I have never even thought about going to the library for gardening videos. Thanks for the heads up, Mindy. I will go later this week.

HOORAY!!
best,
mindy

Hi Mindy, I have The Art & Practice of Gardening, Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn and Great Gardens of England bought them all from Amazon.ca. I like to watch these over and over when my get up and go has got up and gone. I have to say they get me moving again even to the point of....now where did I put that light on the pole with the long extension cord, so who cares it's 11PM :o) Thanks for the other titles I'll have to look them up and see if their available here I want to add them to my own personal collection.
If you haven't seen Great Gardens of England do try and get it's a must see. Along the lines of The Art &....
Annette

Mindy, What a great idea. Thank you for sharing!!

Here are my thoughts on 3 more videos we've just watched:

The Gardens of England; Hidcote Manor, Mottisfont Abbey, Sissinghurst.1993 The (British) National Trust prod. by the Larkspur Co. These 3 gardens are certainly among the best and most famous in England. This is a pretty good video. Background info on @ garden is helpful but not very thorough. Unlike the Penelope Hobhouse films,photography here is good but not excellent. Few specific plants are identified. Still, for those of us who haven't visited these places, there were lots of inspiring sights and moments.

Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden 1992
The Smithsonian Institution.
This is a tremendous film. The photography is top notch, really giving you a visual and sensual feeling for each garden. These visits are interspersed with very insightful interviews with well known Japanese figures including a zen monk, a poet, a stage set designer, a garden designer.....
How I wish English style gardens could be documented this well.

Wisley Through the Seasons . 1999
I was surprised at how mediocre this long film is. It does a very poor job of showing you this flagship garden of the Royal Hort. Society with all its fascinating gardens and collections. The film mostly seems like a kind of "see this before you intern at Wisley" or "the day to day workings of Wisley through the seasons". Too bad.

Best,
Mindy

My Garden by Beth Chatto.1995.
Of all the private gardens in Britain, Beth Chatto's has always been the one I most want to visit.Her focus on foliage, her sense of space and design, her extensive plant knowledge, all spur my intrigue. The interviews w/ her, throughout this film,are very revealing about her first influences, motivations and focus.The photography could be sooo much better today but at least it does a creditable job of taking us through the major parts of the property and introducing us to some of her favorite plants.

best,
Mindy

Mindy, thanks a lot for taking the time to put together your list and thoughts about the videos. I am looking forward to finding and viewing many of them.

I think it must have been Wisley Through the Seasons that I had seen, and I also thought it did nothing to really highlight the amazing gardens there.

I am really looking forward to finding the Chihuly video. After seeing his work at the NY Botanical Garden, I have always wondered "how DID they move all that glass"?! I hope that video answers that question!

Annette, the videos you mentioned sure sound like they would be good to purchase. It's a good point you make that you watch them when your get up and go has gone. I'm definitely going to check those out.

Great Gardens of England ,Gardeners Views (set of 4 CDs in 1 box):
This set gives one the rare opportunity to visit 40, yes 40! excellent private gardens located throughout England. Each owner is interviewed and explains the history and focus of their garden. Aside from the gardens themselves, most of which are very impressive/intriguing/enchanting, there are some wonderful 'borrowed views' of the surrounding countryside so its a virtual tour of England and all its different topographies.This easily bears repeated viewings.

Chelsea 2003 The Official Souvenir DVD:
For so many years I have heard about the monumental and monumentally influential ChelseaFlower Show. Now I have some visuals to go along with the aura.Narrated/guided by a very spunky well known British gardening TV personality,too many displays are done too quickly but at least you get to finally see it, and hear about what was 'hot' in 2003!

Chihuly Short Cuts 2004:
I think this is the best of the 3 chihuly DVDs I've seen.A lot of excerpts from the other DVDs. Great in studio behind the scenes footage as well as on-site installations-from museums to botanical gardens and cities.
And yes, Thyme2dig, they show all those boxes and unpacking!

Longwood Gardens:A video Visit Throughtout the Year 1991:
I actually thought this was very poorly done. Like the Wisley Troughout the Seasons dvd, it gives you more of a look behind the scenes of maintaining this amazing place and the public programs they offer- rather than an appreciation fot the garden design and particular plants.
Maybe a better more worthwhile film has been made since then......

Best,
mindy

I almost bought the Great Gardens of England set from Amazon, in fact I was going to buy one for me and one for my best friend; but then bulked at using my credit card. Instead, I called the library; and they are ordering it for me to be brought done from a larger city library. They are suppose to call me when it comes in and I can keep it for two weeks. I suppose I will fall in love with it and buy it from Amazon afterall.

FINALLY, someone is taking action on the thread! thanks for telling me,schoolhouse. It'll be neat to hear what you think of the 4 discs. If and when we get to garden touring in England, I'm going to see , first, if the gardens I particularly liked are already in the Open Days book, and if not, I'm going to try and contact them directly; can't hurt to try!
best,
Mindy

Mindy, The Great Gardens of England was a pleasure to watch and I will be watching them again and again. Drool worthy.

Schoolhouse, when you see The Great Gardens of England I can guarantee you're going to buy it. We should tell everyone about The Victorian Garden Series we ordered from Amazon.UK. One has to have a region free DVD Player or.... to play these. When this series was on TV years ago it was very popular and watching it again is a pure delight. There is 3 different themes in this set, The Victorian Flower Garden, The Victorian Vegetable Garden and The Victorian Kitchen. The series is about recreating these garden as they were in Victorian Times and The Victorian Kichen is how they prepared the food back then using the same equipment used then.
Now that I have a way to play these region 2 DVD's my next purchase is going to be the Geoff Hamilton Series and Around the World in 80 Gardens from Amazon.UK.

Annette

annette, so glad you enjoyed them. it was either that video series or the beth chatto dvd that listed a bunch of other videos done by the same co.,but my library system doesn't have them, though i'm going to see if i can get them from the larger U.S. system.

btw, who is geoff hamilton?
thanks annette,
Mindy

Mindy, Geoff Hamilton is another of the great English gardeners who is no longer with us. I watched him create different types of gardens on TV Years ago. I've given a link to his DVD from Amazon.UK which tells a little about him. Being Region 2 you would need to have a region free DVD player to play these DVD's. They are not available over here yet.

Annette

Mindy,
I watched Chihuly Short Cuts last night. It was fabulous! Thanks so much for mentioning that one. It answered so many questions and was very interesting.

I also ordered Great Gardens of England on Amazon (the same night as your post in fact, and I haven't received them yet...hmmmm....i'll have to check on that order!)

Thanks for the info on the Longwood video. I've been there a few times, so I think I'll skip that one based on your thoughts that it was like the Wisley video which I was also underwhelmed over. There are so many great sights at Wisley that they could have shown that viewers would drool over.

I put the Art and Practice of Gardening on my Netflix list!

I don't normally watch too many videos, but I have to say that I have very much been enjoying this thread. Thanks for starting it and giving your opinions on the videos! I'm so glad there are others adding titles as well. Sounds like a purchase of a Region 2 DVD player might be in order!
It will make a long winter seem perhaps just a little shorter!

hoorah!!!thanks so much for telling us!
best,
mindy

Annette, I've watched all three DVDs of The Victorian Garden already. In fact, it only took me a couple of days after I got my RF player; just sat there from noon until late afternoon each day. I'm certain everyone here would thoroughly enjoy them. I even thought about posting about them on the Vegetable forum, I think veggie gardeners would admire watching some of the old methods of growing vegetables and fruits.

Yes, I'll end up buying The Great Gardens of England I bet.
The library hasn't called yet to say the DVD is in; I'm getting anxious.

Annette, I picked up Great Gardens of England from the library Tuesday and have watched all four DVDs. Although I enjoyed walking through all those gardens and listening to their owners comments, this video set wasn't what I was expecting. I guess I thought I'd be going to gardens like Sissinghurst or the ones at very large estates or public gardens in England, with huge castles and a maze or two. But glad I watched them before I purchased the set.

Sure do give a person a wealth of ideas though, plus I was amazed that the gardeners did all that tending and work themselves! Simply gorgeous borders, and the woodland gardens were wonderful. Those were my favorites I think. All that planning and designing, whew. Thanks for the heads up on this DVD set. My cousin saw it on the "hold" shelf at the library before I picked it up and wrote me a note saying "I wished that I had reserved this!"

Thx for the info.
I just added 3-4 to my netflix que.

winters are about 7 months too long-
I'll be in need of some green--
:)
Karen

We just ordered National Trust-Sissinghurst-A Year in the growing from the UK, probably won't have it till after Christmas, will let you know what it's like after I've watched it. We also ordered Gardens of the National Trust Vol. 1.

Annette

cheerpeople, would you post a link for gardening films on netflix? i have never used netflix and would like to see what gardening videos they offer.

annette,
unless you're getting them through your local library,
would you post a link for your source for these films you are purchasing?
thanks much,
mindy

Mindy, I've ordered some from Amazon.ca and some from Amazon.uk. When we ordered The Victorian Garden Series from the UK we had it within a week. You need to have a region free dvd player to view most of the dvd's ordered from the UK as they are mostly formated for region 2 and over here they are formated for region 1. There are Region free dvd players on the market you just have to search them out. With a region free player you can play dvd's from anywhere. There are other ways of getting around this problem but buying a region free player is the easiest.
Some of the other titles I'm looking into are....
The Geoff Hamilton BBC Collection
Around the World in 80 Gardens
Secret Gardens/More Secret Gardens

Annette... who is now hooked on these DVD's :o)

annette, do you just type in "gardening dvd" into an amazon search box?
best,
mindy

Mindy, go to Amazon.co.uk, set it for DVD's, type in for eg. The Victorian Garden Series. If you scroll down the page click on Victorian Kitchen Garden, then scroll down the page some and you will find other related garden dvd's or just type in the names of some of the titles you're looking for. There's probably an easier way to do this but I always seem to do it the hard way LOL.

Annette

OK it won't accept me putting this in the link part.
Netflix.com is the link
the search engine doesn't pull up all the titles mentioned under 'gardening'
you'll do better if you search for them by name.

karen

I watched the Victorian Kitchen dvds all over again yesterday.
I love Ruth Mott! The day before I toured a large Victorian house/museum that was decorated for the holidays - it was self-guided and I went straight to the kitchen areas. By the time I left I had the museum staff scratching their heads in response to my questions about the kitchen and pantry lay-out, where did they bring the vegetables in, where did the big stove set originally,ect. It was fun, and they enjoyed the challenges. In fact they are going to make a point and ask the museum president the answer to my question of "why was there a partition placed here?" ha

I think the series "Upstairs Downstairs" made a big impression on me years ago, because since then I've always been drawn to those areas of big houses!

you might enjoy a great new book just out: America's Kitchens, by Nancy Carlisle, 208 pp available from
www.tilburyhouse.com

it's produced by Historic New England and is part of an ongoing project about America's kitchens. oh boy!!
www.historicnewengland.com
best,
mindy