Gardeners' World

We're going up to North Yorkshire, in fact to the edge of the North York Moors which is one of my favourite places in the country and Frances has gone to visit a garden with a very special project. This is Helmsley Wall Garden and in late spring just look at it, absolutely packed with vibrant colour. In any really well-designed garden there's always something to look at no matter when you visit but I have to say I think I've hit it on exactly the perfect moment. Look at the wisteria just come into flower at the same time as the alliums and those two purples are beautiful and soft but then as you move around into this long border the purples continued and then accented by yellow so a spodline lutea and different euphorbias it's just beautiful and that yellow and purple then continues in this amazing laburnum arch. How beautiful is that? Look at the flowers hanging and again the purple alliums and this whole little arbour makes you want to explore and transition through from here into the rest of the garden. But as well as being a feast for the eyes there are many other benefits that this beautiful space offers. June Taysh is the head gardener here, she's clearly a talented grower but not just of this stunning display of flowers. Hello June, hello, hello, lovely to meet you, nice to meet you too. It's so glorious, gorgeous isn't it? Well tell me about the walled garden itself. It's an 18th century walled garden, it's actually built on a parallelogram which is quite an unusual shape I think to try and capture as much sun as possible. The garden's very much planted to demonstrate horticultural approaches that that we could see anyone trying in their own garden I have to say. And this iris border particularly I mean tell me about this it's just breathtaking. Well this was created probably about four years ago and it was created by volunteers. We don't have any paid garden staff so volunteers lifted and divided iris, replanted iris, potted iris up for sale so it was a lovely learning experience for our volunteers. They really got a lot out of it and that's the principle that we take forward, that's how we look after the garden. How many volunteers have you got? We've got over 80, 83 garden volunteers. They look after the garden and the garden looks after them as well. We have a really nice mentoring scheme. We look to to try and support our volunteers whatever kind of support they need. So some of our volunteers might want to learn more about horticulture, some might want to be more involved socially with their community. This is where they come and they can feel purposeful and feel they've achieved something in their week. Well clearly it's working because it's absolutely gorgeous. It's beautiful. It is lovely, thank you. The volunteers work in all weathers and all year round. Julian Rowe worked in an office environment his whole life so the kinds of walls he's surrounded by have changed somewhat. Hello Julian, come to give you a hand. You're going to join me, that's good. We're just hoeing at the moment and then we'll be planting seeds. Are you quite okay with a hoe? Are you familiar with hoeing? I'm fairly familiar with a hoe, yes. Actually I'm not, you know, I learned to hoe here. Can you believe that? Did you? Yeah and apparently a lot of weeds you shouldn't dig up, you should just hoe, you know, and I didn't know that so that's one of the first things I did learn. So what made you want to start coming here? Well I actually came here for the therapy. It's just been wonderful. I mean the therapy is just coming here to do the gardening. Which sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it's just being part of a team and, you know, you have to do your job properly because, you know, the garden is a beautiful thing. You don't want to ruin it. So there's meaning to the work that's going on here? Absolutely, that's the key thing and actually that's what I find I don't have a lot of now that I've given up working for a living. You know, it's very hard and here I get meaning. It gives me meaning to my life. I'm so impressed with the work the volunteers are doing. They've created some beautiful spaces within these four walls and now there's stunning spring colour to enjoy. These Siberian irises are quite underrated compared to the much more impressive bearded iris. The nice thing about them is that they're a bit more versatile. You can grow them not in full sun and also they have beautiful bronze autumn foliage so they give a really good year-round interest as opposed to the bearded ones which flower magnificently and then are gone. So these I think are some of my favourite plants. There's something about a wall garden, isn't there? They just feel like inherently magical spaces. Probably something to do with the huge walls keeping the wind down a little bit and keeping the temperature up and this here is the kitchen garden and it's really lovely seeing that nod to tradition. But also I think those walls and growing veg can be very nurturing things for people who maybe need a little bit of support in the garden and sowing a seed, letting it grow and then literally harvesting the fruits of your labour at the end of a season when it comes to growing food is an incredible process. It's a very hopeful process and I think it really sums up the whole ethos of what they're doing here in this garden. The team that work so hard to make this garden what it is are refuelling with a well-earned tea break. I'm joining Emma and Anne. So do you two work a lot together? Yes, we do actually. Yes, we vibe off each other, don't we? Yes, yes. I've probably got a bit more experience with gardening than Emma and I can help her and she's been at the garden for a lot longer than I have and the probably things that she knows about the garden. It's a good team. Yeah, it works both ways. We work as a good team of support. Yeah. So what is it that you love about it? You know, this lot is my second family really because my parents live away. They mean a lot to me and, you know, sometimes, you know, you come into work and you're not in the best of moods and they just cheer you up and ask you what's wrong and... It's a lovely, peaceful, calm place and whatever you feel like when you walk through the gates and you just feel, you feel very different, feel better. Well, having seen the volunteers now, A, I can see how integral they are to this place but also how joyful they are. Absolutely. That's the most important thing, actually, that they enjoy their involvement and if we get some great work done as well, that's a real bonus. But the work they do, when they do it, is of a really good standard and we challenge our volunteers so that they get more out of it and they really feel they've done a great job themselves. Because, of course, volunteers are giving up a lot of their time to be here but, in exchange, they're learning really good horticulture from you. Yeah, it's really lovely to see people gaining confidence, using tools correctly, using horticultural terms that they never even knew before but actually loving doing it, really enjoying it because that's what you should be doing with gardening. Gardening is joyful. I think what June and the team are doing here is nothing short of inspirational. You know, they're creating a beautifully preened garden without it being precious in any way and it all goes to show, or to prove actually, that gardening doesn't just grow plants, it can also grow people.