Favorite magazines

I've been subscribing to Fine Gardening for a while. A friend told me she likes Midwest Living better because it doesn't waste her time with treasures that can't survive our zone. But that doesn't have super lot on gardening. What is your recommendation for inspirataion, good ads, and designs I can do on a "real" budget.

I used to be a big fan of both Fine Gardening and Horticulture magazines as they used to be more than just pretty pictures. Over the years, they've become more "basic" in their information, appealing to beginners and bloggers (which is not a bad thing but just not my thing). And, like the "Victory Garden", are covering more of the west coast perspective (which doesn't work for the midwest). I used to get Chicagoland Gardening but I was really put off by their ignoring of IN as having any noteworthy gardens (focusing more on Chicago and Michigan). So I'm really interested in any responses you get.

I am a big, big fan of Birds and Blooms and Birds and Blooms Extra. Also of Garden Gate In fact, they are the ONLY magazines I have subscriptions for and the only ones I renew for two years at a time.....

A LOT of useful information, information on my zone 5 gardening and the pictures! and the articles are well written.

The only ones I have. Had Fine Gardening for a year. Never renewed.

My opinion here, okay? I mean no belligerence.

Checked out Birds & Booms and Garden Gate. Both look intriguing. I'm going to wait to see who else has ideas before I decide.

I suscribe to both Fine Gardening & Horticulture. I agree that the content has become more beginner oriented with not a lot of advanced topics covered in depth. Some of the articles are so short you wonder why they bothered to put them in the magazine. I also joined the American Horticultural Society and now get their magazine which I also like. But for 'eye candy' it is hard to beat "The English Garden"- and yes it is expensive and not relavant to most of the United States but I like looking a pretty pictures.

I did see an issue of The English Garden years ago and it has to be the tops for eye candy. That was before the real modern styles hit the scene. What's the content like in the American Horticultural Society's mag?

Why not get the Northern Gardener magazine from the Minnesota State Horticultural Society? You don't have to be a full member at $60+. Just get the magazine at about half the price. Local magazines don't have the mega clientele that regional ones have, so their costs are more to an individual subscriber, but every article is relevant to your area. It's a "penny wise, pound foolish" question that you will have to decide.

I had a free subscription to Birds and Bloom for a year, and thought it was fine, until I read a short article by a reader with a photograph of an Easter cactus (Rhipsalidopsis sp.) that was identified as a Christmas cactus (Zygocactus sp.). If it was Christmas cactus vs. Thanksgiving cactus (most people don't know the difference), I would have let it go. But a Christmas cactus - blooming in fall/winter vs. an Easter cactus - blooming in spring, the difference is to wide and thus unacceptable. The horticulture editor(s) should have caught this, hands down. I wrote to them, asking for an errata, or a correction of some sort, or even just to print my letter. None was done, at least in the next 6 months that my subscription ran through.

So, I can only assume that the mag is really bird oriented and the plant part just to bring in more subscribers.

Rick

I've only gotten two issues of American Gardener - not enough to base an opinion. That Northern Gardener Magazine sounds interesting. Might be a good companion to Chicagoland Gardening.

Oooo Northern Gardener is pricey but its starting to be a front runnner but I'm still being tempted by Garden Gate.

I renew Garden Gate every year. I have no complaints against it.

For zone 4, I found "Garden Gate" and "Northern Gardener" to be the best. Yes, Northern Gardener is pricey, but it saves me lots of money on buying magazines where most the plants are not good for my zone. Garden gate has lots of really helpful, easy tips.

I know this thread is old and you've all moved on, but just happened upon it and had to say . . . have you noticed that almost ALL the photos in ALL the gardening mags are PHOTOSHOPPED?? Look really closely and you'll see it - an unnatural blend here, unnatural shadow there, NO holes in ANY leaf whatsoever? C'mon mag editors . . . I want to see real gardens. I really do!

And we wonder why we're sometimes a little disappointed in our own efforts??? Kinda like looking at beauty magazines.

Yeah, you're right. I broke down and ordered Fine Gardening again for a year. I always get Garden Gate and Birds and Blooms and Birds and Bloom EXTRA.

cece, they do have some great combo ideas.

I do like Fine Gardening, Birds and Blooms, Horticulture, and Chicagoland Gardening - Photoshopping and all!

I like Chicagoland Gardening, but not enough to subscribe. Birds & Blooms is nice. Garden Gate is one I can't seem to resist for some reason, even though I usually find that it's on the lower end of the learning curve and I've finally progressed past that level. (I still definitely find useful tips that make it worth the read, though.)

Come to think of it, the only magazine I really subscribe to is the one that comes with my American Hosta Society membership--The Hosta Journal. Otherwise, I pick up the ones that interest me from the newsstands. In late winter and early spring I'm a sucker for gardening magazines.

oh me too. Come February they send an ad I'm so there. I need to see more than snow and cold and dreary and more snow.

Got my first issue of Garden Gate in. Love the piece on Quick Fire Panicle Hydrangea. May have to vist the Avant Garden website.

What issue is it? I don't think I got that one or if I did, haven't read it yet. Magazines kinda take a second to some things. Like this blasted computer.

Oh, I have two Quick Fires and love them! And . . . . Ooooohhhhh! The Hosta Journal??? Must become a member of this society!

Sherri, if you only got one Hosta Journal out of the $30 membership fee it would be worth it...but you get several! I just joined this year and I'm extremely happy that I did.

On another subject...if I could convince my husband to let me get rid of the shrubs under our front window (gawd, they're ugly) maybe I'd have room for a gorgeous hydrangea.

Hmm. If I hacked the shrubs down he'd have no excuse not to dig them out, would he? I DID ask for (and received!) a chainsaw for my birthday.

What kind of girl asks for a chainsaw for her birthday? *ponder*

The same kind that asks for a Mantis tiller for hers. We KNOW where our priorities lie.....

Kayly - Congrats on the great birthday present! I always ask for mulch for Mother's Day. I figure it's cheaper than jewelry. And a Mantis tiller for cece as well? You're right about priorities!

yeah but I never get to use it. Ed is always playing with it. :)

Isn't that the way when WE get new toys?

I asked for a blow torch. Think that's what it's called. A propane tank with a long snout to burn weeds. My husband "forgot" and then told me all the reasons why I wasn't safe with fire in the garden.

LOL LOL I have one of them. Last year I was out burning weeds, got to close to a container with a coco mat? Neighbors thought I had finally lost my mind. Jumping around going oh no oh no oh no ran and got the hose Took 50 minutes for it stop smoldering.

Hubby took it away.................:(

My husband says he has dreams of me showing up beside the bed at night wearing a hockey mask and wielding the chainsaw, ready to cut off parts of his anatomy. He says it makes him nervous.

I said, "Better not do anything chainsaw-worthy, then, huh?"

lol I tell hubby you better sleep with one eye open now. bwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

LOL! Reminds me of DD in TN who was trying to burn a pile of Bermuda grass (her gardening nightmare) that she had pulled out of vegetable beds and ending up singeing an eyebrow.

uh we won't talk about why my hair got cut short. No we won't.

cece - OMG! (Sorry but also a LOL!)

Abit close to the fire pit with brush I was burning. Yeah, my hubby calls me "special needs" no fire implements, no ladders, no electrical tools of any kind.

Friend with a cottage in the Wisconsin River said two neighbors burned the rough stuff near the river's edge so they would have a better view and more access. Now all the geese do their business on their lawns. He said he was so glad he didn't have time to knock down his river's edge stuff.

Cece - OMG!!!

Duck - I love the geese's revenge!! LOL!

Just call me "handy"??? NOT

I don't play around with fire much but my disability seems to run towards knives and other sharp implements (such as slicing mandolins). DH knows to warn me if he sharpens the knives.

My knives don't get sharpened which makes them worse for they need more pressure to slice with inevitably "someone" some how gets cut. Only once though did I need stitches.

I like Garden Gate the best, and some of their projects are simple and easy enough even for this novice. I have made several of their concrete ornaments over the past several years.

I am getting Birds & Blooms but won't renew that one.

I believe there was a discussion in the daylily forum about those torches for burning weeds. Sounded intriguing to me, but then the general consensus was that they didn't work for long. - the weeds would keep returning.

CeCe - how do you like your Mantis?

OK, the sky is blue, the wind is blowing and it's 35 degrees out. Got to figure out how to enlarge my front garden.... ~Jan