Plant Health Week - Get Your Garden Thriving

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s Plant Health Week, and we’re celebrating with expert tips to keep your garden thriving. RHS Plant Health Advisor Helen Latham will be sharing practical advice to help your plants stay strong and resilient. Meanwhile, Nick Turrell returns to shine a light on the unsung heroes of the garden — weeds! Last week, he turned a common garden nuisance into a delicious, nutrient-rich summer salad. Today, he’s back with another surprising use for those persistent plants — and a fresh perspective on why they might deserve a second chance. Plus, as gardens burst into bloom, your questions have been flooding in. We’ve handed a few over to the RHS Garden Advisory Team to get the expert answers you’ve been looking for. Host: Jenny Laville Contributors: Helen Latham, Nick Turrell, James Lawrence, Chris Taylor Links: Plant health in gardens Previous episode on plant health and passports with Dario Spagnoli

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Get your tickets for the greatest show in Earth at an RHS garden near you.
0:06.4	Where nature puts on an unforgettable performance of colour and fragrance to delight your senses.
0:13.2	Inspire your gardening adventures and entertain your own little stars.
0:17.4	Race you, let's go.
0:19.5	Catch Springs finest scenes while you can at an RHS garden near you. Let's go. Catch Springs, finest scenes while you can,
0:22.1	at an RHS garden near you.
0:24.0	Book tickets online for discounts,
0:26.0	plus under fives go free and under 16s of five pounds.
0:34.7	Last week marked the hottest out to May on record in the UK,
0:38.4	with temperatures soaring to 29.3 degrees Celsius at Kew Gardens in London.
0:43.7	But this is just one of many recent extreme weather events making headlines around the world.
0:49.0	What we once considered extreme is fast becoming the new normal.
0:54.9	Global average temperatures are steadily rising and we're already seeing the impacts in our
0:59.1	natural surroundings.
1:01.4	Here in the UK, magnolia trees bloomed unusually early this year, a striking sign of the
1:06.4	warm winter we've just had.
1:08.9	But these shifts don't come without consequences. Plants are especially
1:12.7	vulnerable during extreme weather events. Harsh conditions weaken them, leaving them more
1:17.2	open to pests and disease. As we mark Plant Health Week, it's a crucial moment to focus on
1:23.5	how climate change is putting our gardens and wider ecosystems at risk.
1:28.3	One stark example comes from Slovenia in early 2014, when an ice storm wreaked havoc on forests.
1:35.3	The sheer weight of the ice caused massive tree damage, creating the perfect breeding ground for the European spruce bark beetle.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Royal Horticultural Society, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Royal Horticultural Society and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.