I think it is fairly safe to say that cookery wins hands down in terms of television coverage although those cookery programmes that are all about using ingredients from your own garden do have a slight gardening theme if we're lucky.
We have a regular BBC Gardener's World programme that stops over the winter and then we're lucky to have a 30 minute programme per week for the rest of the year and that's generally it which really is a sad state of affairs in my opinion. But it's not all doom and gloom there are the odd 2 or 3 episode series that are aired like the Sarah Raven documentary 'Bees, Butterflies and Blooms' and then there's 'How to Grow a Planet'. Both of these are being aired as I type and are interesting, informative and in some cases inspirational. Which, in my humble opinion, is more than can be said for ITV's Love your Garden hosted by Alan Tichmarsh or 'Garden ER' hosted by David Domoney; both of which are sadly lacking in the horticultural department and, in Domoney's case, manages to drive me, as a garden designer, to despair when he 'spruces up' a garden by stapling photographs on fences - I have yet to meet anyone who thought that was a good idea! Why can't we have more of the inspirational, informative programmes?
Perhaps it is just me, but we have it drummed into us from an early age that the environment is so important to our survival and more and more research suggests that gardening is good for the mind, body and soul. Allotmenting is hitting an all time high as people try to grow their own produce not only to cut air miles down but also to save some pennies and, in many cases, for sheer enjoyment of it too. So come on you television channels let's see some more fascinating and inspiring programmes in the very near future.
Roll on March when we see Monty Don back on our screens with Carol Klein, Joe Swift and Rachel De Thame and whether you agree or not with some of their practices surely everyone can take at least one snippet of horticultural know-how away with them!