{"id":280188,"date":"2026-04-22T12:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280188\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:32:13","slug":"zach-galifianakis-brings-humor-to-gardening-in-a-netflix-series-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280188\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach Galifianakis brings humor to gardening in a Netflix series \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jessica Damiano<\/p>\n

For The Associated Press<\/p>\n

You might not realize it, but watching Zach Galifianakis poke around in the dirt like he\u2019s just discovered it is exactly what you need right now.<\/p>\n

In \u201cThis Is a Gardening Show,\u201d a six-part series premiering April 22 on Netflix for Earth Day, the actor and comedian brings a kind of wide-eyed curiosity to gardening that feels at once sincere and ridiculous.<\/p>\n

The episodes run an easily digestible 15 to 20 minutes each \u2014 just long enough to learn something new without feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Learning from experts \u2026<\/p>\n

Galifianakis, who says he\u2019s been gardening \u201con and off\u201d for 25 years, doesn\u2019t come across as polished, but it\u2019s clear he\u2019s not trying to. Instead, he leaves experts in charge of their own domains \u2014 apples, tomatoes, foraging, root vegetables, corn and compost<\/a> \u2014 taking it all in with the wonder of a kid who just realized food doesn\u2019t come from the grocery store.<\/p>\n

Those laid-back experts show him \u2014 and us \u2014 the ropes, demonstrating, among other things, how to graft an apple tree, and how to add nitrogen-rich ingredients to a compost bin.<\/p>\n

\"ZachZach Galifianakis, right, interviews a child about root vegetables in a scene from his gardening TV series, \u201cThis Is a Gardening Show.\u201d (Netflix via AP)
\n\u2026 and kids<\/p>\n

Each episode features amusing sit-downs with students from Brooklyn Elementary School in Comox, British Columbia. At first, you might think you\u2019re watching a kids\u2019 show. But then you realize you\u2019re the kid.<\/p>\n

Galifianakis interviews them with the same deadpan style he used on celebrities in his satirical talk show \u201cBetween Two Ferns,\u201d<\/a> which ran from 2008-2018. He asks questions like \u201cHow many children do you have?\u201d and lets their sometimes off-the-wall responses land however they may (\u201c11,\u201d in this case).<\/p>\n

From the kids\u2019 perspective, though, he\u2019s probably the one saying the darndest things. Galifianakis tosses out a knock-knock joke about Benjamin Netanyahu, suggests urinal cakes when asking about their favorite foods, and commits to an unexplained running gag about Ryan Reynolds, all of which go over their heads. It\u2019s quirky and silly.<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis image released by Netflix shows Zach Galifianakis from his gardening series \u201cThis Is a Gardening Show.\u201d (Netflix via AP)
\nGardening as Rx<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a callback for fans as he walks through greenery: \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be between two ferns again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Bloopers are woven into each episode, along with lines like, \u201cIf I were to offer a remedy to the human condition, it would be a garden \u2026 or acid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The humor doesn\u2019t upstage the gardening, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future is agrarian,\u201d he says, adding that gardening is \u201cgood for your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so is this show.<\/p>\n

Damiano, a master gardener and educator, writes about gardening for The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jessica Damiano For The Associated Press You might not realize it, but watching Zach Galifianakis poke around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[19505,74,76,75,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-280188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-home-and-garden","9":"tag-san-diego","10":"tag-san-diego-headlines","11":"tag-san-diego-news","12":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}