Original subtitles

BIRDS CHIRP

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World

and to the orchard too, which is entering a new phase.

And this is new for me, as well as the time of year,

because this is the first year we've grown tulips in here.

Now, it's taught me two things.

The first is that tulips in long grass look great.

The second thing is that you need strong colours

to match the intensity of the green of the foliage and the grass.

Subtle tulips, like some of the paler yellow ones,

actually rather get lost. You need vibrant colours.

And so, I'm going to add most of the tulips from pots

into the orchard and so those colours can battle it out.

On today's programme,

we visit Sue Kent, who as well as making big changes to her allotment,

has been transforming her garden.

I'm really pleased with these tubs.

They've really completely changed the way

I've been gardening vegetables.

And as part of our investigation into the use of peat,

Arit visits a peat bog and discovers what a beautiful

and precious environment that it is.

Plant communities that we have on a bog are just supremely adapted

to the quite harsh conditions that we've got,

so we've got some really interesting plants that grow here.

And I shall be demystifying what, how and when to feed your plants.

My citrus plants have spent the winter in the new greenhouse.

However, they've had to be there a lot longer than normal

because April has been so cold.

We've had night after night of frost

and even now, the nights can get cold,

so I need to have some fleece to hand to cover them

if a frost is forecast.

But when you bring your citrus outside,

there are certain things that you need to look for.

The first thing to notice is it's quite common for oranges and lemons

to defoliate over winter,

and that's because they've got too dry and too warm.

And if you keep a citrus plant of any kind

in a centrally-heated house over winter,

almost certainly, it's going to drop its leaves.

The good news is that they grow back very quickly,

so don't worry.

The second thing is inevitably, you get certain yellowing

of the foliage, mainly down to a feed deficiency.

Now, that can be resolved when we repot them.

And the time to repot oranges and lemons is not now,

but the beginning of June, when they're growing strongly.

Now, the way that oranges and lemons work

is they produce their fruit on last year's growth.

So you can see that this is covered in flower

and you can see that there is a lemon forming

right at the tip there.

But the older lemons, these ones here, which are ripe,

you should pick them. By leaving fruit on the trees,

you're taking energy away from new fruit.

By and large, if you can pick them, then they're ripe.

And you need to think about pruning them.

So for example, here, I've got some damaged growth,

so I'm going to cut that back.

I've got crossing growth in here, so I'm going to take that out.

And these ones growing inward can all come out.

What I'm doing is thinning it out

so light and air can get in to ripen the fruit.

Now, finally, at this stage, I like to give them a top dressing -

a mulch of good garden compost,

and that will just set it up for the new growing season.

Keep it away from the trunk.

As well as giving them this spring dressing

of good compost, I will also feed them with liquid seaweed

once a week for the rest of the summer.

Now, a few weeks ago, we visited Sue Kent on her allotment,

where she has decided to make some changes.

And since we last saw her, she's been very busy indeed.

Over the past few months, I've been busy getting the no-dig beds

on my allotment ready for the spring,

and I have put in a lot of work to finish the beds.

I've moved a bath in to catch rainwater,

moved my shed to maximise space,

and put posts and wires in, ready for training fruit.

And that's Princess Alice, my new scarecrow,

who's been designed and made, with me, by my granddaughter.

Now, while the allotment is no dig, it's definitely not no weeds,

so there are two ways that I'm tackling them.

I've got this marvellous tool that I found

and I put the prongs straight into the centre of the weed

and I can hear the roots snapping,

and out the weed comes,

and then I pop it in my bucket.

Now, dandelions are a bit of a tough weed

and if I don't get the whole of the root out,

they can just keep regrowing,

so the next option I've got is to push away the chippings

and to cover the dandelion with cardboard,

so that it can't see the light.

It's important to water the cardboard,

because it'll be much quicker to rot down

and, you know, form a good seal over the dandelion.

And then we cover it with chippings.

I may have to do this a few times,

because these are very hardy weeds,

but perseverance will pay off

and eventually, I should get the better of them.

Largely, the beds have been a great success.

As I can't get to the allotment every day,

I'm growing things that don't need so much attention,

like onions, garlic and broad beans.

I've just picked some delicious kale from my polytunnel

and I'm going to go home now and get on with some jobs.

At home, I like to grow the fruit and veg

which needs more regular attention.

And over winter, I've been really busy with some construction projects

to make life a bit easier.

I'm really pleased with these tubs.

They've really completely changed the way

I've been gardening vegetables.

I was walking around the village and someone was retiling their roof

and the tiles came in these boxes

and they were very kind to let me have them.

I've moved my strawberries, which I had in the greenhouse

and they didn't do well, they didn't seem to like the heat,

into these beds.

The size of these boxes make it really easy for me

to be able to reach in.

And if I've got to weed or I want to pick strawberries

when they come on these plants, it's ideal.

It's not going to strain my back and it's just perfect.

This is an area where I grow most of my greens,

and greens need a lot of care and harvesting,

so they need to be near the house so that I can make the most of them.

In this tub here, I have got perpetual spinach.

It's been very good, but it's got a bit tired

and so I'm going to dig it up

and I'm going to sow some lettuce here instead.

I'm using this spade because I need a short-handled spade

for the tubs and it's just a seaside spade,

but it's got a metal bottom, so it's really good for the job.

When you take them out, it's important to refresh the soil,

and I've got my own compost going in here,

just to give the soil a bit of a boost.

So I think that's levelled out and mixed in well,

and I'm now going to plant my seeds.

I'm going to plant Salad Bowl. They're cut-and-come-again lettuce,

and they've got a lovely, delicate flavour

and they'll be ready in about 50 days,

so I'm going to just sow them thinly, sprinkle them on.

I'm going to cover them gently with a bit of compost.

A very light covering indeed.

So I'm going to give it a really good soaking

to get the growth started.

Job done.

But my real pride and joy is my new potting shed.

I used to do my potting in the greenhouse,

but the positioning was too low and made my back ache.

It also got quite hot in there

and I ended up getting dehydrated lots of times.

So I nagged and begged my son to make me this,

and it's absolutely fabulous.

It's made of reclaimed or unwanted materials

and it's been built just for me,

so I really wanted it to be open to the elements as much as I can,

yet protected from the weather.

The bench is such a great height. It's just right for me.

I've got everything visually on display

and easily reachable on hooks and if I need something else,

I can just bang another hook in.

I'm going to be sowing some borlotti beans now.

And here is my compost area where I fill everything up

and I can just reach and get my tools really easily.

My compost bin is an old bed bath

and it's deeper than it looks,

so it can house quite a lot of compost.

And I'm going to be sowing the borlotti beans into cardboard tubes

because, unlike plastic tubs, I won't have to take the bean,

and disturb its roots, out of the pot,

but the tubes will just rot down naturally

with the bean inside.

And I'm just going to pop it in. I'm not exact with my popping,

so they have to survive whichever way they go,

and they usually come up OK,

and then cover them with soil.

So they're going to grow fully

and then they're going to dry on the vine,

and then I'm going to harvest them

and I'm going to use them in the kitchen over winter.

I did that last year and they were deliciously creamy.

So that will give me ten beans plus those,

which I think will be enough

because it's only my husband and I that are eating.

I'm not feeding a family of ten.

I'm going to water them in.

The cardboard will get a bit soggy,

but it should hold up until the bean develops.

I think they're ready to go.

I'm going to go and put them in the greenhouse now

and then, later on, I'm going to take them up the allotment

where they're big enough to survive on their own.

There are so many jobs to do in the garden at this time of year,

but it's important to take a break.

I make iced tea from fennel and mint

and the dandelions that plague my lawn.

And that is just the pick-me-up I need

for a bit more gardening later on.

I think Sue's potting shed is great. I love it.

Now, I don't grow many ericaceous plants here at Longmeadow

because our soil is neutral-ish

and they're not very happy unless I grow them in a container,

which is what I've done with this camellia.

This has grown quite successfully, but needs repotting.

When you're taking any plant out of a container,

don't just yank it out, because you could damage the roots.

If you can get hold of a palette knife of some kind,

anything that you can work round the edge of the pot, like this.

And if nothing else, it's loosening it.

This has flowered, by the way, over a very long season this year

because it's been so cold.

Normally, it would have finished flowering easily by now.

But as a rule, immediately after flowering

is the best time for repotting.

Right. Let's see now if that will come out.

There we go.

Now, if I put that to one side,

we can see that these are fibrous roots,

but they're completely packed. That's solid. Poor thing!

I'm going to put that on its side and just break the roots.

Now, if you break roots, it stimulates regrowth.

And actually, when you're repotting something that's very root bound,

that's not a bad idea.

Now, this is a new pot, which is not hugely bigger.

It's a mistake to pot anything on into a much bigger container,

because all you'll have is potting compost with no roots in it at all

and that will hold moisture like a sponge

and it can get too wet.

Now, I'm going to use an ericaceous compost.

And if you're using a peat-free ericaceous compost,

there are two main types.

One tends to be made from pine bark and the other from bracken.

Now, I've mixed it up with some perlite

to keep the drainage nice and open,

because what camellias like is an open, loose root run.

So we'll put some in the bottom.

Like that.

That will sit in there like that

and it will stay in this for about three or four years,

and then we'll have to pot it on again or take it out

and prune the roots.

Just pushing it down with my fingers, just making sure

that it gets into all the nooks and crannies.

Now, I will water this well and place it somewhere where it gets

sunshine for at least half the day,

but not where it will be scorched by burning sun or by strong winds.

A little bit of shelter is necessary,

and it's really important to water camellias regularly at least once

a week in August, September and October,

because that's when the buds are formed for next year's flowers.

And if you've had a camellia where the buds have dropped off

in spring before they open, it's almost certainly

because it was too dry in late summer and early autumn.

And we all have bits of our garden

that we don't really know what to do with - either they don't get

enough light or they're a funny shape or the soil is full of rubble,

just awkward corners.

But we've been sent a film by one of our viewers

where an awkward corner has not only been made really interesting,

but also into a much needed refuge.

Hello, I'm Bryony

and welcome to my brand-new bog garden here in West Sussex.

We've made a space for wildlife

here in this quite challenging corner of the garden.

It's quite shady here, and there are overhanging trees

and it's a really heavy clay soil.

So we dug out, by hand,

kind of the broken bricks and the rubble

to make the shape that you see here with the raised edge

and then the natural dip in the centre to make a pond.

In the base we added some gravel and an old holey hose

so that if the bog garden does need topping up,

you can top it up from here.

Next came the water feature.

We get a lovely effect of running water in the bog garden as well.

The plants that we've added are

especially adapted to the type of damp conditions that we have here.

We've got marsh marigolds.

We've got some water forget-me-nots

and the fantastically named false goat's beard.

I have a very stressful job,

and this time of 100% work from home has made it all the more intense.

But for now, this space has got terrible reception and no Wi-Fi,

and so it's the perfect place

to come and relax and take a break away from the home office.

I do know if you want to really get away from it all, you need somewhere

where you don't get mobile phone reception, where there is no Wi-Fi,

nobody can get at you. If it's in the garden, so much the better.

Now, I've got two trays of vegetables here.

One is celery, which I sowed about four weeks ago -

it's been very slow to develop -

and some broccoli,

which you need to sow now for a harvest next spring.

And both of them need the process of seed sowing under control

and then pricking up.

So I'm going to do them both, although they're very different.

Let's start with the celery.

These are a bit small to put into plugs.

So I'm using a normal seed tray that we'd use for scattering seeds.

Fill it up with a good peat-free compost.

And if at this stage you've got some of your garden compost

that you've sieved and collected, it's great to add it to

because celery is a hungry plant

and really does better

with plenty of nutrition

and plenty of water.

So I need to take them out,

just using a label,

take out a little clump

and from that clump

I'm going to pull out some individual plants,

teasing them apart, holding a leaf, not the stem.

It's a fiddly one to grow, but worth it.

And I know that it's one of those plants you either love or hate,

but I love celery. So just pop that in there

like that.

So there's still a seed tray but spaced apart.

And this will give them a chance

to develop to the next stage when they can go to individual pots

and giving them a good inch or so of space in between them.

The more you handle seedlings, the more confident you get,

and it's just a question of trusting that you're not damaging the plant

and also common sense - if it looks healthy and is a reasonable size

compared to other plants, it probably is healthy.

Each one of these will grow till they're about six inches tall,

and then I will pop them into individual pots

and they'll be ready to plant out in about six weeks' time.

Now, I will water these well,

I'll probably sink these in water and let them soak up the water

because the roots are fairly fragile.

Thereafter, once they've taken up enough water, keep them moist

and I'll put these back in the greenhouse. They're hardy,

they'll take any amount of cold,

but we want them to grow on nice and quickly.

So I'll put that to one side for the moment,

and I will do more later,

and come to the broccoli.

And those are a completely different kettle of fish,

because you can see that

the individual plants are really quite sizeable.

So I'm going to put these straight into pots.

Holding it by the leaf,

lifting it up...

Popping it in.

Put some compost in there.

Notice I'm not firming them in

because there's a real risk of damaging those very delicate stems

or even the roots.

Now, these are going to be really quite substantial plants.

A healthy broccoli growing well can be four or five foot tall

and with a thick stem

and will be in the ground for months and months.

So giving it a good start in life is really going to help.

I water those and I won't put them back in the greenhouse

where they've been growing on, but into a cold frame,

and then when I see that they've got established and basically that means

there's signs of new growth, they can stand outside

and they'll be ready to plant out in about six weeks' time.

And I'll put them into the vegetable garden.

A few weeks ago, I took some dahlia cuttings

and here they are.

And mine now are looking quite healthy.

The fact that there's new growth

is indication that roots will have formed.

Now, I'm keen to get it out of here as quickly as I can

because I rooted this in almost pure perlite.

It's a very good medium for rooting because you don't need

nutrition for forming roots.

However, once those roots do form,

then very quickly, the plant will need much more nutrition.

So it has to be potted on.

Gently ease it out of the pot.

And there you are, there are the roots that have formed.

Pop it gently in...

..new compost and then gently firm it down, and that now

can start its process of growing

and developing into a small plant.

I may need to pot it on again before I plant it out,

but that will get its nutrition from this peat-free compost

with plenty of perlite mixed in, so it's got good drainage,

and I've created a brand-new dahlia very simply.

Now, still to come on today's programme,

Arit visits a beautiful but fragile peat bog.

You only need to take a look around

to see what a truly wild and beautiful place peatlands can be.

And I shall be simplifying and explaining

the mysteries of plant feed.

But first, we got the chance to visit the garden of Sophia

and her grandfather in Finchley.

Hello, I'm Sophia and this is my grandfather, and this is his garden.

This is my garden for the last 40-odd years.

When we came here, it was mostly grass

and now it's more like a wild garden

because I've allowed it to take its own course.

Why have you left the garden wild?

Because it's more natural.

It's important to have a feeling of nature

when one comes into one's garden

rather than the very disciplined gardens

which have always been the fashion when I was a boy.

But now I think we understand more

that we need to open it up so that the plants are comfortable,

like the forget-me-nots which are dominating the garden now.

They were from one packet about 40 years ago,

and now they do it all for themselves and almost everything

in this garden does it for itself.

I'm just an observer.

This is self-seeded lesser celandine.

And this is our forsythia at sunset.

I'll quite often pick a few dandelion leaves and put them

in my lunchtime sandwich.

I think they are fresh and good for me,

but on the other hand, of course, the French call them pis-en-lit,

which means wetting the bed, and...

HE AND SOPHIA LAUGH

..I hope I don't do that.

And over here, we've got some wild garlic, which is also

great for cooking, and it smells amazing.

The garden now, it reminds me of the wildness, the meadows

which I roamed as a small boy when I was evacuated from London to Sussex

during the war,

and it's a pleasure to watch something at liberty,

not controlled, not structured, just free.

It's a fine balance between letting a garden go completely wild,

in which case it ceases to be a garden, really, and gardening,

but allowing that lovely, free, unstructured element to come in

and even dominate.

Well, this greenhouse couldn't be more different

from anything wild and unstructured.

And I've cleared one side because it's time to plant our tomatoes

and I'll be growing some outside when it warms up.

But now, under cover, I can begin planting out.

Now, these are going to be cordon tomatoes. There are two types.

There's cordon and bush.

Bush tomatoes don't grow so tall -

they are, as the name suggests, bushy -

but if you are at all restricted on space, cordon ones are much better

and they're much more common.

And I put up these strings to support them.

You can, of course, use bamboo canes, but the beauty of strings

is that they really do work very well.

It's dead easy. You don't need to tie them in.

You just twist the tomato as it grows round the string

and it holds perfectly firmly.

Now, I've spaced these into three rows and they are 18 inches apart.

So what you do with string is

having tied the string at the top, dig the hole...

..so it's nice and deep.

You tie the string around the stem of the plant.

And as the plant grows and the roots grow out into the soil,

that will anchor it firmly.

And it doesn't even have to be very tight.

That is not going to go anywhere.

Then we pull the soil back round it, firm it in really well...

..and already I can just wind that round the string to support it.

This is a variety called

Cuore di Bue, which means ox-heart,

and it has a very distinct heart shape.

Planting the first tomatoes

always feels a significant moment in the year.

If you're planting a tomato,

you want to plant it deep, at least up to the first leaf.

It will hold it more rigidly in the ground.

But secondly, and most importantly,

roots will grow from the stem

and these will be feeding roots.

And by having extra roots,

there is more capacity to take up food and therefore

produce more fruit and growth.

If when you plant your tomatoes out, they're looking a little yellow,

it means that they are being deprived of nutrients

that they need, but don't worry,

because once they get into fresh compost or soil,

very quickly, they take up the nutrients and you'll notice

that the new growth will all be a good, lustrous green.

I've got a lot more to do, but of course, it goes without saying

that when I've planted these, they need a really good soak

and then water them regularly.

So the plant then adapts to that regularity.

And that is often the key of growing good tomatoes, is consistent water,

consistent feeding, consistent heat.

And they will perform much better.

Well, I will continue and finish this bed

and then in a few weeks' time I will plant up the other bed,

I'll plant up tomatoes outside

and this year I should have a bumper crop.

Now, peat use in our gardens has become a highly contentious subject.

For years, most of us bought potting compost

without giving it another thought, and it was peat-based.

And peat is a very good growing medium.

But increasingly it's become apparent that

it is not environmentally sustainable, particularly

in relationship to climate change.

And Arit paid a visit to a peat bog in Cumbria

to discover more about this subject.

Peatlands - a type of wetland that occur on every continent.

But what is a peat bog?

Put simply, it's layer upon layer of vegetation

that's lain untouched for thousands of years.

Some even dates back to the last Ice Age.

The UK is ranked as one of the world's top ten countries

when it comes to peatland as a proportion of the total land area.

Here it covers almost 12% of the country.

And it performs a vital role.

Peatland forms a unique ecosystem,

helps in our flood defences and is key in combating climate change.

And did you know that peat bogs store twice the amount of carbon

compared to the world's forests?

That is astonishing.

But there is a problem.

Lowland raised bog, one of the three types of peatland habitat in the UK,

has decreased by 94% in the last two centuries.

That's because they've been drained for agriculture and forestry

and extracted and burned for fuel.

Why should we gardeners care?

Because nearly 60% of peat that is excavated is

used by the horticultural industry

and ends up in bags of compost and plants that we buy for our gardens.

This is Roudsea Wood and Mosses National Nature Reserve in Cumbria,

where Glen Swainson is senior reserve manager.

He also shares a passion for gardening.

You only need to take a look around, Arit, to see what a truly wild and

beautiful place peatlands can be.

I'm a really enthusiastic gardener, so I understand that as gardeners,

we're looking for a growing medium that's got really good consistency,

that holds on to moisture and nutrients and is cheap,

and peat is all of those things. Yeah.

But the problem with buying peat, you're inadvertently contributing

to the destruction of a peatland like this somewhere around the world

and contributing to climate change.

This is a peat bog, though, isn't it?

So what makes it so vital?

Where we are today is what's called a lowland raised bog.

And as the name suggests,

lowland raised bogs are found in the lowlands

where you get really high rainfall.

The "raised" part of the name comes from the fact that

as the peat's building over time,

you get this huge dome of peat right across the surface of the moss.

Lowland raised bogs are really the bogs that have been targeted

for peat milling, for horticulture

because of the fact that they've got so much peat on there

and they're probably quite accessible, really.

It is such a wonderful-looking landscape.

What sort of habitat does this create?

Plant communities that we have on a bog are just supremely adapted

to the quite harsh conditions that we've got.

So it's very wet. It's quite acidic.

Yeah. It's very low in nutrients.

So we've got some really interesting plants that grow here.

Let me show you this. OK.

SHE GASPS

Oh, this is weird!

So spongey, isn't it? It's so strange.

Sphagnum mosses are really the main peat forming species

and it gives it that living layer across the surface of the bog,

it's like the bog's skin, in effect.

Yeah. I mean, it's amazing material.

If you just give this a little squeeze...

..it acts like a sponge, it can hold up to 20 times its own weight

in water, and that's what keeps the surface of the bog wet.

In terms of the wider landscape,

they're really good at helping with flood prevention.

So it's slowing the flow into the rest of the catchment

and into the rivers and preventing flooding further downstream.

But obviously, there's other plants in amongst the sphagnum.

This little tiny plant here is a roundleaf sundew. Wow.

And you can see it's got these little kind of sticky hairs

on the leaves. Basically, it's insectivorous.

So it catches little insects on those sticky hairs

and then the leaves curl around it

and basically digest those insects to get its nutrients,

because it's such a low-nutrient environment here.

We've got things like bog myrtle,

which if you squeeze it between your fingers,

it smells absolutely gorgeous.

Cranberry, cotton grass.

This peatland is like a life support for biodiversity,

but it's what's below the surface that makes it even more vital

and not just for us, but for the whole planet.

Glen, I am really excited and glad that you managed to get permission

from Natural England to take a piece of peat out of this peatland.

Yeah, well, we're standing on the living layer of the bog,

but if you really want to see what peat looks like,

you've got to get below that.

There we go. Oh, wow! Got brown stuff in the core.

So if you think that peat forms at about one millimetre a year...

Yeah. ..what we've got there maybe

is just a little bit less than a metre, but that could be

800 or 900 years' worth of peat just in one little core.

And this peat will go down probably eight metres in this location.

So that's 8,000 years of continuous peat formation

just in this one spot.

In other places, in other bogs,

you do get peat up to 12 metres in depth, which basically dates back

to the end of the last Ice Age.

So that's been continuous peat formation for that whole period.

What is it exactly about that material that is just so important?

Peatlands in good condition are an amazing carbon sink.

So what they're doing effectively is taking carbon dioxide

from the atmosphere and they're locking it away

in the accumulating plant material.

And if it's in good condition,

they'll keep doing that indefinitely, which is amazing,

really. There's not really any other habitats that will do that.

The peat that we're digging up for our gardens, then, is a problem

because it's clearly releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

If we don't keep that carbon locked in the peat in the ground,

then we're emitting it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide,

which is obviously a greenhouse gas,

and that's contributing ultimately to global warming.

Although peatlands cover less than 3% of the world's surface,

estimates are that they contain 30% of the carbon

in all of our soil worldwide.

So peatland is a vital carbon storage unit, not just for the UK,

but for the whole world.

Damaged UK peatlands are releasing

almost 3.7 million tonnes of CO2 each year,

equal to the average emissions of around 660,000 UK households.

Clearly, this isn't sustainable,

but what can we as gardeners do to help?

If you're a gardener, then we want to be looking

whether we're using peat-based products when we're gardening.

So when you buy a new compost, take a look on the back.

And if it says it contains peat,

then maybe have a second think about that.

You know, there are quite a lot of products out there now

that are peat-free. It's past time now for us to stop using peat.

So the importance is obviously protecting this amazing habitat,

but making sure that we keep the carbon stored and that in turn

helps to look after the planet.

It's a no-brainer, isn't it? Peat belongs in the ground

and that's where it should stay.

It is quite incredible, standing in this amazing landscape, knowing

that I'm stood on thousands of years' worth of peat,

and as someone that does use peat-free compost,

I feel quite proud that I might be contributing to protecting

this very important habitat.

I think that shows very clearly something that perhaps not everybody

was aware of, which is how beautiful and fascinating

the whole peat ecosystem is and how fragile,

and it all adds up to the fact that we just simply

as gardeners cannot continue to use peat.

And in a few weeks' time,

Arit will be looking to see what the trade is doing,

as well as us gardeners, to solve the problem of removing

peat in all its forms from our gardens.

Now, one of the odd things about this spring,

and it's been a pretty odd spring all round, is the way

that the tulip season has been extended.

It's as though the whole thing has been slowed down

by the cold weather.

So in a pot like this, we have Ronaldo, this lovely,

smoky purple colour.

You've got Aladdin with its interior of yellow with this red exterior,

and then Flaming Parrot, which hasn't yet opened.

Here we are well into May, and there is still flowering to come.

We could, for the first time in my memory, have tulips flowering

in the garden from March right through till June.

But the one group of plants that I don't have flowering

in this garden en masse, or hardly at all,

are rhododendrons and azaleas.

I've got one in a pot, and that's because I've always believed

that our soil simply is not suitable.

However, I am beginning to reassess the kind of conditions

that rhododendrons and azaleas will grow happily in.

So it seems a good moment to have another look at a visit

that we made to a rather exceptional rhododendron grower in North Wales.

My name is Colin Muggeridge.

I was brought up in an RAF family, and when I was 18, I joined

the Royal Air Force as a pilot.

Now been retired 16 years.

I was always very interested in plants.

When I left the Royal Air Force, I was able to buy myself a property

and I chose as big a garden as I possibly could.

In this garden were large plants,

and they were rhododendrons,

and that is where I got my interest from.

I like rhododendrons because they're very showy plants.

I believe they're one of the great flowering plants of the world.

There are hundreds of rhododendrons in this garden.

A lot of them planted out in...

or most of them planted out in the borders,

a lot of them in the conservatory, and a lot of them in pots.

Here we have a series of different species here.

The difference between a species and a hybrid

is that a species is purebred.

If I cross this plant with the same plant,

I will end up with exactly the plant you see here.

If I cross this species with a large leaf species,

which you see above, you will end up with a hybrid -

that is, a cross between the two.

I always thought, what would happen if I crossed one rhododendron flower

with another rhododendron flower, each one being completely different,

and to see what I ended up with.

I'm going to show you how to cross this plant, which is Vanessa,

with this plant over here, which is Loderi Julie.

The first thing we've got to do is choose the seed parent.

In this particular case, this will be Vanessa.

So we find a bud that's just about to open.

It hasn't fully opened, hasn't had an insect inside it.

So if we take one of these buds here,

is to take away the flower

and you're left with the stigma,

which is at the very end.

You then go to the pollen-bearing plant and you find a plant

with ripe pollen, take away the flower, take away the pistil...

..and then the ripe pollen,

you wipe the ripe pollen on the end of the stigma.

The next thing to do, having done that, you've done your cross,

is to go to the label, the seed parent first,

which is Vanessa x Loderi Julie,

find the one that you've just pollinated,

put a little label on the plant.

And then you leave that until January or thereabouts.

When the seed is ripe, collect it,

sow it and then wait 15 years for the first flowers.

This is one of my favourite rhododendrons, a hybrid of mine bred

over 30 years ago. Just a good all around plant. Nice flowers,

good foliage, disease-free, deep green and overall

spectacular in flower.

Only problem is, hasn't got a name.

This is one of my hybrid rhododendrons.

Out of every 100 seedlings that you get,

you probably end up with four or five are excellent

and you would register those. Probably 30 or 40 would be rejects.

This is one of them.

I've rejected this plant because it's got the flowers growing

between the new growth.

So I'm putting the plant to good use and I'm going to use the leaves

as a basis for a mulch on my other rhododendrons.

I'm redistributing these leaves around the root ball of this plant.

Most people believe

that you can only grow rhododendrons on acid soil.

Here, we're in a limestone quarry, and it's alkaline soil,

and the only way that these plants can be sustained on alkaline soil

is by the recycling of the leaves.

It's not something that's going to happen overnight.

It's going to take quite a few years, maybe two or three years

before these leaves break down into a form of compost,

producing a very, very healthy plant.

During the springtime,

I look at all my plants and see which ones are coming into bud.

This rhododendron here is flowering for the first time.

Quite a nice hybrid.

So that's one I would definitely keep.

Plant it over in the far side of the garden.

Again, totally unique plant.

When I look at the ones that I've produced,

some of the spectacular ones, I'm very proud and I feel

very thrilled that they're in my own garden, and I feel very, very happy

when I see them in their full floral glory.

It is intriguing that the rhododendrons are growing

in a lime quarry, because one's always taught

that rhododendrons are ericacious-loving plants

and that they need a low pH, although the mulching

with the material is clearly significant.

And this business of feeding a plant, giving it what it wants,

I know can seem a mysterious, if not tortuous process.

And let's just simplify the whole question of feeding.

And there are three main nutrients that have dominated plant feed,

whether it's agricultural or horticultural,

since the Second World War.

These are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

NPK. So if you have nitrogen, for example, that will boost

the green growth, the foliage. Grass is the obvious example,

and if a plant is short of nitrogen, it will be stunted and may well

start to turn yellow.

And a really rich source of nitrogen to feed plants comes from manure.

Horse manure, cattle manure.

You need to make sure it's well rotted

because it's too rich otherwise. But also typically chicken manure.

This is chicken manure in pellets.

The second ingredient, P,

phosphorus, is essential to encourage germination,

root growth and the ability of the plant to take up other nutrients.

Sources of that - bonemeal is a traditional source.

You can also get rock phosphates that you sprinkle onto the soil

and that will help the uptake.

The final element, which is potassium, is potash,

influences the development of flowers and fruit.

This is wood ash, and I add this around my fruit trees,

gooseberries, for example.

You can buy mixtures of pellets that you can add and you can make

your own feed that is rich in potassium from comfrey.

If you grow comfrey plants, harvest the leaves,

fill a bucket with them, steep that with water,

leave it for about three or four weeks and then drain it off,

you get a rather foul-smelling, slightly brown, treacly liquid,

which you then mix with water. Makes a very good feed for boosting

flowers, fruit and root development.

Nettles make a very good high nitrogen feed

as well as having potassium.

In the end, nothing is better for soil than good organic matter,

and especially garden compost.

But if you can't make your own feed, you can't make compost,

if you're going to buy a feed, you can't go wrong

if you use a basic tomato feed.

You will find that every plant feed label

has the proportions of NPK on it, but a tomato feed has

a high proportion of potassium

and that's really good to promote masses of flowers

and lots of fruiting.

And I'm a great fan of seaweed, and I feed all my containers

with a weekly liquid seaweed feed from about June onwards.

Don't overfeed. You're gaining nothing.

Don't mix it up any stronger than it says,

and you never need to feed more than once a week.

And what you want is a healthy plant

and not one that grows fast and then flops.

Now, for the final film today from your gardens,

we're going to Hampshire,

where there is limited space, but unlimited love of plants.

Hello, my name's Jenny and I want to show you my garden in Hampshire.

It's a little thin strip along the front of a house

on a gravelly lane.

The smallest, it's a metre wide, and sometimes it's two metres wide

and it's maybe eight or nine metres long, and what interests me here

is how amazingly many flowering plants you can get into that space.

I've counted at least 29 varieties, and it's just full.

The foxglove coming.

Panning up a bit, you can see that on the walls, you've got clematis.

Perennial forget-me-nots and primula.

I love lily of the valley.

Somebody once told me the way to get them to grow was to put

a paving stone on top of them for two years and see what happens,

and I did pretty much that,

and sure enough, here they are coming up in amongst the path.

Here come the tulips, looking bright and gorgeous.

And then further on, there's another small standard rose.

And look at this quince!

Wow. That is the star of the show at the moment

and it's right opposite the kitchen window,

which is fabulous. Not that I ever do the washing up, mind.

Right down here, there are still some violets.

So what a wonderful place.

What a privilege.

And everybody walking on the lane gets to look at it and smell it.

Hooray!

I love Jenny's enthusiasm for her garden, and also, the pleasure

that it's giving other people is part of her own pleasure,

and that's certainly true of the way that you have been sharing

your gardens with us this past year.

And we love it.

It's added a whole new dimension of our enjoyment of gardens,

so please keep them coming.

Send us the magic that you feel from your garden

so we can all enjoy it together.

And if you go to our website, you'll get full instructions

of how to do that.

Now, I'm just checking over this hydrangea, which you can see

has been hit hard by all the frosts we had in April.

And I know a lot of people have had a similar experience.

But don't worry - it's not a disaster.

It looks much worse than it is.

The reason we tend not to prune hydrangeas in winter is to give them

protection against exactly this sort of thing.

So, normally, by pruning them in early April or mid-April,

we have avoided frost damage.

This year is exceptional.

The second thing is, wait a little bit before you cut off

the dead growth, because quite often, behind the dead leaf

is a perfectly healthy bud waiting to grow.

So what I'm going to do with these is wait

until I'm absolutely sure there is no risk of frost,

let the new growth get established, another week or so,

and then I will prune off any damaged or dead growth.

And the moral of the story is, don't be in a hurry

to prune your hydrangeas in spring. OK.

That's a job to bear in mind for next year.

But here are some jobs for this weekend.

If you've sown radish, they will have germinated and grown

very quickly, but probably too thickly in the drill,

and it's important to thin them now.

At this stage, I just reduce them to a single line of plants

and then I will return in about a week's time

and start to thin them individually.

And very soon, they'll be ready for eating.

As the risk of a late frost becomes very small, it's a good time

to plant out annuals like this calendula,

and also half-hardy and tender types like Cosmos as well.

If you haven't grown any from seed yourself, you can buy young plants

from nurseries and garden centres, and I use them a lot,

as they're very good for adding colour and volume from late spring

through to early autumn.

Basil is a herb that grows best with lots of heat and light,

so it's not too late to sow some.

Spread the seed thinly on a tray of compost

and put them somewhere warm to germinate.

When the seedlings are large enough to handle, they can be pricked out

and grown on and then planted out in about six weeks,

and they make a very good companion to tomatoes.

I've experimented with adding orange to these borders this year

with a tulip called Request, and that orange, combined with

the blue of the camasses coming through, has got real energy.

And perhaps in this strange spring where we've had, quite frankly,

very cold and sometimes rather miserable weather,

that's what we need.

Certainly Patti is freezing from the cold, but when we get

some warmer weather, everything is just going to explode into growth.

Now, before we go, under normal circumstances, next week

would be when Chelsea Flower Show would be on.

Now, this year, it's been moved to September

and I think a lot of us can't wait for that to happen.

But if you need your Chelsea fix before September,

Virtual Chelsea is being shown online again this year,

as it was last year, and you'll be able to get

fresh content every day, with advice and tips

as well as all your Chelsea favourites.

And that will be available from next Tuesday.

And I'll be back here at Longmeadow next Friday,

so until then, bye-bye.