Television’s hardy perennials: Why we dig gardening shows

Next year, having passed the 1500-episode mark last month, Gardening Australia will rack up 35 years on air on the ABC. In fact, you could even argue it’s longer than that, given that GA was, when it premiered in 1990, an extended version of the show Landscape, which grew out of the show It’s Growing, which debuted in 1969. But whichever start date you want to choose, that is, in the best possible way, a whole lot of compost.

If you’re a TV show, getting a second season is cause for rejoicing. Reaching 10 years means you’re a venerable elder statesman of the TV landscape. To get to 35 is beyond the bounds of reasonable expectation, and in most cases would get people chattering about stagnation and the need to get you off the air and stop living in the past. There is no such clamour around Gardening Australia: as remarkable as its longevity is its ability to continue inhabiting a very special place in generations of devotees’ hearts, and far from being seen as a relic, it’s an absolute institution in Australian life: even people who don’t watch it are glad to know it’s there.

Costa Georgiadis (third from left) and the Gardening Australia crew.Credit: ABC

But then, there is something about gardening, isn’t there? Better Homes and Gardens, which includes a hefty serving of green-thumbery in its menu, has been running since 1995, with horticulturalist Graham Ross coaxing magic from the soil the whole time. Burke’s Backyard was a TV titan, mesmerising millions with its insights for 17 years and over 700 episodes, while launching the careers of myriad future reality stalwarts.

It’s not that every gardening show manages to run for decades, but it does seem that when garden TV breaks through, it has remarkable stickability. A gardening show, apparently, is itself like a garden: if tended with care, it gives pleasure for many years. Once it’s taken root, people want to stay around to see how it grows, and if, like Gardening Australia, it blossoms, folk will want to sit in the shade of its branches for many a year. And at that point the gardening metaphor really does start to feel a little unstable, but nevertheless it stands.

To spend time in a beautiful garden is one of the simplest and most life-affirming of human pleasures. You don’t go into a garden for an adrenalin rush, to experience an emotional rollercoaster or put the mind to work on intricate puzzles. You go for contemplation, to breathe in the beauty of nature, feel a connection to the earth and bask in a moment of serenity amid the stresses and anxieties of the world. When it comes to working in the garden, it’s an opportunity to get to grips with the earth physically, to feel the dirt between your fingers and feel yourself a part of the great wheel of life, working the land as our species has for millennia.

Noni Hazlehurst and John Jarratt in Better Homes and Gardens: Embedded in the national consciousness.

Our species has not been watching television for millennia, but gardening programs provide a televisual parallel to the experience of being out in the garden – especially valuable for viewers who don’t have a garden of their own, of course. A great gardening show is an exercise in relaxation and tranquillity, in detaching from the maelstrom of modern life and watching something sweetly timeless. It’s a very particular kind of escapism. Like gardening itself, it’s a chance to involve oneself in matters of the earth and the beauty of nature. Unlike gardening, it’s also a connection with other people – both the on-screen talent and the multitudes of others who you know are experiencing the show with you, in their own homes.

Now, of course, in providing that connection, the personnel are integral to the whole thing. If you want a nice, relaxing time in front of the set, you need to feel you’re in the company of an amiable and trusted friend. The most successful gardening shows bring people into our homes who we come to feel we know.

Backyard Blitz presenters Scott Cam (left), Nigel Ruck, Jody Rigby and Jamie Durie back in 2000.

The current frontman of Gardening Australia is Costa Georgiadis, and though there may be higher-rating personalities on Australian telly, there can surely be none who are more beloved. The infectious grin bursting through that veritable Amazon of a beard, the unquenchable energy radiating from the man as he bounds through gardens, enthusing irrepressibly about everything he sees: it’s a package whose appeal few can deny. You simply want Costa to be part of your life. It was the same way with his revered predecessor, the late great Peter Cundall: his slightly eccentric warmth and devotion to his craft made Australians by the million yearn for Cundall to be their adopted granddad.

It’s the same with other shows: Better Homes and Gardens embedded itself in the national consciousness with the help of original host Noni Hazlehurst, who’s always been welcome in our living rooms. In a nutshell, we spend time with gardening shows, in part, because they are populated with people we would like to invite into our gardens.

The long-lasting appeal of the garden show is not a purely Australian phenomenon. In the US, The Victory Garden ran from 1976 to 2010, becoming a mainstay of public television like a floral scented Sesame Street. (In its final years The Victory Garden was hosted by Aussie Jamie Durie, who rose to fame on another successful gardening show, Backyard Blitz). In the UK, Alan Titchmarsh became a national institution, one of the nation’s most respected and trusted broadcasters, all thanks to his devotion to the glories of the English garden.

Wherever you are in the world, people delight in coaxing life from the soil and in surrounding themselves with the magnificence – in ways large and small – of nature. And television helps us share that delight. As Gardening Australia prepares to celebrate 35 years, it’s apt to reflect on the quiet triumph of these hardy perennials, and how, in an ever-changing and oft-frightening world, the placid point of difference they provide will always be invaluable.

Gardening Australia screens on Fridays, 7.30pm, ABC.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.