The Unreality of "Reality" TV

How many times have you seen them? You know what I'm talking about. Those reality TV shows where the host of the show talks and walks us through the complete installation of an entire landscape in just a scant 23 minutes?

Unfortunately, reality is much different than what we see on TV. What we don’t see, and generally never really consider, is that a quality landscape can take at a minimum of several weeks to even many months from initial concept, complete design, planning and to final installation. Rarely are even the simplest landscapes installed without something unexpected happening; yet we sometimes seem to base our ideas on what happens by what we see on reality TV. One would hardly consider that anything could go wrong based on the seamless operation of these shows. And that is one of the major drawbacks of these types of shows.

Now, when we see this fantastic transformation of a landscape, from bare dirt to lush paradise, take place in the space of ½ hour our understanding of what can really happen (and generally does) can indeed become rather skewed. For example, do we really consider that many months of planning go into the production of these shows? Have we stopped to think that behind the host, the “talking head” of the show so to speak, a literal army of producers and technicians stand at the ready to make everything go as smoothly as possible? Or that virtually everything is carefully planned months in advance? Unrealistic expectations can and unfortunately do arise from not considering these facets of TV production.

Now I am certainly not knocking these TV shows. As a matter of fact, I appreciate them very much because they have actually helped grow my business more and more as people understand the value of planning ahead and putting their ideas on paper before even one spade of dirt gets turned or one dollar is spent. I even learn new techniques and ideas from these shows! Thanks to these shows many people have been inspired to invest in one of the most important tangible investments they can ever make, their home. That has certainly led to some new business for my firm for sure.

What I would like the landscape design client to take away from this article is simply this: Temper your ideas and expectations about your landscape project with a rather large dose of “true” reality and plan ahead accordingly. Many times the lead time for a landscape design from beginning concept to final presentation is 6 to 8 weeks. A quality landscape design takes that kind of time because there really is quite a bit in producing a unique design tailored to the individual client. Add to that a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks in getting bids of your project from various contractors and you can see close to 2 to 3 months has been expended. Add to that the 2 to 6 weeks (or more depending on the complexity of the project) of construction and installation of the landscape and it doesn’t take long to see that a quality landscape can take many months, not a mere half-hour, to install.