- Title: Heligan
- Date: 11th April 1997
- Summary: Programme 5 THE JUNGLE In the days before package holidays,trekking through the jungle was simply a pipe-dream for all but the most intrepid plant-hunters. The next best thing though was to build your own - and blessed with the temperate Cornish climate,this is just what the Tremaynes,the family who built up the splendid gardens at Heligan,did. In this programme,we explore the area: a steep sided sub-tropical valley with four large ponds,housing some 60 different varieties of bamboo, alongside 'pre-historic' tree-ferns,palms and giant gunnera. With the mist rising over the valley early in the morning,only the presence of a very English robin serves to remind you this is Cornwall not Jurassic Park. Mike Haliwell and his helpers tackle the task of maintaining a 'jungle habitat' - a lot of hard work goes into making it look 'totally natural',but there are plenty of pleasant surprises: following the clearance of the area in '92,hundreds of dormant seeds suddenly sprang into life,carpeting the valley sides with wild flowers. And the trees,planted as saplings by the Tremaynes,can now be seen in their true size and splendour. It is however a fine line between luxuriant growth and chaos and in the Jungle it's a never ending tasks keeping at bay the Japanese knotweed. This 'weed' was a popular ornamental plant with Victorian gardeners but they were probably unaware that its roots usually go down two foot,and sometimes run for seven metres!
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Entertainment
- Producer:Unspecified
- Programme Episode:Episode 5
- Transmission Date:11/04/1997
- Rights:On Request
- Decade: 1990s