Re: GWL - gardening on TV

**J* L* <h*@yahoo.com>**

I, too, would love to have more gardening on TV, but I have to agree with much of what Miriam says. I was recently helping someone at work who wanted to landscape his backyard. Gave him lots of advice and a number of general-interest books to read. His comment: I don't understand a lot of what they're talking about. (They were written for the general public, not a specialized audience.) Most of us -- me included -- rarely start at the most basic level, where readers/viewers are.

I also wonder if this isn't similar to the decrying of kids reading Nancy Drew/Bobbsey Twins books (I'm dating myself here!) Lots of kids learned to love reading from burrowing themselves in what librarians at the time considered junk books. I wonder if a number of homeowners might not also get hooked on gardening by watching a program that meets them where they are.

Then, once they get into it, they find they love it and really want to learn more. I've seen this with people who've installed garden pools and waterfalls in their backyards. They loved the water but then realized they needed plants around the water feature -- and became gardeners.

Another 2 pennies worth. (Pretty soon, we'll be up to a dime!)

Judy Lowe
http://twitter.com/Judy Digginit

> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 08:49:18 +0200
> From: "Planting Stories" <info@plantingstories.com>
> To: <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [GWL] BBC must stop dumbing down gardening
> shows
> Message-ID: <003001cb1c0e$329d2370$97d76a50$@com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;   
> charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Here lies the dilemma.
> 
> Gardening terminology and Latin names and minutia details
> about plants are a
> complete turn-off for the general population. Of course
> they are important,
> standards must be upheld and people who have chosen to
> immerse themselves
> deeper into gardening need to be catered for and
> encouraged. 
> 
> But the BBC isn't there to provide specialist education. It
> has to appeal to
> the masses. By presenting gardening in the context of more
> general
> decorating and design or a lifestyle thing that celebrities
> are associated
> with, a line of communication with the general public is
> opened. Gardening
> becomes relevant to them, and once they dip their toes in
> the water they may
> become curious to dig deeper, as it were, into doing things
> "properly". At
> that point, some kind of step by step route needs to be
> available that
> allows new gardeners to develop their knowledge in a way
> that holds their
> interest. 
> 
> Think about the success of Top Gear. When it started out it
> was a serious
> programme about cars that only appealed to die-hard car
> enthusiasts. But now
> everybody watches it because it crosses the communication
> boundary between
> the specialist and the casual observer. There aren't any
> shows on the BBC
> about "how to choose the right car for you" or "how to be a
> better driver".
> Maybe the motoring industry isn't happy about that - I
> wouldn't know. But if
> you look at this from the BBC's point of view you can
> surely understand.
> 
> For those already in-the-know about gardening, this is hard
> to bear. But
> digging heels in and refusing to cater for a broader modern
> audience is a
> recipe for alienation. Gardening needs to be perceived as
> an all-inclusive
> activity. Insistence on sticking to old presentation
> formulas and speaking a
> language most people can't understand isn't the way
> forward.
> 
> No, I don't work for the BBC, but I do work for several
> well-known
> international consumer brands (non-gardening) and this is
> the way of the
> world now. If we want to get more people into gardening, we
> need to
> reconsider how it is branded at the entry level and how we
> nurture new
> recruits through to specialist level.
> 
> Just my 2-Pennies worth. It always helps to see the other
> side of the coin
> :-)
> 
> Miriam 
> 

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