Well, I call this Gardening magazine season. The ground's frozen solid. It's the time of year when I like to browse through the pictures in a good gardening magazine each night before I drop off to sleep. It helps blot out the real outside world and all its problems, and clears my mind enough so that I can sleep. I like the ones with glossy pages and big beautiful pics of flower and vegetable gardens that are inevitably nicer than mine. I usually don't read the words much. I mostly just enjoy and study the pictures for ideas, and concepts. A picture is worth a thousand words you know. Once in a while if I can't fall asleep quickly, I read the text too.

At this time of year, the pages of the few I really like get pretty worn. I think I've memorized most of the pictures. I'd like to start subscribing to a new one or two, just to get a little more variety. Do any of you have suggestions about which ones I should consider?

My own personal opinion/review (and rant):

Excellent:

"Better Homes and Gardens - Garden Ideas" - This one is by FAR AND AWAY my favorite. I love the pictures, and nearly every article shows a beautiful garden which is really a garden, and about real people. My favorite issue was about 2 years ago in the fall, the one with those two guys in Detroit. What a garden. I still love to look at that one. This summer there was another issue with garden by those same guys, but at a different house. I like the note from the editor (the guy unloading plants out of the back of his red classic el-camino). He seems down to earth and someone I can relate to. Even the articles in this one are usually decent, but alas, the thing is only published 4 times a year. It's a drag waiting for the next one.

Good:

English Gardens - I like this one, even though it's a bit pricey, and sometimes it's a bit hard to relate to the garden world in England. I enjoy the pictures, but their gardening reality is so different than ours that, it just seems kind of distant and unreal.

Martha Steward - Outdoor living - I only buy this one off the rack, and I check to see what's in it first. It's heavily focused on entertaining, which I actually like, even though Martha's ideas about crafts and decorations, and how to set a table are always a bit over the top, and frequently downright silly. But it usually has at least a half dozen really great garden/landscape pictures per issue, and I like that every issue includes recipes for some kind of cocktail, and something new I could try on the grill.

Better homes and Gardens - Cottage Gardens - I like this one too, but it's a little on the girly side for me, and gets a little too carried away on all the kitsch stuff.

Weak:

Garden Gate - These guys put together one really terrific issue about 4 years ago. Each of the past 3 years, they've sent me a free copy of that same great issue. (the one with the article on clematis, and the gal with the red begonias and red shades on her back porch.) However, each time I thumb through the present copy on the magazine rack at the grocery, it seems a bit lame, and the color quality of the pictures is not very good. So I've never subscribed.

BAD:

Garden Design - 3 years ago I liked this one 2/3 of the time. I could count on 2 or 3 articles with Beautiful pictures. If I ignored the articles about rediculous looking modern outdoor designer furniture that costs 2,000$ a chair, then it was alright. However, since then it's really gone down hill. It's moved more and more toward hoity toity BS for people who want to impress their gazilionaire friends without every getting their hands dirty. Give me a break. They haven't shown a garden all year that was actually designed and cared for by its owner. In the last issue they didn't even have pictures of a SINGLE actual garden (regardless of who cared for it). It was completely about landscape design for the filthy rich which has no actual flowers or anything else of interest, and New York City garden parties and gossip, showing pictures of people who have never touched a garden hoe in their life. I'm canceling that subscription.

Organic Gardening - I used to read my dad's copy regularly in the 70's. It was pretty good then. Very real, and lots of good articles, but not many pictures. I was given a subscription a couple years ago. I was very sad to see that at some point it must have been bought out by some publishing conglomerate, that apparently eviscerated it of all of value, and instead hired a minimum of staff to take a few pics, and write a few articles each month that basically regurgitate whatever tripe their slick advertisers want them to say that month. Actually, I bet the advertisers write the articles.

Mother Earth News - Again, I thought it was great in the 70's. It seems to have gone the same way as Organic Gardening, except leaning more heavily on the whole liberal cultural stuff. Probably owned by the same publisher.

Which ones do you like, and why? Have I got it all wrong about one of the above?

Bruce