You don't have to go to the jungles of Madagascar to be dazzled by exotic mating rituals and ferocious insect appetites. Just outside your back door there exists a world full of heated passions, brutal violence and other worldly beauty. Go out into your garden and pull back a leaf, any leaf, and have a look at a world far stranger than any storyline ever dreamed up on the 'X-Files'. Welcome to The Secret World of Gardens - a place where the familiar is revealed to be strangely alien.
This is 'Survivor' in the garden. Using macro-lenses and time-lapse photography, our plant paparazzi uncover the extraordinary secret life concealed in a common garden. With a dizzying shift of perspective, grasses become towering forests and beetles labor away as armored, devouring giants. From the ravages of bloodthirsty predators to the exotic mating rituals of blossoms this striking documentary shot in Super 16mm film gives viewers a ringside seat on the floor of their garden to witness the cycles of life and death that somersault throughout the season in their own backyards.
In early spring, the garden troops emerge on the scene. A communal group of ladybugs starts to wake from their snowy slumber and stretch their legs; their red backs in sharp contrast to the crisp white snow that slowly melts as they begin to stir. Bumblebees loudly trumpet their arrival and descend en mass into orchards to bombard pollen sources in dawn to dusk raids as icicles drip off their last icy breaths, and an 8-year old toad digs his way up through the soil to once again witness the renewal of Spring. Plants burst forth from the ground as though they have held their breath all winter long and now is the time to erupt on to the scene with one big exhale, vines tenderly reach for the skies and flowers crack open in breathtaking time-lapse photography.
As summer gets into full swing we follow the lives, loves and mishaps of our characters as they battle it out in the garden for survival. Soulful jazz and stunning cinematography join together to make this doc a true force of nature.
This secret world of the garden is not inhabited by insects alone, plants too form a large part of our story as they struggle, plot and strive for survival. Plants are not innocent, inert, pretty things; they are living, breathing creatures who like us, are put on this earth to spread their seed - and they are not above using a little deceit and outright manipulation to get the job done. Forget daytime soap operas when you can watch foxglove have their way with bees and a deadly game of cat and mouse play out between a mantis and a wasp.
The Secret World of Gardens proves that television can be hauntingly beautiful, thought provoking and change forever the way we see the world around us.
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