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Private Notes
After a long and unforgiving winter, the team are back with plenty of inspirational plants, seasonal jobs and essential tasks for the weekend. Toby recommends some of the best varieties of snowdrop for your garden and offers tips on the tastiest varieties of tomato, while Joe Swift joins him to get the fruit garden under way. Carol Klein is at Glebe Cottage taking a closer look at the Hellebore family, and Alys Fowler sows sweet peas for picking in the summer.
Toby Buckland plants climbing and rambling roses around a new pergola at Greenacre, while Joe Swift maintains the prairie border and divides the perennial sunflower Lemon Queen. The Royal Horticultural Society demonstrate rose pruning techniques at Hyde Hall, and at Glebe Cottage, Carol Klein has tips on growing irises as she prepares the flowers for summer.
Toby Buckland is tidying up the Bee Border at Greenacre, cutting back the ghosts of last year's plants and selecting some nectar rich spring flowering perennials and shrubs that can be planted now to help ensure there is sufficient food for early bees. At Glebe Cottage in Devon, Carol Klein is celebrating the extensive Primula family. She takes us through the family tree, and reveals some surprising clan-members in between.
Toby Buckland starts off varieties of vegetables which can be sown, grown and harvested within weeks, in a new vegetable plot at Greenacre, while Joe Swift is planting evergreen hedging and offering advice on planting out Camellias. At Glebe Cottage, Carol Klein explores the relationships between members of the lily family, while at RHS Wisley Colin Crosbie gives a master class in Camellia pruning techniques and recommends varieties that will extend the flowering season.
While gardeners nationwide are getting their gardens in shape over the Easter bank holiday weekend, so too are Toby Buckland, Joe Swift and Alys Fowler. Each of them is creating a back garden at Greenacre. Meanwhile, Carol Klein is out and about at Tresco Abbey on the Isles of Scilly, exploring the extraordinary and exotic plants that thrive in their microclimate under the care of head gardener, Mike Nelhams.
With thoughts of fresh posies and sweet smelling summer blooms, Toby Buckland has plans for a cutting garden at Greenacre. He makes his first sowings of flowers that will bloom within 12 weeks and makes recommendations for varieties that are ideal for cut flower borders. Spring has truly arrived when one of the wilder members of the pea family, the gorse, is in flower. Carol Klein follows its trail to her own back garden and looks at one of its surprising relatives.
Walls and fences are one of the most tricky areas of the garden to cover so, whether they face north, south, east or west. Toby Buckland comes up with suggestions for quick-growing climbing plants which will have them covered and looking good this summer. Carol Klein uncovers the colourful world of the Brassica family, plus Joe Swift joins Toby at Greenacre and shows us how to build a pond from recycled materials without compromising on design and quality.
Toby Buckland is focusing on the high impact, low maintenance plants of the American prairie-style border at Greenacre. Alys Fowler plants the glorious, blousy peony and adds some luscious foliage to the cutting garden. In her garden at Glebe Cottage, Carol Klein is taking a look at the borage family. Plus Toby plants sweetcorn in his family garden and has tips on how to grow popcorn.
The Malvern Spring Show heralds the start of the flower show season. The Gardeners' World team are there highlighting the best plants in the floral marquee and finding the latest in design ideas from the show gardens. 2010 is the Malvern Show's 25th anniversary and the International Year of Biodiversity, so the team find out how the way we garden has changed over the last quarter-century and how nurturing wildlife has become second nature to gardeners.
Toby Buckland shows us how to get the wow factor with beautiful blooming hanging baskets and recommends some of the best water-retaining products to keep baskets in even the sunniest of spots hydrated. And drawing inspiration from one of the nation's finest woodland gardens, Aberglasney, Toby suggests a fantastic selection of colourful plants that will thrive in the dappled shade of a tree canopy or beside a fence or wall.
Toby Buckland shares his top tips on how to get a bumper tomato harvest, as well as his ideas for where to plant shrubs with purple, gold and silver leaves to ensure that they flourish in your garden. Carol Klein continues her investigation into plant families as she delves into the nettle clan, while Alys Fowler uses a Native American Indian technique for growing tender vegetables. Plus a final chance to see the rhododendrons at the Leonardslee garden in West Sussex.
With summer on the horizon and everything in the garden growing like fury, there is plenty to be getting on with in the garden at the moment and Gardeners' World has some timely advice for borders, veg patches, boggy areas and even compost heaps. Plants which thrive in the moist conditions of pond margins are looking at their best right now and Toby Buckland recommends varieties which not only add a splash of colour but also have great foliage.
Toby Buckland is removing wall-flowers and digging up spent tulips, and has plenty of ideas for colourful replacements which will give dramatic flowers and foliage well into the first frosts of autumn. There's plenty of summer gardening advice for lawns, fruit gardens and shrub care from the experts at the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Wisley.
Gardeners' World Live comes to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, offering something for everyone, from high-end design to helpful hints for ordinary gardeners.
Toby Buckland visits the jewel in the crown of Gardeners' World Live, the RHS Floral Marquee, meeting passionate plantsmen and women from around the country. Whether it's a tried and tested favourite or something rare and unusual, Toby discovers the plants and the stories behind them.
Joe Swift tours the show gardens, from the large and aspirational to the small and inspirational, finding the best ideas to take away and try out at home.
Carol Klein gives her guide to propagation, with tips on how to turn one plant into many. And Alys Fowler meets the nurseries offering the best edibles at the show.
And the ever popular Gardeners' World Plant Swap is back. Toby, Carol, Joe and Alys meet viewers and visitors wanting to swap their spare plants.
Toby Buckland visits some of his favourite coastal gardens and discovers how, despite the tricky and tempestuous locations, the gardens around the coast of Britain are at the forefront of horticulture and are amongst the most beautiful in the country.
Gardening magazine. Toby Buckland gets stuck into building an ingenious herb spiral - an easy build with a cunning design allowing all the herbs you like to cook with to be grown in one small but beautiful planter. Joe Swift is in the vegetable patch harvesting crops like peas, early potatoes and salad that are ready to eat, but he also has top tips on sowing exotic Chinese veg now to ensure there are crops to eat well into the autumn.
Gardening magazine. Toby Buckland shows us how to make a beautiful but simple garden path using recycled materials from both the home and the garden to create an informal look. Carol Klein visits the restored Victorian vegetable garden at Knightshayes Court. She also investigates the Campanula family. In Joe Swift's sustainable back garden at Greenacre, he shows us how to make a simple bench from a reclaimed pallet. And Alys Fowler is taking the plunge in a natural swimming pond.
It's the holiday season and there's no better time for Gardeners' World to take to the road, so when Toby Buckland and Carol Klein heard about a community of gardeners in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire with some of the commonest garden problems, they didn't need asking twice to head out and see if there was anything they could do to help. Toby concentrates on the gardens and allotments. Carol gives advice on issues ranging from propagation to pruning.
Toby shows how to increase the numbers of butterflies coming to your garden by planting the right flowers. Carol takes a look at the more decorative members of the potato family.
The Science of Gardening.
Carol Klein has been a passionate gardener for over 30 years and, like many gardeners, she's fascinated by what's going on at a deeper level when it comes to her plants. So, Carol turns her beloved garden into a living laboratory and plays host to scientific experts who help her to explore, analyse and observe her soil, compost, seeds, weather, leaves, and flowers.
