“Visionary Gardeners”: “The Northern Garden”

The Canadian television series “Visionary Gardeners” is a five-part series premiering March 7, at 9 p.m. ET on Vision TV and it runs for 5 weeks in half hour segments. It features avid Canadian gardeners with their own vision of what a garden is. You may think the series is about them and their gardens and that is true and of course that is interesting particularly if you are gardener. But these episodes may help viewers develop their own ideology of gardening. After all doesn’t a vision necessitate an ideology?

In “Northern Garden”, which airs on March 14th at 9 p.m. Adrienne Clarkson former television personality and Governor General of Canada and John Ralston Saul a writer, philosopher and intellectual muse about their small but dense urban garden in Toronto.

It is becoming apparent to me that passionate gardeners are likely to have a coherent philosophy and ideology surrounding their gardening. I can’t divulge Clarkson’s or Ralston Saul’s philosophy of gardening as I’ll let you do that. It is interesting though that both had an exposure to gardening when they were younger. Clarkson was of humble background being the child of newly arrived immigrants where gardening for food was a way of stretching the tight budget.  Ralston Saul and his brother used to grow fruits and vegetables they could enter in agricultural competitions. For Clarkson when you garden the earth is telling you something and can be an image for people into what paradise could be.

Ralston Saul is a proponent of a Northern Garden namely what has always grown in Canada and prefers perennials over annuals. He makes an interesting point that the English colonists to Canada acted as if they stood above the earth as if they could tell it what to do.

The beautiful cinematography continues in episode two. If you can’t catch it on Vision TV you can watch it free for two weeks after each episode airs at http://www.visiontv.ca. Note that it is only available for streaming on devices in Canada at the moment.

“Visionary Gardeners” is from Ian Toews and Mark Bradley of Victoria, British Columbia based 291 Film Company.