2020 Season 42

Season 42 · 2020 · 26 episodes

Gardening show that celebrates Scottish horticulture and growing conditions.

1Episode 1Beechgrove springs back onto our screens in home-grown style. For the first time ever, Beechgrove sees all the presenters giving weekly updates from their own patches of Scotland. Carole, George, Brian and Kirsty reflect on where we all are, at home and in the garden. In this episode, Carole in Aberdeenshire uses a bag for life to plant tatties, we have a sneak preview of the beautiful bulbs, George is entering for a virtual flower show and in her Edinburgh flat, Kirsty shows that you don’t need a garden to grow things. Meanwhile, in Scone, the question for Brian is to mow or not to mow.
2Episode 2In this episode, Kirsty brings us unique access to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, while George allows us unique access to his precious tool shed. Meanwhile, Carole and Brian answer viewers' gardening questions.
3Episode 3In this episode, the team make creative gardening use of the contents of our bins and answer viewer video gardening questions in a virtual Q&A.
4Episode 4Beechgrove continues with updates from the team’s own Scottish gardens. In this episode, in Joppa, George creates a plant support for his sweet peas out of prunings, while Brian revels in the torrent of tulips at Scone.
5Episode 5Beechgrove continues with personal garden diaries from the team’s own patches of Scotland. In this episode, Kirsty sows a rainbow veg plot in thanks to the NHS. Meanwhile, in Joppa, George is taking his recycling ideas ever higher by creating a cascade of colour with milk cartons.
6Episode 6Gardening magazine. In this episode, George is hankering after hostas, Kirsty harks back to the 70s to create an easy terrarium, and Chris is dealing with a bad bout of box blight.
7Episode 7Join the Beechgrove team as they make the most of their gardens so that you can make the best of yours. In this episode, George and Brian are both on the alpine slopes, George has a novel way of using old pots to create an easy rockery, while Brian builds a mini mountain feature with just stone and sand. Meanwhile, Kirsty discovers how many shades of blue there are in the most exquisite of flowers - the blue poppy.
8Episode 8Join the Beechgrove team as they make the most of their gardens so that you can make the best of yours. In this episode, Carole and Brian deal with more of the viewers' home-grown questions. Carole identifies and deals with the garden Pest of the Week, while Brian is back at his compost heap. Meanwhile, George is on the rampage with his loppers again, and this time it’s the Mahonia that’s quaking.
9Episode 9Now that all risk of frost is past, it is bedding plant season for the Beechgrove team. Brian has sown and grown his own, while George has taken a pot-luck kerb-side delivery and gives a recipe for a rainbow of bedding colour in containers.
10Episode 10Beechgrove is all about pests and pretty things this week. In this episode, George shows how to detect and deal with garden pests, and Kirsty creates an indoor succulent tower.
11Episode 11Make the most of the growing season with the Beechgrove team. George shows how easy it is to fix a fallen fig, while Kirsty explores the unique Rain Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, agony plant aunt Carole answers more homegrown questions from viewers.
12Episode 12No matter what space you have, there is always room to grow with the Beechgrove team. In this episode, George keeps an eye on his cuttings, while Kirsty deals with some prickly customers as she shows how to carefully propagate cacti. Meanwhile, there is good news and bad on Sophie’s Aberdeen allotment.
13Episode 13It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to strawberries and cream, and there is nothing better than having grown them yourself. In a fruity Beechgrove, Carole tastes the ultimate in no-fuss, easy-to-grow strawberries, while Chris shows how to summer prune figs and grapes.
14Episode 14‘Be prepared’ might be a Beechgrove motto as Carole shows the difference between a bed of hardy annuals sown in a prepared bed alongside an unprepared bed. George is always prepared as he takes us on a tour of his Joppa allotment. Meanwhile, in Scone, Brian is hoping to be prepared for garden activities in the school holidays.
15Episode 15Carole and Kirsty go exotic with bamboos and aeoniums. In contrast, Sophie gives an update from her Aberdeen allotment, while George discusses the art of getting watering right
16Episode 16This week, Carole and George are enjoying a mid-season harvest. Carole reveals the tatties that she planted in containers in the first episode, and George harvests cabbage and blackcurrants at his allotment in sunny Joppa. Meanwhile, Chris checks on the progress of his box blight battle and explains the art of cloud pruning.
17Episode 17In this episode, George provides a greenhouse update and shows the benefits of late-sown cucumbers, while Carole deals with that most persistent of garden pests - the vine weevil. Meanwhile, Brian is cooking up compost at his family garden in Scone.
18Episode 18It’s hot stuff for Carole in her countryside garden with her chilies and peppers, but she is as cool as a cucumber in her polytunnel. Meanwhile, Kirsty tries out an easy-to-use propagator at home to make new on-trend houseplants for free. After a break to visit family, Sophie is back in her Aberdeen allotment, where she finds that the allotment community have kindly looked after her patch while she was away.
19Episode 19George and Kirsty both show how to grow plants for free from seeds and cuttings while Chris shows how to summer prune a mature tree. There is also a film from Calum Cluny, the youngest allotment holder in Leven, whose allotment is bursting at the seams with colour and produce.
20Episode 20Brian and family are counting butterflies to help understand what more we can do to attract these colourful creatures to our gardens. Kirsty features the aeonium, an exotic evergreen that, despite its alien good looks, is surprisingly easy to keep in your home. Meanwhile, George and wife Gill are back in their allotment and making the most of August’s produce.
21Episode 21George has taken cuttings from everything from clematis to pineberries and now that they have rooted, he demonstrates what to do next. Kirsty has filled her flat with houseplants so she is looking for clever ways to display them and has a go at using a head planter to unusual and amusing effect. Sophie is back in her allotment with ideas of how to make the most of the harvest.
22Episode 22In this episode, the Beechgrove team are looking to the future. George plants up a large container with what he calls a 'bulb lasagne', layering different kinds of bulbs for layers of long-lived colour in the spring. Meanwhile, Carole shows different methods of propagating new plants for next year, while Chris plans and plants a new border for year-round colour. And Kirsty is looking at why green roofs could be a thing for the future.
23Episode 23There is an autumnal feel to Beechgrove this week. George is in his allotment harvesting apples and pears, while Carole creates a bog garden from scratch. Brian puts his 'no-mow' garden to bed for the winter and adds some sparkles of spring interest. Meanwhile, Kirsty is in her flat looking at reviving interest in a plant that has gone out of fashion, the african violet.
24Episode 24Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue pretty well describes Beechgrove this week. Kirsty takes a look at one of the oldest and rarest plants known to man, the Wollemi Pine, sometimes called the fossil tree. George shows how to naturalise new bulbs in grass while Carole, after borrowing techniques from her Dad, reviews her tomatoes and sees if her Dad has it right.
25Episode 25Gardening magazine. George is on his allotment celebrating the humble apple and we are treated to a tour of spectacular autumn colour in Branklyn Gardens, Perth, by head gardener Alistair Chalmers. Meanhwhile, Carole revisits a native hedgerow that she helped plant 17 years ago to see it in all its berry bird-feeding glory. In contrast, Kirsty creates an easy-to-replicate trendy 'desertscape' with cacti in her Edinburgh flat.
26Episode 26In the last episode of the series, Chris and Frances have taken on a new allotment and they are starting from scratch to create an easy, low maintenance fruit and veg patch. Meanwhile, Kirsty is looking at how to extend the season by using late-flowering perennials that complement autumn colours, while Brian is taking advantage of the season to plant cost-effective bare-root trees.

Episodes