Dream Gardens for Real Gardeners: Part 5 - Country Living Gardener
Written: Apr 10 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A Best Buy: many departments and articles covering a wealth of material.
Cons: The pictures hurt my eyes.
The Bottom Line: Covers an amazing amount of material, especially for the price. Much of it is too good to be true, but that's how it is with garden magazines.
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| sylvanb's Full Review: Country Living Gardener Magazine |
Country Living Gardener
With spring a reality for some and only a promise for others, gardeners' minds and imaginations are turning toward this year's better-than-ever garden. The bright covers of the garden magazines beckon from newsstand and checkout displays. Which to buy? I can get a half flat of annuals for the price of most magazines, so I want to choose carefully! And this goes double if I am considering a subscription.
[Note: There are wide differences among garden magazines in terms of editorial vs. ad content, and how much actual substance you get for the price, so I have calculated this information and added it at the end of the review.]
Country Living Gardener is subtitled "Gardens - Decorating - Cooking - Travel - Conservation." Nevertheless, it is purely a gardener's magazine; the other departments all focus on plants or the out-of-doors. It is a good buy with more variety than most of the competition.
A Walk Through the Current Issue: April, 2001
Up Front: The vivid purple-and-green scheme of the cover anticipates the brilliant, almost artificially saturated colors of the photos inside. This is lightened a bit by pretty pastel watercolor-type illustrations for some of the departments. The Table of Contents is right on the first page; this always rates an extra point from me.
There are at least a dozen regular departments. "Dear Gardener" has some good exchanges between readers and authors/editors. "Weather Vane" is the monthly potpourri, including new varieties like "Begonia x ‘Dragon Wing'...an exciting, vigorous, and beautiful new hybrid achieved the old-fashioned way – through sex." The "Garden Plan" department illustrates a pretty and do-able "crevice garden," with plants tucked between patio pavers, plant list and instructions included. "Plant Portrait" carries on the purple-and-green theme with a selection of veronicas; if the pictures weren't so small they'd hurt my eyes. "Grapevine" is one of those thinly disguised mini-catalogs. I wish they wouldn't do that. "Meet Pansies" is a primer, with a charming watercolor illustration.
In "Herbal Thymes" we are told how to color Easter Eggs with "all-natural" dyes, such as onion skins, turmeric, and beet juice. That would be fun to try with kids, although you don't get the instant results that some kids expect. "Planting Ideas" – I don't understand the title, unless they are trying to plant amazing ideas in our minds. This idea is to mold soft cheese with flowers, real ones, embedded for color. I don't think so, do you? "Designer's Notebook" is an entertaining description of an all-red flower border. "Kinder Garden" – I don't know whether the title is because the project is for kids, or because it encourages us to be kind to toads, but the flowerpot toad house covers both. In "Sundial," the article on vertical structures is one I could have used last year before I sprang for my gothic arch. "Heart's Ease" (where do they get these department titles, and what do they mean??) is a lovely essay on rebuilding a garden pond.
The Main Event: The editorial section opens with a spring flower bouquet, more purple. Next page – aaaaaackkk! Get me my sunglasses! A desert garden fairly leaps off the page. Since I will never in the world be gardening in the desert I flip through this one in a hurry. "Spring Wonders" showcases early spring bloomers. Yellow! Orange! Green! Purple!!! Rub my eyes, turn the page, ahhhhhh....A formal garden, all shrubbery, all green, restful to the eyes and mind. This piece is "Show-Me Magic," and it takes us on a tour of America's first botanical garden, in St. Louis, Missouri. Among other wonders, the Missouri Botanical Garden boasts "the first geodesic dome to be used as a conservatory." I'm impressed, especially by their mission of educating home gardeners through "Theme gardens scaled to the size of a typical residence."
"Maple Sugaring" walks us through the sugaring process alongside a woman who apparently does it all herself in spotless clothes without a hair out of place. This is at odds with what I know of serious maple sugaring, which is a wicked difficult process, but maybe she only has a few trees...and someone to shine up her buckets...and it helps that there is turf under her trees, not mud and snow. This is maple sugaring as done by Martha Stewart.
"Country Garden/City Garden" contrasts two gardens designed by an Alabama couple. Both lovely, but I much prefer the cottage garden at their country home. I wonder how they got that little cow in the background to pose so conveniently? "Ten Best Spring-Flowering Trees & Shrubs" – seems slanted toward the south. "Quick Fix" is the beach house of an interior designer. I can't tell whether they shoved everything she did into a few pictures, or whether she really is out of her mind. "Enchanted Forest" is a woodland garden full of primroses (extremely pink primroses) and mossy paths.
Do you know The Bulb Lady? She's Debbie Van Bourgondien, the Betty Crocker of her family's bulb importing business. Only she really exists. She, and her bulb gardens, are featured in "62,000 Bulbs and Counting." I'm a regular customer of their catalog and website, so it was fun to meet her. "Mad for Mustard" is a travel piece taking us to the Napa Valley; the pictures of golden fields of blooming mustard were nostalgic to this transplanted Californian
Back of the Book: "Mapping a Garden" is a pull-out project section, with attractive drawings and good ideas for raised gardens. Worth punching and binding in that project notebook I keep meaning to create. No, wait, I did create it, just never did anything with it. I guess that's how real gardeners spend their rainy days, but I spend mine catching up on the chores that don't get done while I'm in the garden.... "Bookworm" is a nice book review section, and "Recipes" gives us the cheese-and-pansy instructions, and some exotic things to do with mustard.
Details: Nice magazine, a lot of material for the dollar, but somehow there is a bit too much artifice. The pages are slick, the colors too good to be true. This describes "Fine Gardening" too, but FG gets away with it; I think the spare, geometric layout of its pages helps. This is admittedly a subjective matter, and the reader should judge for him/herself just how much purple-and-green he (or she) can take.
Note that this magazine is published bi-monthly.
Website: http://www.cl-gardener.com/
Pages: 114
Ratio of editorial to ad content: 4.6 (in favor of editorial content)
Cost of editorial pages (based on current issue and newstand price): 4.5 cents a page.
Number of irritating postcards: none (really? or did they fall out somehow?)
Compare the Garden Magazines:
Classiest: Fine Gardening
Review: http://www.epinions.com/content_15631748740
Most Politically Correct: Organic Gardening
Review: http://www.epinions.com/content_16062910084
Best Buy, Most Basic: BH&G Flower Gardening
Review: http://www.epinions.com/content_16379645572
Best Educated: Horticulture Magazine
Review: http://www.epinions.com/content_16010612356
Best Buy, Most Colorful: Country Living Gardener
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sylvanb
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Location: Providence, RI
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 9 members
About Me:
The days aren't long enough!
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