Blue Planet Garden Blog

Book Review: Tomorrow's Garden

If you’re an active participant in the world of landscape design or gardening, you no doubt include the word sustainability somewhere on your business card, blog or website. The lectures I attend (and give) as well as many of the books and articles I read do a wonderful job of explaining the havoc careless gardeners can wreck on the environment, when water is treated like an infinite commodity and chemicals are casually applied.

Of course, like most people, I don’t like to be lectured at.

That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed Tomorrow's Garden: Design and Inspiration for a New Age of Sustainable Gardening by Stephen Orr. Instead of opening with a doom and gloom lecture on the perils uninformed gardeners pose to the planet, he begins with the story of his own evolution as a gardener, starting with his ignorant acceptance of the “coddling, fertilizer and fungicides” required to maintain the beloved tea roses and hydrangeas of his Texas youth to his gradual discomfort with the high-maintenance, under-utilized  gardens he toured and photographed all over the world as garden editor for House and Garden, Domino and currently Martha Stewart Living. Culminating in the lessons learned most recently as an upstate New York gardener battling deer, difficult soil and harsh winters, Stephen has written a book that is not a lecture on sustainability, but rather a celebration of gardens that connect with nature in both small and large ways.

On the Set with Growing a Greener World Television

 

If you’re not watching Growing a Greener World on PBS, then you’re missing out. Not only is it a terrific show that goes beyond “before and after” makeover theatrics to tell stories about real gardeners from all over the country, but this weekend marked my debut as a guest! Co-author Rebecca Sweet (whose beautiful garden served as our backdrop) and I were part of the most recent episode Small Space Gardening, which is nowavailable for viewing right here.

This was only my second time to be on television, and the first time was in a studio. It quickly became clear that shooting outdoors is a completely different experience, as every little sound is picked up by the microphones. You may not realize how noisy the typical residential neighborhood is until you try to film in one. Then suddenly, lawn mowers, motorcycles, delivery trucks and airplanes are everywhere. Although I only spoke for a total of about fifteen minutes during my interview, it took close to two hours. I managed ok, but Rebecca was getting pretty impatient inside the house waiting for her turn to speak. Rumor has it I have GGWTV’s social media maven Christa Hanson to thank for discouraging Rebecca from turning on the sprinklers to speed me up.

I took this picture from inside the house, where I was waiting respectfully for Rebecca's interview to conclude.

Good friend Theresa Loe produced this episode, which means she not only wrote the show, but seemed to be everywhere, overseeing all the details at our shoot. You know the cliché of a producer or director wearing a beret? Forget about that. Since it’s her job to be on top of everything, staying organized is a top priority, so her “uniform” consists of a miniature apron. Band-aids, tissues, comb, breath mints – basically anything a guest needs to feel comfortable on camera is magically produced from one of her pockets. Theresa gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “dress for success.”

Theresa shows Rebecca what all the best dressed producers are wearing these days.

Hosts Joe Lamp'l and Nathan Lyon are both amazing, able to stay upbeat and focused despite the long days. Joe is the co-executive producer as well as the star of Growing a Greener World, so even when he was off camera, he was busy working (although work didn’t stop him from listening to Theresa interview me, where he cracked up over several of my embarrassing flubs. Thank goodness GGWTV doesn’t produce a blooper reel.) You can read Joe’s post about our episode here.

Joe hard at work - I think he's suggesting cutting some of his own lines to make more room for Rebecca and me.

Chef Nathan is a veteran of many television shows, including Food Network Star where he made it to the final four in Season 1. He gave me lots of advice when it was my turn to be interviewed, mostly focused on how to avoid being nervous – which of course just made me more nervous!

Chef Nathan demonstrates how to plant in a Woolly Pocket on this episode. Basically, the only time Nathan didn't have a latte in his hand was when he was on camera. He's the first person I've met who actually drinks more lattes than Rebecca.

But truthfully, the whole crew made the day so much fun, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to get nervous. By the end of the day, my throat was a little sore – not from being interviewed but from laughing so hard all day long.

 Almost every picture of me, including this one that Joe Lamp'l took, shows me cackling away like a maniac.

Thanks everyone at Growing a Greener World for a wonderful experience!

Theresa Loe, Director of Photography Carl Pennington, Social Media Marketer Christa Hanson and Rebecca