RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 - Episode 11

[Music] [Applause] hello and welcome to the rhs chelsea flower show 2021. now tonight we have something a little different for you no one can ignore the fact that the biggest story by far facing all of us is climate change and this is true here at chelsea as much as anywhere else it's a huge subject and at times seems quite overwhelming so we're going to devote a whole program to this pressing issue and show you some of the practical solutions we can all do at home to make a difference our team of gardening experts have been exploring the shogun to find inspiration that is relevant to all of us right best get cracking then monty as there's lots to discuss coming up tonight from the rhs chelsea flower show and have been supported by m g juliet sergeant is delving into the world of wildlife gardening looking for ideas that will help bugs bees and birds in the coming autumn season and beyond carol klein heads to the pavilion to prove that hardy resilient plants do not have to be uninspiring and journalist and author alistair campbell tells us why in recent years he's turned his back on politics and unleashed his inner eco warrior joe and i are in the cop26 stand which the rhs has done to give us inspiration instruction explanation yes i think it's sort of where we are and where we where we could be going with climate change in our garden so over here we've got something you wouldn't normally see a chelsea monty no it's pretty dramatic and and clearly it's showing we've got plastic we've got concrete we've got metal yeah stagnant water it's stuff that we're throwing in our gardens and using a bit of a rubbish dump i mean there's a few plants over there okay this this is the worst case scenario yeah that's the worst of the worst then it starts to get positive yes it does okay so over on this quarter yeah this section well it's called adaptation and it's not it's about plants that have adapted you know to suit certain climates but it's also how we can adapt to grow different plants and a lot of these plants we're familiar with anyway there's not like a whole new palette no although certainly on a wet garden like mine what i like is is the way that you can raise up you know we talk about raised beds but actually you can make it look really good raise the plants up so the roots don't sit in the water yes exactly it's about drainage and um some of them are a little bit tender as well and i guess if things do heat up we'll be able to well grow more tender but i think also what this is going to show that gardeners have to react we're on the front line we have to adapt to what's actually happening rather than what is prescribed elsewhere now the third area is i think called mitigation mitigation yes this is how we can deal with our plot what's on our plot we can we can garden more organically and the most important thing is knowing your soil as well that's where you start i mean you've got chalk there and heavy clay here a lot of the plants that will thrive in chalk are not going to grow well in here so don't try no but also whatever type of soil you've got composting you know you're the compost legend don't you monster that's not quite big enough for you but it is straight it's the beginning and it's the right idea and i like the way we've got you know wildfowl meadows we've got water we've got long grass we've got shrubs trees yeah we've got water so if you're involved in the stagnant water we've got a pool here water's moving through we're dealing with the water that lands on our planet so the point about this these are all active measures that any gardener can take to improve the situation bring in wildlife yeah absolutely and we've also got cover we've got trees which is important very important i mean the thing is okay that that's fine there's a lot of do-goodery here i know a lot of people thought well fine but in the end all i just want is a nice guy but the thing is you don't have people it's not like you have to start now it's just a case of being able to to move forward with our gardens and we might have to change things we might have to again this one's called balance it's got it's got lots of uh ornamentals it's got lots of edibles in we've got short clip grass longer clip grass we've got plants and plus i mean there's a big citrus in it huge citrus in a pot as well but it's just that we might have to slowly adapt what we do yeah i mean my big thing is that everybody can do something and what's interesting about this is that includes the people who don't have gardens because six million people don't have guns vast majority do but even if you don't have a garden these are the biggest window boxes i've ever seen yeah yes but they illustrate again that you know you can grow in containers you can go on windowsills window boxes you know community gardens coming together and everyone can get together and grow but the thing well something but it's really important what you grow these are all pollinating plants grow something to attract pollinators and what i really like about this is is climate change is not something happening out there it's happening at home to me to you to all of us and it is a bit daunting and it can seem complicated but it's something that we will be exploring uh throughout the show tonight well carol's been to the pavilion to take a look at the plants that will thrive in these tough conditions while still adding plenty to your borders [Music] climate scientists tell us that our summers are going to get hotter and drier and of course lots of us already have to cope with exactly those conditions all plants everywhere have evolved along with their circumstances so some plants can cope with real deep shade some with very moist conditions and a whole range of plants with extremely dry conditions and they have all sorts of devices for actually making sure that they can not only survive but they can thrive too here on this gorgeous garden there's a prostrate rosemary that just tumbles over the top of these boxes it's got fine needle-like leaves and it doesn't lose any moisture at all even on a hot sunny day like this not all of us have big gardens some of us don't have gardens at all and we've got to garden perhaps in containers in window boxes even in hanging baskets well a lot of these plants are actually made for those sort of growing conditions so plants like this echeveria frosty has two devices to withstand really dry conditions it has succulent leaves which act as reservoirs but also its leaf surface is covered in tiny little hairs which actually repel the sun and protect the cuticle of the leaf there are a few plants that have bulbs or tubers that can stand it hot and dry in fact they revel in it this is one of them with dainty little roto hypoxis when things turn cold and perhaps wet the whole plant will die back into its tubers and wait for the next time it can spring up again just look at these sempervivums growing in the colander you can grow them in an inch or two of soil or even between the tiles on your roof they'll survive semperviva means always living they're impossible to kill and it would be pretty difficult to get rid of this too this is iringium planum it's a european sea holly goes high up in the mountains in stony dry soil and it puts a great big tap root down into the ground and gathers up any available moisture but this has to be my favorite of all this is haberanthus mansesia it's called the rain lily over the summer it's hiding under the soil it's a little bold but when it rains in the autumn up it comes and displays these beautiful flowers isn't nature wonderful it's not just dry conditions we need to think about chances are we're gonna get extremely wet too already this year some of us have experienced localized and heavy flooding so how can we get our gardens to be wet weather ready rachel's been to investigate [Music] there's no question that water in a garden looks beautiful and sounds wonderful but it's equally important particularly when we're concerned about lack of rainfall and at the other extreme flooding we need to think carefully about how to manage it in our gardens we all have areas of hard landscaping in our gardens whether it's the driveway or the patio in the back garden unfortunately many of them are absolutely non-porous and we slap down concrete or paving stones without thinking about the water running off and just simply being lost and so there are alternatives obviously grass is a lovely surface underfoot but not great to part the car on gravels and things like bark but if you need something a bit more sturdy this is a really good idea you've got gravel here but it's bound together with resin and yet it remains porous you can see here the water just runs through this surface which is rock hard comes down through the stones and it's collected in a reservoir which is all hidden beneath the ground and then that can run underneath any planting areas nearby and what happens is there's a wick under here and that draws the water up into the growing medium and that means strong healthy plants i think it works extremely well whether it's flooding you're trying to avoid or irrigation saving every bit of that precious rainwater [Music] i have an ordinary tiled roof when you can have a green roof now sedums are very popular on roofs this one's also got a jugas got some provider i can see a bit of ivy up there and they not only look good but they're doing a great job because they are slowing the process by which any rain water meets the ground and so these plants obviously all benefit from the water themselves and what i also love is that any overflow comes then onto this drain pipe i love that it's transparent so you can see if there are any leaves collecting there any blockages developing it goes down here into the water but and the water inside there that gets stored can be used to irrigate all the planting and as a bonus because there are those solar panels up there the power from them pumps the water back up and creates this lovely water feature here on the inside of the walls i think it looks good it's doing a great job and most importantly not a drop of water gets wasted now when it comes to gardening the truth is there are plenty of simple choices out there that can make a big difference even on a small scale but there is one thing we can all do whatever our gardens are like that has the potential to change things on a much bigger scale and that is planting trees earlier in the summer we caught up with david dodd the designer of the queen's green canopy garden to discover why his design is an environmental call to arms my name's david dodd i've built over 20 rhs show gardens and this is the first one i've designed the name of the garden is the queen's green canopy the loss of any woodland or forestation is tragic what we can all do is get out there and start planting more trees on any scale this is part of the ethos behind the queens green canopy heartwood forest is a great example and represents very much what the garden's going to be about in the sense that we've got the ancient woodland and that's also woven into the landscape new forestation and new woodland areas i'm meeting toby bancroft from the woodland trust ancient woodlands are a combination of centuries of the relationship between the soil the climate the species that live here the trees that grow here they just can't be replaced this is one of the richest habitats in the uk and we need to be thinking about the land in between those ancient woodlands connecting them up allows different species to move through it that's so important for their future survival yeah so david we've come from the ancient woodland i've brought you into this newly planted area the community have really been engaged with this project and have helped us plant it the queen's green canopy is an initiative to celebrate the queen's platinum jubilee and what better way to mark that than to plant a tree either in your garden or in a window box or planting a big wood like heartwood yeah it'd be fantastic it'd be lovely to have this space as a back garden though wouldn't it absolutely i've always thought of trees as a piece of living art or sculpture and that's how they should be treated within any design the garden is a tapestry of habitat from the poor biodiverse lowly and perennial rye grass which is agricultural ground and then that goes into wild flower and then the wildflower goes into the canopy of the trees under which there's going to be ornamental woodland planting and the proportions of each area is where we want to be heading towards within the british landscape when i was asked to design the triangle it was slightly daunting because it's a no-dig site and we have trees they're all averaging about six meters tall and we would want to dig down slightly but we're not allowed to so it's going to be very sort of touch and go heartwood forest was an amazing place to visit but here we are at majestic trees to select the trees for the chelsea flower show oh wow these are looking wonderful yeah these these are the silver birch we've chosen and these are a multi-stem tree it's the only multi-stem tree we're using in the garden and they're just going to add more body and and a sort of slight change in form these are the acer campestry field maples unfortunately the weather hasn't been kind so they're not going to be show garden ready for this september [Music] these are the alternative field maples which we've found it's acer pestry elegant they're fantastic trees much fuller crown to them and they're going to add more drama to the garden so if you're inspired to go and plant a tree there should be a species suitable for any condition what better way to celebrate the queen's green canopy than planting a small tree like this mayless royal beauty stunning foliage going from green turning red in the summer it's the perfect tree for any small garden i'm really happy with the trees we've selected for the chelsea flower show and i'm even happier to know that after the show they're going to be transported up to rhs bridgewater in manchester where they're going to be planted as part of their development for a new woodland area [Music] the queen's canopy exhibit garden by the rhs really focuses on how important trees are not just to climate change but also to gardeners and how we can use them and the project is that we all plant a tree and they will connect and they don't just connect physically but also the way that they introduce wildlife and connect us to the incredible power of trees in terms of climate change and wildlife and as gardeners growing a tree might seem a bit daunting but actually it's fascinating you plant this small tree and from the minute you plant it there is a magic in the way it grows i mean planting an oak tree for example might seem an extraordinary thing to do but it's amazing i planted one at longmeadow and now it's about 20 foot tall and i almost go and visit as an old friend and under planting you have here you have tholitrums you have japanese anemones you've got hostas woodland planting is a really rich diverse thing so if you put one tree in your garden you can create a border around it birch grows really well and quickly oak beach don't plant ash because there are real problems with disease with that but any of our native trees will settle and establish and your gun will become part of this big idea of a woodland that stretches out and just connects right across the country now this exhibit actually is showing much more than just trees and woodland because it also focuses on the way that our grass is managed and there are these sculptural round bales which represent hay and hay is brilliant for encouraging insects for ground breeding birds and with farming now we make silage and that that's cut so again it goes back to the gardener long grass grow grass like hay let it grow throughout spring you can put bulbs into it you can put wild flowers cut it in june or july and then clear it away and that is a wonderful way of introducing wildlife into the garden you can even grow long grass around trees you can underplant so what i really like about this display it's tackling very big subjects woodland hay you know the whole way that we're running our ecosystem but bringing it back to the garden we can do this doesn't matter how small your garden is you can find a tree that will grow really well now trees aren't just a vital element in the battle against climate change they can sustain us and we can sustain them too and the important thing is how we make our planting choices and earlier today nick bailey met up with arit on her garden of hope to understand the principles behind creating a food forest a rit i love the atmosphere the vibe that you've got going on in the garden here it's truly beautiful but there's so many more levels and layers to what you're doing right yeah there is actually nick i wanted the garden to be based on an edible forest because it would have been too easy just to have given a highly floriferous garden and the thing with an edible forest it's about taking the different layers um of the garden and taking a look at those plants you use so there's the tree canopy that can provide shade for certain plants you then come down into the sort of like small tree and cat and shrub layer things like the smaller malas and the apples that are here as well and all the way down to ground cover and vine so it's it's using all the different layers within the garden and making sure you're providing benefit for the garden so i mean in essence it's it's about permaculture i suppose isn't it it's about that that balance and the ecology and i mean hopefully that's the way all gardens are are heading and of course a large component of that is supporting wildlife and insects and i notice over there you've got achillea growing which of course is brilliant for bringing in parasitoid wasps they then take out the aphids so it's about that balance right definitely i think we know our gardeners need to have that way of being able to look after themselves and in this garden i wanted the garden to be able to to do exactly that by bringing in all of the beneficial and pollinators and insects but also as well to feed us you know so there's there's food feed the soul and feed um elements with us in here as well so i mean things like there's an early agonist embolator and that's a nitrogen fixer and that's one of many different plants that fixes nitrogen in the soil and that then feeds the soil itself so when you've got fruit trees or or other berries in the garden it's going to feed the soil and you know even things like humphrey does that so and that's what i'm trying to kind of encourage people to do all about that balance and that mix of plants and animals and i noticed we've even got fungi growing down here yeah i just thought that would be really fun because you know these these ones are in small bags that you could grow with a you know with your children even um and again you know once these bags are finished you can sprinkle the substrate in the soil and then you'll get fun fungus mushrooms coming up so these are oyster and shiitake what's better than that on a piece of toast and i guess looking around there's things that the people at first glance would probably think is just an ornamental plant yep but actually i mean for example your dahlias back there are more than ornamental right oh yeah definitely i mean they come from mexico and they actually eat the tubers i don't think they're apparently the most tastiest of foods but that they do eat the tuber and actually the um flowers or or so the petals or most of the flowers you can actually sprinkle in a salad as well you know so it's just i think it's just getting people to think beyond um just beyond the flowers dotting in potatoes in here i've got strawberries mint rosemary it's actually quite a gourmet dish that you could get from this garden so you get to enjoy the you know the beauty of the the space that sort of dynamic of the permaculture and all those layers hanging together and you can walk out into your own back garden and harvest food yeah that's exactly what you want me thank you thank you very much now there are plenty of choices we make when it comes to planting including of course those that benefit our wildlife and i'm here at the landform balcony with nicola hale who's designed it nicola is a great balcony it's got it's got everything got seating a water feature loads of planting but the key message here is it's for pollinators isn't it yes it is yeah so we've tried to include lots of plants lots of perennials for pollinators um and a shrub for pollinators as well oh let's let's talk about that shrub yeah what the most talked about shrub in the in chelsea this year well a few gardens have got it yeah it's been um a lot of people have asked a lot of questions about it to the point of which we've actually put a little tag on it just so that people can take a picture so they can take it home you don't have to keep telling everyone exactly it's a heptakodium heptycodium mykanoides yeah it's absolutely gorgeous um and it's got bees on it as well yeah it's been attracting them all week i think it's gonna flower all week so it's perfect perfectly timed to be honest it looks like a lovely height multi-stem plant an interesting bark too yeah i've got my eye on that but the the planting in general is really bringing in the bees yeah it is from the early morning as it warms up particularly the helianthus the coreopsis um and the salvias they're just they're loving it and particularly actually the agastache here yeah yeah now these balconies are at ground level obviously hence i can talk to you like this but if they were up in the sky would these pollinators still find them some of them would they only fly so high i think but it's definitely worth trying to include something because you get all sorts of insects the hoverflies not just the bees yeah to seek out their pollen and seek out their nectar i suppose so they'll go to great lengths i think it's quite sweet there's something can only fly so hard and what about colors does the bits that some bees go for certain colours yes yes so we did a little bit of research into it and we found that primarily the purples and the yellows were the the best attractors for the pollinators solitary bees bumble bees honey bees they tend to go for these sorts of color plants more than others yeah well i go for these colored plants as well they work really nicely yeah i think it's a great little balcony it's got everything i can see you've got secretaries imagining gardening out here in such a tiny space it's an inspiration oh careful there's a bee that's the whole idea lovely to meet you nicholas thank you congratulations thank you now with autumn in the air it's a timely reminder to choose plants that benefit wildlife over the coming cold months ahead so we sent juliet sergeant to find some of the best ideas to help our animal friends [Music] with autumn and winter approaching things can often get a bit harder for the wildlife in our gardens they often need to fatten themselves up and so with a little bit of thought we can make things easier for them this garden is a little bit untidy this soft shagginess is so lovely for us to enjoy but it's really good for the wildlife as well [Music] just look at this corner of the garden tucked away it's almost as if it's been forgotten but that's exactly what the wildlife needs somewhere where they can forage for nesting materials a native hedge like this is just perfect for the little animals to be able to run through as a safe wildlife corridor the birds can collect the seed heads and also during the winter months they'll eat lovely fresh berries like these on this native hawthorne tree it's absolutely perfect spot for them of course as a garden designer i love a design detail and these charred logs are very chelsea but there is a serious point to them as well if you have log piles like this in your garden then the wood lice the beetles and creepy crawlies can inhabit all the nooks and crannies and there is a rumor around the show that there is a lizard somewhere in these log piles but i haven't seen him yet we can't all have a spectacular water feature like this but if you can find space for a small pool or even a bird bath then that'll provide the essential water that birds and insects and mammals need over the winter months but the problem is that in the winter the surface of the water can freeze over so if you just get hold of a tennis ball and pop it in the water it'll bob about and that'll stop the water freezing over now traditionally gardeners have always thought that the best thing to do is tidy up the garden at the end of the summer but now we know that the wildlife rely on us to be a little bit messier in our gardens in fact a messy gardener is a kinder gardener well it might seem like we've covered quite a lot of ground already but i can assure you there's still plenty to come here at the rhs chelsea flower show and have been supported by m g adam frost is here with his third take three to show us how we can all incorporate sustainable ideas when planning or updating our garden designs and we explore the world of floristry at the show to discover why looking closer to home when choosing the flowers we buy could have far reaching benefits for the whole world we spent a lot of time talking about gardens this evening but don't worry even if you've got no outside space at all you've probably got plants indoors and now it's their turn earlier in the summer we met up with chelsea first timers jacob james and otto mercer from grow tropicals whose sustainable ethos could make us all think twice before we pick up our next pot plant we've all realized over the last year and a half that we've spent a lot of time in our houses and i think having plans and something to kind of nurture and care for is really good for your mental health [Music] my name is jacob james and this is my first ever display at chelsea flower show i've been collecting tropical house plants seriously for probably about two and a half years i started to see them as kind of an experiment so i wonder if i could grow this plant or this plant or i wonder what happened if i increase the humidity with these plants and then suddenly it became a big wormhole where the whole flat was full of plants what kind of marks someone as a collector is probably someone who who wants to go beyond just picking up a plant off off the shelf in a store and buying it because it looks nice for myself it was you know researching that the habitats of where these plants live customizing maybe the soil that they're in or the light requirements and then also just trying to find kind of rarer more unusual species maybe some that you know nobody else has in the uk [Music] the highlight of my collection at home is this monstera the reason i i love it so much is not just the the sheer size and kind of the impact that it has in a room but also the the story behind the plant i actually got this from a guy who whose wife had sadly passed away and the the plant was actually a gift to her from her father when she was 18. um so it was almost 50 years of age at the point where i got it i think just highlights that the plants can can have a history and can be part of your life i started to import plants for kind of my own collection to get plants that you just couldn't find in the uk and just to kind of cover the costs i added a few more to the order so i could sell to kind of other collectors and the first one i did kind of sold out the second one i did sold out so i just kept doing it and then suddenly it got to the point where i was like okay i need to take this seriously it's now like a full-time job i've got like a thousand plants to look after so i was really looking for a partner and that's when i i met otto and and we both had the same interest in in rare plants and we kind of came together and decided to to really grow the business [Music] our reputation is built on our sustainability it became very apparent during covid that a lot of plants were being stripped from the wild for profit and we wanted to reduce our impact within the uk as much as possible so we started growing a large percentage of our plants from seed or from cuttings that we we take from our mother plants and our aim is to hit 70 percent by the end of 2021 of all our plants coming from our own propagations when we decided to apply for chelsea it wasn't so much of a kind of serious idea we thought that you know there's no chance that in our first year that we'd be able to exhibit and they said they loved our idea it was it was a surprise let's put it that way so this display is a 1.2 meter cube we'll have glass sides and a top and it's essentially a recreation of a slice of the amazon rainforest so this is at least four times the volume of the biggest terrarium that most people will have in the home we have a waraquianum which some people like to grow as a houseplant but we're showing how it would naturally grow in its native environment we've got a water feature in here and and what i was essentially trying to replicate was uh sort of a stream running through a rainforest and you've got maybe a huge ramp mound of rock and a few epiphytes growing off of it and we'll have mosses and aquatic plants growing in the water it's pretty heavy with all the rock work the glass it's around about one tonne we're really excited to show people exactly what you can do in in the confines of a small home i'm really excited i think it's it's suddenly pulling the whole design together yeah and i'm just excited to hear other people's opinions as well at chelsea and here we are on jacob and otto's stand and wow i mean it's been a bit of a whirlwind for you i mean you created the business in lockdown and a few months later you're at chelsea exactly yeah i mean jacob started this essentially as a bedroom business back in april 2020 but it really kicked off when i joined and we built a greenhouse inside a unit and uh joined our collections together and that's when we really started it looks stunning i love the way you set it up like a sort of piece in an art gallery it's so well lit yeah i mean well that was the intention it was just really to create a naturalistic and you know view of what you would get in the rainforest but really lights it in a dramatic way that really draws the drawings out there you walk all the way around it which is great yeah has a response been positive i guess it has yeah the response has been amazing i think people are used to seeing small terrariums but this is like maybe the first time they've seen something on this scale yeah just really showing what's possible within a terrarium and you've got some pretty rare plants in here haven't you yeah so i think probably all but two of them it's probably the first time that they've even been at chelsea and only a handful of people even in europe grow them plants like antherium clydomoides monstera obliqua incredibly sought after and really hard to source okay because i mean yeah poaching in the wild most of us you know go and buy a houseplant we don't really know where it comes from but you guys do know where it comes from and how important it is to to source them properly exactly well i mean with especially with covid people buying house plants the demand has gone way up so even plants that are quite common in cultivation have started to become poached in the wild so we make sure we have a full trail of where we're getting plants from from when we're when we're importing but we uh we propagate 70 of our plants in our in our nursery in the uk so we can be certain that that's sort of helping at least it's really important i mean it's a beautiful it's great i just hope the business takes off and you guys do really well you've got a silver medal congratulations and i'll see you again in spring right here thank you thanks cheers [Applause] [Music] this exhibit by sparsholt college is dedicated to the great naturalist gilbert white in fact he was born 301 years ago and he lived not far from where i was brought up in the village of soulborn and his book the natural history of soulbourne has still had huge impact and that influences people today because the point about gilbert white was that he observed the natural world in great detail but from his garden the lesson he gave all of us was that you don't need to travel to understand huge amounts about the world about you and as gardeners if we use gilbert white's example to meticulously observe what's going on around us then not only can we benefit from it but actually we can learn a lot that we can share with other people too [Music] gilbert white brilliantly observed what was going on in his garden but what this section of the cop 26 garden which is called mitigation shows us is not only must we observe but we can act we can do things to mitigate the effects of climate change and actually make things better now there's a whole massive things here and it's worth going through them first of all know your soil is it chalk is it heavy clay it will influence what you grow and if you grow things that want to be there they're going to be healthy and really look at your soil structure which is so important so make lots of compost compost will improve the structure of the soil and the life of the soil and everything gets better as a result now what we have at the back here is a swale a swell is a lovely word but really essentially means a ditch so water which is increasingly becoming a problem with these huge downpours we're having instead of just being taken away to somewhere else it's actually slowed down and can be absorbed if you plant in it and there are lots of plants that really love that rich intense environment of wetness or even a bog and then it will fade away and they'll be fine make a pond plant it up on the outside so you have lots of diversity and if you've got paving leave gaps so the water can get out and plant them up they look lovely and finally lots and lots of pollinating plants nice open shapes daisy shapes the rebeccas the echinaceas that can easily be accessible for pollinating insects and if you put all this together you don't just have a lovely god you are taking an active role in dealing with this crisis that we have to confront and if we all do a little then we can all achieve a lot hmm he knows his stuff that monty doesn't he he's got all the ideas now to our nightly look at some of the take-home design ideas chelsea has to offer in his third take three adam's looking for ways to reduce reuse and recycle when creating your dream garden right tonight we're going to do something a little bit different instead of being on one garden we're going to go on three gardens and hopefully give you a little bit that maybe you could do in your own garden at home and this is a prime example you know these are literally commercial liquid storage containers but i've never seen them used in a creative way like this and you know design wise it would have been really obvious just to put three in exactly the same size but by reducing this one it starts to actually bounce them about and it makes the whole thing feel a little bit more dynamic they would be really easy to do just drill the bottom so you get good drainage a little bit of crock gravel on top of that soil compost mix so actually with three containers this garden now feels like a woodland and it's in a really small space but the thing that i really love is right down there in front of you it's a water feature you put something like that in your back garden and the quantity of wildlife that arrives wow right on to the next one that was my knee a it's an age thing isn't it these they're engaging they're exquisite i started life as a fallen tree trunk and somebody has carved that and made it into a wonderful container it's then been burned which gives you that lovely sort of dark finish and then sandblasted you can see over there and it starts to bring out the texture set the scene all right you've got an area at home it's shady it's dry it's underneath trees but if you build away with all these little sort of logs and just create tiny little mini raised beds all of a sudden you can bring another 250 300 ml of soil and you can plant it and then you can repeat it through the space so you're gaining more soil depth to plant into number three really simple it's this screen ultimately that's galvanized metal shooting you see it on top of agricultural buildings by the seaside fisherman's hut it's been repurposed brought back to life and sprayed a completely different color but i like the fact as well it doesn't sit in isolation i think that's again when you're designing you're creating especially we've reclaimed things not to use them just in one place maybe to repeat them here you know it picks up in the containers and the pools and that gives the whole thing a cohesion and guess what that's recycled as well made out of old bottles and it's comfortable good night [Music] my guest tonight is a former journalist he's famous as a political strategist author of 17 books a respected broadcaster and in more recent years he's become a champion and activist for mental health and he's also a keen advocate of the healing powers of trees so alistair that's quite a handful let's start with the trees why trees um i've always been aware of how much i love trees but it's only in the last two or three years that it's become like almost an obsession um and i think it's because the whole climate debate people are becoming more aware of their their role in keeping the world going but i also think that certainly older i've got the more benefit i feel when talking about mental health i feel mentally and psychologically just from being aware of them looking at them liking them being with them and appreciating what they do for us is it because they're sort of they're big and they're visible no because i there are some wonderfully small trees that i love right if i i do i do a tree of the day on social media every day and i've just spotted the one i'm picking today it's quite small and i spotted it just through there it's a it's a it's a you and oh the the the cone yeah so that's not that big no but well the price tag is big yeah 10 grand for a tree um so no listen when they're massive yeah and when you're like walking in the middle of the black forest and you're just surrounded by these there's just enormity of it then yeah that that is part of the appeal and there's a beauty and a majesty to them that i think is incredibly powerful but also whenever i'm now on a bit of a dip and i know you know about dips as well i do feel that if i'm if i need to be on my own i'm actually not on my own because i go out and about and finally i'm with trees do you plant trees no i'm a very i'm a very impractical person so i uh i should but well when you say i don't plan trees i i can i order the planting of trees but i'm i'm very impractical with the earth okay yeah so it's it's a visceral emotional response totally yeah and that's why i love it and that's also why when i post my pictures i get regularly people complaining why don't you tell us what sort of tree is and i say well often because i don't know and i don't want to be you're an expert i don't want to be an expert i want to keep the ability to have that wow as opposed to oh yeah that's a bloody bloody blah so do you find walking around chelsea slightly intimidating i mean i know people do i don't mean that in any way a personal thing but because there's so many names and so much expertise that it takes away that that now i find what i find difficult at chelsea is the ability to to bathe in it in the way that you can if there's because i mean look we're surrounded by people um so no i what i'm amazed at chelsea is just the sheer logistical prowess of the whole thing to be absolutely honest do you think that if we systematically plant trees designed to help mental health that where you know where there aren't trees where so everybody has access that they would tap into that same thing that you are well i think we should i certainly think that things like you know how to keep a garden looking now it's the importance of trees i think they should be taught in schools i think we should all be taught that and yeah i do i think that if you it's like a home without books and you know a world without trees i mean those two things for me are what kind of keep this bit going reasonably well most of the time some of the time i've fall off the edge but yeah i think i've certainly i grew up my dad was a vet and so i i spent a lot of time going around looking at nice scenery in yorkshire where i was growing up i've always had it but it's only lately that i've i've realized just time porn is thanks very much for talking to us thank you now if you want to see world-class floristry come to chelsea as well as creating arresting displays many of the exhibitors incorporate new and sustainable practices into their designs like lois golding she's determined to fly the flag for british cut flowers on her chelsea debut [Music] hi i'm lois i'm the florist behind little garden flowers based in warwickshire we have a real mixture of clients we sell flowers in local shops but we have other people that want really ambitious wedding displays and much more luxurious designs so we try and cater to everyone and yeah do a bit of everything we grow on quite a small scale we have tulips and dahlias other bulbs and then some annual cutting beds as well we just try and fit in as much color and interest as we can so we have a nice variety of flowers i've always visited lots of rhs shows chelsea being obviously one of the most prestigious so to actually be able to say i'm exhibiting is quite surreal because this is very new territory for us never really done anything like this before and yeah there's been some pretty prestigious names in the forestry world that have previously done things like this so yeah it's really quite an honor to be one of those i think we're one of seven others it's quite exciting the design is called keepers of the land here's a little miniature we have uh obviously the three different sections so playing with representation in each of three very different spaces um so at the back in this section here it's supposed to represent a woodland in the middle we have a wild meadow and then the front section is a representation of like a cultivated space so either a garden or a flower farm it's a huge space three by three meters square is a lot of space to fill everything's viewed through these sort of circular cut outs with some mirrors sort of bouncing the light around at the back which is supposed to create a bit of a sort of infinite view especially when you're sort of stood here looking right to the back [Music] the woodland the wild meadow and the garden are all represented in my design aimed to be put on a platform which they can share together and remind us how they all work on the same cycle the concept behind the design is a opportunity to look at three different outdoor spaces and analyse and see what roles we can play in their conservation small things that we can do to make a difference can be as simple as letting your lawn grow long making sure that you don't tarmac your front garden or just planting some bee friendly wildflower mix i've always been an environmentalist since probably about the age of 13. so when i set up my business in 2017 i decided that it was really important that those environmental choices were at the heart of what it is that i do 90 of flowers bought in the uk come from holland and many are grown even further afield from places such as ecuador kenya and israel the carbon footprint of one flower stem can be as high as three kilograms of co2 that's the equivalent of nearly 15 plastic carrier bags if we buy british grown blooms they are not only sustainable but they are often better quality stronger smelling and grown by small independent business owners like me the majority of the time i'm using british grain flowers i always use frame free methods floral foam is the floristry equivalent of asbestos it contains a complex combination of microplastics which do not biodegrade once soaked it's flushed into our water system which poisons marine life as an alternative i just keep it old school moss compostable bags and twigs works just as well being at chelsea is an honor it's really special it's exciting and a great place to show what we can create it's a great opportunity not only for people who are visiting but also for people at home learning about these issues of things that we need to start to change within the industry so being able to have a platform to highlight the concept and talk about story as well as you know really dive into detail about the specific things we can all do to make things better is is really really great the fact that we get to do that as well as exhibit at chelsea flower show it's yeah pretty cool [Music] lois it's so nice to meet you and to see your passion for british flowers here at chelsea thank you so much it's a pleasure to be here keepers of the land did start as a cardboard box and now here it is are you happy with how it's translated i'm thrilled it's so bizarre after so long looking at that little box and now we've actually got it in life size it's um yeah but i mean it really couldn't have translated better now what have you managed to cram into this wonderful bouquet so we've got um a real mixture of proper september flowers all of these cut flowers have come from my closest local farm uh which is in oxfordshire we've got the achillea which is really lovely and bright vibrant we've got dahlias in every single color and variety and then the biggest crowd pleaser is probably the mexican sunflower i've had so many people who have commented on it yeah he's been a real star of the show did you plan this for this time of year was you going to be here earlier in may yes so it has had to change a little bit from the original plans um it was planned for may so we kind of had to freestyle a little bit we decided to embrace the autumnal bold colors but it looks great and i think actually the switch really really works now i know that you're really passionate about sustainability yeah people don't realize do they just how much flowers can get flown around the world it wasn't really until i got into floristry that i realised just what this crazy beast is the global flower industry you know flowers are flown from abroad all the time and then they're shipped around the world 90 of the flowers you buy in the uk are imported it's really about just spreading a bit of awareness and making people um aware of what we can get you know we don't need to be buying roses from abroad all the time when we have this much choice here in the uk yeah i mean it looks wonderful and i think the thing is is that the great thing about chelsea is that not only can you tell a message you can get a medal and you've got a silver for your first time i mean that's brilliant i mean how do you feel about that it's incredible i mean the whole experience has been really quite surreal and you know so much thought has gone into really projecting the message behind the piece and using this as a platform to talk about important topics and i almost forgot that we were going to be judged so it's um it's yeah to then actually get a silver medal is um yeah pretty incredible for the first time well good for you and are you going to be back that's a big question we'll see i might be able to make it happen in may if we're lucky never say never that's what i say well good to see you thank you we've talked a lot about sustainability and it's a big complicated subject and it's never that straightforward but little things like these cut flowers if you have cut flowers that are locally sourced and a seasonal it's not just doing good it is good it's beautiful it's lovely i totally agree i mean valentine's day rose have flown all the way around the world it's crazy daffodils for mrs swift and a box of chocolates of course don't forget those now you've still got time to vote for your winner and the bbc rhs people's choice award if you'd like to vote for your favorite garden or still haven't quite made up your mind here's a little reminder the bodmin jail 60 degrees east a garden between continents designers ekaterina zazukina and kylie kershaw the trail finder's 50th anniversary garden by designer jonathan snow [Music] organic garden by designer tom massey supported by sarah meade [Music] the florence nightingale gun by designer robert myers [Music] the m g garden by designer charlotte harris and hugo bug [Music] to vote for your favorite just head to the website bbc dot co dot uk forward slash chelsea and you'll find details on all six gardens plus the terms and privacy notice the vote closes at ten o'clock tonight and please don't try and vote if you're watching on demand now we have just enough time for a few of your questions here we go monty quick fire stuart baines asks best bulbs for a hot dry border well at this time of year um i really like nereins and amarines yeah beautiful in the summer i love foxtel lilies they love to be baked in a hot dryer and spring spring both most spring rolls like a hot baked border the only thing is is not uh snow drops aconites or fritters they need actually quite a lot of damp yeah and shade too okay claire elise asked can i plant a tree fern in a pot in a north-facing planter in central london london or does it need to be in the ground and with sun well certainly not sun tree ferns like shade and of course it can be in a pot yeah yeah in fact it's fine in the pot because it doesn't put it out feeding roots so you water into the crown and that's where it takes this moisture in absolutely yeah okay maddie from bath asks we love the artisan gardens when they are beautiful recreations if you were to design an artisan garden what scene would you recreate go on you start fisherman's hut gotta be you know i've got it's a bit derrick jarman with the planting and then my fishing rods would be up there and the waders hanging in the corner can you see it yes i can right well i would i'd go on to dry land i would have a hurdle maker in hazel coppice fire little charcoal fire the dog lying there my sandwiches and a thermos in the bag bill hook yeah yeah yeah that's the thing about judging you can overdo it you're not heading for a goal then obviously well don't forget you can send us your questions via twitter at gw and shows using the hashtag ask monty and joe or via our facebook page and that's it for this evening don't forget to join nikki and angelica on bbc one tomorrow afternoon at 3 45 and you can join sophie and i on bbc one at 7 30 when we announce your winner of the bbc rhs people's choice award 2021 and then we will both be back here at the slightly later time of 8 30 when we're going to be joined by the singer charlene spiteri as she gives us an exclusive look around her amazing gun so good night good night [Music] you

Channel: Cuppa Tea

Views: 7,672

Rating: 4.8775511 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Mygr8HbED7I

Length: 59min 15sec (3555 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021