In The Beechgrove Garden episode 6 2017: Jim has set up the 6 x 8 greenhouse in an almost exact replica of his own greenhouse at home and this week he’s adding some half-hardy colour.
Meanwhile, Carole trials a range of fertilisers using Scotland’s number one bedding plant, the begonia, to see what if any difference adding fertiliser makes. Chris continues development of the new, old (Scottish) rose garden. It has been planted with every variety of rose, but they will all have to be able to cope with exposed Scottish conditions.
George visits Dr Tony Toft in his garden at Hermitage Gardens in Edinburgh, which is a showpiece display of unusual species mixed tastefully with specially commissioned pieces of art and sculpture.
In Beechgrove Garden episode 6 2017:
1. Tree pruning
Last week Jim planted a range of small garden trees. This week it was time for formative pruning with George’s legendry pruning techniques. The trees were chosen by each of our presenters as well as the garden team with a range of characteristics – shapes and sizes, season and colour of flowering and all chosen to be suitable for the smaller garden.
2. New Roses
A couple of year ago, Chris added some standard weeping roses to the side border of what was then the cutting garden. This week Chris is adding to the collection of roses using the 4 central rectangular beds. First though – some pruning of the now 2 year old weeping standard roses and the reason for leaving the pruning so late is so that the long stems have time to pro duce some growth and be weighed down so you get an idea of what wood to prune out (where the previous flowers were) and that which is dead diseased or frosted in this case.
3. Granular fertilisers
Carole was looking at a range of granular fertilisers available for growing flowers in containers. She had decided to set up a wee observation on 6 types of
fertiliser to compare them. She chose Begonia Illumination ‘Apricot Shades’ to use for the observation as the Begonia is the no. 1 bedding plant in Scotland, being reliable in all weathers.
