Gardener’s World 2020 - Episode 28

Hello and welcome to Gardener's World. It's that time of year when we can just start to get stuck in, lift things and divide them and this is an area, I'll be really honest with you, it's got away from me. Things have started to self-seed and got a little bit carried away with themselves. So what I'm gonna do over the weekend, cut all this back, start to lift it and move it to other places in the garden. There you go, she still exists, Isla. She wanted to come and say hello. And we have got an incredibly special show. It's all about celebration, celebration of beautiful gardens and how to create them. We'll be showcasing the very best design ideas from inspiring gardens that we have visited across the country in all their shapes and sizes. Garden historian, Adelaide, visits the Rococo Garden in the Cotswolds, the oozes indulgence and is full of cheeky surprises. What's really exciting about this path is that it's got its wiggle on and you are compelled to follow it. Jo explores a garden in North London where green has been used in all its shades, textures and forms to create a beautiful, serene space. There's such a range of greens right across the spectrum. And then when you think about the leaf shape, whether it's glossy or matte and the form of the plant itself, a whole palette of plants opens up. Carol visits a garden in Halifax that's been designed to look spectacular in all four seasons. Wow, this gorgeous root back here. They almost form a tunnel. And this path is luring you along, willing you to explore the rest of the garden. And we meet a gardener who has an impressive collection of pots. There are 1,259. They say I'm potty. When it comes to creating a glorious garden, I don't think it's all about what you do in your space. What I mean by that is most of our gardens don't sit in isolation. They have a relationship with what's around them. So it might be that your neighbor's got a fantastic tree that you can borrow and bring it into your garden. Might be a color on a local roof that you pick up and lay on the floor. Anything you can do to tie the garden to its wider surroundings will really give it a sense of place, make it feel like it belongs. And not that long ago, I went to Warwickshire to see a garden that will stick in my memory for years to come. And it was a place that sat comfortably in its landscape. I'm feeling a really lucky boy. It's early in the morning, but I've been allowed into this place, Packwood House, which is a garden that I've wanted to see for absolutely ages. It's just me, birds, a few sheep in the background, and I get to actually soak this garden up for the next couple of hours before the public come in. Packwood is a restored Tudor farmhouse and, for me, a real jewel in the National Trust crown. It's famous for its iconic utopia, but also its long, herbaceous borders. A visitor in the 1920s described it as a house to dream of and a garden to dream in. And, do you know, I couldn't agree more. This place truly is magical. I walked in, and you'll think I'm barking mad, but actually, I got goosebumps. There was a physical reaction to this garden, and I think, why is it fired off a load of memories? The first thing I'm doing is walking along a basious border and there's a yucca pops up. It reminds me of my nan, 1970s, very sort of retro. But actually, in this context, it looks absolutely stunning. It's worked in there with things like verbena, and the herbaceous bring it alive and turn it into a completely different animal. I mean, this place, for me, is absolutely stacked out with inspiration that I can take home. Mick Evans is the head gardener. He's been here at Packwood for 17 years and has been responsible for developing the contemporary mingled planting style. Originally, the planting when I came here was known as the mingled style, which was a style described by a well-known Victorian garden writer, John Claudius Loudon, as small groups of plants, singularly planted, repeating themselves throughout the whole length of the border in a kind of a rhythm, a pattern. The style of planting at Packwood evolved to meet the demands of the longer opening season. By introducing structural and textural planting into the borders, not only has Mick made the mingled style more contemporary, but plants like yucca and the formium work really well over winter. So we'll have our sort of stalwart herbaceous plants, achillea, heliopsis, helleniums, those sorts of plants, and they show off these wonderful tender perennials. So they create their own structure as well in the herbaceous as they go through. Because if you're repeating everything, there is that kind of coherence. It's easy to read. There's a sense of rhythm, it's like musical, isn't it? It is, it's the rhythm. And then after that, you said you put through half-hardy. We'll use a lot of salvias. I mean, I'm a great fan of salvias and then the intensity of colour, working so well against these kind of lovely greens. It's mingled in with tethonia. And I think the other thing as well that stands out for me is leaf shape. Difference in size of leaves, again, just helps to create the kind of depth and a different feel to the whole planting. Otherwise, if everything is just all about colour, sometimes that can be a little bit monotonous. What's so clever about the borders is the plant palette really complements the architecture. The overall effect is one that creates borders and plantings that work in total harmony with the buildings and surroundings. I love just to have five minutes stood somewhere in a garden. You know, and I think, I just want to ask the head gardener, where would you come and stand in this garden? Well, oddly enough, about right here, actually, because it's about the best viewing point. The one in front of you right now is looking over the sunken garden and then beyond to the yellow border and then to the range of buildings beyond that. And the harmony of the brickwork and those colours, using yellows and blues, works really well in one sort of view. Then if you come on a diagonal and you look towards the house, and then beyond that, we borrow a bit of the garden outside. We've got this lovely copper beach. So you're borrowing that landscape and bringing it back into this space. That's it. We've got these big black rosettes on the aeoniums and, of course, the copper beach is equally as black and it just creates this wonderful, cohesive view. So maybe someone else could just borrow next door's tree. I think that's a cracking little tip. You've been here 17 years, haven't you? Yeah. You thinking of leaving or? No, I'm jealously guarding this place. Yeah, I thought you might be. Do you know, I happily come and work here every day. Places sort of blow me away. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. Quite simply, I think that garden is stunning. I can walk every part of it in my mind if I close my eyes. And I think that's one of the things that's great about gardens. They're with us all the time. And even if I'm having a bad day, I can take myself to somewhere beautiful in the garden and just have a moment. Interestingly, when Mick took me up onto the upper terrace and he was talking about basically a purple beach that sat just outside of the garden and how he'd used that to influence his planting, I brought that idea home. Here, this lovely sort of big old purple vine there, I've used that colour and then repeated it through the borders. I've got things like cotinus in a couple of different places. I've got dark roses, things like mustard wood. They then dot through. This time of year, you've got things like the eupatorium. And then I create the rest of the planting around it. So next time you're visiting a big garden and something catches your eye, it might just be a simple little collection of plants. Take that idea home and give it a go in your own garden. And that's the other thing, isn't it, about gardens, is they're very personal and we create in very different ways. And we're going to meet a gardener from Somerset who's done something quite remarkable with pots. I've just counted all my pots. There are 1,259. They say I'm potty. My name is Julia Thayer. I have two children and my husband lives here, but I do all the gardening. We moved here about 20 years ago from Surrey. We came with 300 pot plants. These are all my box plants that I grew from cuttings and I had nowhere to put them as they grew bigger and bigger and I cut them into different shapes. I've put them in front of the garage on the drive, but there you go. I've got some of my mum's pots, my sister's pots. The children have given me pots, my husband has given me pots, so I do have great attachment to them. I have big ones and small ones. I really have enormous ones. I've piled the plants up onto staging. There are pots under there, barrels, there's breeze block, all sorts of stuff in there. I just put them in colour formation, so there's purples here, red foliage of the hydrangeas and the hebe and the formium here. This is a small formium. I had a formium that I thought was going to be small. It's actually landed up enormous. All these are in a pot, including the trees. So it's bonkers. I've put in a lot of flowering plants, roses. I tend to go for the old roses that only last a couple of weeks and then they're gone. I go for the leaves as well as the colour. When a plant is in a pot, it looks so different from when it's in a border. It just lifts it, makes it look special because it's got more drama in a pot. They do well in pots. I look after them better there. They seem to die in the border. And I've discovered recently, I just love potting. If I'm feeling low, I just do a bit of potting and I'm feeling happy again. It's really good. Good for the mind. Watering is a major operation every evening. It takes an hour and a half to two hours. I have 16 water butts and 21 dipping barrels scattered throughout the garden. I have hoses connecting them all with a drip system and I can dip and go. And I don't have to turn taps on or wait for it to fill. And so mostly the plants get rainwater. My mum was absolutely potty about pots. She didn't have as many as mine, but she did have 700. She counted them once. This is supposed to be my tropical South of France area. We'd just been to the South of France and I looked at all the windows and took photographs of them. And I thought, I'm going to make one of those. This is the pew that I put a top on to keep it dry. And this is made of an old dog kennel. This year, the pelargoniums are looking really good in the conservatory. In previous years, I've tried watering far less in the winter and they've looked ever so dead and I've lost a few of them. But this year I watered all winter and they've done really well. They've looked nicer. They've looked alive and now they're coming on really well. I'm really trying to cut back on the number of pots because I think I've got totally enough now. But I probably won't resist. I'll probably buy another one. I wonder how many times Julia thinks about her mother while she's watering her own pots. You know, that's wonderful. Her mother did it before and she's carrying that memory forward. When it comes to pots, I love to use them to set a scene. Like here at the front door, you know, you arrive, there's some interest. But we can change that throughout the 12 months. Also, if I go and buy something that's new, unusual, I'm not quite sure where it should go in the garden. What I tend to do is pot it up and I'll try it in slightly different spaces until I find the place that's happy and then it goes in. But that canner at the moment, look at the colour. It sucks you in. And we're very drawn to colour, aren't we? But Jo went to visit a garden that was very driven by the colour green. Welcome to Field House, a tranquil oasis in West London containing a vast collection of exotics, impressive lush structural planting and an alluring water feature. I'm meeting self-taught garden designer and psychotherapist Rupert King to find out how he created this serene and intimate sanctuary. It's a beautifully tranquil space. Did you set yourself a brief for it? I wanted a water garden and I wanted something that was peaceful, tranquil, calm. Because of the layout and the modern room which you view the garden from, I decided that something like a Persian paradise garden would be suitable. And this incredible back of the house, it's a huge picture frame, isn't it? Out onto the garden, this wall of glass. But it means the design of the garden is more critical than ever because you're viewing it from pretty much everywhere. I mean, it's crucial. In a way, the design dictated that dialogue. The pond takes you down the garden and then the tree ferns, this wonderful explosion of green at the end. You just follow that line down. It invites you to come through into the garden. Yeah, it works beautifully. Well, you've been very bold with your plant choice. I mean, there's a lot of architectural plants. I'm a bit of a plant collector in terms of the more unusual, the form and the structure. I think with a garden like this, you either have to go for colour or you go for different shades and textures of green. And I went for the wonderful styles of green that you can get. Just sitting or being in a green space, you just naturally relax. You have repeated plants here. It's not a sort of plant collector's garden in that you've got one of everything. I don't want to make it too busy. You know, I think certain, like the grasses I repeat because I think that's sort of a theme that holds it together. Is this your place to de-stress? This is my therapy and I can completely get lost and leave all the stresses behind. The layout of this garden is so simple. Rupert has dug up the lawn and invested in this fabulous water feature which dominates the middle of the space. And from inside, it lines up perfectly with the window. And actually it's the centre line, the axis of the garden as a whole. You could fold it in half. But as you move around the garden, you can hear it from everywhere and the sound is just perfect. It's nice and tranquil, brings a calming presence to the garden, especially on a hot day like this. Green. That doesn't have to be boring as Rupert has proved here because there's such a range of greens right across the spectrum. And then when you think about the leaf shape, whether it's glossy or matte and the form of the plant itself, a whole palette of plants opens up. And he's combined them beautifully here. That's the Tetrapanax papyrifera, huge architectural leaves and it just looks wonderful holding the corner right there. And then in front, we've got some smaller evergreens. This is Hibirachiensis. It's sort of a woolier texture, but it's got a nice compact form and it looks great against the bamboo there. And in front of that, this little Pinus mugo. The needles are darker green altogether and a completely different texture. And then on this side, we've got Phoenix canariensis, the Canary Island date palm. Who said that green couldn't have drama? Now, once we have that base layer of green, seasonal shots of colour can be added in. So at the moment, we've got the water lilies that have just opened today and then Rupert's favourite Cannat panache and the lovely blue agapanthus at the front. But they only really work because he's been so restrained with his colour and they're all set off by the wonderful greens behind. A lot of people are really scared of putting shade into their garden, but it can do so much for the composition as a whole. For example, underneath this Paulownia, we've got a great shady spot. The Hacuna clover grass here with this peony. Okay, it's finished flowering, but it's still adding so much. And then the hydrangea over there, all really enjoying the dappled shade beneath the tree. And then beyond right at the back, we've got the tree ferns, again, lit and highlighted. So in effect, as a composition, when you look at it from the front, you've got this layering of light and dark and it gives a wonderful depth of feel to a composition as a whole. This really is a three-dimensional garden. Your eye is drawn into corners, beautiful compositions, plant combinations, and perfectly placed sculptures as well. And just to think that Rupert is not a professional, he's an amateur. This is his very first garden. But I think that ultimately, the success lies in the fact that he had a vision. He knew where he wanted to go with it and created what he set out to achieve, his very own piece of paradise. To think that that was the first garden that Rupert has ever created, absolutely incredible. You might remember back earlier on in the year, I created this little seating area in my woodland because it was somewhere, as I wandered through the garden, I would stop and pause, partly to enjoy the view, but also at different times of the day, the light in here is fantastic. And when you look at the planting, it really doesn't rely on colour. You've got things like the yew and then the buxus. That's my sort of structural planting. And then really I'm playing with leaf and texture. So there's an awful lot of ferns in space. And that's what I want to do today, is I just want to add a couple more ferns. But first of all, look at this, this act here, and it's called Misty Blue. The berries look slightly alien, but that is one of those little highlights that I love just to punch through the space. And the third I'm going to add is polystyrene. Really good, hard-working fern, works well in dry shade, and also is evergreen. This time of year, it's a great time to plant because you've still got that warmth in the soil, but also moisture in the air in the morning and night. So what I'll do is mulch that over. You know, we're in quite a dry area, so I'm okay to mulch this now. But if you're in a really wet part, then you probably wouldn't mulch this to the spring. When it comes to garden history, it's fascinating to understand what's come before to help inform what we create in the future. And Averley went to visit a garden in Gloucestershire that, in its day, the designers must have really ripped up the rule book. But also, they wanted to add just a little bit of fun. Historically, gardens have been created for all sorts of reasons, to show power, show creativity, and often just plain showing off. This one was created for enjoyment and intrigue and to elicit a squeal of delight, all contained in a really small space. Painswick Rococo Garden was built in the 1740s when garden design was in a major transition. The biggest and most influential gardens, like Hampton Court, were flat and symmetrical, with a maze of formal parterres and fountains, and everything was so rigid and serious. The Rococo style was flamboyant, it was flowery, it was eclectic, and definitely a lot more fun. At Painswick, the owner, Benjamin Hyatt, was wealthy, but not very wealthy, and he only had a six-acre valley garden to play with. So what he did, like a lot of merchants and the nouveau riche, is that he took a load of garden elements and squashed them into a small space in true Rococo style. Painswick is the only surviving Rococo garden in the UK. It's almost completely restored by a dedicated team using a painting by the famous garden artist Thomas Robbins, The Elder. Lots of straight lines and avenues, just like at Hampton Court, and even symmetrical beds. What's really fascinating about this painting is that around the edges of this formality is a garden circuit connected by a series of buildings, all totally different. Painswick was originally Panswick, named after the god of nature, fertility, and general mischief, and his influence abounds. Buildings are hidden playfully, just out of view, and nothing is as it seems. The Red House is an early stop on the route and looks like a Gothic chapel. But also, it's asymmetrical, a classic hallmark of the Rococo style. Your immediate instinct is to add another section to balance the unevenness of the structure, but they didn't do that because they wanted to play with your senses. It wasn't all they played with. Inside was used for afternoon tea, intimate late-night suppers, and all manner of other things. Stretching away from the house, there's a nod at those multiple straight avenues because the first two are straight. But what's really exciting about this path is that it's got its wiggle on, and you are compelled to follow it. These hilly, wiggly paths must have been tricky in dainty little shoes and a big frock, but the next destination is worth it. The exedra is the focal point of the garden, and as ever, it's not what it seems. Because the look of the garden was the most important thing, many of the structures were constructed from really flimsy material, such as wood, plaster, oiled canvas, even papier-mâché, which is one of the reasons that they didn't last very long. As Painswick has been restored, the team have carried on that tradition. This new structure is part metal and wood, but painted to look like stone, a lovely touch. My last stop is my favourite. It's a cold plunge pool fed by spring, and in theory, was used only by men. In the Thomas Robbins painting, there was a changing room for the bathers to bathe nude, and over there stood a statue of Pan, whose mischievousness set the tone for what went on in there. There are many more features here, including a Doric seat, orchard, and even a hermitage, which had pretend hermits paid by the hour. The restoration here is still ongoing. The Eagle House, with its zigzag paths and veg, is next on the list. But already, this garden is an absolute delight to behold. Walking round it puts us right back in the shoes of those mischievous, revelling 18th-century visitors. I know, most of us can't have that outside our back door, but I don't know about you, quite fancy the idea of being one of those 18th-century visitors. But the naughtiest thing we've got in our garden is Isla. Yeah, you're looking a little bit sheepish. I'm talking about you. I am. But when you are creating, what about adding a bit of fun, a surprise round the corner? Maybe something that's slightly off the wall that talks about you or your family. More than that, puts a smile on your face. And still to come on today's programme, a place left to its own devices to run riot with stunning results. Frances travels to Scotland, where she's surprised to discover what can be grown in the most challenging conditions. And Toby visits a garden designed for maximum impact. When you're creating a garden, it can take years for it to find that sweet spot when everything starts to come together. And Carol went and meet a couple that have created a garden over 20 years. Passion, dedication, and just hard graft. Just beyond the post-industrial landscape of Halifax is the nursery and garden of Dove Cottage. It's a garden that's been designed to have interest throughout the year, but in summer and autumn, it's at its very best. I couldn't wait to pay a visit. This very special place is set behind this oak door and this yew hedge. Come on. Wow. Just look at the eupatorium. Huge, great banks of plants. This gorgeous rudbeckia. They almost form a tunnel. And yet this path is luring you along, willing you to explore the rest of the garden. This third of an acre plot tumbles down a steep slope. It's been terraced and filled with perennials. It's autumn and the plants that predominate are the grasses. And things that you looked at for their flowers earlier in the year are now seed heads. And so magnificent, so magical. Petrinia over there, this great lime green plateau of seeds. And in the midst of all this glorious, mellow colour, there are surprises. Look at this. This is Aptea, queen of Sheba, and I have never seen it before. In this variety, these racemes just, they're pendulous. They just sway gently backwards and forwards. It's tremendously elegant. It's just like being in the midst of a meadow. You forget where you are completely. And it's a paradise that's been created over the last 20 years by a husband and wife team, Kim and Stephen Rogers. You know, when you come into this garden, it all just looks so natural. Almost looks like it made itself. But that's the sort of feel that you wanted to create, isn't it? It is that much wilder look to the garden with grasses and perennials mixed. I think it's started to get wilder as we've gone along. I think that's how you start gardening. It might be all very controlled at first, but then as we've got more and more into it, we want to go wilder and wilder. So is it wild enough for you, Kim? Yeah. Because you don't stake, do you? No. We had a very wet year one year, and it was just too wet to go out and stake in the evenings. And we kept leaving it and leaving it. And in the end, it didn't happen. And it's liberating not to have to stake. And we don't mind if plants fall over. So the garden envelops you, doesn't it? You're surrounded by it. Completely surrounded by plants. That's what we are. Lots of tall plants. And not all pushed to the back of the borders. Brought right up close to people. Because you see them then. Sometimes things can be stuck at the back of big borders. And you just see the top. And you'll look through some very tall wiry plants and then see something beyond that creates a good combination. And then even beyond that. Yeah. So it's all about mixing and mingling your plants together, isn't it? Yeah, that's the heart of the garden. All around the garden, there were splashes of vivid colour amongst all the tawny, russet tones. But you come into this part of the garden and suddenly there's an explosion. It's pure fireworks. And it's all created by these gorgeous prairie daisies. Helianthus, perennial sunflowers, making this vivid splash of colour, which just lifts your spirits. It really does give you a feeling of euphoria. This is Miscanthus nepalensis. And I want it, I've got to grow it. In some places, once plants had flowered, they'd be chopped to the ground, but not here. They're allowed to do their thing, to change to seed, to gradually decay. Because for Kim and Stephen, it's not just the way that plants live that they appreciate, it's the way they die too. Later on, Carol returns to see how the garden looks in the full flush of summer. There's a real elegance to that garden. But the fascinating bit for me is the way that Stephen and Kim have planted, so you have to engage with the space. They don't follow the normal large at the back, medium in the middle, and smaller at the front. They don't mind putting something really in your face at the front of the border. If you look down here at the moment, the grasses, things like the millennia and the panicums, they make me engage, but also, as the winter arrives, they'll hold their structure. So actually, if you look at those orangiums there, yeah, they're starting to die away, but they're doing it in an incredibly graceful way. And come January, they'll still be there. When it comes to this place, I'm trying to set the planting up structurally, but then let it go, let it have some freedom. And Dianne Hewitt and David Kingsman from Windy Hall in the Lake District have done exactly that. We moved here in 1981. It was pretty well derelict, and we gradually worked our way through up the hill, round the land. We planted a few plants, but apart from that, we've not really interfered with it very much. That's part of our gardening philosophy. You work in an area, and when you leave it, it shouldn't look as though you've worked in it. Let the plants tell you the story. Let the mosses tell you the story. That's really, I think, the fundamental thing behind our style of gardening. We knew the quarry was here, and we knew it had been a garbage tip for 200 or 300 years. It had been filled up with old refrigerators and washing machines. We'd been to Japan, we'd seen Japanese gardens, and we liked the idea of that being a Japanese-influenced area. But we let it go, we let the mosses and everything else take over. Japanese gardeners dominate the landscape but we've done very little. So it's a very different approach, giving, in some ways, a rather similar end product. The northwest of England, Lakeland, has a very wet climate, and here, we get about 70 inches of rain a year. We're surrounded by plants that thrive under those temperate rainforest conditions. Many different types of rhododendron, for example. Enchiansis, just by us here. Many different sorts of camellias. All these plants are able to withstand the rainfall, in fact, enjoy the rainfall. Most of them are rather shallow-rooted, which is good because we have very little soil here on this hillside. We've done, really, very little except stand back and watch. The area is predominantly now populated by one of our native mosses, the common one in this garden, Polytrichum formosum. It just will slowly cover any horizontal surface or anywhere with just a little bit of soil. And the Polytrichum will develop its little spore capsules, which are a golden color. We've not moved or planted any ferns or mosses or lichens. We've looked at what's arrived and then we've tweaked it. What we do is to clear leaves and fallen twigs and so on off the surface because these plants still need light. And otherwise, sit back on a seat and enjoy what has arrived. We're only custodians. All of us on Earth just occupy a small amount of space and we're not going to be here for very long. It's not a legacy. In 30 years' time, it should just go back. Like us, it should decay slowly and gracefully. Or disgracefully. Please. That made me smile. Diane and David, I think I'd have to go for disgracefully. Anyway, what I'm trying to do here is put a load of plants in that will sell seed. So things like digitalis, foxgloves, cardoons, I let them do their thing. And then what I do is in places I go in and edit. So if it's seeds around, what I'll do is just go in and thin it out in places where I don't want it. But the other thing I do is I collect some of the seed. And here I've got digitalis lutea. And it's seed I collected about six weeks ago because I want to introduce them to somewhere else in the garden. I've sown them in a seed compost. And they're now at the point where I can just start to prick them out into pots. So I've made a mix of compost that will retain moisture so what I've done is I've used some composted bark in here. I've used some soil in there and I've used some peat-free compost and a little bit of grit. Next thing is to prick them out. What you see I'm doing is I'm holding on to sort of really the plant's first true leaves. So after the baby leaves, true leaves start to form. Making sure that I don't hold onto the stem and damage it. And then make a hole in the middle there and just lower it in. Firming really carefully. And tomorrow morning, once that's out of water, it's amazing how quick the plants actually do bed in. Once these are all pricked out, they'll just go in a cold frame. They'll stay in there over the winter. And these will be ready to plant out in the garden next spring. Anyway, next, Francis went to meet a couple who've created a garden beside Little Lock Broom in Scotland in what you could say is rather challenging weather conditions. But he still created something quite amazing. Exposed. Stormy. Remote. But beautiful. The north of Scotland. Where I'm standing is on the same latitude as St. Petersburg and Alaska. Some places with some pretty extreme and inhospitable weather. So you might think that any garden laying on the same latitude will struggle and feel uncomfortable being here. Not this one, created by Sue Pomeroy and Will Suess. It's a fantastic garden and in a beautiful setting as well, but you really are right on the edge here. There must be some challenging conditions. Well, the wind, you get gales up to 50 miles an hour on a regular basis. That's our average norm, gusting up to 80 miles an hour and sometimes recorded 120 miles an hour. So you can imagine it does cause a lot of problems. Everything has to be grown with that in mind. As well, of course, we have heavy rain. Yeah, I mean, do you know your rainfall per year? Yeah, on average, it's 80 inches a year. Wow. So that's sort of three times national average of rainfall. Yes. That's massive. It is. And how we cope with that in our garden is by putting in a lot of rills and drainage around the edges of the flowerbeds. And if you notice, the garden's on a gentle slope, so it sort of takes the water, hopefully, away down into the sea. You can see we've created this very large raised bed here. Yes. Using the natural soil here, it's very sandy and well-drained and it's full of these stones as well. But all these are from your own garden? Yes, yes. That's loads. The idea of this bed was actually to build it as a South African bed. We've chosen the plants that can cope with extreme amounts of rain. And also having the impoverished soil is very necessary for South African flora. They hate nutrients. You can find them up in the high mountains, so those obviously require still quite a lot of rain, but free drainage. And it's really beautiful. It's structurally amazing. Despite the extra steps that Will and Sue have gone to with their drainage, some plants still need special care. So, Frances, we're digging out these succulents from this round bed here because they need a little bit more protection. In the wintertime, they come from a hotter area in South Africa, the Karoo. Right. But, I mean, this aloe, obviously, is tender, but there's another one in the middle. Does that not come out? It's much bigger. We actually leave that one in, Frances. It's actually hardy. It's aloe striatula. And it's been in position for about three to four years now. And it's coped really, really well. That's so surprising, isn't it? We just actually pop it straight into this terracotta pot. It looks very loose. Okay. And empty. We don't put soil in with it. Yeah, no soil, no gravel. It's a storage vessel for the winter. And the only bit of watering we do is to actually water the outside of the terracotta pot, which absorbs the moisture. Okay. And just keeps it going throughout the winter. That's all it needs, is that tiny bit of moisture. But we try to keep it as dry as possible. I think we need to explain what's happening with our faces. So why are we wearing these, Will? Yes, this is the protection from the famous Highland midge. Uh-huh. Yeah, this is what we have to wear for four months of the summer when they're out, busy biting. They really itch, don't they? Yes. So, what are you doing with this watsonia? This watsonia has stopped flowering. Okay. And this is the flower here on a healthy plant. What it needs now is dividing. Okay, that's quite a big plant there, isn't it? Yes. These are divisions from last year. So these are ready for planting out now. So the reason that you can't just divide that and stick them back in the ground is what? Because they'd be weaker plants? Yeah, there's a tendency for them to rot off if you plant the divisions directly in the ground. Okay. This time of year. Then leave them in a pot for a year? Yes, till they get established in a good root system. I think sometimes us gardeners don't give ourselves credit for what we do. And this is a prime example where you take one kind of landscape, which is really quite barren, it's harsh. But if you put in a lot of hard work, you can turn it into something like this, completely different. You take it easy, Ash, don't you worry about us. Wow, I thought that was extreme gardening. But it works. And it looks like it belongs. I think that is because of the work that they put into the research. They understand that region. And then when it comes to planting, they've done their homework. So they know where those plants grow in the wild. And then they've equated it to their own conditions. And I suppose, in a way, that's what I've done here in the gravel garden. I've understood the conditions. I know it's dry. So I've picked plants that will sit happily here. And it tends to look quite natural. What I'm trying to do is make sure that each area holds a different feeling. So as you move from space to space, the experience is different. And Toby went to visit a garden that's been driven by that idea. I love visiting gardens. I mean, it's a chance to enjoy the fruits of other people's labour. And of course, it's a wonderful opportunity to hoover up good ideas of my own. And that's why I've come here, to the Cheshire Plains and Streatham Old Hall. It's a garden of rooms, each one themed and packed with summer colour and created with as much care and flair as the designs at the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden's like a living lesson on design. It's divided into rooms and each one has its own character, its own personality. But the clever thing is they're connected either by steps or paths or tantalising glimpses one into the next. What I like though, is the garden's groove. It's all about rhythm and movement. These vestigiate hornbeams, like so many of the plants in the garden, are planted symmetrically, but yet at their base, there's sort of amorphous naturalistic planting and huge pools of the same thing. And then there's the water connecting the different areas together. And up close, the garden doesn't disappoint either because the attention to detail, well, it's remarkable. I mean, here, you've got that wintered bracken-coloured brickwork chiming in with the car wrecks and the leathery leaves of heuchera. Clearly, this is the work of a designer at the top of their game. To find out more about how the garden evolved, I'm meeting the owner, architectural designer and self-taught garden designer, Ken Roscoe. Ken, your garden is fabulous. Thank you. You have a kind of innate understanding of space. Would you say that's true? Well, it's very kind. To me, I find that the easy part, the hard part for me in the garden was understanding each of the plants and how this is not a static space in building a house or an interior. It's done. Day one, it's static. Did you expect it to be? I did, if I'm truly honest, but I've enjoyed the challenge of how it's evolved and how it builds and builds. So tell me about the garden rooms. We like to play with scale and form and the real gardens, which started from the smallest of plot sizes through to the size of the garden I grew up in. Three bedrooms, semi-detached house, very long, narrow garden, and then into the kitchen garden. So here we are on the main terrace. And so bringing in the oversized pots with the olives, they make a larger space feel more intimate. Aren't these late season flowers just lovely? That's partly because at this time of year, there's a lot of dust in the atmosphere and that makes the sunlight look red. So it picks up the orange centres of Echinacea and the noses of Hellenium and bright red Crocosmy. It makes them almost seem iridescent and glow. The lesson here, though, is about perspective. Now, most of us plant our borders so they look good side on. However, if you change the perspective, that changes everything. Viewed from the end, it's as full as a florist's bucket. The terrace, I think, is my favourite part of the garden because it has such personality and a long season of interest. And that's largely thanks to these tapestry borders that run down the side of the path, especially silver thyme with black ophiopogon grass, lovely tactile stachys and sanguisorba. And it's clever because it's weatherproof. In a sunny year, the thyme and the silver stachys will really thrive. And in wetter years, well, the ophiopogon will really like that. And then there's the pots. Now, olives are wonderful container trees because, well, you can forget to water them a couple of times and they won't die off. They're very robust. But it's this St. Peter's port daisy that really makes it. It's called a Rigoran carvinskianus. It's just a lovely thing. I've got it in my garden and, you know, it's in flower and looking good all year round. This is a garden that is obviously easy on the eye. And although it's on a grand scale and it's packed with plants, it's also packed with really good ideas for gardens both big and small. I love that garden. It's designed beautifully. I've just spotted an unexpected visitor. Just for that few seconds, that hawkmoth just came in, boom, and then left. Lovely. Next, Carol returned to Dove Cottage in Halifax, where the designers have created an immersive space. But this time, she went in the height of summer to see how it had entirely transformed. It's astonishing. These great masses of plants, like a theatrical backdrop, one after another, all the way up and down the garden. It's all looked so fresh and new. When we were here last time, it was all about grasses. But now the flowers have taken charge. Right the way through all these beds, there are big splashes of really vibrant colour. It's really difficult to combine pinks. But here, Steve's cleverly interwoven these patches of lilac. This Veronicastrum, this is rosean. Stiff spikes, tiny little pale pink flowers, making these punctuation marks all the way through. And the rest of it is big, soft mounds, like this pale pink monarda. But there's another bit round the corner with a completely different idea. Last autumn, grasses like this millennia were golden. You were so conscious of them. But right now, it's green, and it just forms an almost transparent veil through which you get glimpses of this planting. And I have to say, it's this glorious paradox that's created by this great river of blue that runs right the way through this bed. It's soft and flowing, and yet it's composed of this very solid, prickly plant, Eryngium bogatei picos blue. Well, there's no doubts about what you call this border. No, this is the sexy pink border. Right. You're wearing this shirt to match. I am, it matches perfectly. A Japanese couple that visited the garden called it the sexy pink border. So that's stuck with us now forever. I should think so. Yeah, yeah. It's quite unique in your garden, though, isn't it? It is. Just being one colour. A lot of the other beds have got colours mixed. This one, we've just stuck to pink. Variations on a theme. How did you decide what to include in it, though? Well, a starting point is sometimes we'll pick the flowers from different parts of the garden, different pinks, and then we'll match those up. And then it's just matching. So you put them all together. Put them all together on a table to see how they go, yeah. And then we'll work out the shapes of the plants that we want to use. The echinacea at the moment look as though they're floating above the planting. We've kept the repetition going, and then it weaves in and out. It does, and it curls around some of your taller plants. It does. So it's very rhythmic. It is. Yeah, as well as being sexy. Yeah, yeah. But more sexy, actually. All right. It shows so much about you and your love for plants. Yeah, yeah. It's taken a lot of years to get to this stage. And it's all the advice we've been given along the way and places that have inspired us that have got us to this and these sorts of plantings. And lots of love. Lots of love. Lots of plants love. But that amalgamation has resulted in... This? Yeah, this most splendid garden. It's wonderful. Thank you. I do hope you've been inspired. I think we've shown you different ways of creating gardens, but also just different ways of gardening. But we all need to remember that we're doing it for us. They need to be our special places where we feel comfortable and they will change and they will evolve over time, just like us. Look after yourselves. See you again soon. Next week.