In Beechgrove Garden episode 11 2018 – Jim and Carole have butter and cream on standby in the hopes that there might be some early potatoes and strawberries ready to harvest. Meanwhile, Chris takes on a shady location by the pond at Beechgrove to create a new large shrub and clematis border.
George visits the unique Japanese garden at Cowden Castle, Clackmannanshire. Dating back to the early 20th century, it was the first oriental garden of its size and remains a beautiful horticultural bridge between Scottish and Japanese culture.
Beechgrove Garden episode 11 2018:
Fruit cage mini orchard
Three years ago George established a mini fruit orchard of apples on a range of different root stocks which control the vigour of the plants. What this means for the gardeners is that fruit can be grown in a more compact space than if the plants were grown on their own vigorous roots. M27 is the most dwarfing variety that we have at Beechgrove – and this produces a tree no taller than 5 – 6 feet and therefore means that all of the fruit can be easily picked.
Shady sloping bank planting
We set Chris a really awkward planting job this week on a steeply sloping bank next to the pond. Awkward primarily because there is a significant amount of shade up at the top of the bank, but at the bottom of the bank there is full sun till at least mid-day. What he wanted was a naturalistic informal shrub planting area. Before planting Chris investigated what the soil conditions were, by digging a trial soil pit.
Greenhouse
In her 6×8 greenhouse, Carole has been creating a colourful display, with red or ruby as the main colour to celebrate our ruby anniversary. She was watering the
new collection of Asiatic lilies planted in a succession to give us successional flowering.The variety ‘Red Power’ is budding up nicely and to make sure there are lots of flowers, water regularly and fertilise with a product high in Potassium,i.e. a tomato fertiliser.
The Amaryllis had virtually finished flowering, so the advice now was to give them good light and cut back the flowering spikes, and every 10 –14 days give a feed with a high Potassium feed to encourage next years flowers. Carole has added some new plants to this display this year. Calceolaria ‘Kentish Hero’ (the slipperf lower) is a tender perennial and new to Carole, this variety is very striking with its orange/red oddly shaped flowers. We will take cuttings of this plant for next year.
