Gardener’s World 2020 - Episode 26

Hello. Welcome to Gardener's World. Well, I think by supporting these verbenas, I'm going to solve a problem that had me puzzled for a little while, because the water feature here in the middle of the Paradise Garden over a week or so has been working less and less well, the water level's been dropping, and I couldn't work out what it was. I thought maybe there was a leak. But then I finally worked it out, because we've had some really rough weather over the last week or so, lots of wind, and it's bashed the verbena so that the plants have fallen into the water, so that the water was running down the stems, back into the border, out of the sump. Now, the verbena is really at its best right now, and it is rightly one of those plants that we all love and an awful lot of us grow. It is positively heroic at this time of year. Now, in some gardens, it's setting seed, and the seed is germinating, and you get a mass of seedlings growing for next spring. So what you can do is dig them up, pot them up, and then plant them out next spring, after the last frost, exactly where you want them. However, these plants overwintered as bigger plants, and they've grown back better than ever. So you can grow them as annuals, you can keep them as perennials, you can have seedlings. However you grow verbena benariensis, it is always a fabulous plant. Coming up on today's programme... We meet a gardener whose discovery of garden design has been the key to managing her mental health. There's some magic here, and I can't explain what. This garden for me is just like an antidepressant in a bottle. And Carol is knee-deep in blazing hot colour as she celebrates the late summer favourite, monadas. Bee balm, horse mint, bergamot, a multitude of names, but a singularly beautiful plant. And I'll be adding some late-season colour to the grass borders. At this time of year, it is worth starting to prepare for winter, and we're doing this in all kinds of ways, with planting bulbs and taking cuttings and seeds. But it's good to have a little bit of winter indulgence too, to plant something purely for the instant pleasure it gives, something that is going to lighten up the next few months. And I've got exactly the right thing, because this is floris cichlomon. Cichlomon persicum. If you compare them to cichlomon heterifolium, which is growing outside in the garden now and will go on flowering for another month or two, you can see that this has got fewer flowers and is more delicate, whereas this, the flowers are packed onto the plant. And, of course, that's why they are so popular. They've been grown and bred from the species for the last 150 years. The first thing to do is to mix up a nice loose compost. I've added quite a lot of vermiculite and also leaf mould to my bark-based compost. That will enable it to have a loose root run, which is what it likes. We'll put some in a pot, and I'm going to put all three into this pot, because we want a simple but dramatic effect right from the outset. We're not waiting for these to perform. They are going to do it today. And then put the soil around them. They're very easy to grow, both as a houseplant, and you can grow them outside, but there is something you do need to watch, because unlike cyclamen hedropholium or cyclamen coum, these are not frost-hardy. They have evolved to cope with a Mediterranean winter, which is cool, but not cold. And the cool is important. If you put them into a hot, centrally heated house, they won't last very long at all. It won't kill them, they'll just finish flowering, and that'll be that. What they like to be is cool, slightly shaded. They can have bright sunshine for half the day, so a porch is ideal. A cool window, not above a radiator. A cool greenhouse, if you've got it. But they can stay outside, certainly for the rest of this month here, and if there is frost forecast, then you need to put them under cover. Now, what I love about these cyclamens is that you don't need a big space to get a really big hit of colour and pleasure from these plants. Now, Adam went to Yorkshire to visit a modern garden that has been created on the grandest possible scale. It is simply huge. But its origins were humble. It's always good to visit a garden with personality, and some show their colours as soon as you walk through the gate. I know. Great, aren't they? I've come to a garden called Breezy Knees, which is just outside York, and it's 20 acres, which makes it one of the biggest gardens up north. And I'm looking forward to meeting the couple that have put it together. Mind you, I'm not so sure I want to meet the bloke that owns these wellington boots. Breezy Knees is the garden of Mary Lent and Colin Parker, who brought the 20 acres when they retired. Back then, it was a field of potatoes with just one line of oaks. And despite no formal training, they set out to build a massive garden. So when you bought this piece of land, your friends and family, what did they say? What did they think? To start with, they all thought we were off our trolleys. Completely. They thought, they're mad. I'm sure they did. Now, I don't know. As the land was so flat, exposed and breezy, hence the name, the priority was windbreaks. We spent the first seven, eight years just putting in trees and hedging. Then once we'd got that done, we then came alongside to put the different features in. The hedges created 18 different garden rooms, like the fountain garden, the lawned garden and the cottage garden, each with its own distinctive planting. I mean, you've obviously got that passion for plants, but how many plants have you got here? Perennials, we'll have about 5,000. Wow. Shrubs, this is varieties, not number. Shrubs, we'll have about 2,000 and trees, about 1,000. There were so many plants that we put in here that I'd never even heard of when we started this. And you just go around and you pick it up and you learn. It's incredible. You're talking to me like it's totally normal to take on this massive piece of land. No, you just keep doing it. It's enthusiasm. You need enthusiasm and determination and knowledge for later on. These huge gardens are maintained with the equivalent of just two full-time staff and a lot of legwork. How many miles do you think you walk in a week, mate? Maryland has a pedometer and it's about 6 or 7 miles a day. Wow. Yeah, it is such a vast site. So this area, all about shade? This is most of the areas we've got are fairly open areas, so this is an area underneath these Manchester poplars that obviously lends itself to shade. These plants, a lot of these will not survive out in the open, so a lot of the hostas... You've got Euphorbia polychroma. That's polychroma. Yeah, although that will grow in the open. Yeah, quite happily. What's quite interesting as well, though you're on a vast scale here, there's lovely little collections of plants. People can take those ideas home, can't they? Well, that's the combination of the hosta and the Euphorbia polychroma, which has finished flowering now, but in April and May it is a really nice combination. And that's the real joy of this garden, with so many plants and so many areas. It's a great place for seeing new planting ideas and varieties. As you would imagine, a big garden that's got big herbaceous borders. And they're just starting to come alive, but the thing that stood out for me is the shrubs at the back. What they've done in front of the windbreak of laurels is to put in flowering shrubs, like this Escalonia and Deutzia. And as they fade into the background, this lot will really start to come alive. And, wow, they really do. By the middle of July, these borders are singing, with lots of combinations. But this soft mix I really like. It's Gypsophila paniculata Schneeflocka, creating a white froth of flowers that wraps around Geranium rosanne. And then Veronica first love pushes up through the middle. Lovely. But these borders are definitely not the only colour in this garden. The rock garden is bursting. And there's more. This place is blowing my mind. The collection of plants is incredible. This is the daylily and the peony garden. I love the way that they've thought about succession. The peonies are just stopping, but the daylilies are coming alive. But the interplanting of Nepetas and those hard-working plants. But another thing that stands out, the Calumagrostis. At the moment, they're just moving in the wind. They play beautifully with light. But could you imagine those through the winter months? That would really give fantastic structure to the back of the border. There's lots of places to stop and rest here, which you need of a garden of this size, as there's also three gardens for specific months and a big area just devoted to Achillea. Mary-Len and Colin have created this garden together, but the Achillea are a Mary-Len favourite. The Achilleas have a beautiful colour pattern with them, so planting them all together, the range is really quite stunning. When visitors come, they often want to replicate it in their own gardens, and with Achilleas, they are actually easy to grow, and they flower for such a long time, even when the blooms are fading, they look still very good. Mary-Len is also the author of all the features that pepper the garden and bring a smile. We put the sculptures in the garden just to add a bit of different detail. Every garden should have a bit of humour in it, and we like to showcase that. It's hard to believe that that line of oak trees 20 years ago was the only thing on this site. It's incredible what this couple have achieved, but also, for me, it proves something. Whether you know 10 plants or 10,000 plants, if you've got a little bit of termination and a dream, you might be surprised what you can achieve. That is an extraordinary achievement. I have some idea what's involved, because when we came here to Longmeadow, it too was an empty field just with hedges around the outside, so I can imagine how much labour they've put in and creativity to create that beautiful garden. At this time of year, what we all want is to keep the garden looking as good as possible for as long as possible, but to help that on the way, any plant in a container will need feeding. It will have exhausted the food from the compost, but not just any old feed. It needs to be a feed that is high in potash, and that will feed flowers, roots and fruits, if there are any. Now, a potash feed can come from various sources. You can get liquid seaweed. Any tomato feed will be really good. And in this recycled container, I've got homemade comfrey feed. Now, the mixture wants to be roughly 20, 30 to 1, but I just splosh it in. And it is ideal for these citrus because these will produce flowers all the year round. And if I feed them now for another month or so before they go undercover indoors, that sets them up for winter, and then I stop feeding them over winter, I practically stop watering them too, so they go relatively dormant. But they will still produce flowers and they will still produce fruit in the winter. Now, there are lots of feeds you can make, but we've been sent a film from one of our younger viewers who uses worms for the source of his plant food. Hello, everyone, and my name's Owen, and here's Alfie, my dog. And what I'm going to be speaking about today is my Wormery compost bin. This has got worms called tiger worms in it, and I use this to get rid of all our food scraps. And this is a really efficient way of doing it, and it makes a really good compost called vermicompost. And I use this to feed the soil where I'm growing my runner beans this year. And what you do is you do a layer. So you do a layer of food waste, then you do about 2 inches of dampened and shredded-up newspaper. And another useful product that you get from these wormeries is something called worm tea or worm juice. And as disgusting as it sounds, it's a liquid that comes out the tap on my wormery, and you can dilute it with water to feed things like maybe tomatoes. Alfie likes to help me thin the apples, and then he lies down in the sun next to them. And something else that I like to do is upcycle and use for clean materials. So here I've got my greenhouse, which I only spent about £20 on it, because all I bought was the end pieces, which is sort of a webbed or knitted polytunnel fabric, and on hinges and screws. And then the rest is all pallet wood, old fence posts. We've even got our old coffee table that's the back on it. And we've also got those, which are the door handles, which is an old fat-sear branch which I dried out, and then I made into a cool, rustic-looking door handle. I love Owen's cold frame, and especially that handle. And if there's one thing that helps you produce plants, overwinter them, it's a small greenhouse or a cold frame that you can make yourself. And also, of course, his worm composting is brilliant, but we make compost on a pretty big scale. So things like this, which are mainly Alchemilla cuttings, goes on the pile there, and all of this will end up as good compost. First of all, we shred that, and then it goes onto a heap, and you can see that within days, there's steam rising up there. That is starting to hot up, and that's bacterial activity. And then, after about a month or so, we turn it into this bay. It's still a bit claggy and coarse, but by the time it gets down to the end here, which will be about three or four months later, what we have is lovely garden compost. You measure its loveliness by touch. Does it feel nice to touch? By smell? It smells actively good of a sort of autumnal day on a woodland floor. And the texture is good enough to either use on the border or as part of your potting compost. But there are one or two rules that you need to understand and then follow. So let's have a look. The real secret of compost is that it gives life to soil, because compost is made by material being digested by bacteria and fungi and nematodes and the brambling worms and beetles and slugs, and you can make it work like a recipe that you know just works and works every time. So let's look at it like a recipe. First thing, your ingredients. You can add almost anything that's lived to a compost heap, but don't add meat, fats or cooked material, particularly cooked starches like potato or rice or pasta. And the main reason for that is not that it won't decompose, because it will in time, but it will do so more slowly, but it will attract rodents. You will get rats. But almost everything else from the garden and the house can go on. So, for example, kitchen waste, eggshells, banana skin, vegetable pairings, all can definitely go on. Typically, the most common compostable material that people have are grass clippings, and that certainly is really important. But that is all green material, very high in nitrogen. And if you just have this sort of waste, what you'll end up with is a sort of green, sludgy slurry, and that's because it's short of oxygen and carbon. Now, carbon comes from brown material, and at this time of year, there's a lot of it. You've got all the dried stems of plants, straw is archetypal brown material. You can use brown paper. You can use egg boxes. And if you've got cardboard, don't just put it in flat, but rip it up. And you need to mix the green material and the brown material on at least a 50-50 basis. Now, you can just mix them up and it will work fine, but if you can chop them up or shred them, it will work much better. And then you end up with this. And you saw in the bins how that when I disturbed it, there was steam rising up. Now, that steam is heat generated by the trillions of creatures digesting it. But to work successfully, they need water, so don't let it get too dry, and they need oxygen. So leave it for about three or four weeks and then turn it so lots of air can get in there. And if you turn it a couple of times, you get to this point. It's not perfect. There are bits and pieces there that haven't composted at all. It's a bit stuck together. This is fine to use around hedges or shrubs or to spread on the border in autumn as a mulch, because over winter that will break down and be incorporated into the soil. But if you want to put it onto a vegetable garden in spring or summer or use it as part of your potting compost, you need to turn it again. And this is how it can become. And what this is doing is adding life to the soil. Essentially, this is a medium for holding bacteria and fungi. And when you put an inch layer over the soil, it's like a starter dough. It recharges the soil, and that extraordinary complex relationship, which I don't begin to understand, between life in the soil and the roots of plants is what makes your garden grow. Much of the mystery and magic of compost depends upon creatures that are so small that we can't possibly see them. But it's now a good opportunity to go back and have another look at a visit that Nick made to a man who has developed a technique of looking at tiny creatures in our soil that you can see and to hear about the remarkable role they play in creating our gardens. Soil is the foundation for everything that grows on our planet, and it's crucial to the success of what flourishes in our gardens, supporting plants and providing them with water and nutrients. Worms and beetles do their bit to keep the soil healthy, but deep underground, there's a host of other critical creatures that are owed some long-overdue respect. Dr Charlie Clutterbuck is a soil zoologist, an expert in microscopic creatures, who's spent his career exploring the importance of this macro world. I've come to his garden in Lancashire to learn more about the critters that he believes are vital to a healthy and productive garden. Now, I'm hoping you can give us some insight into this incredible ecosystem that's happening underneath us. I'd like to, because most people treat it like dirt, don't they? Whereas it's actually the living force for the whole planet. Under this garden here, there's probably half worms and half mesofauna, and they're actually doing a lot more work than worms, believe it or not. And with a simple tin can, Charlie can show me up close what these mesofauna are all about. You just push it into the ground, turn it round, and then turn it upside down so that the surface animals are nearer the bottom and the deeper ones are at the top, which means the ones on the surface can move out quicker. Let's have a look. OK. So, this is the garage lab, Charlie. It is indeed. And this is the soil sample that I've just taken from the garden. We've put in a cola bottle in a good old-fashioned jam jar, and we put it under these lights, and what happens is, after a couple of days, the soil animals come down into the vials below. But why are these creatures so important? Charlie collected a sample from his lawn a few days ago for me to find out. There, we've put a microscope on it, and these black creatures with the antennae running around fast, they're springtails. I mean, it's amazing, there's so many of them. Well, those springtails, their main role is eating up the debris of the roots. The roots are sloughing off skin all the time. They're eating that, so they're keeping the plants healthy. So, in other words, the plant can absorb more moisture because its roots are cleaner. That's right, much more. And there's a white springtail. That's something called an onychurid, and they are known for transporting the spores of the fungi to the roots. These creatures are like the bees of the soil. They're accidentally pollinating the roots with the fungal spores. Gardeners are aware that you can use a mycorrhizal fungi to help extend the root reach of your plants. In other words, the fungi gets into the roots, grows out, and it helps the plant draw in more water and nutrition. But these guys are pivotal in that process as well. Yes, we need the creatures as well to make it work on its own. It just stays where it is. I mean, it's a real mosh pit of creatures, isn't it? They're all kind of on top of each other. Well, apart from the springtails, the little brown blobs are oribatid mites, and there are millions of those in the soil. They're probably the most important, apart from the springtails, because what they're doing is breaking down the debris, and their poo is basically the nutrient for the plants. There's probably, in terms of weight, as many of them as worms, but they're doing a lot more running around than worms. Worms are like the big excavators, the oribatids, the little engines of the soil. I think it's the last great kingdom to be explored. What you're seeing here is very unusual. People haven't collected them alive before. We've always collected them dead and then tried to make sense. To see them moving around and how they relate is a massive step forward. When it comes to optimising soil fauna in our own gardens, Charlie has some great advice. Well, Nick, three years ago, this garden was just consolidated flat clay, and what I've tried to do is use two aspects of the soil animals, dealing with the dead stuff and keeping the plants alive, to try and make this into decent soil. So I added woodland litter to the dirt, which is what it was then, and the worms and the soil animals are now turning that into soil. Woodland litter is good because there's four times as many creatures in that as there are in this sort of soil. So why is there more fauna in woodland soil? Because that's basically where they originated from. Also, what I did was turf, cut the lawn up and put it into the bed so the other soil animals, those little springtails, they can help bring the fungi, the mycorrhizal fungi, to the roots. And I think I was rather pleased that these fruit trees, just in three years, are doing as well as they are. I put it down to obviously the fertiliser and the fungi, but also those little soil creatures. And if you want to have a quick test of whether it's working or not, put a jam jar in the ground and see if you catch ground beetles the next morning. And so they're a real indicator that says the fauna's improved, it's working. When you see these black beetles running around, you know that they're preying on those soil animals, telling you that's a healthy soil. Someone once said to me that we know more about the universe and the stars around us than we do anything below the top six inches of the soil. It is a completely undiscovered world under our feet. Fascinating. Now, life above the ground is being dominated at the moment in the garden by wasps. We have a lot of wasps. They're gorging themselves on the grapes in the greenhouse and also eating the pears. Wherever there's slight damage, the wasps just pile in. So it's really important that at this time of year you check your pears, if you're growing them, to see if they're ripe. Now, that's a slightly complicated thing because you don't ripen pears on the tree. You have to pick them before they're fully ripe, but you know when to pick them by one simple technique. If you put your finger on the stalk and just lift it up to horizontal... There we are. It's come away in my hand. And you can see that the stalk is intact, and that's really important. Don't use secateurs to cut it. And if you lift it to the horizontal and it doesn't break, it's not ready. So come back the next day. And although this is really hard, treat it carefully. This will bruise very easily. And then if you want it to ripen now, put it on a sunny windowsill and leave it for somewhere between three and ten days. If you want to store them, and pears don't store terribly well, they need to be in a cool, dark place. But because they don't store well, that's why you have to grow them. Because they ripen and are only good for about two days. And you check that by feeling the top. If you just press gently with your thumb, if it gives and is soft, then that is ripe. The humble pear is one of the most exotic things you can ever eat. If you get it dead right. Now, still to come. Carol will be celebrating one of the season's most flamboyant flowers. Monardas are strong, healthy, accommodating plants. But for me, the reason for growing Monardas is just for the exotic and outrageous nature of these show-stopping flowers. But first, we have another film sent in by you. And this time, it's from a gardener in West Drayton in London, who, over the course of the last few months, has made the most that she possibly could from her front garden. Hi, I'm Prem. I live in London, and this is my front garden. So, a year ago today, this was a weedy, completely unused front lawn. I didn't do very much. I left the grass where it was, covered it over with a layer of cardboard, and added some grass clippings on top of that. Then I added a thick layer of compost on top of that, and left it to do its thing over the winter. As you can see, it's doing quite a lot now. There's dahlias and cosmos, as far as the eye can see, amongst lots of other flowers. And then I've got lots of vegetables, some hidden, like the pak choy and the dwarf beans, and others not quite so hidden, like the winter squash and the summer squash, and also some tomatoes up the back there. I've also got things like celeriac and soybeans growing out here too. We also planted a few fruit trees, so I've got a quince, a plum tree, and a pear tree. So hopefully, in the coming years, we'll get lots of fruits out of those. Cultivating this new space has been absolutely fantastic for me, not least because it has tripled my growing space and means that I have almost all the space I want to grow all the fruits and vegetables and flowers that I want to. But also during lockdown, what it's done is made me feel a lot more connected to my local community because I see and speak to a lot more of the neighbours because they walk past while I'm watering or weeding or planting new things. So if any of you have unused space out in the front garden, whether that's a patch of land or a patio that you can put pots on, then I highly recommend you give it a go. I really like this idea that Prem talked about, is of the front garden being the link to your community, particularly at this time. And a plant that I would heartily recommend for front or back garden is this. It's Helianthus lemon queen. It's my favourite sunflower. But this is an herbaceous perennial. It will grow whatever the weather. It's really hardy. It's quite late to come into growth and into flower, but will flower on into autumn. And it works beautifully here in the grass borders. And it manages to combine being quite a good, strong, upright plant that spreads well with these lovely, almost delicate flowers. Now, for a lot of us, and I'll include myself in this, gardens have a really profound importance in the way that they look after us as much as we look after them. It can be an important healing aspect in our lives. And this is certainly the case for Angela Plant. And we went to Warsaw to visit her garden. I'm Angela Plant. I live here with my husband, Trevor, and our little dog, Minnie. And this is my third and final garden design. When I had my first garden, I realised how much it meant to me in my life. It was peace and it offered so much to me. When you see that seedling has taken and there's life there, it's like a new baby, actually, like a newborn. And soon it becomes a big plant and you think, I've grown that and created that lovely life. There's nothing about gardening I dislike. I really love it. I've suffered all my life with depression and anxiety. Many times not being able to answer the door or go shopping or go out. I talked to my daughter one day and she said we need to do something about it. So she did no more than get me onto a gardening course. I didn't really want to go, but I went for her sake. And I've never regretted a day of it in my life. There's some magic here and I can't explain what. But for me, this garden is just like an antidepressant in a bottle. We put pen to paper and came up with the shape. I wanted the unusual, I wanted something different. I wanted the red and the white and black. Made a feature of our trachycarpus. Seating area down the bottom and up the top. And this is how it's materialised. I love the seclusion and being wrapped up in a blanket of leaves. These kind of plants, it's the texture, the leaf size, the architectural shapes. And it's bold and big and in your face and gorgeous. One of my favourite plants is the Spanish dagger. It's very dangerous and I have to warn people not to go near it as we have had a few casualties. But it's so architectural and where it comes from they're used as sewing needles because it's so sharp. We've grown the tetrapanax from a baby. It is quite fast growing but this is about six years old now anyway. It's an absolutely beautiful plant. It's supposed to be very tender but it's not in our garden. It's sheltered and it's almost in a microclimate. So we just keep it going all year round. Another favourite is the trachycarpus fortunii. We've had this for 20 years and it is a hardy palm. And it was about five foot tall when we bought it. It flowers and it's the most beautiful flowers. Like big lobster claws, bright yellow, really beautiful palm. And it also gives shelter to the tetrapanax. They kind of marry together and look after each other. I do cuttings at the end of the season and at the moment I'm gathering seed. And then for the beginning of next year I bring on things. This is Stan and Eddie. Stan's our resident security guard. We got him from a charity shop. And he came home in our car with his legs sticking out the window. I've now grown a fig leaf to hide his dignity a little bit. And we're not far off now. This is my vertical garden. It's basically a row of 12 felt pockets. With an irrigation system at the top. This gives me the opportunity to use bedding plants. And different colours and shapes. Boydens, Busy Lizzies, Hostas, Ferns, Fuchsias. Anything really that I want to put in there for an absolute splash of colour. And that city just keeps going all year round. Really beautiful. Once a year we use nematodes to deter the slugs and the snails. But we also use wool pellets. When it's watered it turns into a mulch. Trevor helps a lot in the garden. We work together really. His baby is the tree ferns. Trevor does all the watering. I do the deadheading. Keep it manicured if you like. I think gardening is now part of my life. I don't think I could manage without a garden. I feel it's just a safety blanket. When I step into the garden it's like it becomes a different world. I've probably become a different person. It just lifts the whole of my spirit and my body. I just find it difficult to put into words how much I really love this garden. It's always good to hear people talk openly about the powerful healing qualities of gardens and gardening. Particularly to do with mental health. And it can make a wonderful garden. I love that garden because it clearly matters so much to her. And she loves it so much that makes it a beautiful place. And we all love our gardens for what they mean to us privately. And these grass borders are something that are now just beginning to come to their best. But I've got a bit of a hole here. I planted a Helenium in here about a month ago now. It's Chipperfield Orange. And it's fine but clearly it's not doing what it will do in a year or two's time. It's still about half the size and there's too much space around it. But you can add plants at this time of year to give you autumnal colour. Now this is Aster Fricartii Monk. This is actually one of the very best Asters you can grow. You grow to about three, four foot tall. Will flower from the end of July into October. And as long as it gets some sunshine and some reasonable drainage. Is a tough plant that will grow in any soil. And I'll just space them about six to nine inches apart. And they will grow together to form one plant. Now I'm going to plant this in front of the Helenium. Now this is either Rebecchia Electroshock. Or Echibecchia Electroshock. And Echibecchia is actually a made up name. Because this is a cross between Rebecchia and Echinacea. They're both coneflowers. Both come from North America. But the problem with Echinacea is they tend to be very short lived. Particularly if they get too wet in winter. And the idea is that this will have the qualities of Echinacea. But some of the robustness of Rebecchia. Right, that can go in the front. They like fairly good drainage. Now this Aster, I've not grown before. But I've chosen it for its colour. Because it's got a really good strong violet colour. Which against the oranges and the browns should sing out. It's called, and you'll have to excuse my pronunciation if you're German. Weichenkornigen. And will grow about three foot tall. And as you can see, this intense yellow centre. Right, in you go. And it is worth repeating. That whenever you plant anything at any time of year. Always water them in well. Now if you don't know which plant to choose. Or more importantly, which variety or species of plant. Then visiting one of our national collections. Is a really good way to see a wide range within tight parameters. And there are hundreds of these collections right across the country. They are one of our unsung treasures. So it's good to have a chance to rejoin Carol. When she went to Pembrokeshire. To visit one of the national collections of Monarda. Oswego tea. Bee balm. Horse mint. Bergamo. A multitude of names. But a singularly beautiful plant. Originating from central and eastern regions of the USA. And from southeastern Canada. The elegant and dramatic Monarda. Has made its way across the Atlantic. And is now one of our most theatrical midsummer plants. Monardas are part of the family Lamiaceae. You can always tell members of that family. Like salvias and mints. By just grasping the stem. It's always square. Another thing that distinguishes Monardas. Is these pairs of leaves. They're always opposite one another. And they're lanceolate. Which just means that they get wider in the middle. They're fairly long. And then they come to a point at the ends. As for the flowers they're really exciting. They're not petals. Each one is an individual flower. And if you look carefully. You can see that each one has its own apparatus. First of all there's a stigma. Which protrudes furthest. So that's the female bit. That's going to receive pollen. And then underneath it are the anthers. And deep down at the base of this flower. Is the nectar. They're pollinated by the long tongued bumblebee. And it can penetrate right down here. But short tongued bumblebees also come in. But what they do. Is they cheat. They come to the bottom of the flower. And they pierce the flower. And they can get at the nectar. In their native habitat. The species will set seed. That's how they spread themselves around. But these cultivars. Sadly are sterile. No seed from them. In its native habitat. It's from places where the soil is rich. Where there's lots and lots of moisture at its roots. So include loads of organic content when you're planting them. And don't mulch too deeply. Because these are plants that move out. Across the surface of the soil. And if you want your plant to look pucker for ages and ages. And to go on flowering right the way through the summer. Then what you want to do is dead head regularly. Because cultivars seldom produce seed. And to guarantee you've got a clone of the plant you want. There are three ways to propagate Monardas vegetatively. The first is fertile around just under the surface of the soil. Until you discover stems that have already started to root. Detach a rooted piece. Pot it up in free draining but moisture retentive compost. Put it in a cool sheltered place. When you see roots coming from the bottom of the pot. You know it's time to put it into the garden. Another way is to take cuttings. Choose fresh unflowered shoots. Cut above a leaf node so the plant will recover. Well because these cuttings are very soft and green. I want to take them as quickly as I possibly can. First of all cut right under a leaf node like that. Remove that bottom leaf. This is the place which is going to make roots most easily. And then I need to nip out the top. And then just make a little hole in the edge. Up to the base of those bottom leaves. Never have any of the leaf under the surface of the compost. Because that will make the cutting rot. So just one thorough watering now. Stand them in a shady place and have some patience. Although on the whole Monardas are strong healthy accommodating plants. There is one complaint that some of them tend to suffer from. And that is powdery mildew. It becomes covered in this sort of white deposit. And there's one main cause for it. Plants become prone to this when they're too dry at the roots. So it's vital to keep them really well watered. It won't actually do the plant any harm. What you can do at the end of the season is cut the whole thing down. And don't put them onto the compost heap. Then in the spring when they start to sprout. Stay on top of the watering. And every so often give them a good feed with liquid organic feed. It's not actually a fungus preventative. But it will make your plants grow big and strong. And they'll be much more resistant to mildew. One of the ways to avoid powdery mildew is to grow fungal resistant varieties. This is one of the best examples. It's called Jacob Klein. This has to be one of my favourite varieties. It's Beauty of Cobham. It's a very old variety. And it's the parent of lots of modern cultivars. What's particularly charming about it. Is the contrast between the pale pink flowers. And the dark calyces, brats and stems. For me the reason for growing Monard's in our garden. Is just for this wide range of vibrant colours. And the exotic and outrageous nature of these show stopping flowers. Although visiting a national collection. Is undoubtedly one of the best ways of seeing a specific group of plants. Through their variety. But grown as well as they possibly can. So you get a really accurate idea of what it can look like. I'm afraid you can't visit that collection this year. But it hopes to be reopened next year. Now I've planted a few Cyclamen persicum in pots. But I've got here a tray of Cyclamen heterifolium. Which are much harder. You can see this vivid colour. And these will survive hopefully for years. Because they can live a long time. And also they spread. So if you plant a few. And I'm going to spread these out along these orchard borders. In time they will fill the gaps for you. One of the best things about them. Is they grow very happily in dry shade. So in places like this underneath this pear tree. They're very very useful. Now I'll put that in there. And you can see the reason why it's called heterifolium. Is because the leaves are a bit like ivy. Hedera of course is the name for ivy. Now when you buy them in pots like this. Of course you just plant them as they're grown in the pot. But if you buy the tubers. There is a tendency to plant them very close to the surface. But that's a mistake. They should be planted about an inch and a half or two inches down. Now these will flower from the middle of August. Through to about November. And then the cyclamen that flowers in the new year. In February and March. Is cyclamen coum. But never plant heterifolium and coum together. Because if you do. Heterifolium will always take over. And you'll lose the coum. Now it's time for the last. Of the films that you have sent in to us. And this is from John Butcher in Market Drake. Who shows us that even if you've got a small garden. That doesn't stop you creating a range of habitats. That will look after and encourage wildlife. Hi gardeners world. Welcome to our Shropshire garden. Come and see. Let's depart your way through the plant. They're all gardens not the biggest. But I think you can agree it's certainly full. The main kind of ethos of the garden really. Is to try and attract as many insects. And animals really as possible. So we have things like cosmos. We've been in Benareensis. Some borage. Poffies. Salvias. Foxgloves which are going over now. Some aryngiums which are really nice at the moment. And the bees love them. One has just appeared on cue which is nice. So in a garden that's lacking on space. One thing it makes you do is be creative with that. So what I've done here. And also on our woodshed. Is create a green roof. Basically all you need to do. Is create a frame around your roof. Then I lined this. It's got felt and then some plastic sheeting on. With holes in to allow for drainage. And then there's a weed suppressant membrane here. This isn't really to keep weeds out. It's just to keep the soil in the structure itself. Then there was the Hydroleca pallets. These sit in the bottom about an inch or so. So there's a nice layer of drainage. Then we have the soil and perlite and vermiculite mix. And then you can pick and choose your plants. Plants generally should be drought tolerant. So Mediterranean plants are ideal for this. But I think it looks great. And I also think the bees appreciate it too. I do like roof gardens. And that was exceptionally well made. The key thing there was the perlite. Because if you are going to plant up a roof garden. It has to be as light as possible. And the perlite goes a long way to achieving that end. Now if you have sown your tomatoes. And these are gardeners delight. Planted them out as I did. And looked after them. The chances are you'll be in the same situation that I'm in. Which is that you've got quite a lot of fruit. But most of it is very green and very unripe. Now is all about getting them to ripen before the weather turns. So if for example you can see this truss here. You've got flowers. You've got very small tomatoes. The chances of these growing and ripening. Is certainly here in this part of the world nil. If you live in a very hot part of the south. You might be lucky. But for most of us. What you want to do is make sure the tomatoes you've got. Are as ripe as possible. Now there are ways you can do this. The first thing to do is to remove any leaves. That are obscuring the tomatoes. And that's simply so that they can get the sun. So if I take that off there. That means that these tomatoes are now exposed to light. And you do that all round. The deadline on this is roughly about the end of the first week of October. By then the light levels are too low. And the nights are getting too cold. And they're not going to ripen. So we've only got a few weeks left. The other thing you can do. As well as take the leaves off. Is to curtail the energy of the plant going into growth. And the way you do that is simply by cutting the top off. So if you take that off there like that. And now the roots will be feeding the fruit. Rather than new growth. And of course harvest. What is ripe as soon as it's ready. Because if you don't this happens. You can see how that is perfectly good tomato. And it's split. So do harvest as you go along. Enjoy them. But put all your skills into making these ripen as much as possible. Now while I'm doing this. Here's some other jobs that you can do this weekend. Now is a good time to plant out biennials. Such as wallflowers, sweetwilliams, forget-me-nots. Or as I am foxgloves. Plant them where you want them to flower. The roots will get nice and established. So that next spring they are ready to grow fast and flower gloriously. And don't forget to water them in well. It's been a good year for courgettes. But they do have a habit of growing enormous in the blink of an eye. And you must keep cutting them. And this will extend their season. When your agapanthus have finished flowering. Cut the seed heads off. Do this by cutting the flower stalks right at the base. And this will mean that the plant will put all its energy into the roots. For next year's flowers. Rather than into the developing seeds. The sweetcorn have been exceptionally good this year. And we've been eating them for weeks now. And you can tell when they are ripe. Because the tassels at the end turn brown and fall. And then you know you've got a really lovely plump corn on the cob inside. I haven't harvested any celery yet. But now is the time. This is an autumnal, almost winter crop. Quite slow to grow. And if I just cut it like that. You can see that that has developed really quite nicely. And I love celery. So that can go in there. A much quicker crop are lettuce. Now these are a cos lettuce. That don't really grow so well in autumn and winter. So this is very much the last of the summer lettuce. So I'll cut ourselves a nice one there. And the brilliant thing about September. Is that this is the month of harvest. This is the month when all that work in the vegetable garden. Really pays off better than any other time of year. But that's all we've got time for today. I will be back here at Longmeadow at 8 o'clock next Friday. So until then, bye bye.