As a responsible webmaster, with a site about gardening, I felt I should catch up on some gardening on TV, and so I watched the BBC's Gardener's World.

In this edition, Alan Titchmarsh, "the nation's favourite gardener" took us, the viewers, on a tour of his garden.

How lovely for Alan, to stroll along his wide grass paths, through bits of woodland, mediterranean garden, meadow, Amazonian rainforest . . . or maybe I imagined that last bit, I kind of drifted away into wondering if there was anything nice in the fridge. . .

Trip to the fridge over, there's Alan, still walking through his garden, telling us all about it, (has he got to his conservatory yet? Has it been designated by the government as housing for the homeless?) . . .

There's Alan, wandering up a sunny incline. (I'll just see if there's anything else nice in the fridge . .) .

Back again, and there's Alan - is his garden really in England? Does anyone own that much land? - apparently in a farmer's field - but, he says, it's his wildflower meadow.

(Back to the fridge, for a glass of wine . . .) Back to the sofa, where I begin to wonder what's on the other channels. On the TV, Alan's still walking . . .

. . . . . .

And there's Alan, by the Golden Gate Bridge, past the Taj Mahal. A nice edit, and there's Alan by the pyramids. His desert garden. . . . . and there's Alan by the Angel of the North in Gateshead . . . noooooooo! . . . .

Phew, I wake up, realise I was dreaming, relieved to find that the Angel of the North isn't actually in Alan's garden, but still by the side of the A1, in all its glory. The other landmarks may be in Alan's garden, I'm not quite sure.

As I'm waking up from my dream, I think I hear Alan say that his walk through his garden was an eighth of a mile. Or maybe 800 miles. Or maybe up the Nile. Or something.

. . . . .

Obviously, as I wander sleepily to the back door and look out on my average-sized bit of land, I feel the warm glow the programme makers intended. I look at the end wall of my garden, visible from the back door of the house, and think "thank goodness Alan Titchmarsh has so much space to garden in. He deserves it, as he has his own range of branded garden tools, that he makes personally himself."

I remember that I stopped watching gardening TV because I was troubled by the size of Alan's conversatory. Alan's references in the past to his big begonias had made me laugh and feel rather fond of him, but I'm not so sure about the big conservatory.

I don't want to single out Alan Titchmarsh, as he's a nice bloke, I'm sure. But he's also the figurehead of a general garden industry movement. I think about how much money we're encouraged to spend on things we don't really need in our gardens, and how many acres of rain-dampened timber decking are causing people to slip around dangerously all over the UK. How the gardening industry and the celebrity industry have coincided to give us the impression that appearance counts for all. This has of course reached its apex in the makeover phenomenon, about which enough has been said already.

I look out onto my garden and think of how TV gardening used to work on the assumption that we weren't all laden up with disposable income, and with several acres to plant. I wonder what Alan's vast garden, and his enormous, luxurious conservatory, is supposed to be showing me as a viewer. Work hard and you too could be as rich as this celebrity gardener?

Turning Earth mouse mat anyone?

Delphinium 'Summer Skies'