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Gardeners World 2024 Episode 29
Transcript
00:00Hello, welcome to Gardener's World. I'm just hoeing the weeds from this cut flower bed
00:23and I sowed it with seeds of hardy annuals about four weeks ago and they germinated quite
00:29well but I want to thin them. The germination and my sowing, it has to be said, has been
00:36slightly erratic. It's too thick in some places and a bit thin in others. So this is three
00:42rows of nigella, lovely blue flowers, but to get the best of each plant you want cut
00:48flowers to be really strong plants and in an ideal world you'd have individual seedlings
00:54spaced about three inches apart. Well you can see there, I've got nothing like that
00:58so what I'm going to do is start to thin them. Not too dramatically but just reach
01:02in and just pull out from the side of the row. Don't try and thin them down to exact
01:10spacing. I just want to reduce the width of the rows, if possible, to a single seedling
01:18and I can have another pass at this either later in winter or even early next spring.
01:26Now these are cornflowers, blue boy. Now here I'm going to pull up a clump, divide
01:33it and replant it. So here we go, that can go back in there to fill the gap and then
01:41I've got two more to come in here. Now a bit of judicious thinning and transplanting will
01:51set these up. They're not going to grow much more this winter but next spring they'll be
01:56here ready to burst away when the days get longer and warmer and give us cut flowers
02:02about a month or so ahead of those that we sow in spring. Now coming up on today's programme.
02:11Joe visits the garden designer Tom Hoblin at his home in Suffolk and discovers his passion
02:16for fruit trees. I've got the sort of curiosity orchard down there which is all my sort of
02:23weirdo fruits that I've collected around that I just grow for fun. We're catching up with Sue
02:29as she contemplates the highs and lows of her gardening year. Having these new borders has
02:37been a massive experiment and some of it has failed and some of it has succeeded but what
02:42it's done is it's expanded my knowledge and reinvigorated my love of plants. We explore a
02:49richly planted Devonshire garden bursting with colour that makes the very most of its scenic
02:56views. The borrowed landscape is really important because it acts as a picture frame to all my
03:01planting and also in some ways the landscape comes inwards as well so it all becomes one.
03:08And I shall be planting amaryllis for Christmas as well as juicing some apples.
03:39Although the garden is distinctly thinning out at this time of year and by the end of October all
03:47the summer flowers have more or less finished that comes with a real advantage because it
03:52creates spaces and in those spaces you can plant and it's a very good time of year probably the
03:58best time of year to plant any woody plant, trees or shrubs of any description and that's because
04:05the soil is still warm so I'll have a good month of the roots getting established and
04:10growing without any demands from the foliage or flowers. I've got a corner here which is
04:22perfect for this particular Wygeila. This is Wygeila candida. Not only is it white whereas
04:27most of them are various shades of pink but also it grows tall and upright but whatever type of
04:35Wygeila you choose this is how you plant. First of all just dig a hole that's a bit wider than
04:41the container. You want to encourage the roots to spread out sideways into the soil. Almost all the
04:50feeding roots are growing horizontally not very far below the surface so open it out.
04:56Nice loose root run. Now what they like is light shade. They do need reasonable drainage but other
05:11than that they're really robust and reliable plants. Now you take it out the pot. If you
05:20can see more root than soil. That's pot bound. So let's go around and break the roots and by
05:30breaking them they're going to grow new roots from the point where they break and those new
05:34roots will grow out away from the containerized soil. So that's good enough for that and then
05:44set it so that the surface of the soil in the pot is slightly above the ground level. When you
05:52plant any woody plant it wants to be on a slight mound so you're creating almost little cone around
05:59the roots. If you plant it in the saucer water will collect and it will sit in water. I haven't
06:11added any goodness to the planting hole because all you're doing is encouraging the roots to stay
06:16in that hole and then angle your heel so you're pressing your heel down from the outside of the
06:25planting hole in towards the center like that. Now all Wygealers flower in spring. May and June
06:37are their flowering months and it flowers on the wood that has grown the previous summer. So if you
06:43prune it in autumn or in early spring you will have no flowers. The time to prune Wygealer like
06:51all spring flowering shrubs is immediately after flowering. Be generous with the water.
07:08Right I will let that soak in, give it a good mulch and that'll be fine. Now last autumn
07:18Joe went to Suffolk to visit the private garden of a fellow garden designer.
07:23I've known award-winning garden designer Tom Hoblin for many years and it's always great to
07:39catch up with him at Chelsea and see his latest designs. So when he invited me to see his own
07:45garden here in Bury St Edmunds I didn't have to think twice and it turns out he's not just a great
07:51designer but also a very passionate fruit and veg grower too and has a wonderful kitchen garden.
08:07Tom. Hello. Joe good to see you. How you doing? Wow this is amazing but it's a very traditional
08:15war garden here isn't it? I mean I see you as a contemporary designer I wouldn't put you two
08:19together. Well you know I mean we've got two and a half acres here and there's plenty of room to try
08:24everything but when we discovered that this was a war garden because it was so overgrown when we
08:29came here we could only really do one thing and that's turn it back into a productive
08:34very high maintenance garden. This is the west facing walls they've got all the cordon apples
08:47and cordon pears here. I've got this fantastic arbor which is actually a wedding present that
08:52we use to grow the espalier pears on and this year I'm growing ornamentals. Great wedding present. I know.
09:01This is the legume bed here's the allium bed and then my courgettes which I grow up on canes here.
09:09I've got the sort of curiosity orchard down there which is all my sort of weirdo
09:14fruits that I've collected around that I just grow for fun. After an inspiring tour of the
09:21garden it's very clear that Tom has a passion for growing fruit trees especially apples.
09:30So you've got all these wonderful cordons on this wall it's a great way of growing
09:34lots of apple varieties in a small space. So what pruning do you actually have to do?
09:41Well cordons surprisingly little you train them in and then you're pruning in June it's called
09:46a June prune is all you do and you're basically cutting back these whippy shoots. I mulch them
09:53and they get pruned and I leave them. Pruning once a year once a year keeps it really simple too.
09:59Yeah and you don't even need a wall you can just make a frame like a pergola
10:03you could even just use fence posts and some wires. Yeah. You buy them as a sort of a one
10:08year old tree and you just train them in I mean that's it couldn't be easier and look
10:12these are absolute perfection. Gorgeous. This is Lord Lamborn that just look beautiful and tastes
10:17wonderful. Honestly Tom I didn't have a clue that you were so into your fruit and veg and well
10:31especially apples. Where's it all come from? I guess my grandfather was probably the first person
10:37he was a tom hoblin as well and he was integral in developing the root stock that governs the
10:42ultimate size of trees and was actually given an OBE for it. Oh. Yeah so it's sort of always been in
10:48in our family. Here we've got you know fully grown trees. Yeah. Of all different sizes as well and
10:54getting the root stock is absolutely key isn't it it's very important. So there are three main root
11:00stocks to think about you've got a sort of dwarfing one you've got a semi-dwarfing one and then you've
11:05got like a vigorous standard one. If you've got a small garden you want a more dwarfing one and a
11:10bigger garden you want a more vigorous one and that's it. What about this one? This one James
11:16Greaves which is the semi-dwarfing root stock probably my favorite root stock and you know
11:20they're four meters tall now that's it they'll just bush out a little bit more and they'll never
11:25get any bigger and I won't need to take secateurs to them again. You don't prune you just leave them?
11:30I just leave them yeah yeah and the great thing is is apples are very very forgiving as well so
11:36you know if they're happy they're going to reward you.
11:42Tom's collection of fruit trees has expanded over the years as a result of a bud grafting technique
11:48called chip budding. It involves cutting a bud from another tree and implanting it into a new
11:54root stock. It's one of the methods fruit growers use to propagate new plants
11:58and it's easy to do yourself once you know how.
12:03First of all what you do is you cut all the leaves off and we're going to get one of these buds
12:07which has all the sort of genetic material in to make another Worcester pear main
12:12and we're going to splice it onto the side of this root stock here so you you cut down here
12:18and you want to hit it so it's just you can feel it touch the wood I mean you don't have to be too
12:22precise and you really want sort of one third of bark up here and two thirds down here but again
12:28two thirds down here but again don't worry too much about it okay so you're cutting down like
12:34that and then you're going to sort of just slice off the bud the bud here beautiful and it comes
12:42off there perfect yeah you want to go approximately six inches above where the soil is going to be
12:47you can see the the roots growing out here yeah so approximately six inches up here so you want to
12:53cut down yeah and the reason why you've cut a little notch down there now is so this will sit in
13:02magic and look it actually fits that is beautiful Tom the next thing to do is get a bit of
13:08grafting tape now you can use anything you can even use strips of cotton so if you hold it there
13:15and and you can't be too firm and wrapping it around so you almost want to stretch it as it
13:21comes round okay because the idea is you're sealing in all the moisture and this is at this
13:27point I normally cut because now I know this is on I don't need that little peg anymore
13:32so I just cut it off are you learning as well she's an inquisitive one that one
13:39and then just do a little half hitch at the top nice pull that down
13:43trim it off and leave it there that has worked really well beautiful it will fuse together but
13:54to be on the safe side I tend to leave the tape on until the spring in about March you come in
13:59and you cut just above the bud here so you're cutting through your chip bud so all that's left
14:06is that bud so all the energy that's coming up this rootstock now goes into this bud
14:10and that will grow and that will become your new tree it is magic isn't it it is it's
14:16horticultural magic it's brilliant it's been so interesting coming and visiting Tom in his own
14:28garden but he's kept it really simple he hasn't complicated anything and he keeps those processes
14:35simple too and whether you've got a large garden or a small garden it's just so inspiring the
14:41whole space it's beautiful and it just makes me want to go home and plant some
14:46apple trees get the right rootstock but get them in the ground
15:06I think Tom's point about the rootstocks is so important when you're planting apples or any fruit
15:14tree find out about the rootstock because it determines how big the plant grows in the orchard
15:21they're mainly full standards and I regret it and I regret it not because they're not nice trees
15:27they're beautiful but because most of the apples are out of reach it means that they fall to the
15:33ground and this year where we had a lot of wind and rain throughout September hundreds of apples
15:39have been bashed to the ground before we can pick them and once they hit the ground you can't store
15:45them now you can eat them and you can juice them and I'll be doing that later but the one thing I
15:51would say to you is just find out about rootstocks work out what you want and then make sure you've
15:57want and then make sure you've got the right rootstock as well as the right variety
16:17now this hedge at the end may look like a sort of decorative feature with a window out into the
16:24open world and hopefully it does look good but actually it was planted for a reason
16:29and that reason was to hide something
16:41what the hedge hides is this which is our leaf mold bay and this is where we bring all our fallen
16:48leaves when we gather them up towards the end of this month and in November we mow them first
16:58and that makes the leaves decompose much quicker but it's still a slow process
17:02so it sits here fully for a year before it's ready to be used
17:09a leaf mold bay differs from a compost heap in that the action that breaks down the leaves is
17:15fungal rather than the bacterial so you don't need to turn it just make sure it's damp leave it alone
17:22and the fungus will get to work and a year later will have reduced it to this lovely material which
17:28has such good use in the garden and if you haven't got room for a leaf mold bay you can make leaf
17:34haven't got room for a leaf mold bay you can make leaf mold in old compost bags make holes in the
17:40bottom just put them in make sure the leaves are nice and wet turn them over stick them behind a
17:45shed forget about them for a year and we use it as part of our potting compost
17:56good boy come on let's go come on good boy
18:05so
18:12this barrel load is going to be perfect for mulching these beds on the mound
18:22if i was to use this for potting compost i'd sieve it
18:25but for mulch there's no need to do that you can put it on as it is and this is perfect
18:31for woodland plants
18:37mulch is doing all the things at this time of year that it does in spring it's suppressing
18:41weeds it's keeping in moisture but with leaf mold really importantly it's improving the soil
18:48structure it doesn't have the same nutrition as compost but actually that doesn't matter that's
18:53not so desperately important now the mulch works into the soil through earthworms worms will do
19:01everything for you just lay it on the surface be generous better to do a small area thickly
19:12now earlier this summer we went to a garden near tibetan
19:16in devon belonging to delia maywest and it was a garden that not so long ago was an empty field
19:40i love this time of year because the dahlias are all in flower
19:46i love the way the light changes through the day and the hedgerows become full of blackberries and
19:51rose hips and i just love the stillness there's a stillness to the air and the day
20:04my garden's on a hillside in devon we moved here five years ago and there wasn't a garden here at
20:11all there was literally a gate that opened out onto a vast field so we sectioned some of it off
20:16and started building the garden being on a hill it lends itself to the views which are absolutely
20:24stunning the borrowed landscape is really important because it acts as a picture frame to all my
20:30planting everywhere you stand the background becomes that picture frame and also in some ways
20:38the landscape comes inwards as well so it all becomes one
20:49dahlias are one of my favorite flowers and i just love them because of their structures their colors
20:58i love the bees on the dahlias because at night time they tuck themselves up inside
21:03they actually become like sleeping pillows for them
21:06oh my gosh i've lost count of how many dahlias i've got i must have
21:15i don't know possibly a hundred
21:21so the way i keep my dahlias going is to keep deadheading them the more you deadhead the more
21:26they will flower and the way to tell a spent one is because it actually becomes a cone and if you
21:33sort of squeeze it like this a bit of moisture comes through and you can see there's no petals
21:37left inside to come and then a new one is just a round bud sort of like these here
21:47as dahlias go this is just stunning it's a bit crazy in its appearance i know it's
21:54not to everybody's taste but i just absolutely love it bees love it as much as i do
22:09so being here it all weathers it's absolutely lovely but when the sun comes out
22:14it attracts all the bees and the butterflies
22:17and you can just sit and listen and just be absorbed in the garden
22:24so when we first moved here it was important for me to have a kitchen garden so we sectioned the
22:34part of it off at the top and started building beds greenhouses from recycled materials i love
22:43growing vegetables because i like to grow my veg to fill the freezers with for food you know through
22:48the winter months i like to make my jams and my chutneys and my sauces there's always something
22:53to pick up there's always something to do and what i love is to be able to pick it and put it
22:57in my truck basket and trundle off back into the kitchen and sort it all out
23:03in here at the moment i've got my carrots to harvest but my carrots are always misshapen
23:08because we've got really stony ground but it doesn't matter because i can peel and chop these
23:14and i put them in the freezer and then the real misshapen ones i add to casseroles and stews
23:19so nothing gets wasted the tops go to the chickens as well for them to eat
23:35the summer months are my favorite time of the year because it's full of color
23:41flowering here along with my dahlias i've got verbena echinaceas lobelia
23:48cocosmia and i like the fleabane dotted around
23:52although it's white it actually sings with the rest of the colors
24:00so we started off building the kitchen garden and then i wanted a little orchard and
24:06i looked it up and it says if you have five fruit trees that constitutes an orchard
24:10so september is one of my favorite times of the year because you're harvesting everything
24:14but what i love as well is stocking the freezer and my pantry shelves
24:19and it gives you those tastes and flavors of summer when the darker nights are drawing in
24:35the one thing i love to do with the apples at this time of year is to dehydrate them
24:39so i chop both ends off
24:44and then i peel them
24:48and then i will slice them and then i've already made a solution of lemon juice and water
24:54and i add them to that and what it does is it stops them from going brown
25:00and i'll let them stay in there for 10 to 12 minutes and then i'll shake them off put them
25:06in my dehydrator and i'll leave it on for about 12 hours and then you can put them in a jar and
25:13they're dehydrated and you can just eat them as a snack all year round
25:19really sweet
25:23i just feel so incredibly lucky gardening to me is everything it just feeds my soul
25:30to grow things from seed to watch them flourish to watch them grow to see the pollinators come in
25:38to share it with nature is just amazing it's wonderful
26:00i think it's really interesting that Delia is drying apples because i grow some varieties
26:07of apples specifically for drying they're called beefing apples it's herefordshire beefing norfolk
26:12beefing bred by the victorians because they had a very low moisture content now it's time to cut
26:18back these mediterranean herbs the herb garden here is chosen because actually the soil is really
26:24because actually the soil is really poor it's almost all stone but these mediterranean herbs
26:31like oregano like thyme like sage like rosemary are very happy in those conditions and we let
26:38the marjoram and by the way marjoram and oregano are really one and the same thing
26:41grow rampant because the bees love it they absolutely adore the flowers but now they've
26:47stopped flowering they've set seed it's time to cut them back and don't just cut the flowers off
26:52like that what you need to do is go right back to the base absolutely to the ground
26:57and cut them back there so if i get in here
27:02you can see i'm completely clearing and what that is doing essentially is letting a light
27:08into the base of the plant and they're just flush with the ground there's a whole mass
27:13of new foliage this won't grow back over winter as the light levels drop as it gets colder
27:19it'll hunker down but it's very tough and as soon as the weather warms up next april it will start
27:24to grow and then flower next june and july be covered with bees again i absolutely love it
27:32now still to come on today's program the right own house plant expert jane perone
27:38shares her tips on how to care for plants to create a green oasis inside your home
27:45when you've done your research you understand how that plant grows in the wild and that enables you
27:51to really take good care of it in your home and that way you should have plants that will last
27:56you for years and years and years sue is planning for next year and weighing up some of this year's
28:04successes and failures over the years i've developed a way of landscaping and plant selection
28:11that allows me to garden myself and i got so excited about my new borders that all of that
28:17went out the window but first we're going to visit one of your gardens and this is in lewis in east
28:24sussex well hi everyone my name is gavin and i thought i'd take this opportunity to show you
28:30around my collection of miniature trees and show you what i've been growing we can see that we have
28:36a camellia that's looking good nice trunk on that tree interleaf bell and it's looking really good
28:42we have this dawn redwoods that's putting on a load of growth and it's absolutely going berserk
28:46that's going to need a prune real soon we have a chinese elm just in here coming out in leaf
28:52looking really nice we have a pine tree that's been styled in a really sort of curly whirly design
28:58you have an english elm just here the ketone aster another english elm coastal redwoods
29:04a norway spruce and another english elm there are a couple of ways to style a tree one is
29:11you can wire them and the other way is to use the clip and grow technique allow it to grow
29:16and then cut it back allow it to grow and then cut it back and that's how you ultimately create
29:20a little bonsai tree i've been growing bonsai for around about three or four years and over that time
29:27i've experimented with a wide variety of different species of trees and what i like to do is collect
29:32the seeds from the trees and hopefully they grow the following spring so if we just take one at
29:37random let's just take this one this here is a silver birch and this is grown on from the seed
29:43that i collected from the birch tree over time we can train it prune it and style it maybe even wire
29:49it to fit a style that suits us you can make a bonsai tree out of nearly anything and this is my
29:57second bonsai so this was a tree that's actually growing up the garden so one year i decided to
30:03dig it out the ground and i planted the remaining roots into this washing up bowl
30:09over the last couple of years i've trained the top i've added a little bit of wire just
30:13wire some of the branches out and the tree has absolutely flourished and grown well
30:18thank you for joining me today
30:36well thanks for sharing that with us gavin and i love the way you're growing trees from seed people
30:40get frightened of growing trees from seed somehow feeling it's too big a leap but actually it works
30:46you can see it does and also if you've got a sycamore an ash or a holly growing in or near
30:51your garden you're bound to have loads of seedlings popping up so just dig up one of
30:56those when they're tiny pop them up and as gavin has showed us you're off now it's a good time
31:04to be planting amaryllis to flower at christmas or in the new year amaryllis of course have these
31:11enormous bulbs a very long stem and an enormous trumpet of flower it's an operatic diva that
31:19sings out in the middle of winter with this extraordinary flamboyance now when you buy
31:25amaryllis there are two ways of doing it the first is to buy a kit and i realize that that's how most
31:30people get them and grow them and kits are really good i'm a fan inside the kit you get a bulb
31:37you get a pot to grow them in and you also get a growing medium now this may not look like the
31:45normal compost you buy in a bag but it's just compressed dehydrated coir soak it for about 40
31:52minutes and this will expand out become soft and become a perfect growing medium there's just one
31:58thing to bear in mind you can see the size of the bulb and it fits the pot well but then if you buy
32:05the bulb separately either from a garden center or online the chances are that they can be much
32:11bigger and look at the difference in size between these two and when you're growing bulbs of any
32:17kind big is nearly always better as long as it's really healthy and firm always go for the biggest
32:24bulbs that you can find and this is about seven or eight pounds whereas a single bulb loose this size
32:33is between 10 and 12 pounds so appreciably more however you will get appreciably more flowering
32:40this is a variety called red velvet but whatever variety you grow planting them is exactly the same
32:47you need a pot that's not much bigger than the bulb so i'm going to put a crock in the bottom
32:52and then using the compost just fill in around it so the roots are in the compost
33:05but two-thirds of the bulb is above it i'm just firming that in and then we'll get a little bit
33:13more around that and it doesn't matter terribly what compost you use as long as it drains well
33:23water it well and then it won't need much watering until the foliage starts to appear
33:34maybe once every three weeks between now and christmas and it certainly doesn't need feeding
33:40but what it does need and this is really essential is warmth don't need to give it any light to start
33:45with not until you start to see a shoot so if you've got an airing cupboard you could pop it
33:49in there for a week or two but keep checking it because once the shoots appear it will need light
33:54and then when you start to see a decent stem with a bud forming on the top of it
34:00you can then put it in whatever position you want it to display one little tip i would say
34:04is that once the flowers are out move it to a slightly cooler position if it's slightly cooler
34:10they will last appreciably longer the flowering period for the whole plant can be as much as six
34:15weeks now more and more of us are growing houseplants mainly foliage and they're transforming
34:21our homes and that's a wonderful thing and i can't profess to be an expert on houseplants
34:28but we went to Bedford to visit the home of somebody who is
34:34i really can't remember a time when i wasn't growing houseplants i can't imagine not having
34:40them in my life they are so important to me and i just get daily joy from looking at them
34:47and also sharing them with other people i'm jane perrone and i am a garden writer and journalist
34:55i'm jane perrone and i am a garden writer and journalist my nickname at school was botany
35:03and that's probably because i was sort of spouting latin names of plants from quite a young age
35:16i'm really fascinated by the history of houseplants the journey they've taken to get
35:23into our homes onto our windowsills
35:30when you buy plants when you've done your research you understand how that plant grows in the wild
35:35what kind of conditions it grows in and that enables you to really take good care of it in
35:41your home to find the right spot where it will thrive and that way you should have
35:46plants that will last you for years and years and years
35:54this is the chinese money plant pilea peperomioides this has been a plant that's become
36:01really popular on social media in the last few years and i think that's because this round leaf
36:09photographs beautifully and people love the way the plant looks and it's a really good houseplant
36:15because it's very prolific it produces lots of babies and it's very easy to reproduce you can
36:21just pluck out one of these baby plants and grow it on this plant comes from yunnan province in
36:28china and it tends to grow in quite rocky environments and that's worth bearing in
36:32mind when you're thinking about growing it as a houseplant it likes moisture but it likes
36:38free draining potting mix so if you grow it in cactus and succulent compost that's great
36:45or you can just add some drainage material to regular houseplant compost and that way you can
36:50give it the water it needs without it suffering from root rot it can take an awful lot of sunlight
36:58it probably doesn't want to be in absolute direct sun in the height of summer but it will adapt quite
37:04well to quite a lot of light it's also quite amenable to a little bit of shade so it's it
37:10makes a good houseplant for that reason because it's adaptable to lots of different
37:14conditions and positions in your home
37:29this is crassula ovata variegata the variegated jade tree or money plant and it's a stalwart
37:38houseplant that has been popular for many years because it's just so tough it can cope with life
37:44with a little bit more shade than most of the other succulents will tolerate and it actually
37:50grows to the size of a small tree if it's given the space and time it protects itself by being
37:58fragile and what i mean by that is when it's fed upon by herbivores some of the leaves drop to the
38:05ground and these root really easily to make a new plant and we can take advantage of that
38:11so if a leaf falls off just like this one's done it's easy enough to make a new plant we can just
38:18put this on a shelf for a couple of days and wait till the cut end has calloused up then lay the
38:26cutting on some gritty compost stick it inside a clear plastic bag hopefully within a few weeks
38:35you'll have a new baby plant to enjoy
38:46string of pearls or curio rollianus is a beautiful houseplant that gives you this
38:53waterfall effect but it's really not the easiest i come across lots of people who have killed their
38:59plant quite quickly i myself had a beautiful specimen that i killed so there really are
39:05a challenging plant even for experienced succulent growers so the leaves are shaped like little balls
39:12and each leaf has a tiny stripe across it which is like a tiny little stained glass window and
39:19it's called a leaf window we don't fully understand how these leaf windows work but
39:25botanists think that these help to control temperature and the absorption of light for
39:31photosynthesis when you grow this plant at home it's important to remember that in the wild it
39:37doesn't grow as a string it grows as a mat the root system is very fine and fibrous so you need
39:44to give it a shallow pot and make sure that the compost is really free draining you can't really
39:51give this plant too much drainage you can use these little balls as a guide to when the plant needs
39:57water so in the winter only water when those little globes are starting to deflate a bit like a
40:04deflated football in the growing season you can feed occasionally with cactus and succulent feed
40:11and you can water reasonably generously provided that you're giving that
40:16really good drainage that's what this plant loves
40:22one of the reasons i love learning about the background and history and backstory of house
40:27plants is it's really fascinating you find out how these plants were used in the places where
40:34they come from where they're used as medicine where they're used as food and it just provides
40:40a rounded picture of your plant that hopefully makes you appreciate them a little bit more
40:45they're not just green wallpaper they become a kind of a character that in a story that's a
40:51really fascinating tale i think this might be the most iconic house plant of all monstera deliciosa
41:03the swiss cheese plant to give it its common name and it's an absolute house plant classic
41:10this is a plant that seeks out something to climb one of the problems that people find with this
41:17plant is that it gets to the ceiling and they don't know what to do can they cut it back yes
41:23you definitely can hack back this plant it's used to losing some stems in nature and the feeder
41:31roots allow the plant to stay connected with the earth even if the main stem is severed so these
41:37are tough house plants the main thing to know when you're taking a cutting of monstera deliciosa
41:44is locating the nodes and this is quite simple so the node is just the point where the leaf
41:50stalk joins the main stem so we are trying to cut within what's called the internodal space and that
41:58just means the bit between the nodes and generally i would advise cutting just above a node
42:04so there we go we've got the cutting and we can just now trim it to just below this node
42:11and disregard this bit of stem we've got this lovely healthy root that's going to root on
42:17and before long this will be a lovely big monstera deliciosa plant on its own
42:24i get so much joy out of my plants i just love being surrounded by them it really brings me
42:31a lot of pleasure to be taking care of them and also passing their descendants on to other people
42:37it's really rewarding so yeah i think my plants are here to stay
42:42as more and more of us are growing house plants it's good to have some
42:57As more and more of us are growing houseplants, it's good to get some expert advice on how
43:13to get the best out of them. Although sometimes you get the right answer almost by accident.
43:18I stumbled on the best way to grow Streptocarpus after getting it wrong lots of times. And
43:23then I went to South Africa and I saw them growing in their natural environment. And
43:29I was next to this rocky face and had Streptocarpus growing out of the rock that was running with
43:34water and in deep shade. And I realised that what they like was shade, moist air, but very
43:40good drainage. And we tried various places and eventually I stuffed them under here thinking,
43:45well, I don't know where to put you, but maybe that'll be okay. And they love it. And they've
43:50been here ever since. And it's that combination on gravel, which is nice and cool and holds a bit
43:55of moisture. It's shady, but it's got some light and I don't water them very often. I bring a hose
44:01in here and I just spray them over at least once a week. And if it's hot two or three times a week,
44:05that's what they like. Now I've been distracted. I didn't mean to talk about Streptocarpus. I was
44:13on my way to plant some cabbages. The cabbages I'm going to plant are spring cabbages. In fact,
44:25I think of them more as spring greens. Spring cabbage like hispy cabbage or these which are
44:31Durham early, they tend to be pointy. They have this pointy top. Whereas winter cabbages like
44:37Savoy's, which have been growing since spring and are ready to harvest now, tend to be round.
44:43But if you plant spring cabbages a little bit closer together and pick the greens before it
44:50hearts up, you have delicious spring greens somewhere from the end of March through to
44:56the middle of May if you plant them now. But to plant them now, you've got to have seedlings.
45:01And the truth is, I forgot to sow my spring cabbage, which I should have done by August.
45:06So I bought these seedlings and if you can get some plants like these in plugs, good root system,
45:13you can plant them out to the end of this month and they will be ready for harvest next spring.
45:18I've spread a layer of compost over the top and that's important with any brassica. They're quite
45:28hungry plants, which is one of the reasons why traditionally you sow brassicas immediately
45:33after legumes because legumes fix nitrogen into the soil and the brassicas can take that up and
45:38use it. So these are quite close together and that's deliberate. If I wanted them to have good
45:45strong hearts, I probably would double the spacing. Now what I will have to do when I've got these in
45:52is create protection against pigeons. It could be very simple. I'll just put some sticks in and
45:58drape netting over it because pigeons in winter descend upon brassicas, particularly young ones
46:05like this, and will strip them bare. Other than that, water them in and then pretty much forget
46:11about them and they're really important in that hungry gap between the end of winter and the
46:16beginning of the summer harvest in April and May when the vegetable garden actually is at its
46:21barest. Now last month we went down to Swansea to visit Sue in her garden at home where she was
46:28taking stock of how her summer had fared. It's full-on harvest time here. I've got pears ripening
46:46on the trees, reddening tomatoes in the greenhouse, I've got squashes growing over gates and I've got
46:52beans growing over trees but here I've grown beans slightly differently. I'm growing them on the
46:58horizontal because this is my hot red border. I've planted some runner beans which have lovely red
47:03flowers and it's had two benefits. One is if they grow on canes I just can't reach to pick them if
47:10they're any height above here so here they're hugely accessible and also this is a really
47:16ugly wall and it has covered it magnificently. These beans I'm going to pick now but the rest
47:23of them I'm going to leave on the stems to get bigger and to dry so that I'll be able to have
47:28dry beans all through winter. When you last saw me I was busy planting up this border. Now this
47:44is the first of my hot borders which you see straight away as you come into the garden so
47:48it's got to look good and I was going for a whiny red color and I think I've achieved it. I put in
47:54some blood grass and I put that at the back because I thought it could look after itself
47:58because that would be difficult for me to reach and then because I wanted it to look good straight
48:02away I filled the space with cosmos and anterinums and they really have done well. I'm really happy
48:09with this. I think this is a success more than I thought it would be but there's another area
48:13that hasn't been so successful. Over the years I've developed a way of landscaping and plant
48:24selection that allows me to garden myself. I really am the queen of the narrow borders and
48:30that means I can reach and tend the plants quite easily and I got so excited about my new borders
48:36that all of that went out the window and I've created a really bigger border than I can manage
48:42and it's not doing well. What's happening is I'm going into the border to tend to the plants and
48:49I'm damaging everything. So I've come up with a plan rather than keep trying and failing,
48:56I'm reorganizing straight away a little bit of more landscaping. So I've put a terracotta path
49:02down to mark out the area of the border that I'm actually going to completely remove, take all the
49:08plants and use them elsewhere and put down some slate and then I'm going to make a nice little
49:13seating area so that then I can sit there and look out across my beautiful garden.
49:20One of the things I've been most impressed with this year is my perennial wallflower bows mould
49:32and I want to have more of them so I've taken heel cuttings earlier in the season and they're
49:38ready to plant out and I took some quite recently and they're ready to pot on. I put the cuttings
49:45around the edge of the pot because it's warmer. Now I'm going to take them out and give the pot
49:50a bit of a squeeze and then see what's occurring. You can see there's lots of roots where the side
50:01of the pot was so they they do like it. Now I'm going to break them up slowly because there's
50:06four in here and look there's a lot of root there and there's not so much root on this side. So I've
50:13got a little bit of soil in the bottom and I'm going to pop my cutting in and they like a sort
50:19of free draining soil so it's a mixture of homegrown compost and a bit of manure and a
50:24bit of garden grit and firm it on round. Right that's four new plants ready and officially
50:35they should grow in the ground by September but I planted some out last year on the 29th of October
50:41and they did fine so if they grow on a bit more I will put them in the ground if not I'll put them
50:46in the greenhouse, overwinter them and then plant them in the spring. I've got some planting to do
51:00so it's time to put my gloves on.
51:10I really love having lettuce all throughout the year and I'm going to plant some winter lettuce
51:17that's really winter friendly that means it'll cope with slightly harsher conditions and this
51:21is the right place to plant them because I've got some sun and I'm also sheltered. I wouldn't normally
51:27buy plugs but I'd be completely defeated by the slugs this year. I've got winter density
51:34which can really go through the winter and will survive the frosts and the soil that I'm putting
51:40them in is very free draining because there's nothing lettuce hate more than having their roots
51:46in soggy soil. So the next ones are Marvel of Four Seasons and the clue is in the name
51:53they're designed to be grown in four seasons, they're winter hardy and they've got a lovely
51:58red colour on them so it looks great in a salad bowl as a contrast to the green
52:03and they should survive the frosts but if it gets really really cold they can always
52:08do with a little bit of protection to ensure they'll make it through the winter.
52:16I'm going to sow a few seeds to grow inside the greenhouse or you can grow them under a
52:22cloche or something and these are not quite as hardy, this is an Italian lettuce Latagino
52:29and it will heart up or you can use it as cut and come again and it's very tasty and I'm just making
52:37a very light drill with small seeds like lettuce seeds you want to be careful that the soil is fine
52:43because if they get trapped under a crusty soil they won't be able to break through and come up
52:49so I'm just tipping a few into the drill and I'll thin them out when they're successful.
52:57I'm going to put these in the greenhouse away from slugs and if you don't have one
53:01you could just cover it with a tall clear plastic box in the winter to keep them safe.
53:19So having these new borders and introducing myself to all these new plants has been a massive
53:31experiment and some of it has failed and some of it has succeeded but what it's done is expanded
53:37my knowledge and reinvigorated my love of plants so trying something new is something I'm going to
53:43be doing a lot of in the future.
54:03I do agree with Sue's point about experimenting, trying things out, it's really important to get
54:10out your comfort zone to grow plants you've never grown before and perhaps which you didn't believe
54:15could be grown either in your garden or your part of the country. Right I'm scratting and I like to
54:21scrat. Scratting and this is a scratter means chopping up apples into small pieces ready for
54:31pressing to make juice and this bit of kit works a treat.
54:39That's done there I can take that off and now I have a bucket of finely chopped apples and
54:48it goes into this muslin bag, pop it in
54:52and then the bag gets folded over it. We pop this over the top that goes in there like that.
55:03Now, a bit noisy.
55:09Right that is now poised to squeeze.
55:13If you don't have your own apple press there are loads of community presses will press apples for
55:19you. There are lots around if you look up locally or there will be someone who will press them
55:25commercially they'll charge you but it'll be worth it because they will pasteurize it and put it into
55:30bottles or containers and that means you can store it for a very long time.
55:35They'll charge you but it'll be worth it because they will pasteurize it and put it into bottles
55:40or containers and that means you can store it. Now this is quite a job but it's one that I
55:45really like and I've got a lot of apples to press so while I'm doing that here are your jobs for the
55:51weekend.
56:07If you plant hyacinth bulbs now they can flower in the depths of winter but they
56:13must be specially treated bulbs normal hyacinths won't flower till spring.
56:18Take these bulbs and pack them tightly into a bowl containing a free-draining compost.
56:25Cover them over so their snouts are just appearing at the surface of the compost
56:30and then put them somewhere cool and dark for about a month. When they have shoots that are
56:35a couple of inches long bring them out into light and they will flower a matter of weeks later.
56:40If you have hard paths they can get very slippery at this time of year and the easiest way to deal
56:45with this is to sprinkle some sharp sand and brush that in firmly with a stiff brush. This
56:52acts as an abrasive wearing away the moss and algae and making the path a lot safer to walk on.
57:01Forget-me-not seedlings will be spreading everywhere around the parent plants
57:06but to get an even display next spring break up the clumps store the plants that you keep
57:13ready to replant the next spring.
57:16So that's it for this video. I hope you've enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next one.
57:47What that has is an intensity of apple and it won't keep for very long a couple of days in the
57:53fridge but you can freeze it and then in the deep months of winter you can go back defrost it and
58:01you'll get that intensity all over again. So if you've got apples celebrate them use them and if
58:08you haven't got an apple plant one. Well that's it for this week. I'll see you next time.
58:16Frances will be with you next Friday at eight o'clock and she is going back to Powderham Castle
58:23in Devon and I'll be back here at Longmeadow in a couple of weeks time. So I'll see you then. Bye.
58:46Bye.