(cheerful music)
- Flowers at Homeacres,
through the seasons a little bit
to give you a snapshot
of what we can grow here
in this mild, temperate, oceanic climate,
which, in some ways, is not ideal for flowers.
It can be quite damp and not so good for the petals.
But on the other hand,
we can have some decent dry weather, as well,
and because it's mild,
there's quite a long season of flowering.
And this is spring,
and so we're in mid-spring now,
third week, fourth week of April,
and we've had four weeks of dry weather,
of which the last two have been quite sunny,
so the flowers have really come on now,
and I'll point out a few that are here
to give you an idea.
And most of what's flowering at the moment is,
well, all of it, actually,
it's perennial, or it's overwintered, or biennial.
So wallflowers, for example, they're biennial.
I actually sowed them last summer.
That's a good time to sow wallflowers
you're thinking ahead.
Same with sweet Williams, for example.
They'll be flowering, maybe, the next time we have a look.
And the wallflowers are great
'cause they actually flower in early to mid-spring,
and there are some different colours to enjoy.
Although they're called wallflowers
'cause they would grow on a wall,
they grow very nicely in borders.
This one is a perennial, keeps coming back every year,
and it's called brunnera,
and it's just got that amazing blue colour to the flower,
and also rather a nice variegated leaf,
and that flowers for a long time,
but I will cut it back mid to late summer.
Cut it quite low to the ground,
then you get the regrowth and flower again
the following spring,
sometimes a bit in late summer as well.
Behind me is rosemary, which, of course,
we're enjoying in the kitchen at the moment.
That will make lovely flowers quite soon, blue.
There's a couple of roses here.
Roses, good stand-by in this climate,
'cause they flower for a long period of time
through the summer,
not yet, so we've only recently pruned them, actually.
We prune them fairly hard in late winter,
works well to encourage nice, even flowers
and decent-sized blooms.
And then lovely flowers
on the trees, as well, some of the fruit trees.
This is a concorde pear.
We may even see some fruit
on our third visit, towards the end of summer,
but we're having a run of late frosts at the moment,
April frosts,
and I'm noticing some of the stamens in those flowers
have gone black,
so I'm not (chuckles),
there's no crop guaranteed on that,
but at least one can enjoy the flowers for now.
There's tulips have been amazing this year.
They've enjoyed the recent sunshine.
They...
It used to be, when I was growing up,
the climate was cooler,
they flowered more in May.
Now they're flowering more late April, mid to late April.
And then there's some irises there.
There's pulmonaria,
which is a real easy staple to grow,
and it self-seeds madly,
so one thing I'll do with that
is cut it down to almost ground level
as soon as it finishes flowering.
I don't want it to seed any more (chuckles),
it'll take over the garden.
And then looking further around,
there's just a wide selection of plants
which we'll look at in more detail next time,
including lavender, for example, little bushes.
And behind me, I must just mention the forget-me-not,
which, again, is self-sown.
You know, that just does its thing, but I do...
I'll pull that out before it drops too many seeds.
But that's growing on gravel there,
there's a bit of gravel around the house.
So that's a nice example
of how flowers can beautify your surroundings
without paying too much attention to the soil.
But this other,
apart from that, this is no-dig soil,
and we'll look around the garden
through the next two shots as well,
looking at flowers growing with the vegetables
in the same beds.
(cheerful music)
Welcome back.
It's the 23rd of June, high summer.
Well, not quite high summer, but we're getting there,
but flowering time,
so many flowers at this time of year,
and a lot of the flowers we saw back in April
have now finished, and we've cut them back,
Like the brunnera is now cut right to the ground,
just a few days ago, actually,
and so you can just see the first new shoots appearing,
so that you go through a phase
with some of these perennials
where there's nothing there for a while,
and then you get new leaves.
Like the pulmonary there,
a month ago, that finished flowering,
and before it seeds everywhere,
I cut it down, temporarily bare,
then it regrows,
and it's got beautiful, silvery, speckled leaves now,
so it gives value in that sense, as well.
The pear tree I mentioned,
and that I was afraid we wouldn't get any pears
'cause of the frost to the flowers,
some of them survived, some of the later flowers,
and we actually have a few pears on there,
so that's been a really nice success.
And the roses I mentioned, also,
wow, they are in full flower,
as is the sweet William, that lovely biennial.
There's a particularly strong-colored one
just the other side of these roses here.
Probably the star of the show at the moment, though,
is the catmint,
which is one of the easiest flowers to grow,
the easiest plants, almost,
because it just springs back every year from the roots.
And when I arrived here in,
what, eight years ago, nine years ago,
this was here, and I didn't know it,
'cause it was winter, and so there was,
this ground was bare,
and then suddenly, in April and May, this all,
all the leaves appeared,
and by June, it was flowering like this.
And it's such a favourite of the bees.
So it's a really nice plant to have around.
But it can grow big.
You know, this is one clump of catmint
that has slowly spread,
and a good way to deal with it
towards the end of summer, is to...
I run a lawnmower over the top, actually,
on the highest setting,
and that cuts it back quickly, easily,
nice stuff for the compost heap,
and then it regrows.
We put a bit of compost on in the winter.
So a lot of perennials you can do that.
You cut them back, and then you'll get flowering
at different times of the year following.
This one is more of a shrubby plant,
and that's salvia jamensis.
That's been there about five years.
And again, I cut it back hard
some point in late winter, after the worst frosts,
and it looks dead for a while.
In fact, this one did look dead for quite a while,
and I was afraid it was,
and then when it warmed up in May,
suddenly, it got new shoots.
I even managed to take a cutting from it.
And now we have the lovely flowers,
which go on for a lot of the summer, in fact,
and they're just that gorgeous colour,
and they are edible,
and they taste and smell a little bit of pineapple.
And then, in the new,
in the area over there,
we have a different selection.
We have some self-seeding plants.
So, so far, we've talked mostly about perennials.
Self-seeding is another way, great way, to get flowers.
So the African marigolds under the two plum trees there,
(chuckles) they self-seed a lot,
and a good way to deal with that
is to hoe them off.
Takes a bit of willpower,
but literally try and hoe them all to get rid of them.
And there's always a few that survive,
and that's all you need.
You don't want too many.
If you leave too many to grow,
you'll get a mass of leaves and a few flowers
rather than...
You know, what's happening there now is
a few, but really fine flowers,
and there's also a few strawberries growing.
Nice little bonus in between.
That's everbearing strawberries.
And beyond them are self-sowing foxgloves,
which look pretty nondescript for quite a long time.
So they're flowering now,
really in a glory way,
that's digitalis,
and dropping a lot of seeds.
I actually try to remove most of those flower heads
before they drop all their seeds,
'cause they can become quite a problem weed,
and then just select a few to survive the winter
and flower the following spring.
And then beyond that are more,
a lovely perennial, achillea,
which has been here for six years.
And again, cut it back hard towards the,
well, anytime in winter actually.
And that's all new growth that you're seeing there,
with the flowers, at this time of year, going into July.
And the star of the show, in the far corner,
is the eschscholzia, the California poppy,
which, here at least, grows like a weed.
Probably will for you.
If it grows once and you get nice flowers,
it'll self-seed.
And again, I treat it the same way as the marigolds,
so I run a hoe through several times (chuckles),
it's really persistent,
and then the strongest ones survive,
and you get nice clumps of those flowers here and there,
and some different coloured ones, as well.
I did actually sow a seed packet, once,
that was pink and red,
and they have kept true to colour
and even self-sown true to colour,
so they're dotted around amongst the others,
and those ones we cut back
in, what, in about three weeks, actually.
When they finish their first flush of flowers, cut them,
not to the ground, though.
Leave enough stem that you can see shoots,
and they will reshoot.
And in climates like this,
where days can be 20, 25 degrees, low 70s Fahrenheit,
you can get new flowering in September,
which is very welcome,
because in September,
as opposed to June, for example, or even August,
you don't have so many flowers.
And we'll see that in the last part of the video,
where we're also going to go
into the vegetable garden, a little,
to look at the flowers
which are growing amongst the vegetables.
We thought we might have done it now,
but actually, partly 'cause it's been a quite cold spring,
there aren't that many in flower at the moment,
but you will see them,
you know, they're kind of poised (chuckles),
and you'll see
very nice, like, marigolds and zinnias, I hope,
by the end of August.
(cheerful music)
Time has moved on, just eight weeks,
and look what's happened in eight weeks.
It's phenomenal, the growth of these couple of months,
particularly for frost-tender flowers,
which you can't sow or grow them too early,
so the, like, the zinnias, the timing of them, sunflowers.
Most of what you can see here (chuckles), actually,
are frost-tender,
so we don't populate the garden with them until...
Our last frost date is middle of May,
and they go out in the second half of May, mostly,
which means they go out in good time.
They get going,
get their feet under the ground, so to speak,
before summer really gets going,
and then they go, woosh,
and that helps them to resist the slugs,
'cause slugs can be quite a problem
for some of these flowers, for these zinnias, for example,
and getting them in in good time will help you,
'cause a stronger plant
that's already got a strong root system
is less vulnerable or attractive to slugs.
That's my experience, anyway.
And then some of these plants need support.
Again, zinnias, we find if we don't,
they'll just peel off the main stem, the little branches,
and fall on the ground, gone.
Sunflowers likewise.
This fantastic one, orange sunflower,
which is multi-stemmed from one seed,
so you get lots of heads,
and you can keep cutting them,
and if you don't want to cut them
to bring in the house, say,
just deadhead them when they drop their petals,
unless you want the seed (chuckles),
but they'll flower for longer
if you remove the dead flowers.
And then behind is a small, yellow sunflower,
fantastic, again, value in terms of continuous crop,
cropping, I was going to say,
blooming,
right through the whole summer.
And well supported, as are these sweet peas.
So support is definitely a thing to consider,
frost and support.
And then how they grow,
I've talked mainly about flowers grown from seed.
Quite a few grow from bulbs,
and dahlia's probably the main one here, anyway,
so gorgeous red dahlia behind these sunflowers
by the edge of the greenhouse there,
and that one, I just leave the bulb in the ground,
and most springs, it comes up by early May, say,
and then you get a frost (chuckles),
a small frost after that,
and you look at it,
all the black leaves frosted on the ground,
and you think, "Wow, that's never going to do it!"
And then before you know it, it's grown.
Fantastic! So, many years of that.
And the same story for that salvia.
Down there is a remarkable salvia called patens,
remarkable for its colour,
and that one, again, left in the ground, just regrows.
Cut it back at the end of autumn, early winter.
And on that note, also agapanthus,
which we've got a couple of around the garden,
and they,
in this climate, where we go down
to about minus 5, minus 6, maybe 20 Farenheit,
that's not cold enough to to kill the bulbs,
so I just leave them in the ground.
Very simple to grow,
and you get that lovely bloom every year.
And dahlias, you can also grow from seed,
like salvias as well.
So we've got...
Well, salvia, actually, that one I bought.
There's a lovely one there called Love and Wishes,
which I bought as a pot plant,
and that's an example
of how you can populate your garden
more expensively, if you like.
I mean, these are cheap,
as long as you've got propagation facilities
to sow and grow.
And then you've got self-sowing.
So flowers I love, particularly the ones
that don't self-sow too much (chuckles),
just 'cause they can take over the whole garden.
And marigolds, for example, the dwarf marigolds,
are pretty good for that,
as are the flax linaria, gorgeous little red flowers
just beyond the greenhouse there.
So you've got lots of choices.
And then ones that do self-sow so a lot are cosmos,
so I've put them over there under the apple trees,
or let them grow over there, I should say.
We don't replant them anymore,
just rather, as I said for the eschscholzia,
hoe them hard,
and take out most of them with the hoe
in the early spring
and leave the strong ones that survive
to be your flowering plants.
Similar story for the eschscholzia
that I mentioned last time.
So we cut it off early July,
having hoed it previously to that,
then we cut it off,
and now it's flowering again,
so two flowerings from that one.
And I'll just finish
by mentioning the extraordinary flower
that I grow around the edges, as well,
it does self-sow,
Leonotis nepetifolia,
just has these amazing sort of decks of buds
with little orange petals
that don't actually last very long,
but it's just a really striking plant,
and an example of the fun you can have with flowers.
So have a browse through a catalogue,
and see what you like, and have a go,
but always respecting their climatic needs,
and fitting them around your frost dates, in particular.
(cheerful music)