英国皇家园艺（中）“Royal Gardens of the UK (Part 2) #DailyLife #Film #Documentary” #生活记录 #电影 #纪录片

Every year, across the UK, more than 300,000 volunteers dig for victory. She supervises on the labour. In a competition that's now half a century old. Hi, there's Terry with the plants. Whoops. It's Britain in Bloom. It's immaculate. Well, we hope so, yeah. Run by the Royal Horticultural Society, it's the UK's biggest gardening contest. Only about another 2,000 plants to put in. Is this okay so far? No, no, it's not right. But it's about so much more than just flowers. Yeah, there we are, my old pal. Just make sure his bottom's clean. As proud bloomers, young and old, come together. Giant Bloom! The community spirit is outstanding, and long may it continue. To show that where they live is worthy of recognition. Look at your garden. It's like a show garden. The last time I was here, there was nothing but a birdbath in it. I'm Chris Bavie. Hello, garden gang. Hello, Chris. As a former flower trader, I know my blooms. And in this series... I'll be following 15 communities right through till judging day, when only one thing matters. Will it be done in four days' time before judging? We've got to fingers crossed, toes and everything else. Will they win bronze, silver, or that all-important gold? I've got a lot of emotions going on at the moment, and we've got to get it right. What do you think the judges are going to give? Gold! Today, I'm in the historic village of Croston, in the heart of the Lancashire countryside. The residents here enter bloom in the large village category and have won gold three years running. Croston, meaning the town of the cross in Old English, is a picture-postcard village with one of the most photographed cobbled streets in the UK. It boasts an ancient church dating back to the time of William the Conqueror and is nestled on the River Yarrow. For years, it was a really quiet farming area until they built a major A road straight through the village, and that really changed the pace of life. Today, Croston relies on tourism to survive. I've got a feeling that taking part in Britain in Bloom could play a key part in that. Croston's been in Bloom for 22 years, so they're competition veterans. But the residents will have a hard time securing gold again after the Yarrow caused devastating damage in the village last year. Nice pub. Yeah, it looks lovely round here. Now it's only six weeks till judging, but I can't see many flowers. The duo driving this year's entry is Anne Peat, chairwoman of 16 years, and Martin Chaplin, Croston's resident horticulturalist. Hello. Good morning. This is beautiful, isn't it? How are you? I'm very well. Yeah, you? Good morning. Fine, thank you. Yes, yes. Lovely bridge. It is. So, tell me about Bloom. Why do you do it? Well, it brings tourists in for a start-off. We can be quite busy at the weekends, and that's good for the village. You've been entering for a long time. How have you done? In recent years, we've been really, really fortunate in one gold, which last year was particularly poignant because this village was severely flooded on Boxing Day. It actually was over the river wall here that we're standing near. And it was all over there. All the houses along here were all flooded. It came over there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd never seen anything like it. The village hadn't. Personally, I was quite badly affected with the flooding. My own house was underwater. But I found Bloom, helped me, you know, to plant a pot up, to plant the flowerbeds up. It relieved the stress. You still entered Britain in Bloom that year? Yes, we entered out of defiance. We were determined that the water was not going to beat us. Well, we were made up when we got gold. Wow. You actually raised your game... We did. ..and got gold? We did. I love your resilience. Organisers Martin and Anne have a mammoth task, rallying a community that's been through such a difficult time. They've decided on three ambitious projects that they hope will galvanise residents and bolster spirits with another gold. First up, they plan to make over the village's front doorsteps, but they'll need everyone on board. The local pub will be the scene of a show-stopping garden aimed at wowing the judges. And possibly their most ambitious challenge is the complete transformation of an overgrown school garden. Especially daring, given that they've only got six weeks to achieve all this. So today, it's stage one of the plan. Crosstown cottages have a distinctive feature that Martin wants to turn into a gold-winning formula. So what's the doorstep challenge all about? A lot of the heritage of the village is built on the roadside. There's no front gardens. And it's about them putting up hanging baskets, wreaths. What sort of difference do you think that will make to your bloom entry? It gives everybody that's in the village a way to participate in what we're trying to do. Well, we'd best get knocking on some doors, then, haven't we? OK, great. No? No. Next one? Next one. Everyone's going to be having their tea, aren't they? Yeah. No? Next one? I never thought I'd be any good at door-to-door selling. No. Hello. Evening, how are you? I'm well, thanks. How are you? Good, good. Crossing Blooms now, obviously canvassing for our doorstep challenge. We just wanted to ask you, you know, if you're willing to participate. Yeah, we'd be happy to take part. Brilliant. And what do you think about the work that these guys do with blooms? Fantastic. Lovely environment for us to live in and for our children to grow up in, and, yeah, it's beautiful. Well, thanks very much. OK. Had you heard of the doorstep challenge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the posters are around. Everybody puts a great deal of effort in. We're very thankful as residents. It's a positive start, but I want to check out the second stage of their plan. The judges always like to see the next generation of gardeners. So Crosston in Bloom aims to transform this secondary school garden into their centrepiece. Blimey. Someone's not been keeping up with the weeding, have they? What's happened here? This is our renaissance project, really. This is the local school academy. It's basically their kitchen garden. Why are you taking on this area? What's this got to do with Crosston in Bloom? It's relatively easy to get the junior schools involved, because the kids that age, they're all eager to plant, you know, sunflowers or whatever. The high school, it's a little bit more challenging, and this was an area that we thought we could really impact on. What are your plans? Really, just a general big clearance. It's the first project. Get as much of this growth down as we can do. Prune up a bit of the apple trees and the fruit trees. Yeah. Get them into more of a shape. It's taken Martin two years of planning to get this huge task off the ground. I've got a great deal of passion for the project at the school. It's an edible garden, which we've not done in the village before. It was my high school. I've got friends and family that go to the school, and it's about giving back to the school that I went to also. So, how difficult is it going to be to get this ready for judging? It's really going to come down to how much help we can get. So, from the community, from the school, from the students. How long have you got? Six weeks. Yeah. Can you do it? We'll find out. Involving Crosston's young people will earn the bloomers extra points for community spirit across the generations. But it won't work if they can't persuade teenagers to take up their trowels. Lastly, I'm heading to the pub. Well, someone's got to do it. Crosston has six pubs, but they need tourists to stay alive, and gold-winning flower displays help pull in the punters. The pubs sit in the centre of the village, so it was really important to us that they joined in, and we're really pleased that they have. We now have one that, over the last few years, has consistently put on a really good show, and it's where we take the judges. The Black Horse pub has been competing in bloom for five years, taking on more flower displays each year. Wow. Lovely pub. These guys are clearly making the effort. Publicans Tracy and Andy have paused from pulling pints to transform their back garden with a new planting scheme. Hello. Hello. Are you the landlady of this wonderful boozo? Yes, I am, yes. Hello. Are you the landlord? Yes, I am. Hiya, nice to meet you. Hello. Fabulous pub, isn't it? It is. Have you seen business increase since you've participated in Britain in Bloom? Yeah, gradually over the last five years, it's increased, I think, probably between 30% and 40%. That's an incredible increase in revenue, isn't it? Yeah. It makes a tremendous difference. Real big difference. People travel from far and wide. Yes, they do. To come here, they really do. It's one of the nicest villages you could ever possibly want. It's beautiful. It's lovely. I'm selling frosting. I don't really have to... When it's all in bloom... It is fantastic. It really is. It's gorgeous when it's all in bloom. What are your plans for this year for Britain in Bloom? Well, one of the things we're going to do is sunflowers over there. And then me and my husband and my family, we all pick a sunflower to see which is going to get the tallest. This competition is open to everyone. It's a great way to show off their community spirit to the judges. Can I adopt one? Of course you can. These are the sunflowers, are they? These are the sunflowers. So which one can I have? The big one? Of course you can. Brilliant. Well, I can't wait to come back and see that. Thank you very much. What a smashing pub. Thank you. OK, thank you. Cheers. Thank you. For a village that only a year ago was grappling with a natural disaster, this community is bouncing back with fighting spirit. This year, they've got some really ambitious plans, but for this village, it's more than just flowers. They really need to attract visitors here because people's livelihoods are at stake. But as their bloom ambitions grow, so does the expectation of the judges. Having assessed Croston before, and with 47 years experience between them, judges David Bielowski and Brian Worley will be tough to impress. Croston need to be aware of the finer detail to maintain the gold. Well, they have to keep the same standard up in Croston. They mustn't let that standard drop. It wouldn't be right if it was easy to get a gold. Otherwise, the whole thing is pointless. Croston certainly doesn't have it easy this year. After last year's flooding, their famous street has been left with an unsightly residue. It's a big problem because there's silt and soil built up around the cobbles, which is a perfect breeding ground for moss and weeds of all kinds. We scrape them out and clean it out as best we can in the hope that they don't grow back again for at least three weeks, because that's judging day. You can have all the pretty flowers in the world, but if you've got weeds everywhere, we will lose points in a big way. Across the village, Martin's been signing up more residents for the doorstep challenge. And in the pub, Tracey's using Croston's tough recent history as a source of inspiration. I'm doing my water feature, which is supposed to look like a little river running all the way through the garden. At the high school, 15 tonnes of weed have been scraped out by a digger. It's been a difficult few weeks since we started the project, but we've achieved an awful lot. It looks so different from when we first walked on here, where you could barely make your way through the gate. So we've come a long way. With only three weeks to go until judging, a gardening club's been started with 15 teenagers and their teachers. Can you do this? I've dug up, like, some ground for planting trees and brought them to my dad. They're all primed to plant the first veggies. We need to clear all the beds. We need to trim round the fruit trees so that the weeds aren't impeding the growth of the trees and hopefully get on with some planting. Now, do you know how to turn it out the pot? Push your finger up there. I am really enjoying it. Like, I've not, like, done gardening for a while, but, like, when you get into gardening, it's like, I don't know, it's just fun, really. You've got parsley there. And these are leeks. I've had a really lovely afternoon just getting to know the kids a bit more. And it's something you don't get to do a lot when you're teaching, just chat while we flip paint at each other. It's quite good. I think it's really important in this day and age to work with the high school children because they're the ones who will be the gardeners of the future. And they're the ones who might not as yet have experienced what it's like to grow your own fruit, grow your own vegetables. Space them out the fair way and then they've got space to grow. With a quarter of the points awarded for the contribution to the environment, Anne and the young bloomers hope to win over the judges by bringing this wonderful edible garden back to life. We have three weeks to go now to judging. So we'll just have to crack on now and just see exactly how much we can achieve in that short time. But with only one of 12 beds finished and the fruit cage is still to tackle, there's a long way to go to impress the judges. I think Croston could make the mistake of trying to do too much in a short space of time. And that can sometimes cost you marks. Don't over plan. It took Croston 18 years of entering Bloom to win gold, going from one tub of flowers in 1995 to 10,000 plants today. And the stakes are higher than ever. Bloom's very important to the village because Croston's a through road for a lot of visitors. Obviously it's nice for them to stop, which is paramount to capture those travellers. So, you know, what we do obviously helps with that. Five weeks ago, this rural village was empty of colour. And what a difference now. With only one week until judging, the barrier baskets of marigolds and begonias are looking glorious by the river. Absolutely stunning. Beautiful. The grand plan this year was to sign people up for Martin's doorstep challenge. The village has gone from a blank canvas to a floral masterpiece. Straight away, you're just hit with this beautiful wall of colours. Absolutely. They've really gone to town. You know, there's nice colour combinations here. There's mixed baskets. There's mono planting. It has a great effect. Which I suppose is what you were trying to encourage with this. That's exactly it. They've certainly gone for it and it makes a massive difference in front of you. That just wall of colour down there looks absolutely incredible, doesn't it? Yeah, very proud of them. Well, I think that's gold winning standard. But now there's a gardening gang at the school waiting for me. How have they tackled the 11 raised beds and neglected fruit cages since my last visit? With six days to go, it should be nearly finished. Wow, look at this. Hello. What a transformation. Thanks very much. Yeah, it's certainly been a lot of work. It looks unrecognisable from the place that you showed me. Obviously the biggest part was the weeding. We cut down as low as we could go. What else is there to do? We've got a big delivery of gravel coming in the next few days. So fingers crossed that'll be down in time for judging. We've yet to put the manure and that into the fruit cage. We've still bits of weeding to be doing. There's still bits of painting still to be done. They're all things that the young people can help us with now though. What do you need me to do? Shift some bags of manure. Those words are music to my ears. Wonderful. So it looks like I'm going to spend the afternoon shoveling horse manure. Lovely. Come on lads, less talking, more raking. Have you done much gardening before? Yeah, lots of it. And do you enjoy it? Yeah, better than maths. It's better than maths, is it? Yeah. Hello. The young bloomers are doing a brilliant job tackling another of the raised beds. What are you planting? Corsets, beets, rocket, kale. This is great, isn't it? I've really enjoyed doing the garden. Have you? This garden is Croston's secret weapon for scooping those all important environmental points. Criteria the bloomers know is key in the judges' thinking. Any concerns? Yeah, there's a few concerns. We want the judges to understand that although it looks like an unfinished project, it's a sustainable project, so it's going to be a long-term project and hopefully they'll understand. Good job, lads. That's it. Last on the grand plan and a key stop on the judging route is the pub. This place is looking tremendous. Look at this. Andy and Tracy's back garden has gone from barely there to bright and bold. They've planted up more than 100 new flowers, hoping to bring in the customers and blow away the judges. Hello. Hiya, Chris. Hi, Chris. I'm very well. How are you? Good, thank you. Pub's looking incredible, isn't it? Oh, thank you, yeah. So what is it about judging day that gets you nervous? Making sure I've got everything right and everything's growing right. I don't know, I just get nervous anyway. So have the flowers done what they should be doing and pulling people in? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the front display is gorgeous, it's lovely, but I think the back is even better. It's great the pub is busy and it proves that flower power can attract visitors to the village. Are you local, lads? We're from Blackpool. Blackpool? Blackpool, yeah. How far away is that from here? About 30 miles, something like that. 30 miles? Yeah, about an hour. What brings you to the Blackpool set? First time I came here, we'd come for a day trip and we noticed this pub and of course, the flowers were there and they attracted us to the pub. So we came across and we've been coming ever since. Tracy has one final idea up her sleeve to make sure her flower display is gold winning. Is everything done, is that it? Everything more or less is done. I've just got one more thing to do, which has to go on the bowling green there. It's just a little creative thing I'm going to do, make it look like it's a pair of legs, two people sat on the bowling green, but covered in flowers. Do you need a hand? Yeah, you can do. Yeah? Come on, I'll show you. Stuff one leg with that, shoot it up. Tracy hopes her latest and rather quirky piece will be this year's showstopper. Does it look like people? It really does look like people. I think it looks incredible and very bizarre, but I love it. Very bizarre. And finally, it's time to catch up with my prized plant. So the sunflowers are looking good, aren't they? I'm quite pleased with that. It's almost as tall as that. Yeah, you're still taller than it. Don't know, I only made it work. Feeding it, watering it and talking to it and dancing around it. Which one's yours? The big one, just at the... Right, okay. Would have to be one to say. The all-important day is here, it's judging day. All over the village, the nervous community is preparing for the judges' arrival. Everything has to be de-headed, watered, nothing out of place, because they pick up on everything. And there's tension in the air. Judging day today, obviously a little bit anxious, a little bit nervous. There's a few little tweaks that I'd like to have done. We've put a lot of hours into it, so we really, really, really want to get gold. For the young bloomers, the nerves are also kicking in. Oh, I'm not looking forward to this speech that I've got then. I'll be fine. I'm really scared, because I've got this like really long speech and I'm just not, I'm gonna be like kicking my leg for it, because I'm gonna make like tons of mistakes and I'm like, oh! Talking of mistakes, something's been missed on the route. Oh dear, yes. We appear to have a patch of weeds in the cobbles that has been missed when we sprayed to kill them off a few weeks ago. The weeds have to be sprayed three weeks before they're pulled up. Otherwise, they might damage the historic cobbles. We just have to explain to the judges that cars will park there and we couldn't access them to spray. Nevermind. Right on cue and here for the second year running to put Croston under the microscope are the judges. We're gonna be looking for certain things such as floral entertainment, floral impact, and we'll be converting what we see into marks. I'll be looking at the community spirit that's here. If the businesses are involved, because that's important as well, because it's all encompassing. It's not just one person doing it. It has to be a proper community. Good morning. Good to see you again. See you around. Morning, Brian. The bloomers have a strict timetable of an hour and a half to get round the route and show off all their projects. Once the tour starts, the judges will be scoring everything they see. First up, the village doorsteps blooming with flowers. That's a good one as well. That's ours. Mine. Oh, it's rubbish now. Nice one, Anne. When we came here last year, it was total devastation because of the floods and that. There's nothing here at all. So this is remarkable. Cheers. The doorstep flowers have captivated the judges. Let's hope that lasts. Who's done the weed killing on this? Oops, too late. Pay attention to it. As in that, that, you can see it. And now the judges are on a roll. Plants are drying out. It's either the watering systems, not working too well or the plants are using it faster. But can you see how they're starting to wilt? Oh dear. But nevermind. There's plenty more to impress the judges ahead. Try taking them to the pub. We've got the bowling green, haven't we, over here? We have. Yeah. First to see is Tracey's unique four-legged floral display. This could go either way. This is a new thing this year. Andy the chef. That is really, really impressive. Novel idea. Well done, Tracey. And the back garden transformation is also impressing the judges. Sunflowers as well, they like that. Sunflowers? They do. But just when things are going so well... That could be a virus. It's caught something. Yeah, just happened. I didn't know it was an actual virus. I just thought it was struggling to flower. I will lose a mark for that. The pressure's now on to show the judges the rest of the route and keep to the schedule. Anne and Martin want to give them time to appreciate their star attraction, the high school garden. After two years in the planning, there's only 20 minutes to show it off. This has been a major, major project and we've got some before and after pictures to show you as to how far we've come with this one. This was basically the site as we came to it. I think they'd let it go. It was, it was a very neglected site. We were nervous about it as a project because it was so big, but we decided we like a challenge, let's give it a go. It's critical to prove that the bloomers are bringing in the younger generation. So now it's time for the gardening club to shine. Come and talk to us about what we planted the other week. Tell us everything you're doing. So we did this one first, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah, planted in. Can we remember what they all were? Cabbage. That's a courgette there and that's kale there, yeah. Did you enjoy doing it? Yeah. That's great, isn't it? The young bloomers seem to be winning over the judges and for gardening club ambassador Adam, it's his big moment. It used to be full of weeds and the apples were the only things we could get to and the fact that it's like all now, it's gravel and like it's more like pretty and beautiful now, it's just nice. We can tell you've put a lot of work into this, obviously you and your friends. So well done. The youngsters have one final sweetener for the judges. We made some chutney, so we'd use the apples from the trees and then we've got some like blackcurrants. They come off last week, didn't they? So you're now getting something from what you've been doing now, aren't you? That's very nice. That's the good thing about growing, when you get to eat it in the end. The best place I went today was the school. It's mainly because they're the people that we want to impress. They want them to join in with horticulture and the bloom in general. And it's lovely to actually go and meet these young children. It's the best part of the whole judging process. You're doing a great job. At the moment, I'm feeling a bit shattered. Glad it's all over, but proud of the fact that we managed to bring the projects that we'd planned to fruition, particularly the one up at the school, which turned out to be exceedingly hard work, but also proud of the way that the residents joined us in our efforts. There were lots and lots of houses and doorways with beautiful baskets and things on, which was really, really good to see. And it really made a good impression. Four months later at the award ceremony, the judges recognised their hard work, especially after the challenge of the floods, and were delighted to award Croston gold. The bloomers were thrilled.