[music]
This place in the summer is absolutely buzzing.
I love working here in the summer.
It becomes a real riot of colour and interest in the summer,
and also a riot of people! So, it's a very busy garden.
The summer months are about our summer displays.
and our summer displays in colour terms are probably our most spectacular.
Well when I designed them this year has been a very special year being Hampton Court Palace 500.
The six beds along the front were from previous decades
and the carpet bedding that you probably saw a lot there, that was Victorian.
We're deadheading the pelagonians so that they flower again
That keeps them flowering, it makes it look nice.
The big challenge through the summer is keeping on top of everything.
We've got mowing, weeding, edging, hedge cutting.
All different operations that we need to keep on top of.
Well this is a spider lawn mower.
We used to use the flymo on a rope
where we used to stand at the top of the bank and hold the rope down
and just let the flymo sort of hang,
but this is a remote-controlled mower.
There's only about three or four in the country.
This is a lot better than doing it with a flymo on a bit of rope.
Well at the moment I'm maintaining Queen Mary II's Exoticks Collection,
which we bring out to the lower Orangery for the summer months.
Usually they're in the glass houses where I take care of them,
but while they're out here I have to pop out every now and again.
I've just been trimming these yew topiaries,
it's a regular job that we do this time of year,
just to keep them looking smart and nice and to maintain the shape.
As the maze is 500 years old, we're having to try to rejuvenate it,
so one way of doing that apart from replanting the hedge,
is to cut it back as hard as we can,
and you can see here we've already got growth starting
These are yew trees and they date back to William and Mary
and they're cut every year to get rid of the excess growth
and to keep their shape and health.
We use what's called a cherry picker or a nifty lift,
otherwise it used to be done by ladders
but for health and safety reasons that was far too dangerous.
Summer is the colourful time in the gardens.
It's the absolute showtime.
The highlight for me is knowing the rose garden perhaps in my t-shirt the sun on my back
It's one of the peak productive seasons in a kitchen garden,
so most of the beds are now full and they're producing things for us to harvest,
and we're harvesting weekly and we are selling it at a market stall.
The grapevine is the oldest and largest grapevine in the world
The longest branch which was measured in the winter is 120 foot,
and the whole vine is nearly 250 years old planted in 1768.
I'm just taking off any shriveled or damaged grapes
or any that aren't perhaps quite good enough for eating
so that they are as perfect as we can manage them.
We'll wrap them in cellophane, a piece of ribbon.
I think if a gardener from 300 years ago came to visit the gardens today
they'd be quite surprised at how scientific it can be.
you've got to know about soil fertility, how to maintain that over time.
If you don't then your crops are going to suffer.
Home Park is one of the more unfamiliar areas of the gardens for most of our visitors
It has recently been designated a 'Triple SI',
meaning it's an area of special scientific interest.
Hampton Court here in Home Park has a herd of fallow deer.
At the moment, with the fawns, it probably a holding herd of about 400,
This time of year is also when the deer are having their young and their fawns.
They've got the trees, they've got the acorns, they've got the chesnuts, theyve got the grass, they've got the acid grasslands.
They're absolutely spoilt rotten at the moment.
The Magic Garden is a new garden that we've created specifically for children to enjoy playing in
and I think when children actually get in there
they won't have experienced a garden like that anywhere else,
certainly in England and probably in Europe as well.
The challenge is: will it be finished in time? And the finish date is Easter 2016.
I think we're a little bit behind but that's because there's so many elements of the garden to build.
We always get things done always.
I started in 1999 after a career in the city in investment banking.
It's quite a leap, isn't it? Ha ha!
I love the people. I love the place and I love horticulture
It is, it's the best job in the world and I'm surprised when they pay me at the end of the month.
You know, I don't think 'I'm going to work',
I think, 'Great! I'm coming in here.'
I'm learning every day. You never stop learning when you're a gardener
I've been here as I said, eight years now, and I'm still learning about the history of the gardens.
And the team, everyone says hello to everyone. They all smile and wave if they go past on a vehicle.
We wave and smile to each other. There's no happier place. It's lovely.
These jobs are like winning the lottery and that's how everyday I take it.
It's like winning the lottery and I feel very, very privileged.