Country Living Gardener for a city living gardener
Written: Oct 16 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The beautiful photography and wonderful ideas it gives me
Cons: It's not published every month! Ack!
The Bottom Line: Need something for that blank spot in the back yard? Just open a copy. You'll be swimming in ideas!
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| miselainis's Full Review: Country Living Gardener Magazine |
I have always had a black thumb. Last year, when hordes of relatives were set to invade for my impending wedding, I knew I had to do something to brighten up for otherwise very quaint 1920’s/30s duplex. Flowers seemed the most likely candidates for adding life to the otherwise bedraggled front lawn.
I sprang for a couple of cryolite pots and some bright pink geraniums, and from then on, I was hooked. These things actually bloomed, and kept on blooming almost until our first frost!
So last winter, I decided I needed to do something with our weed infested drought-tested backyard. It had a charming feel just dying to come out. The first thing it needed was a patio right in the middle. That was when I picked up my first issue of Country Living Gardener to see what I could come up with in the way of adornment and pretty touches. I have a cool landlord who seems not to care that I am carving beds out of his yard, but I am also on a budget. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to decide if I want to buy more plants or a new issue of this magazine!
The February 2001 issue displays a weathered blue wooden garden chair surrounded by delphiniums and other blues for its main heading “sow a colorful cottage garden” (lowercase is an interesting type treatment for front covers). The lavender of the font is an exciting taste of what’s to come inside. So much color! So many ideas!
The first thing I liked is that the Table of Contents is on the first page. Normally, I’ve found I don’t refer to it that much in gardening magazines—I usually just open the front cover and allow myself to be swept away by the beautiful beds and blossoms. But if I refer back to mag for something, I like knowing that the article I need is right at my fingertips.
The magazine is divided into 7 sections: Gardening, Decorating, Building and Crafts, Garden Plans, Traveler’s Joy, Special Features, Food and Entertaining, Regular Features, and Reader Service. However, these features are interspersed throughout. I will discuss them as I encounter them casually flipping through.
The Editor’s Almanac discusses the facelift the magazine is undergoing in 2001. Diana Gold Murphy also mentions some of the feature articles to inspire and gives the website a plug.
Dear Gardener is the Dear Abby section for frustrated gardeners. This issue answers question from a Californian confused about her Plant Hardiness Zone, a response from a reader about Funginex for roses, a nonblooming Franz Schubert phlox, and a source question for someone looking for a chenille plant.
Weather Vane is an interesting section for discovering new shops, home & garden shows, plant families, and other various doo-dads. I enjoyed the quick step by step method for planting a topiary, and used it not long after I read it! I am happy to report my topiary is doing well and looks great!
Grapevine is a marketing section, rather like what some gardening magazines devote their entire issues to. While I’m sure some of these items could appeal to me, this issue’s products weren’t really anything I was going to spend money on (The reversible daisy/ladybug hat for youngins, for instance, since I have no kids). However, the mini cold frame ($179) and botanical stamp art kit ($20 and up) were a little high for my taste.
Garden Plan discusses planting a strawberry jar with succulents like hen and chicks and a jade tree. It gave me motivation to go check out more succulents, which grow well here. My husband and I now have a kitchen windowsill full.
Plant Portrait features the snowdrop for February. While they are beautiful and I enjoyed the feature, it didn’t help me much because snowdrops prefer colder climates, which Texas definitely is not.
Heavenly Bodies explains herbal additions to the flowers from your garden for Valentines Day, and includes a helpful charm in the note box (from Simple Spells for Love by Barrie Dolnick)to attract love. The spell includes lighting a pink candle, and placing upon a pink cloth 4 pink rose petals, a small piece of rose quartz, a pinch of lavender, and a piece of gingerroot. Then recite the incantation to the goddess Venus. Whatever.
Planting Ideas contains an idea for a simple vegetable centerpiece. Call me a snob, but a compote dish with radishes and cauliflower with a candle stuck in the middle isn’t really my cup of tea for a tabletop focal point.
Herbal Thymes is a nifty little section subtitled Plant Lore and More. In it, we get a look inside Martha Washington’s Medicine Cabinet, learn how to make summer potpourri, and get instructions for how to make an herbal bath to warm up from winter shivers. I'll probably be trying that come December.
Meet Sweet Bay is an overview of the bay laurel plant, including cooking with it, growing tips, and its best growing conditions. The recipes follow at the back of the magazine.
Heart’s Ease contains “Hints From an Eccentric Gardener”, and discusses propagating potatoes, using green glass to help rosemary take root, using a stinky substance called Fermented Salmon to nurture plants at the seaside, using garlic to fight loopers and cabbage moths, using an old 1955 Ford station wagon as a creative greenhouse, using cinnamon shakers to fight black ants entering a house, and brewing a helpful tea for robust hollyhocks.
Designer’s Notebook features “The Killing Season”, an article about how to protect your garden from frost, winds, floodwater, and other nasty things like sudden temperature change. It was quite helpful for a new gardener like me, and gave me several great tips in the notebox.
Kinder Garden explains how to get avocadoes, sweet potato vines, and pineapples to take root. Very simple, and very great ideas to get budding gardeners hooked at a young age!
“Building a Cold Frame” is a great article, and is something I will probably try in the next few years to overwinter some of my seedlings.
Bookworm is a great feature, highlighting some of the great new fare on the market for gardeners. I purchased Garden Decoration From Junk based on info from this section, and absolutely love it. However, keep in mind that many of these books are published in Britain. Garden Decoration From Junk contains lots of ideas for Mind Your Own Business (which I had to search for by the scientific name Soleirolia soleirolii—here in America it is called Angels’ Tears or Baby’s Tears)
"Living Legacy" is a tribute to Gertrude Jeckyll, the grande dame of gardening. While I respect her legacy and can appreciate fancy British and French gardens, I prefer a more casual quirky look. This article didn’t appeal to me that much.
The main Gardening section is the main focus of the magazine, and also my favorite section. The February features include an article on Hellebores, the harbingers of spring (which I cannot grow well in Texas heat and sun), so I skipped it pretty much.
“Earth First” is a feature on a garden in Santa Fe, New Mexico, highlighting the xeriscaping and art artifacts included in a hot dry climate. Not all of us can afford a copper statue of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god of good fortune set amidst California poppies, but it is an interesting treatment nonetheless. The note boxes set into the articles are often a great help to me. In the Santa Fe article, the note box subject is “3 Steps to Perfect Perennials,” and it provides handy tips that I try to incorporate in my own planting.
“Scatter Gardens” highlights the trend of just scattering seeds over the soil and allowing them to combine in interesting color combinations and configurations. The handy note boxes give you basic instructions for creating a scatter garden, and also list early blooming flowers for setting up the garden in February. Some of their favorite picks are Godetia, Yellow Tidytips, and Love-in-a-mist (although, good luck finding those if your only destination for buying plants is Home Depot)
I skipped over the Aloha! Feature since I do not live in Hawaii, and my climate is not similar to that of the islands. This article features several of the beautiful indigenous flora samples, and the notebox recommends destinations in Hawaii to visit Botanical Gardens, vineyards, and even several lodging choices. If I DO travel to Hawaii I can refer to it for ideas.
"Custom Cut" highlights the career of Asher Paul Eden, who tended the shrubs in front of a Chelsea apartment, and gave them quirky geometric shapes.
"Fit For a Queen" features Regal Geraniums. These differ from regular geraniums because of their showy multicolored blooms. Karl Batschke, a production director for Oglevee Ltd, the largest grower of Regal Geraniums in the world, is the expert consulted here.
My favorite feature was "A Tale of Two Gardens." Californians Victoria Greene and her husband are featured. The article is devoted not to one garden they have begun, but a second, for Victoria’s grandmother. I used to dream of my own house, and decorating it lovingly. Upon first glance at this article, the direction of my life changed. From wanting my own house, my dream focused in on a certain AREA of the house. I wanted my own potting shed. For years I had seen prefab sheds from Home Depot in neighbor’s backyards and thought how cheesy and awful they looked. Now I see there are options! Recycled lumber, flea market finds, and paint can accomplish wonders for a backyard haven. When I saw the antique stained glass window and French doors on this place, and the Sicilian goat cart holding pansies out front, not to mention the spacious inside decorated with seed catalog art, I was entranced. And the garden itself gave me the courage to put down a pebble path in my garden…the first step in an arduous transformation of my own yard from weedy to wonderful!
The main feature of the Decorating building and crafts section is “La Casa de Flores”, which features a beautiful Mexican hacienda with all the terra cotta pots and bougainvillea that can be expected in such a lush tropical locale.
Potatoes are the featured food of the month. Included are recipes for Lavender Vichyssoise and Mixed Scalloped Potatoes, which join the Sweet Bay recipes in the back: Poached Pears with Bay Cream, Tortas de Piernas (south-of-the border sloppy joes), classic Red Cabbage, and Beef Stew.
Mapping a Garden is a section I constantly refer to, with instructions for buying. The major points are: visit all the plant sellers in your area periodically, collect catalogues, research major purchases, recognize a good deal, buy on the spot when you find something wonderful, walk away from weak weedy or inferior plants, and time your shopping so you can pick the best of the season, whatever it is.
I absolutely love this magazine. Especially during the winter. I can curl up with a cup of cocoa and dream of spring when I can begin planting once again. The beautiful pictorials give me inspiration and my creativity wings! $3.95 buys a lot of imagination.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
miselainis
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Laini
Location: Rowlett, Texas, USA
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
"Chagrinned and Bewildered"
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