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1:19

Hello and welcome to GQT. We're

1:22

at Reading University this week, an

1:24

institution with a proud horticultural history.

1:27

And not least because our esteemed

1:29

GQT panelists, Bunny Guinness and Pippa

1:31

Greenwood are alumni. They

1:34

graduated a while ago now, to be

1:36

fair. So won't be on

1:38

campus today, but we've brought an equally learned

1:40

panel with us to answer your gardening questions.

1:43

I can't promise you'll leave here with an

1:45

M Hort, but hopefully we'll be able to

1:47

provide some degree of learning for you to

1:49

take. So

1:52

without further ado, please welcome

1:54

your masters of horticulture, garden

1:57

designer Juliet Sargent, ethnobotanist James

1:59

Wong and Clinton not paying.

2:10

A high to has us as question. Hello!

2:13

Fellow I am had a

2:15

more i'm head gardener typically

2:18

male which is in some

2:20

share. My question is if

2:22

a complete novice was thinking

2:24

of guessing their garden landscape

2:26

and newly planted, what advice

2:28

would you give them to

2:30

maintain and care for their

2:33

new. Pillows, Says

2:36

what you think people need, sinks or

2:38

the mirror. Two things on the first

2:40

thing is there's no such thing as

2:42

a green thumb and is there is

2:44

The only secret to it is to

2:47

pay attention of i think of as

2:49

a side the as a suspect amount

2:51

of fear that sound of and gardening

2:53

which is quite surprising considering it's all

2:56

about communing with a natural world and

2:58

people don't have the same some fear

3:00

when it comes to other domestic pursuits

3:02

I'm so you know. Friend of mine

3:04

recently was. Really really a distraught

3:06

about Er. Du Pont I'd gotten. We

3:09

were wondering why was having yellowing least was

3:11

doing this was doing that more? Does it

3:13

dies as it won't. I've just

3:15

seen and instagram update from you know this

3:18

is on Christmas and they had the most

3:20

incredible like i'm ah Gingerbread House and I

3:22

made at Christmas the it's the kind of

3:24

you need engineering the great lights on the

3:27

inside like glass panels or made out of

3:29

saga and as like have you ever had

3:31

a cake that's burns and she suggests of

3:33

all the time that's how I learned as

3:36

like is exactly the same a gardening accepts

3:38

with take it doesn't try and cruel itself

3:40

out the oven if it's been a method

3:42

to long was punched. Do that once. try

3:45

and survive. And. and what

3:47

you need to do is to pay attention to

3:49

what's happening and that there are some really classic

3:51

symptoms are quite easy to learn but i think

3:53

a lot of them are quite instinctive we we

3:56

can quite quickly tell if appliances unhappy we just

3:58

don't necessarily know what it is But

4:00

if you see leaves wilting, if you can see yellowing,

4:03

even if you have no plant information, I think

4:05

we instinctively know something's wrong. And it's quite

4:07

easy to learn just by trial

4:09

and error. So I would say just

4:11

enjoy it and have a nice

4:13

time. Good. Julia,

4:15

as a designer, do you often get asked

4:18

for low maintenance? Yes, a

4:20

lot of people want low

4:22

maintenance gardens. And actually,

4:24

as James was saying, that the more

4:27

I get to know gardens, the more

4:29

I realize that actually low maintenance is

4:31

really the best thing, because in

4:34

a sense, the least we garden, the

4:36

better. If we

4:38

leave our gardens and observe

4:40

really, watch

4:43

what the gardens are doing, but

4:45

also watch what's going on just

4:47

outside the garden in the landscape

4:50

and see your garden as

4:53

a bridge to the landscape and see the

4:55

connection between the two. And

4:57

then just cultivate

5:00

judiciously when you need to, but

5:02

not to go in heavy-handed. So

5:04

very similarly to what James is

5:06

saying, I think we can learn

5:08

so much just by watching what

5:10

nature does both in the

5:12

landscape and in our gardens. So

5:15

I think it is just to have a light

5:18

hand in the garden and

5:20

enjoy it. Don't, as James was saying,

5:23

don't stress out too much. Just enjoy

5:25

watching what's going on. Thanks

5:28

for your question. Thank you. Let's

5:31

go over here now. Hello,

5:33

my name's Sue Markham, and I'm lucky enough

5:35

to live on the boundaries of the university

5:37

and a friend of the Harris Garden. Can

5:40

you help resolve a marital dispute,

5:42

please? Our much-loved

5:44

slow-growing conifer suffered horribly in the

5:47

drought of 2022 and

5:50

is very much the worst-aware of sea

5:52

photos. My husband thinks we should

5:54

take it down and replace it. I

5:57

think it might recover. What do you

5:59

think? if a replacement

6:01

is needed, what would you

6:03

suggest? We have sandy, well-drained

6:05

soil and slightly alkaline. Okay,

6:08

I'm glad I don't have to answer this panel. Look

6:10

in a little bit, describe what you're seeing in

6:12

the picture. Ooh, so it's

6:15

a lovely shape. Yeah. It's a

6:17

lovely pyramid. And I don't know, is

6:19

it about 12 feet tall? Probably.

6:22

Something like that. But I would

6:24

say three quarters of it is

6:27

brown, very, very breath.

6:30

Yes. And then the

6:32

only bit that appears to be alive

6:34

is just on the lower

6:37

fraction of it, really, on one side. Yes.

6:40

It doesn't look good to me. I'm no

6:42

conifer expert. Do you want to have a

6:44

look? Our grandchildren love playing around it. Matt,

6:47

what do you think? Yeah, it's two thirds

6:50

dead. I

6:52

was trying to put it politely. Yeah. Has

6:55

a kind of a Donna kebab look around it? All

6:58

brown on one side, like it's been near the fire?

7:02

Yeah, and I would say that you'd

7:04

be very lucky if that recovered. Most

7:06

of the conifers don't regrow if you

7:08

prune them. Not all of them. Well,

7:10

yeah. Many of them don't regrow if

7:12

you cut them hard back. And

7:15

I would say because of

7:17

the fact that the greater proportion

7:20

of this plant is deceased.

7:25

Then I would take it out. So I

7:27

take it out, but get out as

7:29

much root as you possibly can. Is

7:31

that drought damage or pest or disease? Matt?

7:34

I would say it's probably if it's

7:36

on sandy soil, it may well be drought

7:38

damage and it's cumulative effect. This type of

7:41

compact conifer generally has quite a shallow

7:43

root plate. It's

7:45

about 40 years old, I would say. Right.

7:48

Yeah. Sadly, these things aren't,

7:51

you know, don't last forever. No. And

7:54

so I would actually... Oh,

7:56

you're making this difficult, isn't it? I

7:58

am the bringer of Pat and you. So yeah,

8:00

so they don't last forever. So

8:03

particularly in this situation, things become

8:05

short lived unless they're able

8:07

to cope with it. So I would actually take

8:09

it out. And something that

8:12

might be more suitable would

8:14

be a Genista atensis, which

8:17

is a Mediterranean plant which

8:20

almost forms like a fountain. So you get

8:22

a structure of branches and then you get

8:25

these lovely branchlets that

8:27

weep. And they

8:29

produce yellow coloured flowers on

8:32

them. And the foliage

8:34

is very tight to them. So it's

8:36

almost like a flowering broom, if you

8:38

like, of decent size. And they would

8:40

cope really well with the sandy soil.

8:44

You'll see them in quite a lot

8:46

of dry gardens. Well, a double whammy, sir.

8:49

It's got to go. And your husband was right. Damn.

8:53

Never mind. It's an opportunity. Thanks for

8:55

your question. Let's take

8:57

another one. My

9:01

name's Christine Lally and I come from the

9:03

Catesgrove Community Association right in the middle of Reading.

9:07

My question is, we have a

9:09

community allotment which is at Waterloo Meadows

9:11

in the middle of Reading. We're

9:14

struggling to attract people and

9:16

funding. Does the team have

9:18

any suggestions to help us? Oh,

9:21

how to drum up enthusiasm. Matt?

9:25

Have a barbecue. And

9:27

advertise that locally. Get everybody in to

9:29

meet you to see the allotment site.

9:31

I suppose there ought to be something

9:35

free in there as well. So whether it's booze

9:37

or sausages or whatever it may be. But

9:40

just try and have an event to get

9:42

people in. Come and meet us. Come and

9:44

see what we're doing. Guided

9:47

tours so that it gives people ideas of how

9:49

an allotment can be used. Because we think of

9:51

it traditionally as vegetables. As

9:54

a lady who I

9:56

knew of who had a national collection. A

9:58

Plantaritish National Collection. on her

10:00

allotment, people use them for all sorts of things.

10:03

So I think if you explain the

10:05

range of uses for allotments, and it

10:07

particularly helps these days, people coming in

10:09

it from different angles, you

10:12

can say, look, it's not just vegetables, but there's a whole load

10:14

of ornamentals, you can create

10:16

yourself a garden. So

10:19

I would say have a social event for

10:21

a start, lure them in and then trap

10:23

them. You've got them because you

10:25

know that, once they hear about what they

10:27

can do and have experienced it

10:29

for themselves, they'll be in. Thank

10:32

you. Juliet, often allotments have waiting lists, don't they,

10:34

for people to get hold of them. So it's

10:36

a shame to hear about one where it's struggling.

10:39

It is, I had to wait 11 years

10:41

to get my allotment. One

10:45

thing that I think might be

10:47

an ongoing project, an ongoing community

10:49

project through the growing season, would

10:52

be to build, to

10:54

erect a frame for

10:56

growing various squash. So

10:59

rather than growing them along the ground

11:01

or on your own obelisk on your

11:03

allotment, if you together

11:06

started a project to build the

11:08

frame, so you could do that

11:11

perhaps over a weekend, and then

11:13

everybody plants one or two squashes,

11:17

but they're all growing together over

11:19

this community frame. And

11:21

then it would look wonderful and quite

11:23

quirky with the trombone squash and all

11:25

the other exciting squash that you can

11:27

grow hanging down. That would really be

11:29

an eye capture. And

11:31

then towards the end of the season, when

11:34

they ripen, you could have a big cookup,

11:36

a bit like Matthew's barbecue, you

11:38

could have a big cookup and have

11:40

a big squash stew or various squash

11:42

stews, so that through the

11:44

weeks and the months of the

11:46

summer, everybody is growing together over

11:48

this community frame towards

11:51

a final community celebration.

11:55

There you go, Christine, some good ideas there. And

11:57

I only live down the road, so I'll expect

11:59

the invite. Well, you're invited to

12:01

come along, please do. Thank you very much.

12:04

If you want to contact us with

12:06

any gardening related questions or maybe want

12:09

to know about your top tips or

12:11

proudest gardening achievement, it's easy to get

12:13

in touch. Email gkt at bbc.co.uk or

12:17

you'll find us on Twitter at

12:19

bbcgqt. But let's take

12:21

another question. Hi, panel.

12:23

My name's Catwood. I'm from Tarlhurst.

12:25

Can you suggest any evergreen, hardy

12:28

plants for some winter

12:30

interest in my tropical-themed garden that

12:32

otherwise looks a bit sad in

12:34

winter? Oh,

12:36

so what else have you got in there at the moment? So

12:39

my bananas are still a little bit protected. And

12:42

then when it's summertime, it is

12:44

sort of lots of dahlias and

12:47

other lilies and some gingers and things like

12:49

that. But it's all a bit sparse.

12:51

Yeah. This time of year. Yeah. Yeah. OK. James,

12:54

what can we do here? Yeah, so

12:57

I have just thought that

12:59

the plant that I was going to name has

13:01

changed its name, but I can't remember what it

13:03

is. So I'm going to

13:05

use the old name because that's probably

13:07

still what it's sold by. But I

13:09

have recently read the paper when it's

13:11

been reclassified. So Shefflera, Taiwaniana, is a

13:13

really great example of something that looks

13:15

resolutely tropical, but it comes from, surprisingly,

13:18

with the Latin name from Taiwan, which

13:20

is exactly on really the fringe

13:22

of where the tropics in

13:24

Asia meet the much more temperate

13:26

part of Asia. So you have a lot

13:28

of tropical species, particularly in the highlands, that

13:31

have adapted to cold. It was introduced to

13:33

the UK, I think, about 20 years ago.

13:36

And now in some parts, like Cornwall, it's

13:38

absolutely massive, demonstrated to be hardy. But if

13:40

you stumbled across this in the jungle of

13:42

Borneo, it wouldn't look out of place. It

13:44

wouldn't look anachronistic. Matt, what have you got?

13:48

I would go for something like a cordial line, cordial

13:50

line in Australis, because it's got

13:53

that look, you know, it's known as the torquay

13:55

palm. You've got an elephant's

13:57

foot base, a beautifully textured bark.

14:00

and then the tufts of foliage

14:02

at the end of each

14:04

stem. And when it does flower, the

14:06

flowers are small and white. There's masses of

14:09

them in clusters, in spikes

14:11

at the top of the plant, and the

14:13

bees absolutely love them. They're just really lovely,

14:15

lovely things. And they were one of the

14:18

original Victorian kind of tropical

14:20

stroke, exotic plants. Julia?

14:23

I think if you're looking for

14:25

that sort of lush, exotic, jungly

14:27

look, the plants don't actually

14:30

have to be exotic,

14:32

jungly plants, they just need to

14:34

have that sort of vibe. So,

14:36

big leaves or interesting shapes. So

14:38

I think one of the classics

14:40

is Fatsia japonica, but there are

14:43

a couple of more interesting ones

14:45

that are now available. And so

14:47

if I'm doing a similar kind

14:49

of garden, I'll sort of use

14:51

all everything available. So ordinary Fatsia

14:53

japonica that we know and love, but

14:55

then there's Fatsia green finger, which has,

14:57

as the name suggests, sort of thin

15:00

cut leaf, and then

15:02

Fatsia spider's web, which has a

15:05

white variegation. And

15:07

then if you add into that, there's

15:10

a big euphorbia called Euphorbia mellifera,

15:13

and it has, it's honey spurge, so

15:15

it has a lovely, absolutely beautiful scent

15:19

in the summer months. And

15:21

then don't forget that

15:23

sort of in the gaps,

15:25

you can have smaller things,

15:27

which are all helping towards

15:29

the sort of lush, vibrant

15:31

feeling of your garden. So

15:33

a smaller perennial is Libertia

15:35

grandiflora, which has an evergreen

15:37

grassy-like leaf. And then in

15:39

sort of April time, sprays

15:42

of tiny little orchid-like white

15:44

flowers. And so you might say, well,

15:47

that's not a big lush thing, but if you

15:50

have Libertia tucked in

15:52

amongst other things, it's all contributing. So

15:54

I think with what I think you're

15:57

hoping to achieve, it's all about the

15:59

look. rather than the actual provident.

16:02

I think that filled the space cut. Yeah, definitely. Don't

16:06

worry about remembering all those. Just go to

16:08

the GQT pages of the Radio 4 website

16:10

and it's all listed there underneath this program

16:12

listing. Thanks, panel. We'll have more

16:14

questions from the audience here in Reading in

16:17

just a moment. Now, what's the thing gardeners

16:19

complain about even more than slugs and snails?

16:22

It's the weather. Yes. Well,

16:25

as someone who's spent most of my professional

16:27

life at the Sharp End of weather forecasting,

16:29

I've developed a pretty thick skin. But

16:32

I've also seen how forecasts have improved enormously

16:34

over that 30 odd years. There now is

16:36

accurate five days ahead as there were just

16:38

two days ahead when I first started back

16:41

in the 1980s. So

16:43

when I got wind of a project here

16:45

at Reading University, the speed to push the

16:47

predictability window out to weeks rather than days,

16:50

I had to find out more. So I headed off to

16:52

find professor Sarah Dantz of the

16:54

meteorology and math departments here at

16:56

the university. We're

17:01

here in the University of Reading's atmospheric

17:04

observatory where it's pouring with rain.

17:07

But we're also looking out across the

17:09

field of lots of

17:11

different types of instruments that measure

17:14

the atmosphere and what is going on in the

17:16

ground. So over on that side, we have rain gauges,

17:19

which are getting a bit of action today. But

17:22

in the middle here, we have a tower with

17:24

what looks like mini horizontal windmills

17:26

and measuring the wind. And

17:28

we also have little white boxes

17:31

that are called stevers and sunscreens

17:34

that include temperature instruments. And I know you've

17:36

got some of it at actually also at different levels within the soil,

17:39

haven't you, which is actually something that's useful for gardeners

17:42

too. You know, when the soil's warm enough to actually

17:44

get your seeds in the ground. Actually,

17:46

measuring the weather is a very important part

17:49

of getting the forecast right, isn't it? Absolutely.

17:52

So when we make a weather forecast, we

17:55

solve mathematical equations describing the

17:59

physics of what's going on. on in the atmosphere, so

18:01

the motions of the air. And

18:03

in order to make a good

18:05

prediction, we need to understand what

18:07

the weather is doing now. And the way

18:09

we do that is by using lots and

18:11

lots of observations. So at the moment, we

18:13

use about 40 million observations

18:16

every day. Most of those are

18:18

actually from satellite data rather than

18:20

from the ground-based data that we

18:22

have here. But even

18:24

so, that's only 40 million observations.

18:27

And actually, in terms of the

18:29

number of points we want to

18:31

model, we usually have around a billion.

18:34

So we have a lot of gaps that we need

18:36

to fill. And the way we

18:38

do that is by using information from

18:40

previous forecasts. One

18:42

of the things that you're trying to

18:44

do with this project that's kicking off here at

18:46

the university in conjunction with the European Centre for

18:49

Medium-Range Weather Forecasting and the Met Office is

18:51

to push out that window of predictability a

18:54

bit further. That's right. There's

18:56

a real limit in terms

18:58

of how far we can go with our

19:00

predictions. The weather is what

19:02

we might call mathematically chaotic. So

19:04

it depends on the

19:07

initial conditions very sensitively. So it's

19:09

kind of an analogy where if

19:11

a butterfly flaps its wings in

19:13

the Amazon rainforest, it changes

19:15

the track of a tornado in Texas. And

19:18

that's one of the reasons why we're

19:20

putting so much effort into improving these

19:23

initial conditions. The other aspect

19:25

is also in terms of the

19:27

longer term predictions, we need

19:29

to make a better job of understanding what's

19:31

going on, not just in the atmosphere, but

19:33

what's happening on the land surface and

19:36

in the ocean, because obviously that plays

19:38

a role in heating and moistening the

19:40

atmosphere. And the difference between, say, an

19:42

open grassy area like we have here and

19:44

a large built up concrete area makes a

19:46

huge difference in the weather conditions, doesn't it?

19:49

So, for example, if you have

19:51

a wet road, you have a very different

19:53

energy balance than if you have a dry

19:55

road. Because it takes more energy from the

19:58

sun to actually dry the road out before it starts. heating

20:00

the air above it. That's exactly right, yes.

20:03

So one of the problems we have

20:05

at the moment is that the models

20:08

are discretised, so they model on a

20:10

grid of points and those points are

20:12

only of the order about 10 kilometres

20:15

apart and obviously that's too

20:18

big for modelling urban areas properly,

20:20

so one of the things we're trying to

20:22

do in this project is to

20:24

actually reduce the distance between

20:26

the grid points right down to kilometre

20:29

scales and so that we need

20:31

a lot more observations. So what

20:33

we need is really efficient mathematical

20:35

methods that can cope with a

20:37

large number of observations. I

20:40

mean gardeners always talk about, oh my

20:42

garden's got a bit of a microclimate,

20:44

it's quite different to some surrounding areas

20:46

and actually there's a lot of truth

20:48

in that isn't there? The variation around

20:50

somewhere like a city you're going to

20:52

have very different conditions over fairly short

20:54

distances. That's the sort of thing you're

20:56

trying to model more accurately. If

20:59

you think about the difference between an

21:01

urban area in a field nearby, the

21:03

amount of wetting and drying

21:05

in the soil will be completely different. The soil

21:07

type obviously makes the difference to how quickly the

21:09

soil dries out, so one of the things we

21:12

want to try and do is actually improve

21:14

the representation of what's going on

21:16

on the land as well as what's going on in

21:19

the atmosphere. So Sarah are we going to get to

21:21

the point where you know I'm thinking about putting out

21:23

my tender plants in the springtime and you'll be able

21:25

to tell me that there's not going to be a

21:27

frost in the next three or four weeks? Well

21:30

we're at the beginning of a 15

21:32

year research program so it's

21:34

not going to happen overnight but there's a

21:37

lot of really fascinating and exciting work going

21:39

on and we're really hopeful that

21:42

we will get to that point at

21:44

the end of our 15 year program. Professor

21:51

Sarah Dans of the Reading University Department

21:53

of Mathematics and Department of Meteorology talking

21:56

to me about a project that could

21:58

help us guard the storm. stay one

22:00

step ahead of the weather.

22:03

Panel, obviously the weather's very important to you. I

22:05

know you, James, never look at the weather forecast

22:07

because the number of times you've turned up at

22:10

recordings in your shorts and t-shirt

22:12

on a freezing cold day when it's pouring this rain,

22:15

you clearly don't use it. I'm an optimist. It's how

22:17

it is, it's how it is. And

22:19

I also live in perpetual tropics in my flat

22:21

where I have grow plants throughout

22:23

the year. You don't have to worry

22:25

that it's February and it's

22:27

10 o'clock at night and there's a storm

22:30

outside, I can still go to gardening. And

22:32

you live in the London microclimate as well. Yes,

22:34

for all of that, that's my explanation for being

22:36

always inappropriately dressed. You're

22:39

listening to Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4

22:42

and BBC Sounds with me, Peter Gibbs. And

22:44

on the panel today are James Wong,

22:46

Juliet Sargent and Matt Biggs. And

22:48

putting their questions to them is an audience

22:50

of gardeners in Reading. So let's

22:52

take another one. Hi panel, my

22:55

name's Emma Clark. I'm from

22:57

North Hampshire. I've been growing

22:59

and selling lots of plants to my community

23:01

for the last few years. And I grow

23:03

lots of annuals like sweet peas, tomatoes, lots

23:06

of things like that. I

23:08

find perennial seeds are a lot harder to

23:10

find in garden centers as

23:12

most seem to be annuals. Can

23:15

the panel suggest any perennials that are good

23:17

to grow from seed and that are easy

23:19

to find? Okay, yeah, it's a

23:21

good point actually, isn't it panel? It

23:24

does tend to be annual heavy when you look around

23:26

the seed displays in a garden

23:28

center. So how can Emma go about

23:30

getting hold of more perennial seeds, Matt

23:33

Biggs? There are some

23:35

good nurseries online,

23:37

if you have a look. Growing perennials

23:39

from seed is quite popular because it

23:43

saves money basically. And a

23:45

lot of them will flower first year from seeds.

23:47

And I think straightforward things, I know

23:49

the slugs love them, but they're a traditional

23:51

plant, lupins in species

23:54

will grow really well

23:56

from seed. A

23:59

lot of you are popular. as well. You know

24:01

your perennials and your annuals, some really

24:03

lovely annual poppies will grow well. Thank

24:05

you. Julia. I think

24:09

grasses, have you thought

24:11

about growing ornamental grasses?

24:13

Because they do sell

24:15

seed very easily if you have them in

24:17

the garden and you

24:19

can get grass seeds and you'll

24:22

have loads and loads of success

24:24

and everybody will want to buy

24:26

them. So things like the pheasants

24:29

grass and what

24:32

used to be stipotinuissima, which is

24:34

now called nacela, those will sell

24:36

seed very easily and so you will

24:38

be able to get hold of seeds, panicums

24:41

and millineas. And then of course once

24:43

you've got a plant you can then

24:46

collect the seeds and I think you'll

24:48

probably earn a lot of money to

24:50

go for the grasses. It

24:53

sounds like you've got quite a production line going on there. Yeah,

24:55

it's definitely a production line. The window seals

24:57

are completely full. James.

25:00

I feel your window so pain. I

25:02

mean especially at this time of year.

25:04

You feel the window pain. I've been

25:10

waiting for the age in which dad

25:12

humour kicks in. It hasn't happened yet

25:15

but I can see my future in

25:17

front of me Matt. Sorry about that.

25:19

If you can put one more plant

25:21

in there I would go for something

25:23

a little bit more unusual that

25:26

is quite hard to buy, hard to track

25:28

down but quite easy from seed. One of

25:31

the amazing things about seed catalogs is they

25:33

very often have really weird and unusual things

25:35

that is impossible to buy plants of or

25:37

at least hard to buy plants of. So

25:40

maybe an unusual lobelia. So

25:42

lobelia chupa is pollinated by hummingbirds

25:44

and like all plants that are

25:46

pollinated by hummingbirds they are almost

25:49

fluorescent red. They have this really exotic

25:51

kind of stretched out form of flower.

25:54

They have beautiful leaves as well. I

25:56

was going to say like a cabbage. Doesn't

25:59

make it sound that beautiful. but it's an enormous

26:01

rose net of lustrous

26:03

leaves and out of the top erupts

26:05

this spike of really exotic looking

26:07

flowers. It's the kind of flower that you'd

26:10

expect to see, I don't know,

26:12

in a five-star hotel right in the lobby, except

26:14

they're quite easy to grow from seed and the seed

26:16

are cheap as well, kind of much cheaper than buying

26:19

the plants. So something like that thrown in

26:21

the mix would just give you a little

26:23

bit of everything. You know, you've got tomatoes, you've got sweet

26:25

peas and then you've got this wild card. That

26:28

sounds really cool. You just need some

26:30

more winder seals now. Exactly, yeah. Thanks

26:32

for your question Emma, it's great to hear

26:34

from a new generation gardener. Let's

26:37

go over here now. Hi

26:39

panel, Kate Stonehouse from East

26:41

Reading Horticultural Society. Which

26:44

small flowering cherry tree would be

26:46

good to plant on our boundary?

26:49

I need to avoid blocking our view

26:51

of a lake and encroaching on the

26:53

neighbours. Okay, Juliet,

26:55

does one spring to mind?

26:57

Yeah, I mean I

26:59

would definitely go for Prunus cursor, which

27:02

has, it's quite an

27:04

unusual deep pink, so

27:06

not a very sugary pink, but

27:08

a sort of slightly pinky purple

27:10

flower and it only grows to

27:13

maybe 2.5, 3

27:16

meters. Really, really

27:18

lovely. They're flowering now and

27:21

I think that would be my top choice

27:23

definitely. But the other thing is that you

27:26

can get smaller

27:28

cherries that are grafted onto a

27:32

stem so you know that they're not going

27:34

to get too big. I can't think

27:36

of any particular varieties, but if you

27:38

just look out for sort of grafted,

27:41

weeping cherries, that's another way to go.

27:43

It's a control of size. Matt,

27:46

I'm sure you've got one. Yeah,

27:48

there's a really lovely weeping cherry

27:50

called Charlotte, which has gorgeous

27:52

white flowers and the sort of weeping nature

27:54

of them. It almost looks like a ballerina

27:57

tutu, that kind of feel to it, the

28:00

falls most most elegantly and

28:03

this is old school but it still works

28:05

and I still like it and I remember

28:07

at home we used to have a prunus

28:10

called a managawa which for in the sort

28:12

of 70s was really popular and it's upright

28:14

so sort of really compact so it won't

28:17

affect your view. Pink flowers, masses

28:19

of them but people neglect to say

28:21

that it also has really good

28:23

autumn colour or ours certainly did and

28:26

orange and red so you get good autumn colour from

28:29

it later on it's quite upright quite sort

28:31

of stiff and I think some people feel

28:33

that it's not you know it's not expressing

28:35

itself properly but it would certainly

28:37

bring the kind of colour that you're looking

28:39

for and when you get

28:41

up close to them and look at

28:43

the details of any cherry blossom in fact

28:45

I went into your garden into the Harris

28:47

garden this afternoon and by

28:50

the gate there's absolutely

28:52

gorgeous white semi-double

28:55

floured cherry taihaku in

28:58

flower and it's massive and as you come into the

29:00

gate at this time of year such a welcome and then

29:02

when you walk up the path and turn around and look

29:04

at it you see

29:06

that it's spread it must be pretty

29:09

mature it's been obviously been there for a long

29:11

long time they are on top form this year.

29:13

It's a lovely year for them.

29:15

It's lovely to hear about taihaku which I've

29:17

been admiring everywhere as we go around it's

29:19

really unique for cherries just because of the

29:21

size of its flower and the fact that

29:23

this flower comes out at a similar time

29:25

to the leaves so you have this enormous

29:27

star-shaped white flower at the same time as

29:29

bronze foliage and almost

29:32

all cherry varieties flowering cherry varieties

29:34

come from Japan as does taihaku.

29:37

However I think it's one example where you

29:39

could have a British claim to it so

29:42

it was introduced to the UK

29:44

and then went extinct in Japan and

29:46

a British cherry expert went to a

29:48

symposium at the beginning of the 20th

29:51

century to visit cherry growers and he

29:53

saw a picture of taihaku on an

29:55

ancient scroll and was told it was

29:57

extinct and he said I'm not sure what it

29:59

was but I'm not sure I'm sure my mates got that in

30:01

West Sussex. And you know, his

30:03

Japanese host being

30:05

incredibly polite and hospitable, sort of smiled

30:07

and nodded and waited for him to

30:09

go home. And oh my gosh, he

30:11

actually did. He found the last remaining

30:13

one of those cherry trees and

30:15

he took cuttings and sent it back to Japan. And

30:18

now it's all over Japan and all over

30:20

the UK. And I think it's a beautiful

30:22

story of friendship and botany. So

30:25

that's one example. There's two other quick ones

30:27

I'm going to give you. I like Kansan,

30:29

which is really commonly found throughout the UK.

30:31

It's one of the latest flowering cherries. So

30:34

it gives you a good season. It's

30:36

got really big powder puff, a

30:39

million petals, a fluorescent pink. It's

30:41

kind of Barbara Cartland-esque. And that

30:43

would normally write it off for

30:45

me. But one of the key

30:47

uses that it's been bred for

30:49

is for edible use. So

30:52

lots of desserts

30:54

in Japan are created

30:57

using the buds

30:59

of this particular variety. And it's precisely

31:01

because it has so many petals. If

31:03

you tried to dry the other varieties

31:05

or candy them, they would just fall

31:08

apart. So it's beautiful and it has

31:10

a sussle almondy flavor. You can

31:12

make tea out of it. You can candy

31:14

them. Final one, a wildcard

31:16

one, as I like wildcards, Yukon. It

31:18

has green flowers, sort of yellowy, white,

31:20

green, pendant flowers. When you look up

31:23

at them, it's kind of a green,

31:25

jade green sky. It's absolutely beautiful that

31:27

there's some of you. Now

31:29

I need room for three. You do? Absolutely.

31:32

Plenty to choose from. Thanks, Kate. Let's

31:35

move over here now. Hello. My

31:38

name is Rod Ellis. I live

31:40

in Oakley and I'm in Buckinghamshire

31:42

for which I organize a talk

31:44

for the Garden Club.

31:47

And this is basically a question

31:51

that has bothered us a

31:53

lot in the Garden Club. And

31:56

I'd like to ask the panel what tips

31:58

they could give us for growing fruit

32:00

and vegetables in hot,

32:02

dry summers, so

32:04

doesn't include endless watering. Yeah,

32:08

good question. Juliet, do

32:10

you have this issue on your allotment? Is

32:12

there water to hand? We

32:16

do have water on the allotment, but

32:19

I think it's becoming increasingly a

32:21

problem for everybody. I'll

32:23

start with what I often say,

32:26

which is mulching. Just

32:28

because they're edibles doesn't mean you

32:30

can't mulch in the same way that you would

32:32

mulch ornamentals. So I think that more

32:35

and more we need to be thinking about looking

32:37

after the soil and mulching.

32:39

But then also watering

32:42

down near the

32:44

roots of the plant. So I have

32:46

now started cutting off

32:49

the tops of

32:51

water bottles, submerging them into

32:53

the soil beside my plants,

32:55

and then filling that up

32:57

to gradually soak into

32:59

the soil and deep down into

33:02

the soil beside the plant. So

33:05

that's one tip. Thank you. James,

33:07

do we have to start looking a bit

33:09

further afield maybe to areas where plants, edible

33:11

plants would naturally cope with

33:13

those sort of conditions? I think

33:15

definitely when you look at regular

33:17

horticulture, ornamental horticulture, that's becoming more

33:19

of a shift that people are

33:22

doing. They're looking at plants that

33:24

come from Mediterranean type climate zones.

33:27

However, when it comes to fruit and vegetable

33:29

gardening, what we often forget

33:31

is that most of our crops are

33:33

already from Mediterranean climate zones. There

33:36

are a few horticultural hotspots around

33:39

the world where agriculture was independently

33:41

invented. And one of the

33:43

key ones that's affected the UK is

33:45

the Mediterranean. So most of our crops,

33:47

even things like cabbages, come from

33:49

a Mediterranean type climate. So we've already got a

33:51

little bit of a Head

33:54

start on those, and they're still grown in

33:56

those Mediterranean areas. So I Think there's. That

34:00

we can take from those areas rather than just

34:02

necessarily the crops are one of them is watering

34:05

deep. So instead of watering a little and often

34:07

as many people major going out with a house

34:09

for two seconds of a basic huge as the

34:11

surface of your soil. As basic if you do

34:13

in the middle of a day and the evaporates

34:16

off and never as he makes it down to

34:18

the plants roots and your since the wasting your

34:20

time and the water. I'm. I'm. Makes

34:22

much more sense to was really so

34:24

really. I'm at. But. Less often

34:26

and to do that at even of

34:29

the morning or the evening when the

34:31

water isn't gonna evaporate. Ah, so that's

34:33

one what he techniques and other one

34:35

is using an oil. which is that

34:37

Latin American technique? Ah, very similar to

34:39

what Juliet recommended it, essentially burying a

34:42

bottle time the bottle is made out

34:44

of. Poor a ceramic poorest helicopter to

34:46

see filled us up and it's slowly

34:48

starts poking leasing out of. if you

34:50

only have a small space, they're kind

34:52

of a really beautiful garden feature is

34:54

really fun to do. That really useful.

34:57

The tricky thing is heavy have a huge

34:59

space, you better get a lot of oil

35:01

and they're not necessarily buy gold of this.

35:03

terracotta is not safe but they often in

35:06

a limited environments on the other one is

35:08

changing a little bit of the philosophy of

35:10

how we grow, so I would say that

35:12

for example, tomatoes are quite a drought tolerance

35:15

except we water them. And. Feed

35:17

them so much to produce huge amounts

35:19

of crop. When you're doing that, a

35:21

lot of the fruit is just water

35:24

and that corresponds to their flavor. If

35:26

you go, tomatoes hard were essentially water

35:28

when they first go in, and you

35:30

keep them regularly Water just when they're

35:33

establishing slowly weaning them off that water

35:35

I'm it's definitely been demonstrated. you get

35:37

much lower yields, but the crop flavor

35:40

as much Martha actually sell in countries

35:42

like Israel. In countries like I'm places

35:44

like Arizona in the U S non

35:46

irrigated. tomatoes because they taste so much math of

35:49

apps they sell them for a premium i think

35:51

the called sweet or something like that i'm see

35:53

can do that with smart as you can do

35:55

that with basil you can do with chilies you'll

35:57

have plans that don't look chelsea by was so

36:00

But you'll have 100% blue-medal winning

36:02

flavour, whatever the expression is. I

36:04

don't know anything about food. It's

36:07

an important question, Rod, I think, because water's becoming

36:09

a scarce commodity and

36:12

increasingly precious. And yes,

36:14

we do have to think a little bit more

36:16

about how we actually use it. Pete,

36:18

could I just quickly add? To me,

36:20

the soil is really important and the answer lies

36:22

in the soil. And if you get plenty of

36:25

organic matter in the soil, so it holds the

36:27

moisture like a sponge, then you get a really

36:29

good root system on the plant that goes deep

36:32

down into the ground. You water

36:34

correctly, as already been advised, giving

36:37

plants a good soaking. So if

36:39

the soil has a good

36:42

structure, then your plants will be

36:44

more healthier and more drought resistant

36:46

through the summertime. And fingers crossed

36:48

for regularly spaced showers this summer.

36:51

Yes, thank you. Well, we can't guarantee

36:53

that, but thanks for the help. Thanks very

36:55

much. You're very welcome. Well,

36:57

let's take another question. Good

37:00

afternoon, panel. I'm Alastair Cullum.

37:02

I'm a botanist and taxonomist

37:04

from the University of Reading.

37:07

I once displayed Japanese knotweed

37:09

at Chelsea Floroshelf. My

37:12

question is about indoor plants. I

37:14

have a great urge

37:16

to promote plants to our undergraduates

37:18

and I would like to know

37:21

what your recommendations would be for

37:23

three interesting houseplants they

37:25

could grow in their student room.

37:29

Great question. James, this has to

37:31

be up your street. Oh, I'm hurriedly sketching

37:33

them all down. So I'm just thinking

37:35

about the things that I have at the moment. And

37:38

it is a basic example, but I

37:40

think it is a great introduction to the wonder

37:42

of plants. And you have to see them in

37:44

real life to be able to do that. So

37:47

the Venus flytrap, incredibly

37:49

common and relatively easy

37:51

to grow if you have the right advice

37:53

for it. So really

37:55

bright position, keep them

37:58

constantly moist. A grow lamp will be a good idea. really

38:00

help. Very often

38:02

people fail with them because they need that winter

38:04

dormancy. We now know they

38:07

don't actually require winter dormancy if they have

38:09

a grow light on them at all times.

38:11

So if you have a desk lamp with

38:13

a white bulb in it, you can keep

38:15

that growing throughout the winter. And it is

38:17

amazing. They're plants that can count. They

38:20

don't shut their traps until their trigger

38:22

hairs are triggered more than once. And

38:24

we now know that they can count

38:26

up to five because even once they're...

38:28

I'm botany-splaining here, I'm afraid so. The

38:31

more the inside... the more the inside of the

38:33

trap, the more digestive juices are produced. So, you

38:35

know, there's that. I would

38:37

add to that a water lily at

38:39

the opposite end of it. So I

38:41

am fascinated by trying to grow things

38:43

that people tell me I can't. And

38:47

very often, there's a very good reason why

38:49

people tell you you can't grow them. But

38:51

sometimes they really work. So I've been growing

38:54

a selection of different types of water lily

38:56

at home, both temperate and tropical ones. And

38:59

really, as long as you have a small

39:01

variety and a small vessel, they're

39:04

really quite straightforward. A lot like

39:08

bonsai, water lilies' ultimate

39:11

size is often constrained by their root run.

39:13

So I'm growing a tropical one at

39:15

the moment, a blue tropical one, which you can

39:17

buy in lots of catalogs now. On

39:20

the expensive side, you could go for a

39:22

much cheaper one like Helvella, which

39:24

is not tropical, white flower.

39:27

I'm growing one in a punch bowl. I'm growing another

39:29

one in a salad bowl. All

39:31

you need to do is have a lot of light.

39:33

And if you don't have a lot of light in

39:35

your student flat, again, desk lamp, white-colored bulb,

39:38

you're absolutely fine. Third example.

39:40

Gosh, can I leave it up to you

39:42

guys? Yeah, that's fine. Juliet. I don't

39:44

want to go anymore. Well,

39:47

my two examples are very easy

39:50

to cultivate, very easy to get hold

39:52

of and cheap, which I think might

39:54

help the students. This is sounding good. So

39:57

I just love spider plants. I

39:59

think, you know... When somebody's starting

40:01

out, it's really important that they

40:03

get quick success. And

40:05

I think you even I couldn't

40:07

kill a spider plant. And

40:11

you very quickly get the little baby spiders hanging

40:13

off, which you can then cut off and give

40:15

to your friends. So definitely I

40:17

think a spider plant, and they're so resilient. And

40:20

then to go for something

40:22

that will flowers for a long time, an

40:25

orchid, a cymbidium orchid would be

40:27

really, really easy. And

40:30

just glorious because they flower. Interesting

40:33

how things come around, isn't it? Spider plant would have been

40:35

the thing I would have grown as a student. And that

40:37

was a long time ago. I

40:40

suppose portability maybe has to come into the equation

40:42

a little bit, Matt, because

40:44

students obviously aren't in their accommodation the whole

40:46

year round. What have you got? Yeah, so

40:48

I'd resist anything to spider plants. Spider plants,

40:50

by the way, get them looking around because

40:53

there's quite a few different cultivars of them

40:55

now. So what they could do is, you

40:57

know, they could somebody could start with one

40:59

cultivar and then just do some

41:01

swapping around and build up a collection. Sansa

41:05

verias, there's a whole range of those.

41:07

And they're really tough plants. I

41:10

just bought myself Sansa veria moonshine, which has

41:12

a grayish leaf and dark green edge. And

41:17

it looks beautiful. There's something really sort of

41:19

architectural about it. Echeverias,

41:22

I've got those growing as well. Little

41:25

succulent rosettes, really

41:27

easy to keep because they're students

41:29

and they're vulgar. Lithops,

41:32

the living stones. And

41:34

you could put those in some

41:36

gravel, bury the lithops, they

41:38

live at ground level, they

41:41

camouflage themselves naturally. But

41:43

when they flower, they look like sort of

41:45

a daily a sticking out of a bottom.

41:49

And I used to have one in the lavatory at

41:51

home, but nobody got the... Well, I don't know whether

41:53

it was a joke. That sent me

41:55

back to dad's humor again, but I used to have one

41:58

because I thought when it... for

42:00

that. I thought that it was

42:03

the right plant to

42:05

reflect the activity. Thanks,

42:10

panel. Thank you. Wonderful selection of plants,

42:12

thank you. And the idea of students

42:15

with water lilies in there does worry

42:17

me a bit in terms of

42:19

potential fines for leakage. Thanks

42:22

ever so much for your questions. Some inspiration

42:24

there. Well, Stanley, that's all we got time

42:26

for this week. Thanks to everyone for your

42:28

questions and for being a great audience here

42:30

in Reading. And thank you for listening. We'll

42:32

be back with more next week. Please join

42:34

us on Friday at 3 or Sunday

42:36

at 2 if you can or anytime

42:38

on BBC Sounds. But in the meantime

42:40

from me, Peter Gibbs and the panel,

42:43

Matt Biggs, Juliet Sargent and James Wong,

42:45

goodbye and may the weather be with

42:47

you. Music

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radio TV. Mom

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up. What was that? Boring. No

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