Great British Gardens with Carol Klein S02E04

these are some of the greatest gardens in britain from a ducal castle to a garden once lost in time from a modern masterpiece to a plantsman's paradise we've searched out the finest in the land each has its own unique story to tell oh oh it's delightful join me carol klein on the journey through the four seasons as i experience a year in their lives meet the people who look after them this is the season which seems to be attached to my soul this is my mid-life crisis bit really glimpse what goes on behind the scenes come on share your secrets reflect on their magnificent designs and celebrate the plants that make each so special as i look through these massive pinnacles of flow i can see the pinnacles themselves serendipity from up and down the land these are great british gardens waiting to be discovered i'm really looking forward to it but you are too [Music] this is woolaton old hall garden sat around a 16th century house it's a beautiful and intricate four acre oasis in the english garden tradition with echoes of the abwardian arts and crafts style with its traditional craftsmanship sympathetic architecture elegant topurian hedges and deep borders it looks like it's been here for a hundred years and yet it may come as quite a surprise to learn that this magnificent garden was created from scratch by its owners leslie and john jenkins in just 36 years after first living in woollett and old hall as a child leslie was so besotted with the house and the land around it she came back and bought the property in 1983. since then leslie and john have set about recapturing the spirit and quality of a bygone era but with fabulous drifts of modern planting and i think there's no better time of year to appreciate woolaton's mellow restful atmosphere than during autumn [Music] laid out as a series of linked garden rooms wooleton is full of unexpected corners and vistas that change dramatically with the seasons even in autumn there are bold bursts of color especially here in the sundial garden which is overflowing with asters you come into these borders and you just know it's awesome we all know them as mickel miss daisies and you don't see them at any other time of year they actually depend on shortening day length and lowering temperatures to produce their flowers for the flowers to open these asters actually take their names from the latin names of places on the eastern seaboard of the united states including new england novi anglia i love these asters they're always tall and very very visible almost always in vivid wine sort of colors clarets and purples but the thing is they establish the season they let you know that autumn's well and truly here [Music] wooliton hall dates from the elizabethan era with a timber-framed house making a perfect backdrop for the beautiful garden leslie and john have created 16 garden rooms cleverly defined by walls hedges topiary and pass that positively effervesce with an abundance of modern planting there's a structured formality of the old garden and the lime alley dissected by the crisp lines of the lower rill [Music] next door to that the upper rail reflects a stately parade of box domes to the right of the house is a peaceful shade garden its muted colours another haven of tranquility but further down from the house leslie's theatrical personality takes center stage with a dramatic explosion of colour all year round in the land hydra garden and that's where i'm meeting leslie today at the beginning of my year-long journey i love the the way you come through hedges and that whoa this is the heart and soul of the garden here carol it's lovely this is my mid-life crisis bit really when i wanted to uh go for it you know so it's full of vivid colors and big foliage and the whole thing bounces around doesn't it yes yes other parts of the garden some of them are calm but this one i want it to explode when you walk through there's this marvelous rhythm through everything that's very deliberate isn't it very much so yes i was looking at sort of form as well as colour yeah and texture you know it's magic making a garden yes but this bed in particular is beautiful it's perfect i worked very hard on this corner i wanted the grass to be on the corner to look through at the muted colors and then when you go around the other part of it of course the colors wow face yeah in your face yeah this is a millennia it is as a bride it's one i don't really know but it's just right for that purpose but don't you think it takes years to do a border you can't just plan it on paper and it works like that i don't think it does no not at all but isn't that one of the joys of the way you garden anyway you're constantly changing that experiment and i love these big structures they're very useful aren't they give a bit of height to the garden and also an excuse to grow something up them but if you need it and you're excused to foot plants in but this this is something else honestly could you get a more brilliant yellow than that it's a rebecca isn't it it is rebecca fulger i think yes but in your garden it's the plants you notice but it's the structure that holds everything together was it always like this no not in a million years there was nothing here at all when we returned to the house nothing at all no it was field really the cattle grazing in it so we did island beds and then we realized that it just looked wrong for the house and the ethos of the place totally wrong i have to evolve it's like painting yeah you know but the difficulty is you can scrape oil can't you're for canvas yeah once you've planted you've got to wait to see what happens the fearless broad brush strokes of her planting style keep leslie's garden vibrant all year round but her quest to produce picture-perfect landscapes means she needs a team around her who share her attention to detail stripping the bark it's the most therapeutic job can i join in you can indeed and i'm looking forward to meeting had gardener phil as he gives nature a helping hand with some beautiful himalayan birch trees i've come to woollett and old hall garden in shropshire home to artist leslie jenkins and her husband john their four acre arts and crafts inspired garden is a visual delight with surprising bursts of color everywhere even in the depths of autumn leslie's a passionate plants woman but her garden is so richly planted it would be hard to maintain alone so she relies on head gardener phil smith to keep it in order throughout the seasons you're stripping the bark hello carol oh yeah i know it's the most therapeutic job can i join in you can indeed no this is bachelor jack muncie isn't it yeah they naturally start to peel and this time of year we come along and tidy them up ready for the for the winter and it reveals that new layer of fresh bark so i just use lukewarm water and uh a dustpan brush and you just start at the top and work your way down and that cleans off all this green um green marking that has occurred during the summer so how long have you been here phil uh just a few years i started nearly four years ago and i applied to come to wooleton because i really like the garden i adore garden design so to get the opportunity to come and work here absolutely amazing sounds like serendipity completely i would love to have worked in the garden like this am i doing this right does it matter there is no special technique to this whatsoever after you've done a small bit you can get a cloth and just start to wipe it off and it starts to bring up uh the nice white color they're one of my favorite trees we have in the garden here i mean they stand out beautifully now but um in the winter it must be even more so yes you should wait until the end of the winter going into the spring and this is a sea of white snow drops and these white trees absolutely glisten as they poke up through that white carpet and against the nice dark you hedge they really do sparkle and shine so uh imagine it now i really just wait and see yeah you can really see the difference can't you in the meantime there's still so much to see here everywhere you turn there's a tantalising glimpse through a hedge or a dramatic gateway that open onto other beautifully designed spaces it's pure theatre to achieve this level of stage management leslie relies on the gardening team a group of volunteers and the support of husband john are you meddling with your meddler i'm meddling by meddling it's the most glorious tree but it's all on its own john we realized that when we put these big box domes in the whole thing was out of balance and we thought we need a tree here so we got a meddler medlers were at the peak of their popularity in the 1600s when wooleton hall was built so they would have been very familiar to whoever lived here then of course the meddler has beautiful white flowers about that big which we'll see won't we you will indeed but of course people are not interested in that they're interested in these fruit and they've got quite a few funny names they have indeed the french have got the funniest yeah because they think that the top of the fruit looks like the rear end of a dog's anatomy yes but they're edible but there are all sorts of strange processes you've got to go through aren't there well the elizabethans love them and people say it's either an incredible subtle taste or you can't taste anything oh right but the most important thing is you cannot pick it now we've got to wait until it's bletted right letted means rotten once the fruit has blessed it can be made into a jelly do you want me to try for our next visit oh what yeah yeah that would be great wouldn't it yes it would and you can all eat it oh i would love that all right i adore that well i was going to throw them away but i won't know i'll pick them very very carefully uh something to look forward to isn't it carol it really is yeah i love these domes they're smashing each one took five men to lower it in on a tarpaulin and into the hole and then having put it in the hole she said oh that's that one needs to come over here so we get the five men back again and move it a few inches to the left yeah in this quiet corner is the well garden where i've been drawn by something else you don't always get in mid-october the promise of this late rose lady emma hamilton it's the most exquisite perfume exuding from this rose it's almost fruity it's summery really here leslie has this capacity it's almost an intuition not just to choose the right plant for the right place but also to ensure that the pictures she creates carry you through from summer into autumn and beyond bulletin still so full of scent and colour it's hard to believe a change of season is just around the corner but the nights are drawing in and it's time for the garden to change its coat for winter [Music] optimistic gardeners so there's no such thing as bad weather only different kinds of good weather and although it's been one of the warmest and wettest winters on record the solid design and beautiful structure of wooleton really comes into its own at this time of year and it's now in the midst of winter that you can see the garden in all its stark simplicity what a difference from the autumn abundance that was everywhere when we last saw the garden leslie and her team has stripped everything back to its bare bones with just the skeleton of the garden on show i'm reminded how leslie's complex artistic vision has breathed life into what was once an empty field even now there's drama on a grand scale around every corner i just love the way your garden's all about sort of entrances and exits it's very shakespearean it's very theatrical it's funny you should say that but i love theater design that's what i always wanted to do really and that's what you've done you've created theater within it too when you look at things like these lovely hues are they obelisks i think they are obelisks yes well they are now but when they weren't in they must have been teeny they were they were little feathers really and yet you still got in your mind's eye what you wanted to achieve with them i mean that's real vision nicely but and it's what you need especially with a garden on this sort of scale what do you do when they get too big call in andy and anya are they the ones who are in chargeable yes yes they are and if you don't have room for dramatic use spires there are exciting planting ideas on a completely different scale in the woodland garden oh look this is another world isn't it it's magical the light's lovely today isn't it oh it's absolutely perfect did you order it especially i think so yes i did but it's coming through on those snow drops there they look like little icicles don't they they do now these holly balls i love the way you've planted them because sometimes you see them in a very random kind of way well what we do is when the seedlings because they produce so many thousands of seedlings don't they so we we take those up we pot some up and if they're good we keep them obviously i mean sometimes people are trying to breed these hellibles at face upwards and i think that misses the point because isn't half the fun just turning them over and seeing what's inside yes the beauty of them it's like a watercolor isn't it yeah it is but it's the wet isn't it this winter that's been predominant you couldn't get on the soil at all and we've what we've done is we've mulched with our own compost leaf mold we take it all off obviously and compost it and then last seasons and then so it's completely covered in leaf mold which has helped a bit so you take all your leaves away and let them turn into leaf mold and then bring them back yes leaf mold adds structure and organic matter to your soil and it's so easy to do you can use wire mesh and wooden stakes to make a bin and pile in your fallen leaves then just sprinkle it with water and leave it for a year or two till the leaves crumble [Music] in the depths of winter when the choice of plants is paired back to the bone it's the subtlest things that catch the eye or the nose oh oh it's delightful this has to be one of the best treats of winter it's lonissara populi it's a winter flowering honeysuckle and this selection is called winter beauty and it truly is beautiful i mean the flowers themselves are delicate in this case it's kept most of its leaves sometimes it loses them and in this winter cold and this leaf bleak season to smell something like this just it's just beautiful [Music] it's at this time of year that you can truly appreciate the exquisite design and craftsmanship of wooleton's structural details it's an ethos that was central to the arts and crafts movement one of my favorite spots is a pleached lime alley i mustn't surprise you hello carol don't want you falling off your ladder i'll come down i'm not going to ask you what you're doing because it's pretty obvious from what you've already done yeah we're um beautiful bleaching the lime trees yeah so it's uh one of my favorite jobs to do in the garden yes and has to be done in the at this time of year yeah when they're dormant in the winter and we're pruning off all of the previous season's growth back to the bear stems so what is it called this is tilia platyphylos rubrus it's a really common variety that you'll see certainly throughout europe as well being used for this purpose and even though it looks lovely with this nice reddy red color they look equally good i think when they've actually been bleached and you take all that growth off to reveal this really architectural form that certainly on a day like today with the sun out casts these beautiful shadows oh dramatic aren't they when they're done would you like to get up the ladder yeah with that right up to the top all the way let's have a go can i start on this one you can indeed and just nice and tight back to that knuckle arrangement oh they're lovely and sharp it's got to be clean though hasn't it because you you don't want to leave any snags and that invites disease doesn't it it does i wonder how many stems you actually cut thousands i tried to count them once and i gave up there's way too many i'm not surprised i like this it's very therapeutic i really could stay up here for a long time but i don't want to deprive you my job you obviously love so much oh i did enjoy that thanks very much that's the first time i've ever pleached a lime get out it's wonderful i've laughed a few thank you very much see you later beach and home beam can also be trained as can apples and pears but right now i'm off to find out whether john delivered on the promise he made me in the autumn to make a jelly from the fruits of the medler tree what a treat i'm glad you think so so i'm dying to taste it right after being boiled with water and sugar the jelly was strained and put into jars and now that he's a leading expert on this elizabethan delicacy john's brought us a shropshire blue cheese to try it with very crumbly cheese lovely and crumbly how gorgeous are you dolloping it on the top i'm going to eat it separately are you yeah one two three it's lovely it's very difficult to describe it is isn't it well it's it is aptly but it's very fruity it's really fruity it could do with less sugar i think anyway it's utterly delicious you never know in the garden tea room people will be clamoring for this they will indeed if i haven't eaten it all first whether or not you decide to have a go at making metal a jelly this is a lovely compact tree for a small garden and as winter draws to a close i can't wait to see what other inspiration is waiting in the wings [Music] this is your chance to head to devon to explore the beautiful humphrey repton design gardens at the pulitzi collections historic hotel ensley hidden on the edge of dartmoor you could win a three-night stay for two people enjoying a tour of the extensive hotel gardens with the head gardener picking up tips and enjoying the fabulous planting woodlands and more included is a three-course meal at the hotel restaurants plus one thousand pounds prize money which you could spend on your own garden so for the chance to win text garden to six double five double five or post your name and phone number to garden one po box 7557 derby de10np text cost two pounds plus one message at standard network rate lines close at midday on the date shown on screen and three working days later for postal entries rules and privacy policy at channel 5 dot com slash wind [Music] the winter storms and rainfall that have battered the country are over and with the lighter days of spring lush shades of green and much longed for colour are surging in the garden [Music] the trees are performing their yearly trick of looking new again and thousands of bulbs planted months ago are jostling for position in every border [Music] it's one of leslie's favorite times of year it's a bit of a cliche what i feel about spring but it's the beginning you've had winter to plan and design and then all of a sudden you can get out there and you can actually do things and it is a wonderful feeling leslie's mad about tulips and pots crammed with a mouth-watering variety splash a rainbow across the front of the house i just adore them i love the water lilies the pom-poms all sorts of colors the long borders which are such a feature of arts and crafts gardens are beginning to soften the hard edges of wooleton's bones with their natural drifts of colourful planting with 16 individual gardens each with its own character it's a busy time for head gardener phil i like spring spring's brilliant especially april going into may and i think it's because of the choice of greens that come up they're really fresh and vibrant this is the spring bowl border um which we created about three years ago leslie calls it her tapestry persian carpet so it's a real kaleidoscope of colours we've got everything in here we're weaving plants together the tulips throw caution to the winds with the colors we don't particularly plan the colors they just go in cheers you up it might be snowing even but it doesn't matter it's just this popping up of the beautiful plants in there [Music] every tree shrub and flower has been carefully chosen and positioned to play its part in the series of artistic compositions that make up leslie and john's garden [Music] in the shade garden snow drops and haliburs that looks so fresh and delicate here in the winter have given way to a host of colorful spring woodland perennials we've got lots of erythroniums and we've got trilliums we've got other plants starting to come through so we've got pulmonaries and dicentra and that color continues all the way through into early summer leslie knows just how to highlight and set off the different shades of green with a pail of flower or a shrub that will catch your eye like this pittosporum irene patterson when the foliage is new it's very pale green almost white and then as it matures the green within the leaf gets darker and the pale parts get lighter creating a lovely marbled effect at this time of year it's smothered in lots of tiny chocolate burgundy flowers so discreet you almost miss them but it's a foliage that's so distinctive and if you're into flower arranging it's the perfect evergreen shrub for your garden [Music] one of the most joyful corners of the garden is a small space tucked away behind the stately grandeur of the pleached lime lay alice's garden is one of leslie's favorite places to sit and enjoy all the best things about spring it's a cottage garden really and lots of little things in that prim roses got to be one of my favorites primrose beautiful little things and then of course we've got the little water feature and that's lovely with the blue tits all the birds are making nests and diving in there and off it's all busy in there and sitting here brings back fun memories for leslie we named alice's garden after a very favorite ugly little cat she was the runt of the litter but she was very sweet and she got something wrong with her voice she sort of croaked when she's meowed and she always slept there [Music] while the wildlife is flourishing there are plenty of spring jobs for the team to be getting on with so these are all hazel uh hazel twigs that we've uh cut from the garden and they're perfect for staking at this time of year so all of the perennials are starting to grow up really quite quickly so this is veronica astrum pointed finger and it has lovely pink flower spikes in early summer but you can see how quick it's growing and we need to give it some support so these bits of um twig will just provide the support it needs and when i've put them in all i'm going to do is just snap them and bend them over the actual clump and what will happen are the shoots will start to grow up through the bent over twigs and it will just give it the support it needs you can buy twigs and they're very expensive so if you know someone with a woodland or you've got a bit of room in your garden for some hazel at home it's the perfect thing to grow and then you can copy each year you can use the longer stems for growing maybe runner beans up and uh the shorter ones are doing this and of course all this is really natural looking so there's no wire no string and it will just blend in with the plant as it grows up i love the idea of using hazel to keep this veronicastrum growing straight and true and yet still looking as though it's unsupported it's just one of many clever tricks phil uses to help make this garden look effortlessly beautiful as the day is lengthened there will be many visitors like me looking forward to the promise of summer [Music] it's summer at wooliton old hall days stretch into each other there's vivid colour and the smell of moan grass everywhere scents hang in the air with the sun on full beam every dazzling aspect of the garden is illuminated in all its elegant beauty and the land hydra garden where i first met leslie in the autumn is now a blaze of colour this has to be one of the most exciting the most vibrant parts of the garden and though it's fairly big and quite open nonetheless you get this feeling of intimacy as you walk around it it's all about you and the plants look at this astrum area it's positively sizzling it's on fire and then you move into these red salvias leslie combines colours and she uses lots of tricks and devices to make all these oranges and reds really glow she puts in plants with brilliant blue flowers just here and there arranged amongst them they're the opposite end of the color spectrum and that makes the reds and oranges even more so it's a really clever technique and one that all of us could use in our own gardens you just don't know where to look first when you come across this great big achilles you think it's just for your benefit you know it's all about this moment these beautiful flat plates of gold when we were here back in the autumn it was all about texture it was all about that mellowing of colour and things undulating all about form but now it's all about colour the whole place sizzles the whole garden is just on fire as well as using the full palette of summer colors at her disposal leslie creates adventurous plant combinations to paint her beautiful pictures there's no more luscious example of an english summer border than this glorious mix of perennials and roses composed by leslie and john in the sundial garden i was just completely overcome when i came into the garden now i truly was it is so beautiful thank you very much carol nobody coming in here would think there was any competition between the roses and the perennials at all because everything just melts together so beautifully well personally i don't like to see a lot of bare soil unless it's immaculately gardened well it's a waste of space isn't it well it is yes and also it's important i think to not only have the low things in the garden like the status there but to have spikes yeah verticals that's so important which groups of plants do you find go best with these kind of roses well they are the plants that will not overpower the roses and give the roses plenty of room so they're not sprawlers so we can take geraniums we can take funicular to floxes we can take salvias and we can take dahlias which are basically all very well behaved plants they are and how often do you prune these roses because this is a moot point isn't it whether or not you you know you do prune shrub roses we deadhead a lot yes i mean even this evening some hail rain or snow hopefully not we will not yeah we will be deadheading yeah because that's so important isn't it because that just promotes further flower production yeah yeah while the borders are allowed to flourish the topiary needs keeping under strict control and later i find out how it's done i've had no formal training i'm just very fosse ocd remember there's still the chance to head to devon for a three-night stay for two at hotel ensley your state will include a three-course meal at the hotel's restaurant and one thousand pounds prize money too so to enter text garden to six double five double five or post your name and phone number to garden one po box seven double five seven derby de10 np rules and privacy policy at channel five dot com slash wind summer's arrived in a blaze of glory at wooliton old hall with so many shrubs and perennials packing the borders phil's got his work cut out to keep everything looking perfect for the garden's many visitors what you up to phil i'm dis budding the dahlias to get better flowers yeah it's um a grower's technique really to try and get nice tall stems really good strong flowers and it's really simple to do so you'll see that the the dahlia stem comes up with the flower bud the primary bud at the top and then it will have secondary and third buds coming up and all we want to do is literally just snap those off right and they detach really nicely just like tomatoes when you take it exactly the same taking the side shoots off and what that means is the energy now is back into that one single flower stem so it will get a good flower so otherwise all our energy goes into lots of flower production but they're all on the small side yeah and a bit floppy too all floppy all on the floor and especially if you get wind or rain uh you've kind of had it with your display this failure in particular absolutely gorgeous so this is charlie dimmick how'd you do charlie she's really lovely isn't she she's gorgeous really good water lily type dahlia right can i have a girl you can there's a few down the front yeah no do you actually leave these leaves yeah in situ yep leave them in you will just be able to snap the stems off and the younger you do it the easier it is so as soon as the buds are forming you can start to take them away and you also don't get any wound marks either just snip it off yeah just snip it off cleanly and it will keep going there can be something really satisfying about producing a single show-off flower but sometimes mother nature is best left to do the job all by herself this little real garden with its central pond it's one of the most iconic features here at wallerton it's lovely as soon as you look at this central piece of water here you're immediately drawn to these beautiful iris arranged one in each corner a very simple but a very very effective arrangement this is iris and sata rose queen it's a complete delight it's a member of the butterfly iris clan they come from japan originally now iris and sata is very very happy as you can see with its feet in the water it loves paddling but equally well you can grow it in any sort of damp border it mixes beautifully well with other plants one of my favorite features at wooliton is the astonishing topiary especially the box puddings here it's kept in perfect shape by husband and wife team andy and anya topiary in the hedges and everything are such an important part of this garden aren't they i mean so who does what i do the topery shapes the balls and mainly the pyramids though i do have a bit of help on the big pyramids we both have to do it somebody has to stand at a distance and go left of it right a bit i mean that's like a sculptor or you know doing a painting isn't it you need to stand back and look at what you've done they are marvelous how on earth do you get them so symmetrical well we have what you call a batter gage and that's an implement made out of wood and we have it set at a certain angle you hold it again yes yeah and that ensures that not just each side is the same but if you've got several of them in a row they all fit in with each other they're all identical that's brilliant so when you come in to do something like this so i set a height yeah and i follow the same height all the way down and i set it i set a width so it's really important to keep the shears as flat as you can when you've got that height set it must kill your back though anya it does topiary is an art with a history it was a common sight in formal tudor gardens so the many edges hedges box balls and obelisks are very much in keeping here what do you enjoy most do you enjoy all those big hedges and had trouble yeah i like doing the hedges you're good at all the straight lines aren't yeah and i like the balls yeah i just seem to be able to follow the sphere i've had no formal training i'm just very fussy i'm ocd so this is the perfect occupation if you're ocd yes because it has to be spot on yeah this obviously works yeah you've only to look at the results while bulletin's crisp hedges and borders of roses irises and alphiniums point to its traditional english garden roots leslie's definitely not one to be defined by the past she's never afraid to try something new and in the long walk she's going for a very contemporary look leslie you're constantly moving this garden forward and this bit's only been designed for a few years hasn't it yeah this is a new bit here and um what i'm trying to do basically is done some of the planting down and concentrate on quite a few colors yeah so which colours i can see lots of silver and darkness too yeah you're right it's the silver silver to put a little full stop every so often you know with the cardones yeah and the steel yeah this it's rather larger isn't it yeah yeah but it really makes an impact doesn't it yeah so which plants have you used for your dark areas they're dark and dangerous aren't they well yes romantic clematis romantica yeah which is oh wow beautiful isn't it one of my favorites these lovely actors are just oh they're blended they're gorgeous aren't they james compton one and then brunette that's brunette over there right so very very dark foliage yes do you find that very challenging or is that the sort of major part of what you do this evolving you know this idea that the garden's never still never going to stay like it is no that's a good bit i can't bear to see a garden that never changes particularly my own okay the structure may stay the same but having said that i've i've still got ideas you've just got to go on haven't you it's that's what it's all about is it as gardening as with life yes yeah exactly [Music] this is a garden for all seasons with the fine bones of its winter structure as compelling as the full flush of summer colour and it's the eye of a true artist that brings it all together through this incredible series of gardens within a garden it's difficult to believe that this garden has been created during just one lifetime but that is leslie's genius she combines modern sensibilities with this old english garden tradition and john and leslie are constantly looking forward always playing with every element here striving to create the most beautiful pictures and effects and that's why wollaton is truly a great british garden explore murderous manor houses as we tour the perilous places that inspired one of our favorite authors agatha christie's england is brand new tomorrow night at nine coming next every second counts when a toddler with possible sepsis is rushed into casualty 24 7. stay with us you

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Length: 44min 54sec (2694 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021