The shelves are packed with gardening magazines. Which ones should I avoid?

Depends on what you want. Fine Gardening and Horticulture are great for cultural info and garden design.I also sometimes buy the Better Homes and Gardens special issues-not so much for cultural info but they have interesting articles on what regular people do with their gardens.
I will say that the Martha Stewart gardening issue was a complete waste of time. She had no information on gardening at all in it, unless you count pictures of tulips arranged in vases. Oh, and a "do-it-yourself" on carving out your own stone planter!!PH-LEASE.

Magazines in black & white format! I don't (and wouldn't) have one in that color scheme and can't imagine anyone else would either. Also, I stay away from most garden periodicals based out of Atlanta, Vermont, Iowa, etc. I'm in the desert and looking at pictures of acid loving plants just about does me in. Of course, I console myself with watching the weather report...hurricanes, tornados, snow, ice.

i happen to like Martha Stewart magazines, i don't like Better Homes and Gardens

I have only seen one copy of Martha Stewart's magazine, and doubt I'll ever bother looking at another one. The woman is a marketing genius; it is amazing what she has been able to do when she has nothing to offer (I'm referring to the TV show, too).

Garden Design is a beautiful magazine to look at, but contains far too little useful info. It is good if you cannot read.

I think gardening magazines fall into two catagories - the ones with pretty pictures for dreaming, and the ones with practicle advice like 'Garden Gate'. Be clear about what your needs are and choose accordingly, or one of each to start with. I went hog-wild ordering every garden magazine I could find two years ago, and just finishing cancelling most of them.

Oh, avoid 'combination' magazines (like Better Homes and Gardens or Sunset) if you really want GARDEN information.

MY LEAST FAVORITE GARDEN MAGAZINES ARE THOSE WITHOUT COLOR PICTURES. ONE FAVORITE IS GARDEN GATE (NO ADS SO IT IS MORE COSTLY THAN OTHERS) I LOVE MAGAZINES THAT ARE REGIONAL SINCE I AM IN FLORIDA AND A GENERAL GARDEN MAGAZINE CAN BE USELESS TO ME. I SUGGEST YOU LOOK AT THEM AT YOUR LOCAL CHAIN BOOKSTORE (BECAUSE THEY PROBABLY HAVE EVERY ONE) AND START THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATION. WE SUBSCRIBE TO GARDEN GATE, FLORIDA GARDENING,ORGANIC GARDENING & WATER GARDENING. I PICK UP OTHERS IF THEY APPEAL TO ME, ESPECIALLY THE SEASONAL ONES. EVERYONE HAS HIS OWN TASTES AND PRIORITIES, SO START WORKING ON YOURS. ALSO CHECK YOUR LIBRARY. THEY PROBABLY HAVE SOME AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO BUY THEM BEFORE YOU KNOW IF YOU REALLY WANT THEM.

I like Country Living Gardener (I think its a Better Homes & Gardens Publication) I really like how they have rather detailed blurbs next to pictures. They number the pictures and the descriptions so you don't have to look through the entire paragraph to find the particular description on one pic. I like color and number coding. I like things simple, like me! LOL! I also appreciate down to earth gardening advice and tips in it. I used to like Fine Gardening but the price puts me off - it's TOO EXPENSIVE and a little too snobbish for this dirtlady.

Fave is Garden Gate - it's practical, down-to-earth, and to the point. For a more "professional" one, I like Fine Gardening (I am a garden designer). A fave speciality one is Prairie Reader. Have to go with those Martha Stewart haters - next year I'm building a Martha scarecrow. Oooh, scary!

I like Country Living Gardener too. The magazines I avoid are the ones that have gorgeous pictures of perennial borders but dont' tell you the genus/species of all the plants.

I have to agree with Garden Gate. I've only purchased the last two issues and have liked both of them. Country Garden is the next one. I subscribe to Rebecca's Garden but can't say if I really like it or not.

I used to subscribe to Horticulture years ago and finally cancelled my sub. Got to the point that I all I saw was the advertising and had to search for the articles. Haven't looked at it in several years so don't know if that has changed or not.

I also have to agree with those who voted against mainly black and white pictures. I'm sorry, but I'm one of those gardeners who likes to drool, dream, and wish in color. LOL! Above all, my favorite magazines are the color seed and plant catalogs that fill my mailbox.

Jenra

Martha Stewart Magazine
Its 80% advertisments, 15% fluffy fluff and 5% OK. This woman offers very little.

I like "Organic Gardening" and "Mother Earth News" although "Mother Earth News" has more than gardening in it. There is always one or two articles about gardening and canning etc...

We enjoy Organic Gardening and Birds and Blooms. Did take Better Homes and Gardens but have cancelled that subs.Never really gave the info I wanted easily. Like Houmus I like the simple things...step by step...

My favorites are Organic Gardening, Mother Earth and Herbal Quarterly. I haven't tried Garden Gate, because I haven't come across it EVER. Any suggestions on how to locate a subscription? Everything else is fluff and a waste of good money and time.

Fav. is Garden Gate. Also like Organic Gardening and Florida Gardening. A new publication called Gulf Coast Gardener shows promise for the South. I subscribe to Garden Design and Fine Gardening. Like them both. Like pictures in Birds and Blooms, but info is pretty non-specific. I really like The American Gardener, a publication of the American Horticultural Society. Horticulture has too much British writing in it. I'm thinking of dropping my sub, since it does little to help me with my Florida garden.

My favorite is Birds and Blooms. They have no advertisements at all in the whole magazine. Beautiful, clear, photos. Wonderful articles. And priced right!!!

My LEAST favorite is Birds and Blooms, precisely because they have no advertising. If you are an intelligent person, you can use advertising to inform yourself of new products and companies. One of the reasons I read gardening magazines is to locate sources for plants and accessories I may need.
That said, there is indeed such a thing as too much advertising. I received a beautiful, slick, glossy publication from Garden.com that was really one long advertisement for the plants they sell. Very annoying.
Garden Gate is a good magazine, but should be more widely available.
I read Horticulture when they run an article by Christopher Lloyd.

I avoid Martha Stewart unless it's for an unkind joke. But the joke's on me, because she's the one with multiple mansions. The joke on her is that she likely spends little time in the gardens she claims to be such a maven about. I've similar feelings about Garden Design. When I'd open a package of them at the retail nursery where I once worked, some overpriced, nauseating perfume fragrance would hit me full face. I don't trust a garden magazine that sells perfume, but those little trueisms and quotes they cram into the margins around the slick photos and really bad, short, no-info articles are kinda nice, though not worth the outrageous price. A friend who sought magazine info when he was a new gardener found National Gardening priceless and full of ideas without the rampant snobbery. I like Horticulture, and when I'm feeling realllly esoteric (as in, is it PittoSPORum or PitTOSporum), Pacific Horticulture is a good read. By the way, is that a CLEMatus or a CleMATus, dahling?

You say CLEMatus, and I say cleMATus...

This is great "martha bashing"!!! Maybe we could start a
martha bashing forum?such fun!!But for the current topic.
I'd have to pick country living gardener.It's far from
perfect.But compared to everything else I've seen.It's
not bad.

I love the Kitchen Gardener magazine and Herb Companion. I also like Country Living Gardener and the other one I think it is called Country Home Country Garden.

Hey, have you ever bought the same gardening magazine twice because they all look pretty much the same? I'm embarrassed to say that I did.

I also like Country Living Gardener and the Country Home Country Garden, whatever it is called. One is put out by Country Home, and the other by Country Living. I like them both for dreaming and enjoying the pictures, though there is not a whole lot of information. There are lots of "throwaways" at the grocery store counter that I just cannot stop buying. These are my bathtub/bathroom reading magazines, simple, short, and fun.

Also agree on Garden Gate and Horticulture. Two very good magazines. My son had a magazine drive for his middle school this year and I subscribed to all four of the above, and both my son and I are very happy.

I got a Garden.com magazine in the mail, and worried that I had accidentally signed up for the wrong magazine, but I think it is a freebie propaganda magazine, reading like a big advertisement with pretty pictures, as the writer above states. I certainly do not think it is worth subscribing to.

I got Martha Stewart last year when this same son was doing the same magazine drive. I was very disappointed overall. Lots of pretty pictures, a few informative articles (milk glass and morning glories come to mind), but it was not renewed this year. Not really worth the money.

I looked at Rebecca's Garden a few times at the store. It would be a great magazine for the beginning gardener or to try to hook someone on gardening. Not a lot of experienced gardening information to make this otherwise worthwhile.

GARDEN DESIGN is the worst I've seen. Like so many others,
it's a forum for photographers--NOT gardeners. Where can
I get GARDEN GATE? Never saw it here in the midwest. (WIS)
E me with info please.

Garden Gate magazine is published in Des Moines.
1-800-341-4769

Web site: www.gardengatemag.com

Hope this helps. It is a favorite of mine.

I agree with tammy. Im a very visual person and with 4 kids under 6 I dont have a lot of time to read anymore. (At least not adult stuff) and Birds and bloom are full of wonderfull ideas. I've made many projects from that mag.
Tasha

BBC's Gardeners' World is fun in a goofy, working class, british kind of way. It has a lot of pictures & snippets of info but also some informative articles is you look hard enough. It is enormous, AND expensive at least here in the states, & you don't get the free seeds with every issue that the British readers apparently get! It probably wouldn't be very helpful for people outside Britian & Pac NW since it is geared towards that sort of weather but if you're in a Barnes & Nobles do take a peek--
cheers

Birds and Blooms did nothing for me. I don't think I'd bother looking at another issue.

Sorry, at the moment, I can't think of a gardening magazine that I could say is my "least favorite," but I would like to make an observation--not just with this thread but with other threads, as well.

I get a kick out of the way the original subject changes once one reply comes through that initiates the change. The subject is "Least Favorite Gardening Magazine," and, all it takes is one person to start listing their favorite magazine(s) and the rest of the responses begin to follow that same line of thought.

Just an observation and wondered if any of you picked up on it.

Let's see Least Favorite: Garden Design $$$$$$Better Homes and Garden..........I am a Shade Gardener so it is hard to find any Magazines,that help me........
Martha Stewart.......Get Real................David

Hey....we all agree on one thing, Martha Stewart is all hype. I bet that woman doesn't know how to grow anything. It's all advertising and eveyone else's expertise she is using and she's getting rich..rich..richer! Just look at her magazine, it's all advertising. I cancelled my subscription. Pissed me off after 2 magazines.

I like County Gardens, Garden Gate, Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest and Garden Design.

I had to laugh when the last Garden Design magazine arrived - It featured the HOMES and FURNITURE of gardeners and had exactly four pages of articles on plants. I have about decided to give up my subscription ... but this magazine changes editorial staff and content every few years. Three or four years ago it had the best garden design articles I ever saw: Interviews with good and/or famous gardeners and MAPS of their garden. (I'm big on maps).
Now it seems to feature swimming pools and travel and perfume inserts (YUCK)

here in the uk mine is garden news a mag which costs one pound it is not a glossy but a mag for learning from beginers to people that exhibit at shows and has seperate pages on spesialised subjects ie fushias dahlias veg etc

Just a suggestion -- to find out which magazines offer consistently good stuff, go to your local library and check out five or six back issues of various magazines. Reading them one after another will give you a pretty good idea of which of them are substantive and which are fluff, and you won't have to waste money on a subscription to something you find is a waste of time.

The LEAST favorite garden mag...well, I picked up a copy of Rebecca's Garden...a few nice things, but I wouldn't subscribe to it. I will occasionally pick up a Martha Stewart, only if it has any really neat new idreas for me, and I used to like Organic Gardening, but don't care for that one any more...and the American Horticulture Society puts out a quality magazine if you are a member, but I have dropped by membership a couple of years ago...it seemed to lose interest for me. So those are my least favorites. I was told to keep on topic so email me if you want to know the ones that I DO like (and subscribe to).

Regards,

Evelyn

I like Country Living Gardener, Garden Design, and Country
Home Gardens. I don't buy them for information as much
as I buy them for the pictures-----not that I can't read--
more interested in looking at how other people have designed their gardens. I do also buy Martha Stewart and
like her very much. I like the way she decorates more
so than the articles on gardening.

Fine Gardening is my current favorite -- good for the moderately experienced gardener, which is what I seem to be. Cooks Illustrated is far and away the best cooking magazine I've ever seen, if you're interested.

Yes indeed,if you folks ever do decide to post a list of LEAST FAVORITE GARDENING MAGAZINES,I'd be delighted to read it. Perhaps we could read all about people's least favorite gardening mags on a forum page titled "Favorite Gardening Magazines", what do y'all think?

Hello, R. Schramm, and others...I DID post my LEAST favorites, but no one else seems to be doing that...

I dislike Better Homes and Gardens. It teases me with titles like "how to have the prettiest garden in the neighborhood" and the article just has some pix and advice like, "relax and plant what you like". Big help.

Well, you know, us gardeners, we tend to always look on the bright side of life. So, speecking of things we hate is kind of hard.

In fact this is a subliminal therapy for horts to express themselfs.

As for me, I hate..well, don't like, hmm... oh, its hard. ...
I...I dont like UGLY THINGS! There.

Well, Plant and Garden is a bit boring to read. And I dislike when an article is cut in half (Continued on page 129) hate articles on tools, like we don't know how to use a shovel!

Thanks for the tip on Martha Stewart. Cheers for Fine Gardening and Garden Gate.

I wasn't crazy about Martha Stewart Living, and I'm not crazy about Horticulture or Flower and Garden. I dropped ol' Martha after three issues and kept the other two for a year, then dropped them. I subscribe to a magazine for a year, look it over closely, and give myself time to make a decision on whether or not to keep it. I LOVE Garden Gate and National Gardening is pretty good too. I've noticed that over time, all the mags I've read tend towards repitiousness; f'rinstance, Mag A might have and article on azaleas one month and then a month or two later, Mag B will have an article on azaleas.
Every now and then, I'll see a "specialty" magazine on gardening, usually published by Better Homes and Gardens. I've got some of these, but I don't really consult them the way I do National Gardening and Garden Gate. I'm thinking of tossing them

Here is a link that might be useful: gardengate.com

Tried the most farvorite, wrote a letter and put the wrong email address (new at this). Loved the Martha Stewart comments. Hate Her. Great book about her called "Just Desserts".

Here is a link that might be useful: garden gate