We got bored when we didn't have a show. So we started a show, man.

He may have arrived in a thrift store blazer holding a used cassette recorder, but Flowerman’s Rock Garden Tour captured the live studio thrill and non-synthetic moods of life in rural America’s entertainment Mecca. And now it’s back on the air. 

“AH! OH! OH – OH – OH. Do I ever remember,” reminisced Flowerman, co-host of the original rock & roll garden show, when asked about controversial episode 52. He and counterpart Oil Can put downtown Sioux Falls on the spot for supporting the synthetic garden industry by planting fake geraniums in the hanging flower baskets on Phillips Avenue. “During episode 52 we hoped to encourage Sioux Falls to join the horticultural revolution, by planting some real flowers in the baskets downtown. They eventually listened, but not until the man killed our microphones. A coincidence? Yes actually, I’m pretty sure that it was.”

The rock & roll garden show genre started in Brookings, SD, 1998. Back then, a younger, more naïve Flowerman produced his pilot radio show ‘2 Hours Of Flower’ every Wednesday night from 9-11pm. “We didn’t know what we were doing. So in that respect not a lot has changed. We were optimistic music geeks. We were rural South Dakota farm kids too, majoring in horticulture. So we put them together. We believed that the answers to a lot of the world’s troubles could be found in the garden. Either that or in a basement with a vintage player and a pile of old Kinks records.”

He still believes that you can find a lot of answers in the vegetable garden. After nearly 2 years in Brookings, Flowerman moved to Sioux Falls, joined forces with local icon Oil Can, and began producing the Rock Garden Tour. The show aired weekly on Q95.7 radio for 60 episodes, more or less. When an ownership change left the show homeless, Rock Garden Tour began looking for a new frequency. 

“We talked to Augustana College Radio, KAUR 89.1, about getting the show going again. They seemed open to the idea. That’s all we ask.”

Though the show is packed full of an eclectic brand of gardening advice, rock & roll and rural oddity, it’s clear that something genuine and pure drives the Rock Garden Tour. As for what that is exactly, Flowerman put it best, “oh, well, you know, I’d rather not give away the ending.”

Article taken from Prime Magazine, Sioux Falls SD

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