The Coastal Gardener:

I don’t watch much television. But, as a career gardener and horticulturist, I still regularly scan the channel guide in the hope of a worthwhile gardening show. I seldom find one, but like hunting for snipe, I keep searching. When HGTV launched more than 15 years ago, I had great hopes, but the “G” seemed to be nearly invisible from the channel’s programming.

What few gardening shows are on TV are usually so off the mark and regionally incorrect that I can’t bear to sit through them. If you’ve read these columns for long, you’ve seen my comments on the unfortunate misinformation that most national gardening content offers.

Exactly three weeks ago today, in this column, I said “I have a gardening wish for 2010...that during the new year, local gardeners stop reading national gardening magazines.”

Good thing I didn’t say “national gardening television shows,” because I think I’ve found a show that local gardeners might find worth tuning into.

“The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie” (8 p.m. Saturdays on HGTV, and repeated at other times) has kept my attention for three episodes now. It’s far from perfect, but it is worth the 30 minutes.

What makes the show worth watching? It is a combination of four things that I haven’t seen in similar shows before.

First, the gardens are all here in Southern California; second, for better or worse, Durie has a lot of personality; third, the show has a generous production budget; and finally, the design work is really quite good.

Some of you may already have seen Durie on television before, most likely on episodes of “The Victory Garden,” the long-running garden show that unfortunately has lost its way in the past decade. Durie is an environmentalist and a good visionary landscape architect. Durie, now with both a home and a design business in Los Angeles and his native Australia, is the real deal.

As he clearly demonstrates on camera, Durie, like most of the best designers, is very much about vision. In his own head, he clearly pictures the end result of a project that he is working on. Like other great designers and great creators, he can see the finished result, before the first grain of soil is touched.

He’s not about drawing boards and engineering plans; that’s for someone else. He waves his arms a lot, talks in confusing generalities and changes his mind as often as the weather; he’s charming at one moment and annoying the next.

Durie’s lively personality is a large part of the show. I suspect his ego is as large as the gardens he creates, and “The Outdoor Room,” of which Durie is also co-executive producer, spends a great deal of air time feeding his self-image. This will turn off some viewers, but it comes with the territory.

The show’s other landscape designer and horticulturist, Beth Edelstein, as well as head carpenter Stephen Zimpel, don’t get nearly enough credit for their efforts.

At the “reveal” moment of each show, it is Durie alone who basks in the light of the team’s accomplishment.

Because the show is filmed in and around Los Angeles, we are fortunate to be on the rare winning end of the rationality of gardening.

There is almost no mention of the plants used in the landscapes and nothing about their growth habits, characteristics, cultural requirements, etc. But that’s probably best, because this is a landscape show, not a gardening show. Nonetheless, the vast majority of America’s viewing audience will be led astray by the Mediterranean and subtropical plant combinations of this show. But, for Southern California audiences, for once we are the beneficiaries of the show; it is others who will be misled.

I’m disappointed that the landscapes created in the show mostly do not celebrate their own locations and don’t really connect to their own climate and natural resources. In each episode, Durie draws inspiration from a different faraway place, like Bali, Italy, Asia or south Florida, and brings these elements into a California garden. Very real local issues like water, wildlife habitat and invasive plants seem to have been forgotten. This is a surprise, given Durie’s otherwise strong environmental commitment.

No television gardening program can ever be quite right for every viewer. I don’t watch much television, but I’ll watch “The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie.” Tune in this week; I think you might enjoy it.

Ask Ron

Question:

For the first time I have a plumeria that developed a couple of pods. I have put a cover over them, so when they release some seeds they do not blow away. When should this happen, and should I help the process? Also, will the new plants produce different colored flowers?

Terry

Newport Beach

Answer:

Good for you. The pod will take several months before the seeds ripen and the pod opens. Plumeria seeds are rather easy to germinate. The seeds are placed barely under the soil, with the “wings” protruding above and will germinate in a couple of weeks if the soil is warm. Growing from seed can be fun, but remember, the resulting plants will not be duplicates of the parent, and may show completely different flower colors and plant habits. They will also take about three to five years to come into flower, but this is how new hybrids are found, so good luck.

ASK RON

your toughest gardening questions, and the expert nursery staff at Roger’s Gardens will come up with an answer. Please include your name, phone number and city, and limit queries to 30 words or fewer. E-mail

stumpthegardener@rogersgardens.com

, or write to Plant Talk at Roger’s Gardens, 2301 San Joaquin Hills Road, Corona del Mar, CA 92625.

RON VANDERHOFF is the nursery manager at Roger’s Gardens, Corona del Mar.