The Early Years
We begin with the tallest trees on earth, the towering redwoods, which can stand as high as 115 metres, taller than the Statue of Liberty. Even these mighty giants start life as a seed just a few millimetres long. For many trees, the creation of new life starts with one of the most dramatic displays in the natural world: blossom. To learn how seeds are actually made, we travel to a beautiful elderflower orchard blanketed by hundreds of thousands of tiny white flowers, to learn that blossom is crucial to a tree ‘having sex'. And once a seed is formed, it uses ingenious ways, like the spiraling sycamore helicopter seed, to travel far from the parent tree. And then from the bare soil a brand-new tree will begin to grow.
But the early years of young infant trees can be challenging. On the sunny Italian Amalfi coastline, we meet a lemon farmer whose young saplings must be looked after extra carefully. Their youthful ‘enthusiasm' to grow fruit when they're just a few years old can damage their delicate branches, so he builds scaffolding to support them. From Italy to Kew Gardens in London, where among its 11,000 trees, we learn how leaves are vital to helping trees grow tall and strong.
Coming in all shapes and sizes, leaves allow trees to make their own food using the sun's rays. But a tree needs more than just sunlight to grow. Water is vital for a tree to survive, and many trees have found ingenious ways to quench their thirst in some of the hottest places on the planet, from absorbing it from the air to sending their roots deep underground to find it. And in a eucalyptus plantation, we hear the incredible sounds a thirsty tree actually makes when it ‘drinks'. Eucalyptus trees are so thirsty they can drink about a bathtub's worth of water every day.
Some trees can reach maturity in a matter of years - the weeping willow grows eight feet taller in a single year, whereas the white bark pine can take 250 years, a quarter of a millennium, to reach their adult size! In the New Forest, historical tree graffiti on a 200-year-old beech tree reveals exactly how a tree grows; this tree, which was young at the time Britain was fighting sea battles against Napoleon Bonaparte, doesn't grow from the base of its trunk up, but from the top.
The seasons play an important role in any growing tree's life. At the end of this chapter in the trees' story we journey to the National Arboretum at Westonbirt, as its acer trees burst into a magical display of autumn colour to reveal exactly how this firework display of reds and golds, emerges, following a long summer of growth into adulthood, as trees are preparing for winter.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
America's Got Talent
With the talent search open to acts of all ages, America's Got Talent has brought the variety format back to the forefront of American culture by showcasing performers from across the country. The series is a true celebration of the American spirit, featuring a colorful array of singers, dancers, comedians, contortionists, impressionists, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists and hopeful stars, all vying for their chance to win America's hearts and the $1 million prize.
Destination X
Destination X sees a group of contestants go on the road trip of a lifetime but they have no idea of their location. In order to win, they must figure out their mystery locations. Once they're on the blacked-out Destination X bus, the journey turns into a real-life game board, with challenges designed to offer clues as to their location, along with a few misdirects to keep them guessing.
At the end of each episode, the contestant who places an X on a map furthest from the actual location packs their bags. The first participant to reach Destination X will be crowned the winner.
Karen Pirie
True to Val McDermid's iconic character, DS Karen Pirie is a young and fearless Scottish investigator with a quick mouth and tenacious desire for the truth.
When teenager Rosie Duff was found brutally murdered in the Scottish university town of St Andrews in 1996, suspicion fell on the three drunken students who were discovered at the scene of the crime, claiming to have found her body. But with a lack of forensic evidence, no charges were brought and the police investigation floundered.
Twenty-five years on, someone appears to be willing to risk everything to keep the secrets surrounding the case hidden. Do the three men know more than they previously revealed? How flawed was the original investigation? And can Karen uncover the truth of what happened to Rosie that fateful night?
Rivals
Rivals dives headfirst into the cut-throat world of independent television in 1986, where the shoulder pads are big and ambitions even bigger. In the fictional upper-class county of Rutshire, a long-standing rivalry between two powerful men is about to boil over: ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament, and notorious womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black, and his Rutshire neighbour Tony Baddingham, controller of the independent TV franchise Corinium Television. As tensions rise and rivalries deepen, there are spilled secrets, forged alliances, and snatched liaisons that draw wives, lovers, colleagues, friends, and families into their battle.