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The Contemporary Garden Journal: Readers, Writers and Publishers

© Barbara M. Martin

Here are some more good reasons to keep one along with excellent suggestions for what to put in it once you begin: Keeping a Garden Journal — instructions!

I can understand why I refer back to my own old notes. I need to know when to start the violas and when to start the caladium bits — or someone wants to know which type of zinnia is growing out front. But why do we read other people's garden journals? Sometimes a garden exerts a personality of its own and the writer becomes mere chronicler of events as they unfold. Or perhaps it is the personality of gardeners that enables us to look at the world in that gentle way — Suite101's Carol Wallace touched on that in The Gardener's Vision certainly.

And yet in the official world of garden journals, what do we find? Some dry academic stuff to the casual gardener, for sure. And yet the same institutions can produce such wonders as this series of snapshots — literally and figuratively! This week at a glance and then some detail shots with close-ups thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden .

Institutions seem perhaps better equipped to carry on the business of journal keeping, (I suppose Jefferson pretty much ends up to fit that bill, doesn't he!) and yet some of the personality is lost. Look at this from Manhattan Botanical Garden on Pier 84 or the Journal of Garden History soon to be called Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes.

In other cases, it seems to me the slightly more popular and relaxed contemporary journals encourage more of us to write and share our gardens and experiences: you might investigate Hortus: A Gardening Journal or Roth Journal of Japanese Gardening or The American Cottage Gardener (quarterly) or perhaps Traditional Gardening (Internet Edition).

Television gave us a fantastic jump on communications, as proven by the ever increasing popularity of shows such as Kathy Renwald's The Gardener's Journal! And, of course, now the Internet empowers us to reach very far indeed. Personal garden journals such as the Urban Gardener's Journal abound, as do personal gardening homepages with journal entries.

So please, share your favorite journals (regardless of the medium!) with me as I compile an annotated list!

ENJOY!

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