"5 Gardeners and a Movie"

This came up in the rocky mountain forum and thought it would be fun to learn about Movies and the garden events that we all wondered about. Like what vine did Tarzan swing from tree to tree with? What were the types of tree in the Jungle that would have that amount of spacing to allow swinging to the rescue? Or was it all a Hollywood set and none exist. Please tell me there are some jungles left for me to swing in.

Soferdig, you might try Silver Springs and Wakulla Springs Florida. The Creature From the Black Lagoon and a few Tarzan movies were shot there. We have plenty of vines right here in Pa., big enough to swing on. An old wild grape on a hillside is good. Just look out for the poison ivy, and don't forget your loincloth

What kind of trees did they get the ideas from. Were they big 10 stories trees and what kind of tree grows in Tarzan land. Yes I saw both of those and then went to "Weekie Watchie" springs to see where Seahunt was filmed. So the vines were wild grape?

Try Mimosaceae Entada gigas http://www.straightdope.com/columns/051021.html

http://fishback.blogspot.com/2006/06/one-oh-four-point-seven.html


I don't remember any breaking when I was a kid

In the Amazon area of Venezuela. There are huge trees with just the right kind of vines. They look like a philodendron on steroids. You even have to go by dug out canoe to get there.

Thanks Claypa. That is what I was wondering about. Next why was the movie "The constant Gardener" given its title. I only saw Ralph Finnes in the garden once. I went to this movie with great expectation. Or better yet has anyone ever eaten Fava Beans? I hadn't heard of them before "Silence of the Lambs".

Yes I have eaten Fava Beans in antipasto in Italy. I was never there in November so I didn't eat the cookies they make with them for the Day of the Dead though.

Got no answers for you but here is a question... what movie is this from.....

"See, I think there's a plan. There's a design for each and every one of us. You look at nature. Bird flies somewhere, picks up a seed, "caca"s the seed out, plant grows. Bird's got a job, "caca"'s got a job, seed's got a job. And you've got a job. "

Now I had to do this 2x got edited by "he who shall not be named" because of "profanity"...which reminds of George Carlins 7 words you can not say on TV. I have learned (hanging head in shame) that there are 2 words not to be posted, I will tell you what they are (kinda) and then you can edit quote above "accordingly".

D*** can say darn and dang
S*** can say gauno, castings, manure, droppings..... in Utah we have a saying "caca occurs" this replaces "s*** happens"

Oooh-oooo I know !!.... Now there's some good gardening in a movie..

MQN

MQN's quote is from..... hint, it's one of Maddie's lines, played by Renee Zellweger

Cold Mountain

Has anyone seen "Saving Grace" ? That has some gutbuster lines in it.

I loved that movie! "Saving Grace". My favorite scene was the one with the town folks sitting
out in their lawn chairs w/sun glasses waiting for the lights to go on in Grace's greenhouse. A
great movie for gardeners.

Tam

Sofer - The Constant Gardener is a book written by John le Carre. In it the husband is a very mild and passive man who likes to garden. Maybe the 'Constant' part of the title came because of his devotion to his wife. Great movie. I really enjoyed it.

Fava Beans - when I was growing up we called them broad beans and they were disgusting. Grey and nasty. Ugh! Since then my tastes have changed a lot and knowing how to cook them has helped tremendously. Now I love them. The best dish I had made with Fava Beans was a spread like hummus, where the beans were crushed and mixed with lemon juice, olive oil and salt and served on crostini. MMmmmm - salivating on my keyboard. You might know Fava Beans as Horse Beans.

Fava beans prove presentation ISN'T everything. When I grew up, having asparagus meant Mama opening a can of slimy, mushy rods of stinky vegetable matter. When I cut some fresh off the ground and steamed it, little bit of salt and pepper... not the same dish AT ALL.

This one's a British TV series and not a movie, but when you just need a little mind candy, "Rosemary and Thyme" is fun to watch. Gardening detectives -- very cozy. And some shots of some amazing English gardens.

And by the way, MQN, you also cannot use the word that begins with "w" and refers to a lady of the evening. Found that out the embarassing way. The deletion notification made me feel like a... whoops!

Yes Saving Grace. What a wonderful way to use a green house. Very hilarious when the smoke inundated the garden party. All had fun.
MQN has anyone answered the name of the Movie of your quote? I don't know which one but it sounds like a classic Jack Nicholson. "One flew out of the cuckoo's nest"?
Brigidlilly I kind of remember Rosemary and thyme as two older ladies quite inquisitive into everyones elses business and always solving murder mysteries. Or was that that old lace and arsenic.
My all time favorite gardener movie was "Little shop of horrors". Very funny and even though the plant ate people you still liked him/her. "FEED ME!"

At least the current Rosemary and Thyme aren't what I would call older. They are middle aged.

Yeah I guess I was thinking of Arsenic and old lace.

Only the old ladies in A and OL were the murderers, not the detectives. I just saw it again the other night. Talk about a classic! I love the old Cary Grant light comedies.

Soferdig, greenjay got it, it's from the movie Cold Mountain. I liked it so much, I got the dvd and the music cd, which won a grammy, if I remember right

I love Teddy digging the Panama Canal.

See I liked Cold Mountain too when I read it but when he was killed at the farm home he was returning to I didn't enjoy the pain of the book. No delivery and hard to finish without a downer.
Another garden horror movie was one Charleton Heston was in where he had built a empire in the jungle. Then as he was ready to make it more by his driven personality the Ants came and ate the jungle and all he worked hard for. I loved the slow and steady destruction of the Amazon, or where ever, done by the man/plant eating ants. Does anyone know the name of that one.

The Naked Jungle 1953 That's not nearly as stupid a movie as it sounds, I thought it would be like Them, a different ant movie

Yeah that was a pretty neat BIG garden he had built. Thanks claypa.

Thanks for the reference to "Rosemary and Thyme". I just put it in my Netflix queue for next week...LOL

What about "Children of the Corn"?

I really enjoy Rosemary and Thyme, but there's always somebody getting bumped off and interferring with the garden sequences.

Has anyone seen Second Hand Lions? It's not really about gardening, but there is the planting and tending of a vegetable garden that I thought was awfully amusing.

Yes Children of the corn, good one! It is always interesting that a corn field is a place for spirits, aliens, and old baseball players to emerge out of. I never thought of a corn field as menacing. I played in row after row of corn crops and never met anything but some Pheasants, and deer that kind of startled me.
No I don't think I have seen Second Hand Lions. What was funny about it?

I used to get lost in the cornfields. I always figured that was what had happened to the baseball players and aliens.

When I was a kid there were cornfields behind our house where we lived on the outskirts of town. All the kids in our street used to sneak into the middle of it and build 'forts' or play tag. It was loads of fun until the farmer came raging after us. We really were the children of the corn although there was nothing too scary about us ;-)

Here's another movie along the same lines - Field of Dreams. One of Kevin Costner's finest I think and James Earl Jones is always great to watch.

Second Hand Lions stars Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and Haley Joel Osment . It's about these two rather eccentric brothers who take in a grand nephew for the summer. Michael Caine's character starts telling the boy stories from when the brothers were young men and world adventurers. In between the flashbacks, there's what's going on currently, like fishing with shotguns, mail ordering a lion because they want to go on a lion hunt (the lion becomes a pet) and mail ordering a plane. In the bit about the garden, they all have brand new coveralls and straw hats and plant a big garden with various rows of vegetables. The garden is starting to come up and they are all out there working away when one asks what kind of vegetable is in their row. Anyway it turns out that the entire garden is all corn which later becomes the lion's jungle.

I liked this film alot. The flashbacks are filled with action/adventure and the two old uncles are quirkily amusing. I guess if I would have to put a label on it, the word heartwarming comes to mind.

Okay, then we have to mention "Signs" if we're talking cornfields. That one shot where the alien just slipped into the row gives me the utter heebie jeebies.

No alien could hide in a corn field. Well no big alien. Yeah that one was ugly and quite real looking. I always thought that I would give the first alien I met a cold beer. If they liked it we would be friends, if not their reactions would be diminished. Tee Hee. Another garden movie "Honey I shrunk the kids" shows the grass and the life underneath. After that movie I thought the life of a bug would be fun with all the rollercoaster trips down the plants. Oh Mutiny on the bounty: They origionally were taking Bread fruit to the Solomon Islands.

WHile we're at it, let's not forget "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Put me off of eggplant and zucchini for several years.

How about the Orchid Thief? The book was amazingly well written and the movie was a hoot.
Rather odd but I loved the part about the whacky main character who partnered with native americans
to loot the swamp of protected orchids.

Tam

In the animated category "Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Were Rabbit". All the town were mad keen gardeners, and an enormous mutant rabbit (is there any other kind?) was destroying their gardens in the dead of night. This movie was a hoot, I think I enjoyed it more than my kids.

They must be doing the remake of "Wallace & Gromit" on my property, then - definitely giant mutant rabbits destroying greenery in the dead of night!

I love Charlton Heston and the movie Naked Jungle. I remember watching it at my aunt's house sitting in her giant overstuffed chair. One of my claims to fame is that we met him and he shook my son's hand and told him that "David was a good, strong name."

I pretty much haven't watched too many movies in the last several years. I'm not really a movie/TV person and when I watch, the stuff tends to be in B&W (or was before they colorized some of them). I discovered gardening and computers after the age of 30. Made a career out of one and am currently fighting Mother Nature tooth and nail to accomplish the other. Reading this thread, though, makes me think I may have some movies to add to my DH's NetFlix list... I wonder what he will think of an animated show about mutant rabbits.