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Gardening Magazines
When you visit your local supermarket or bookstore, these days you
can find a multitude of magazines covering just about every subject
you can imagine. And just on the subject of gardening alone,
you will likely have many magazines to choose from.
The BIG QUESTION is this: How can you tell
by the glossy cover if the gardening magazine in your hands is worth
your money? Here's a few
pointers for selecting a gardening magazine that's right for you:
- You've probably heard the saying:
You can't judge a book by it's cover.
Well, that holds true for magazines too, although you can get a feel for what's
inside by examining the cover.
- Look at the titles on the cover.
They will tell you about the subject material that will be covered
on the inside. There should be subjects that attract the
attention of brand new gardeners, as well as the more experienced
ones.
- If you take a quick look at the table of contents,
it will show you in a nutshell, what the magazine has to offer.
It will list standard articles that
will tell you how gardeners achieved particular results in their
gardens. There
may also be "expert advice" articles that
reveal special techniques that experts used to cultivate a new
type of flower, vegetable or hybrid.
- A good gardening magazine should have a
section for new gardeners that shows you the steps to follow
on mini-projects that will enable you to work toward your dream
garden. For example, it might be the steps to follow to make
your own mulch or
compost.
- There should be plenty of good quality photographs. Besides
a "picture being worth a thousand words", good photographs
can be a great inspiration when they
depict beautiful gardens. And of course, accompanying the
photograph should be information describing in detail
what was done to achieve the results in the
photograph.
- A good magazine will also tell you about growing plants in
different garden formats. These articles may describe
indoor gardening or tell you how
to plan a Japanese garden.
- Additionally, the experts might recommend suppliers who have the
tools, materials, expertise and
knowledge to help you transform your humdrum, plain looking garden
into a gardening masterpiece.
- Of course, all gardening magazines will have
advertisements, but this is not a bad thing. You will find
advertisements from a range of companies like seed
distributors, gardening equipment dealers and nurseries that will
sell you seedlings and plants for transplanting.
- And finally, don't forget about the subscription page in the magazine. By visiting your
local store, you are able to look through many gardening magazines
and compare them before you buy the one you really like, but you
don't want to have to do this every few weeks or every month.
After you take the magazine home and read through it, if you decide
you like it, then you'll want to find the subscription page and
check out the price.
Almost always it will be cheaper to get a years subscription to a
magazine than to buy all of the single issues for the year at your
local store. Check out the subscription rate and how often the
magazine is published and you'll be able to make this comparison.
If you only plan on buying a few issues a year, try to determine how
many issues you think you would buy, then figure out what your total
cost would be and compare this to the yearly subscription rate. You
might be surprised at how few issues it will take before it becomes
more cost effective to just go ahead and buy a full subscription.
As you can see, the glossy cover
on a gardening magazine is
there to catch your attention and make you
want to buy the magazine. But by looking inside and
checking out the contents, you'll know for sure if it offers what
you are really looking for and won't be sold by just a pretty
picture.
The more you read, the more you'll learn and the
more you learn, the better equipped you'll be to take your journey
into Growing Your Dream Garden.
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