Monty is in his Longmeadow garden - he takes a moment to see the growth in the last few weeks. All hedges are now in leaf, the cops are full of bluebells and narcissi. The Jewel Garden is full of colour with tulips and euphorbias and the Spring Garden has cow parsley. This is his favourite moment in the whole year. Carol Klein visited Marwood Hill Gardens in Devon on the trail of early plant hunters responsible for the glorious selection of magnolias brought to these shores and she speaks to Head Gardener, Malcolm Pharoah. Magnolias are amongst the most ancient flowering trees on the planet, more than twenty million years old. Rachel de Thame takes a walk down memory lane when she visits Keukenhof in the Netherlands with her mother Ghita Cohen. She first came here with her mum more than forty years ago and it made a lasting impression on her. And now they are retracing their steps to see if they can recapture some of that magic.
Monty plants up a very large pot which he stands on chocks which will help with the drainage. The pot will have a lot of plants and will make quite heavy nutritional demands, therefore Monty advises that it is important to think about which compost to use. Monty uses peat-free potting compost, si...
Monty's tulips are going over and they do need attending to - this is an issue for a lot of people. Monty reads out a viewer's letter from Nick Shearme who asks what to do with tulips after they have flowered. One solution is to lift and store them somewhere warm and dry. In the autumn, they can ...
Although you can buy plant feed, Monty decides to make his own plant feed - one out of comfrey and one out of nettles. Not only do nettles make a good feed that is rich in nitrogen, they are also useful for another reason - they attract butterflies because caterpillar larvae feed off them, they a...
