Those TV gardening programs

[digitS']

Inspired by OCMG, I was there in front of the set early this morning to watch Paul James' "Gardening by the Yard!!" It wasn't very early for me to be getting up even on a Sunday but I often have a role to play in Sunday dinner and that puts me in the kitchen Sunday AM. Sunday dinner was yesterday, however. We celebrated my father's 90th birthday!!!

Got into the Lazy Boy well before the show started and was able to watch P. Allen Smith's Garden Home. I like the photography in that show altho' I must admit, it doesn't usually inspire me towards garden projects. There's something about the nature of his southern garden which I find relaxing but I'd be hard pressed to duplicate it up here nearly to the 49th parallel. I'm pleased that he's building an entirely new garden - it should really be fun to watch what P. Allen is capable of doing with a blank canvas.

I'm an old garden show fan but new to the newer shows. I go way back to Crockett's Victory Garden and followed that show thru Bob Thomson, Roger Swain, and Michael Weishan. Right now, I don't even know when it airs . I checked Wikipedia to find out more about what's happened to the show and it was rather startling. Coming down from 26 to 30 in earlier seasons - - there were only 13 new episodes produced in 2007 !!

No wonder I lost track of it. These new people on the show . . . Jamie Durie and all, I haven't really gotten to know.

Anyway, I enjoyed Paul James' Q & A and what I got to see of Gardening by the yard. I was trying to interest DW in his pond project (I can actually see myself putting a water feature in the backyard). Unfortunately, she suddenly took an interest in cleaning the pictures in the living room. After banging the back of the Lazy Boy a few times, I got the message and migrated back to the south window and the computer desk .

So, what am I missing with the garden shows? What are your favorites??

Steve

 

[hsm5grls]

Paul james Gardening by the yard is my fav. He is funny and talented. Makes for an interesting show.

 

[Reinbeau]

I do like Paul James, P. Allen Smith is ok, but I have to say, what they've done to the Victory Garden is just sad. I can't stand that show anymore. They need to get back to the roots of the program, pun totally intended, and back to real gardening, not all this travel glamour garbage. But that's just me

 

[Southern Gardener]

I recently watched Cultivating Life with Sean Conway on PBS that I really enjoyed. I have seen the Victory Garden a couple of times but don't really remember it enough to give an opinion.

 

[Rosalind]

I used to love Victory Garden with Roger Swain, because to me he looks like one of those garden gnomes come to life. Don't like the new guy quite so much. The new Victory Garden episodes seem to be more about what to tell the landscapers to do to your yard, as opposed to doing it yourself. I used to imagine little plaster garden gnomes coming to life whenever I wasn't looking, and doing my weeding for me, and I imagined they all talked like Roger Swain. Really miss that guy.

 

[digitS']

There ya' go, Rosalind, I had the same feeling about Roger Swain. Like he knew everything there was to know but would be happy getting down and pulling my weeds !

He had a rather unkind quote in Wikipedia about the new shows. I don't know if it was a real quote but . . . . probably.

When I saw that information on "Cultivating Life," I went, "Sean Connery! Really, he has a gardening show! You know, Audrey Hepburn had a gardening show!" Well, I knew my past-time is intriguing and sexy but didn't know it rated 007 status. But no, it's Sean Conway, as Joan clearly wrote!

Well, the PBS schedule says Tuesday AM . . . have I been missing this or is it new? Gotta admit that I'm fairly grumpy in the AM - that means I read the funnies before going to sleep at night and the editorials when I wake up in the morning. Maybe I'll be cheerfully awake by the time Mr. Conway comes on. I'll practice being cheerful tomorrow!!

Steve

 

[Reinbeau]

I had watched The Victory Garden since the beginning, through all of the hosts. Jim Crockett was the original, he'd be appalled at what 'his' show has become!

Roger Swain left The Victory Garden when Time/Life took the show over, he knew then the show would never be what it should be. He'd been associated with People, Places and Plants, a New England regional gardening magazine, they had their own TV show, Paul Tukey and Roger Swain made a good match, it lasted for five or six seasons, I think (I have them on DVD). Roger doesn't seem to be associated with them anymore, maybe he's retired.

I've walked through the Boston Flower Show with Roger and seen him here and there over the years. He's a wonderful, informative, nice, approachable man, and I do miss seeing him on the various gardening shows, he's a true gardener and his loss is why these shows are floundering. From the Wikipedia page:

Roger Swain began appearing on the show in the mid 1980s, and hosted it from 1991 until 2001. In that year, longtime producer Russell Morash decided to end his tenure, leading to a complete turnover in the cast and crew. Swain has differentiated between the show he was on and the current Victory Garden show: "If you get rid of Ernie and Cookie Monster and Big Bird, you don't have Sesame Street anymore," he said. "So let's call the new show something else, because whatever it is, it ain't The Victory Garden."

He's absolutely right.

 

[OCMG]

Digits I am happy that you took my advice, I really like Paul James, the only thing he has a new show I do not like so much, he does some cooking, he should stay out of the kitchen.


This past Saturday I went to a lecture with my club and heard Paul Tukey. What a nice young man, he spoke about organic lawn care, to our group in Loveladies NJ in Beach Haven.

I do my Lawn organically since I feed my chickens the grass clippings and also use the clippings for fertilizer in my veg garden

 

[patandchickens]

I watch gardening shows sometimes, but not with much enjoyment as they seem to be more about how to waste money on landscapers, overpriced exotic plants, and let's-pretend-this-is-Versailles projects than about how to what I'd call *garden*. (Showing how to buy six plants at a garden center and pot them up in an expensive container does *not* count, phththttt).

Well ok, I did enjoy Victory Garden until maybe fifteen years ago, but I agree with others -- both the victory and the garden have pretty well drained out of it long since.

The only show I'd 'recommend', and it's a somewhat weak recommendation because see above, is Recreating Eden -- is that on in the states or just Canada? I think it may be a Canadian production as its first season or two seemed to mainly feature Canadian locales. Each half-hour episode profiles a person and their garden, not *always* the type of garden that gets featured in magazines (sometimes community gardens, or an organic taro farm in Fiji, or whatever). The 'story' tends to focus on People Growing Personally And Overcoming Hardship Through Gardening.

But they have good photography, and because they stay in one place for half an hour you get a better than usual idea what the place is really *like*, and some of the gardens they feature are kind of interesting. Although many of them, especially the artsier ones, I would not necessarily want ot have to look at every day <g> I kind of enjoy hearing the different peoples' "takes" on what gardening is about and how to design and maintain a garden - more diverse than in a typical gardening show.

There;s another Canadian show I have enjoyed when I've bumped into it on the schedule, I forget its exact name but it is about gardening on the Prairies. It has less slick fancy production values than most shows (appears to have been whomped together by two guys with videocameras and their buddies <g>) BUT they visit the gardens of relatively normal people, with normal houses and normal yards and normal budgets, I find it much easier to relate to and more informative than the kinda Martha Stewart-y other garden shows.

Oh, another neat Canadian series a couple of years ago -- there was one with, er, young goateed Canadian guy with hyphenated name that I forget, each week they profiled a different type of flower (delphiniums, pinks, irises) including a bunch of historical info. That was neat. Totally forget the title.

It is possible that some of these things show up on PBS or cable in the states, sometimes? I dunno.


Pat, looking at the once-again-flooding backyard and wishing it were spring

 

[Southern Gardener]

I watch gardening shows sometimes, but not with much enjoyment as they seem to be more about how to waste money on landscapers, overpriced exotic plants, and let's-pretend-this-is-Versailles projects than about how to what I'd call *garden*. (Showing how to buy six plants at a garden center and pot them up in an expensive container does *not* count, phththttt).

I agree - that, IMO is totally unrealistic to the average person.

digits' - No, I cant picture 007 getting his hands dirty!

I catch the gardening shows on Saturday (mostly during the winter) on PBS along with my very favorite show Ask This Old House I love those guys!