Hi, Sweetpea

 Hi, Mummy Bear.

 How are you?

 I’m doing all right.

 Very hot at the moment.

 Oh my gosh.

 Really?

 Yeah.

 It’s really sticky, like proper city sticky heat.

 It just contains the heat, doesn’t it?

 It does.

 Like you just want the countryside air where you get whipped by wind one way, then

 the other way.

 And you’re like, okay, some air.

 Thank you.

 Bit of a waft.

 Bit of a waft.

 That’s what you need.

 Yeah.

 And also because you’re in a high rise, you’re more hot up there, aren’t you, on the fifth

 floor?

 Oh my gosh.

 Yeah.

 So I have to open the windows really early in the morning and then later in the evening

 when the air cools down, just generally let air get in and out.

 Temperature management.

 Yeah, exactly.

 So it’s all good.

 But yeah, it was really hard going to uni today because first of all, you have

 to pick the right outfit because you’ve got to look good, but you can’t be swallowing

 hot.

 It’s critical to be looking good.

 Kritical with a K.

 You have to be looking amazing.

 So I was like, right, we’re going vest so that these armpits can breathe.

 And then just a pair of jeans and some nice trainers.

 I was like, okay.

 They’re slicked back out the way.

 Oh yeah.

 We did a slick back, even though they’re not my favourite thing to do.

 I was just like, I need this hair off my face.

 Oh gosh, it’s hard when you’re charging for buses as well though, isn’t it, when

 it’s so living hot.

 And I’ve got a 15 minute walk to my bus, which is really nice.

 It’s nice to have a walk, but first of all, it’s a south facing walk, if you

 can understand that.

 So like you’re walking in the direct sun.

 There aren’t any, there’s no shade or anything.

 It’s properly blistering sun.

 So that’s awful.

 And then there’s no kind of, you can’t get out of the rain.

 So usually I have to run it.

 Right.

 Anyway, so the walk was hard.

 Then lectures were hard because the amphitheatres obviously don’t have AC in them.

 So that was lovely.

 And then walked back and I was just like, oh my gosh.

 Do you try and sit as low down and therefore as close to the front as

 possible to avoid the back seats?

 Yeah, precisely.

 I learnt that lesson the hard way last year.

 Sitting all up in the top and we’re like, this is a furnace.

 Yeah.

 So you’re right at the front.

 That’s good.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And then, oh my gosh, the funniest thing when I was walking back, I had these two older

 kids who were probably like 23.

 Some might say not really kids and especially a 19 year old calling them such.

 Yeah, true.

 I keep forgetting.

 That you’re only 19.

 I’m only 19.

 You’re such an old woman.

 I know.

 Anyway, so these two lads, they came round the corner and they were going into the

 kind of student residency that I’m with and they were pushing a shopping

 trolley with them filled with all their groceries and stuff.

 And I was like, guys, I’m really sorry to tell you this, but I think you’ve

 gone a bit too far with the shopping trolley because the nearest shopping

 centre is like a 10, 15 minute walk away.

 So they just brought it all the way.

 They had brought it the whole way home with all their stuff.

 This does bring back memories of when I was living in Isleworth and we would

 shop in Twickenham and the walk took us along the kind of tow path of the

 sewage works, which was really quite beautiful.

 It just didn’t smell great.

 And we discovered that actually, because you didn’t used to have the

 key lock on your trolley.

 It used to be these kind of rumble strips that made it very hard to get

 your trolley out of the vicinity of the big Tescos there.

 Interesting.

 But Nige and I used to just lift either end of the trolley and then push it back.

 But we weren’t then just discarding it in the river.

 We kept that and that was our shopping trolley that we took every

 week to the supermarket.

 So it seemed fair enough, really.

 I love how you were the one doing it.

 But we didn’t have cars.

 Students didn’t have cars in those days.

 That was madness to have a car as a student.

 So that seems anyway, and the previous to that, we’d been carrying the

 plastic shopping bags and you know, so many on each finger that was just

 cutting through the skin on your hand.

 So just commandeering a shopping trolley for the entire year made the

 most sense and we returned it afterwards at the end of the year.

 Yeah, yeah, very professional.

 Everyone’s a winner.

 Yeah, I think so.

 But these guys didn’t look like they were discarding it.

 They honestly looked like this was their shopping trolley.

 That was their plan for the rest of the year.

 We’re good on them.

 I’m with the lads.

 Yeah, I’m with the lads.

 Anyway, so I was like, that’s very, very cool.

 And then I got inside and all the clothes were off, chomped in the

 shower, put it on the coldest setting and then shoved my head into my

 chest freezer for about a minute or so, which did make my head…

 That was nice.

 It felt great when you were in there, but then when you come back out,

 the air feels even hotter than it was before.

 That’s not great, is it?

 That wasn’t very good.

 So then I ate some cheese and…

 Yeah, that always helps.

 They do say if you’re overheating, eat some cheese.

 Eat cheese.

 So that was me.

 How’s your homesickness this week?

 It was bad earlier last week.

 Yeah, it was really bad last week.

 And I don’t get…

 Like, I’m trying to think, when does someone stop having homesickness?

 We went into this year feeling a lot more, okay, we’ve got this.

 We know last year was a bad year.

 We know homesickness can creep up and it is debilitating.

 And it’s a bit easier, but it’s still there, isn’t it?

 It really still pulls at your…

 Emotions running high.

 Yeah, it still pulls at your heart, doesn’t it?

 Yeah, it does.

 It’s a proper heartache.

 And I think it will just be with time.

 I think also this year is going to be a lot better than last year.

 So you should have other distractions that will then make it feel more like you’re at

 home there and less yearning for home.

 Yeah, we did also come to the conclusion because we were like, oh, is it because

 we were really close?

 And so therefore, should you have just been a really awful mother and just been

 like, so that I just want to get away from home?

 Yeah, it’s really short-sighted.

 Yeah, really, like honestly, who do you think you are?

 But then we realised that actually it happens to kids who really don’t like

 their parents.

 Yeah, exactly.

 There’s no rhyme or reason to homesickness.

 From a parent’s perspective, it doesn’t get any easier this end either.

 I didn’t enjoy saying goodbye to you.

 And yeah, it’s emotional.

 But we know also from last year that it does just improve bit by bit.

 Certainly for me, it does from a mother’s perspective.

 So you get into the swing of things.

 You have your routine and then all is good.

 All good.

 Anyways, so that’s me.

 How have you been?

 Well, here at home, I’ve been clearing the house a bit.

 I’ve been doing a few tip runs because crikey, Sweetpea, I have some of your

 stuff from when you were knee-height of a grasshopper and I don’t know, I

 do know why I held on to it in the first instant because I wondered if I might

 have another, another sweet pea.

 Another you say?

 In which case, no point throwing all that out.

 And then later on, I thought, well, I’ll hand it down to various people.

 But everybody kept having boys.

 So I was clearing all that out.

 I took a load to the charity shop.

 There are lots of things that you can’t take to a charity store.

 So little bikes, also sort of pram things, anything, car seats.

 Obviously we know they can’t be, even though they’re in immaculate condition,

 they just have to be dumped because there’s all this safety element attached to it.

 So charity shops won’t take on any sad, some really great things that just

 had to go into the tip.

 And then I’d see the tip guys just pick out like your pink scooter.

 And I went to hold that over.

 He said, I’ll take that.

 And then I watched as he put it off to one side and then took that down to the office.

 That’s going home to the granddaughter.

 No doubt.

 Oh, fantastic.

 I’m glad it goes to a good home.

 So a lot of that.

 And in terms of the garden, just a bit like Monty on this episode, actually,

 a lot of clearing of dead vegetation that needs to be done.

 The veg garden needs a bit of it clear.

 There are all these mosquitoes in the veg garden.

 It is mental.

 I don’t understand why they’re all there.

 We don’t have sitting water.

 No, I have checked everywhere.

 Yeah, I’ve checked everything.

 There’s that big IBC tank, but that’s closed.

 So I don’t know how they’d be getting in that.

 Yeah, that’s impossible.

 Unless they were flying all the way back.

 They’d have to go up a French drain, which is really quite some distance up the hill.

 But also they’re not around that area.

 They’re around the opposite side of the veg garden.

 They’re around the mint and everyone says,

 Mint to keep mosquitoes away.

 That’s where they are.

 So yeah, that’s an old wives tale.

 Anyway, sweetie, in other news,

 Monty Don has announced his retirement from Gardeners’ World, Sweetpea.

 Oh my gosh.

 You can’t just chuck that out the pram like that.

 Out the pram.

 I know.

 Isn’t that sad?

 It’s the end of a mini era.

 23 years, apparently.

 He’s been at the helm.

 Gosh.

 Very sad.

 That’s gonna be so weird because I’ve only known Monty as the presenter, obviously.

 Yeah.

 Well, yeah, I mean, all the other presenters,

 it hasn’t been announced who his successor is.

 There’s speculation online that it’s going to be rather than one head of the bunch.

 It’s going to be sort of spread out amongst the others.

 Interesting.

 So we’ll see who it is.

 Who would you like it to be?

 Were you not prepared to make that comment?

 You’d really like Toby Buckland, wouldn’t you?

 Okay, so you are completely prepared.

 Yeah, I love you, but you’re not prepared.

 Toby!

 Toby, please, yes.

 Yeah, Toby would be great.

 I like Toby.

 I also really like Ashley, and I know he hasn’t got a garden.

 He’s got a balcony with pots, but I really, really, really love Ashley’s style.

 I’m sure he could do another garden.

 Yeah, and Rachel as well.

 Rachel’s great.

 So basically you’re going through all of them now, aren’t you?

 Pretty much.

 You’d also like Adam, and you’d like Joe.

 Yes, yes.

 Okay, great.

 Well, so that’s it.

 Monty’s going to be hanging up his Gardeners’ World trowel and boots and blue shirts

 and wheelbarrows and all that, and that will be it.

 So at the end of this season, really?

 The end of this series.

 So that will be December, I guess.

 Normally it ends December, doesn’t it?

 Yeah.

 Oh no, wait, they’ve got the winter specials usually, then the compilation ones.

 Anyway, so usually the new season starts around March,

 so I guess from March it’s going to be a whole new deck of cards.

 Cor blimey.

 But Monty will get to spend some nice time with those five grandkids of his.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And also they’ll get to enjoy Long Meadow in privacy without a crew in there every week

 and us getting to see what’s going on behind the walls.

 Talking about him constantly every week.

 Exactly.

 Poor guy.

 Well, so we wish you all the best, Monty.

 We do.

 You’ve been a diamond and we’ll miss your dulcet tones.

 Yeah, you’ve been an absolute jewel.

 I don’t get that.

 I used to be, honestly, he used to be in the jewellery industry.

 Yeah, he used to be a jeweller.

 You see, this is why you are the brains of the outfit.

 Yes.

 Right.

 But other news.

 We have had the competition come and go, the last one,

 which was for Gardiners’ Question Time.

 Less a competition.

 It was more a first-come first-served and we had a whole load of listeners

 writing in with their names to be added to the guest list.

 So that event took place Saturday just gone in the afternoon

 and I have heard some feedback that it was a really great event.

 Oh, fantastic.

 And the actual program should be airing on the 18th of September.

 So that’s on BBC Radio 4.

 Maybe I’ll be able to find the listing and then I can post that.

 That’d be cool.

 That’d be very cool.

 But, you know, as the saying goes,

 when one door closes another opens, we have yet another.

 This is the season for all the flower shows.

 Yes.

 I think this is probably our last one for this season,

 but another offering for our wonderful listeners.

 This time it is for Harrogate’s Autumn Flower Show.

 Very cool.

 Harrogate is taking place on Saturday the 19th of September or that whole weekend,

 but the tickets that are on offer are for that particular Saturday, the 19th.

 And the good people at Harrogate Flower Show are offering one pair of tickets

 to that Saturday show for free to one of our lucky listeners.

 Oh, lovely.

 So if you’re a subscriber already, you will have already received early access to this,

 but it’s not too late to enter.

 So all you need to do is follow us on social media.

 That’s either Facebook or Instagram or preferably both.

 And if you’re not on either of those, then just subscribe to our website.

 That also means you get early access for any future offers.

 Yes.

 Look out, look out.

 Look out, look out.

 And then have a listen to today’s episode.

 And we’re again having a sweet piece.

 Sumthin, sumthin.

 Sumthin, sumthin.

 And it’s going to be her special word that she’s going to tell you later on,

 at some point through this episode.

 It will be very clear when she’s saying it because she will announce it.

 You just have to have a listen.

 I myself don’t even know when she’s going to announce it.

 No, it will be at a very random point if I don’t forget.

 So at that point, when you hear the word, drop us either an email at

 hello@notjustagarden.co.uk or hop onto our contacts page on the website,

 notjustagarden.co.uk or contact us through social media one way or another.

 Get your full name over to us.

 Tell us the special word and you’ll be in for a chance.

 We’re very reachable.

 We’re very, very reachable.

 The competition is going to close on Wednesday the 16th at 10 a.m.

 And the lucky winner will be contacted shortly after that.

 So good luck to you all.

 Yes, good luck.

 Now then, I have a little bit of no way news.

 I know we’re not officially doing that again.

 Yes.

 Well, that’s a good point because I also, it’s not really, well, it kind of is.

 Well, anyway, what is it?

 Tell me, I’m dying to know.

 Well, you know how the other day we were talking about,

 just generally about food, ultra processed food, what goes into them.

 Yes.

 And then I just blurted out to you for a bit of fun.

 You can make diamonds from peanut butter.

 That and that also the coagulator that is put into a lot of food

 to make them thicker actually comes from a bacteria.

 Oh.

 Do you remember that?

 Vaguely.

 Vaguely.

 Lovely.

 Love how you listen to what I talk to you about.

 You tell me so many interesting things.

 Mummy, did you know?

 Mummy.

 Anyway, so I thought, oh, I can’t just tell you randomly that fact

 without kind of looking it up and making sure properly.

 Because what it was, was in my microbiology classes, I learned about this.

 Oh, right.

 Oh, that’s a very cool fact.

 So it is xanthan gum.

 Oh, I’ve heard of that, yeah.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And you see it in so many ultra processed foods.

 Generally, it’s in a lot of stuff.

 Anyway, so this comes from the excretions of the xomonas campestris,

 which is a type of bacteria.

 It’s like a worm.

 Oh, good grief.

 And the bacteria feeds on simple sugars from corn, wheat, or soy.

 And then it produces a thick, sticky liquid to protect themselves.

 That is then added to alcohol to solidify the liquid, then dries,

 they grind it up into a white powder.

 That is then added to your food.

 Good grief.

 How on earth, A, how on earth do they come up with that?

 Yeah, exactly.

 B, surely there’s got to be an easier way.

 Yeah.

 Why bacteria?

 Well, that’s my point.

 There’s got to be an easier way to doing this, an easier solution.

 That can’t be the way of doing it.

 But how fascinating.

 So they find this bacteria, they feed it on sugars and all those horrible things.

 And then that produces a protective layer, a bit like a slug.

 So it’s kind of mucousy outside.

 Precisely.

 They whip that off it, desiccate it, grind it up.

 And then they add it to alcohol, apparently, that solidifies the liquid.

 Weird.

 Then it dries.

 So it’s a bit like honeycomb.

 It’s a liquid, then it dries, then they grind it up.

 Crikey.

 Yeah, that pretty cool.

 Slightly blows my mind the things that they come up with when they’re tucked away

 in their white coats behind a mask and goggles and in their labs.

 I know.

 These scientists type people.

 Crazy ladies.

 But that’s very interesting.

 Thank you for that.

 Isn’t it cool?

 Yeah.

 Anyways, what is your…

 Well, I’ve got a couple of things.

 I’ve got one is just a real…

 This isn’t really no way news, but it’s a quick fun fact.

 Do you know what PDF stands for?

 Because I only found that out this week

 and I’ve been working with PDFs for as long as they’ve existed.

 Post-drama frenzy.

 That was too quick and too appropriate for you.

 Yeah, that’s me every day.

 Post-drama frenzy.

 It’s a bit more basic than that.

 It’s portable document format.

 Oh, that’s boring.

 Yeah, it is after what you said.

 Anyway, listen, here’s my no way news.

 Yes.

 It’s been discovered that people who suffer with regular nightmares,

 and I don’t want you to panic because I know you’ve been having nightmares,

 but that’s just because you’re in this sort of transition period.

 I’ve been sleeping so badly.

 Always nightmares when you’re in a transition phase.

 But people who have regular nightmares,

 so that’s one at least every week,

 are more than three times as likely to die by the age of 70.

 Why?

 Well, there are a number of reasons,

 but it’s now considered that nightmares are a stronger predictor of death than

 things such as obesity, smoking, low physical activity, poor nutrition,

 all those usual indicators that we use.

 And let me read to you what Dr. Otaiku says.

 Our sleeping brains cannot distinguish dreams from reality.

 That’s why nightmares often wake us up sweating, gasping for breath,

 and with our hearts pounding because our fight or flight response has been triggered.

 This stress reaction can be even more intense than anything we experience when we’re awake.

 Nightmares lead to prolonged elevations of cortisol.

 As we know, that’s the stress hormone,

 and that’s closely linked to faster cellular aging.

 For those who frequently experience nightmares,

 this cumulative stress may significantly impact the aging process.

 Additionally, nightmares disrupt both sleep quality and duration,

 impairing the body’s essential overnight cellular restoration and repair.

 So the combined effects of the chronic stress and the disruptive sleep

 is likely contributing to the accelerated aging of ourselves.

 So not only are you likely to die younger, you’re also going to look older

 because that whole process is accelerated.

 Now there’s still work being done around it.

 It’s correlation rather than causation at the moment,

 but it’s research being presented at the European Academy of Neurology in Helsinki.

 So it’s a very interesting paper.

 I’ll put a link to that particular paper, but it’s something to watch.

 I think we all know that stress causes us to age quicker,

 and if you are blessed to never have experienced

 a magnificently stressful period in your life, then you’re charmed,

 completely charmed, frankly.

 Completely charmed.

 Equally, one has to think of people who have been through

 the most monumental stress and how they’ve lived to incredible ages.

 You think of some of the awful situations, for example, in concentration camps.

 We’ve watched documentaries where you’ve seen great grandparents who were in

 the concentration camps and that very stoic attitude towards it.

 And plus, they also don’t look old, so clearly the biological aging hasn’t occurred.

 So it’s something to be taken with a pinch of salt,

 but rather an interesting strand of investigation that’s going on currently.

 I would love to understand why some people have more nightmares than others,

 because I remember when I was younger, I always made the correlation.

 I’m pretty sure this is what happened every single time.

 Every time I did something bad towards you,

 I would have a really awful nightmare that night.

 Oh, sweetie.

 Yeah.

 And so I made the correlation between doing something bad.

 I would get a nightmare.

 And I thought that’s kind of how it worked.

 I thought that’s why people have nightmares.

 They do something bad.

 They then have a nightmare.

 It’s their kind of conscience coming back to haunt them kind of thing.

 But I would love to understand why some people would have more nightmares than others.

 It’s a fascinating area.

 I do believe there’s a lot that’s unknown.

 An important thing that I always say to you is to remember you are not your thoughts,

 because you can have the most extraordinary nightmares.

 I’ve had the most awful nightmares.

 And you think, where on earth did that come from?

 Yeah, where in my brain?

 The way your imagination works.

 But if you think how animals have nightmares,

 Hobbes has all sorts of dreams when she’s asleep.

 The other thing is I think it can depend on how deep a sleep you get into.

 I know if I have a nap in the day,

 you know, siesta, if we’re somewhere in a hot country,

 you have a little siesta in the afternoon.

 I’ll always be in this sort of lightest sleep,

 and I’ll get an intense dream during that short sleep.

 You know, it might just be a 20-minute nap,

 but it will be a very intense 20 minutes,

 one way or the other.

 But yeah, it’s a very interesting area of research.

 You could do a lot worse than go into that if all else fails.

 Oh my gosh, yeah.

 Certainly keep your brain ticking over.

 Alzheimer’s or anything like that.

 Yeah.

 Now on a whole different topic, a quick animal fun fact.

 I thought this would appeal to you.

 Vultures urinate on their legs and feet to cool off on hot days.

 Oh my gosh, that’s cool.

 And it’s got a name, this process.

 It’s called urohidrosis, which does what it says on the tin really, doesn’t it?

 And also another thing with the urine

 is that it helps kill any bacteria or parasites

 that they’ve picked up from walking around on all those dead animals and carcasses.

 Oh, that’s fantastic.

 Nature, great.

 That’s very cool.

 Yeah, I really like that.

 Right.

 I have a tiny bit of housekeeping.

 This was probably last week.

 Was it moles or mold?

 Oh, yes.

 On Monty’s yew ball.

 Yes.

 All right.

 I have what I think is definitive because when I re-listen to him,

 it makes more sense.

 And it is, I’m pretty sure it’s moles.

 But if you, I can see why we both got something different

 because you watch on YouTube, don’t you?

 And I watch on iPlayer.

 And so what I’ve done is I’ve taken a freeze frame of the subtitles on each.

 And on YouTube, it says mold burring underneath the roots.

 Which makes sense.

 On iPlayer, it says moles borrowing underneath the roots.

 Oh my gosh, which also makes sense.

 I’m pretty sure it’s moles though.

 I think it’s moles.

 But yes, I like that you’ve taken the screenshots.

 That’s very cool.

 One other tiny bit of housekeeping.

 This is something for you to take forward with you

 for the rest of every podcast we ever do.

 Whilst I really appreciate your enthusiasm and energy for the new email address,

 can I ask that you turn your head away from the mic when you let rip?

 Because when I’m trying to edit, it all kicks off

 and I have no hope of keeping those little lines out of the red.

 Okay.

 Okay.

 Yes, Mommy.

 Thank you, Sweetpea.

 Right.

 Let’s have a look at this episode of Gardeners’ World.

 This is Gardeners’ World 2026, episode 24 recap.

 Off we go.

 Right.

 So we’re with Monty again and he is right.

 So we have him showing off his amazing figs.

 The fig brown turkeys.

 He said that’s probably the easiest to grow, didn’t he?

 Yes.

 And it has been doing so amazingly this year with just the heat,

 which has gone on for ages.

 Prolonged heat is what figs need so.

 Yeah.

 A lot of the things that Monty was talking about in his garden actually.

 Yeah.

 This week, I thought.

 He said blackbirds love the figs.

 I tell you what also loves the figs is Hobbs’s.

 Hobbs’s.

 She gets figs in her little mouth, runs off with them.

 She goes to one particular part of the garden.

 That’s where she, that’s where you’ll find the shells of walnuts,

 the stones of plums, and any remnants.

 Not that there’s much of a remnant from a fig,

 but anything else from figs in this patch.

 Her little fruit and nut salad.

 She’s so cute, that dog, honestly.

 She’s not.

 She’s not.

 She’s a nemesis.

 Also, we have a lot of hornets on ours.

 We do.

 They’re really thriving on the figs.

 They’re pretty benign.

 They’re just interested in the figs.

 But it makes me less inclined to go and pick some when they’re all buzzing around.

 Yeah, obviously.

 But he didn’t seem to have any flies or any hornets around his figs.

 It was very clean.

 So that was nice.

 Anyways, then he went to the veg patch.

 Tomatoes, lettuce, and sweet corn.

 They’re all doing kind of fairly well.

 The lettuce has bolted.

 The sweet corn has been eaten by squirrels.

 So he’s got his highs.

 He’s got his lows on that front.

 He is, then with the turnips that he sowed, they have a lot of flea beetle on them.

 But he’s thinning them out because they’ll be absolutely fine otherwise.

 But he’s very grateful, actually, that the flea beetle have only gone for the turnips

 because otherwise he has purple sprout and broccoli, cauliflower,

 Brussels sprouts, and cavolo nero, which are untouched.

 That’s really nice, it seems.

 Yeah, exactly.

 There was a beautiful bird’s-eye view of his veg garden overlooking that hedge.

 Yes.

 It looked absolutely immaculate.

 All his little beds looked like perfection, didn’t they?

 And that’s a monoculture for you.

 It does look like perfection.

 It looks very pretty.

 And it looks stereotypical.

 It reminds you of Beatrix Potter and all those sorts of things.

 It looks how a veg garden’s meant to look.

 But I am still very much sold on a polyculture.

 So am I, no matter how messy-ish it looks.

 I frankly thought our tomato bed, which I think we perfected on the polyculture front

 this year, because I don’t think we’ve ever had so many tomatoes from it.

 It was amazing.

 All sorts of different types of tomatoes, first of all.

 Then we had flowers in there, so we had the sulfur cosmos.

 We had some other cosmos in there as well, some calendula, very important.

 We have a lavender bush at one end of it, at one end of the bed.

 And then a rosemary bush at the other end.

 And then basil in between.

 That’s the lemon one, the Thailand one, and the just normal burgundy one.

 Oh, and then peppers, loads of peppers in between.

 Which reminds me, I tried one of your chili peppers this weekend

 and I had one little tip of it and it blew my head off.

 So I thought I’d need to be really careful with this.

 Chopped it into some olive oil, put it in with a few other of our herbs.

 Tentatively tried it and absolutely nothing.

 It was as dead as anything.

 No flavour whatsoever from it.

 So I don’t understand what was happening.

 Maybe I picked it at the wrong time.

 I don’t know.

 Does olive oil neutralize it?

 No, it can’t do because you get chili oil.

 Yeah, which is so in your face.

 Yeah, so I don’t know, but I’ll keep trying.

 I’ll keep you posted.

 Cool.

 Anyways, finally, Monty goes to his potting shed

 and he is sowing the seed of Cabbage Winter Jewel Salad

 Winter Density and Salade Merveille des Quatre Saisons.

 Yeah, and that’s all in seed trays, isn’t it?

 And he does the usual thing.

 He says, better to have too few than too many.

 Press them down, cover the light sprinkling

 into a dish of water for 20 minutes.

 So, and as per usual, any of the plant names

 that I talk about throughout this episode

 will be given to you in a nice plant list

 if you have subscribed to our website.

 Yes. Then we go to see Carol Klein in her garden.

 This is one of a series of where she sits down

 at her garden table, opens up her laptop

 and has a Zoom call with somebody.

 Every time so far, somebody from the Hounsfield

 Facility at Nottingham University.

 This time they’re talking about leaves

 and first of all, Carol looks at different types of leaves.

 Ferns, seleniums, fennel, Rodgersias,

 which have huge leaves, alchemilla mollis and rosemary.

 Yeah. And the alchemilla mollis.

 I didn’t know that mollis means soft.

 No, I didn’t know that.

 That’s a fun fact.

 That was new news.

 Generally, she says the bigger the leaf,

 the gentler the environment,

 the smaller or skinnier, the tougher.

 And that’s why we know Mediterranean herbs

 have such small leaves, don’t they?

 They have to deal with very harsh conditions.

 And why pine trees have such thin needles

 because they have harsh conditions up in the Alps.

 Yeah, that’s true. Or any mountains.

 Or any mountains, yeah.

 We’re not biased on mountains.

 No, we’re really not.

 Himalayas, Pyrenees, any more?

 All right. Then we’re on to Zoom.

 Yeah, then we’re on to Zoom.

 This is with Dr. Lorna McCausland.

 She is from Hounsfield Facility

 and she’s a leaf physiologist.

 And Carol asks a great question.

 I thought this teed it off perfectly,

 which is any new discoveries.

 And I waited for the new discoveries

 and maybe I missed something,

 but I didn’t hear any new discoveries.

 So Lorna talks about how they’re using a micro CT,

 which stands for microcomputed tomography.

 So it’s a 3D imaging method using x-rays.

 So you can see inside these little leaves.

 And then she says, we see the imagery

 and she talks about the different layers of a leaf.

 So it travels down through the cuticle,

 past the epidermis into intracellular spaces.

 And these are big air gaps.

 She likens it to our lungs.

 They’re like a sponge.

 They’re important for the gases.

 And the gases then travel up into the mesophyll.

 And the mesophyll is the powerhouse

 that contains the chlorophyll.

 And that, of course, as we know,

 allows photosynthesis to take place.

 So those air gaps that she mentioned

 are needed to allow that efficient gas exchange.

 She talks about stomata, which we know about.

 Yeah, I think we do that generally in biology.

 One of the first levels of biology in school, don’t we?

 There’s a little pores found in the leaves.

 She describes them as being like little mouths

 that allow the plants to breathe

 and allow also the release of water.

 She says 95 to 98% of the plant is water

 and the water movement has three factors to it.

 It’s leaving the plant,

 which causes water to be taken up through the roots.

 Also as it leaves, it allows the surface to cool.

 And also it’s dangerous to the plant

 as it causes the plant to wilt and possibly die.

 Is there anything there that we don’t already know?

 No.

 That we’ve been learning in schools

 without the use of the micro CTs.

 And so what I was really hoping for,

 and I think I’ve had this when previously-

 Had it with the roots.

 The roots, when they were talking about

 how they were viewing the 3D imagery of the roots.

 I’m still struggling to understand

 why all that equipment is necessary

 or what new stuff are they finding out

 thanks to all this equipment.

 Because I imagine the expense of this equipment is vast.

 But what are we achieving here

 that hasn’t been written in books for hundreds of years?

 Yeah, I didn’t entirely understand it.

 I do think we have to get one of those professors on

 and find out a bit more, dig a bit deeper

 because it’s not clear to me at this stage.

 No, and it was a little bit redundant.

 It did feel that because, yeah, well, yeah.

 I guess another thing is that Gardner’s World

 has been running for decades.

 And unless there is something groundbreaking and new,

 generally they’ve got to find different ways

 of saying the same thing.

 So perhaps this is just a different way

 of saying the same thing.

 Yeah.

 I don’t know.

 Anyway, something Laura does explain

 is that the best way to look after your plants

 is to water early in the morning and water deep.

 We know that.

 Also, with your borders, keep them all packed in.

 Have as little bare soil as possible.

 And if you have a patio and have pot plants,

 either have them out of the full sun,

 group them together in a dense sort of border style.

 Another thing, of course,

 is have them in as bigger pots as possible.

 But generally, I think things that we know.

 So for me, what I get out of this

 is that we need to dig deeper.

 We need to speak to one of these professors

 We do.

 Yeah.

 And ask some more questions.

 I completely agree.

 Monty’s looking at his Hamamelis.

 Witch hazel.

 His witch hazel, which has dead leaves.

 And he said, to check the plant isn’t dead,

 you scratch the surface of the stem

 and if it’s green, you’re all good.

 He says that a friend told him,

 never consider trees dead until it’s been dead for a year.

 Very important.

 That reminded me to go water our lemon tree

 when I watched this.

 And I still haven’t done that.

 So I need to get on and do that.

 Yeah.

 But the amount of our trees on the slope,

 which have looked completely dead

 and then a little sprout right from the base comes up.

 Very important.

 We had that with a silver birch.

 Yes, that was it.

 And we had it with a lemon tree in the pot as well.

 Anyway, Monty’s spring garden is looking much like ours,

 isn’t it?

 Lots of dead material to be gotten rid of.

 Yes.

 And he mentions how bulbs and herbaceous plants,

 they’ll get through droughts all right generally

 because the herbaceous plants have this mechanism of dying back,

 which means they’re not putting all the energy up there.

 You can put all their energy into the roots.

 So generally they’re going to be all right.

 Grey water, of course, is useful to use.

 And then we get to see a bucket of Monty’s murky bath water.

 And that goes onto his plants.

 Only ornamentals.

 Yeah, it does make the point.

 Don’t be putting it on your edibles

 because of course there is the washing up liquid

 or whatever shower gel you use.

 Yeah, exactly.

 And you don’t want those contaminants in your tomatoes.

 And then we head to Kyle Hamilton in Edinburgh

 with his houseplants.

 Oh, and his woofer called Filo.

 Filo.

 I said Filo.

 I think it was Filo.

 I think Filo sounds correct.

 So yeah, all about houseplants,

 which obviously I’m going to be very interested in

 because I am wanting to go get

 a new bit of hardware for my…

 A new bit of hardware.

 Plant hardware.

 Plant hardware for the room

 because I’m not sure if you can see the ceramic pot up there.

 Oh, there’s one empty one

 that’s crying out for a plant to go in it.

 I also recognise that pot.

 That’s been pilfered from mine.

 I’ve taken one.

 That pot I bought,

 I can remember exactly how old I was when I bought that.

 I was 21 and I got a set of three of them, different sizes.

 But same kind of…

 Oh, exactly the same design.

 Which I thought was pretty ugly,

 but it suited where I was living, my apartment at the time.

 Sweet.

 I don’t know where the other sized ones are.

 I think that’s the smallest one.

 So that’s been around the block.

 Every house I’ve had since I was 21.

 Oh my gosh, and now it’s with me

 and it’s going to go to every house.

 And it was really cheap.

 It was from somewhere like…

 I don’t think we had the range back then,

 but it was somewhere like that.

 Poundland.

 It was cheap as chips, yeah.

 Oh, fantastic.

 Well, I really like it because it is just kind of like

 a bit mismatched, but it looks really cute.

 And it’s homely as well.

 It’s sentimental now.

 Yeah. Anyway, so it’s crying out for a plant.

 So luckily, Kyle talked about it.

 Pips from Kyle.

 Exactly, Kyle talked about it.

 So first of all, bit of background.

 He has 80 to 90 plants in his boudoir.

 I’m going to call it.

 He has grow lights.

 He has misters.

 He’s got all the shebang that is needed

 to keep your plants very happy.

 And then he talks about a few ones that he has.

 So he has anthuriums.

 They are known as being the really easy ones.

 You’ve seen them at all garden centre.

 They can have the big kind of red

 piece of lily looking flower to them.

 Or they can be other colours as well.

 But they’re really easy.

 They do need high humidity.

 So he has misters with them.

 And the leaves apparently change texture over time.

 So they can go from soft to then really quite

 kind of dinosaur skin like, rhino skin like.

 And they can even change colour as well.

 I loved it with those humidifiers.

 It looked very dramatic, didn’t it?

 It’s very dramatic.

 I don’t know if I’ll ever get them.

 How damp do you think it feels

 to be in a place with humidifiers?

 That’s why I can never get my head round.

 It’s just like constantly in like a bathroom.

 Anyways, I don’t know.

 Maybe I will get them at some point

 or I’ll create a terrarium with a concealed one.

 Yeah, that’s probably a better idea.

 I think that’s a better idea

 because I do like it dry.

 Yeah, and also for your books.

 I wonder what it does to books.

 Oh, and I’m very particular

 about how my books need to be.

 Do not turn the corner on any of my books.

 So then he talks about epipremnums.

 Yes.

 That is officially the plant that we both have.

 You have it and it’s dangled

 all the way down your CD case.

 Yes, looking amazing.

 And he’s right.

 He says it’s very easy to grow

 and we have asked that.

 So easy.

 It’s amazing.

 Beautiful little heart-shaped leaves.

 Mine is a kind of lime green.

 Would you call it?

 Yeah, it’s looking very healthy.

 Yours is yet to tumble properly.

 Yeah, it’s reaching around and down.

 But what Carl says is their drought tolerance.

 They’re very forgiving, therefore,

 if you haven’t watered for a while.

 Yes.

 You can let them go dry

 and then give them a top-up.

 And they do tell you when they need a top-up,

 they’ll really droop,

 but they’ll be absolutely fine.

 So they’re great.

 And then he finally talks about

 tradescantias and philodendrons,

 which are also very easy plants to look after.

 He also talks about the lovely online community

 he’s gained through his love of houseplants.

 There he goes to all these social meetups.

 And I think that’s just great, isn’t it?

 It’s a great way.

 If you move to a new place

 and you know absolutely nobody,

 this is where social media is really helpful.

 You can set up some sort of a post on a local group.

 And if it’s plants, then how about houseplant swap?

 Let’s meet for a cup of tea, bring your spider plants.

 Yeah.

 But it’s like when you’re into sports activities

 and you don’t find your group there.

 But that’s kind of easier because

 society is well set up for sports.

 There’s always a tennis club

 or a football club or whatever.

 But I think that’s great.

 It’s like Dungeons & Dragons.

 You could go on Facebook,

 find a Dungeons & Dragons group that’s local to you,

 meet up with like-minded people.

 Why not?

 A Lego building group, whatever it is.

 But it just means that if you do move to a new place,

 never think oh this is it.

 I know nobody.

 I’m never going to meet anybody.

 I’m lonely.

 Those are avenues that you can pursue

 if loneliness is a concern.

 Yeah, I completely agree actually.

 Now, at the end, did you see Kyle’s Monstera style crocs?

 Yes, I wrote that down.

 Love his crocs.

 Good.

 Well, they’re a mere £14.99 on Amazon.

 Fantastic.

 You can get variegated versions,

 non-variegated versions.

 Some with sports mode.

 Backstraps, some of that.

 I say.

 I’ll put a link to the ones I found.

 You can have a look at that.

 If you are wanting to hook up,

 and I mean that in the nicest sense of the word,

 with Kyle to do any houseplant swaps,

 then look for Kyle Buster Hamilton on Facebook.

 And he posts on his profile a lot for any of those meetups.

 Cool.

 Sounds good.

 Back with Monty, he is in his greenhouse,

 the huge whopping greenhouse where he has

 a lot of the indoor tomatoes, cucumbers, melons,

 and also his peach tree as well.

 Heaps of peaches.

 Like heaps of peaches.

 Have you seen so many peaches?

 That was mad, bruv.

 It was mad, bruv, wasn’t it?

 Anyway, so he is then looking at them,

 checking if they’re ripe.

 Some have fallen on the ground,

 and he’s letting them to ripen on the windowsill

 as well as some of the melons as well.

 And then he is just checking that they’re all looking good.

 He’s cutting back some of the branches

 just to allow them to ripen.

 And yeah, that’s really cool.

 So you can see what there is.

 And then when he’s picking them,

 he said like with pears,

 just give them a gentle twist

 and don’t go for the firm ones.

 Get the nice soft ones.

 Exactly.

 And then I loved when he said,

 and then clear your diary, look at it, appreciate it,

 admire it in the light,

 cut into it with preferably a silver knife

 with a bone handle and enjoy it.

 You’ve never enjoyed anything in your life.

 Then he goes, or something like that.

 He just went into this very winter world

 in that moment for eating his peach.

 He seriously forgot that he was on TV at that point.

 He was just like, oh, wait, yeah,

 I’m presenting Gardeners World.

 Bit of a poetic moment with his peaches.

 Very poetic.

 And then he looks at his tomatoes.

 Those are thriving too, aren’t they?

 Especially those black crimp, which we see a bit later on.

 Yes, they’re looking good.

 And he also then shows us the Hydrangea Paniculata Kyushu.

 And he had a few different plants

 but all planted at different times.

 And so he had a little bit of succession going on.

 Yes, a real variety of results as a result.

 I’m now losing confidence in having said

 that the Hydrangea I liked last week was an Annabelle.

 I’m wondering now because it was never quite in focus.

 Could it have been one of those?

 Oh, that’s a good point.

 At sort of a different stage to the other one.

 Anyway, beautiful, beautiful plants.

 Love it.

 Hydrangea envy as always.

 And throughout this, we should also say Ned was being a cutie.

 I am always concerned about making this too much of a Dogs World

 rather than Gardeners’ World because Ned’s just so amazing.

 I also feel Filo was so cute

 when he was having his chest rubbed by Kyle, absolutely cute.

 Didn’t he just have a ball in his mouth whilst he was tickled?

 And then Ned and his carrot,

 which Monty said is the bane of everybody’s life.

 So you just know what’s happening there, don’t you?

 That carrot must not get lost.

 I reckon it’s the situation

 where the carrot goes in the washing machine

 and Ned will sit and watch the washing machine

 until the carrot’s finished.

 Gosh, I think that’s so is what’s happening.

 But then we join Rachel de Thame who was in-

 One sec.

 Oh, right.

 Yes, Sweetpea’s Sumthin Sumthin is Scuttlebutt.

 Yes. What does it mean?

 No idea. What does it mean?

 You do know what it means.

 It means gossip.

 So I might say, oh, Sweetpea, I heard a great bit of Scuttlebutt the other day.

 It’s such a good word.

 It’s a beautiful word.

 It comes from ships.

 So it was kind of the gossip word used on ships.

 A bit of Scuttlebutt.

 Oy we Scuttlebutt.

 Yeah, I really like that.

 Okay, very cool.

 So that’s the secret word.

 So that needs to be quoted along with your name

 and follow on social media or subscribing.

 Don’t forget your name.

 Be put in for entry to Harrogate Autumn Flower Show.

 Exactly.

 Right, I shall let you continue.

 Oh, why, thank you.

 So yes, Rachel, she’s in Hertfordshire visiting a plant library.

 This is the Serge Hill Project.

 Yes.

 And this was set up by Sue Stuart-Smith and Tom Stuart-Smith.

 Yes.

 Sue, that’s a lot of S’s, is a renowned psychiatrist and psychotherapist.

 And Tom, of course, is a garden designer.

 And we referred to him only the other week, didn’t we?

 Because he did one of the gardens that we saw recently on Gardeners’ World.

 And Rachel’s specifically looking at the plant library that they have there.

 And that’s a living reference library for plants.

 And she describes it, which I thought was a great way of describing it,

 as a treasure trove of plant species.

 Yes.

 And it’s grown on a grid system made up of more than a thousand squares.

 And all of it was in this very, very sand-based area of the garden, wasn’t it?

 I know.

 It really looked like it was being grown in the desert.

 It was amazing.

 She then meets up with Millie Souter, who is the head gardener for Serge Hill Project.

 She explains that there are over 2,500 herbaceous plants and 600 to 700 bulbs.

 And it consists of as many species plants as possible,

 less cultivars as species plants are generally, they’re longer living.

 Yeah, very important.

 And she says that the stars this year have been grasses,

 and she points to two grasses in particular.

 We have Stipa Ichu and then Stipa pseudoichu.

 Gorgeous looking grasses, weren’t they?

 Yes, they’re really good ones.

 I just wanted to touch them.

 I know, just like, ooh, plumes.

 And she said they edit the plants three to four times a year.

 So there’s a cull list.

 Yes.

 And they take out around one to five percent every year.

 So it’s constantly evolving, constantly moving and changing.

 Recently, they axed two particular plants.

 Did you get those?

 Yes.

 So there was a Leptinella squalida.

 Yeah, that was a ground cover plant, wasn’t it?

 Yeah.

 It was basically looked completely dead.

 Yeah, like completely dead.

 I’ve never seen such a dead plant before.

 It had really given up on life, hadn’t it?

 It’s just gone, take me out.

 Come on, there’s no point.

 Yeah.

 There’s really no point.

 But I did like the name of that one.

 Yeah.

 And then there was a Centaurea.

 That’s kind of like a cornflower.

 That’s a jacea.

 That’s more of a wild one.

 And that has become quite invasive.

 It’s seeding everywhere.

 So they were like, oop, get that out.

 So that’s out and given to volunteer.

 Also known as brown knapweed.

 Yes, exactly.

 What was the plant that particularly caught Rachel’s attention?

 Well, it caught Rachel’s attention.

 It also caught my attention because I really loved it.

 I like when Rachel really picks out interesting plants.

 I find when she goes to gardens.

 She does, doesn’t she?

 She picks out the ones she particularly likes.

 It doesn’t feel forced.

 It doesn’t feel forced.

 And it would appear that the ones she particularly likes

 happen to be the ones I particularly like.

 I would say I appreciate her taste.

 Her style.

 Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,

 but I really like the plants that she goes for.

 And this, what was it, Seseli?

 Seseli, yeah.

 So we had three different types.

 So we had Seseli gracile.

 I don’t know why I just felt Italian for some reason at that point.

 But it looks really cool.

 It looked like a pineapple, frankly,

 because it had a really fluffy green base.

 Really poofed like a little dumpling at the base.

 And then these spires of flowers would just plume,

 would shoot out of the top of it.

 Really cool.

 Love that one.

 Then there was Seseli hippomarathrum.

 That was slightly glaucus.

 Very nice.

 Slightly pink as well.

 Flowers.

 And then Seseli montanum.

 And that had lovely pinky white flowers.

 Lots of umbellifers

 Yeah, exactly.

 So very nice.

 Well, then Millie goes on to talk about

 how they grow most of the garden in sand,

 as it’s very sustainable

 and you don’t have to irrigate the sand

 because it holds onto the water a lot better.

 And then she shows by grabbing a trowel,

 digging like her life depended on it.

 And sure enough, it was wet under the top layer.

 And then there was some sort of weird editing

 as Millie explains how you can do this at home,

 either lifting up pavers and crushing them.

 And that’s like we heard they’re doing in the Netherlands.

 Applicating that nationally in the Netherlands.

 She says you can also hire a crusher

 and crush your pavers down in the Netherlands.

 You don’t have to.

 They get sent off to be crushed.

 Or you can buy sand which you can get a ton bag

 off from your local, I don’t know,

 beer queue or home base or Travis Perkins

 or wherever hardware store type place.

 And then Rachel looks at that beautiful

 Cephalaria radiata which completely dwarfed her.

 Very airy.

 Like little cotton buds floating around in the air.

 Really tall, but didn’t look like it was going to be

 one of those really droopy plants where it just falls over.

 No, no, it looked pretty straight up.

 Kind of reminded me a bit of the massive

 Verbena bonariensis we have.

 It did make me think it would be rather nice

 in the gravel garden with that absolute brute of a verbena.

 Maybe with some grasses.

 That would be nice actually.

 Just to sort of subdue it a bit.

 And then there was the Origanum rotundifolium.

 Yes.

 So cute.

 Round leafed oregano.

 Jan’s Pink I think it’s called, looking it up.

 It reminded Rachel of hops.

 It reminded me of Himalayan honeysuckle.

 Apparently it’s edible and it likes,

 because I looked it up, I wonder why.

 It likes chalk, loam and sand.

 And it also likes all the sort of conditions that lavender likes.

 And I thought, don’t you think,

 we keep talking about what we’re going to do about a lavender bank

 because it’s really particularly ugly.

 Yeah, we do.

 How about underplanting each lavender plant

 with one of these round leafed oreganos.

 That would be cool.

 So you get the pinky mauvy fluffy bit that hides all the woody stem.

 They like the same conditions.

 They do.

 Do you mind being scorched and horrible soil and just generally being treated badly?

 Yeah.

 Treated mean to keep them keen.

 Toxic relationship.

 Very toxic relationship.

 Don’t you think that’d be lovely?

 And it’s a Mediterranean herb.

 It’s edible.

 It can be scorched.

 It could be lavender, which you can eat as well if you want to.

 Yeah, if you want to.

 If you really want to.

 I think that’d be a great idea.

 I know I say this all the time.

 Oh, how about we put this with the lavender?

 But I really think this could be it because also it’s ground cover.

 So it’ll cover those woody bits.

 It’ll cover more of the groundy bits, create kind of a living mulch.

 Yeah.

 I really like your idea, actually.

 Well, the Surge Hill project, as we heard a little bit about,

 they work with local schools, community groups, charities, and also GP surgeries.

 I like that prescribing in the garden.

 As your drug of choice, really.

 And you can become a member of the Surge Hill project,

 which will give you access to the plant library database.

 For that, it’s 8£0 a year.

 You also get newsletters and various things like that.

 And if you want to visit the plant library as well as the gardens,

 from what I can gather, you can go the first Tuesday of every month from April to October.

 And they also run all these workshops.

 So things like art classes that are stitching the garden with fabrics, things like that.

 Nature writing workshop they have coming up.

 Autumn equinox, nature meditation and sound bath.

 They also have weaving those willow plant supports.

 They’ve got workshops for that.

 So a lot goes on there.

 So put a link to their website.

 That will go on our webpage.

 You can get that at notjustagarden.co.uk.

 Monty’s by his sweet peas, which are looking incredible.

 They’re coming thick and fast still.

 And I agree with Monty because he said he loves the Surge Hill project,

 but it’d be really helpful to see the same sort of project,

 but in a variety of other soil types as well.

 And I thought that because as I was watching it,

 my immediate thought was, oh crap, I need to get a load of sand in.

 We need to have sand.

 It just instantly I was thinking that.

 And then you should be thinking like, okay, let’s chill.

 We can’t do that because I was thinking with some of the clay,

 perhaps if we put a load of sand down,

 you know, I was going down this whole sand rabbit hole

 and I’m glad Monty said that because yeah,

 it’s amazing with the sand, absolutely incredible.

 I’d also like to see what do we do with our soil locally.

 So basically what you need is a number of Surge Hill projects

 around the country where you’ve got all the different soil types.

 I wonder if Tom and Sue are considering something like that,

 a bit of a franchise maybe.

 That would be great.

 I don’t know how it works.

 We need to do a not-for-profit type thing like that.

 Anyway, but Monty is talking about his new project

 and that is in the damp garden.

 Yeah, so apparently his pond had a leak in it already,

 so it was dropping.

 Then there’s been the extreme drought.

 So the pond has pretty much become redundant.

 It’s a very small puddle at the moment,

 very dried up and he’s thinking,

 first of all, he’s worried about the grandchildren,

 which I think is really sweet to be thinking about them.

 The five toddler grandkids.

 Yeah, so sweet.

 Running around and then he’s thinking

 it’s quite a floody area,

 so why not create it into just a general damp bog garden in itself?

 Yeah, he talks about the ditches and streams around

 and it does make me think with the Super El Nino,

 what’s predicted is most likely a lot wetter this autumn,

 a lot wetter than we’ve had before and a lot more flooding.

 How the UK will be impacted, we don’t really know.

 I mean, they don’t really know how anywhere will be impacted,

 but predictions are that it’s going to be

 wetter in a lot of countries and probably the UK.

 So I wonder how Monty’s going to cope given he gets,

 he always has flooding and he’s prepared for it

 and it’s all part of the ecosystem there.

 So it’s not a case of, oh, no floods.

 It’s just, oh, we’ve got the floods again.

 I wonder how far up those floods will come for him.

 I would be very interested to see that.

 And so he’s going to be trying to salvage some of the plants

 just because they’re rescaping the whole area,

 creating it into a damp bog garden.

 One of those plants is the hosta sum and substance

 and he’s going to be digging that up,

 quite a big clump of it and then he’ll be taking that

 and putting that in the woodland area,

 which we’ll see just after this next section.

 Yes. While it’s Paul Foster, he’s a garden designer in Suffolk

 and he specialises in creating naturalistic

 and wildlife-friendly gardens.

 He says allowing insects into your own space

 is the most rewarding thing you can do.

 Couldn’t agree with you more.

 Love hearing the buzz of insects.

 Yes.

 Makes me feel alive hearing that.

 And the splosh of frogs and newts.

 Yes, that as well.

 The only time I don’t like the sound of insects

 is when it’s too loud.

 And so we’re trying to have a conversation outside

 and it’s quite distracting.

 Do you know what I mean when you get

 some of the great big bumbly bees?

 When nature-

 Bumping into stuff.

 Yeah, when nature just gets in the way.

 Nature just gets in the way.

 Will not shut up.

 Will not.

 Come on, hush.

 Well, Paul’s garden has evolved since they’ve lived there.

 He’s created lots of habitats.

 He’s planted so many trees

 and his wildlife pond is the best thing

 for attracting wildlife.

 Again, we can vouch for that.

 Then what were some of the beautiful plants

 that he had around his pond?

 So he had crocosmia lucifer.

 We’ve heard of that one quite a lot.

 It’s quite deep red.

 Lovely thing.

 Gorgeous.

 Solidago, like the sun, looking beautiful.

 Persicaria, Dryopteris felix mass,

 which is a lovely fern

 and does look really nice next to a pond actually.

 Yep.

 I never thought of that.

 Lovely next to a pond,

 but we couldn’t do it because it’s too exposed, our pond.

 Way too exposed.

 It’s quite a dry surround of a pond

 than a more boggy one that you think of.

 So it doesn’t quite work.

 I’ll tell you after this section my plans,

 thanks to Paul Foster.

 Oh, okay.

 That’s good to know.

 Oh, and also two other plants.

 We had the flowering rush.

 That’s also called a Butomus.

 Love the name.

 umbellatus and also a water forget-me-not as well.

 Yes, that was gorgeous.

 And then lots of old wood around the pond

 and big bits of stone as well.

 I love all of that.

 He’s got newts frogs.

 He’s got a resident grass snake, damselflies, dragonflies.

 He says that it’s good to have a pond near to trees or a hedgerow

 so that wildlife feels safe.

 So if the birds come down to drink,

 they feel they’ve got somewhere to retreat to

 if a predator comes along.

 And we have been trying to build that up,

 but I do think what we should do is expand

 the planting we have around the pond.

 Certainly on one side.

 I know we’ve got your weird wildflower wave

 that is quite close to this sort of hedgerow

 that we’re trying to build.

 You didn’t have to put weird in there.

 But I think around the other side,

 we could thicken it up a bit,

 have some shrubs behind,

 possibly a tree and just build up that side of it.

 I agree.

 You think that’d be nice.

 Thicken it up.

 Yeah.

 That’s the plan along with all the millions

 of other plans that I have for the garden.

 Thanks to garden as well.

 The whole list.

 Then Paul talks a bit about his history.

 He said he’s always loved the outdoors.

 He loves hiking in the mountains.

 He’s very influenced by the natural world.

 He was adopted from birth to an amazing family

 and he grew up in the 70s suburbia

 and he was one of the only mixed race children

 in the town.

 He said that he was bullied

 and his retreat was to go to,

 I think they’re called Knighton Woods,

 which his place backed onto.

 Once he was in there and away from humans

 and all the rest of it,

 he could really switch off.

 He said there was no negativity.

 They felt very safe.

 He could connect with the natural world

 and by being outside,

 it really helped him.

 Then after his late teens,

 things improved.

 He went and lived in Spain

 and met someone who had a gardening business

 and a pool maintenance business

 as you do in Spain.

 He went and worked with him.

 He remembers having to clear some soil

 for this bank

 and connecting with that soil,

 it was from that moment on he knew

 that that is what he wanted to do.

 That is how Paul Foster’s

 garden design business evolved.

 We then see Paul using a piece of hazel

 to create this habitat stack.

 We’ve seen that before, haven’t we?

 With Sharnee Gates,

 do you remember from the old retry?

 Now Sharni Kelf, of course,

 because she got married,

 had her on a chit chat.

 He said that’s very good

 because it attracts the bees,

 the solitary bees and insects

 and then that attracts the birds.

 So good little sort of wildlife pyramid.

 Yeah, and also he says

 it is the second best thing to having a pond.

 So if you have a really small area,

 you stack up woods,

 it doesn’t take up that much space.

 Yeah, great idea, isn’t it?

 Then he talks about a few more plants,

 the drought tolerant lot.

 Yes, so we had Verbena bonariensis,

 persicaria again,

 fennel, steeper gigantea,

 Stipa tenuissima,

Allium sphaerocephalon,

 and oregano.

 Yeah, beautiful.

 And he said the alliums

 are covered in bees and butterflies,

 the oregano covered in parasitic wasps

 and hoverflies.

 And he says our gardens

 are the lifeline of wildlife now in the UK.

 So if we can create more,

 we’ll make a big difference.

 Now, Paul’s gardening business

 is actually called Allium Gardeners.

 And I’ll put a link to his website.

 He wrote a heartfelt post

 after his segment was aired

 on Gardeners’ World.

 He said, I really want to say

 a massive thank you to these three people.

 And then he talks about three of the production team.

 So I thought I’d give them a little shout out here.

 Because we often hear on our chit chats

 how appreciative our guests have been

 with the crew on Gardeners World.

 That seems to be the general consensus

 that it’s a hard day

 because it’s a long day,

 but it’s lovely

 because the whole team work really well together

 and just make you feel really comfortable.

 And so I’m going to name these three people.

 He says, Jo,

 our horticultural assistant producer

 who made the whole thing happen.

 Her attention to detail was incredible,

 but more than that,

 she really understood

 what I was trying to say

 and why my garden and wildlife

 means so much to me.

 Mattie, our cameraman,

 who somehow managed to capture

 not just my garden,

 but the mood and feeling of it so beautifully.

 Seeing the finished program

 and the way he had captured the space

 was pretty special.

 And Steve, our sandman,

 who did a sterling job

 of bringing all those

 other little elements together,

 the sounds of the garden,

 the wildlife and everything around us.

 And then he says,

 we spent a lovely few days together in my garden.

 So it wasn’t a one dayer, this section.

 And then he says,

 there were lots of laughs,

 a few tears,

 and some moments I’ll genuinely cherish

 forever.

 So it sounds like quite an epic time

 that he had with garden as well.

 Oh my gosh, that’s so sweet.

 Well, finally, as I said earlier,

 Monty had just scooped up

 that huge holster from the hole

 in the damp garden.

 And now he’s whacking it

 into another hole

 in the woodland garden

 because it has lots of shade,

 has lots of mulch.

 It’s a lovely area for this holster.

 So he’s whacking it in,

 cutting it back a little bit.

 Very important to water the hole beforehand

 because it is so, so dry.

 And then firm it in well.

 More of his bath water went in there.

 Yeah, exactly.

 Then firm it in well,

 cut it back a little bit.

 And there we go.

 Water it again after it’s very important.

 And then it’s jobs for the weekend.

 We have prick out seedlings,

 take streptocarpus cuttings,

 dead head agapanthus.

 And then we get a nice scene at the end

 where Monty has a couple of his black crimps

 and tomatoes to show us.

 Looked absolutely gorgeous.

 I’m salivating again.

 I salivated watching it.

 He slices them up,

 puts a bit of oil on them.

 I’m assuming olive,

 bit of salt and pepper, some basil.

 Then he says, should be torn, not cut.

 And if I’m honest, I don’t know why.

 Well, I looked that up.

 The theory is that

 when you slice your basil with a knife,

 the plant releases enzymes

 that cause it to,

 the edges to go kind of brown

 around the edge.

 Whereas if you tear it,

 it’s said to keep the cell wall intact.

 So you don’t get so much of that.

 So it’s an aesthetic reason.

 Okay, very cool.

 So Sweepy, your favourite plant.

 It was all of the Seseli,

 just Seseli in general.

 Seseli.

 Seseli, love it.

 Yes.

 Well, I will welcome that into the garden.

 So go for it.

 Great. Yours?

 Can you guess which one mine is?

 Hydrangea.

 No.

 Oh, the Cephalaria.

 No.

 Oh.

 Gosh, I’m really bad at this today.

 You are.

 What’s going on?

 Oh, the oregano.

 That really went right through

 my earbuds that I’m wearing.

 Good.

 I wanted to take a bit of that.

 Pummeled my brain.

 Yeah, it was that oregano.

 I’m really,

 I really think this is the one.

 This is what’s going to make

 our lavender bank look a lot, lot nicer.

 I agree.

 I’ve just got to source those plants now.

 All right, what’s your top takeaway?

 It is creating hazel stacks

 if you have a really small space.

 From Paul, Paul’s idea.

 Great.

 Yeah.

 Yeah, so you’re going to start doing that.

 Does it have to be hazel though?

 Because we don’t have that.

 No, it doesn’t have to be.

 It just, you want to create a stack really

 with some firm outer branches really.

 The thing I’ve noticed on Gardeners World

 is everyone seems to have access

 to beautiful, long, straight hazel.

 Monty has loads of it

 and he’s often saying,

 so just get some hazel, do this.

 And Paul was just like,

 get some hazel, make your stacks.

 We don’t have access to this gorgeous hazel.

 No, where are you guys getting it from?

 Where are you guys getting your source hazel from?

 Well, my top takeaway was the peach tree.

 I know you’re not big into fruit,

 but peaches, I love peaches.

 A nice cold peach.

 And I was thinking with climate change,

 we’ve got to try and take the silver lining

 of how temperatures are starting to soar for our country.

 So let’s start growing things

 that will really work well in that.

 And a peach tree, so I looked them up,

 they’re an H4 hardiness,

 which means that it’s down to minus 10.

 I don’t think we dropped much below minus 10.

 No, I don’t think so.

 And we certainly are getting the sun now.

 I think a peach tree would be rather nice to have.

 Yeah, I like that idea actually.

 And you could grow outside.

 I don’t think you need Monty’s greenhouse.

 No.

 Anyway, perhaps that’s an experiment.

 Very cool.

 Well, we have a garden as well next week.

 It is on the 11th of September

 and here’s what they have in store for us.

 After a summer of heat and drought,

 Adam Frost shares some timely advice

 on how to capture rainwater.

 He also gives a practical guide to laying paving

 and comes up with a cunning plan

 on how to use prolific self-seeders.

 Sue Kent is at home planting Swiss chard

 and shows how to tackle an outbreak of Fuchsia gall mite,

 while Frances Tophill visits a garden in Somerset

 whose owners take inspiration from the surrounding landscape.

 There are two friends who have a passion

 for producing organic open pollinated seed

 on a flower-filled farm in Devon,

 plus a couple in Saltdean

 who have created a beautiful retreat

 high up on the rolling South Downs.

 Some good things in there.

 I’m looking forward to seeing Adam’s garden again for sure.

 Yeah, that sounds amazing.

 And what’s going on in the rolling South Downs.

 Yeah.

 We shall find out next week.

 We sure will.

 Well, if you have any questions or comments or answers,

 I think we need to start adding that.

 Yeah, we like answers.

 Please do get in touch.

 You can do so through our website

 if you go to the contacts page at

 notjustagarden.co.uk

 or you can email us at

 hello@notjustagarden.co.uk

 That started well away from your mic,

 but the end bit came close,

 so I’m going to struggle there,

 but let’s run with it.

 Okay.

 So what are you off to do now, Sweetpea?

 I have to revise.

 Have another shower.

 Have another shower.

 Stick your head in the freezer again.

 Yeah, get in the freezer this time, frankly.

 So you’ve got some revision to do this evening?

 Yes, I have got some cellular and molecular biology.

 Well, that sounds great.

 I hope you enjoy.

 Before we head off,

 one thing we mustn’t forget to say, of course,

 is do subscribe to our website

 because all those plants that Sweetpea has listed

 from this episode go onto our plant list.

 You will receive that.

 Plus you get first dibs on any offers that we have going forward

 or any discounts.

 So that is at our website,

 notjustagarden.co.uk

 Wack your email address in.

 Robert’s your father’s brother.

 It’s a no-brainer, peeps.

 Got to do it.

 It’s a no-brainer.

 Peeps.

 All right, Sweetpea.

 Well, I’ll let you get on with your sitting in a freezer

 doing cell biology.

 Yes.

 And we shall see you next week.

 Sure will.

 Thank you for listening.

 Bye-bye, Sweetpea.

 Bye, Mummy Bear.