Gardeners’ World episode 7 2011

Gardeners’ World episode 7 2011: Celebrating the arrival of the holiday season.At Longmeadow, Monty ensures that there will be late summer colour by propagating some of his favourites from the fantastically diverse salvia family. He also divides irises and reveals what has gone wrong with his onion crop.

Joe finds seasonal inspiration at historic Newby Hall in North Yorkshire, home to the longest double herbaceous border in Europe. Carol is at home showing how she keeps her flower beds looking their best at this time of year. Then she heads to the heart of London and discovers some hidden gardens to visit, all for the price of a Travelcard.

Gardeners’ World episode 7 2011

Salvia cuttings

Many salvias are tender and so won’t survive the winter outdoors. But if you take cuttings now, at least you’ll have a back up. Follow Monty Don’s step-by-step guide.

Salvia cuttings can be taken in April, August or September. Remove non-flowering stems that are about 8cm long. Remove the lower leaves and trim each cutting just below a node. Insert cuttings into a pot of pre-watered cutting compost. Cover the pot with a clear plastic bag – try to avoid the bag touching the foliage.

Place cuttings in a cool greenhouse and put up shading to prevent scorching from strong sunlight. After three weeks cuttings should be ready to pot on. Monty Don explains how which salvia shoots make good cuttings, what compost mix they need to root successfully, how to trim the cuttings and the best conditions to aid root development.

Wisteria pruning

Wisteria benefits from being pruned twice a year – once in summer and once in winter. Not only will this help to keep rampant plants under control, it’ll improve their flowering performance too. Colin Crosbie from RHS Wisley gives you some expert advice on how to go about it.

Wisteria needs regular pruning to keep the growth and size under control, but it will also improve the flowering display. Although it seems complicated, wisteria pruning is quite simple if you follow our simple guide.

Wisterias can be left to ramble unchecked where space allows but will usually flower more freely and regularly if pruned twice a year. The removal of growth in summer allows better air circulation and more sunlight to reach the base of the young growths, encouraging better ripening of the wood and improving the chances of flower bud formation. Restricting the amount of vegetative growth and encouraging short, flowering spurs will result in more flowers.

Monty Don

Monty Don was born in West Berlin to British parents Denis Thomas Keiller Don, a career soldier posted in Germany, and Janet Montagu (née Wyatt). Both of his paternal grandparents were Scottish, through whom he is descended from botanist George Don and the Keiller family of Dundee, inventors of a brand of marmalade in 1797. On his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects. Both parents died in the 1980s. Don has a twin sister, an elder brother David, and two other siblings. His twin suffered a broken neck and blindness after a car crash, at the age of 19. Don describes his parents as being “very strict”.

Don was educated at three independent schools: Quidhampton School in Basingstoke, Hampshire, Bigshotte School in Wokingham, Berkshire, and at Malvern College in Malvern, Worcestershire, a college he hated. He then attended a state comprehensive school, the Vyne School, in Hampshire. He failed his A levels and while studying for re-takes at night school, worked on a building site and a pig farm by day. During his childhood he had become an avid gardener and farmer. He was determined to go to Cambridge out of “sheer bloody-mindedness”, attending Magdalene College, where he read English and met his future wife Sarah. He was a Cambridge Half Blue for boxing.

Gardeners’ World

Gardeners’ World is a long-running BBC Television programme about gardening, first broadcast on 5 January 1968 and still running as of 2019. Its first episode was presented by Ken Burras and came from Oxford Botanical Gardens. The magazine BBC Gardeners’ World is a tie-in to the programme. Most of its episodes have been 30 minutes in length, although there are many specials that last longer. The 2008 and 2009 series used a 60-minute format as did the 2016 series from episode 23, for eight episodes in total.