Hi Sweetpea, hi Mummy Bear. How are you? Hello from the other side of the screen.

 I only get to see you through a screen now because you’re back at uni.

 I’m back at uni. I have to move everything back into its spot.

 Yep. Make sure everything is all good. I think I’ve got my podcast station set up as well.

 It took me a lot of time. Most important thing.

 Yeah, exactly. Most important thing. I was like, right, we’ve got a podcast today,

 priorities people. Yeah, I had to put all the cables back up and

 I think they’re a little bit all over the shop. That’s okay.

 Anyways, but I had my kind of first school reunion kind of thing where we all were in

 the amphitheatres and we just kind of got a brief about how this year is going to be.

 It was all al right. I was very tired because I had to get up very early this morning.

 Yeah, it’s a shock to the system, isn’t it? After a nice long hot summer.

 Yeah, exactly. And also a summer of where I was getting up later because I had to go to bed

 a lot later. Working late.

 Working through the night. And was the amphitheatre packed with loads and loads of

 people there? Is it not as bad as last year? I mean, it wasn’t as bad as last year.

 In my section, so in microbiology, we are 250, I think she said. And then they’re like

 400 in the cell biology and near to the 100 in physiology.

 In physiology? Wait, was that an option? Sorry, not physiology, plant and animal biology,

 which has physiology in it, but that’s the title of it. So yeah, we’re looking

 at around about that and we’re looking at around about 32 places for dentistry.

 Right. So wow, so it’s out of all three of those groups.

 Oh, 32 places in total. So then we’ve got to add all the other things to

 chemistry and people who are doing the law is a lot anyways.

 Yeah. Okay. So not many places.

 Not many places, but we’re going to power through.

 Yeah. 32 places in dentistry and 124 places for medicine.

 Okay. Because you are thinking brain surgery is your backup plan.

 It ain’t brain surgery. Yeah, just generally surgery, becoming a surgeon. I’m really

 interested in it. I think it’s so, so cool. I do think you’d be so good at that,

 largely because of your Lego and Meccano background.

 Yeah. And with the fine motor skills, I think.

 Yeah, I really enjoy that. I could see you doing surgery. I could really,

 really see you doing it. The only issue is that you would be on call all the time.

 So if someone gets rushed into the hospital at two o’clock in the morning,

 you can’t go, hold on a sec, Sweetpea needs her sleep. I’ll see you at nine.

 Why are you so annoying? Why you got to go and have a car crash?

 Two in the morning. Anti-social hours.

 Whereas dentistry, people can wait. If they’ve got a toothache, they can wait till nine.

 They can. They have to.

 And if it’s after five o’clock in the evening, they can wait until the next day.

 If they can’t, they go to A&E. Some pain management and then nine o’clock,

 all the dentists open. Exactly.

 Whippy tooth nap. We will see.

 Okay. Well, we’ll see. But I think it’s a good fallback plan.

 And maybe this summer, if you’re working so late into the night with your job,

 maybe that was to get you ready for doing something like surgery.

 Maybe. But I couldn’t do that all the time.

 No, it wouldn’t be all the time. You’d be on shifts.

 Yeah. I suppose it wouldn’t. It would be maybe like one or two nights per week

 or something like that. Yeah.

 I don’t know how it works, but there’d be shifts. But yeah,

 your hours would be all over the shop compared to dentistry.

 Anyway, so I’ve got a good few Google drives with all the documents

 and lessons of the year. So taking notes won’t be so difficult.

 And yeah, just generally getting ready like that.

 And we’re going to have a really early night tonight.

 That’s a good idea. And you’ve got some nice friends there as well.

 So that’s all good. Exactly.

 Great. So that’s me.

 How have you been doing? Well, we are fine.

 We’re just, it’s like a tornado. Sweetpea’s been in and departed.

 We’re just recovering now. Yeah.

 So I’m pretty exhausted. I’m looking forward to catching up with sleep

 and just chilling for a bit. Having the house to yourself.

 Yep. Having the house to myself. I haven’t.

 I’ve got Hobbs around the place. If she makes her presence very much felt.

 So I’m never just to myself. My little poached potato.

 There’s no hope of having me time when you’ve got a dog like Hobbs.

 The gardens in a bit of a state. I had a walk through kind of the cliff face

 of the garden because I haven’t looked at that for quite a while.

 And there are a lot of casualties. There’s a lot of green, but there’s a,

 there are a lot of casualties. I haven’t deciphered what, what the casualties are,

 who the casualties are. A lot to go on the compost heap.

 But then I think what I’m going to do is just establish all the ones that have survived.

 We’ll start splitting those and getting in more of those ones.

 Then also with this episode of Gardeners’ World,

 I’m very keen on the whole Mediterranean herbs route.

 And I think I could plug a lot of the gaps with a whole load of those sorts of things.

 And I think that would work on a south facing, very free draining,

 poor soiled hill. So that is the plan. It’s just a matter of finding the time.

 Yes. But Sweetpea,

 I need to update you on a little bit of sad news. Obviously there was the very sad news

 that Dolly Parton passed away last week, 25th of August. Very sad times.

 I actually shed a tear. I think she’s an absolutely wonderful human being.

 Legend. In my fantasy world,

 there are Dolly Parton’s as every world leader.

 Oh my gosh. Can you imagine what a sparkly,

 happy, joyous world we would have? The planet would be in for it. I’d probably have to get

 all the world leaders to reign back on the glitter because that’s not great for the

 environment. But glitter aside. It would just be the most beautiful world, wouldn’t it?

 So much peace. Just joy and smiles.

 And kindness. But anyway, my point was that on the same day as Dolly Parton passing away,

 Patty’s died. Monty’s little terrier. Oh my gosh.

 Very sad news. Oh, that’s really sad.

 Yeah. She apparently died quite suddenly in the morning. She’d had a short illness,

 Monty put on his social media, and she died that morning. So very, very, very sad.

 Oh, I love that little… Heartbreaking.

 A little Pattsicle. A little Pattsicle. We didn’t see

 much of her, did we? No.

 Just mostly Ned ruling the roost. Ned very much barging elbows and knees.

 Yeah. Coming through.

 So sad news. Sorry to hear it. I hope Monty and family are all coping all right because

 it is a tough time when you lose an animal presence from the family.

 Absolutely, yeah. Now, in terms of our listener

 offer, we mentioned that on the bonus episode last week. If you don’t tune into our bonus

 episodes, which have nothing to do with Gardners’ World really, they’re just our

 general sweet bean bear ramblings. We did talk about this amazing listener

 offer that we have been given by the RHS. It’s offering our listeners 25 pairs of free

 tickets to a recording of BBC Gardners’ Question Time. And that is taking place

 at RHS’ Whistly Flower Show this year, which is at the beginning of September.

 So next weekend is when it’s occurring. And the recording is happening at 2 p.m.

 on Saturday, the 5th of September. So the tickets will give you and your

 guest free entry to the Gardners’ Question Time actual event. That is a show that is on BBC

 Radio 4. And you basically can sit in the audience. You can bring your gardening questions.

 There’s a panel of people who will then answer. And this year there’s going to be

 this recording with people that you will know, people like Francis, Top Hill.

 There’s also Matt Pottage. Yeah, he did the Queen Elizabeth Garden.

 That’s right. That was only a few weeks ago.

 James Wong as well. So a number of familiar faces there. And you ask your question

 and it’s all part of the recording. So you will then be heard on Gardeners’ Question

 Time on Radio 4. And if you’re really lucky, you may find yourself sitting next to one or more of

 our wonderful previous guests. There are a few of our guests who are going to be at the event

 as well. They’re going to be sitting in the audience. So you could find yourself

 next to one of them. And so I’m sure if you’ve got any questions for them, they’ll

 also be delighted to answer your questions. So it should be a fun event. So if you are

 interested, it’s first come first served. So drop us your name either through email

 address, which is hello at notjustgarden.co.uk or you can do it through our website or contact

 us on one of the social media. So it’s really straightforward. There’s no competition as such.

 It’s just first come first serve. So get your names to us. That will go on the guest list

 and then you’ll get entry into it. Exactly. Now we have a little bit of housekeeping from

 last week. The first one, Sweetpea, what I really want to know is how much peanut butter

 do I need to make a diamond? Tell me more. I looked this up and apparently it’s a really

 tiny microscopic amount of peanut butter. Is it really? Yeah. Just a fraction of a gram,

 which is then squeezed into a high pressure apparatus. It’s kind of a stiletto effect

 that creates a tiny diamond, which apparently is going to be roughly around about three

 millimetres in size. Okay. Really tiny. Yeah, really tiny. So I’m reiterating what I said

 last week, which is people who think that by putting coal and peanut butter frozen together

 or something like that, some stupid internet craze that you’re going to create a whopping

 diamond already just with the peanut butter, you’re making a really microscopic amount.

 Okay. All right. So what we’re saying is not much peanut butter is needed to make not much of a

 diamond. Exactly. But a lot of gear around it. Yeah. A lot of kit needed for that. It might

 be better off just buying the diamond. Probably. Well, something else that came up

 last week, you were talking about your music and how you were, I think you said I’m at the

 version just before the penultimate version and we wondered if there was a term for that.

 Turns out, Sweetpea, this is new news for me, there is a term for that.

 Before penultimate. The one before penultimate is called the anti-penultimate.

 Oh my gosh, I’m going to be using that now. I’m going to sound like such a cool person.

 The anti-penultimate, did you know? It’s interesting, isn’t it?

 That’s really cool. Yeah. I like that. You’ve got the anti-penultimate version.

 But a general knowledge. Very cool. Now I have a little bit of a chit chat catch up.

 This is lovely news. So I heard from the wonderful Nigel Palfrey.

 Oh, yeah. If anyone’s trying to think who’s Nigel Palfrey, I recognise the name,

 but I can’t remember how. He is the man, the myth, the legend, responsible for

 his crinkle-crankle folly, which was on Gardeners’ World. The most beautiful structure

 he made in his garden with bits of wood that he’s been collecting. Whenever he goes out for walks,

 he’ll collect a piece of wood. If it looks particularly interesting, he’ll collect it.

 Then his poor wife has to deal with these piles of wood,

 and then they get built into something amazing. Exactly.

 They’re works of art, what he does. We had him on a chit chat back in December 2024,

 and he told us a lot more about that. So I’ll link that particular episode

 on the notes for this recap. But he got in touch, and he is currently, so no rest for the wicked,

 he’s currently building a crinkle-crankle cabin in the grounds of St Margaret’s Hospice in

 Somerset. He said he’s working on it seven days a week. So full-time job for him,

 and he’s working with a team of people. Some of the office staff are helping,

 some of the nurses, corporate groups, and then Facebook volunteers as well.

 So everyone getting really involved. St Margaret’s Hospice in Somerset have also

 advertised on their social media that they are looking for more volunteers to join the team.

 So if you do want to work with the amazing Nigel, and let me tell you,

 you won’t just be learning how to build a crinkle-crankle cabin,

 you will also be hearing his amazing stories. Here’s a little bit of inside info.

 Ask him to tell you the story about his severed hand and the level crossing.

 Just say that and he will tell you a fantastic story. So I will put a link to the St Margaret’s

 Hospice page that allows you to, that you can go on to ask to volunteer, and it’s got all the

 details in there. But it would be a fantastic opportunity if you’ve got some time and are

 looking to do some voluntary work, and you’re in the area, then go join Nigel. I promise you,

 you will not be bored. You will have a very, very interesting time.

 Quite the opposite.

 Now, I know we’re not officially back to doing No Way News yet. We were taking some time out

 of No Way News over the summer, really with the idea of the episodes being a little bit

 shorter over the summer, but that didn’t quite work out because we still seem to have loads

 to talk about. But we will be going back to No Way News whenever you have time,

 because I know you’re very busy. But normally what would happen is I would tell you something

 over the dinner table and say, oh, just learn this really interesting thing,

 let me tell you about it. But since I don’t have you over the dinner table,

 then this is how we’re going to do it. Much easier.

 Much easier. Do you remember last week I talked about Tegelwippen, which is in the Netherlands

 where they’re taking up paving slabs and replacing it with planting.

 And it’s a competition.

 It’s a competition across the whole of the Netherlands. So I just love the,

 the Netherlands often have these really innovative ideas. And I found out that there’s

 this company called Loop Biotech. And what they have created is coffins made of mushrooms.

 Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.

 Absolutely brilliant. It’s the world’s first coffin made from

 mushrooms grown in just seven days from local mushrooms and up cycled hemp fibers.

 And it fully returns to the earth within 45 days. So if you imagine all that lovely

 mushroom material, it’s completely enriching the earth around with the body inside it.

 So it’s lined with a soft bed of moss. Doesn’t that sound gorgeous?

 Much nicer than a hard box.

 Yeah, I think they sort of pad it out and make it all comfy on the inside for your coffin.

 But this is all padded out with moss and you can have different choice of colors.

 There’s a calm or a wild color and it’s certified for natural burial,

 traditional burial or cremation. And it costs around the,

 because I actually looked into it and thought crikey, this could be the way to do it.

 They’re for around 1200 pounds. And if that’s too much, then there’s a mycelium urn

 that you can get. So if you are cremated, your ashes can go into the mycelium urn.

 That’s for around 200 pounds. They also have pet urns available as well.

 Oh, I’d like that.

 So I’ll put a link to that one. What a great idea. I think that

 absolutely beats hands down traditional coffins.

 That’s absolutely fantastic. And it just means everything decomposes really nicely.

 Yeah. Good, isn’t it? And you’re sort of giving back to the earth.

 Exactly. All that mycelium, all that moss. Fantastic. I really like that. That’s very cool.

 Right. Well, that’s it for this week in terms of No Way News,

 sweetie. I’ll have more for you next week. Okay.

 Oh, fantastic.

 Right. Shall we have a look at this episode of Gardeners’ World?

 Absolutely.

 This is Gardeners’ World 2026, episode 23 recap.

 Off we go. So we’re with Monty and he has his taxis piccata. That’s the English yew.

 Yes.

 And it’s a perfect dumpling ball shape.

 Yes.

 The poor thing. Really got everything thrown at it this year.

 Had a rough time.

 Bloody in the winter. Drought, then moulds, all sorts.

 Did you say mould or moles?

 Mold.

 Oh, I thought it was moles.

 Well, it seemed to be in a pot. I couldn’t tell if he had put it into a pot,

 if it was in the ground.

 I had just assumed it was moles.

 We might have to check that.

 Yeah, I’ll need to check. That’s a bit of housekeeping for next week.

 But we do this so many times. Did he say moles or did he say mould?

 Yes. Oh, my word. All right. That’s very interesting that you came at it from a

 different direction. All right, let me check that out. I’ll put it on the list.

 Great. If anyone knows, please write in.

 Yes, let us know.

 Sweetpea, bear, you doofus cakes. It was such and such.

 Well, one of us is right. So one of us isn’t a doofus cake.

 One of us is just a cake.

 Anyway, so he’s taking it to a nursery bed because he’s just going to look after it.

 He’s going to cut it right back to the bone. That’s something that you can do with you.

 You don’t have to worry about cutting into the brown bit.

 It will re-flourish right from the main stem.

 So he’s just going to do that and that way it can look great for next year, hopefully.

 Yeah. And then there are the pelargoniums.

 So then he goes to his pelargoniums. He’s got zonal pelargoniums,

 centred leaf pelargoniums, pelargonium pseudoides, ivy leaf pelargoniums as well.

 Exactly. And he’s just showing off how to take cuttings about those.

 So the usual take a nice side shoot with no flower on.

 Cut below a node because that’s where you have the rooting hormone.

 Then you cut off most of the leaves, leave a few at the top,

 put it into a nice compost and grit 50-50 mix and water from below.

 Yes, don’t get the leaves wet.

 And he reckons in about six weeks you should see it rooting.

 Yeah.

 Then you can put pot them up individually.

 Exactly.

 And then we’re up to Cumbria to a place called

 Grange Over Sands to Abbey and Tom Atwood’s nursery called Abbey and Tom’s Garden Plants.

 Yeah, nice and easy.

 Nice and easy. And we have Tom trying to talk to camera to tell us about the nursery.

 Yeah.

 And he’s very much competing with a cockerel.

 More like the cockerel is competing with him going,

 I want to be centre of attention right now.

 I want to be involved in this piece.

 And we know the sound engineer takes his or her job very, very seriously

 because we’ve had it mentioned a few times on Chit Chats, haven’t we?

 I remember Eliot talked about it.

 Yeah.

 I think it was Elliot where there was a neighbour mowing,

 it was Thames Water were digging up the road.

 Yes, that was it.

 Wasn’t he under a flight path as well?

 Yeah, he literally had it coming from every angle.

 And the poor sound engineer was like, cut, cut, cut.

 Yeah, but the sound engineers are absolute geniuses, genii, aren’t they, on the show?

 Yeah, they are.

 But I think with this one they just thought,

 you know what, if you can’t beat him, join him, let’s get the cockerel involved.

 Give the ambiance to the general show.

 Yeah, it’s a nice ambiance.

 And Tom tells us how he and Abby met.

 They were at a school leaving due.

 They hadn’t come together, but they sure did leave together by the sounds of it.

 You know what I mean.

 It won’t quit.

 And they fell for each other over a common love of plants.

 They had known about this particular site for a very long time.

 Abby used to visit it with both her parents and her grandparents

 and her dad spotted an ad for the nursery.

 It’s almost as if the stars aligned for them.

 And it was up for rent, wasn’t it?

 So they decided to take on that challenge because apparently it was just full of weeds,

 loads of dandelions everywhere.

 Bindweed galore.

 Trees were smothered by the bindweed.

 What a joy.

 But it’s more satisfying really, isn’t it, to go from that extreme to them getting it all

 It’s like if you’ve got a room that’s really untidy and you need to clean,

 it’s a lot more satisfying than one that just needs a bit of a dust here and there.

 Yeah, exactly.

 I know exactly what you mean on that front.

 So they did an amazing job and they wanted it to feel like a garden.

 And it was gorgeous, wasn’t it?

 Absolutely stunning.

 We had some amazing drone shots as well of it, which I really enjoyed.

 So they have the entrance borders.

 They have lots of veg and annuals in there all mixed together.

 A mini potager, Tom said.

 Exactly, a mini potager.

 Apparently some of the plants have gone really crazy right now.

 The ones that they put in thinking, right, that’s just going to fill the space.

 It’s done more than just fill the space.

 It’s taken over the space.

 So they’re really having to prune and clip things back and divide things now.

 It needs a bit of reining in.

 Yeah, exactly.

 Reminds me a little bit of how we have done things.

 We just chopped loads of plants at the hill and now we’re having to go,

 oh, you’re going a bit crazy.

 Yeah, a little bit of fine tuning.

 And then they also show the gravel garden area.

 So I really like how they have lots of different things going on,

 lots of different spaces, climates.

 Different zones really, aren’t they?

 Different zones so that they can show off the different plants in their best habitat.

 So the gravel garden that had things like we’ve been a

 We’ve seen that before and the Peter Govanianna as well.

 And then he also shows his pot plant collection to show how you can cram.

 And I mean, he crammed lots of plants into pots to create really full displays.

 Wasn’t that beautiful?

 Stunning.

 There was a penstemon blackbird which got replaced by an echinacea vintage pink.

 Yeah, because the penstemon had come to the end of its flowering really for that year

 and the echinacea is just kind of starting.

 So that will flower right through into the autumn, won’t it?

 Exactly.

 And Tom explains that Abby is the one who’s a bit like you really,

 the propagation queen.

 She’s the one for creating all those new babies.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And Tom says at the end,

 it’s a compliment when people say it feels like they’re in a garden

 because that’s exactly the vibe that they were going for.

 And who gets the last word?

 The cockerel.

 Yeah, makes sense.

 Well, as we heard, Abby’s the propagation queen

 and she started honing her skills in her parents’ garden when she was a young’un

 or a younger’un.

 And Tom formerly trained at Edinburgh and Kew

 and then he was head gardener in the Lake District in Lancashire.

 He also was a lecturer at Newton Rigg College

 and at the Lakeland Horticultural Society

 before he took on that hail cat site with Abby.

 Interesting.

 If you’re a reader of RHS’s The Garden Magazine or Gardens Illustrated

 then you may have come across him there

 as he’s a regular contributor to those publications.

 Also what I found from their website is it seems like they have two sites.

 So they have the Grange Plant Centre

 and then also the Hail Cat Nursery

 which I think is the one that we saw on the show

 and they’re about six miles apart.

 So I wonder how they’re managing those two sites

 and also what the difference is between the two of them.

 I wonder if the Hail Cat Nursery one is more a display,

 sort of like in Ikea.

 So you go to the display bit, so that’s the top floor

 and then you go down to the warehouse bit

 and that’s the Grange Plant Centre.

 Maybe, yeah, where you can get all the products.

 Yeah, where it’s all, yeah, on all the shelves

 but otherwise you want to see a nice display,

 get some ideas for your sitting room or for your kitchen.

 Yeah, exactly.

 Then you go to the Hail Cat Nursery.

 I don’t know, I’m completely making it up.

 A lot of the analogy.

 It’s interesting that they’ve got these two sites

 but I don’t fully know how they compare

 but I’ll put a link to their website so you can check it out.

 Also I found a nice YouTube video,

 you liked that bird’s eye view with the drones.

 They’ve got quite a lengthy one

 with sweeping drone movements across the whole.

 I think the Hail Cat Nursery one.

 So you can get more details from that.

 Very cool.

 Then Monty is showing off how to collect seeds

 from a whole different range of plants.

 So honesty, which is obviously the easiest one

 to take seeds from.

 They’re all nice and brown, slightly silvery,

 crackle crackle and you can just harvest them

 and they store really well in the case

 and everything with everything around it.

 So you don’t even have to take them out really.

 And actually whilst he was harvesting those seeds,

 did you see behind him?

 I think it was a, I’m pretty sure it was a Hydrangea

 and I think it was a Hydrangea Annabelle.

 Later on we see his Hydrangea Paniculata.

 This one I think was a Hydrangea Annabelle.

 It was a white Hydrangea.

 I’m drawing attention to it probably for obvious reasons

 because I will be mentioning this towards the end of this episode.

 But I will try and get an image of that

 and put it on the thumbnail so you can see it

 because no attention was drawn to it.

 You don’t see it close up

 but I could just see this flourishing Hydrangea

 in the background.

 And the reason why I’m so into Hydrangeas

 is because I know we will never ever be able

 to have Hydrangeas.

 Yeah, it’s what you can’t have.

 You’re like, why?

 Yeah, and impressed that he’s got such healthy looking ones there

 given the drought that they’ve been through.

 Yeah, absolutely.

 He then also shows off his fox gloves.

 They’re in the woodland garden.

 He’s collecting seeds from those

 and they just fall into the paper bag so easily.

 They’re dangerous.

 Yeah, they are dangerous.

 They go everywhere.

 It’s impossible to collect them

 and really feel like you’re getting the whole lot of them.

 They’re always going to be falling all over the places.

 You try to gather them.

 Yeah, if you’re someone with OCD,

 don’t have these plants and collect seeds from them

 because if you’re wanting everything to be perfectly going into a bag,

 nicely contained, it’s not going to happen with fox gloves.

 Yeah, he then also has the rose-monstered wood,

 the lily black beauty and sanguisorba,

 which are all together in the paradise garden

 and they’re looking really, really beautiful together

 as a little trio.

 And he shows how with sanguisorba,

 the seeds are like dust.

 So you want to really carefully

 put the whole head into a little paper bag.

 And an important point is don’t collect on a windy day

 or a wet day.

 Absolutely not.

 And then he’s taking all the fox glove seeds off

 by rubbing up and down the spire.

 Then he sieves to get rid of the chaff

 and into a paper envelope

 and labels them specifically where they’re from.

 But he doesn’t give a date a notice,

 which I would have thought was an important thing

 to put on your envelope.

 Yes, I’ve been told that is-

 Because I’m always wondering how old our seeds are.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And I’ve always been told that’s the most important thing

 to put on an envelope that you’ve collected seeds with.

 Would have thought so.

 Anyways, finally, he shows us the herb garden,

 which he said was going to be super duper organized,

 very Mediterranean and formal.

 But instead Fennel and marjoram just had other ideas

 and completely have taken over,

 but it looks amazing.

 So he’s happy with it

 and he’s just cutting back the marjoram

 at first with a very robust pair of clippers

 and then with a scythe.

 Gets out his scythe, the big guns.

 Exactly.

 And then we catch up with Joe Swift.

 He’s in Sherbourne in Dorset at Glenholm Herbs.

 This is a family-run business, nursery,

 and basically it’s herbs, pretty much.

 Exactly.

 But all over the garden

 and just mixed in with all sorts of ornamentals.

 Yeah, it’s three generations of family.

 It was started by Alison and Alan Redmond,

 who’ve been growing herbs for 25 years.

 And then we also meet Maxine, their daughter,

 and then Rob, her husband,

 is involved in the nursery as well.

 And I really like the opening shot of Joe

 who’s just sat there.

 He’s plumped himself between Alison and Alan.

 Yeah.

 And he’s just swivelling his head

 to do the interview to one to the other.

 Like an owl.

 Poor thing’s going to get a cricked neck or something.

 Anyway, so some of the plants that we have.

 So we have the Achillea ageratum.

 That’s an English mace.

 And apparently you can just really let that do its own thing.

 You don’t have to be checking on it, nitpicky, whatever.

 It’s really easy.

 They also have the African blue basil.

 Never, ever heard of this plant before,

 but it’s absolutely stunning.

 Apparently it’s a sterile hybrid,

 so it won’t put all of its energy into the seed.

 It’s really putting it into the flower

 and just generally the rest of the plant.

 Yeah, because it doesn’t produce these.

 Because it’s sterile.

 Yeah, because it’s sterile.

 Makes sense.

 So you’re just going to have a really good chunky plant.

 It is a tender perennial though,

 so you do have to bring it in in the winter, don’t you?

 Yes, you do have to be careful about that.

 They also have quite a few myrtles.

 So they have Myrtus communis tarentina.

 That’s the cute little one.

 Common but cute and tiny.

 Yeah.

 They also have the Myrtus communis.

 That’s just the common myrtle.

 Yeah, and apparently you use them like bay leaves.

 Yes, which pop them in your dish.

 Take them out after they’ve flavoured everything.

 Yeah, I would like to try that.

 Jo describes it as a climate change plant.

 So one that’s really going to cope with things.

 One of them is, they’re evergreen as well, aren’t they?

 So they keep their colour nice and shiny through the winter as well.

 So one to, again, put on the list.

 Another important one.

 Absolutely.

 They also show then a Vietnamese coriander.

 Yes, that was an interesting one.

 I know, because it could go in water.

 Yeah, he said you could put it in the pond.

 Yeah, exactly.

 I was like, excuse me?

 Goes in the garden, in the pond or on a windowsill.

 It’s a really versatile plant.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And then there’s the Cuban oregano, which looks absolutely amazing again.

 I think that’s also called the big leaf thyme.

 Yes.

 Didn’t Rob say that in India they put a batter on it and fried up?

 Which sounds really interesting.

 That sounds delicious.

 Yeah.

 And then they talk about the warjomanda.

 That’s a really tough plant.

 The Artemisia ludoviciana.

 That apparently just lights up the bed.

 It’s a really nice kind of splash of colour.

 That’s the western mugwort, isn’t it?

 Yeah, and the oregano country cream as well.

 Yes, that variegated one, very pretty and low.

 I mean, if you need an advert to prove that gardening is good for your health,

 look at that family.

 Didn’t they all look in the picture of health?

 Yeah, I was about to say they looked absolutely amazing.

 Yeah, it’s either that gardening is good for you or perhaps it’s the herbs.

 Yeah, which we do all know about that, medicinal herbs.

 Yeah, absolutely.

 Well, I’ve got a little bit of history about the nursery.

 Alison and Alan started growing herbs back in 2005,

 having previously supplied cut flowers.

 The nursery was started by Alison’s father, Ron, back in 1955.

 So it goes even further back than Alan and Alison.

 They were growing salads and vegetables then.

 And then through the 60s and 70s, those glass houses were put up

 and they started having tomatoes and a lot of chrysanthemums.

 And then it was in 1975 that Alan joined the business,

 having completed an HND in commercial horticulture.

 And that’s when it became an all year round chrysanthemum nursery.

 And then the business just expanded after that.

 So they moved to new site in 1991.

 And that’s when the herbs came along.

 And then Robert Maxine joined the business in 2010.

 It’s a lovely family run business.

 I’ll put a link to their website onto our page.

 That’s fantastic.

 We’re in the engine room of Long Meadow.

 All those beautiful compost bays.

 Monty’s chopping bits up to increase the surface area

 so the bacteria can work more efficiently.

 And he said, the key is getting the right mix.

 So you want brown layers, that’s your carbon.

 So dried plant growth, leaves and cardboard.

 And then you want your green layers and that’s the nitrogen layer.

 And that’s sort of weeds and grass clippings

 and all the green stuff really.

 And usually Monty would water his compost bay,

 but he’s conserving water at the moment.

 So basically the process will still happen.

 It just will take longer.

 And another important thing to help move it along is to turn it.

 Yes, exactly.

 So he has quite a few bays.

 So he can just go chuck, chuck, chuck.

 And then the penultimate bay is the one which he uses more for mulch

 because it hasn’t quite degraded enough.

 So it’s still slightly fibrous.

 You can kind of see the fibres really of different plants.

 And so that’s quite a nice mulch.

 Whereas the last bay is really crumbly.

 You’re talking more kind of chocolate cake looking thing.

 Chocolate cake.

 That’s your black gold, isn’t it?

 That’s the good stuff.

 And then we head over to Wrecker in the Peak District.

 She’s been experimenting with pots

 and it looks to be flourishing, doesn’t it?

 Yeah.

 I think what’s quite cool is it’s kind of the end of season

 or nearing the end of the season.

 And she’s just doing a recap really of what has gone well,

 what hasn’t gone well.

 Because we saw her kind of sowing things

 and potting things up the last time.

 And we knew a lot of it was an experiment.

 So it’s good to see the results essentially, isn’t it?

 Yeah, exactly.

 So of course, everything in pots,

 we’ve got south facing terrace,

 gets completely baked, those stone walls

 just contain all that heat really.

 So some of the plants,

 we have the amazing strawberry Ostara in there.

 That’s an ever bearing one.

 So you’re constantly getting fruits from it.

 And it’s working really, really well in the strawberry pot.

 So she’s very happy with that.

 She also talks about the terracotta beakers,

 which she has a few different shapes and sizes.

 So they kind of release the water slightly differently,

 depending on what pots you wanted to put them in.

 These are the oyers, aren’t they?

 I saw an interesting version of that

 where you basically get two pots.

 One is standing the right way up

 and then you invert the other one,

 put it on top, silicon seal the gaps,

 the gap between the two pots.

 And then you’ve obviously got the drainage hole

 in the top one at the top.

 You bury the bottom one.

 So you bury it in the ground.

 And then you fill the pots up through the top drainage hole.

 So you’ve got this unit, this whole unit

 that you put in the ground

 and you can just keep topping up.

 And again, because it’s terracotta,

 disperses the water nicely out through the terracotta.

 That’s very cool.

 I mean, Reca was doing some other different ones.

 So she had a spike type terracotta thing,

 didn’t she, that you put an upturned bottle into?

 She also had that one that did just look like a pot,

 which was sunken into the middle of a bigger pot.

 And that just allowed the water

 to seep through the terracotta.

 She had a dwarf acoya in a Hessian bag,

 which was a good idea, wasn’t it?

 It keeps it nicely contained

 and she’d just dunk that every morning in water.

 Yeah, exactly.

 That was a beautiful tomato plant.

 Yep.

 And then she used a layer of coir

 under the pots that were on a table

 and would water that coir, so keep that wet.

 We’ve seen that done before.

 She did say a lesson learned

 is she should have put something

 between the wooden table and these coir mats

 because that table is rotting

 like nobody’s business underneath all that,

 you can imagine.

 Beautiful habitat.

 Things under there are going to be like,

 ooh la la, ooh la la.

 This is great, hot and wet.

 Just how I like it.

 Exactly.

 She then also talks about a few other plants.

 So cucumber quick snack.

 That is a miniature cucumber

 and has produced a huge amount of cucumbers on there.

 Courgette sure thing, which is sure thing.

 It’s a sure thing.

 It’s a sure thing.

 Comfrey, she’s had lots of comfrey tea,

 mainly just for feeding the pots

 because they need a lot of feeding.

 One to nine parts water.

 And the courgettes, she said,

 do need a lot of feeding

 and that’s something we haven’t done this year,

 isn’t it, really?

 So once again, we’ve had a pretty sorry harvest of courgettes.

 Better than last year, mind.

 Oh my God.

 Couldn’t get much worse.

 Yeah, I don’t think you can get much worse than one.

 No, but we’ve still got some courgettes coming.

 So just not going to be storing them up

 in the freezer this year, sadly.

 No, not yet.

 What about her aubergines?

 Yeah, her aubergines,

 aubergines lilac wand, cor blimey.

 Cor blimey.

 That looked amazing.

 And she used a wick for that, didn’t she,

 to keep that one watered?

 And also must specify no metal pots were used because they-

 Oh my gosh.

 Imagine how awful.

 But she did say plastic or terracotta,

 but I would have thought plastic would be a nightmare as well.

 No, plastic’s meant to be really good

 because the water stays within.

 It doesn’t seep out that easily.

 Just the sort of pots.

 I wonder when Rekha embarked on this experiment

 at the beginning of the season,

 if she had any idea we were going to have heat wave

 after heat wave,

 because trying to do pots in a heat wave

 is, I mean, she’s obviously done a great job,

 she’s got all her little techniques,

 but it just seems an enormous amount of work, doesn’t it?

 And also she’s further up north,

 so she’s-

 She’s further up north, yeah.

 Had it less droughty.

 The peak districts, I think it’s,

 yeah, it’s been less droughty, isn’t it?

 It’s, yeah, heading up sort of northwest

 rather than southeast,

 which has been the big problem area, hasn’t it?

 Yeah, it has.

 I mean, she does say though

 that her greenhouse was reaching 50 degrees,

 and her chilis were loving it.

 They were loving it, the chilis and aubergines,

 she had chili onza,

 and that was the first year of flourishing,

 and she was very happy about that.

 They’re thriving.

 Monty’s sowing some hardy annuals,

 which will be flowering in April.

 Yeah.

 So he does the usual thing,

 seed tray with compost in there,

 peat-free compost,

 which seeds is he sowing?

 So I’ve got all of the kind of long names,

 they’ll obviously be in the plant list,

 but the shorter names,

 we have scabious perfection blue,

 we have cornflower black ball,

 cornflower blue ball,

 and also scabious burgundy bow,

 and Orlea grandiflora as well.

 And then it’s to Essex to look at some agaves,

 which we’ll be loving this year.

 Oh my gosh, they’ll be like,

 time to shine.

 Exactly.

 This is agave collector Ian Scott

 at his place in Harold Wood,

 and he says some people say I’m obsessive,

 and he says that just as he’s seen vacuuming

 one of his agaves,

 which implies obsessive a certain amount.

 Yeah, might slightly imply that.

 Might do.

 But basically Ian has an incredibly prickly garden.

 Very prickly.

 And he says he looks at his agaves as his pets.

 So not really quite as cuddly as hugging,

 for example, hobs.

 No.

 You just touch, look, but don’t touch, I guess.

 Yeah, I think so.

 Maybe some of the more round leaf ones

 might be all right,

 but you’re not really going over to them,

 going bring it in.

 Give us a cuddle, bring it in.

 He has over 400 plants, 126 species,

 105 different cultivars.

 And he says that most of his collection,

 or at least a large amount,

 are either really rare or severely endangered, frankly.

 Very impressive.

 He’s been awarded the plant heritage collector’s status,

 hasn’t he, for his agaves?

 He has.

 And he brings a big beast over to take all the pups off,

 and each pup is identical to the mother plant.

 Really huge whopping plant.

 And he says about how he had to take the car door off his wife’s,

 must specify it’s the wife’s car, people,

 to try and get this one agave out of the car

 that he had transported.

 But he’s not obsessive, remember that.

 He’s not obsessive.

 He does talk about how if you water and feed them too much,

 they will flower, and that’s often a death sentence for them.

 And he shows a flower spike.

 Huge.

 They are huge.

 We’ve seen that, haven’t we, in the Med,

 Mediterranean France, I remember us rounding a corner.

 And I was just blown away.

 It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it.

 And I was just in awe.

 But after that, we then saw quite a few of them.

 It was an agave with the most enormous flower spike.

 I’ve got a photo of little old you next to this enormous spike.

 I was tiny.

 You were tiny.

 Well, you looked particularly tiny next to that.

 Yeah, I did.

 But it’s that whole thing of as soon as they set up that,

 send up that flower spike, then that rosette,

 so essentially the plant itself, will just entirely die back.

 Yeah, it’s done for.

 He does talk about three different types.

 I’ll just quickly say the agave parrasana.

 That one’s quite rare.

 We have agave geminiflora.

 That’s really spiky.

 Do not go in for a cuddle with that one.

 No.

 Really thin, really spiky.

 And then agave nigra as well.

 Well, Ian does have an Instagram account with some beautiful photos on it,

 if you want to see more of those up close and personal.

 He has stopped posting anything since September last year,

 but you get some lovely close ups of those flower spikes in the varying stages.

 So if you head over to Ians_agaves,

 that’s where you’ll find him on Instagram.

 Also, you can find him through the Plant Heritage website.

 He does have visits to his garden, but that is closed for this year.

 But if you are wanting to see his collection,

 then I’ll put a link to that and you can jump on it next year.

 Fantastic.

 Then we’re back with Monty at Longmeadow,

 and we see another hydrangea close up,

 and that is the Paniculata, which is also beautiful.

 But I still think that last one was the Annabelle.

 And then he’s off to the veg patch.

 He said the lettuce are all bolting now,

 so he’s cut those right down.

 That was reassuring because now as they cut and come again,

 they’ve all bolted, but I think you’re going to do the same.

 Snip them off right down at the bottom.

 Great.

 Get some more from them.

 Because they’ve been fantastic this year.

 That’s been the best lettuce we’ve ever had, actually.

 I would love to get that all year round,

 but I need to start sowing some things for our winter beds in that veg garden.

 The sweetcorn’s been a disaster.

 He only has six plants from them,

 and that’s into the second batch as well.

 And his courgettes are doing brilliantly, so he’s all right there.

 He’s very happy with those.

 And then we’re on to jobs for the weekend.

 Sure are.

 Cut back Alcamilla mollis, water houseplants, and sow rocket.

 Right then.

 I think you can guess what my favourite plant is.

 It’s the Annabelle Hydrangea.

 It’s not like you didn’t make a point about it at all.

 What was your favourite plant?

 Mine I was just really interested in.

 Oh, I mean I was interested in a lot of plants,

 but just everything from the herb garden section.

 So the African blue basil, I really like the look of that.

 The Cuban oregano really caught my eye.

 It worked really well that herb garden.

 I think also because of all the droughts we’ve had,

 those sorts of places are really going to come into their own.

 We’re having to evolve how we plant in this country,

 and what they have got set up there is very…

 What was it?

 Joe said he said it’s a climate change plant,

 so they’ve got these sort of climate-proof plants going on there.

 Yeah, exactly.

 Okay, and what’s your top takeaway?

 Top takeaway is using hessian generally with your pots and under pots.

 Yeah, the koi under pots, the hessian around the pot or as a pot in itself.

 Yeah.

 I really like that.

 So you can just dunk it in the water?

 Yeah, literally dunk and run.

 Dunk and run, yeah.

 Yeah, it is a good idea.

 I reckon I had some great ideas for the watering.

 I’m still not convinced on pots at the moment,

 but equally, I understand if you’ve got no other option,

 then that’s a great segment for you,

 and you can just take all of those tips

 and have a thoroughly watered pot display.

 If you’ve got only a balcony, for example,

 and you’re full of pots.

 So yeah, it was really useful to see those.

 My top takeaway really was back to the herbs.

 I love the herbs being in the beds,

 in amongst all your other plants.

 Totally on board with that.

 Yeah.

 Well, we do have a Gardeners’ World next week.

 It’s on the 4th of September, and here’s what’s coming up.

 Monty celebrates a rewarding summer fruit harvest,

 proving that careful cultivation can triumph,

 even in severe drought conditions.

 We’re finding that.

 Had so much fruit this year.

 It’s mad on the fruit front.

 It has.

 He gathers baskets of ripe produce while looking ahead to autumn,

 planning and sowing crops to keep the kitchen supplied in the months to come.

 Along the way, he shares practical advice

 on reviving plants scorched by intense heat,

 and begins an exciting renovation project

 that promises to bring fresh life and new possibilities to the garden.

 Carol Klein delves into the secret world of leaves

 to uncover the cutting edge science and surprising new discoveries

 that are transforming our understanding of plant life.

 Rachel de Tame visits a head gardener in Hertfordshire,

 who guides her around an extraordinary plant library,

 packed with interesting specimens.

 While in Suffolk, there’s a garden designer and passionate wildlife advocate

 whose garden has been carefully shaped to support both family life and biodiversity.

 Plus a visit to a dedicated houseplant grower in Edinburgh,

 who showcases an impressive collection

 and shares the enthusiasm that led to the creation of a thriving indoor jungle.

 Very cool.

 I look forward to the houseplant one.

 I always get top tips on that front.

 Well, especially now that you’re back at uni in your apartment.

 I’m going to be going to the garden centre soon as well.

 Oh, that’ll be nice.

 You’ve still got some money on your voucher, haven’t you?

 I have. I’ve got five quid, people.

 Which is going to go very quickly.

 That isn’t going far at all.

 You’ve been working all summer,

 so you’ve got plenty of dough that you can go spend down the garden centre if you want.

 Exactly.

 Well, if you do want to get in touch with us

 about anything we’ve talked about,

 any questions or equally any answers to some of the questions we have,

 then please do so.

 You can contact us on our website, which is

 notjustagarden.co.uk

 Or you can contact us on our new email address, which is

 hello@notjustagarden.co.uk

 And also on our website, you can subscribe.

 And if you do that, you’re going to get Sweetpea’s beautiful plant lists,

 which she’s going to endeavour to keep going.

 Despite all her studies coming up this term,

 it’s going to be a full-on term.

 So we’ll see how we go with that.

 Do subscribe and get those in now.

 You also get first notification of any of these wonderful offers that we’re getting.

 For example, free tickets to garden shows

 and free tickets to Gardeners’ Question Time, thanks to the RHS.

 So do subscribe and get ahead of the game with that.

 Yeah, I would.

 So what do you have to do now, Sweetpea?

 I’m going to have a shower and try and sort my life out generally

 because it’s a bit of a mess at the moment

 and go to bed as early as possible.

 Very early night.

 Yes.

 Don’t blame you.

 All right.

 Well, we shall see you next week.

 We sure will.

 Thank you for listening.

 Bye-bye, Sweetpea.

 Bye, Mummy Bear.