SPEAKER_01 0:00

BBC Gardeners World Autumn Fair returns to the stunning setting of Audley End House and Gardens near Saffron Walden in Essex from Friday the 11th to Sunday the 13th of September. Joining me to look ahead to what promises to be another fabulous autumn show is Francis Tophill. Francis, lovely to see you. Autumn, we're thinking of autumn already, and we've only sort of just put summer to bed, haven't we?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hasn't it gone fast? Yeah. I feel like this winter just went so slowly, and then it was February, and now it's the solstice, you know, and we and we're thinking about autumn, but it will come around quicker than we think.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

It will, and just going back, you mentioned, you know, uh things coming round quickly. 44 days of constant rain at the beginning of the year.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, I mean it was intense, and but but this is a flavour of what we have to deal with now as gardeners. You know, we there is no consistent weather. We have we have wetter periods, we have drier periods. So, you know, we haven't now had rain for quite a while. We're going into a heat wave. You know, we who knows what we'll be doing in September. But I think it's I think as gardeners, it's really, really good to get these shows through the season so we can we can see different years, there'll be different things in flower, and we are building resilience into our planting so that we can enjoy it really, basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

It's interesting you mentioned that because uh it will have a hot period and then there'll be a hose pipe ban and everybody will have forgotten the wet part of the year. But a lot of people have been talking to me about um growing plants that are drought resistant. Yeah. And the other side of the coin is of course we should be doing something about what's causing the drought rather than changing what we grow.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, putting a plaster on a rather big wound. But um I I agree with that. I think I think we should we can be doing many things. We can be planting plants that are drought resistant and flood resistant because where we both live, in the southwest of England, actually we get a lot of rain. Yeah. And um maybe long periods of rain. So we need both, and different regions will have their own climates. Um, but then we also get drought as well. So I think it's it's a bit of both, and in order to mitigate that, what we also need to be thinking about with our gardens is how to build resilience into the structures. Where you have a roof, you have a gutter, put that into a water bar, put that into a rain garden. Um, you know, it might be a greenhouse or a shed, uh, you can put green roofs on things, we can mound up so that we're creating drier areas and we can dig down and create water and wetland areas. We if we think about water particularly, when we're designing our gardens and we can build an inbuilt resilience in, then it's just choosing the right plants for the different areas to make sure that what we grow survives.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Absolutely. Now, Audley End House is a fabulous setting, isn't it? What can people expect when they walk through the gates?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well, I mean there's gardens there anyway, uh aside from all the beautiful show gardens that people are building. But um it's a beautiful, incredible mansion house with lovely gardens which are also open during the show, so people who come can have a wander around like a you know, like a National Trust style property. Um but then there's the show itself, which has got designers. Um the lovely thing about these shows is that you know, particularly these ones, showcase new talents. So we'll have people who probably have never designed gardens before, who might be creating beautiful borders and the smaller gardens, but then there are the big show gardens as well. Um there's loads of places to sit and have a picnic because it's a beautiful estate. Um, loads of places to buy food, loads of places to buy plants and other things for the garden as well. So that there really is something for everybody, but aside from that, at Audley End it's such a beautiful setting that it's just a lovely day out.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

And they've got the famous kitchen garden there as well, haven't they? Which is good, and a lot of plot-to-plate discussions going on. I think uh Adam Frost may well be there doing his plot to plate, but again on Adam's tasting table, it's very exciting. But there's workshops as well, isn't there? Which which I know people love to come and have a go, wreath making or bug hotels, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

I mean it's lovely. People with skill sharing. I think gone are the days where a flower show is just to be aspirational, and people come and they look and they think about, you know, maybe I could grow that thing, or maybe I couldn't. We want to engage people, we want to inspire people to really start something. And I think we live in this slightly virtual world increasingly, and there is a resistance to that. You know, I think um someone was saying to me the other day that we've we've peaked on social media, and now we're going back to doing things with our hands. And when you come to something like this and you learn a skill, bring your kids, they can learn a skill. You're passing that on to the future, and you're you're engaging in it yourself. You know, I think we often talk about what you can teach your kids, but what about what you can teach yourself? You know, we can all try something new and learn something new and start to have more hobbies that involve our hands and our brains and our creativity.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, we see an increasing number of young people coming to the the live events, and uh you mentioned uh getting them involved to make a meet a matter this year. Um de Graf Mensa from BBC Newsround has been involved with Lucy Chamberlain, and he's brought all of his newsround following to gardening, which is great, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

It's brilliant. I mean kids, especially young kids, from my experience, and I worked a lot with school gardens, they love it, but they they love it for not necessarily the same reasons grown-ups do. So they love worms and bugs and mud. If they have chickens, they get very excited about that. Some kids love plants, and I met a girl earlier on when I was doing a book signing here, and I said to her, What do you like about gardening? She said, I like the plants. And she was probably seven. That's unusual. Excellent. Great. But you know, kids love being outside, they love playing a space where they can just be. And and I have I've witnessed the kind of effect that gardening can have on young people, especially in schools, and it's all across the spectrum. The the kids, probably like me, who struggle being stuck in a classroom in four walls with a sort of a syllabus you have to tick certain boxes on. Not all children are able or function well in that sort of a setting, and the pressure can be quite high and behaviour can be quite challenging. Those children can go outside, let off some steam, and find a confidence in explaining a task, in leading groups. I've seen kids who literally were were teachers were tearing their hair out what to do with these kids, and now they're out in the garden leading the gardening sessions, showing the younger children how to sow seeds, and they're finding that confidence because it's crushing when you're young to feel that you're not you're not managing. But then there are the kids who manage really well, who are really academic, who are who are being pressured to do these A levels or go to this university. What if they go out and they find a little bit of respite from that in the natural world? Or if they come out and they find that they can do something that might make a difference, those are the children that might go on to be the next David Attenborough, you know, who might go on to solve the climate crisis. There's these are really important things that we need to be thinking about for young people's future and for the future of the planet, really.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Absolutely, the future of horticulture, and people may be inspired by you and want and want to follow in your footsteps. You shouldn't do that. That would be a terrible idea. Um the uh autumn is that that period which um sort of sits for some gardeners as a bit confusing, doesn't it? Because summer's gone and they think that winter's coming round the corner, so it's shut everything down and go indoors. But there's plenty to do in autumn, and people coming to the autumn uh autumn uh fair will be looking to buy plants to take home to and and things to use uh ready for uh the winter and then coming into the spring. What sort of things are the top jobs for them in the autumn in the garden?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Well, filling any gaps in the garden. Um I love autumn plants actually, they're my favourites. Late summer, autumn plants, things like Rebecca's, dahlia's, um, helleniums, you have all the grasses, all the ornamental grasses that are now seeding and looking stunning. And as the light level changes, the sun gets slower, all of those plants just glow. And I think if if you're coming to Audley End thinking about your own garden, then you could do a lot worse than buying a few uh species that are in their prime in September at that later part of the summer, the beginning of autumn, because they're gonna give you the seed heads, um, the late flowers that are gonna give the garden structure going into the winter. So I think that's one job is buying plants. It's tough, isn't it? But someone's got to do it. Um other jobs that are really important in the autumn would be things like pruning. Um, before the frost comes, it's a perfect time to get some things like um your evergreen hedges uh pruned before it gets too cold, and you can do some restructural pruning if you want to. Um, it's a really good time for that. And then I think you know, tidying, which is a challenging thing to navigate nowadays because we're all thinking about invertebrates and insects and how to garden for the other creatures that live in our gardens. But there is undeniably a lot of people who like a tidy garden. And also at the end of summer we have wind and uh you know rain that can cause our plants to collapse. So I think at this point in the year is the time when you want to be doing some tidying. So that's anything that's gone mushy, anything that's fully dyed back and gone down to the ground, anything that's collapsed or fallen or is crushing other things can be cut back now. Um leave structural plants. We know that hollow stems are fantastic for insects to overwinter in. We know that grasses and those sorts of things make a really good layer for things like butterfly larvae who live in the soil. Um so leave anything that's still got its structure, but other things can be cut back. And if you really, really want to cut everything back because you like it tidy, that is fine. But something that you can do is you can do the chop and drop method, which where you chop things off, chop it up a little bit, and then you use that as a mulch on the ground. You're still having all of the hollow stems and planting material that's there for birds to take for nests, building in the spring, for creatures to overwinter in, but it's kind of using as a mulch on the ground that will then compost in rather than being upright and falling over as the winter progresses.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I love that chop and drop top tip. Top tip. Uh Audley End House is the venue for BBC Gardeners World Autumn Fair. The dates for your diary, Friday the 11th to Sunday, the 13th of September. Lots of information on the website, BBC Gardenersworld Live.com, and search for Autumn. You can find out who's going to be there, including the brilliant Francis Tophill, and of course, how you can buy tickets. Um, so 10 years ago, I think it was, you started on the program doing some what they they technically refer to as inserts, don't they? Now you're a mainstream presenter. That's been a decade of change for you, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

It's gone so quickly. I didn't realise how young I was until I'm now no longer quite so young. Um, yeah, no, it's it's been really big. I mean, when I was an apprentice gardener when I was 19, my homework was to watch Gardener's World. So, sort of eight years later, to actually have been on Gardeners World was enormous. I remember it was exhausting. I'd only I'd done an ITV programme with Adam Titchmarsh and a group of us, and I did the watch kind of 20 minutes of of chatting to a camera whilst I was planting something. But I remember going and doing a whole day of talking to the camera, how exhausted my brain. My brain's not built for that kind of thing. You know, and and now to be occasionally hosting the programme when Monty and Adam are away, is it's huge, you know. I feel a huge responsibility of it, and it's um it's lovely coming to events like the shows where you get to meet the people who are watching the program and realise, you know, I just I just spoke to a lady who told me that she's just finished, hopefully is in recovery from cancer, and that it was watching Gardener's world that got her through. You know, those kinds of conversations make I mean they're just amazing, they're humbling. I can't, you know, the fact that you're making any difference at all is is amazing for anybody. But you know, I think it's it's an amazing thing to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yeah, absolutely. Uh do you watch the programmes yourself? Do you watch yourself back? I know some presenters don't.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

I used to, um I used to because I wanted to learn how to do it better. Luckily, I got to watch Alan. You know, I got to sit on my lunch bait and watch Alan presenting and kind of take notes. Um but I used to watch it to see how basically you couldn't understand the word I was saying because I was so nervous, I would just gabble through everything. Um, but also I really wanted to understand how they put a program together because it takes a whole day to film an insert film, which is about six or seven minutes long, and I wanted to understand which shots they would use, like why when they go over there and they do that, what are they doing? Um, and and how the kind of language of making a television programme, which is completely different from anything I'd ever done before. Now that I kind of understand that, the cringe factor of watching myself has overtaken and say, no, I do not watch. I've never watched a programme that I've hosted because I find it so nerve-wracking. Uh I just go out usually, it's on a Friday night, I can go to the pub, pretend it's not happening. But it's yeah, it's very nerve-wracking.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

All you need is it to be on the on the television in the pub, and then people start pointing at you, don't that's the last thing you want when you're having a glass of wine. Um, what are you going to be doing at Audley End? I know you'll be on the stage, main stage talking, but what else are you getting involved in?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Um it's it's most mostly talk, so I'll be doing um possibly things like this, interviews, but um yeah, speaking on the stage, talking to people, answering questions about gardening, book signings, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Excellent. I noticed uh recently in the Gardener's World magazine you did a series on um producing dyes for textiles, which I found fascinating, being slightly an old hippie ish myself and going back to the school days of tie dyeing but with bleach and all the things you shouldn't use nowadays. Is that something that you'll introduce into your your talks? Because I was reading this, someone's looking over my shoulder and and reading the magazine over my shoulder because they found it interesting as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Really? Yeah. That's really lovely to hear. That's that's my interest in in gardening. I mean I have many, conservation being one. But when it comes to growing plants, my interest is in how they're used. Because I think often we talk about plants as if they are just pretty ornaments in our gardens. Actually, do you know what the cultural, the economic significance? I'm sitting here beside you with this lavender, you know. This plant is responsible for essential oils, for flavouring in food, it's been used medicinally for thousands of years, you know, and we underestimated, we're going, oh that's pretty, that'll look nice in the garden. I love the I love the stories of plants, and so writing those um articles, we did um dye plants, how to grow them first, then how to how to actually process the dyes. Um, you know, and these are being used all over the world. We buy clothes from the other side of the world, which are sometimes not often enough, but sometimes dyed using botanical um methods. Uh we've also done medicinal plants, we've done willow weaving, so like it it's basically talking about how plants are not just plants, they are functional items, um, and they are responsible for a whole range of history, um, human history. So I love it, yes, and hopefully we will be talking about those things.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

That's good because uh I'm gonna set you a challenge to actually wear something at Audley End that you've dyed yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Oh my, that's a big challenge. That's a big challenge. Do you know what? My mum is really into dyeing, and she has given me all of her swatches, and I my plan, and I've had them for a couple of years, my plan is to make a quilt using all of my mum's swatches, put them together and make a pillow. I actually started it once, but I was in a hurry because that's my life, and I did a rubbish job, and so my poor mum had to unpick all of my quilt because none of it lined up. So I'm gonna go back this winter. I'm gonna do it again, but maybe I should try and hurry up. I'll wear like a quilted jacket or something that is made from my mum's dyed swatches.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

You are going to start a trend. I can I I've had a crystal ball, I can see it now.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It's gonna look very Tracy M in. It's not gonna be neat.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

It'll be the look of the autumn show. Fantastic. Francis, as always, an absolute pleasure to catch up with you. Uh, enjoy Audley and I know you will.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Thank you.