Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from "JennyC" contains these words:


"Janet Baraclough" wrote
[...]
why on earth should gardeners be fobbed off with the same lazy
basic topics recycled endlessly, when gardening offers such an
enormous untapped range of interest?

I think that the constant repatition to meant for the newbies that
take up gardening every year..........

The *prime-time* programmes provided for other interests, (
sport,
music,etc) do not endlessly repeat basic explanations for
inexperienced newbies. For instance, sports programmes don't
start
each new sports season by demonstrating the rules of football,
tennis
etc.

Well, yes. But that's a "yes, but..." The sports progs aren't setting
out to teach people how to play -- and, even so, they do explain
relevant laws and some of the techniques from time to time. I think
it's actually rather difficult to make a weekly gardening programme
for both the newcomer and the old hand. I can't find it in me to
complain about the basic stuff, as new gardeners are coming along all
the time, and very welcome they are, too.

I'm not at all sure what a prog exclusively for experienced gardeners
would be like. Maybe the best service they can realistically offer us
is things like the royal gardens series: I'm not at all sure it would
be viable to run an in-depth six-week series on, e.g., apple
varieties, then another six weeks of visits to warm-climate
specialists like Dave Poole, then another on seaside gardening, etc,
etc, much though I'd love it. They do have a duty to get a certain
minimum audience: that air time does cost a lot. Perhaps what we
should be doing is campaigning to get the Open University to make
these programmes for advanced gardeners.

--
Mike.