Garden Journals -- What is Best for You?

Gardeners often like to keep journals of their gardens. I identified 3 different journals and tried each of them out this summer to see which style I would prefer. The journals I evaluated are:

Gardencycle: A Gardener's Day Journal, authored by owners of Seeds of Change, and published by Ten Speed in 1999.
Garden Notes Through The Years: Four-year comparative garden diary from B.B. Mackey Books, published in 1995.
Plant Notes: The Plant Collector's Notebook, from B.B. Mackey Books, published in 1998.

Each of these journals has advantages and disadvantages. They are described below in a way that should allow you to decide which would be best for your purposes.

Gardencycle:
Description: The "recording space" in this journal is divided by seasons. Each season division starts by presenting you with blank pages for basic planning (I assumed this was to be used to sketch your garden plans). Then you have 2 pages providing room for monthly notes followed by pages for daily notes by week. Each of the daily pages has a place for recording the temperature, precipitation, amount of sun, and wind by simply circling or x'ing out the appropriate symbol.
Advantages: If you like comprehensive notes on every aspect of the gardening day including the weather conditions, you'll like this journal.
Disadvantages: Provides for more details than most gardeners care to write down.

Garden Notes Through The Years:
Description: Two pages are used to cover each week of the year. Each page is divided into 2 columns with room for recording weather data, plants in bloom or fruit, seeds or plants ordered and planted, progress made, and things to do. Each two-page spread provides you notes on that week for 4 consecutive years.
Advantages: The gardener is only asked to record notes once during a week. Provides a quick glance at what blooms during each week for several years so you can develop an understanding of the peak bloom periods in your garden. This lets you decide what plants to buy to provide blooms for the down times.
Disadvantages: Does not allow enough space for the compulsive recorder of information (which fortunately only affects a few gardeners).

Plant Notes: The Plant Collector's Notebook
Description: The journal starts with a "gardener created" Plant List which is completed after the remainder of the journal has been filled in. Each page in the journal is used for a single plant specimen. Information to be recorded includes: entry number (used in the table of Contents), common name, plant type (perennial, annual, alpine, etc.), genus, species, variety or cultivar, source, date acquired, date of bloom or fruit, location in garden, care, and comments. An area is provided to attach plant tags or to make a sketch of the plant.

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