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Private Notes
Joe Swift visits the inner city gardens bringing people together from all walks of life. Having pledged to help residents near his own London home set up a communal gardening area, Joe embarks upon a personal journey to discover how community gardens are created and run. He meets people from urban neighbourhoods up and down the country who nurture their local green spaces, and sees a pioneering neighbourhood scheme in New York to make the city more green.
Based at RHS Rosemoor gardens in Devon, Carol Klein extols the beauty of winter in this showcase RHS garden, and also visits plant collections and growers and breeders across the country who specialise in the care and cultivation of the most sumptuous seasonal blooms. She takes a tour of the gardens with curator Christopher Bailes, meets gardeners and volunteers working in the various garden areas, and discovers tips and tasks to be getting on with in the garden.
Monty Don examines the renaissance in the Great British allotment and asks why the number of plots in the UK seem to be shrinking when demand is on the increase. Monty also takes time out to celebrate this great tradition by meeting the different personalities, young and old, for whom their allotment is their own private paradise.
It's the first programme of a new series, and Gardeners' World is in its 40th year. Monty Don begins a new garden that will celebrate some of the famous faces and gardens which have appeared on the programme over the years. Along with Carol Klein in the cottage garden, and Joe Swift growing tropical edibles, Monty starts planting in the long borders and launches a Viewers' Bedding Competition.
The Gardeners' World team would like viewers to begin greening up their houses and neighbourhoods by growing and sharing plants for hanging baskets. Monty begins by sowing seeds for plants to fill baskets at Berryfields, as well as giving tips on how to grow great bedding plants. Carol starts a new project where she will grow and harvest vegetables from a small plot of just 5 x 1.2 metres, while Joe extols the virtues of the most flamboyant of early spring flowers, the Camellia.
It's time to get going with planting around the Berryfields pond which was completely redone at the end of last year. The winter rains have filled it up and now it's time to start establishing new plantings to attract wildlife. Monty starts sowing seeds for a new meadow, Carol starts growing some perennial plants and Joe plants some shrubs to extend the nectar bar.
The Easter weekend is one of the busiest of the gardening year, and Berryfields is no exception. Monty is replanting one end of the long borders with perennial plants of 'cool' hues: blues, whites and hints of plum. Carol is planting up her tiny vegetable plot and starting off some potatoes to grow in plastic compost bags, and Joe is toiling away in the 40-year-anniversary garden, starting to build the wall, steps and pathway.
Spring is well under way and the fresh greens of the season inspire Monty to begin a 'green' garden: a garden that has the basis of green flowers and all the spectrum of green foliage that it is possible to plant. Joe returns to his modern town garden that he built last year, to see how it has come through the winter. Carol is adding more plants to her small garden which is filled entirely with plants that have been grown from seeds and cuttings.
It's a nostalgic look back at previous presenters of the programme as Monty, Joe and Carol each take a section of the 40-year garden and plant it up to represent the planting of Percy Thrower, Arthur Billet, Geoff Hamilton and Alan Titchmarsh. Sarah Raven returns with the second part of her cutting patch series and Monty is also in the long border planting clematis.
This programme comes from the 22nd annual Malvern Spring Gardening Show held at the Three Counties Showground in Worcestershire. The team explores the show and this area of the country, taking a look at all the highlights. Monty shops for green flowers and foliage for the new green garden back at Berryfields, and Carol, Rachel and Joe decide to get stuck in and have a go at designing and planting a plot in the Borders without Gardens competition.
Monty, Joe and Carol are joined at Berryfields by Sarah Raven for another indulgent hour of gardening. It's all about colour as Monty and Sarah plant up the green garden with foliage, flowers and texture, Joe injects some structure and seasonal colour into the dry garden, Carol is planning for hot summer purples and oranges in her garden of seeds and cuttings, and Sarah shows how to grow the rich hues of late-summer flowers.
Right plant, right place is the mantra as Monty plants out irises for full sun in the long borders and irises for the water margins by the pond, Carol deals with flowers for dappled shade in the cottage garden and Joe plants up summer pots for sunny, shady and dry parts of the garden.
The long borders get some attention this week as Monty plants out annual climbers and preens perennials for maximum flower performance. Carol is in the herb garden giving advice about tender culinary herbs while Joe takes a trip to the late Geoff Hamilton's garden at Barnsdale where, in the lead up to Gardeners' World Live, Nick and Sue Hamilton have been growing plants for the 40th year show garden.
The most popular gardening event of the year comes to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, where the Gardeners' World team celebrate 40 years of the programme with the building of the 40th year anniversary garden. Joe Swift aims to win a coveted RHS medal for the show garden, while Carol explores the RHS Floral Marquee, Rachel takes a look at the show gardens, Monty mans the seed swap and Michelle Robinson offers her take on the best gardening day out of the year.
The formal garden gets a transformation this week when the winner of the bedding competition plants out her design with Monty and the team. Monty is also planting for insects by the pond by extending the variety of plants in the nectar bar, while Joe adds edible tropical plants to the jungle garden. Plus Carol keeps the cottage garden at peak performance by adding more successional colour.
Gardener and former art teacher Carol Klein has always created wonderful colour combinations in her own garden and with her acclaimed displays at RHS garden shows. She reveals how much our opportunity to use colour has developed over the centuries and shows how planting has been influenced by innovators like Gertrude Jekyll and Christopher Lloyd. Carol visits celebrated colour-themed gardens like Sissinghurst and Great Dixter to reveal the secrets of successful garden design.
Great Britain's one million acres of private gardens are under threat as an estimated 20,000 new homes are built every year in back gardens grabbed by developers. Garden Grabbing exploits a loophole in the current law which classes private gardens as brownfield not greenfield sites. Designer Joe Swift finds out just how important our urban back gardens are and asks if there are any pioneering alternatives, both here and abroad, to the traditional back garden.
Can eating certain foods actually save your life? For some time a new class of Super Foods foods has been marketed as cure-alls because they are rich in anti-oxidants as well as vitamins and minerals. With four children of her own, Rachel de Thame is on a mission to demystify the truths and myths about Super Foods and to find out if there really is such a thing as a perfect diet.
The sale of cut flowers in the UK is at an all time high, but cheaper land and labour costs and a warmer climate have led to overseas competitors dominating 85 per cent of the market. Presenter Sarah Raven visits the UK's most beautiful cutting gardens, where British growers are cutting their own niche in an ever expanding market, and tries to encourage the cut flower market and its consumers to celebrate our native seasonal flowers with a Great British Cut Flower Week.
Monty looks back over what's happened at Berryfields over the last few weeks. He gets to grips with the long borders and provides an update on the vegetable garden. Carol starts the first week of a longer project in the cottage garden where she is transforming a small space for shade-loving plants. Joe starts work in the courtyard garden and gives advice on small space gardening.
Monty introduces a new sweet pea which has been named after him and we pay a visit to Roger Parsons who has bred numerous varieties, including sweet pea 'Monty Don'. We also visit a garden that has been partially destroyed by floods to see the damage and find out how the owners are going to restore the garden to its former glory. Carol continues her work in the cottage garden and Joe is in the courtyard garden giving advice on small space gardening.
As summer draws to a close there are loads of tasks to be getting on with. Monty is clearing crops in the vegetable garden and planting green manure, Joe is working in the dry garden and the time is ripe for Carol to start propagating from seeds and cuttings. There's also a visit to Kew Gardens to find out if our changing climate has affected plants in any way.
Monty reveals how to make perfect compost from all sorts of garden and kitchen waste, whilst Joe is plants some unusual bulbs which thrive in dry conditions. Carol continues to propagate from the garden by dividing as many plants as possible, and we find out about an heroic effort to save bedding displays in Upton upon Severn which were destroyed by floods just days before they were due to be judged by the Royal Horticultural Society.
At Berryfields, Monty celebrates the plants that provide late colour in the garden. Carol continues to propagate from plants, taking cuttings. And Joe maintains the lush plants in the jungle garden.
Monty Don prepares the soil for next year's sweet peas. Joe Swift makes the most of limited planting space in his family garden. And Carol Klein makes more plants by taking root cuttings.
Although Autumn is well under way at Berryfields, Monty continues to plant crops in the vegetable garden which will provide early vegetables in spring as well as clearing up the remains of the summer vegetables. Carol plants out meadow plants which she grew from seed earlier in the year, while Joe gives the low down on what's good for your lawn.
A new garden is unveiled at Berryfields this week which is exclusively for growing soft fruits such as strawberries and raspberries, and Monty gets the project started when the first plants go in. Joe continues the fruit theme when he plants some ornamental and productive fruit in his small family garden while Carol gets to grips with moving and replanting a tree.
Monty reveals a simple and quick way of building a garden seat when he begins a new project of making a woodland glade. As the gardening days grow colder and shorter, Joe and Carol are wrapping up and protecting tender plants to ensure their survival over winter and into next spring.
In the last programme of the current series, Monty plans bright colours for Spring as he plants tulips in the long borders. Carol gives advice on how to look after garden wildlife over the harsh months of Winter. Joe shows how to ensure the survival of exotic late-flowering perennials like Dahlias and Cannas.
In an hour long Christmas edition of Gardeners' World, Monty Don, Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Sarah Raven and Alys Fowler offer 12 gardening ideas to cover each of the 12 days of Christmas. Carol and Joe enjoy a series of winter walks with a horticultural flavour. Sarah follows the journey of the British cobnut from harvest to the plate. Back at Berryfields, Monty and Alys tackle a host of winter tasks and start planning the new gardening year.
