Gardeners' World

Gardeners' World returns for the start of the gardening year with Monty Don in the garden at his Herefordshire home, Longmeadow.

Monty and the team look at the practical ways to achieve a better looking garden at this busy time of year.

As the clocks move forward, the longer days of spring are welcomed by every gardener.

Monty shows us how we can take advantage of the new growth of all sorts of perennials

It's Easter and the biggest gardening weekend of the year so even if you haven't yet dusted off your lawnmower there's plenty of advice and inspiration from large projects to tackling weeds.

Monty begins by explaining that he is now able to add Summer color to his beds in the Walled Garden by planting out perennials grown from seed

At Longmeadow, Monty is in the Spring Garden which is full of weeds, so rather than take the weeds out, he plants woodland perennials amongst them.

Rachel de Thame joins Monty at Longmeadow to give a helping hand, and with plenty of advice and tips on how and what to plant in a pond.

This week Gardeners' World comes from the Malvern Spring show where Monty Don, Carol Klein and James Alexander Sinclair will bring us the very best that the show has to offer.

Monty Don starts the program by turning his attention to the pond where he shares ideas on different types of water lilies and shows us how to plant Nymphaea

Monty plants up propagated plants in large terracotta pots in the Jewel Garden with Cannas, dahlias, chocolate cosmos and petunias.

Monty opens the program with the menu sequence and highlights the beauty of Meconopsis × sheldonii, Himalayan blue poppy in the damp garden.

At Longmeadow, Monty Don reveals how the garden has changed over the last four weeks. There has been a lot of rain but the garden hasn't suffered that much. He takes a look at the dahlias.

In the Jewel Garden Monty feeds his containers and explains that if you want to encourage flowering you need a feed with a fertilizer that's high in potassium or potash.

Longmeadow is in full bloom, but Monty Don is keen to remind us that there is still time to sow some late vegetables, even if you are really short of space.

Our gardens offer so much at this time of year - after all our work earlier in the year it is now rewarding us with beds full of blooms, vegetables and berries.

Monty points out the colors between Dahlia 'Arabian Night' and the Cosmos sulphureus, Bright Lights and refers to his favorite plant at the moment, Angelica gigas, Purple angelica.

Previously Monty had said that the risk of blight was very minor in a greenhouse. But low and behold, blight has swept through his greenhouse. He first shows his potato blight, the fungus which can turn potatoes to mush and completely defoliate them.

For many gardeners, the beginning of September is the start of a new gardening season and, with this in mind, Monty recommends vegetables to sow now for winter cropping.

Monty is in the Dry Garden and is cutting away anything that doesn't look good now because as a rule - if it doesn't look good now, it's not going to get any better over the coming months.

In this special programme from the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens, Monty Don visits the RHS garden at Wisley in Surrey and Carol Klein visits Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire to get practical gardening advice from their experts.

Last Saturday we had the equinox where just for one day you get exactly the same amount of night and day: twelve hours of dark, twelve hours of light.

Monty plants Mediterranean herb cuttings that he took in the summer in the greenhouse to overwinter, the extra warmth will give him a small supply over winter and it'll keep them out of the wet.

Monty is in the writing garden, which will become the white garden. So far it's mostly been grass but now he wants to plant it up.

Monty tells us it's an ideal time to plant bi-annuals for next year and, from his nursery beds, digs up Erysimum cheiri 'Blood Red', Wallflower plants which he's grown from seed.