Years of reading gardening books, but now it's nearly all up in my head. I can reacommend a book by Jan Taylor, published in Australia, about building gardens for ageing in place, and the disabled. Can't remember the title. She was very highly qualified and experienced in Occupational Therapy and Horticulture.

Thanks, I'll do a search on that author.

I like Garden Gate, almost no advertising, just good information, great photos and design.

Sherry

Marie, I'm renewing some subscriptions, noticed that Fine Gardening has a 'Plus" subscription for 'pros' - wondered if anyone had it and was it worth it.

I'd love to hear about what gardeners are appreciating and using the advice from. Thank you.

Sherry I agree about Garden Gate. I usually read that at my library. And in Michigan, Michigan Gardener is excellent and a freebie.

I have never heard of Fine Gardening Plus. I stopped subscribing to Horticulture and Fine Gardening because after years and years the articles are repetitious. A friend gave me several British hort magazines....I bet they were $15 - $25 each....and I'd seriously consider a subscription. I think they come out quarterly. They were refreshing to read; obviously photographed in a different country and different climate, populated by people who were not American. Can't quite put my finger on it, but these magazines communicated an ease and familiarity with gardening I don't feel when I look at our magazines. Perhaps that;s entirely fabricated. Perhaps its because some of those gardens in the British Isles are hundreds of years old and there really is a certainty and solidity in their bones.

When the forums are active at this time of year, I spend many more hours on Gardenweb than reading magzines. I would love more photos, but since I don'[t post photos either I can't fault others for not.

I do think FG is more forced than creative, at this point. Though, I've liked things about it - the pronunciation guide, for one. I appreciate your honest thought.

If anyone has a book or magazine or quarterly they really love, I'd like to investigate something new.

Some of the best sources are coming out of quarterlies and newsletters from various plant societies. I am a member of the Hardy Plant Society and get a monthly compilation (Cornucopia) of regional newletters and a really very good quarterly for a trifling sum of around $25....less than half the cost of subscribing to the RHS. Course, for me, it is all about access to members (free) seed lists.

I subscribe to Fine Gardening, and I like it. I also like Michigan Gardener and pick it monthly when I'm at a nursery.

My sister gifted me with a subscription to this magazine. Just got my first issue yesterday. Not a "how to", but just garden related short stories. I think I am going to like it a lot.

http://greenprints.com/

At this stage, I hardly read anything in gardening magazines. There's a wealth of information available, on-line, about gardening and some of it in isolated articles from magazines or newspapers.

In the context of gardening magazines particularly, it bothers me a bit that journalists can write, apparently authoritatively, about anything. For instance, as a student, I wrote a guide to the pheasants of Springwater Park, near Barrie On. To many, it could look like I knew a lot about pheasants, but the content was simply the result of my own research, book and visiting the site.

Gardening strikes me as a very hands-on endeavour. Of course, research is necessary, from reading to visiting nurseries, but things have got to be tried out/put into practice by individual gardeners.

That means my respect goes out to those that do, rather than any who just write about doing. In the matter of gardening, I'd take the advice of an experienced gardener over the word of an experienced journalist. After all, who's doing for the money?