Wednesday, April 20, 2011

RadioGarden: The Best Garden Podcast Period


If you haven't checked out Andrew Key's RadioGarden, my friend, you are missing out.  Andrew Keys wears many hats in the gardening world: designer, writer, entrepreneur, and blogger.  Andrew has made gardening hip for the iPod generation.  I had already been following his witty blog Garden Smackdown, when I saw that he was starting a radio podcast for Horticulture Magazine.

This peaked my interest.  For years, I've been searching for a GOOD garden podcast to pass the time while I do my studio work.  But it's slim pickings in the garden podcast world.  The vast majority of them are overly polite how-to's (today's episode: how to prune hydrangeas); or call in shows where every other caller wants to know what they can plant that will withstand dog pee.  Mind numbing stuff.

RadioGarden is a breath of fresh air.  In an era where garden media is dominated by "garden celebrities" like P. Allen Smith (trademark!) and corporate sponsorships from Scotts/Miracle-Gro, Andrew Keys is the antidote.  Fresh, witty, and real, Andrew tells stories about the intersection of plants and people.  Inspired by Ira Glass' This American Life, Andrew's show exposes the real connections between people and the gardens they love.  There's no pretension here.  Just good, raw storytelling told with a journalist's eye for detail and a poet's sensibility. 

Andrew has produced four quality episodes so far.  The only question is: can Andrew keep it up with all his other commitments and interests?  I certainly hope so.  It's time for this show to go big time.

You can listen yourself right here on Horticulture Magazine's website.  Or download the podcasts from iTunes.

5 comments:

  1. Hmmm...thanks for that, and I'll give it a listen later.

    A friend and I here once talked about having a locally-based horticultural podcast, to get out relevant information without garden "gate-keeper" media, or simply, "the man". Something without a trademark, too!

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  2. Hi Thomas - Thank you so much for your kind words, and I'm SO GLAD you're enjoying the show! I so enjoy putting it together, but it's definitely labor-intensive, so it's always gratifying to read that folks really do get it, AND they like it too. I'll do my best to keep it up.

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  3. Thanks for the tip, Thomas. I've downloaded all of these, and I'm looking forward to listening to them. -Jean

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  4. Hi Thomas,
    I look forward to checking out these podcasts--good gardening stories are always worth hearing.

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  5. Great podcasts. if you're looking for other gardening podcasts I listen to the "garden Illustrated" lectures. You can down load them on itunes.

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