“The first thing I'll go for is an apple tree, and I would probably choose the variety ‘Discovery’, mainly because it's absolutely delicious. It's such a sweet, beautiful apple, it almost has hints of pear in there as well, and has a little bit of pink flesh. I love showing that to the kids because it looks a bit odd, but it is beautiful.
“You get apple blossom, it's a flowering tree, and you get autumn colour. In terms of horticulture, there's nothing more controlling than what you need to do to an apple tree to get it to flower and to produce good fruit for you. So it's good seasonal interest, it’s lovely to look at, it’s good to care for and cultivate, and it gives you something to eat.
“It also symbolises from a horticultural point of view, hundreds of years worth of craft, there's a lot of knowledge that goes into that, craft handed down through generations to be able to get it to grow properly. We may manipulate it to get it to do what we want, but it's the perfect symbol of horticulture I think.
“I'm a big lover of bamboo. I have 3 nice big bamboos in my back garden and this goes back to my time at the zoo where I was the chap that helped bring in the pandas, sourced all their food for them and designed their enclosure. I think one of the main reasons for including that is not just because of that, it’s because it's such a versatile plant. It's brilliant for your garden, you’ve always got a source of canes, you’ve got a source of staking material all the time, you can cut as much as you want off from it and it just keeps growing back.
“You’ve got to be careful how the roots spread clearly so choose your species wisely so that you don't have a spreading root system, more of a clumping one. My cats love it, they love nestling in it and sleeping in it. And the good thing about bamboos is they feed themselves so the leaves that get blown off in the wind, that's all they need. You never need to feed them.
“They tend to be quite drought tolerant, as well as good in waterlogged conditions. They nod in the wind and birds like using them for nesting material and all sorts of bits and bobs. I'm a big fan of bamboo.
“I suppose the third one would be potatoes. They're a lovely plant to look at and it's so simple to produce a crop of potatoes. If you get a few things right more often than not, you'll get a good crop, and you'll get cropping all through the season. So you’ll have your 1st earlies, your 2nd earlies, and then your main crop kicks in. You can have potatoes from May all the way through to December and January if you can if you can store them properly.
“King Edwards are quite a favourite of mine as a main crop. It's quite a traditional one, but the reason I like it is because my youngest daughter loves roast tatties and it's a really fluffy potato.”
Catch up with the rest of Simon's chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
“I would say I'm a bit of a sucker for Meconopsis which do particularly well in Scotland, that's the blue Himalayan poppy. They give you seed every year that you can then sow and have even more Meconopsis in your garden. I think meconopsis are so unique because they have that blue colour that you don't really see in nature when it flowers from the middle of May or start of June. Everyone thinks Meconopsis are blue, but there are actually yellow forms, and white, and lilac. Some are monocarpic, which means they will flower and then they'll die after flowering, many others are perennial.
“Some are tricky, but the best one growing at the Botanics is one called Meconopsis ‘Slieve Donard’, which you can split and divide and it'll bulk up. They particularly like being in wooded areas, kept quite moist. They're very hungry, so I feed mine with a lot of chicken pellets and leaf mould every year. Not the easiest of things to start with to grow, but one I couldn't live without them.
“My second plant would be Cardiocrinum giganteum, the giant Himalayan lily, which can get up to 1.5 metres (4ft 9in) tall - it's the tallest lily in the world. If you're growing it from seed, it can take up to 7 years to flower.
“It produces sometimes up to 20 to 30 white, trumpet flowers that are sweetly scented like a lily. They have a lovely, maroon sort of throat in the centre of the flowers. I've been lucky enough to have seen that on an expedition in Yunnan, China growing in the wild in its native habitat.
“Even in autumn, it has these lovely big seed pods that form and they sort of like flutter down into the area around it in autumn. And it's just the most amazing plant to grow. Once you get one, they do produce these little bulblets, and you can tear them off because they are monocarpic, so do die after flowering but if you move these little plantlets, then that's a new plant for the next few years to produce flowers. They're just amazing in a woodland setting, and the scent is incredible. So definitely an unusual woodland plant that I couldn't live without.
“My last plant, I would say is nepeta. In Scotland, Nepeta does particularly well and can cope with our wetter conditions if you live on the west, and it's aromatic.
“Cats love it, but bees particularly love it. I love the sound in the morning with it just absolutely covered in bees. You can shear it down and it will come back and hopefully give you a second flush of flowers. And there's so many different nepetas out there, one I’ve grown is ‘Six Hills Giant’. I've got one, on the allotment called ‘Blue Dragon’ as well, it’s just amazing for pollinators. So that's one of the best things I could put in.”
Catch up with the rest of Kirsty's chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
“If you think horticulture has a lot of puns, you should try selling thyme. Thyme is one of those plants that just gives everything: it can give you ground cover, you can eat it, and it gives you flowers. But most of all, you should see the bees on it, it’s an incredible plant. It takes little or no looking after. I would always have thyme in my garden.
“The next plant I would have would be the choysia because it grows almost anywhere. You can take your pick between the green and the yellow, but they will deliver. They're evergreen, they’re hardy, they flower, and are a fantastic foil for almost anything else in front of it so great in a mixed border.
“And my 3rd choice would be a small tree called amelancha, the North Americans call them Saskatoon. Mostly it's grown as an ornamental, small, manageable tree that can grow in most gardens and gives fantastic value. You've got flowers, you've got foliage, you've got autumn foliage, and you've got a beautifully shaped tree as well.”
Catch up with the rest of Stan's chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
You can find all episodes of the Scotland Grows Show on all good podcast platforms. We'd love to get your feedback once you've listened, and would be so appreciative if you left us a review on your podcast platform of choice.