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1:19

BBC Sounds. Music

1:21

radio podcasts. Hello,

1:24

I'm Cathy Klugston. And this is Gardener's

1:26

Question Time from BBC Radio 4. So

1:30

grab those secateurs or sit back and

1:32

relax however you like to listen. And

1:34

enjoy the next 45 minutes of

1:36

great tips, advice and dubious

1:38

horticultural humour. Hello

1:40

and a warm welcome to this week's

1:43

Gardener's Question Time. We're back in the

1:45

county of Berkshire today. A

1:47

key local area of interest around

1:49

here is Wildmore Heath. With

1:51

the colourful if rather soggy scenes of

1:53

autumn turning towards winter's cooler colour palette,

1:56

this little bit of land really flexes

1:58

its muscles during this particular transition.

2:01

Unlike many heaves across Britain, Wildmore

2:03

sits on a slope. It offers

2:06

visitors varying landscapes, mature pine

2:08

and broad-leaf woodland, border-wet and

2:10

dry lowland heath which sit

2:13

amongst valley bogs. Fresh

2:15

springs from the higher ground feed into these

2:17

peaty bogs, making it the ideal habitat for

2:20

moss, bog asphodel, butterwort and the

2:22

white beaked sedge. And a trio

2:25

of horticulturalists who are as

2:27

happy exploring a bog as they

2:29

are sitting in front of an

2:31

audience of keen gardeners. Yes,

2:33

it's our GQT panel. Audience

2:35

please welcome designer Matthew Wilson,

2:38

passionate plantswoman Christine Wharton and

2:40

self-described plant mad man Matt

2:42

Biggs. Later

2:49

in the programme James Wong heads

2:51

to Kew Gardens to gather some

2:54

design inspiration that might just convert

2:56

the staunchest fairweather gardener amongst us.

2:59

But for now let's take our first question. Good

3:01

afternoon panel. I'm Janet Gordon

3:04

from the Wokiam Horticulture Association.

3:07

My question is I have a miniature

3:09

lilac which is no longer miniature. How

3:12

and when should I try

3:15

and reduce it down to a

3:17

more manageable size? It's

3:19

now at the moment about 25

3:21

foot. That's definitely not miniature. You've been

3:24

sold a pop. If it's syringa velutina

3:26

which I would imagine you know that's what it

3:28

should be syringa that doesn't get that big. Could

3:31

be vulgaris. Yeah. It was

3:33

a gift. Oh there we are

3:35

you see. Well if it's a gift then

3:37

it comes with no guarantee because the most

3:39

widely available dwarf lilac is syringa velutina which

3:41

is you know. Anyone know who

3:43

gave the syringa to Janet? Anyone here?

3:46

I think if you start hammering a

3:48

lilac back

3:54

all it will do is a produce

3:56

a lot of water shoots or very

3:58

upright vigorous shoot and it will sucker

4:00

like mad if it's not already

4:02

suffering like mad. Are

4:05

you sentimentally attached to this plant? Not particularly. Have

4:07

it up then. Dig it up. Dig it up

4:09

and lose it. It does smell lovely when it's

4:11

like that. Yeah, but there's other things that you

4:14

could plant in this place that smell lovely and

4:16

don't do what it is doing. But

4:18

do you still see the person who gave it

4:20

to you? No. Well, that's all right. So

4:23

definitely dig it up. Dig it up with

4:25

abandon. You've got the wrong

4:27

thing, basically. Yeah, and if you really

4:29

want to plant a syringa velutina, which

4:31

is a beautiful compact lilac which won't

4:33

get to 25 feet tall,

4:35

and then you get your lilac jollies without

4:38

having your house disappear underneath it. Thank you

4:40

very much. Well, we solved that one. Well

4:42

done, panel. Thank you. And

4:44

who's got another question? Hello, panel.

4:46

My name is Miriam Eastwell. I

4:49

live outside Wokingham. My question is,

4:51

how can you prolong the life

4:53

of orchids successfully? I've tried putting

4:56

them outside. I've tried

4:58

feeding them. I need your advice. Christine,

5:01

how do you get them back again? The

5:03

key thing is, don't cut down the

5:05

flowering spike. Because if

5:07

you do, it's then got to

5:09

manufacture the flowering spike again. What

5:12

you do is, one down from

5:14

the withered flower, cut off beneath

5:16

that, and you'll then normally get

5:18

the following year or a couple

5:21

of months later, depending on how well the plant

5:23

has been grown, new flowering

5:25

stems from there. Plenty

5:28

of light, but not bright light.

5:31

I water mine by sticking it in the washing

5:33

up bowl for a couple of hours, once

5:35

a week, and then just let it drain and stick it

5:37

back on the windowsill. I feed with

5:39

a general multipurpose fertiliser from July through

5:42

until late September, and then I stop.

5:45

I dust the leaves quite regularly,

5:47

because the light can be reduced

5:49

quite significantly if the dust builds

5:51

up. And I'm successful

5:53

with them. I think the other thing is

5:55

that a lot of people also treat them as

5:57

a sort of long-term, almost like cut flower. because

6:00

you're going, you buy them when they've

6:02

got their big arch of

6:04

flowers, and then you do as Christine says,

6:07

and find the little triangular, but next and

6:09

cut, and next and cut. And then once

6:11

it's done, you've probably had eight,

6:14

nine, ten months of flour from it, and

6:16

because you have to wait such a long

6:18

period of time before they will regrow again,

6:20

unless you like a challenge, most people then

6:23

recycle them into the compost and

6:25

go again. So I think, am I

6:27

allowed to say that's probably the best way to treat them? No. OK,

6:32

I won't then. You

6:34

can keep an orchid going for

6:37

a considerable number of years. I've

6:39

got at least, probably

6:41

ten, that are at least 30 years old. And

6:44

presumably you've had to... How often do they flour? They

6:47

flour all the time. Presumably

6:49

you've had to pot them on in that time. Yes,

6:51

I have. Yeah, but in fact... Any tips on that? Well,

6:54

pot in the morning, in fact. This

6:56

is not what is normally suggested. I knock them

6:58

out of the pot. Most of them are in

7:00

nine to 15 centimetre pot.

7:03

And they're in like a sort of crumbled bark. They're

7:05

in a bark mixture and

7:08

I literally just turn that old bark out

7:10

and put new bark in and stick it

7:12

back in the same pot. The same size?

7:14

Same size. Now it's not what's

7:16

normally suggested, but it works for me.

7:19

And if the roots get too big? I just prune them.

7:21

OK, thanks very much. You know what to do now

7:23

anyway. Yeah, thank you for your help. Fab, who's next?

7:25

Hi, panel. My name

7:27

is Zofiez Krakowski. I live in

7:30

Wokingham. I have to admit, I have

7:32

a flat so I don't actually have a garden, but

7:34

I am a keen indoor plant

7:36

hobbyist working on my indoor jungle.

7:39

It's tricky to look after tropical

7:41

indoor plants when it's

7:43

in wintertime and I lose

7:45

at least one calatia a year. What advice

7:48

can you offer for keeping these tropical

7:50

plants in good condition before the weather turns

7:52

warm again? It doesn't

7:54

matter whether it's outdoors or indoors. It's all

7:57

gardening. It's all looking after plants. It's a

7:59

nurturing plant. It's just as important, just

8:01

as valid. Christine. The biggest

8:03

issue we have in this country

8:06

is poor light and light intensity.

8:08

And one of the ways to

8:10

ensure that your tropical plants are

8:12

happier is the installation of LED

8:14

light. They are cheap, they're

8:16

easy to put up. Most of the larger

8:19

DIY stores sell them. They

8:21

run at peanuts cost and you'll find

8:23

that your plants are north a lot happier. Fabulous.

8:26

Matt. Tropical covers an

8:29

awfully wide range of plants, of course, doesn't it,

8:31

which would live in all very different habitats. Some

8:33

are going to like hot and dry, some are

8:35

going to like moisture. So within

8:37

a house, is it rather difficult to model

8:40

those sort of conditions? Is that part of

8:42

the problem? Well, the whole thing about

8:44

gardening is actually trying to replicate the habitat, you

8:46

know, the right plant in the right place, whether

8:48

it's, you know, your alpine plants and the kind

8:50

of soil that they need and light levels. So

8:52

we're always trying to put the right plant in

8:54

the right place and then it'll be really happy.

8:57

Of course, I've ignored there the fact that gardeners

8:59

like the challenge of putting the wrong

9:01

plant in their garden. So, you know, that you've

9:03

got that as well. But in the house, you

9:06

will have plants from,

9:09

and I'm thinking like, you know,

9:11

your Peacelidias, your Calatheas, your Begonia's

9:13

that like low levels, that like

9:15

levels. And particularly the Calatheas and

9:17

Peacelidias are from the ground floor

9:19

of the rainforest. Some of your

9:21

ferns as well, sludge and ellas

9:23

will like the low light. They

9:25

will cope with the low light

9:27

levels. Temperatures in your house will

9:29

be fairly warm, so keep the

9:32

humidity around them and

9:34

they should be fine. And you often

9:36

sort of, they eke their way through

9:38

the winter. If you've got cacti and

9:40

succulents, then the LED lights are absolutely

9:43

fine. They will take cool temperatures, but

9:45

they don't want to be, you know,

9:47

thinking of conditions in a desert. It

9:49

can get freezing cold, but

9:51

they will still survive. So look at the plants

9:54

that you're going to buy or that you've already

9:56

got, you know, group them together so that

9:58

they get maximum humidity. put

10:00

them on trays of pebbles filled with water to

10:02

the bottom of the pot and just try and

10:05

help them through the winter and the

10:07

low light levels by giving them the

10:10

best of everything else. I hope that

10:12

helps. Definitely, thanks very much. Lovely, thanks

10:14

for your question. Let's

10:16

take another one. Hello panel,

10:18

Will Reading's Ascot Horticultural

10:20

Society. Why do

10:23

my Swedes grow elongated upwards

10:25

rather than filling out fat.

10:27

I've planted them in situ,

10:29

I've transplanted them, I've grown

10:31

them in the polytunnel and

10:33

out of the polytut still

10:35

grow upwards rather than bulging.

10:37

Do you like Swedes? Yeah,

10:40

well I married a girl from up north so I've

10:42

got tweets for you. Christine Wharton, a lass from up

10:44

north. What's going on? It's

10:51

basically bolting instead of producing the

10:53

bulbus bottom. Swedes and root

10:57

crops are actually quite difficult to get

10:59

the time in right as far as

11:01

seeds sow in etc and they're very

11:03

sensitive to temperature and all sorts of

11:05

things. The stem can be quite thick,

11:07

are yours stem? Yes, they're literally

11:09

trying to run up to seeds and if you

11:11

leave them there they would eventually flower and you'd

11:14

set seeds. Now it can be

11:16

a million and one thing that has

11:18

caused that change and it's normally either

11:20

a physical or a physiological

11:22

happening that causes that change in

11:24

growth habits so it could be

11:27

too wet too dry, it could

11:29

be that it's got very cold

11:31

one day, very dry one day.

11:33

Try different sowing dates and

11:35

see if you can get away with it there

11:37

because normally it's something that's happened in the first

11:40

few weeks of growth that then switches the switch

11:42

and it just runs up to flower. It's

11:44

normally in that earlier part of the

11:46

year that the plant receives a check

11:48

and that's what makes it monotony. Would

11:51

it be anything to do with what's in the soil? They

11:54

do grow better on heavier soils. Oh yeah,

11:56

of course. I thought north you see. where

12:00

they grow and they're much better

12:02

for cooler conditions. They're also known

12:04

as rutabaga, which is the Swedish

12:07

turnip, and they were originally grown

12:09

as cattle food and then eaten by peasants.

12:12

That's why they've always had a bit of

12:14

a stigma to them. Anyway, back to the

12:16

heavier soil. They do cool conditions, constant supply

12:18

of moisture and heavier soil. They're pining for

12:20

the north, Will. Thank you

12:22

very much. Well, better luck next

12:24

year. Surely for the Swedes, they're pining for

12:27

the fjords. Oh. Oh.

12:30

It's here all week. Sadly.

12:34

I picked it. More

12:36

questions from the Wokingham audience very soon.

12:39

Now, we often look to the autumn

12:41

into winter period as a time to

12:43

clear up, clear out and get on

12:46

with more practical tasks, perhaps. And whilst

12:48

that's true to some extent, if we

12:50

prep early enough, a winter garden can

12:52

offer up a dazzling display to stop

12:54

you in your tracks. With

12:56

the right outerwear and a little inspiration

12:58

from other winter gardens, you'll be

13:01

granted arguably the best gift a garden

13:03

can give, an excuse just to look

13:05

and do nothing. Self-proclaimed

13:08

fair weather gardener, James Wong, went

13:10

to meet a couple of winter

13:12

garden enthusiasts keen to convert him.

13:17

There's this expression that rolls onto

13:19

the pages of gardening media as

13:21

reliably as the first winter chill

13:23

fills the air, putting the garden

13:25

to bed. And it's one that

13:28

I've always found incredibly romantic sounding,

13:30

but also quite depressing, because it

13:32

implies that for half the year,

13:34

you don't get to have any

13:36

fun anymore. And as someone who

13:38

is resolutely and unashamedly a fair

13:40

weather gardener, I really

13:42

wanted to come to the new winter garden

13:45

at Kew to really challenge my preconception and

13:47

also look at options to brighten up and

13:49

give just a better time for me in

13:51

these bleak amounts. And the most amazing

13:54

thing is I've lined up two experts today, Tony

13:56

Hall and Bex Lane, who are going to tell

13:58

me all about what they do. they've done here.

14:04

So I've walked up a snaking

14:06

gravel path through this, just like

14:08

a sweet shop of brilliant, shining

14:10

color. And the most exciting thing is,

14:13

Tony, normally when visitors come to see this,

14:15

they can see all of that, but they

14:17

don't get to have an expert to explain

14:19

the design choices and the ideas behind it.

14:21

Tell me about this thing. The

14:24

winter garden was something that we didn't really have

14:26

in the gardens. We do really well on summer

14:28

color and autumn color. Do you think there is

14:30

a tendency to favor the summer? Because there's more

14:32

planting options out there, there's more plant growth. It's

14:35

just easier to design a garden for summer.

14:37

So why would you focus on winter at

14:39

all, I suppose? You definitely don't see that

14:41

many winter gardens looking great. Everyone associated winter

14:43

with being cold and gray and wet, and

14:46

so they all chuck themselves away. Everyone

14:48

comes out in the summer, and there is

14:51

lots of color in the summer. But winter

14:53

is equally as colorful. And if

14:55

you get a bright, crisp winter day, the sun's

14:57

shining, I don't think there's anything better than wandering

14:59

around the garden and actually seeing that color. I

15:02

think somehow the colors are much brighter in the

15:04

winter. Summer colors can be

15:06

quite hatter and muted. Lots of lovely

15:08

colors, lots of lovely scent. And that's what I'm talking

15:11

about winter gardens. All the plants that flower in the

15:13

winter, or most of the plants that flower in the

15:15

winter have to be super, super scented because

15:17

they're out there to attract the

15:19

few insects that were around. So you'll find things like

15:21

your chimney antlers and your sarcococcus

15:23

and all those, the fragrances, intense.

15:26

So not only do you have the color, you

15:29

have that wonderful scent. I mean, that's such a good point. It's winter

15:31

is that time of year that you often

15:33

smell plants before you see them. That's

15:35

because of that intensity of fragrance. And

15:37

they come out just when you need

15:39

them the most. And you're right about

15:41

color. I mean, coming up here, it's

15:43

like you've got loads of highlighter pens

15:45

and have just decorated the bark and

15:47

the stems on all sorts of different

15:50

plants here. These really intense kind of

15:52

citrus or sort of sunset shades, like

15:54

acid green, fluorescent pink, really, really shocking

15:56

orange colors. That is it. During the

15:58

summer, a lot of these plants, there is... all the leaves, you

16:00

just can't see that colour. The minute you

16:02

get a sharp frost, the leaves come off and all

16:04

those wonderful colours, as you say, just stand out and

16:07

shine. Not only the stems are

16:09

cast, but also the parts on

16:11

the trees. We have one particular area right in the middle

16:13

of this winter garden where it's our black

16:15

and white area. We like to call it. So

16:17

we have the white stems of the Bextra Jack

16:19

Monti, the black grass of

16:21

the offupogan bernese, and then snowdrops are gonna

16:24

come up through that. So we have black,

16:26

white, and another. So even in the one

16:28

season, you have that varying change, because the

16:30

snowdrops aren't out yet, but the bark's really

16:32

beginning to show. So there's a seasonal change

16:34

even within a season. Absolutely. So, Beck, you

16:37

designed this together. When you've got one space,

16:39

you know, God, this can be quite territorial,

16:41

right? Did you fight over different

16:43

ideas? What did you bring to it? What did

16:45

Tony bring to it? And why is Tony wrong?

16:48

That's what I wanna know. I brought style

16:50

and elegance, and I'm not really not sure. I mean,

16:53

Tony has a lot of knowledge, but you know. No,

16:55

we've had great fun playing. As

16:58

you said in the introduction, it's like a

17:00

sweet shop. So we've been playing with all

17:03

these really exciting plants and working out how

17:05

to get them looking their best together. We

17:07

had the black and white theme. We've had

17:09

a very nice, gentle winter theme underneath the

17:11

euonymus, where we've got the hellebores, the eryanthus.

17:13

So the eryanthus come up first.

17:16

Their special feature is that the snow dissolves around

17:18

them as they come up those days. The tips

17:20

of the bulbs have a little bit of heat

17:22

in them, so you get a snow melt around

17:24

it, and then this beautiful little yellow flower comes

17:26

out. They come up really, really early, and then

17:29

a bit later you have the snowdrops and

17:31

hellebores coming into flower. They have a really nice,

17:33

long season of flowering, and you have a nice

17:36

mix of color. So I sort of carve it

17:38

underneath the euonymus, which have this stunning, stunning gnarly

17:40

bark. We're particularly lucky here at Kew

17:42

because we've got sort of 100-year-old specimens, and I

17:44

don't think you get that straight away. So

17:47

we're, yeah. I think one

17:49

of the amazing things about what you've done here

17:51

is in the summer, you can over-rely

17:53

on just flowers for color.

17:56

Whereas in the winter, you have this balance. So

17:58

you have color from stems. you have colour from

18:00

bark, you have colour from dying and dead plants,

18:03

which you don't think about at all in summer,

18:05

things that are flower heads that are going over,

18:07

and texture here, like the

18:09

amazing way you've played with what frost

18:11

could land on or what dew drops can land on

18:14

to provide that texture. Yeah, so I

18:16

think for me, my favourite bit of the

18:18

planting, and self-injest obviously that

18:20

was my bit, was where we

18:22

had the flomis, the penicetum cecilaria,

18:25

two lovely grasses that catch light

18:27

in different ways and move in

18:29

different ways, and then the

18:32

euphorbia, and the euphorbia is not a plant

18:34

you think of as a winter garden plant

18:36

traditionally, but it has this really lovely blue-green

18:38

colour that sets off the oranges and the

18:40

red fantastically. It also looks really beautiful with

18:43

the frost and you get this really nice

18:45

combination of frosting grass and

18:47

he has, and the frost is flomis

18:49

heads and they wave in the

18:51

wind slightly and you get this really

18:53

magical effect, so it's really exciting. We

18:56

wanted inspiration for a winter garden. This

18:58

place is a really, really big spot.

19:00

You've probably got the encyclopedia, almost like

19:02

a sample showroom of all the different

19:04

winter plants you could get in one

19:06

spot and combined already so you could

19:08

get inspiration to do that. You've

19:11

got colour when you need it the most, you've got environmental

19:13

benefits and you've got surprisingly, I think

19:15

there's something to be said in horticulture

19:17

to be stopped in your tracks and

19:19

with scent and colour when you never

19:22

imagine there's going to be any, there's

19:24

something really exciting about that. I just

19:26

have one thing I'm going to pick you up on. Why don't

19:28

you plant this garden beneath a flight path? It's

19:30

been a nightmare recording this today. It's

19:33

only we could move to all the flight paths. Yeah,

19:35

could you get rid of Heathrow, please? Regular

19:40

panelist James Wong chatting to Tony Hall

19:42

and Bex Lane about the delights of

19:44

a winter garden. Panel, James

19:47

and the team mentioned bright-stemmed

19:49

rubus, structural flomis, so colour

19:51

and structure in a winter

19:53

garden. Two plants really dazzle

19:57

through this time of the year and onwards. I

19:59

wonder what your... star plants are for the

20:01

winter? What's your stand out, Matthew? Well,

20:03

I think we, you

20:05

do well to think about pines and

20:08

in particular some of the dwarf pines,

20:10

Hyenas, Mugo, Mops, you know, there's

20:12

some of the compact pines water rise. They're

20:14

fantastic all year round, but they're

20:16

brilliant when they're combined with, dare

20:19

I say it, winter flowering heathers

20:22

and grasses. They give you

20:24

that kind of almost Mediterranean feel.

20:26

And I, you know, unfortunately heathers

20:28

have suffered from having their

20:31

period of being very much in fashion and

20:33

being planted with dwarf conifers, which then everybody

20:35

realised weren't that dwarf at all. And

20:38

you often go past the house, which has got a

20:40

20 foot high conifer in the front. And it's some

20:42

because somebody planted a dwarf one 30 years ago. But

20:46

heathers are a really useful plants.

20:48

So yeah, dwarf pines and heathers

20:50

look fantastic together. Matt,

20:53

evergreens are quite important, aren't they, as part

20:55

of the structure, as Matthew says, during winter

20:57

garden. I've got some evergreen shrubs up against

20:59

a fence that kind of disappeared during the

21:01

summer as other things grow around and then

21:04

kind of emerge again as everything else dies

21:06

back. Yeah, it's the importance of structure within

21:08

a garden. Christine and I once went to

21:11

a garden in February and we were on our

21:13

way back from a recording at

21:16

Port Marion and we went to Clough

21:18

Williams Ellis's garden and knocked on the

21:20

door and said, would we come in?

21:23

And they amazingly said yes. And

21:26

we looked around the garden in

21:28

the winter and saw the structure,

21:30

the whole bones of it, the

21:32

evergreens, the the the bleached hedging,

21:35

the borders without any plants in.

21:38

And it was a completely different

21:40

experience. It was absolutely fascinating. Do

21:42

you remember that? Yeah, I remember the

21:44

journey there as well. Yes, well,

21:46

we'll move on from that. We're

21:48

talking of visiting gardens. I mean, there are lots of

21:51

winter gardens and one of the one of the great

21:53

winter gardens is the one at Cambridge where they've hollowed

21:56

out a saucer and it's south

21:58

facing and so it kept. all

22:00

the fragrance in that saucer as you

22:02

walk down into it. And one of

22:05

my favorite plants for winter is

22:07

the Japanese wineberry with lovely

22:09

reddish stems. They're very, very

22:12

bristly in the wintertime. They're almost like

22:14

the flailing arms of

22:16

an octopus, a fabulous plant.

22:19

And for me, I like wiff.

22:22

I like to go out and wiff

22:24

my way around the garden. So there's various

22:26

plants in the winter that I like to

22:29

sort of have a good sniff at.

22:31

And the saucer cockers, of course,

22:33

the carmenanthus, the winter sweets, the

22:35

daphnis, the honey suckles,

22:38

the winter-firing honey suckles people miss

22:40

out on. Tiny little flowers, they're

22:42

nowhere near as flamboyant as the

22:45

summer-firing honey suckles. But for scent,

22:47

they'll knock your socks off. So have

22:49

a go for wiff when you're going

22:51

to a winter garden. Wonderful, wonderful wiff.

22:54

Thanks, panel. You're listening

22:56

to Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4,

22:58

BBC Sounds with me, Peter Gibbs. On

23:00

the panel today are Matthew Wilson, Kristine

23:02

Wharton and Matt Biggs, who are taking

23:04

questions from our audience here in Wokingham.

23:06

And who has our next question, please.

23:09

Hello, panel. I'm Denise

23:11

Thruin, and I'm part of the

23:13

Wokingham Horticultural Association. And

23:16

I would like to know, which

23:18

plant do you consider to be

23:20

overlooked and underrated

23:23

and you would like to see more widely

23:25

grown? Oh, OK. Kristine, what

23:27

would you like to see more widely grown?

23:31

That's currently overlooked. I

23:33

think some of the lignishes, you know,

23:35

they're very easy plants to grow. They're

23:37

very wide ranging from alpine up to

23:39

tall, herbaceous plants. Matthew Wilson,

23:41

as a designer, you know that plants

23:43

go very much in and out of

23:45

fission. What would you like to see,

23:48

perhaps making a comeback that's being disregarded?

23:50

Yeah, they do. And obviously, when they

23:52

come into fashion, there tends to be

23:54

this sort of overload

23:56

of new varieties being bred.

23:59

You know, the classic... example being

24:01

Echinacea which you know

24:03

just in the Hugh Carus you know

24:05

I mean you can't move for Hugh

24:08

Carus you know from the color of

24:10

custard to to raspberries to and

24:12

they've all got names like custard, tart,

24:14

raspberry, fandango and I don't

24:18

know trapeze artist on a wire

24:20

or whatever I mean who knows

24:22

but anyway Phlox I

24:24

think Phlox have really gone out of

24:27

fashion partly maybe

24:29

because of problems

24:31

around you know they do they do stuff

24:33

of mildew they do have they can get

24:35

the stem the ole worm but Phlox I

24:37

think are such a

24:40

beautiful graceful garden plant the

24:42

fragrance is fantastic wide

24:45

range of colors and

24:48

pence de monde as well actually I would put

24:50

in the same group you know they've really gone

24:52

out of fashion but I wouldn't be without them

24:54

and some of them are absolutely brilliant the colors

24:56

on some of them are just gorgeous. That big

24:58

so what would you like what sort of shrinking

25:01

violet needs to be more out there? You know

25:03

I'm really torn because diasheas in

25:05

the 90s were really popular but they

25:07

faded away but I'm

25:09

going back really further to

25:12

alpine's in general and particularly

25:14

pulsotillas like pulsotilla, bulgaris, the

25:17

past flower which

25:19

is the most beautiful thing it's sort

25:21

of covered in wool when it's when

25:23

it appears the leaves and the stems

25:26

and has this lovely bell shaped flower

25:28

of a deep mowed purple with a

25:30

golden box of stamens in red colored

25:33

forms as pink colored forms and they're

25:35

really old-fashioned plants from the days when

25:37

alpine's were in their heyday

25:39

it's a native plant and it's an native

25:41

plant and I will add to that the

25:44

seed are fantastic

25:47

so when I did my 2015 Chelsea

25:49

garden I deliberately

25:52

included in the planting plan pulsotilla, bulgaris, knowing

25:54

full well it would have been would be

25:56

way out of flower but I did it

25:58

for the seed heads because they are

26:00

so gorgeous they're like these fluffy

26:02

explosion of loveliness. They all sound

26:04

good to me for a comeback.

26:06

Thanks for your question. Thank you.

26:09

On to the next question. Hello my

26:12

name is Patricia Smith I'm a

26:14

member of the Langborough Wildflower Garden

26:16

which is one of the projects from Wokingham

26:19

in Bloom. This is actually

26:21

about my own garden which is rather larger

26:24

and has a number of pitisporum in

26:26

it which died last year

26:29

and I was tempted to pull them out as I

26:31

was advised but I left them and

26:33

I've now actually got growth within one

26:37

of the taller plants and the small

26:39

tom-thumb ones as well but

26:41

I'm wondering how I should now prune them

26:43

to bring them back into a decent shape.

26:45

Okay and you've given a photograph

26:49

which I'll pass along. Before I

26:51

pass it along there's that ground elder

26:53

underneath the pitisporum. Oh yeah we

26:56

have Alconet and ground elder.

26:58

Okay let's pass that along. Yeah

27:01

there's panelists obviously quite a lot of dead

27:03

growth but you can see some new

27:06

growth on the left there can't you. So

27:08

Christian any general sort of rules for getting

27:11

pitisporum back into shape? It

27:13

very much depends on the variety and

27:15

the tom-thumb here looks like it's better

27:18

recovery than the other. The other one

27:20

that's got an awful lot of dieback

27:22

I think you're gonna have a job

27:24

getting the shape back with time. Now

27:27

I've had exactly the same situation and

27:29

I thumped mine and it grew a

27:31

bit but now it's going back again

27:33

so I'm having them up. The

27:36

better of the two plants that's got more

27:38

substantial growth on I would actually look

27:40

after prune to shape in the spring. The

27:42

other one that's got an awful lot of

27:44

dieback I'd actually have up and start again.

27:48

It's a difficult one isn't it because the whole

27:50

reason for growing pitisporum is for their lovely

27:52

form, their lovely shape and when they

27:55

get knocked back like that it's going

27:57

to take an awful lot to reshape

27:59

them. you know, back to their natural

28:01

glory. I would, yes,

28:03

I would agree, take out the tom thumb because

28:05

that is pretty much gone. And then the other

28:07

one, thin out, use

28:10

a parasecator sharps or make

28:12

sure your eyes are covered

28:14

and protected, go down to

28:16

the base. Next spring,

28:18

feed it with a general

28:21

slow release temperature controlled fertilizer and see what kind

28:23

of shape you can get from it. I think

28:25

if you were going to be improved, to

28:28

be honest with you, dig them both out, drop them

28:30

away and start again. Last winter

28:33

was a reminder to those of us

28:35

who think that

28:38

our milder winters are sort of

28:41

this ever ascending arc that

28:44

that's not the case and we will still

28:47

get the sudden dips where

28:49

we get, we had minus 11 and

28:53

we had nine days of deep

28:55

frost. And that put paid to,

28:58

well, it cut back certainly most

29:01

of the euphorbeias in my garden. So euphorbeia

29:03

mellifera, which I would kind of think of

29:05

that now as being, you know, if I'm

29:08

spec'ing that in a plantings scheme for a

29:10

job, I'd be like, well, that's bulletproof. No,

29:12

it isn't, you know, that will

29:15

still get cut back hard. And likewise,

29:17

pisporum, although I've always thought of pisporum,

29:19

tibira and tibiranana as being very much

29:21

on the edge, you'd think

29:24

tom thumb and some of the larger forms,

29:26

you would again think, yeah, bulletproof, but no,

29:29

it's a reminder to all of us that,

29:31

you know, if we get sustained

29:33

cold periods, some

29:35

of these plants are still vulnerable. Not a straight

29:38

line, no graph. And I think the other thing

29:40

is if you go back to them, you know,

29:42

the native habitats of the pisporum sort of in

29:44

New Zealand and the slightly

29:46

milder climate, they're okay, like you

29:48

say, when it's mild, but pisporum

29:50

tibira definitely needs it warmer. But

29:52

a lot of these things, because of the warmer

29:55

winters, we've been allowed

29:57

the leeway and lulled into a false sense

29:59

of security. into

30:01

thinking that these are going to be

30:04

fine from now. Well we

30:06

always push the envelope with gardeners, don't we? Yeah, we

30:08

do. Sometimes it depends on tears. And

30:12

your euphorbia mellifera, I always think

30:14

of that in Madeira, which

30:17

again is a kind climate, similar to parts of

30:19

New Zealand. Hey listen, Patricia, dig them out and

30:21

get rid of them and

30:23

you can tackle your ground elder as well. Yay! No

30:25

hope, I've been doing it for years. Yeah,

30:29

it's a long battle, isn't it? Thank

30:32

you. OK. It's probably

30:34

not what you wanted to hear, but sometimes

30:36

you just have to start over, don't you?

30:38

Yeah. Thanks for your question. Moving

30:41

on. I'm from the Working

30:43

Horticultural Association. I have a question about a

30:45

brick wall, a red brick wall which has

30:48

appeared on the side of my garden. I'd like

30:50

to have some ideas about

30:52

how I can grow up this wall. It's

30:54

about eight foot high. It faces east

30:56

so it only gets the morning early sun and then it's in

30:58

shade for the rest of the day. It's

31:00

underplanted with ferns, which are doing fine,

31:03

but that's all that's there at the moment. What

31:06

can I plant up to hide this rather large

31:08

brick wall? That suddenly appeared. Well,

31:10

relatively suddenly, yes. OK, right. You

31:12

don't sound too thrilled by that.

31:16

But yes, I mean, growing conditions

31:19

suddenly change completely, almost overnight. Exactly.

31:22

Yes, you've got to think again. Some

31:24

ideas, please. OK. Christine, what would you

31:26

do there? Well, you're describing

31:28

the situation that I experienced a few years ago

31:30

that I went away on holiday and all of

31:32

a sudden came back and, whew, there

31:35

it was. No mention,

31:37

no discussion, it was there. I

31:40

didn't want it either. So I put an

31:42

actinidia quincoifolia up it. Right. And

31:45

then I've planted and it's looked

31:47

stunning this year, Dicenter

31:50

scandans. It's

31:53

a climbing Dicenter. It's

31:55

put on 12 foot of growth. It's covered 10

31:58

foot high. It's just one plant. and

32:01

it's been in flowers since May and

32:03

it just flowers and flowers tiny

32:06

little flowers and

32:08

they call them lady in the

32:10

bathtub, these very sort of dutchman's

32:12

britches but it's yellow which is

32:15

very odd and very unusual for the

32:17

dicentras. Very easy

32:19

from seed, dicentra scandum. And what

32:22

would you like to add to that maths?

32:24

Well if it's a nice wall if it's

32:26

properly built I think I've got a piece

32:28

of brick wall in my garden. I actually

32:30

like it I don't want to cover it

32:32

completely because I actually like wall and the

32:34

building that we're in today this

32:37

wonderful old town hall if you look

32:39

at the brickwork and the detailing the

32:41

wire cut bricks the mortar

32:43

is about two mil it's

32:46

an incredible building. I know your

32:48

wall won't be like that but bricks aren't all

32:50

bad. I would think something like

32:52

the Shinomalees the Japanese quincy's grow really

32:54

well against there you would have to

32:57

put a support and you do train

32:59

them and my favorite of

33:01

them all is Shinomalees speciosa

33:03

var nivellis which in

33:06

the late winter early spring

33:09

along rather sort of angular stems because

33:11

they don't grow nice and straight so

33:13

you know your training will have to

33:16

be sort of quite tight but they

33:18

produce clusters of white flowers with

33:20

green buds and the pure whiteness

33:22

the nivellis snow like

33:24

is absolutely beautiful there's

33:27

another one with a

33:29

cultivar name called Morlucii which is like

33:31

apple blossom but if you wanted to

33:33

cover the whole thing you

33:35

will you know you can always

33:38

go for the climbing hydrangea or

33:40

shizafragma hydrangea IDs which

33:44

will produce masses and masses

33:46

of billowing growth the

33:48

the flowers are clustered together

33:52

like flat tabletops and they

33:54

have little racks around the

33:56

outside that are teardrop shaped

33:58

and that's really attractive. that

34:00

there is also a pink flowered form called

34:03

rosier and that would do an excellent

34:05

cover-up job and for

34:08

something sort of quite straightforward that is

34:11

self-clinging there are still lots

34:13

of beautiful ivies if you

34:15

search around and they're great

34:17

habitats for other plants

34:19

and roses too some of

34:21

the roses will grow. When you stop, when

34:25

you just stop. It's been methodically crossing

34:27

off every single thing it written on

34:29

its yoke book. Rose

34:32

and Mary Delaney not white but

34:35

brilliant on a niece facing

34:37

wall. Mary Delaney, okay. Yeah,

34:40

mid-pink flowers, lightly fragranced, grow

34:42

it with I'm gonna go super

34:45

retro pink gold red

34:47

wall. Golden hop, why

34:50

not? Okay. You know, fallen out

34:52

of fashion but why not? We talk

34:54

about unfashionable plants, brilliant thing. Vigorous, grow

34:57

that with a sort of fairly

34:59

deep pink rose flower. Lovely.

35:03

Mary Delaney, golden hop and if you want to sort

35:05

of spice it up a bit, Akkibia, Quenata, Chuck Lenny

35:07

in the mix as well. Dark

35:09

flowers, very vigorous, you won't see

35:12

that warmth, it'll be gone. That'll be nice.

35:15

Anything particularly tight you fancy there? Well

35:18

the Akkibia sounds a good idea. I don't

35:20

want to have the climbing hydrangea because it

35:22

goes, it goes bananas after a short while

35:24

usually. Oh do you know,

35:26

I've obviously missed out and never had bananas off mine.

35:31

An awful lot of plants listed there.

35:33

If you haven't got the encyclopedic

35:35

memory of Mr Matthew Biggs, don't

35:38

worry you just have to go to the

35:40

website, find the GQT pages and it'll all

35:42

be listed there under this program. Thank you.

35:45

And who has our final question please? Hello

35:49

I'm Sheila Whittaker from the Hilles

35:51

Tortecultural Society. There

35:53

seem to have been more and more rewilding going

35:55

on. Do I really want to pay

35:57

to go and see weeds? What

36:01

do the panel think? That

36:06

big. I think that if you want

36:08

to encourage wildlife, then you can do

36:11

it in what, you know, by wildlife

36:13

gardening and gardening in certain areas. And

36:15

to me horticulture is the management of

36:17

a garden and the growing of plants.

36:20

And it's about an element of being

36:23

neat and tidy and

36:25

introducing Britain's native

36:27

flora, because that's what our weeds

36:29

are. Into

36:31

an area which in

36:34

my mind should be kept tidy, doesn't

36:37

work. I can understand if you've

36:39

got a natural

36:42

style of gardening, the new

36:45

perennial movement style, where you

36:47

can weave in the

36:50

native look with our

36:53

native flora. Then I think that that

36:55

does work. And if topiary

36:58

makes us happy or bedding makes us happy, we

37:00

should be allowed to grow it. Because there will

37:02

be others who will follow that trend, who will

37:04

garden in different ways. And one of the lovely

37:06

things about gardening, as you

37:09

will see on allotments, is that you

37:11

can actually be sort of an anarchist

37:13

and you can express yourself. It's an

37:15

art form. So if you want to

37:18

rewild, then rewild, but don't expect me

37:20

to do it. Christine,

37:24

I do wonder if there's been a bit

37:26

of a bit of misinterpretation here and people

37:28

getting the wrong end of the stick. I've seen

37:30

this debate, for want of

37:32

a better word, developing in

37:35

the press on social media and so on. And

37:37

is it just another part of the

37:39

sort of polarisation that's gone on increasingly

37:42

in many aspects of life recently? That

37:44

actually, you know, the nub of it,

37:46

it's about trying to help a

37:49

planet and nature that is in serious

37:52

trouble. And just thinking a little

37:54

bit more about that when we do our gardening, not about,

37:56

as we heard from the question from Sheila,

37:58

just letting the bed go completely to

38:01

weeds? Yes and no. I mentioned

38:04

on several occasions over the

38:06

years that rewilding is

38:09

an environmental and

38:11

an ecological extremely

38:14

complicated situation. You

38:16

are looking at all aspects,

38:19

not just the plant life. You are

38:21

looking at the climate, you are looking

38:23

at the soils, you are looking at

38:25

the integration of insects, mammals, how it

38:27

is managed etc. The

38:29

biggest bogey in all of

38:32

this is man. Man

38:34

and woman wish

38:37

to create something that

38:40

somebody thinks is ideal. When

38:43

we garden we are not in

38:45

tune totally with Mother Nature. If

38:48

we were in tune with Mother Nature

38:51

we would all end up with scrum

38:53

and forest and a mess. But

38:56

is it a mess? Or

38:58

is it rewilding? Is

39:01

it something that is desirable in

39:03

some people's minds? If we were

39:06

to rewild we would all have

39:08

very very similar gardens that

39:10

like to form because

39:12

you end up with scrum and

39:15

is that what we all want? I don't think it is.

39:18

I think introducing plants from

39:20

different areas into situations and

39:22

not considering the management of

39:24

that land is

39:27

very difficult. What we do in our own

39:29

patch is up to us. Which again

39:31

I think brings it back to my point

39:33

that it is perhaps the term that is

39:35

the problem rather than the sentiment

39:38

behind what has been said. It is the term

39:40

that is the problem. I was encouraged

39:42

in this month's RHS magazine

39:44

that the Director General in her

39:46

column actually tackles this exact issue

39:50

around rewilding and acknowledges in

39:52

that the inherent

39:54

strength of gardens is their diversity. I

39:57

recall many years ago sitting

40:00

in Professor Chris Baines' garden in

40:03

Wolverhampton. Professor Chris Baines was the

40:05

first person to write what's acknowledged,

40:07

or rather, he is

40:09

acknowledged as being the person who wrote the

40:11

first wildlife gardening book. And

40:13

we sat in his front garden,

40:16

which is mostly wildlife pond and

40:18

lots of native plants, and

40:20

I said, this is incredible, how amazing,

40:22

da-da-da, and he said, yes, but you

40:24

know what? Next door's garden,

40:27

which is just mown grass, that's

40:29

where all the blackbirds go, because

40:32

they're hopping around on the lawn getting

40:34

worms. And this

40:37

is the strength, inherent strength of

40:39

gardens, as both my

40:41

esteemed colleagues have mentioned, it's their inherent

40:44

diversity. If you live on a street

40:46

and you have a garden garden,

40:49

and next door is a wild and woolly

40:51

plot, and one next door to that is

40:54

mown grass, and the one

40:56

next door to that is another garden,

40:58

garden, that's diversity, that's things happening, that's

41:00

providing lots of different environments for lots

41:03

of different animals. And as Christine rightly

41:05

pointed out, you know, you rewild everything

41:07

at your peril, because you

41:10

end up with nothingness. So

41:12

that is the inherent strength of gardens. There's

41:14

an awful lot of size to this, I

41:17

think, and it has generated a lot of

41:19

passion on all sorts of size,

41:21

but it shouldn't be one side

41:23

or other thing. No, I think it

41:25

is the term, I think, unfortunately,

41:27

it's a really snappy term,

41:29

isn't it? You know, if

41:32

it was a

41:35

really clunky phase that was

41:37

attached to this, it wouldn't

41:39

be, you know, making horticultural headlines,

41:41

but rewilding, it sounds groovy. Oh,

41:43

yeah, it's on the money, you

41:45

know, pass me my hipster

41:47

cappuccino. And

41:50

so because of that, that's old fashioned though,

41:52

isn't it now? I said hipster and cappuccino,

41:54

so that's rubbish, isn't it? So I'm

41:57

really behind the curve. So Dated. So

41:59

Dated, thanks. So

42:01

I think I think the snap

42:03

peas it snappy. The subtitle hasn't

42:06

helped because they regenerate examples of

42:08

rewarding in in environments where it

42:10

makes sense that do work but

42:12

not not and our gardens net

42:14

asset. well thank sailor. Well as

42:16

a surrogate the hardest death of

42:18

thugs. Robots will not sit for

42:21

today's show. Thank you for joining

42:23

us. Thank you to today's question

42:25

as into our audience. So from

42:27

a pity get the panel. Matthew

42:29

Wilson. Christie Morton, map bags and all

42:31

the G E same Goodbye and by

42:33

the weather be with you. This.

42:58

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