Monty Don's Real Gardens episode 6

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello it's been a bit slow coming but spring is finally here and i love it and we're going to be sharing it as ever with real people in their real gardens this week carol klein is talking birds and bees with adrian and debbie yeah emery powell is with lisa on a spring shopping binge and i'm doing some seasonal sewing with briony jacklyn lisa jacobson took on her tiny harrow garden when she and her husband dominic bought the house 18 months ago with two young children lisa doesn't get much time for gardening but she does want to turn the plot into a child-friendly space that the family can enjoy with anne-marie's help she's already opened up the garden and transformed what was a rotten old shed the last time anne-marie was here we made the playhouse which is excellent we've had a great fun with it let me go for a cup of tea shall we sophia's first reaction was flowers and then playhouse now lisa is longing to get on with her next project widening her flower border she's made a good start by stripping the turf and now she's ready for some advice from anne marie well looks like you've been busy yeah a little bit yeah why have you decided to do this i've been desperate to widen this border because that border has been stressing me out since i've been here it's far too small so at last i widened it so it sounds like you know what you want to put in there well i do like cottage garden plants um i like just tools structural plants lupins red hot pokers that sort of thing really yeah so do you like staking and deadheading and feeding and watering and not really no yeah i mean that is a lot of work actually to be honest to keep it looking good you need to regularly feed it water it make sure the plants are in tip-top condition you've got to really plant things that will do well in this border and i mean not today but it usually is really bright when i come here yeah it's very very hot maybe we should go for something more silver-leafed you know something that actually likes basking in these hot conditions yeah you know things that don't need looking after a lot and you can leave the seed heads on them and let the things grow and evolve and all you need to do is split them up when they get a bit big so the plan is to start again lisa's clearing everything out of the old border while i make a holding bed some of what we take out can be included in our new planting scheme of low maintenance sun-loving plants which we're going to go off and choose so that's a keep when the gardening gets tough the girls go shopping we're at the royal horticultural society spring show one of the many shows they hold throughout the year in their westminster halls yeah i really like that one that's so elegant like yeah isn't it very elegant and elegant the idea is to have a good look around for the low maintenance plans we need that will fit in with our silvery colour scheme look these are great aren't they cottage gardens look at these last measures that's what we need some of that sort of color hello we're sort of looking for a really sun sunny border really isn't it yeah well basically anywhere to about here on the display it's nice to see that you've got more than just the purple hookahs here as well everybody's into the purple heuches i mean this is lovely it's plum pudding but that one there raspberry regal with the green leaf and then it's lovely tall upright red flowers it's great once the flowers have sort of gone over they still stay there as an architectural feature so you can leave them and they look as if they're dried i like these they're quite good to go in the back of the border because they're out early in the year and then you can have later summer stuff going and that's a good tip right and that way they get shaded which is what they like so if you've got a sunny board you can still grow them with something else shading them in the summer we'll come back to these later but there's plenty more to check out including some bold structural plants oh lisa look this is what we want i love that these are your drama plans yeah or cardine and that will get massive you get taller than me wow yeah and there's a lot of other things on here that we like as well isn't there so unless you've got a ringgian's as well over there which we definitely want some of those well you mentioned that you were into sort of sunny well-drained spots yeah irene gives a course of classics for that i mean they're southern european natives that's a perennial so perennials they come up every year or how do you work keep flowering long as you keep them well fed they'll continue the show for years to come so far so good but there's still a whole family of plants that's ideal for lisa's dry conditions so we've got your architecture hands haven't we with the sayonaras yeah and we've got lots of fillers and some ground covers but we need some texture grasses and these we've got to have them there's loads of them yeah that's useful what do you fancy and i love the junkers but i don't think no it needs suitable is it great really this is pretty again it's quite slow growing that and we're a bit impatient too aren't we quick quick and easy i think these are brilliant they don't even taste as much looking after either yeah i mean this is great this is a helicon which i can hardly say and that one that goes with our schemes doesn't it all the colors decisions have been made now we just need to round them all up [Music] anymore wow that's the last three big enough to get a taxi that's a big enough ford one well we did well didn't we no beautiful plants but we've still got to get that soil prepared our sun loving selection all need good drainage so lisa and i dig in plenty of pea gravel and compost to improve her rather heavy soil so i can start laying the plants out i think we'll put our big sort of drama focal point plants in first and then we'll put all the other little ones around and about them but we'll leave them in their pots because then we can shuffle them around until we're completely happy with how we've laid them out yep we've bought at least three of each plant but rather than dotting them all over the place in a bitty way we're placing them together in larger groups i'm gonna move everything away from this cyanara here because it grows massive and it'll just completely engulf everything else i feel happy with that do you yeah i can't believe how many plants we've got today good isn't it right let's get planting just a small handful of bone meal and a good drink of water is all that's needed now lisa's old border was too narrow and everything was struggling to survive now she's got the right combination of drought-resistant sun-loving plants which will pretty much look after themselves i think that started you off yeah so i'm going to leave you to this okay and you'll enjoy it yeah this is the nice job isn't it [Music] this is my last visit to bryony jaclyn's garden in north norfolk where we've been hard at work for the past six weeks we've cleared and replanted her pond added wildflowers to her driveway and opened up her front garden with herbaceous borders and a new lawn but i'm not the only one who's been lending a hand in the garden whenever possible brownie enlists the help of her children they say all kids hate gardening but you've got to find jobs that they like doing jobs that are meaningful it's no good saying you know do the weeding because plants and weeds look just the same to kids so you've got to give them a tiny little chops that they can achieve i like planting flowers because then the soil gets on my hands and then i get all dirty sometimes me and helena cut the heads off daffodils and sometimes there's earwigs inside and sometimes i go there [Music] bryony's eldest daughter freya's big project is the herb garden where she began three years ago when she was nine she wrote it all up as a school assignment and she's continued working on it ever since what you're doing i'm digging out some of the tarragon because tarragon's quite a tall herb and that's meant to be further in the middle because our design was that we have smaller things around the edges and we have them going upwards into sort of like a pyramid shape that helps getting taller and taller with a crab apple in the middle and terrain spreads terribly doesn't it but this is an awful lot of herbs just for cooking they're not all for cooking we use some of them for helping cure coals and stuff how do you use those well with sage you infuse it and use it as a throat gargle does it work it works in about 10 minutes the only remedy for freya's herb garden is regular maintenance as wild plants like tarragons self-seed and spread like weeds now i see you've got this lemon balm which in my garden is a real thug do you want to get rid of it or you have to let that take over i think we should get rid of it because there's an alcamilla here in between them and that's getting throttled look at the way the water hangs on the leaves i know i like that very beautiful and what do you grow the arkamila for it's kills diarrhea and boils well that seems to be a very good reason why you should do it what do you want to put in there now some bag mark mum if you put all three and you'll have a good show oh lovely so did these come from seed or cutting that was cuttings taken in the autumn i do cuttings do quite a few things to make sure they overwinter all right well it smells distinctly orangey orange peel used in olden times for relieving of a trapped wind you put it so nicely shall we put this molly in in freya yeah about there i think somewhere there well these melons will go really i mean this will be up here isn't it yeah fabulous plant did you know that what the monks used to do they grew lots of million and they they cut it off to about there yeah and then they set light to it why to use his torches have you tried that no you could try it i've tried that and it didn't work very well i was really disappointed and i got i got my children around said look okay here this is what the monks did look at the thing absolutely nothing happened it didn't work at all unimpressed they have so much natural oil in them that's the idea that you ignite the oil three weeks ago brownie and i began work on the randle garden which she designed herself from a series of concentric rings we marked out the circles and tried them for size then we stripped off the turf and planted the center circle with box now to complete the formal design brownie wants to plant up four additional beds in a totally different style so you've taken all the turf off then yeah and actually the top soil as well slightly different method this time i thought it was going to be easier but it wasn't i rotavated it loosened the top and then took it all off so you've you've got as a result very little topsoil yeah rough old subsoil yeah i've really reduced the fertility for these wildflowers yeah now this is going to be in complete contrast to the roundel garden so what i'm looking for is a complete difference in texture i've been potting up weeds you've got buttercup which i dig up by the barrel and throw away oh you know weeds are just misplaced plants herb robert which in our london garden just grew everywhere yeah we just set them out on the top if we run out i've got a few more up at the house while gardeners all over the country are trying to get rid of their weeds brownie wants four beds full of them this will provide a striking change to the lawn for anyone going up the drive okay i think that's good enough for saying don't you looks good let's have a look at the seed mix so that's the quantity for one square meter it's three grams and what's in it oh all sorts basically the weeds we've got here so it's meadow cranes bill fever few meadow butter cup that kind of thing you've got the sand there is that just simply to make it go further yeah so we can see where we've been really like a carrier i'll mix that in with that trying to waste a precious seed absolutely you do you do it i have i'll watch i'd keep it really low yeah within a few weeks these seeds will have germinated and by july brownie will have a remarkable new garden feature well i hope to come and see it because i shan't be back before then that's for certain can't take the pace you're such a hard taskmaster but i do want to come back and see this garden later good there'll be lots to see lots of changes [Music] after the break carol klein is back in devon talking about the sex lives of fruit trees with adrian and debbie [Music] welcome back now at this time of year everybody's cutting their grass like mad and there is a temptation just to ditch the grass cuttings because when you put them on the compost heap they turn into a horrible green slime no use to anybody which is a waste because if you add straw which is ideal about 50 50 and just fork it all in and that will turn into good lovely rich compost if you can't get straw try using cardboard i've been doing this the last year and it does work really well you just scrump it up put the grass directly on top of it and then build the heap up like that you can also use paper but when you do so you must scrumple up each individual sheet which can be a bit of a pain put the grass cuttings on top of that leave it for about a year as part of your general compost heap and all that goodness can then go back into the garden now carol klein is back in devon visiting the off-duty police officers adrian and debbie adrian and debbie taylor are exceptionally hard workers they both have to cope with demanding jobs as well as looking after baby emily but that doesn't stop them spending every spare moment in their garden last time carol was here they cleared the stream at the bottom of their garden and made a start planting up the bank above it with wild flowers since then adrian the eternal bargain hunter has added his own special touch we want to show you what we've been doing since you were last here it was a case of compromise i wanted real ducks so he didn't want any ducks we've got plastic ones instead oh look at that but look at that bank how much you've done it looks lovely doesn't it those forget-me-nots are just beautiful isn't that lovely that combination of blue and yellow so what we're going to do today we need your advice about the orchard today yeah we've got some we got some squirrels up there as well what plastic ones yeah i've got a job lot this is the orchard it is yeah yeah it's more like a mixed woodland already because we've picked trees up sort of willy-nilly yes and put one on each corner very dotty aren't they i mean i can see a meager cherry a little pear and two damn great big aces they were a bargain they were involved yeah well i mean they're beautiful trees but they're just not suitable for an orchard are they they're going to grow immense and i think really if you're going to turn this into a proper orchard you've got to do a lot of careful thinking and probably take some very drastic action absolutely i think i know just the place i'm taking adrian and debbie to rosemoor 35 acres in north devon and one of the most useful showcase gardens in the country there's a wonderful variety of planting including a collection of fruit trees which is an inspiration for anyone planning an orchard come on i really want you to have a look in here oh wow it's part of the cottage gun but it's really orchard and this is the sort of thing you could have oh yes please this gives you some ideas doesn't it and what about this under planter i know isn't it gorgeous yeah look at those fertilities aren't they lovely and they'd be absolutely perfect in your kind of conditions they'll finally see themselves everywhere oh lovely it's something i've always wanted the apples aren't flowering yet but against a south-facing wall there's a pear tree in full bloom this is a fun train pair isn't it beautiful look at all that blossom it's incredible yeah they're growing it against a wall because really pears don't like a cold wet sight right you know they need the back again something warm if they're growing in this part of the country right so perhaps not pears in your garden i mean apples are going to do tremendously well there i think but um you're not going to be able to grow one on its own they tend to be self-sterile so they need different varieties around to make sure that pollination takes place otherwise you don't get any fruit ah so they need partners really just like us yeah except rather than two you need at least three i don't know what you're thinking about that i'll talk about that definitely what about self-pollinating ones well they're all right but they never give you a very good set they never you never get as much fruit on them as you do if you've got cross-pollinated right and the other thing you've got to take into consideration is how big your trees are going to grow and if you look over there can you see these funny knobbly bits here yeah all apple and pear trees are grafted onto a rootstock and it's the rootstock which determines the eventual size of the tree we can't have anything too big the reason he's short so thank you let's box the standard when she goes picking her raffles i should say in your garden you want three different varieties on a sort of medium root stock because you've got plenty of room but you don't want anything too giant on the team now that we've seen how it's done at rosemoor we're sending adrian off to buy some apple trees while debbie and i take some drastic action on the orchard area back at home [Music] to make way for adrian's new purchases we're digging up all the existing trees taking care to lift them with really good root balls you've got it yep that's the last of it hi i'm back hello hi let me introduce you to katie a new addition to the family is that the variety of us yeah the variety of efforts yeah why'd you meet her down in the garden yeah in the car as well debbie finds a temporary home for the old trees while adrian and i unload everything he's bought i've got katie who've you got i've got discovery and i'm sunset how are you that's the one that's a bit like a cox is orange pippin isn't it yeah i've never had one but um apparently copsis don't do very well down here so a chat for the nursery said that this would be yeah similar but would do well in this climate and what rootstock they are it's a medium root stock so it shouldn't go too high uh but they should all flow at the same time so they should all pollinate one another you should get a really good crop of apples yeah so so the first thing we want is a three foot hole that's an absolute minimum and we ought to skim off this turf first of all yeah so if we just do it in slices you need to keep this place completely clear of any sort of weed until your roots really get established right i think what we need to do now is dig a whole lot of this out and mix it up with some of that proprietary planting mitts we've got bitters the time okay you tell me sorry it's like cake mixture isn't it the planting mixture is similar to the compost the trees are grown in and combining it with the soil will help the young trees to establish themselves nice big spray full in there a sprinkling of bone meal will also get them off to a good start you're the only one who's wearing gloves that's brilliant oh look at that lovely root system so bung it in the hole though there's one really important thing we've got to do and that is state your little tree a lot of people don't bother staking trees but you're on a windy site and you want it to establish well it would really be advisable and especially with such a young tree help it get yeah you could do it upright like that but i think it might be better if you you know do it to this side and then you're against the prevailing wind and it'll support it that's great that's wonderful i think i can hear your baby crying yeah you're doing such a grand job i'm going to leave you guys and i'm going to go and get emily all right right okay okay yeah i'm me see in a bit that looks great after securing the state with a tie it's just a matter of filling the hole with the planting mixture gently firming it down and finishing off with a thick layer of manure this mulch is going to do two things it's going to suppress the weeds and it's going to retain the moisture and we mustn't cover this root stock either with soil or mulch now that we've got a system going it takes no time at all to plant the other two trees wow haven't you been busy they look fantastic oh they look really good lovely you've got an orchard and debbie before i forget you know what rosemary you always said you always wanted a particular plant yeah i have searched hi hello for you today close your eyes little snake cap artillery oh is that beautiful look at that what do you think of that emily yes lovely well that's all we've got time for this week next week ann marie is getting a bit bogged down with mike and alison and carol is cutting compost with diana well i'm visiting a brand new garden so i'll see you then bye-bye

Channel: Gardening HDclump

Views: 137,794

Rating: 4.9182796 out of 5

Keywords: monty don, gardening, gardens, gardeners world 2021

Id: uaNF2NnhYno

Length: 23min 40sec (1420 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021