Gardeners World episode 5 2012: It’s Easter and the biggest gardening weekend of the year, so even if you haven’t yet dusted off your lawnmower, there’s plenty of advice and inspiration – from large projects to tackling weeds.
At Longmeadow, Monty is getting started on the vegetable plot, where he recommends a palette of potatoes for delicious summer crops. He also returns to his newly created pond, where he is showing how to conceal the liner with an attractive edge.
Carol Klein celebrates the humble daffodil. She travels to Lincolnshire and discovers drifts of wild daffodils, but also meets a man whose passion is to preserve and identify a historic collection of cultivated varieties. Rachel de Thame helps a group of military wives as they begin growing cut flowers for the first time. And Joe concludes his series on design when he shows how even the smallest garden can have areas where focal points and plants can create a pleasing effect.
Gardeners World episode 5 2012:
How to grow daffodils
Daffodils are one of the most reliable spring-flowering bulbs, blooming year after year with little attention. They grow well in containers, borders and grass, with a wide range of flower shapes, forms and sizes to choose from, to brighten up your garden throughout spring.
Daffodils (Narcissus) are one of the most popular spring bulbs, typically with yellow or white flowers rising above long slender leaves. The distinctive flowers have six petal-like tepals, surrounding a central trumpet or corona.
They mainly originate in southern Europe and North Africa, although there is a native British species, Narcissus pseudonarcissus. Daffodils have been widely cultivated for centuries, resulting in the vast range now available, with various flower shapes, sizes and colours. Most are hardy, low maintenance and long lived, and they suit almost every style of garden, growing well in containers as well as in the ground.
How to grow potatoes
Potatoes are hugely versatile and a staple ingredient of many meals in one form or another – boiled, mashed, chipped or baked. Potatoes are classified as being either earlies or maincrops. Early varieties are ready to harvest much sooner than maincrops and are what we call ‘new potatoes’. Maincrop varieties are in the ground a lot longer. They have a better yield and produce larger potatoes.
Potatoes are grown from special ‘seed’ potatoes (also called tubers). These are just like potatoes you buy from the supermarket, but they’re certified virus-free. Buy seed potatoes from late winter onwards. You start them off indoors by setting them to sprout, before they are planted.
