You Grow Girl™

The English Garden magazine

For the traditionalist, The English Garden magazine is a small slice of heaven. A sister magazine to The English Home, it provides a wonderful array of features for the amateur and enthusiast alike.

Over the past several years, EG has only gotten better. This is because it is so comprehensive in the breadth of its features. EG covers everything from gardens big and small, accessories, features on specific plant families, garden design, garden shows (London's annual Chelsea Flower Show always receives a mention) and architecture, to name just a few.

The first thing any reader will notice about EG Magazine is the photography. It is truly exquisite and is an exceptional aspect of this magazine. EG typically features many gardens per issue, including the home garden of an average enthusiast and at least one article on an estate garden (This magazine is based out of Britain after all and there are certainly no shortage of old, large and well manicured estates in that part of the world.) In either case, the photographic care applied to the garden articles is exceptional and more importantly, presents gardens to the reader in both an accessible and applicable manner.

For example, most of EG's readers do not have the acreage of an estate to play with, but the well chosen photographs of larger gardens still provide many excellent ideas that can be applied on a smaller scale. Colour schemes or ideas for border plantings are just two good examples. Conversely, smaller home gardens are afforded the same attention, honing in on such areas as design or climate challenges solved by well chosen plants.

Pretty pictures, however, are only half the story. The writing in EG is also excellent. I typically make a point of just thumbing through EG's photographs for ideas that take my fancy. But I always go back and read an issue cover to cover. The articles are rich in technical information, but at the same time very readable. The tone of this magazine is also shameless in its love of gardening, without being snobby. The English Garden is not afraid to share its enthusiasm with its readers. It is this combination of the technical and whimsical that makes EG such a pleasure to read. A novice will get some good tips. The seasoned gardener will take comfort in knowing they are not alone in their obsession with heirloom seeds, hydrangeas or the optimization of rain barrel usage.

Another good feature EG brought in a few years ago was the inclusion of every day names for plantings, which they now provide when they can. Most times, you can't find a plant by its Latin name and EG's provision of more commonly used names of plants is a nice and useful touch.

With other regular columns such as Gardener's Diary, Question Time and Plant Focus, The English Garden magazine is as comprehensive a gardening publication as it gets. It's certainly money well spent. I still have all my issues — it's one of the few magazines I don't regularly recycle — because I always find it a source of inspiration and information long after my purchase.