the time we get to the end of September, this will all have been cut back and all had
05:03a chance to slightly regrow without it being too radical at any one stage.
05:09I think it's been a great year for Clematis, and earlier on this summer, Nick showed us
05:32Group One, which includes Clematis alpina and montana, and they're all at their best
05:37round about April, early May, and there was Group Two, which are the big flowering ones,
05:42which look superb in early June, going on to about the beginning of July, and then they're
05:48taken over by another group, and this is what he's looking at now.
05:52He's gone to Coton Manor in Northamptonshire to see the rather unromantically named Group
05:57Three Clematis.
05:58A fancy name, but I think they are exquisitely beautiful.
06:12If you're looking for a plant to give you great value for money, then you can't go too
06:16far wrong with Clematis.
06:19Loved by the Victorians, they've been ever since.
06:26Unlike the Group One and Two Brethren, which are fairly short flowering, Group Three go
06:31all the way from mid-summer right on until autumn, and I think you'll agree that amongst
06:36them there are some real showstoppers.
06:46I tend to think of this as one of the most reliable and long flowering of the late season
06:52group.
06:53Clematis, Texensis, Princess Diana, and it's got a really lovely and distinct quality to
06:58the flowers.
06:59They're almost bell-like.
07:00Sometimes, in a really cold winter, it can be frosted right the way back to the ground,
07:05but the good news is it will pop back up from the ground, send up new shoots which can be
07:10tied in, and go on to produce a fabulous display of flowers.
07:24Prince Charles, and you can see in this situation it's growing in blazing sunshine, but it's
07:30incredibly adaptable, so if you've got a difficult area in the garden, like a north wall, it
07:35will absolutely thrive there.
07:37Now, in a single season, it'll put up about three metres of growth, but the very best
07:42thing about this particular cultivar is it will flank the whole wall with flowers all
07:47the way down, so you get that beautiful curtain of blooms.
08:07Of all the group three Clematis, this is one of the biggest.
08:12It's Clematis Tangutica.
08:14It'll reach up to seven or eight metres, so it's great for flanking the side of a house.
08:18It's got some really lovely qualities about it.
08:20As you can see, the petals have this deep yellow tone, but they're thick, almost like
08:25a lemon peel, which I think makes them look gorgeous.
08:28And then, what's lovely is that the seed heads persist at the same time as the flowers, so
08:32you get these wonderful fluffy structures, and they'll last all the way on into winter.
08:37Now, it works brilliantly for flanking a wall, and here I think it'll look gorgeous, as the
08:42colour association with this Northamptonshire stone.
08:56Clematis Peau de Jour is one of the most popular of all the group three varieties, and for
09:02good reason.
09:03It's a fantastic plant that blooms over a really long period.
09:07Now, like all the group threes, it can take the standard pruning, and the recommended
09:12advice is to take them down to 30 or 40 centimetres from the ground in a batch of the pruning,
09:17and this is something that I regularly do with this plant and several of the other group
09:20threes per year.
09:21And that way, you get a bigger plant and a lot more flower.
09:25Just don't forget when you've pruned it.
09:27Now, something that's going on here that's particularly lovely is an association.
09:31So just beside the Clematis is Hydrangea Pinniculata Limelight, and I think those beautiful limey
09:37tones just work so well with those blue-lavender tones of the Clematis.
09:48Of all the late flowering Clematis, this has to be my absolute favourite.
09:53It's Purpurea Plenna Elegans, and it's got a lovely quality to it.
09:58These sort of plummy tones around the outside, and then as it starts to open out through
10:02the centre here, there's this sort of greyish bloom.
10:05Absolutely gorgeous.
10:07So today, I hope I've been able to give you a range of incredible varieties out there,
10:11and maybe you'll try one out at home.
10:23With all the other rich oranges and timber, and as Nick said, Pearl D'Azur, which I've
10:30got here and on the other side of the garden, is an absolute stunner.
10:34There's so many to choose from, but this has to be one of my favourites.
10:45I guess like most gardens, Longmeadow has waves when everything looks great, and then
10:53carefully, if you haven't got your succession right, are holes in the border, and that's
10:57exactly what's happened here in the Cottage Garden.
10:59Now, I'm starting at the back with a Rudbeckia, and this is Rudbeckia Herbston, and I'm going
11:05to plant it as a group that will make a big clump, which I can then divide later on.
11:11Now, these are already nearly six foot tall, and they'll get right up here, so at the back
11:16of the border, we'll have these drumming cones that then turn brown.
11:20When you're planting groups, some around the outside, I usually do that with roses, and
11:33apart from anything else, it starts you thinking of them as a group rather than as three separate
11:40plants, and they will meet happily in the middle, so I put that on the outside.
11:50So that is a tall stand of Rudbeckia Herbston at the back of the border.
11:56Now, in front of it, I want to put a different type of coneflower.
12:01Echinaceae have a wide range of pinks and oranges and all colours in between, and in
12:08fact, you can get white ones too.
12:10I've chosen this one, Rubinstone, because I like the intensity of the pink, it's almost
12:14cerise, and here in the Cottage Garden, we try and have as many pinks as we possibly
12:19can.
12:20So I'm going to put this in, and it will grow about four foot tall.
12:24If you've got free-draining soil and you can put them in good sunshine, they will last
12:28about four years, but they're not going to last forever, they are short-lived perennials.
12:33Now these I am going to plant individually.
12:40When I plant in the border at this time of year, when it's full, which is possible,
12:45because my size is 11 feet, a natural clumsy disposition means that I'm trying to plant
12:52and dig holes whilst balancing on one foot and amongst very delicate plants.
12:58But there we go.
13:03This is Rubbeckia Goldston.
13:06As you can see, it's got very strong flowers on multi-stems, but is much shorter than Herbston.
13:13It grows to about four foot tall.
13:15So this will go nearer the front, one there like that, and one where my spade is like that.
13:22That will set up the tiers.
13:25Not often nowadays, actually, I get a plant that is so tightly wedged in the pot.
13:31There you go.
13:32And you can see those roots are going round and round.
13:37That's a classic definition of a pot-bound plant.
13:41It's not the end of the world.
13:42It's not a disaster.
13:43All you do is just break it.
13:45Don't try and untangle it.
13:47And that will stimulate regrowth that will grow out into the soil.
13:52There you go.
13:53That's all you have to do.
13:55And then we'll pop that in there.
13:59Water them in really well.
14:01Give them a soak.
14:03All the space more naturally.
14:04But if you want late-season colour that's fabulous for insects and butterflies,
14:10you can do no better than coneflowers.
14:12Whether it be the giant Rebeccia or the smaller forms,
14:16and there are many Rebeccias you can buy,
14:18or the lovely Echinacea, which are a little bit more fragile.
14:21They don't last so long, and there's always a sense that you're lucky to have them.
14:25But boy, are they beautiful.
14:27Almost a question of chuck it all in, and it will sort itself out.
14:31But there are some people who like to focus their interests much more narrowly
14:35and really concentrate on one group or species of plant.
14:40And we've been down to Devon to meet a man whose particular passion
14:45is the humble houseleek.
14:52My name is Howard, and I've got national collections of Sempervivum and Jovibaba.
14:58Any day you go down and look at them, or any time you look at them,
15:02they look beautiful.
15:06They're just lovely.
15:11Well, many years ago when I was a child,
15:13I had a great-aunt who had a cactus collection in her conservatory.
15:17And one of the cacti, she thought, was one called the cobweb cactus,
15:21which is this plant here, Sempervivum arachnoidum.
15:24But later I found that they weren't in fact cacti,
15:26they were alpine mountain plants and hardy.
15:29And I could keep them outside rather than try and find greenhouse space for them.
15:33That's when I started, and through the whole of my life
15:36I have kept them going and gradually accumulated more and more.
15:40Sempervivum means always alive, because they're such hardy little plants.
15:44And arachnoidum is to do with spiders,
15:46because it looks like it's got a spider web over all of the rosettes.
15:50Well, the cobwebs are formed from little stretchy hairs
15:53that connect the leaf tips.
15:55And then as the plant grows, these stretch rather than break,
15:59and it results in this cobweb-like pattern.
16:02It's probably protective to some extent,
16:04either against water loss or intense light, perhaps.
16:13Common names of these plants are house leeks,
16:16which really is a protect against lightning and witches and various things.
16:21And I think the name just means it's a useful plant
16:25that grows on or around the house.
16:27They can also be called hen and chickens.
16:30They quite often will look like a mother hen
16:33with all her babies clustering around her.
16:35In the mountains they'll be under snow for the winter seasons
16:39and then they'll have baking sunlight when it's hot
16:42and they can cope with all these things.
16:44Provided they've got good drainage, of course.
16:47There are about 50 natural species that you can find in the mountains
16:52and somewhere over 5,000 named cultivars.
17:00My collection has been up to several thousand,
17:03but it's gradually specialising and reducing
17:06to the ones that I like the best and which I can look after.
17:09My favourite plant of all, really,
17:11is Sempervivum calcareum,
17:13a cultivar called Extra,
17:15which originated in the Hungarian Botanic Gardens.
17:18But that's a nice, large, tough plant
17:20and it always shows the symmetry of the rosettes
17:24to a very clear extent.
17:27Plants that grow closely to the ground,
17:30especially rosette shape,
17:32it's important that successive leaves don't overlap each other
17:36and there is one particular angle,
17:39and there is one particular angle,
17:41137.5 degrees,
17:43which means that no matter how many leaves it produces,
17:47there will never be one exactly at the same angle as another one.
17:51So this gives the maximum exposure to sunlight.
18:01Once you've been growing Sempervivums for a few years,
18:03you normally have lots and lots of little offsets,
18:06too many to keep potting on everywhere.
18:08And what I'm aiming for is a group like this.
18:13And after a year or so, they'll grow together
18:17and make this lovely tapestry-coloured plant.
18:20Just tuck them into the surface of the soil
18:23so that they're sitting upright.
18:31Well, my Sempervivum is don't ever buy one
18:34that's just a single large rosette
18:36because the chances are that it may well flower
18:39and then that's the end of it.
18:41So always choose one that looks like it's got baby plants around it
18:45because then you know something there will take over
18:48if the centre one flowers.
18:52There are a number of cultivars that I particularly like.
18:56I have named a few in mice, this one that I introduced.
19:00And I've got another bright red one
19:02which I just call gorgeous because it really is.
19:06I love them and it's nice when people come along
19:09and say, oh, they look good.
19:11It's like picking sweets from a sweet shop.
19:14Just so many different coloured varieties
19:16that have a big smile on their face
19:18because I think, oh, which is nice.
19:20And they certainly make me smile,
19:22internally at least, every time I look at them.
19:25I'll never look at a house leek again
19:28without a new sense of wonder.
19:31And they are a very good way to have the glamour of alpines
19:36outside in any weather and any conditions.
19:39These succulents, of course, are out in the summer
19:42but they go back under glass before the first frost
19:45on the Ionians, the Ionians, the Ionians,
19:48the Ionians, the Ionians, the Ionians,
19:51the Ionians, the Ionians, the Ionians,
19:54the Ionians and the Echeverias will not tolerate midsummer.
19:58They're quite happy outside.
20:08This is Swiss chard and you see that it is starting to bolt.
20:13Bolting, if you're not familiar with the term,
20:15simply means that it's putting up a flowering stem
20:18instead of growing leaves
20:20and trying to create seed to reproduce itself.
20:23And it's always a sign,
20:25if it bolts in the first year of planting, of stress.
20:29This means the plant is sending out alarm signals,
20:32things aren't going right,
20:34so it needs to produce seed to reproduce itself
20:37before perhaps it dies.
20:39So you have to think, well, what's the stress likely to be?
20:42Last summer it was easy, it was hot and dry,
20:45but this year has been kind to almost everything.
20:48It's not been too hot, it's not been too cold
20:51and I think the reason why these are bolting
20:54was because I grew them.
20:56I think what's happened is they weren't planted out soon enough
21:00and now we're seeing the ill effects of that.
21:03Now, growing things as plugs is great.
21:05You can see I often grow lettuce as plugs.
21:07I've got some here and they look fine.
21:09But if I pull one out, if I can, like that,
21:16you'll see two things.
21:18One, it's got a long stem, which you don't want,
21:21and two, actually, it's run out of nutrition.
21:24So if I planted this now,
21:26the chances of it bolting are really high.
21:29And when you're growing in plugs,
21:31it's really important that you go from the plug to the soil
21:34at the right time.
21:36And there are certain things to look for.
21:38The first is to have nice, healthy growing plants.
21:40You can see they're small, but they're healthy
21:43and they've still got growth in them.
21:45And that's a good sign.
21:47Take a plug out, lift it up by the leaves,
21:50and if the soil is held together by the roots,
21:53it's ready to plant out.
21:55If the roots are obscuring most...
21:58We can do something about it.
22:00If they start to bolt at this time of year,
22:02simply cut the stem...
22:04..provoke leaf growth.
22:06You might get a further flowering stem,
22:08but the chances are diminished
22:10and I fully expect these plants
22:13to go on producing leaves well into next spring.
22:17OK, this is an important job to do this weekend.
22:31There's still time to gather seed from foxgloves.
22:35Have a paper bag at the ready,
22:37cut the flowering stem
22:39and then turn it upside down into the bag.
22:41The seeds are absolutely minute
22:43and you should scatter them immediately
22:45onto a seed tray
22:47and they'll germinate in about two weeks.
22:49And then you can overwinter the small plants
22:52to plant out next spring.
22:58As Alchemilla mollis flowers brown and fade,
23:01they should be cut back,
23:03but don't just remove the flowering stems.
23:05Cut all the foliage right back to the ground.
23:08This lets light and air into the plant
23:11and very quickly fresh new leaves will appear.
23:15Summer fruiting raspberries
23:18have now finished their harvest
23:21and can be pruned ready for next year.
23:24This year's crop.
23:26Thin these so each plant has five or six
23:29and tie these firmly into support.
23:32And they're ready to overwinter.
23:45I sowed the seeds
23:47of a number of different tender annual climbers,
23:50but I thought I'd try a few that were a bit different.
23:53So I've grown cobia, which I have grown before,
23:56and it's been very happy growing in the soil.
23:58And the Spanish flag did eventually
24:00grow strong enough to plant out.
24:02It was too weedy to put into the jaw garden.
24:04It would have been swamped.
24:06But here in the cutting bed,
24:08it's eventually taken off.
24:10And you can see that as summer has progressed,
24:13it's got stronger and stronger.
24:15And my guess is it'll go on getting stronger
24:18with these very idiosyncratic,
24:20mixed orange and yellow coloured flowers
24:23and hence the name Spanish flag.
24:26I had given up on it, but it's coming through at last.
24:31These gladioli are here for no other reason
24:34but for cut flowers.
24:36And I have mixed feelings about gladioli
24:39because when I was a child,
24:41my mother used to grow them in a cut flower bed with dahlias
24:44and that was the only place that were gladioli or dahlias.
24:47And I saw them as very artificial plants,
24:50as somehow not belonging in a garden.
24:52And I'm slowly learning to love them as a garden plant.
24:56But at the moment, these ones, anyway,
24:59are here solely to be picked.
25:01You want to cut them slightly before they're ready.
25:05So I take that back there like that.
25:09There's a couple of good ones over there.
25:19I think that's enough.
25:21A little of this intense gladioli
25:24goes a very long way.
25:27But no further to go for tonight's programme, I'm afraid.
25:30That's it.
25:32But I'll be back here at Longmeadow at the same time next week.
25:35So join me then. Bye-bye.
25:38Bye-bye.