SPEAKER_00 0:00

BBC Gardeners World Live at the NEC. It is another incredibly busy show, boosted by the fantastic weather in Birmingham, and the sun is shining, as they say, on the righteous. And those blessed enough to be able to come and see some amazing gardens, borders, and exhibits. Joining me to uh talk about this award-winning, amazing showcase garden. The Garden of Evolution is one of the two designers, Professor David Stevens. David, really good to see you. You've joined me in the studio for a sit-down because you are constantly busy, are you not? Talking to the thousands of people coming through the show about this amazing, award-winning garden. Tell me about the garden of evolution.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, first of all, you're perfectly right about the weather. It's absolutely glorious at the moment. Um yes, the garden of evolution is, I think, the first time a garden like this has ever been in any flower show. Um it was the idea of uh Professor Alice Roberts of uh Dig for Britain fame and the BBC, and they approached Garden as well. She said she wanted to do a garden, and then they thought, well, who could desire to build it? So I picked the short straw on that one. Um but it's been a really interesting project to do. I mean, as you know, these gardens, we only have about two and a half weeks to build them. Uh it's a big plot, one of the biggest plots ever at the show, and with things like one of the largest trees that ever came into the show, which is over 40 feet high, uh ginkgo, ginkgo biloba, which is a fossil tree. And that's what the garden's all about. It's a journey through time. So we start 450 million years ago, and you come through almost like a mine shaft, a dark tunnel, uh, where the sea developed. All life came from the oceans, basically. And you walk into the Cambrian 450 million years ago, when there was just rock and water, that's all there was. That's when life slowly started to evolve from amoebas into the mosses, into all the tiny lichens that colonised stone. And the stone we got, the stone we got from Bodmin Moor, for an old disused quarry which hadn't been worked for 150 years. Uh, and all the stone then it will become a West Midland stone because it's going back to the University of Birmingham at Winterbourne Gardens. Ah, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

So it's got a new home actually.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

We're keeping a local stone. Well, we're making a local stone from Cornwall, probably a good thing to do. And it's a hefty piece of rock, isn't it? Well, some of the stones are three tons. So and we had four tipper trucks come up from Cornwall with 20 tons in them each, and we've used every single piece, even down to the dust and because we've taken it on the top of the rocks. So everything has been used. Um, the planting traces the evolution of life, so we start off with the mosses, with the ferns. Ferns are everywhere. Um, you move to the Silurian. We've got some wonderful dinosaur models, which the children like, and I love the grown-ups like as well. Again, made by the paleontology department at the Lapworth Museum down at the uh University of Birmingham, uh, and they're set in the undergrowth. One of the biggest millipedes that ever walked the earth on its million legs or whatever they were. Uh, we've got other dinosaurs, so it's a very educational garden as well as just a spectacle. And it really it's a landscape more than the garden. It's it's primeval, so we've got mosses, we've got tree ferns, uh, we've got wallamai pines that were rediscovered not long ago in in Australia. Uh and then we move slowly through the garden and we get the early hominids. So there's a lady called Lucy, uh, and about she would have been about 1.5 million years ago. And she wasn't our species, she wasn't a homo sapiens, and she wasn't an ape either. That in-between period. She was only short, maybe three feet high. The important thing was she was standing. So slowly the primates started to stand. And then we move on, uh, and then we come down, there's a little lake, and we've got the Nerotoki boy, who was a skeleton, a fossilized skeleton. Uh, and the difference is unusual. Uh they still had small brains, small skulls, uh, but compared to Lucy, who's short and stocky, but looks slightly like the chimpanzees or some of the apes of that period, um, the Nerotoki boy has got long legs uh and a tall, and he's about nine, and he was probably then about nearly six foot tall. And they ran. They ran because of the predators. So exactly. So this is the evolution of plants and life.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

So is is this where we start to see uh human beings impacting uh horticulture and starting to grow things for themselves? And that's represented in what you think.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yes, you go back up. The earliest crops were probably about, well, very recently in ecological terms, about 15,000 years ago. Uh and we've got um two crops, we've got millet and we've got wheat, uh, grown by John Wheatcroft, uh John Wheatley, who's down in Somerset. Uh, and the millet is of course what Bajugazi. And it's a beautiful plant, it's actually a former Penicetum. So it's actually a very ornamental grass, it's a purple leaf grass, absolutely lovely. And then we're not just looking at the past, we're looking in the future, because we've got again a Midlands project, the Bifour project, which is part of Birmingham University, just outside Stafford, uh, near Norbury Junction on the canal. Uh, and what they're doing there, oak forest, and they've got these long columns, and they're pumping CO2 over the oak canopy and digitally recording exactly how that affects the tree, the foliage, the root growth, the macrohyzum that radiates out from, and how that is actually, and it's over a 10-year period. They've just done 10 years, they're going to do five more years, and there's a distinct difference. The leaves are growing bigger, the leaves are growing fatter, the bark is changing on the trees. So we're not just looking at the past, we're looking at what the CO2 levels will be like, probably a 50 or 60 years' time. So we're looking into the future as well, and it's it's important, it's our planet. And we are not doing some of the things we're doing are not good for our planet. So we need to look at what we're doing, we need to look forward into the next 50 or 60 years at least.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

I talking to uh a number of the visitors uh at the show, one of the things or two of the things that seem to crop up, which which reflects what you're saying, is that I think gardens are becoming a bit more adventurous. They're certainly becoming more aware of ecosystems and nitrogen in the soil, soil carbon capture within in soil. And the fact that we can't control nature, we have to work with it. Exactly. We do indeed. And this over these many millions of years that you've done, you're you're showing that in graphic detail.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, we are, exactly. I think the interesting thing is you come in, it's almost like uh Doctor Who. You come from the real world, suddenly you go through the tunnel and you're 450 million years ago. So in quarter of an hour, you've transversed all the way through those forests, those ecosystems, the birth of man, those creatures, uh looking forward with the BIFOR project, which is absolutely fascinating. It's been such a thrill to actually build it. You've got Dan Ryan, who's the contractor, and you can't do it by yourself, it's a team, a big team that had to put it together, and we work together really, it's a big family. Gardens and landscaping are a big family. That's what's so good about the trade marine.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So when you sat down with Alice, Professor Alice Roberts, to uh to to sort of try and visualize to create uh her vision, if you if you like, how uh long and difficult or were they easy conversations to have?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Um first of all, Alice said we want 13 different zones, and these were the took you through the time scale. Uh and she said, I want a garden that people can walk through. She said, I think it should be some sort of shape like you know, a wiggles. So I went away and thought about this. And in reality, it wasn't that difficult. The design came together quite quickly because it is a winding path. It does what all good gardens should do. It gives you that feeling of mischief and surprise as you can't quite see around a corner. Uh, and it's also slightly undulated because it was a flat site. But by the time we dug the ponds and made the rocks faces, we had contours and graded, and that gives it a feeling of movement and space as well. So it'd been a tough project to build, but in design terms, really quite straightforward. But the interesting thing was going to the div, we've got the biggest tree ferns in the country, uh, the biggest importers, we've got the biggest wallamai pine, so it's and we've got the biggest ginkgo from Helios as well. Helios have done most of the trees and the plants, and then aspechless grows with the cycads and the tree ferns and all these other wonderful things, and they've come in as well. So fantastic project.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And the educational value is enormous, isn't it? Because I've seen lots of young people queuing up to get in, possibly because their parents have said you need to come and see this, and quite likely too. But it's done in a way that that makes it real, isn't it? Because when you go back in time, history to young people sometimes doesn't mean it's what you've done is you've made it real for them.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

And it's interesting that you know you think that they want to go see the dinosaurs. Well, they do, because we've got the dinosaurs on there, but we see them also reading the signboards, which is great, and they're starting to understand. You know, as a little there Paulin saw yesterday, uh, his friends said, Come on, come on, he said, I'm reading what they're saying about this time, and that's the important thing. It's a real learning curve, really educational.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, absolutely. You've been involved for many years, uh David, with the show, and uh, we've spoken many times about some of the displays that you've done which have have moved me emotionally. Uh and you know, and it's a great skill and talent that you have. Is this one of those projects that will have a legacy far beyond the show?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Well, I mean, I I I shall forget it. For sure. Um, but yes, because we are upcycling as many materials as we can. Uh a lot of those will be going down to Winterball Gardens or to the university. Uh, all the models are going to be put back into the Lackboth Museum. So a large percentage of it will be available for the public to come and see again in one shape or another. Most of the big trees will be going back to Hilliard's nurseries, um, and the cycads, some of the cycads are actually going to the Birmingham Botanic Garden, which is undergoing a big uh big scheme now to with the growth the glass houses, but um no, a lot of it will be back in Birmingham or coming to Birmingham.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And and your efforts along with those of uh of Alice have been recognised because you've got the top award, you've got the the huge recognition uh that it deserves. Uh after the the years, you won't mind me saying number of years you've been involved, David. Uh is this is this a crowning glory for you?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

They've all been different. Um, and I think the one you mentioned or you you you thought of earlier, one of my favourite ones was done for the BBC's 50th anniversary, or Beavishi Garden as well, where we took a garden, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. And again, I think they asked me because I'm only bloked that can remember the 60s gardens, but there you go. But they've all been different, they've all been a challenge, uh, and they've all they all stand in your memory. Do you know what I mean? And uh always say to people, the show is not for the designer or for the organizers, the show is there for the public. The public are the arbiters at the end of the day of what is good and what they like. And I think if we can do that and if the public can enjoy something, then we feel that we've achieved something.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Absolutely. Um, so that begs the question. We've got another couple of days to go before you finish talking about this uh fantastic garden of evolution. What's next for you, David?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Well, I've I'm actually chatting with clients today. We're about to build a lovely garden in Knoll, just south of Solley Hull. So uh I come from a different part of the world, but I've become a West Midlander. We love it up here. It really is a lovely. We've got Canak Chase to one side of us, we've got the Dales not far away. You couldn't have a better place to live. And Lichfield is a stunning city, you know, and it's pedestrianised, it's all the things that I learnt at college about people and cars and keeping cars out and having preserving the architecture, uh, Beacon Park, and I've become a proper, proper West Midlander. I really have.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Honorary West Midlander, marvellous. The other thing I that I find interesting about the show and its location in sort of the centre of the country is that people come from all over the UK and from abroad, but from all over the UK. So you have issues with soil up in the northeast that are different to issues with soil in the southwest. You do. Um and and and that makes for a real interesting set of conversations, and gardeners love to chat.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Absolutely, or over the literally over the garden fence, isn't it? Um but I think people are becoming more aware of um the environment and the free draining surfaces, poorer surfaces, runoff, uh, all of those creating uh corridors for wildlife, even through an estate. Have a hole at the bottom of your fence so the hedgehogs can get through. You know, think about planting a tree similar to your neighbours, and that will start to have a corridor for birds and for wildlife. You know, we need to think about those things. And our climate is becoming not necessarily drier, but more erratic. You know, this winter we had terr torrential rain through the winter. And the summer looks like being a hot one again. So uh the the consistency in our climate that's changing and it's becoming more and more variable, I think, as we go along.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Interesting you mentioned that because there is a lot of talk about uh developing uh plant species that are drought resistant uh because of the suggestion that that our summers are going to get longer. Is that the the right thing for us to do, or have we have we got to, as gardeners, got to look at a bigger picture?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Well, it's the two of those things, isn't it? I mean, we have our own gardens, which is our own private space, but our own gardens are only part of the larger environment. So I think we need to think about both those things. We we're creating our own our own garden, but we need to think about linking what we have in our own garden with the broader landscape or townscape or cityscape or whatever it may be. Um we don't know what's going to happen climatically. I mean, we've been through huge changes over the year. I mean, the Thames froze over back in the 17th century. Um the glaciation period was only just over 10,000 years ago, which is a fraction of time. So, okay, we are damaging the land or the or the atmosphere to some extent, but it's also cyclical. So we don't know what's going to come.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

We can just do our best. A crystal ball is what's needed, isn't it? If we have one of those that we we'd be quids in, David, wouldn't we? Um, huge congratulations again to you uh and Alice. Uh, an amazing achievement uh and rightly recognised by the the judges and loved, I know, by thousands of people coming through.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Fantastic effort. A big shout out to them indeed.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Absolutely, there's a lot of stone and trees to move, wasn't there? Which is really good. David, always an absolute pleasure to catch up with you. Enjoy the rest of the show. We'll see you next year.