Why HGTV is a sham

September 10, 7:35 PMGardening ExaminerRobin Ripley

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HGTV needs more gardening
shows--or to change its name

Do you have cable? If so, perhaps you also get HGTV, the so-called home and garden network.

I remember when it was introduced some time ago and recall how excited I was that I would finally be getting a channel I could watch. More than 400 channels were beamed into our house and I would finally have one that carried programs that interested me. Programs about gardening. Whoohoo!

But wait! Where are the gardening programs? Well, there really aren't any. Okay, there's one--Gardener's Diary. The rest of the shows are about homes or real estate.

Here is tonight's HGTV lineup:

8 p.m. - Designed to Sell
8:30 p.m. - Get it Sold
9 p.m. - Beyond the Box
9:30 p.m. - Buy Me
10 p.m. - House Hunters
10:30 p.m. - House Hunters International

Is this a fluke? No, sadly, no. For example, between 6:30 a.m. tomorrow and 3:30 a.m. the next morning there are a total of 43 shows aired on HGTV. Of those only four are about gardening. Three of those four are a show called Curb Appeal, which is really less about gardening than about making the house attractive. Again with the house.

Where is the G? Where are the gardening shows?

If HGTV isn't going to show garden shows, then take out the G. Stop pretending to be about gardening and just admit it.

It's the HTV. In fact, there's not even so much about H (homes) as there is about RE (Real Estate).

I don't just blame the bigwig executives at HGTV. I also blame the advertisers. There are some heavyweight advertisers out there who sell to gardeners and make a pretty nice profit. It is the responsibility of these advertisers to heft their weight around and insist that the HGTV people do the right thing and provide all the gardeners out there with shows that they want.

What kind of shows? Beautiful shows about real gardens and real gardeners. I want to travel the country and peek into people's backyards. I want to meet the people who grow all those beautiful roses and find out how they got started. Who was their inspiration? How did they learn about gardening? Where do they look for plants and supplies? How did they figure out how to design their beautiful spaces?

Here's what I don't want: Yet another show with an instant makeover of the yard. Those shows are 1) insulting to the average gardener's intelligence and hard work 2) misleading to anyone thinking about gardening, suggesting that a garden can be accomplished in a single afternoon and 3) no real service to the recipients of the instant garden makeover. Do you really think those instant garden makeovers look good a month after they're installed? I think not.

So while I'm tossing the blame about, let me also spread some blame among us gardeners. If we don't make our voices heard, how will the people at HGTV and the big advertisers know we're paying attention? It's time to drop a little note to all these folks and let them know it's time we had some real garden shows--or stop pretending that they're also a garden network.

Click here to send your message to HGTV now. Join me and some of the best garden bloggers out there--Idaho Gardener, May Dreams Gardens, Mr. McGregor’s Daughter, My Corner of Katy, New Sprout, Red Dirt Rambling and Garden Rant--in making your voice heard.

Make sure they know you want more garden programs--or they should change their name to HTV.