A Gardening Film?

Huh? What? A film about gardening? Have I veered off into writing documentaries?

No—but I feel surrounded by documentaries, news stories, and stories from friends on how gardening has become their passion—or at least a way to pass the time—during the pandemic. And I began to wonder why.

Gardening is hard work—I don’t do it. I love gardens and here in France we’re lucky enough to have a gardener who does the work of making sure there are cut flowers for our home from March to December. Lucky—I’m so lucky.

But back to gardening. There’s an older, slightly twee British TV show called Rosemary and Thyme. It’s about two women Rosemary and her friend Laura Thyme who go onto grand properties and plant new gardens or track down the reasons the roses aren’t growing or whatever. And similar to Murder, She Wrote, these women encounter murder at every garden they’re hired to work on.

And in the film world, the only original gardening film that comes to mind is 2014’s A Little Chaos by Jeremy Brock, Alison Deegan and Alan Rickman. It tells the story of two gardeners who are building the gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV and their romantic involvements.

Given the paucity of garden films, you might wonder if it’s an area even worth thinking about. But then I think of all the reality TV shows about gardening—especially in England—where someone comes in and transforms someone’s boring back yard into a garden oasis.

So where’s the story? Well, I think it’s in a few places.

What about the garden designer? What kind of person designs with growing things that are, let’s face it, more likely to do what they want than what you want—so you have to train them and force them to accommodate your design. That sort of person could become a super interesting character who would try to do the same thing in their life—with their families and friends—to control their relationship world. And, of course, in real life they’re not that good.

What about the would-be gardener? What kind of person wants so badly to produce the perfect garden—but has absolutely no talent for it? They’re successful in life and in their friendships with others, but the blasted plants won’t grow for them, and they wonder if they’re cursed or something.

What about the successful gardener? This is a person that wins awards every year for their roses at the state fair. Then, one year, the roses aren’t growing as they should, and sabotage is discovered. Hmmm…. who amongst their beloved gardener friends is trying to ruin their chances for that blue ribbon?

What about a detective who goes undercover at a stately home as a gardener in order to ferret out which relative murdered the owner of the estate? And in the process, maybe he/she falls for one of these relatives and their judgment is impaired… and then someone tries to kill the detective. Is it the person they’ve fallen for? Who can they trust?

So there you go—a few ideas for a gardening film. And you’ll note they all begin with a character. Sometimes a situation presents itself and you populate it with characters, but for me, most of the time, it’s the character that kicks everything off.

I feel like this is a genre that isn’t even a genre—the gardening film—so if you’ve any interest, why not kick start it and create a film that resonates for all the newbie gardeners the world has produced at the moment?

Copyright © Diane Lake

18Apr21

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com