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Organizing Garden Magazines

© Diana Pederson

Gardeners frequently buy and/or subscribe to every garden magazine they can find. Over the course of a year, this can be quite a stack! Unless you are blessed with unlimited storage space, keeping those magazines organized so you can actually find the article you want is a real challenge. This week, I'll share my solution for this never ending problem.

At one point I read 13 different garden related magazines. Seven years ago I decided I couldn't keep saving entire magazines. I went through every issue and clipped out the articles that I actually wanted. I made sure I had necessary information if I should ever need to provide a bibliographic reference for the article. My original plan was just to keep articles filed in hanging folders. That quickly became a confusing mess! The remaining portion of this article describes my system as it exists today.

Supplies needed (always buy in largest quantity possible to get best savings)

3-ring notebooks
label machine
plastic sheet protectors
index dividers

Method

I am assuming you are just starting the process of organizing. If you already have a stack of articles, then skip to the maintenance section.

First, go through every magazine--clip any articles you want to save and staple them. Sometimes it is necessary to staple two articles together because to separate them would mean you were missing a page for another article -- when this happens, I make a note at the top of the first article that there is a second article attached. Label them with magazine name and date. If you're like me, you now have a few hundred articles in a stack.

Second, sort the articles into logical subject groupings. I use: individual plant species, garden design, special projects, crafts, and many other subjects.

Third, label a series of notebooks. Some topics may warrant their own notebook. For instance, I keep a separate notebook for daylilies, hostas, primroses, geranium family, and rock gardening. If I become interested in a particular plant species, I normally create a separate notebook for that species to make it easier for me to find what I want. I also keep notebooks with multiple subject dividers for perennials, annuals, bulbs, garden projects, etc. My rule for deciding if a topic needs a separate notebook or separate divider is based on numbers of articles. If I have 2 articles on the same plant, I create a separate divider and place it in the appropriate notebook. I also keep a notebook of plant articles for those species that I have only 1 article for. Once I have collected a stack of articles on the same topic, it gets a separate binder. Currently, I have 20-30 notebooks labeled with either single or multiple topics. The number grows every month.

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