I think they should just rename The Learning Channel to The
Trading Spaces Channel. Unless you
’ve been living in a cave during the past year or so, you’ve no
doubt watched Trading Spaces. It’s almost as if TLC has a Trading
Spaces Marathon every weekend because that seems to be all my wife
watches. And I must admit, that since it always seems to be on,
I’ve found myself watching more
than a few times.
I think they should just rename The Learning Channel to The Trading Spaces Channel. Unless you’ve been living in a cave during the past year or so, you’ve no doubt watched Trading Spaces. It’s almost as if TLC has a Trading Spaces Marathon every weekend because that seems to be all my wife watches. And I must admit, that since it always seems to be on, I’ve found myself watching more than a few times.
If you’re not familiar, Trading Spaces involves neighbors who trade rooms in their homes, re-decorating the room for their neighbor. The neighbors have the help of an interior designer, a carpenter and a $1,000 limit. It’s worth tuning in just to see if one of the wives might run out of the room mad or crying after they see what their neighbors have done to their room.
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of getting to this week’s column, which, of course, is about gardening. My question to you: Is TV gardening unrealistic? After all, gardens can’t be re-landscaped overnight despite what we might see on television. And I’ve never seen a deck made out of used pallets or scaffolding planks even though those seem to be the recycled wood of choice for our TV landscaper friends.
It always bothers me that both landscapers and interior designers on these shows get fantastic discounts on many materials that the average person would never gain access to.
No wonder these experts come in under budget; they get some materials for half the price we would have to pay.
We also don’t see a heck of a lot of soil preparation on these TV shows. It seems that the new plants are just thrown into the dirt and they magically grow. I’ll like to see what some of these gardens looks like six months or a year from now. Probably not so good since little or no soil preparation ever seems to take place. After all, preparing soil doesn’t make for exciting TV. Plus, most of these shows are so concerned with getting under budget that I’m sure soil amending is just viewed as a drain on the budget.
Suffice to say, don’t take some of these TV gardening shows to heart. Heed my long standing advice and always prepare your garden’s soil before planting anew. Soil amendments in the form of organic compost, planting mix, peat moss or redwood soil conditioner are a key to success.
And don’t always look for the shortcut even though some of these TV gardening shows appear to be doing. After all, you wouldn’t renovate your kitchen on the cheap, would you? So why do some of these gardening shows continually tell people how to garden on the cheap?
In other words, go ahead and enjoy the gardening shows. Just don’t take them to heart because you probably don’t want to try to duplicate what they’re doing on your garden anyway. Sorry, I have to go now, Trading Spaces is coming on.
