So getting around to writing a second post for this Blog is
harder than I thought – I guess it’s easy to get started but to keep going
takes a little willpower and the commodity we all seem so short of these days...time!
To increase the amount of time I have to do more of the
things I love, my partner and I have decided to give up TV for the whole of
January (I’m also giving up drinking – hard at times, but also manages to generate
a lot of time). Putting the TV into exile has freed up countless hours, for
instance I’m managing to write this instead of staring blankly at Antiques Roadshow,
I feel quite liberated!
Television, most media in general, has become a very
important, or should I say omnipotent, part in many people’s lives. Most of
what we know about the world is beamed to us through the LCD screens,
broadsheet articles and touch screen websites we all consume daily. I guess it’s
part of how we live, or how our society at the moment lives – our culture
becomes defined by the media we consume.
So where am I going this, well one of the bigger news stories
in Horticulture over the past couple of months has been how it is portrayed
through the media, or, as many believe, how it isn’t portrayed through the
media. Many people have questioned what media has done for Horticulture over
the last couple of years - is it benefiting the industry, is it informative
enough for the public, is it positively promoting horticulture as both hobby
and profession? Is media in love with
horticulture like it is in food (baking and celebrity chefs especially),
antiques (where would late morning TV be without Clarice Cliff) and singing (a
loose definition), the answer is probably no, but it doesn’t have to be!
The one moment in the year when the nation falls in love
with gardening again, or at least the gardening media does, is something I’m
quite entangled up in now – the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. With 20 hours+ of TV
coverage and countless articles, comment and column inches in papers and
magazines, there is obviously something about Chelsea that makes horticulture a
popular media subject.
Even here controversy
has struck - much has been made of the BBC’s decision to replace Alan T. with Monty
and Sophie Rayworth. A lot of people have a lot of opinion on the matter, I
think it is a shame that Alan will no longer be on our screens for Chelsea - he
was, as I aee, one of a few number of gardening celebs who many non-gardeners
look to when they need a horti-fix, but I am very willing to reserve my
judgement until we see what a new line-up brings to how the show is portrayed. We
shouldn’t forget Monty was the lead presenter of the Chelsea Flower show
coverage on Channel 4 back in the late nineties into 2000, so he isn’t without
experience.
For me the key point is, therefore, how Horticulture is portrayed in the media. It’ll come as no surprise
to you all that gardening isn’t a young man’s sport – the profession is getting
older and alarmingly the skills gap is widening with the loss of experience and
knowledge. RHS shows and membership generally reflect this with a vast
percentage aged 50+; garden and plant societies throughout the UK are all
suffering by the lack of younger members.The how must be to readdress the balance of how horticulture is portrayed to all ages instead of focussing on the ‘traditional’. This is where the popularity in the aforementioned baking becomes a prime and oft-mentioned example – the media portrays it as an interest for all ages, both sexes and something on-trend and with real value to our culture. If gardening could follow that model, rebrand itself as something for everyone – an exciting, trendy way of life, then we can readdress the balance that has been lost through its general attrition of similarity from year to year.
So, we shall see, I look forward to seeing the coming year of gardening in the media – my job means I feel closer to it now than in the past and I do think it’s important for the ongoing health of the career path I love (maybe I should be watching TV!?). It all, as I stated at the start of this, comes down to time….which means only time will tell.
-Saul-
