Pots of 'Hidcote' Lavender laid out ready to be planted.
Once upon a time, there was a new cable channel. It was called Home and Garden Television (HGTV). It had lots of gardening programs on it, such as "A Gardener's Diary" and "A Gardener's Journal." Time passed, and the powers that be at HGTV realized that they were getting more bang for their buck on home improvement programs, so the evil networkmeisters cut back on the gardening programs. Back when I haunted the fora of Fine Gardening (as "borzoi") and GardenWeb (as "entling"), there were a lot of gardeners who were, quite frankly, honked off at HGTV for its lack of gardening programs. There was even a campaign to bring back "A Gardener's Diary." Alas, the campaign was only partly successful, as the program returned to HGTV, but only as reruns. Currently, "A Gardener's Diary", the only "gardening" program on HGTV worth watching, is on at 6 a.m. Central Time on Thursdays (but I always forget to watch it and I can't record it, as they kids have taken over the DVD recorder). Unlike like the other "gardening" programs (using the term very loosely) on HGTV, "A Gardener's Diary" is about gardeners and the gardens they have created.
Recently, the blogging gardeners on Plurk, Robin of Bumblebee Blog and the Gardening Examiner, Cindy of From My Corner of Katy, Elizabeth of Gardening While Intoxicated and Garden Rant, Mary Ann of Idaho Gardener, and Carol of May Dreams Gardens, Vanillalotus of New Sprout, and Dee from Red Dirt Ramblings, were again complaining about the lack of gardening programs on HGTV. We agreed that the name "HGTV" is misleading, as it is really a channel about only home improvement or buying and selling real estate, so we resolved to join together to demand that HGTV either put its programming where its name is, or drop the "G" in "HGTV."
So now I'm making it official: HGTV, either put on more actual gardening programs or change the name! If Outdoor Living Network could successfully change its name, so can you, but we gardeners would all prefer that you simply put some gardening into your network. Or is that too much to ask?