1985 John Fogerty put out the album Centrefield. It included one of his of his lesser known but amongst his most salient historical observations, "I Saw It On T.V." The chorus is a single line, "I know it's true, oh so true, 'cause I saw it on t.v." A lot of stuff was happening in the world during the transitional decades of the '50's, 60's and early 70's.

Television was still a new technology that, as Arthur C Clarke observed, to many folks was "magic." Home viewers accepted what they were shown as the gospel truth. If Uncle Wally (Walter Cronkite) said it, you could take it to the bank. Probably the live footage of the Viet Nam war being sent back stateside challenged that complacency.

We have learned that there must be a balance in the information that we receive, that corroborating sources are important. In spite of that, we're a very trusting lot, the lot of us that is. How else can you explain the success of Vince the sham-wow guy or those leeches who are suggesting you mail them your "old" gold? Right, not a one of you GR has sent in your gold because you're just too clever for those hucksters, right?

So how come if you see a home-spun character in coveralls giving you a spiel about an eco-friendly product, you buy it unquestionably? Put a pretty young miss in a fetching frock, with a strategically applied smudge of dirt, selling air hose turned to water hose, and the middle-aged chaps are lined up. I know I saw a couple of GR’s eagerly waiting an audience.

Hucksterism is alive and well and fairly frothing at the chops with the new opportunities before it. Organics, green thinking, sustainability, save the planet and so on, are buzz words for “fleece the sheep.” We are the sheep.

This column just featured a four part series on sustainability. A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend Canada’s largest horticultural trade show, Landscape Ontario Congress.

There were many talks on sustainability by North American experts such as Owen Dell and Sean James. Fascinating leading edge technologies were discussed and some not-so-credible motives were displayed. An example of the latter- let’s create a natural animal habitat so we can go hunt the creatures that we attract to it. Mind you, this atavistic character had a method that worked very, very well. (In a later column we’ll take a look at those methods but I’ll not mention the hunting aspect of it.)

There are probably three areas that we can expect to come to the forefront of this green initiative: native plants, water run-off management, and sustainability. Of the three, water management is the most economically problematic for us. Basically, it boils down to keeping the water that falls on your bit of this good earth on your bit of this good earth. We don’t want it flowing down the storm drains. The current methods utilise some forms of retention, detention and capturing. And it is here that hucksters are flocking. Folks, its okay to buy one of Vince’s $9.99 products that you probably knew wasn’t worth it but it was fun to be caught up in the moment. Now, we’re talking about moving the decimal point to the right 3 or even 4 spaces. There are some wonderful ideas involving pervious concrete, terra-forming and even cisterns. What is very important to realise is that there is technical expertise required and whomever is selling you their product best be able to demonstrate they have it. Then you best do some research before shelling out your shekels and watching them flow down the drain. Mostly, business people are hard-working honest folks just like you: but, hucksterism flourishes in a dynamic environment and preys on good intentions.