Monty Don Helps You Prepare Your Garden For Fall 🍁l S3E30 FULL EPISODE Gardeners' World

Hello, welcome to Gardener's World. Now, most of us have taken a bit of a battering over the last few weeks. It's been very wet, almost everywhere. It's been pretty windy in a lot of places too. And our gardens are beginning to look a bit wrecked. The last few months, we've been holding on to summer. We've been talking about it fading away. Well, it's gone, it's over. And actually that's a good thing because this is a new beginning. Now is the time to start planting and acting for next year. This week, Joe is finding out why recycling is at the heart of designers Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway's garden. Well, I was expecting a designer garden, but this is absolutely stunning. We go to Aberdeen to meet a couple who face leaving the garden that they have spent three decades creating. When I look back over the years in this garden, yeah, I'm really, I'm proud of what we've achieved. It will be quite hard to leave it. And Carol visits Coton Court to explore the history of the most romantic plant to be found in any garden. Who could afford to be without an old rose or two? Not only will it bring you glamour, wonderful fragrance, but it'll be a living piece of history right there in your garden. The cottage garden is slowly coming into being. Used to be all vegetables in here. And over the last year or so, we've gradually introduced more and more flowers. And the idea is that flowers and vegetables will grow completely easily side-by-side in the cottage garden tradition. This bed, the last couple of years, has been strawberries. I've moved them because strawberries have to be rotated every three or four years. We've got an empty bed now and a great chance to start introducing some flowers. And the bones of any flower border are shrubs. This is a really good time to be planting shrubs of any kind, particularly roses. Now, I want to plant three groups in this border and I'm introducing a new colour, which is yellow. Do you know, I've never planted a yellow rose in my life. What I'm planting here is a rose called the pilgrim. It's a modern rose introduced just in 1991 and has the most beautiful, soft, ruffled primrose yellow flowers with a slight flush of pink at the base and a really distinctive fragrance of myrrh. What I like to do with roses is dig a really substantial hole and put them all in the same hole. So what you end up with is one whopping shrub. I've been adding goodness to this soil for years for vegetable growing, so it doesn't need any extra. If you've got poor soil, dig it over first, adding plenty of organic matter. But there's no need to add compost or manure directly to the planting hole. Now, if I loosen the bottom so that the roots can work their way down, what I will add is some mycorrhizal powder and it's very easy to buy. Every garden centre sells it and sprinkle it on just as I am here. The fungus acts as a conduit between the soil and the roots. Plants will build that conduit in time themselves, but by supplying it from the outset, they take nutrition quicker, so they establish more quickly and strongly and therefore you get a healthier plant. Now, obviously, planting three roses where one eventually would do is extravagant. A shrub rose like this will cost you somewhere between 10 and 20 quid. And, you know, that adds up. But the way I look at it is these roses will give me months of pleasure every year for the rest of my life. That's a good way to spend money. What watering does, as well as providing moisture for the plants, it's just as important that it pushes the soil in and around the roots. Mulch is important for two reasons. One, because it will feed them to a degree and two, because it will keep moisture in and then they can be mulched again, if need be, in spring. There you go. Planted. Now, this is a new rose introduced 20 years ago and it's new to me, new to this garden. But Carol has been looking at the history of old roses and their beauty, too. All the ancient civilisations of Southern Europe and the Middle East all adored and revered the rose. The Persians, the Medes, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks. They didn't just admire it in the wild. They wanted it closer to home. They brought it into their gardens. It wasn't just part of their culture, but their horticulture, too. Almost certainly, the rose that the Romans grew in their villa gardens was a form of Rosa Gallica. Now, this is Rosa Complicata and it has Gallica as one of its parents and it gives us a real idea of the sort of roses you would have seen if you'd walked into one of those gardens. There's a fresco from Pompeii which clearly shows a rose tied to a cane. But it seems to have extra petals, a sure sign that not only were they cultivating roses, but they'd started to select them, too. Gallica roses would have been grown by all those ancient civilisations across the region, but eventually, they made their way to England. This is one of the first of those Gallica roses on record. This is Rosa Rosamundi. It's documented as being around from Tudor times, but it probably dates back to centuries before that. It's said to have been named after the fair Rosamund, the mistress of Henry II. They lived in the 12th century. Sadly, she was put to death by Henry's jealous wife. But this rose remains as a tribute to her beauty. The most striking thing about Rosamundi is these beautifully striped petals. It's such a lovely rose. There's one story that Rosa Rosamundi may have been brought back from the Holy Land during the Crusades. Many roses were cultivated in that area, and it wasn't just Gallicas. It was roses like this beautiful damask. This is a rose called Isfahan. It's named after an ancient Persian city. These roses were particularly valued for their scent, their delightful perfume. In fact, Attar of roses was distilled from these wonderful flowers, and conserves and confections were made from it too, things like Turkish delight. You can just imagine the taste and smell of those things. When Gallica and damask roses are at their peak, they're unbeatable, smothered in these highly scented flowers. But they have one shortcoming. Their flowering only lasts for a few short weeks. The hunt was on to try and ensure that roses flowered all summer long. We tend to think of all our ancient civilisations growing roses, but of course, roses is a hugely widespread genus. The Chinese have been growing roses, cultivating them, treasuring them for hundreds of years, and it was a serendipitous meeting between East and West that really played a huge role in the development of the rose. In the middle of the Indian Ocean lies the Ile de Bourbon. It was here that French traders and Chinese traders brought their wares, including their roses. The roses hybridised with each other, and bourbon roses were born. They were fragrant, they were beautiful, but above all else, they flowered and flowered and flowered. The bourbon roses paved the way for a whole new wave of rose breeding. More imports from China flooded in, including yellow roses. The stage was now set for the kaleidoscopic range of roses, which grace our gardens today. It's been a mild autumn, but even the courgettes are coming to an end and time to clear them away. In fact, it's been a really, really good year for courgettes, and that applies to pretty much all fruiting plants. I remember back in April, when it got colder and colder, thinking, this is going to be a terrible year for vegetables. Nothing's going to have a chance. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. It's been a good year for vegetables because once the ground warmed up, which was very late, everything caught up. I think this year has been a really good example of how you need to both respond to what the weather is actually doing, rather than doing everything by the book, and also spreading things a little bit. So if you sow all your lettuce seeds in one go, or all your peas at one point, and then you get a really cold snap, you're going to lose them, or they're not going to do very well. So look at succession. Divide seeds up into two or three lots and split them up. And the chances are, if one lot fails, another will succeed. Most of us move house sometime or other in our lives. And if that means leaving a garden that you've lovingly made over a period of years, that can be really tough. And we visit a couple in Aberdeen who are facing that very situation. The first thing that attracted us to this house was the garden. We moved here in August the 16th of 1985, which now makes it 28 years that we've been here. Just absolutely loved it. The first thing actually that we did do was the garden and not the house. Just got stuck in with it, really. We always loved gardening, even when we were extremely young. I do like roses, and I also like clematis in particular. I like most plants to be quite truthful. Every time something's in flower, that's my favourite plant. That's how gardening is, really. When I look back over the years in this garden, yeah, I'm really proud of what we've achieved. We've just reached a stage in our lives where I used to do a lot of work in the garden as well as myself, which is not quite so able now. It will be quite hard to leave it, but we've got to be sensible. It will be nice to be a bit more relaxed with a smaller garden. We will be taking plants with us. We had to leave all the plants in the borders because that's just part of the sale, but we've got so many plants potted up already that there's quite a number coming with us. I decided I would divide two or three of the perennial plants. Both I can take a section with me, and also it'll rejuvenate the plant, which I put back in place. This one here is called Aronchus. It faces a folius. Strange name. It's a dwarf Aronchus. Really nice plant. One that I want to have. Yeah. Now, I think I'll just make two plants out of this one. One of them I'll plant back in its place, and the other one will come to Cheshire with us. This is the one that's going to Cheshire. Doesn't look up to much at the moment, but it'll soon take. At one time, we had hundreds of begonias in the garden. I think for the new garden, we'll want more permanent plants, but however, I do like this particular begonia. It's Royal Renaissance flamboyant. I'm going to dig them up, dry them off in the greenhouse, and then we'll take a few tubers with us. I'll probably leave it for about three weeks, and then it'll be all ready to wrap up in newspaper into cardboard boxes, and they'll be going to Cheshire. I do like the round garden up at the top. It's secluded, and in the summertime, it's just really nice. Rudy, the cat that we had before, he's buried up in that garden. That was his favourite place. He's a big brown Burmese, a beautiful cat, so I just like being there. I usually say, hello, Rudy, every morning to him when I pass. I came across a peony called My Pal Rudy, and because the cat was called Rudy, I bought the peony, and it is really nice as well. It's a big blousey bloom, but it's beautiful, perfumed as well, which is nice. That is one plant that has to come out of the border. I'm sure the new owners will understand why to take that one. Oh, yeah. It's looking a sorry state, but I'm sure it'll come away nicely. Our new garden, it's small compared to this garden, but it's workable, and I'm sure we'll make a good job of it. And it'll probably turn out maybe even better, who's to say? Well, whoever buys that house is getting a beautiful garden as well. I've got it here, Nigel. This is my asparagus bed, and it's not happy. I planted this in spring of 2011. By now, I would expect the ferns to be, oh, six foot tall and really thick and strong. They're not. And this is as good as they have been since I planted them. Now, I did ask if any of you had had a similar experience with asparagus, and I got a sheath of replies, and these are just a few of them. And many of you had exactly the same experience. There was a common thread that where you've grown asparagus on heavy soil, you've struggled. Now, I think that is as much as anything else to do with the weather of the last few years. If you remember, we had that miserable, cold, wet summer of 2011. That's the first one after planting. 2012 wasn't a lot better. And then a very cold spring this year, just as asparagus would expect it to get going. And it just hasn't established properly. In a way, that's good news, because it means there's nothing wrong with the crop, nothing wrong with the way I'm growing it. It's just bad luck. For the first few years of any asparagus, you don't harvest it at all. You let the roots establish. And part of that process is letting them die back in autumn, because that feeds into the roots, and then cutting them back and mulching them heavily. You do need to be really generous with the mulch. I'm using garden compost, but well-rotted manure would do just as well or mushroom compost. And when I say generous, I'm talking about three, four, five, even six inches deep. This is a luxury crop. And the taste of fresh asparagus from your garden is one of life's great, great delights. Now, not everybody grows asparagus, but here are some jobs that you could all be doing this weekend. I suspect that we've all got too many packets of seed that are either past their sow-by date or have been half-used for more than a year. It's a good time to go through your seeds and ruthlessly sort them out. Any that are more than a year past their sow-by date should be discarded. And if you have far too many of one type, you know what not to order next year. Artichokes are hardy, as long as they don't get wet and cold. A generous mulch, and I like to use straw, will help protect against this. Pack it around the plants and check it every month or so, and if it's too wet, replace it with fresh mulching material. The leaves are streaming off the trees by the day, but it's important not to waste a single one. Rake them up, if you can chop them by mowing them, so much the better, and store them in a loose, open-sided container. Make sure they're damp and then leave them for a year, and they will turn into lovely leaf mould, which is a superb addition to potting compost, as well as a useful mulch. Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway are famous for the range and distinctiveness of their designs, running from shoes to public housing projects. And this summer, Joe went to visit them at home to see how they applied their skills to their own garden. Well, I was expecting a designer garden, but this is absolutely stunning. It's all about open-air living for designers Wayne Hemingway and his wife Geraldine. Their leafy Sussex garden is dedicated to bringing the indoors out. You really live out here, don't you? Yeah, it's an extension to the house, so there's a series of different, what I call, rooms outdoors, from the circular lawn here to all the different elements in the garden. There's just so many different places you can go. Well, she actually has to keep building and designing, so, you know, we've probably reached the extent of any planning permission we could get of this house, so the next stage is these outdoor rooms, isn't it? Did you draw it and was it part of a master plan or has it grown more organically than that? Um, a bit of the two, really. I mean, the basic for the circular lawn, which we're studying now, was master plan, and then it was a case of everything else sort of evolved. Can we go and have a look at the garden, then? Yeah, we'll go and have a look at the first installation. This is our outdoor teepee. When we first built it, it was quite architectural. It's made out of recycled telegraph poles. So, this is the start of the jungle walk. What you can do here, you can all sit down and eat from it. So, it's a Japanese style. Oh, I see, you sit down there and you've got a table. Yeah. Japanese style. You can all take a cushion. Right, so, the jungle walk... Yeah. ..heads off that way. Starts here. It's got a really lovely jungly feeling here, I have to say. Yeah. And the wisterias are beautiful. Yeah, I think we've got about 12 varieties of wisteria in the jungle walk, and the evergreen jasmine and camatus. Yeah. It smells good. I can smell the wisteria. The scent gets contained in here. Well, just the right time of year, isn't it? Cos you're looking out onto quite a manicured lawn as well. Yeah. In a way, I mean, this is sort of a reinvention of a classic pergola structure, in a way, which had rose and wisteria, but it'd be much more formal. Yeah. Whereas it's just a bit looser, isn't it? Well, I think, because gardening is not my full-time job, it's a hobby. So, it's got to fit in with the time that you've got. So, if you try to be too pristine about things, it takes too long. But it also gives it a lovely relaxed style to the garden as well. I mean, some gardens are quite formal, and you're not those sort of people, I guess. So, it's got to reflect your personality at the same time. Yeah, I mean, we like things that are organic, and we like things that are not too manicured. Cos life's like that. And we don't like to see anything go to waste. I think it's the way that we've both been brought up. And across the road, there's a guy who has a nursery. And in his garden, bamboo was going crazy. Cos he wasn't going to sell it, he was just going to get rid of it. So, we thought, well, we'll take the lot. You've got the huge hedge of it there, and you've got the massive hedge of it here. You know, Geraldine harvests it every year for Poles for Year. Sticking up the veg in the veggie patch, or things like that. The chicken hutch through there, the chicken pen, you know, that was... It was the Wendy house that the kids had when they were young, and that was built by Gerard's dad. And he had a similar philosophy. Free-range kids. That was a term you've always used. Yeah, I mean, we were both lucky enough to be free-range kids. We both lived in working-class areas, but with access to outdoor space. So, I'm getting a sense that some areas are more yours, and some areas are more yours in the garden. I mean, as far as ownership is concerned. Yeah. So, that's right? Yeah, I mean, you know, you, Gerardine, spends a lot of time doing the detail and knows about plants and loves plants, and I like doing things that men like to do, you know, well, to prove that we still are men. Hang on, hang on now, what are you talking about? Well, it's, you know, it's going on, it's chopping wood for the... Chopping wood? Chopping wood. Mowing the lawns? Mowing the lawns. You know, you've got to prove sometimes that men still have a use, don't we? So... But you like chopping logs and mowing the lawn, and you like... Doing the weeding. Yeah, right, well, flowers. The creative side of things, the planting and things like that, and the order and how we all... And you've got a vegetable garden here too. And a vegetable garden as well. Oh, this is beautifully kept. Now, do you get any help with this? Or do you do it all yourself? No, I do it all myself, actually. The only help I get is when I need more compost bringing round. Wayne will go and fill the barrel of compost for me and bring it round. I absolutely love my compost heaps. Come and look at the compost heap. Another proud of his compost heap. Beautiful stuff. Yeah, I like digging into this, and we've got three big piles which are, you know, over three years. Well, yeah, that's going to be... The bottom of that's going to be five years old. Five years old? Yeah, yeah. So what we do, we've got three different piles. Lovely stuff. Lovely. And we get somebody in once a year to turn it. This is where, you know, obviously the nettles grow. You know, as you start learning more about sustainability... Ten years ago, I'd have been out here with a knapsack sprayer. Yeah. You know, killing it all, thinking, get rid of these nettles. And now, you know, you've got them here, they make great soup, and obviously the butterflies love them, so... Yeah. Everything's sort of got that designer touch, but it's also about the practicalities, isn't it? If you, as a designer, you can actually live what you do in your work as well and you can bring all that together. You get things right and we don't kind of design outside of our life and our knowledge base. You know, when we're doing housing and when we're doing landscape and things like that, this is the perfect place to experiment, really. There are times at this time of year when it's too wet, too dark, or just too miserable to do anything outside. So, this is when all those inside jobs can be tackled. And one of the least glamorous but actually really useful is cleaning labels. We get through hundreds, if not thousands of labels every year and it seems a big waste to throw them away. So, we clean them. All you need is some wire wool, some fine wire wool and just scrub them off. And you find as you gently rub over it and it's not hard work at all, the writing of this supposedly indelible marker comes off. Hey Presto, you've got a new label. There are schools and schools more to be done and it will take ages. But we shall be back next week for our last programme of this year. So I'll see you then. Bye bye.