Discover gardening secrets with Mark Lane and Lottie Allen, a National Trust expert

Ever wondered how we keep gardens looking their best? Lottie Allen, Head Gardener at Hidcote in Gloucestershire, and Mark Lane, landscape designer and TV presenter, answer some of your thorny gardening questions to dig deep into the secrets of great gardening.

Lottie and Mark discuss the best plants for small spaces and community gardens, how to look after bulbs, how to get the best out of wisteria and much more as they answer some of our members’ gardening questions.

Hidcote is a world-famous Arts and Crafts-inspired garden nestled in the rolling Cotswold hills, created by talented designer, Major Lawrence Johnston. He designed the garden in phases, furnishing borders with newly discovered plants from 1907-1938.

Lottie is part of the team at Hidcote working to care for this historic garden. She’s been Head Gardener for nearly five years, and strives to celebrate Johnston’s vision of the garden by balancing its heritage with current horticultural practices.

Mark Lane is a multi-award-winning garden designer, focusing on sustainability, biodiversity and inclusivity. He’s also a well-known TV presenter, radio broadcaster and writer, presenting on BBC’s Gardeners’ World and as the gardening expert on BBC Morning Live.

We protect and care for places so people and nature can thrive. Everyone can get involved, everyone can make a difference. Nature, beauty, history. For everyone, for ever. You can donate to us at https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/donate

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@nationaltrustcharity/subscribe
Find things to do near you: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/search?type=event
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nationaltrust
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nationaltrust
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nationaltrust
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/donate

(Lottie) Hello and welcome to Hidcote on this beautiful spring morning. I’m joined by Mark Lane who’s a garden designer and broadcaster. And we’re here to answer some of your questions that you submitted as members. Welcome Mark. (Mark) Thank you very much Lottie. Should we start with the first question? (Lottie) Let’s go for it. (Mark) So it’s about box hedges. So after getting attacked by moth caterpillar box blight what plant can box hedging be replaced with that has similar characteristics? So evergreens small leafed, anything you can suggest? (Lottie) Well we’ve experienced both here. Blight and the caterpillar as well. We’re just in the throes of trying to keep the caterpillar at bay. But in the process over the last few years we’ve actually changed some of the box to euonymus, so Euonymus japonicus ‘Microphyllus’ which has worked in many areas of the garden. So we’ve put it in the white garden and the maple garden, and the fuchsia garden. We’re experiencing a bit of damage over the winter. It doesn’t seem to be as hardy as we would hope so the jury’s still out on that one really. We’re also trying a Ligustrum so the small leaf privet and just to see what that does. (Mark) So I use that in my garden, in my old Kent garden and it worked brilliantly, was really really good so I would recommend that one. You might be a little bit colder up here. (Lottie) Yes certainly the Euonymus would tell you that, and we’ll have to see with the box. The box in many ways is really hardy, and actually if we can find a blight-resistant variety it seems like a lot of the local birds seem to be enjoying the box tree caterpillar, or certainly starting to. And if we could just get to that point where the balance and the ecosystems work then maybe box isn’t such a bad answer after all. So we’re monitoring that. (Mark) Very very good. (Mark) Here in early spring obviously daffodils are out, crocuses are coming out, so the members are obviously sending in questions about looking after bulbs. They ask how can I give my bulbs the biggest chance of blooming next year? And there’s also a particular question about a blind daffodil. What do we do about that? (Lottie) I’m not sure there is a huge amount you can do with blind daffodils. I’ve only had one experience of it where they were planted en masse and unfortunately they were cut down too early over a series of years, and as a result I don’t think you’ll ever get them back. Essentially it’s to do with the leaves not getting that energy and not taking it back down into the bulb, so you need to give them as long as you can. They say with daffodils not cutting them down for six weeks but you that’s the absolute minimum. I would give them as long as you can, ideally until the leaves have really gone dry. (Mark) See what happens. (Lottie) That’s it, that’s what they’re intended to do. And I think that gives every bit of energy back into the bulb, and then that’s more likely to then produce the flowers the following year. I’ve heard potential ideas of lifting the bulbs and spacing them out a bit, but you know essentially they naturalise. And so I’m not sure how much of that would work, and also often with daffodils you’re talking about large areas and I don’t know whether anyone would thank me for saying that they’ve got to lift every single bulb. (Mark) That would be job wouldn’t it? (Lottie) So I would say a lot of it is about the care once you’ve planted them, and making sure that they get every ounce of the energy that they can back into the bulb. (Mark) Yeah, absolutely. And I know sometimes it’s about to do with the depth as well isn’t it because a lot of the time people they forget about planting them three times, if not more, than the height of the bulb. (Lottie) That’s it definitely. And I think also this idea that the bulbs they do try and make their way further up don’t they? (Mark) They do. (Lottie) They’ll grow towards the sun so I suppose that’s another option is that actually if you have a small select number that you feel you can, is to lift them and put them deeper and see if that would give it a chance as well. But definitely the depth, you really want to make sure that they’ve got a good depth, and like you say, three times the bulb depth. (Mark) And when we were walking around the gardens earlier I noticed that you’ve got all these lovely little cloches and that’s where the dahlias are isn’t it? Because you leave yours in (Lottie) Yes. (Mark) which I thought ooh for where you are in the country that’s brave. (Lottie) Yes well brave or foolhardy, I’m not sure which. But we do a bit of both to be honest. In areas like the red borders we lift them. But that’s more to do with the way we manage that border. And then in the old garden we tend to leave them. It tends to give them a stronger earlier start and they’ve already established themselves and they can really get going, and we use the cloches, bamboo cloches with a kind of wood wool inside. And that just keeps the protection, keeps the frost off them. And has worked really well, and actually they’re really nice. They’re a bit of structure to the garden, particularly the old garden when it goes to almost nothing over the winter. So the shapes of those cloches are really lovely and that’s what we tend to do with those. (Mark) So a really popular question is to do with community gardens. So what plants would you recommend for a low maintenance community garden; for example a community war memorial and animal rescue centre to remember pets who have passed? And we’ve also had questions tying into that where they’ve particularly got clay soil. And ideally where watering isn’t that easy because obviously being in a community space there might not be the taps on hand. (Lottie) So yes all the fun of clay soils and you know. I’ve been very lucky in my career not to actually work that many clay soils. I’ve been either sandy or decent loams, So my experience is limited as far as that’s concerned but certainly the ideas that come to mind is things like the Tamarisk. It depends. I would go more trees and shrubs than anything else. So for trees, the small trees like Koelreuteria which is the golden rain tree which is a beautiful tree in itself and it doesn’t really need any further sort of thought does it? But Tamarisk and olearia, things like that, the olearia macrodonta. They work really nicely. They flower nicely but they’re also good foliage the rest of the time. (Mark) Yes. Anything for lower down? (Lottie) Things like bergenia would work, and really all of those things as long as they’re planted well they really don’t need that much. You know even the dead leaves at the end. You can spend time pulling them off but actually they work very well just by themselves. (Mark) And it’ll give you months of interest won’t it? (Lottie) That’s the thing. (Mark) Ideal. (Lottie) Yes just seeing those things through right from the start of the year and and through, and then really also I think something that has gone out of fashion, and we need to think more about, is the evergreens so things like the junipers and stuff like that. Actually they really hold themselves don’t they and they’ve got some structure to them that you can then plant around. (Mark) Yeah and of course all of that would be great for wildlife as well. (Lottie) Yes definitely. If you’ve got that seasonal interest it’s generally quite good for wildlife as well. (Mark) Perfect. (Mark) Now a question that always seems to come up is to do with wisteria. So the question is how and when should you prune wisteria to get the best bloom? And there are several people who have also said they’ve got an 8-year-old wisteria, it hasn’t flowered. Do you prune into the old wood? What advice can you give. (Lottie) I think people over complicate the the pruning of wisteria. I think the best thing to think about is there’s two times of year that you should be pruning it. The summer times, July August time, just taking those tendrils back and really only keeping what you actually want to train in later on. And then the January February time and taking it back So the tendrils, taking it back five or six leaves. That sort of idea, and then come the winter, when you’re pruning again, two or three buds, leaving two or three buds on each of the flower spikes. (Mark) Yeah. (Lottie) And that’s difficult because they can get so big can’t they? And so you look at it and think oh crikey I’ve got to do all of this. And we are lucky enough, we’ve got a cherry picker and that takes us up high and it’s usually on a cold winter’s morning. But at least we have that benefit. So I would say that. From when I studied, many years ago now, we were taught that actually at one time when they produced plants they actually wouldn’t flower for seven or eight years. Now they’re being grafted so that’s knocked that theory out of it. You do hear occasionally of people saying it’s still hasn’t flowered, and I I think you just have to accept it’s not going to. And whether you then take it out or you just plant one next to it and the two grow together so the foliage is there. You don’t really notice any difference, it’s nicely covered. It’s just that only one of them will be flowering when it eventually does get to flowering. (Mark) What about going into the old wood? (Lottie) We’ve done that on quite a few occasions. Our sheds that were horse stables at one time, and are now our tool sheds, we think that the whole wisteria is holding the whole shed up. It’s really mature. It must have been planted by Johnston so it’s over 100 years old. And we’ve had to cut into the wood to actually maintain the shed as well so the two in balance and that’s fine. I think the thing to do is not to feed it once it has been pruned hard because that will throw out a lot of young new shoots, and just to give it that time really and then just be prepared to train anything that comes out. But they cope all right with it, they’re fine. I’ve heard of all sorts of stories of battering the trunks to try and get them to flower so I think they’ll cope with a lot. But certainly. (Mark) They’re really hardy aren’t they? I mean I know people also where they’ve almost cut them right down to ground and they’ve come on. (Lottie) And they’ve come on yeah. (Mark) I always say to people also you know the the whole idea is to end with a nice skeletal framework isn’t it? (Lottie) Yes (Mark) So you can see air spaces throughout. (Lottie) That’s it yeah, and they do say actually just getting even with the tendrils in the summer time it just gives a bit more air flow. The more you take away at that stage just keeps that air flow going and a healthier plant as a result. (Mark) So another question that we’ve had in from the members is to do with wildlife friendly gardens. So they’re saying I want the garden to attract as much wildlife as possible. I’ve already put up some bird boxes in the trees. Can you advise on what plants, shrubs would work, or basically how get more wildlife into your garden. (Lottie) So it’s something that we’re looking at Hidcote. We’ve actually taken back a redundant area and we’re just trying to create as many habitats as possible. That’s the biggest thing is actually the diversity so that everything’s got somewhere, whether it’s a very dry gravel pile to a wet boggy area and everything in between; log piles and some water you know. And I think the thing we try and remember is that food source. So water and then somewhere to shelter and those sort of things are the ideal for a garden, but really the diversity is as broad as you can possibly be; you know different aspects of the sun and shade. And so we look for a whole range in the garden for the wildlife factor. So very open, single flowers right through the season as best we can. And then we’re lucky enough to have quite a few orchards here, so we’ve got the blossom. But that’s great in that it’s blossom in the spring time, but then it also creates fruit in the autumn time. And even that just dropping, that fruit dropping to the ground is brilliant sources of food for migrating birds and that’s the thing in the autumn. (Mark) I mean always say to people as well that if they got in their own garden space, just plant anything because as soon as you plant anything it’s more than likely going to be attracting some form of wildlife into your garden. (Lottie) Yeah yeah. There’ll always be something that wants to use it. (Mark) Yeah. (Mark) So of course we’re here at glorious Hidcote and members are actually saying, how is Hidcote adapting to our warmer summers and our wet winters in terms of planting and plant selection? (Lottie) It’s a really interesting one and something that we’re tackling throughout, and have always done really to some extent. Gardeners are pretty adaptable creatures in themselves I would say. And we wouldn’t plant a plant that we didn’t think would thrive in the space that we’re planting it. So I think to some extent we’re constantly doing that, and here at Hidcote we have the benefit that Johnston, Lawrence Johnston the creator of the garden very much created those spaces, so things like the Alpine Terrace that we walked past, things like that. They were created as very well-drained spaces with a sort of south aspect so very hot and dry. He actually also put covers over them so that they didn’t get the wet in the winter. So was creating those environments to grow different types of plants. And we continue to do that to some extent and really in the Alpine Terrace for instance we can’t grow things that actually can’t cope with the wet in the winter because we haven’t got those covers over them now. So we’re just a bit more careful about actually this looks similar to what we might have planted previously but actually will cope a bit better with the wet weather. (Mark) Yeah (Lottie) I think it’s interesting that we have started to really think about it as far as the staffing is concerned. In the summer time when it’s very hot we really have to think about what jobs absolutely need doing and getting those done at the early part of the day when the sun isn’t up quite so much, and getting those things done. And then thinking about shady jobs, jobs that you’re in the shade for, or even indoor jobs that we don’t then let the staff or volunteers expire as a result of the heat. (Mark) Yeah yeah and a very simple thing is do you obviously mulch a lot as well, your borders, which obviously keeps in the moisture as well. Keep the weeds down? (Lottie) Definitely, definitely. At this time of the year we’re trying to get on top of that so where we’ve cut things back, putting a mulch on that actually, as you say, holds that wet in and we’ve had a very wet winter this year. So it’ll be interesting to see what the summer brings and whether we can keep that moisture in the soil but yes definitely the mulch helps and we bring that on ourselves. It’s just a compost that we’ve created from everything that’s come out of the garden so it’s a full cycle if you like. (Mark) Exactly exactly, and that’s what it’s all about. (Lottie) Definitely. Thank you Mark for your contribution that’s really helped to answer some of the questions, and thank you all as members for sending those questions in. It’s only thanks to your support that we’re able to look after these special places like Hidcote, so thank you.