Original subtitles

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

I'm preparing this patch of ground where I had courgettes in the summer

to sow some broad beans before the weather turns.

I like to sow a couple of rows in autumn and then the majority

of my broad beans in spring

because of the high chance you'll get an early crop from them.

Traditionally, the broad bean

that everybody sowed in autumn was Aquadulce,

but I've sown Red Epicure before and I particularly liked them

because, although they have a white flower,

they have a red bean.

They should be sown in double rows with about ten inches

between the rows, and each broad bean

no less than four inches apart.

And each double row wants to be wide enough apart

so you can walk down and harvest them.

Just rake them over lightly, label them and leave them.

And to have a good crop

of beautiful broad beans in May is a treat.

Now, coming up on today's programme...

Toby joins Sue in her garden

to help her with some autumn maintenance.

I've had this row of lavender for ten years.

It does tend to grow one-sided.

This all comes down to not pruning it hard enough.

Oh!

THEY LAUGH

But all's not lost.

And Adam meets a head gardener to find out

how he plans and manages a grand and ambitious garden.

The way I approach it is similar to a jigsaw.

Whether that jigsaw's ever finished is another question.

It's not a jigsaw that I'd be doing with a five-year-old.

This is a 5,000-piece one. Exactly!

And I shall be showing you how to take hardwood cuttings

so you can make glorious roses for free.

The Spring Garden actually begins to look quite good in autumn,

and nothing in the whole garden is more glorious

than the autumn foliage of this witch hazel.

And the colours are amazing.

But I'm thinking of planning for next spring

because anything you want to do in a spring garden -

ie with flowers that appear from the New Year into May -

should be done now.

So now is a really good time to check through plants.

For example, if you've got any hellebore leaves

that are turning chocolaty and looking unhappy,

cut the leaves off...

..obviously weed, and plant.

And that's really what I want to do in here today

because I've got plants that come from North America

that will never be the stars of any show

but make the most wonderful supporting act

in woodland situations.

The first is tiarella.

This is tiarella cordifolia.

Now, this is the end of its flowering season,

so it's not looking at its best.

But even so, it's still got some flowers.

The foliage is still looking strong and good,

and what it really likes best is dappled, slightly moist shade.

There are a number of different types of tiarella.

That's the straight cordifolia.

I've got here Tiarella 'Pink Skyrocket',

and this has got darker foliage

and also a pink tinge to the flowers as they're growing.

And also, I've got 'Sugar and Spice',

and this has got variegated foliage

and pinker flowers.

Now they're all much of a muchness,

but that kind of delicate variation

goes very well at the base of a border.

Now, if your soil is either a bit heavy or a bit light,

it is worth adding some leaf mould

or compost underneath it.

But all I need to do is dig a hole

big enough to take the plant, and pop it in.

I will mulch it.

Autumn is the time to mulch any spring-flowering plants,

and definitely the best thing to mulch any woodland plant with

is leaf mould.

This...

..is leaf mould

from last year's leaves.

When I've planted all the rest,

I will give them a good soak.

Now, it's time to pay a visit to a garden in Sutton-on-Trent.

This started out as a hobby -

something that pleased its owners

but wasn't really shared with other people.

But over the last four years, it's become much more than that.

I'm Kathryn. I live here with my husband, Ian.

The big change in our gardening and love of gardening

started about four years ago.

I was due for retirement.

I thought, what I'd really like to do is maybe open the garden -

and then it just changed from tinkering to just going for it.

The plot is an acre, with lots of different areas.

And the planting varies depending on the conditions

through sprites at the top, to more tropical,

to maybe a sort of wilder feel at the bottom.

We don't describe ourselves as gardeners,

because I don't feel I know enough about gardening.

I'm an amateur. A very enthusiastic amateur - we both are.

Ian's found his stride in the garden. I make him help me -

he has to do the digging - but he's really found his own

in the ferns, and he now has probably over 130 types

of fern, which is meticulously labelled up.

I do chuckle as he tells me the names.

Kathryn does accuse me of being a bit nerdy about the ferns -

particularly perhaps about the Latin names -

but I feel that they do give something extra to a garden.

It's the whole range of different sizes,

the whole range of different foliages, whole range of colours.

Things they can bring to a garden are absolutely amazing.

I suppose I am a bit obsessed with them now.

We've got Dicksonia Antarctica -

one of the biggest ones.

Tree ferns - come from Australia, Tasmania.

I tend to buy them as bare trunks,

which looks really odd.

It's been sawn off at the base, sawn off at the top.

You think it's never going to come back again, but when you plant them,

they will come back.

What I would suggest is,

if you're getting them, get the size that you want ultimately.

They will grow maybe an inch - a little bit more than that - a year,

but not any great growth on them at all.

And to get the long fronds - which is what I really like on them -

give them as much water as possible.

So they're the biggest that I've got in the garden.

I suppose the smallest I've got would be Asplenium trichomanes -

or maidenhair spleenwort - probably three, four inches tall.

It'll grow just about anywhere.

You can grow it in moist conditions. You can grow it in dry conditions.

And then there's something a little bit like a hand on the end of it,

with fingers - really delicate.

I just find it absolutely fascinating.

I suppose most ferns fall into this mid-size range,

and this is one that I really like.

It's Athyrium filix-femina 'Victoriae'.

The thing I like about this one is the way that fronds cross over.

You get this what we call a cruciate appearance.

But generally speaking, hardy.

No issues with pests, no issues with diseases.

Just a nice, easy fern.

I enjoy gardening.

I dislike gardening in the summer in the sun,

so one of my favourite bits is now the woodland area,

because in there I can spend all day.

And although it's a woodland, and full of the trees,

we've really raised the canopy up,

which I think sort of makes it almost look cathedral-like in here.

Big problem with the woodland - it looks fantastic in the spring,

but now we're trying to get it into looking nice all year round,

finding plants that may sort of grow and thrive in there.

That is the challenge.

We've just got the lovely lime green of the epimedium here,

mirrored by the lime-green hosta.

Just add a little bit of lightness.

But one of my favourite finds this time is the impatiens.

These have just started flowering last week,

so just one or two flowers at the moment,

but another week or two, these will be absolutely covered

and they go on right until the temperature

starts to drop in September.

To make sure I keep them, I take little cuttings.

Just stick it in a bottle of water.

The roots will form within a couple of weeks.

Then I just pop them in compost

and leave them in a frost-free greenhouse

and then plant out in the spring.

I like this area because I have to concentrate on what's in here.

When I walk round the rest of the garden, I can see the colour,

it's in my face, I can see the form,

but here I've really got to look for the small things

that really matter. To me, this is my special bit.

This is my place.

If somebody asked me, "Is it worth all that effort?"

I would say, "Yes, what else would I be doing?"

I love being outdoors. I don't like sitting.

Not a big reader.

The gardening just ticks all the boxes.

I'm intrigued that Kathryn and Ian don't call themselves gardeners,

cos clearly they're very good gardeners.

And we're all gardeners - whether we're just starting out

or we've been doing it all our lives -

you don't need a piece of paper to prove that.

And also, it's worth pointing out that Kathryn's love of shade

is based upon the fact there are so many different kinds of shade.

Back here at this side of the pond,

I'm in the full glare of the morning sun.

But these quinces offer dappled shade even in the middle of

the hottest, brightest summer's day.

And quinces themselves are brilliant in lots of different ways.

I love the trees with their fabulous blossom quite late on in May.

And, of course, the fruits are superb.

You don't eat it raw, but when you cook it

it's the most fragrant fruit that you could possibly eat.

Absolutely delicious.

Now it's time to pay a visit to one of your gardens -

and, in fact, we're going to Poland

to visit the balcony garden of Marta Nowaska.

Hello, my name is Marta, and welcome to my balcony.

We live in Poznan, in Poland,

and we are fortunate to have acquired

a balcony with a beautiful view.

Gardening gives me a lot of pleasure.

It is a way for me to connect with nature,

to express myself, and to relax.

As you can see, I treat my balcony like a really small garden,

and I would like to encourage you all today to treat your balconies

in a more garden way.

This gardening approach means a couple of things for me.

The first one is biodiversity.

And by that, I mean I use a mix of all kinds of plants in my balcony.

I mix shrubs, grasses, perennials, annuals,

climbers, and also bulbs.

As you can see,

you don't have to limit yourself to typical balcony plants.

This year, we had temperatures to minus 20 degrees Celsius,

and our plants survived it pretty well.

We just bring them all together and cover them with some

white gardening cloth and conifer branches.

The second important thing is being wildlife friendly

even if it's a balcony.

This year, my husband made this bug hotel,

and even though we live on the first floor,

it was a quite big success

and we have many inhabitants in it.

Thank you so much for watching, and happy gardening to you all.

Bye-bye!

I really like the way that Marta

has made her balcony into a garden.

She's really gone for it and embraced the whole space,

and I think that's inspirational.

I now want to take some rose cuttings -

and I think you're going to have to move, little one.

I'm going to put you down. There you go.

You go down there.

Roses take very well from hardwood cuttings,

and the whole point about all cuttings

is that they are exact clones of the parent.

You want to look for a nice long stem,

and what I'm going to do is cut right back down to there,

so I've got a long, straight stem.

That's the key to it.

So that's my cuttings material,

and now I will process them and prepare them,

and I'm not going to do this in a pot -

I'm going to put these directly into the ground.

When you're preparing hardwood cuttings -

whether from a rose or a shrub or even a tree -

all you have to do is take the stem,

remove the leaves.

This is not going to form any roots at all

for about six months, by which time these leaves will be long gone,

so they're no use to it.

Now, each cutting ideally is about nine inches long,

so I'll make two from this length here.

And the only really important thing

is that you put it in the right way up.

And to know that the bottom is the bottom,

you cut it at an angle.

Obviously, when you're dividing it,

you then have an angle at the top.

So the first thing I do is square that off.

OK. A couple more and we'll be there.

Now these have to go into a slit trench.

Take a spade,

sink it in to its full depth

and just pull the soil back.

And now I'm going to add some grit.

Sharp sand or normal sand will do fine,

but what you're really trying to do is ensure

you have really good drainage.

Just place a fairly generous amount along the bottom of the trench...

..like that...

..then place the cuttings on the vertical side,

making sure they're the right way up -

and they only need to be a few inches apart -

and push them in quite deeply.

And then once they're in the ground,

just pull the soil back over to fill the trench again.

And just the tops of the cutting will be sticking out.

And there is nothing more to do.

Leave them.

The only thing that you need to think about

is to keep them weed-free next spring and,

if it's very dry, to water them.

And resist the temptation to dig them up

and see if they've formed roots

when you first see signs of growth.

Wait till this time next year - THEN you can take them out.

And if they've got a really good root system,

you can plant them in their final position.

Although what I do is I pot them up,

grow them for another year, and THEN put them out into the garden.

Now, a couple of weeks ago,

Toby went down to Swansea to visit Sue Kent

to help her prepare her garden for winter.

It's that time of year when things are going over,

and there's a lot to get done in the garden.

I'm ready to tackle some of my trickiest jobs.

And, luckily for me, Toby is visiting to give me a helping hand.

And while he's here, I'm also hoping to pick his horticultural brain.

I've had this row of lavender for ten years,

and although I've pruned it quite well,

it does tend to grow one-sided. It's not a nice, rounded shape.

This all comes down to not pruning it hard enough. Oh, wasn't I... No!

No, you've got to be quite mean with lavender.

There's quite a good saying that you cut them back by an eighth

in the eighth month of the year. Ooh!

I just haven't been hard enough. No.

And if you do that every year, you rejuvenate it.

Oh, I think we could do it, then! Do you think they're worth it?

No - you can't do it to these. Oh. HE LAUGHS

The sad thing is, once they get long in the tooth like this, that's it.

What we CAN do is take cuttings

and create new plants to replace the old.

I don't know about you, but I'm easily distracted.

And when I go out into the garden - one task -

I start on that and then I find myself

drifting off onto something else. So when I'm taking cuttings,

what I always do is take a bag with a few drops of water in it.

And that way, when the cuttings go into there, if that's sealed up,

because it's 100% humidity in the bag,

they'll last all day.

Lovely. So it doesn't matter

if you've left them under a bush somewhere. No, it doesn't.

It doesn't. It's a life saved, if you like.

They're dead easy to do.

Just take a non-flowering stem.

Yeah. Nip it below a bud.

Because that seals then, and then you get roots growing

from where the buds were.

And then it's just strip off the bottom half. Yeah. That's it.

And that, stuck into compost, roots within weeks.

I did take a few cuttings earlier in the year, but not enough. Really?

And it was my first time I've been successful. Oh, they took?

Do you know, there's safety in numbers -

with any of these grey-leaf plants, you're always better off

taking loads of them, sticking lots of them in a pot,

because they mop up the moisture.

It's wetness that kills them off. If you have just one cutting in a pot,

it's never good. You want loads. Yeah, and also I lost a load

when I overwintered them, so I do need loads.

I love lavender so much.

I just... It just stops me.

It's the one thing that stops me from working too hard,

and sit down and smell it and enjoy it. Oh, lovely.

It's my go-to cup-of-tea plant.

Let's pot them up.

Sue and I are pushing the cuttings into gritty compost.

We're not making a hole, because if you push them in,

they root much better.

We squeeze as many in as we can - without the leaves touching -

and give them a good soak.

Then we cover with a clear sheet of plastic.

This can come off in three or four weeks' time when the cuttings

have started to grow - a sure sign they've rooted.

And finally, we'll move them to somewhere sheltered,

like a cold frame or greenhouse for the winter.

Right, what else you got for me?

I've got a really tough job for you next, Toby. Oh. Really tough.

Where is it? It's at the end of the garden there. Right...

Ah, here we go.

This is my huge phormium, which I love,

but the only problem is - as you can see -

it's coming over the steps, causing a bit of a health hazard -

poke you in the eye -

and my husband's idea of sorting the situation

is just to hack off where he doesn't want it.

You've got to watch the husband, Sue!

What's your suggestion to remedy his work?

Do you know, I live with this at home

cos I've planted phormiums in haste...

..right near paths, and there's a rule of thumb

with any shrubs - including big sort of grassy subjects like this -

is that you always have two metres of space between them.

Now these have got two metres between them, but not two metres

between the roots of this and the path,

and so you're always going to have this tumbling-over effect.

It's just something you can't really get rid of.

I think your instincts are right - this has just had a bad haircut.

The game plan is to whip away all the stuff around the edge,

but right back to the base of the plant.

And then, if I can, I'm going to get into the middle and that should stop

the side ones flopping down as the middle grows.

The fibres of this get right in the blade.

Oh, Sue, look at this. This is good news.

You see in there, where the plant's mounded up?

And it's grown into itself and big chunks of it, as I hoped...

Oh, gosh, yeah, I can see the roots.

Yes. Yeah. It's rooted.

If I can cut that away through there, we'll get a whole

new section of plant that can be put into the ground somewhere else,

two metres away from a path!

OK, OK. And then this won't be such a problem in future.

I'll have a baby phormium! Yeah, you will.

There's two things to look for

when phormiums get a bit long in the tooth.

One is when they revert - like that one -

so it starts to flower, you lose a lot of the colour.

And the second is when you see these roots growing up in the crown.

Yeah. It means it really is on borrowed time in many senses -

or certainly borrowed time for looking good

because it's just going to start to splay.

So, yeah, we're catching it at the right time, I think.

Oh, that is great.

Oh, look at that.

Wow! That is superb!

Yeah, we've got a new one there.

Look. Look at all these roots.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'm going to chop some of this off.

Obviously, there's a lot less root than there is a top on here.

There you are, Sue. So what do you think of that?

It's pretty cool, actually. Very architectural.

It works, doesn't it? Yeah! Yeah!

Sue's phormium has had a good trim.

And, if she wants to, she can replace it with a new plant

grown on in a pot until it's big enough for planting out.

Wow, so this is impressive.

Yes, this is my new build - my raised beds and cold frame.

This craftsmanship's incredible.

This is... My son's a carpenter, and occasionally I manage

to persuade him to come and help me.

And what's quite... It's all made of recycled stuff

left over from my potting shed. And so it's lightweight.

It's made from corrugated plastic and... All the mod cons!

Look at that! When he built it and put it on,

we realised I couldn't reach over it,

so he's made me this sliding entry system.

That is something all cold frames should have, actually.

The thing about cold frames is, the main thing is to stop

the temperature peaking when the lid's down,

because if you forget to open it up, what happens is,

on a winter's day when you're protecting plants from frost,

the temperatures really rise and the plants start to grow.

And that makes them vulnerable for the next time it's cold. Right.

So that front coming off there means you can have this down,

got air circulation,

so, rather than overheating when you get warm days in winter,

they just stay nice and warm and even, which is just perfect

for plant growth and getting things to survive the colder months.

Well, I've never had a cold frame before,

so I didn't know that I've designed a perfect thing!

Well, you have, yeah!

We're lining the cold frame with plastic - to stop the plants

rooting in the soil below - and covering it with locally sourced

white cockle shells to reflect as much light as possible

during the winter.

I've got some foxglove seedlings -

I think that's what they are - over there.

Can they go in the cold frame? Yes, they can.

And they ARE foxglove seedlings.

And, do you know, I reckon, growing in there with the lid put down

when it's particularly cold, and if they're potted up before Christmas,

these will flower next year. Do you think so?

Cos I thought I'd left it... They were so tiny!

They are small, but it's amazing how they catch up

in an environment like this. You can just really steal a march.

And do you know what colour they are?

Well, I'm hoping they're white, but I got my labels mixed up,

so I don't know how to tell.

Well, purple foxgloves have very glossy green leaves

that are often pointed and they're smooth.

Whereas ones like this that are pale

and have this little furry top to them -

you know they're going to be a white form or perhaps an apricot,

but certainly lighter than the purple.

So that's a really useful tip. Furry ones are light.

That's... That is really gorgeous, isn't it? I'm very proud!

Well, thanks for helping with that, Toby. Thanks for inspiring me.

This is brilliant. Yeah.

And you can put it on top of any raised bed you've got -

you can turn it into a cold frame. Yeah, genius. Genius.

I've long been a fan of cold frames -

although I have to say I have nothing as fancy as that,

but the beauty of cold frames

is that, as long as light can get in and the cold

by and large stays out,

it's incredible what you can grow in them

and what you can protect over winter.

So do consider getting a cold frame -

it transforms what you can grow in the garden.

Now, still to come on today's programme...

Adam admires the design of a garden that embraces

the surrounding countryside.

I love the way that you've got the control of the clipped yew

against the softer background of the landscape. They look incredible.

Yeah.

And I'll be potting up some amaryllis bulbs

to decorate the house in the new year.

But first, we're going to Banbury to visit another of your gardens.

I'm Rosie, and I want to show you my autumn garden

cos it's busting with colour.

I've been gardening for about 42 years here, probably,

so the garden's matured a lot and everything's spread out.

And so there's much less gardening needs doing these days,

which is absolutely fantastic.

As a painter, I really like to make scenes in the garden.

For a raised bed, I sometimes use an old wheelbarrow -

preferably one the builders are finished with, cos they're strong.

And so here you can see it's planted up with

heucheras and osteospermum.

And then this old fuchsia's decided to have a second life here,

looking absolutely stunning.

This is a weeping silver-leafed pear tree.

I planted it about 30 years ago.

It's like having a beautiful, huge bonsai tree in the garden.

The Michaelmas daisies and the rudbeckias

have grown and grown and spread out.

It's time to pick some bits up and plonk them in different bits

of the garden to make the garden join together as one,

instead of just having a splash in one place.

Lots of heucheras, of course. Fantastic colour.

If you plant them in a bed with the sun shining through them,

you're going to have beautiful colour

in the garden all the year through.

So, from me, the sumac tree

and the apple tree - bye!

I really like the way that Rosie spoke about

creating scenes in the garden as a painter.

Now I've been slowly assembling these new borders on the mound

and now it's time to add bulbs. And there's a daffodil that

I've grown many times before, called Pipit.

It's small, so I'm going to have it near the front.

Now, the rule of all bulb planting

is you can never go wrong

if you plant twice the depth of the bulb.

Now, for planting these...

..just make a hole and just push them down in.

That's fine.

Now, another daffodil, which is

a much bigger daffodil, is this.

This is Yellow Cheerfulness, but, again, that good soft yellow.

Now, that's daffodils.

We want to add some blue in too, and I've got here a bulb

called Scilla mischtschenkoana.

It's got lovely icy blue flowers.

I think these are best planted

as a group rather than individually.

Make sure the soil is nice and loose...

..and take a handful like that..

..and scrape some soil away

and then just pop a group

of three in there.

My final blue is muscari.

Muscari is one of the best blue flowers

that you can get,

and this is Muscari Valerie Finnis -

a really good, clear, strong blue.

The truth is there are many different types of muscari

with many, many different shades

of blue and size and even form.

And in spring, we went to Norwich to visit the garden of Richard Hobbs,

who has a wonderful collection of every kind of muscari.

The wonderful thing about spring bulbs is that they take

you by surprise, really.

They just pop up from nowhere.

These little jewels scattered about the garden.

I'm Richard Hobbs, and with my partner, Sally Ward, we've created

this garden just outside Norwich

in Norfolk, and we hold the national

collection of grape hyacinth - that's muscari

and their relatives.

There are almost 70 species of grape hyacinths, and they come

in a surprising range of colours.

There are some lovely dark blue

black ones that are sort of ice

blue, pale ones, white ones and the odd yellow and brown

one as well.

So when we first got the collection,

there were about 30 plants in it.

It's grown up to 185 by now,

so we're always looking for

new places to put them.

So we've got I should think about 60 pots in the greenhouse.

We've got about 90 pots in a raised bed in the allotment.

So we've got them all over the place, really.

We grow most of our grape hyacinths in the front garden,

but we've had to change it quite a lot,

so the soil has been improved

by the incorporation of literally

tonnes, not just a few bags,

but tonnes of organic matter,

and there's quite a lot of gravel as well,

so we now have raised beds

and good drainage, and the one thing

that most grape hyacinths really like is to be well drained.

So, this is one of my favourites -

a lovely form of Muscari neglectum.

And it just shows you why grape hyacinths are called grape

hyacinths, because they just look like small bunches

of really ripe grapes.

And they're a lovely, lovely dark colour, and, talking of colours,

here's one that's yellow.

It's a violet grey.

It's got brown tips to it

and it smells of bananas.

A real oddity - comes from the Greek islands, where it grows

in cracks in rocks.

It's early flowering, unusual,

and the bulbs can get to the size of tennis balls,

so a really interesting thing.

And then look at this -

it's called a Touch Of Snow for obvious reasons.

So you've got your normal blue flowers, the fertile flowers,

and then these little sterile tufts of flowers on the top are pure, pure

white, and those sterile flowers are there

to attract pollinating insects.

But it's a really striking plant with that lovely contrast.

Grape hyacinths grow well with things like pulsatillas,

the pasque flowers, species tulips - and species tulips

are just delicate, lovely things.

You don't have to dig them up every year, ripen them off.

They're easy.

Very different from those stiff things that look like hard boiled

eggs on sticks.

Grape hyacinths have got something of a reputation for being thugs

for seeding around and also producing lots and lots of little

bulbils and getting all over the place where you don't want them.

Out of the 70 species, only two that are like that - one is Muscari

neglectum, which has these really dark, lovely, dark bells

with white teeth.

And then the second one is armeniacum, which is a mid-blue

slightly paler round the mouth of the bell.

Both lovely things, but thuggish.

It's a shame because many of the others are such

lovely garden plants.

When you have a national collection, the thing you're trying to do

is to keep a particular plant

true and pure, so you mustn't

let them seed.

So we go round, it's a hands-and-knees job with a pair

of scissors, and we take off all the heads.

When it comes to planting, plant them in the autumn, though

if you don't get round to it till Christmas, that's not

going to be a problem.

The depth of planting worries people, but just get them in.

A couple of inches of soil over the top is fine.

Grape hyacinths - like a lot of other bulbs - have what's known

as contractile roots.

They look a bit like a concertina

when you look at them closely

and they will pull themselves

down or push themselves up.

I know it seems hard to believe,

but, honestly, it does happen.

Anybody who grows a lot of bulbs will know this.

You plant them at the top of a pot,

and all of a sudden when you repot it

they're sitting on the bottom.

They'll get to where they want,

so don't worry too much about that.

Growing them in pots is a very good way with grape hyacinths.

They look lovely, but also it keeps them contained.

You know where you've got them.

They need a well-drained mixture,

so what we use is one part grit, one part organic matter.

That's a peat-free compost, if you like, and then one part

of a loam-based compost,

so it's just one of each.

I think some of these tall ones

that have been bred for the cut

flower industry look great in these long pots

because they're really quite elegant, dainty things.

And then there's a little one there,

which if you grew it in the open

garden, it would just get lost, you know,

so wonderful subject for a pot.

It's got a rather interesting name.

It's called Maxabel, but there's nothing "maxa" about it.

It's a very, very tiny, gorgeous little thing that'll be out in a day

or two's time.

I'm really proud of the way, from small beginnings, just 30

plants, we've got this collection now so that it represents the whole

range of plants that are available to people to grow.

And it would just be lovely if more people grew them,

if many of them got firmly into cultivation.

I was just thinking about dahlias, you know, 30 years ago,

a dirty word.

Now everybody's growing them

and they're, you know, top of the pops.

Let's do the same with these grape hyacinths.

They're gorgeous things.

They're not just blue, they flower

over a long period of time.

Some of them have got a lovely scent, and they're just

magical spring flowers.

I love muscari, and I don't mind the way they spread -

quite like the way that, rather like bluebells, they start

to carpet the ground.

And what I would say about a national collection like Richard's

is the important thing is you go along and see them in flower,

see what they look like growing under garden conditions

and, with a wide collection like that, you are bound to find some

that will be perfect for your garden.

Every garden should have some muscari.

In the garden at the moment

one of the great stars is this rudbeckia.

It's a Rudbeckia laciniata,

but I confess I've long forgotten

what variety it is.

There are lots of different laciniata Rudbeckias,

but all of them grow really strongly late in summer.

And this doesn't really get going until the beginning of this month.

But throughout October and into November, it flowers with real

exuberance while the rest of the garden is fading

all around it.

Now we're going to pay our last visit to one of your gardens today,

and it's taking us to Welford and the garden of Andrew Miller.

Hello. I'm Andrew.

Welcome to my garden in Northamptonshire.

It's been designed by my partner, Tim, to be fully accessible for me

in my wheelchair.

Come and take a look around.

We moved here nearly 20 years ago, drawn by the garden's

accessibility and privacy.

It's also given us some creative challenges to make

changes and improvements.

We lost an old leylandii.

We kept the stump and planted three clematis, which have already

nearly reached the top of the old tree.

We needed some instant height where that conifer

had previously dominated.

This pergola was ordered online and was assembled

over the Easter weekend -

just the two of us - whilst we were still shielding.

It's planted up with passion flowers and akebia,

and these Cobaea scandens.

Still waiting for them to flower.

The new-found light means that we now have a productive raised bed

that I can reach.

We always wanted a vegetable patch.

It's placed under the old trees overhang in front of the shed.

After planting seeds since the spring,

we've been self-sufficient in salad leaves all summer,

and the sculptural bolting Lollo Rosso looks great

even if they taste horrid.

Well, all these developments have given us creative challenges

to solve during this very difficult time, which, for disabled people

like me, has also been really scary,

but our garden has been our safe space.

It's constantly evolved and this made us think

about the future.

We hope you've enjoyed taking a look around.

Goodbye.

It's worth reminding ourselves,

as Andrew pointed out, that gardens

have become so important

over the last 18 months and two years

as a place of safety,

of comfort

and of entertainment and excitement

and inspiration in a way

that perhaps they haven't

been for a very long time.

I'm now going to plant up a pot

with a combination that I love

and that is of tulips and wallflowers.

Wallflowers you can grow from seed.

I've got some here that are really quite small still, but you can buy

them in a very old-fashioned way

wrapped in damp newspaper.

They're bear root, you get

them in bundles. In fact, they're very cheap. They're very good value.

But if you do get them like this, you either need to plant them

straight away or heel them in - line them out individually in a spare

bit of ground.

They will go on growing a little bit and get a little bit stronger,

and what you're after is a really strong, bushy plant.

Now this is a wallflower called primrose with pale yellow flowers.

And of course, with wallflowers, they are wonderfully fragrant.

But if you're going to grow them with tulips, you need to plant

the tulips first.

Now you can see I've got a good drainage hole because with tulips

you absolutely must have good drainage.

It's the key to growing good tulips,

so we will put that over the hole

to stop the compost coming out.

A really gritty compost mix...

and fill your pot to about a third full.

And I'm going to plant a tulip called Friendship.

Now, I have to say this has been known to me for years as Limelight.

It's a triumph type, which means that it's got a traditional goblet

shape and will flower in April and early May at the same time

as the wallflowers.

Put them quite close together, not touching, but much closer together

than you would if you were planting in the soil.

There we go.

Cover them over.

And now the wallflowers, and we'll plant

those in and rather like the tulips

quite close together.

Don't be frightened of filling the pot.

Put a little bit of soil around them.

When you've planted them up, water

them and then put them somewhere

outside. The cold won't hurt them at all, and you certainly

won't need to water them before Christmas.

If it's very wet and you can't keep them dry, put the pot

up on something - blocks, chocks,

bits of wood - anything just to keep

it up off the ground so the water

can drain out and then drain away.

And these will perform next April.

They'll look good. The combination is great, and the wallflowers

will smell heavenly.

Now, last September, Adam went

to visit a very special garden.

This was Broughton Grange,

where he met the head gardener,

Andrew Woodall, who has been part

of the long and ambitious process

of making a large garden

over a long period.

We all know that a garden is never really finished, and, when it comes

to big gardens, they can be complex to manage and evolve.

So it's great if you've got a head gardener that is busy plotting

and planning, and that is exactly what's going on here.

Broughton Grange in Oxfordshire

is a massive dream of a garden.

There's four acres of award-winning herbaceous borders...

..woodland garden...

..contemporary walled garden...

..and a brand-new 80-acre arboretum.

The owner wanted to build his dream

and Andrew Woodall is the head gardener bringing it to life.

All set in this amazing landscape.

The way I approach it is similar to a jigsaw. Whether that jigsaw

is ever finished,

it's another question, but I aim to have it finished so that I'm happy

with where it is in my head, so that's important for me.

Easier said than done.

It's not a jigsaw that I'd be doing with a five-year-old.

It's like a few thousand piece jigsaw that's going to take a long

period of time, isn't it?

This is a 5,000. Exactly.

Tucked below the front lawn

is an early parterre filled with Andrew's planting.

That's interesting, isn't it? From back there,

you're looking straight over this space.

Yeah, we've got an aerial view here.

And then as we make our way around, we've got this rose parterre

that we've created.

All of a sudden you're exposed to it, but you've got that lovely

connection with that landscape.

Together with the obelisks, there's simple, repeated colours

of cosmos and verbena that zigzag through the beds.

They help lead the eye up and out of the garden.

I don't think you need to actually plant up these obelisks.

They actually stand alone by themselves so well. I totally agree.

They're just lovely little sculptural elements,

and, actually, the tone - just that timber silvering -

it sits comfortably, doesn't it?

Yeah. You've got to be content with what you've created.

To help that contentment,

Andrew's been trialling an alternative to box here.

It's called Euonymous Jean Hugues, and it's working well,

which is helpful as he needs it elsewhere.

It's lovely. Again, it's in it just through. And the way your eye

takes you from vista to vista... Yeah.

One of the owner's dreams was a wall

garden, so it was built from scratch.

An exquisite and very clever

three-layered design by Tom Stuart-Smith.

It absolutely uses the view.

From the top layer with prairie planting...

..to the huge ornamental pond.

I've looked at these photographs, you know, and I always wondered

what it would feel like walking over that.

Well, as I said, you have to see it to believe it.

You're obviously used to it.

You walked faster than me then.

And below the pond, a complex parterre -

all framing the countryside beyond.

I love the way that actually you've got the control of the clipped

yew against the softer background of the landscape.

They look incredible. Yeah.

But getting back to the head gardener,

how do you manage this, mate?

Because I know some of these plants start to take over.

They all want to be the stars. Do you let them?

We have the same problems and issues that every other gardener

has with a lot of this prairie-style planting.

Yeah, it does throw up a few challenges, but it's designed

to sort of flow with the landscape.

It is, but I know these are a little bit more complicated to manage.

I walk around with the assistant head gardener, taking notes, trying

to keep it to the original planting plan.

We take out those ones that are becoming a bit too invasive

and maybe replant it with something similar, but it's sort

of keeping that balance.

You can see here we've got this miscanthus,

and, even though it's very gracious, it can become out of control

a little bit. Got a lot of geranium sort of seeding around a bit

too much, and that's what we do in gardening, and that's

what it's all about. Exactly.

There's lots of gardening about to come to the lower parterre.

The sinuous lines of box echo the microscopic leaf structure

of three trees in the garden.

But these complex shapes have box blight,

which is heartbreaking to see.

Heartbreaking for me as well.

We've decided to rip it all out and replace it with

Euonymous Jean Hugues. Which is what we saw down there. Exactly.

And you're right, it's a challenge because I'm looking at it,

you're going to rip it all out,

but, actually, the shapes are very, very complex.

How are you going to lay that back out?

I have a template in the office.

I've taken numerous photographs.

We will mark it out in one metre lengths here in a grid system.

We've got 4,500 plants to put in.

Is that what it's going to be, 4,500?

It's going to be probably the most challenging part of my job

over the last 14 years is going to be planting that. Yeah.

The garden opens for the National Garden Scheme for visitors to see

the new areas that are still evolving, and this is one of them.

It's a stumpery, set at the edge of the formal garden,

stocked with stumps

from here and nearby Blenheim Palace.

This garden celebrates trees in all their forms.

This is my favourite part of the garden, whether you want

to call it an elephant's graveyard or architectural chaos.

For me, this tells everything about what trees

are and what they breathe.

The more ornate stumps are pressure washed to reveal the intricate

roots before they're arranged.

These things are heavy.

Once they're in place, you don't want to have to move them again.

So I sort of have this picture in my mind

about the way I want them to look.

And, then, once they're in place, then we create the borders around.

So it's...it's sort of... They're doing the work for me, in a sense.

This is about putting them in place.

As ever, Andrew is totally playing down his role.

But the stumps are fabulous.

If these could talk, you know, how much they could tell you,

you know, there's so much history.

The one you're holding there, you know,

they come from a sweet chestnut,

which was cut down for the First World War.

So, you look at the history that's there and they're still,

in a sense, creating life for other plants.

There's masses of new life in the Arboretum.

It's been planted in two sections with 1,500 trees apiece,

as well as creating new views.

It's providing information about which trees

will flourish in our ever-changing environment.

I mean, already we're finding trees are doing better than others,

so it's quite interesting to see how this whole biodiversity

out there is balancing out.

It's rare, but really heartening to see planting on this scale

in a private landscape.

This is truly a landscape for now

and the future.

We've gardened for long enough to know that we're not going to see

that come to its full glory.

What does it feel like to be planting for another generation?

I feel privileged to even be part of it in the first place.

The garden and the Arboretum will outlive me and all my family

and everybody else I know.

But being part of that is gardening.

Just to know that I've been part of that just warms my heart completely.

There was a period when gardening was seen as something

you could finish and it was make over and it was transformation

and there was the glorious moment.

But actually, it's never like that.

The whole beauty of gardening is that it's a long process

that you just happen to join in with, and it's enriching.

That's what makes it so powerful and strong.

I'm preparing Amaryllis sort of for Christmas,

although it is actually running quite late.

Most Amaryllis bulbs will flower about eight to ten weeks

after planting, and they're lovely any time of year.

I've got a number here.

This is a variety called "Ambience".

This has got a white, sort of creamy base

with really strong red markings.

Look at that.

It is really quite something.

Massive bulb.

But of course, it's going to have a huge, long stem,

sometimes as many as four stems on some varieties,

and they will each have huge trumpet flowers.

Now when you're planting, you may think that a huge bulb

like this needs a big pot, but the opposite is true.

They do much better if their roots are really constricted,

and that sort of size pot is ideal.

So fill it almost the top and you just sit it on the surface.

Just add a little bit more compost like all bulb compost, well drained,

gritty, and that's just simply to hold it in place.

You certainly should never bury Amaryllis more than half the depth

of the bulb,

and sitting on the surface like that is perfectly OK.

Put this somewhere warm and light,

water it once a week,

and it will steadily grow without any trouble at all.

OK, I am going to pot the rest of these up,

and while I'm doing that,

here are some jobs for you to do this weekend.

It's a good idea to bring all your house plants

outside at this time of year on a fine day and give them a once-over.

Cut off any dead material, check them for any pests of disease,

clean them and then give them a good water,

making sure they drain well.

And when you take them back indoors,

your house is going to be warmer and drier throughout winter.

So if you possibly can, give them a good misting.

Evergreen Agapanthus are not frost hardy, so we'll need bringing

indoors so they are protected from the cold over winter.

I bring mine into the greenhouse, but a cold frame

or a frost-free shed will do the job as well.

Herbaceous Agapanthus are much hardier,

so as long as they have good drainage,

they should be OK left outside.

Chicory grows in two phases.

The first is to establish a lot of green foliage,

which feeds into a strong root system.

And, then, after that, they start developing their characteristic

red delicious leaves.

So now you should remove most of that green foliage

so that light and air can freely get around each individual plant.

Well, that's it for today, and that's it for our weekly programmes

this year, too, although we do have three brand-new programmes

that will be going out towards the end of this year

celebrating the seasons.

And as we come to the end of another quite difficult and strange year,

I don't think gardens have ever been more important

or given so much pleasure and comfort to so many people

than they do now.

And we'll all be back next spring, as usual.

So from Nellie, Patti and myself...

..bye-bye.