Re: Organic Gardening Magazine
- Subject: Re: Organic Gardening Magazine
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 15:12:43 EST
In a message dated 12/25/02 12:43:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mygarden@easystreet.com writes:
> Right now I still take Horticulture and Fine Gardening and have lots of
> plant society journals, but I'm kind of bored with all of them. I'm glad I
> have my new Christmas gift books to read!
I have Fine Gardening back to the first issue but stopped sometimes maybe two
or three years ago. My husband's office got a sister magazine called Fine
Homebuilding and we got a few free issues. At that time they stated that
their editorial material would entirely be written by people with hands on
experience with their subject. I has always been good and bad, uneven you
might say.
They solicited readers to submit material. One in my NARGS group did. She
wrote about Sedum. Then for our newsletter she wrote another article on how
to write for Fine Gardening and what happened to her from the submission of
the first draft until the printing appeared. It is a long story summed up
by saying that what she wrote and what appeared were not the same thing. The
point I remember most is that the depth was removed and the article ended up
being mostly the editor's work and the writer's name. I thought it all very
enlightening but not surprising. Fine Gardening never offers any discounts
and attempts to maintain a sort of
"we are the best in the US" attitude. After a while with any of these
subscriptions repetition takes place.
Similar occurs in our local newspaper. The garden writer does bulbs in the
fall, gift plants for Christmas, catalogs in winter, annuals in the spring,
etc. When one wants to expand his material, he is replaced by another who
repeats the process. The newspaper carries a garden column, who knows who
reads it and I guess the mix is filled in what we here call the "Leisure"
section.
One can muse that all this need not happen. Vita Sackville West wrote
columns in the UK that are still best selling books. Of course, Henry
Mitchell upped it to an art. There are others quoted here and there. In the
US we do not want horticultural information in depth or I suppose we would
have it. We would not be subscribing or even discussing subscriptions to UK
magazines.
I bought an Australian magazine in my travels somewhere and it was a mixture
unlike any here. All radio and televison programs were listed, all garden
club and society meetings with addresses were listed, interviews are there,
pretty good science is offered. There are letters from their many
microclimates and free notes for those offering seeds and bulbs, a sort of
tradepost for amateurs. It is a very fat issue,the one I have. A mix of
chatty with the serious stuff.
There is, I think, a pretty good French magazine also. After purchasing one
and spending eons with my aged French, I decided it not a good idea to do
again.
To add to something Bill Lee began some messages back - what would we like?
I liked (maybe still published???) a British weekly in tabloid form. You
bought it on a newsstand or could subscribe or could have your local
newsstand order it in for you and pick it up weekly. I have some purchased
in Ireland one fall. They are able to have very current news, regular
columnists, had some color and the best information on where to get things
right away. From them I found I could buy rooting hormone in Woolworth's
which I did. (Woolworth's still exists in the UK). How nice it would be to
have a weekly arriving putting you on to all the bulb house sales, the seed
specials, the garden openings and articles on how to do something. Not
survey articles but for example: why doesn't my Clivia bloom and the exact
method to make it bloom, several pages of this, real useful information - not
a quick and useless Q&A.
I have plenty of unexpected time today. We began with sleet and ice, had
some snow and are now at 3:00pm well into around twenty inches of snow with
another lot coming in the night. Right now there is a complete whiteout.
This has canceled all traveling, no Mom from the nursing home, grandson here
for several more days, food on hold until the weekend and fingers crossed the
power stays on until the day is over.
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
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