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February 7, 2010

Gardening by the Yard "Canceled": The Quest for Garden Shows

Technically, "Gardening by the Yard" wasn't canceled - it just wasn't renewed which amounts to the same thing in my opinion. Episodes will still air on HGTV, but there won't be any new shows. Paul James has started his own website, makes webisodes on gardening with the same feel as Gardening by the Yard, and has his own blog. And that's great! All of those things are very interesting, but I'm still on the market for a program to fill that void on my DVR since I'm pretty sure A Gardener's Diary is completely gone.

I've been crawling through KLRU and KLRU-Q, Austin's PBS channels, because it seems PBS is the last hope for informative, helpful gardening programs. Some of the ones that I've found inspiring and/or helpful are:
And there are the occasional NOVA shows that relate to gardening or botany such as The First Flower. I'm sure there are more that don't play on KLRU such as The Perennial Gardener with Karen Strohbeen, but that's about it. As you can see the list is woefully short compared to landscaping/hardscaping/making-a-"room"-outside programs which frankly just piss me off at this point. I like landscaping ideas and gardening vignettes, but I also like hearing about plants, tools, gardening techniques, etc.

There's also The Botany of Desire which is playing locally next week.

"The Martha Stewart Show"
occasionally has some gardening segments, and I like the show. However, it's not really a gardening show. It's a lifestyle show. There are gardening segments on several lifestyle shows.

It's not much, but there are a few things left.

8 comments:

  1. OMG! Thanks for letting me know about Gardening By The Yard!!! I just never thought that his show would ever go away...it was so unique and fun...entertaining and packed with great info!!! I will have to check out his website now for sure!!!

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  2. consider yourself lucky...Canada's version of Hgtv sucks so bad that I don't bother with it most of the time anymore...I loved that show...and miss watching it...we used to have American satellite and when we got rid of it, we ended up disappointed!

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  3. That is disappointing! It seems like all the good stuff suddenly disappears... wanted to spread some sunshine & let you know I mentioned you in my blog today. Have a good one! :)

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  4. AR~~ This subject has been, for me, a bone of contention for a long time now. P. Allen Smith just rambles about his GREEN home. The first run-through was interesting but PBS has been repeating the same episodes for, like, what? Three years? Ditto for Victory Garden. Don't tell me there are no topics left to feature. I loved Allen Bloom's garden tours in Italy and other European locales. And I love his accent. Why can't we have more of garden tours? Just garden tours? A show devoted to garden tours. Who'd a thunk?

    I have the basic cable so I could be missing something on HGTV but from what you're saying, I don't think so.

    Also, I don't know about you but I get extremely annoyed when GARDEN shows commit half there time to cooking. Why don't they get it? There are thousands [?] of cooking shows out there. Why does Victory Garden need to devote 15 out of their 30 minute program to a demonstration on how to saute zucchini? We've got Rachael Ray for that.

    I think the bottom line is $$$$$. Gardening shows don't bring in the big bucks.

    If nothing else, why can't they produce videos of these shows so we can watch at our leisure?

    Okay, I've had my say. Nothing will change because of it, but I got it off my chest.
    Thanks for letting me rant.

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  5. It is disappointing and I'm afraid it's the same all over the U.S. (and it sounds like Canada's in the same boat). I guess Grace is right, it comes down to money. The thing is, gardening is so in vogue right now you'd think there'd be a television market for it. Hmm...

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  6. I liked Gardening by the Yard because Paul James was so entertianing. I especially liked when he showed his own home garden.

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  7. I'll be honest, it wasn't my favorite show as he was a little too manic for my taste....but there seem to be far fewer gardening shows than when I was a kid. I remember watching "Victory Garden" on PBS with mom.

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