You know you're a gardener when you analyze the movie's garden....:)
"Fake" gardens are a dead give away when they mix full sun plants with those that would fry outside the shade. And yes, the full bloom of everything is another good clue.

Have yet to see that movie, but I plan to.

Lol! I agree with donnabaskets about the "You know when your a gardener..." ;-)

I am a big fan of Masterpiece Theater films (the kind that are based on classic literature especially). I love looking at those perfect UK gardens! My particular favorties from M.Theater are "Northanger Abbey" and "Mansfield Park"- see if you can rent them, because I know you will drool over those gardens like I do!
CMK

Inspector Morse got to visit some nice gardens, too. The only line I remember from 35 years of masterpiece came from A morse show. The Lady of the HOuse asks Morse "Do you dibble?"
Only some gardeners would know what dibble, the noun, is or "dibble" the verb does.

idabean

I was noticing the garden at the end of 'You've Got Mail' awhile back. It was a small park in NY City and I really enjoyed it. There's something special about a city garden that is a public park. Someone caring for a garden for strangers to enjoy. :-)

Idabean, I guess that's one reason why I like the english shows so much. Along with Inspector Morse and Rosemary and Thyme, Midsomer Murders show some very nice gardens. A dibbler is another favorite tool of mine, I just wish I could remember where I put mine.

Annette

How about animals in the movies: set in the amazon with cockatoos flying around monkey puzzle trees? Or macaws flying around Australia.

It's Complicated has all the veggies ripe at once. Now, wouldn't that be a hectic canning week?!

PS - My brother is an interior trim carpenter and has some commercial lathes. He made some wood dibblers for me; different sizes. I know - enchanted to be me! LOL

~Mickie

Is this tool we are talking about a dibbler or a dibble? (my spellcheck underlined dibbler in red.) HOpe you don't mind if I dibble in the dictionary and find the correct spelling.
idabean

The dictionary lists both, but dibble is preferred. If you prefer dibbler I'm sure that's ok!!

I believe either is correct. My spell check underlines in red, words like color if I leave the u out, only in Canada you say LOL.

Annette

I always heard and said dibble. My friend (from Canada, by the way:)) says dibbler.

Is one who uses a dibble a dibbler?

:)
Dee the dibbler

Hmmmmmm, how'd that L creep in, I should have typed dibble or dibber to be correct, me thinks Annette will still keep looking for her dibbler tho :o).

I've gotten pretty good locating a movie's location, by the plants nearby. At least now tv and movies are conscious of sets and locations. I recall seeing pots and such in the background of movies and shows from the late 70's-early 80's .

The garden at the end of You've Got Mail is pretty nice. Looks like May to me.

~Chills

my fav film scene w a garden is in Howard's End, which has Vanessa Redgrave walking barefoot through her gardens at "the blue hour" of dusk.It is an unforgettable moment, luminous and transcendent.
mindy

Saw the movie this past weekend with two gardener friends and when they got to the garden we looked at each other and just started laughing. We couldn't believe how fake it all looked. It was also amazing to see how many different season plants were growing side by side at the same exact height. All I know is I want that gardener to come to my house.

Many years ago a colleague invited me to sit in on an interview he was conducting with a member of the cast of "Enchanted April," which he knew was one of my favorite movies.

I had often commented on the beautiful location, gorgeous gardens, etc., etc.

Well, come to find out, the castle/villa was mostly falling apart; at the time of filming, it was not livable; much of the film was shot on a set; and most of the plantings/gardens the audiences saw were fake.

I believe the film came out in 1992. It's still one of my favorites.

Will be checking out "It's Complicated."

Thank you idabean! Such a great idea for a future newspaper or website column.

~ Hilda

Here is a link that might be useful: BostonGardens.com

I love looking for great gardens in movies too. Of course, the English do it best because they really do have so many truly beautiful gardens to choose from. No need for fakery.

But my most crushing disappointment along these lines was the "garden" created for the movie of "The Secret Garden" about ten years ago. That was one of my favorite books as a child and not only did the movie ruin the story but the garden had to be the worst of all time. Obviously plastic flowers crowded in among tropicals and all sorts of abominations in a Yorkshire garden. Ugh. I'm still mad.

Oh, I haven't read The Secret Garden in a decade, and I'm ready for a new book. Let's read it together and talk about Mrs. Craven's garden.....I can still imagine Mary first seeing the snowdrops and gently pulling away the dead leaves...
idabean

I loved that book too, as a child. I remember skipping over all the plant names because I hadn't a clue what they were....I bet I'd enjoy it more now. :)

I like Howard's End, when the young man who "ruins" Helena Bonham-Carter walks through all the bluebells(?) I think they are. It's so beautiful!

Also heard on the cottage garden forum that It's Complicated used real plants (all carefully grown in a greenhouse) but the red tomatoes were wired on to the plants. There's a link to an article about the movie :)

Is that true bostongardens??? Ah, darn. I love the movie Enchanted April and always thought I'd like to find that villa and it's gardens. Wonder if the villa and gardens in "My House in Umbria" is fake?

This week, I watched the movie "Matilda" on TV. Well, not really watched it but tuned in right when the teacher brings Matilda back to her little cottage and its gardens. I thought about buying the DVD just so I could freeze-frame the scene showing the outside of the cottage.

I loved Enchanted April so much I bought the tape way back when. Such a disappointment to hear it's not real.... I also have the tape of Secret Garden (just watched it again about 2 weeks ago). I had thought the garden must be partially real with supplimental flowery installations. Doesn't matter though, because in "my" heaven, my garden will look alot like it but without the bother of having to spray fungicide on the roses or worry about incorrect zones.

First words out of my son's girlfriend's mouth as we exited the theater, "it's only a movie!" I looked at her because I had no idea what she was talking about so she clarified for me, the garden was only perfect because it was a movie!

How well that girl knows me!!! How did she know that I had been sitting there during the garden scene, mouth hanging open, wondering *WHY* my garden never looks like that....and the shrinks worry about the glamour magazines and movies giving our young girls complexes!?!

How about bird sounds in movies? Like when you are watching a movie and the cowboys are sitting around the fire in the desert, and from the night surrounding them you hear---a loon.

Another fave--commercials showing bald eagles---with the voices of red tailed hawks dubbed in! Eagles make a chittering sound, not a regal "scream" -- so the hawk's scream replaces the eagle voice.

Anyone remember Green Card? That indoor greenhouse was wonderful... I could move right in! I also like the look of Gerard Depardieu. ;) The movie was dumb though.

Oooh, this is a topic that is one my personal bugbears! They get so much wrong in films and even more so in TV series. Stuff blooming at the wrong time of year, snow sprayed over clearly deciduous trees in full leaf, blatantly artificial flowers stuck onto the wrong foliage, supposed rows of vegetables which are just plunked into the ground and are already beginning to wilt. Random bits of artificial ivy which are clearly covering modern bits of street furniture. (I live in an area where many of the buildings and surrounding villages have been used for filming and I've seen them sticking this stuff over modern doorbells and things) Recent classics from my collection include a blatant large flowered garden scabious being passed off as a wild scabious and growing in a wood, where it would never be found. In the film 'Bright Star' about John Keats they are seen picking bunches of cherries(plastic) from apple trees. Then there are all the anachronistic plants where you sit there saying 'the Elizabethans did not have Lilium regale' you fools! And don't get me started on the animals... Starting with the skunks in Disneys 101 Dalmations which is supposed to be set on the outskirts of London right up to the cicadas which are clearly heard in the night scenes of Shakespeare in Love. Only today I saw an episode of a TV costume drama supposedly taking place near Oxford where the nighttime cacophany would have done credit to the South of France in mid-Summer. Phew - good to get that off my chest.