Magazines in the Watchdog :)

Dave, Trish and I have talked about this for quite some time, and we've had many other users suggest it to us as well.

In the interest of giving Watchdog users another reason to never leave your computer (*grin*), we've started the process of adding reference materials (magazines, books, newsletters.)

As with a real reference desk, it will take some time to build up a good assortment. To kick things off, we are starting with 46 listings for gardening magazines; most are U.S.-based, but some are UK, Canadian, and Australian.

We hope that the loyal subscribers of these publications will vote/comment on your favorites, so the publications will get some feedback quickly, and allay any concerns they might have in finding themselves suddenly listed in the Watchdog.

Here's the list: http://gardenwatchdog.com/advanced.php?category=103&submit=Search

If you know of others, you can add them yourself, or send us a note and we'll take care of adding them.

Happy reading!!!!
Terry

Just checked it out...pretty cool! Guess I better gather up my magazines and see which ones I can brag about!

Thanks "TeamDave"

Terry heres another one to add They may be more to the farm form but have gardening remind me of the early MEN on gardening and small aminals
Small Farm Today®
3903 W Ridge Trail Rd
Clark MO 65243-9525
573-687-3525
fax 573-687-3148
800-633-2535
smallfarm@socket.net
www.smallfarmtoday.com

This message was edited Thursday, Aug 14th 3:40 PM

Thanks, Dave - I added them here: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2918/ if you'd like to rate them

I am so pleased to see you included the English Garden magazine! The pictures are fantastic! This is my favorite magazine and the ONLY gardening magazine I get!

djm, I hope you'll tell them how you feel in a comment - I can't stress enough how much companies appreciate seeing public accolades from their paying customers (or in this case, subscribers :)

To all: I spent a few hours yesterday searching for magazines besides the ones I was already aware of, but I'm sure there are many many more that I missed. Please let me know of any others you are aware of, especially if they're among your personal favorites.

An addition: BBC Gardening World from the UK

and RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) magazine

Terry,
Country Home Country Gardens is a great magazine. I

yardbird, do you have an address, phone number or any other contact (email, URL, etc.)? Most of what I can find for Country Homes Country Gardens just leads to various magazine subscription sites. I sure don't want to point people to one particular subscription site.

Sorry Terry, phone # 800/677-0484, Editorial offices-Country Home Country Gardens, Meridith Corp, 1716 Locus St, Des Mois, IA 50309-3023

Thanks yardbird (I suspected they were part of BHG, but wasn't sure until I saw that address.) And thanks to Lavanda's suggestions, I've added two BBC gardening magazines, plus the RHS's The Plantsman.

Are the magazines limited to ones whose primary focus is on gardening? If not, I'd suggest Countryside & Small Stock Journal. It's more of a modern homesteading type of magazine and covers a wide range of topics like the forums here.

Terry, I am very dense, but I can't find where to post my comment on English Garden. I logged in and then was lost. thers something I'm missing!

also:

The Herb companion (and its sister Herbs for Health, which contains some gardening stuff but not as much.)

Carol as long as it falls under farming and/or gardening, I personally think it's appropriate. The Watchdog covers companies offering everything from gardening apparel to vermicomposting and wildlife/birding, and that's a pretty wide range of "gardening-adjunct" items.

djm, this is probably it: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2903/ (I'm guessing you don't subscribe to the UK edition...)

Scroll down past the information, and you'll see a link to "add your own comment and rating ot this company." Be sure to select your rating, (otherwise, you will end up in a loop :) and you'll preview, then "submit" to complete it.

Let me know if you need any further assistance.

Lavanda, thanks - I'll check into them, too.

Thanks Team Dave.......I'll check around and see if I can find one to add......this is great... :o)

One I picked up the other day and didnt even realize it was canadian until later....

Gardening Life http://www.gardeninglife.ca

Birds and Blooms Reiman Publishing

Terry, I've tried and clicked all over and nothing, just like a numeral I is all I get. Nothing happens. It has to be me!

How about Hortus? www.hortus.co.uk Love it.

Good idea to include books, but where have they been added? Also, I think it would be a good idea to have the mail order businesses, the magazines, and the books separated out into their own category at the home page. Right now, when someone new goes to the Garden Watchdog, they would have no idea that there were ratings for magazines, at least not that I can tell.

If you don't agree to the previous, then, at a minimum, there needs to be a note somewhere at the Garden Watchdog home page that tells visitors that magazines can be rated and have ratings in addition to mail order nurseries.

Copperbaron, good points - I'll let Dave address the separate category issue, since it requires a technical response.

As for books - they're not there yet. The magazines are the first step in getting the reference area launched; I have a list of newsletters I'll tackle next, followed by books (hopefully in time for pre-holiday browsing, when everyone is trying to find the *perfect* gardening book for their favorite gardener (which may be themselves ;o)

Honestly, We'd love to dump everything in at once, but there are two reasons we (I) don't:

1) Resources - my time is stretched a little thin right now. I still try to help Baa, PoppySue and Arsenic edit the PDB, going through the comments and images each day, at a minimum. I also add new terms to Botanary each day, which takes a bit of time. If I could clone me, it would probabl help. However, on second thought, that would be a very scary thing, so it's probably just as well that there's just the one of yours truly.

Seriously, every time we add a flurry of new listings to the Watchdog, we inevitably have some fallout from companies who need handholding and education on what the Watchdog is, why they want to be listed here, what happens if there's a negative listing, etc. We seem to be most successful in reassuring a business owner when we can rapidly respond to their concerns and questions. Accordingly, I try to pace the new entries so I can be highly responsive to the input we receive.

2) Adding new entries is a very linear process, and it takes time to find, verify and add new entries, making sure their links work, phone number is accurate, etc. I like to get them as close to perfect as possible straight out of the shoot, so we come off as professional and accurate when companies and customers see a new entry.

We need to do some test runs with books anyway, and see if they need to be presented a bit differently from the other Watchdog listings. Questions such as whether we list retail price of the book, ISBN, etc. all need to be worked out.

I'd welcome everyone's thoughts on the subject: what would be most helpful to you when you think of information for a gardening book, aside from its title and author? Obviously reviews (comments) on whether the book is worth buying and/or reading, but those will have come in due time from all of us who buy and read them.

(In case anyone's thinking along these lines, I'll state upfront that I'm VERY hesitant to list links of "where-to-buy" particular books, as that would take the Watchdog in a whole different direction, and there are some fairly decent "shopping bots" out there now.)

Regarding categories: Yes. We'll do what makes the most sense for the users of the watchdog, and I see no reason why we shouldn't (eventually) separate the site out and make it easier to limit queries to Mail Order, Books, Magazines, whatever.

You know, we already do that with the PDB. We have entirely separate sections for the Daylilies, hostas, tomatoes, etc, and we can do the same thing for the watchdog if/when we get enough of a diversity of resources listed.

I think it'd be useful to have a big Garden Watchdog that is not limited only to plants by mail. We have already put our toes in that water by listing garden-related merchandise (not necessarily seeds and plants), tools, and so forth. Listing resources and companies that service gardeners in non-plant material is an obvious next-step for the watchdog.

Dave

Do you want the Publications to only list things that are available to the public, or also to include some of the better-known journals that are for members only? Such as the ARS (American Rose Society) Journal? I get on-line versions of a few, but they are for members only.

Lupinelover, I debated that with myself, but it really opens up yet a whole other area that we haven't settled on getting into, and that's the societies. (Is it really worthwhile to rate them??? I dunno.)

Anyway, at this point, I think we're better off sticking to the periodicals that are available to any/all subscribers.

djm, are you still having problems? If so, email me, and I'll try to walk you through it.

margaretx, I think Hortus is in there already; but if you can't find it, be sure to let me know.

Terry, I am so happy you guys are listing magazines. I have a couple that aren't listed, but couldn't figure out how to list them.

One is THE AMERICAN GARDENER, published by American Horticultural Society, 7931 East Boulevard Drive, Alexandria VA 22308-1300, www.ahs.org

Another is GARDEN SHED, it is a Better Homes & Gardens publication.

another is GARDEN DECK 7 LANDSCAPE. also by Better Homes & Gardens.

Also Country Home COUNTRY GARDENS, Meredith corp., 1716 Locust St. Des Moines IA 50309-3023 www.countryhome.com

One that i really enjoyed because it was quite different is THE GARDENER, but I'm not sure it is still being published, I haven't received an issue since Mar. 2003. Published by The Gardener, 30 Irene St., Torrington CT 06790-6658

Terry, I use the hyperlink you gave to access the site. No matter what I click on, I just get like a "I" over what I clicked. Is there a place where I might have to sign in to access, in able to post anything? I can get on, but that is all.

djm, you do have to sign in if you want to do more than read the information on the site. There's a login box in the left-hand column; just enter your uesr name and password that you use for DG and the Plants Database.

Hey Another Terry; in yer firt kick-off post you said that "If you know of others, you can add them yourself" and I didn't see a link to click on to do that.
Am I missin it or somethin?

The other Terry...

Edited to partly answer my own question.

Yes, I missed to log in. Still a bit confused tho. Is there a seperate page for periodicals I want to add to the list?

This message was edited Thursday, Aug 21st 10:56 AM

You add like you would add any other company at the main Garden Watchdog page and pick the Category: Reference Magazines

http://gardenwatchdog.com/add.php

PanamonCreel is correct (thank you :) Just please double-check to make sure a company or periodical isn't already in there; if you need/want help determining if there's a pre-existing entry, just let me know.

Ruth, going through your list, here's what I found:

"American Gardener" is available only to AHS members. At this point, I'm deferring the inclusion of society-members-only publications. (But it's a question that will likely be revisted in the near future.)

Are new issues of "Garden Shed" and "Garden Deck & Landscape" published frequently by BHG, or are they pretty static? (I know some of BHG's special interest publications change, some stay the same...)

The "Country Home Country Gardens" is here: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2925/

"The Gardener" has an address that was used by White Flower Farm (and formerly used by Daffodil Mart and Shepherd Seeds, both of which were purchased by White Flower Farm.) From some 2001 online write-ups, I confirmed "The Gardener" is/was a WFF publication. I've emailed them to inquire as to its current status.

Thanks for the suggestions; please keep 'em coming!

http://www.canadawide.com/gardenwise.htm This is one that hasn't been mentioned here in Canada....good reading......my favourite is still BBC Gardeners World! Elaine.......the magazine is called "Gardenwise", you should be able to find it on this listing under magazines and publications!

This message was edited Friday, Aug 22nd 1:08 AM

Lavanda suggested BBC's Gardeners' World earlier, so I added it here: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2922/

Thanks to Roselaine's link, I found and added GardenWise here: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2957 and while I was scouting around, I also found this Gardening Life, another Canadian publication: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2956

Any others? Especially the non-U.S. publications, which are difficult for me to find unless someone can point me in the right direction :)

Terry, there isn't a log in box on the left side. theres a log out, but thats not it. Left side there is a Home page, Mailorder Faq, change password, member page and logout. Went in on all to see if I could find a place to log in. On the right side, after clicking on almost everything, I got a place for new people to sign in, and it said said, if you are already a member to sign in, so with great joy I signed in, and went back to get in on the site. Wouldn't let me post! If my daughter comes over tomorrow, I'll have her look at it, though she does not have much patience with me, but I'm sure she will know what to do!

djm906, if you see "log out" that means you are already logged in :)

Terry, Better Homes & Gardens magazines Garden, Deck & Landscape and Garden Shed are both published quarterly. i subscribe to both, actually like Garden Shed best. Donna

Donna/rutholive, they're both in there now. Garden Shed: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2964/ and Garden, Deck and Landscape: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2965/

Carol7, I owe you an apology - I replied to your note, but failed to get your suggestion added. Countryside & Small Stock Journal is here: http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2962/

(Thanks to all your good suggestions, we're now up to 56 magazines, and many of them already have your reviews added to them - thank you!!!)

Terry.....oh,oh! boo-boo! I entered East Coast Gardener magazine in the companies' list, I don't know quite how to enter it in the mag. list! Elaine