“Another op’nin’, another show…”
So begins Cole Porter’s immortal song in “Kiss Me, Kate.”
“Another job that you hope, at last,
Will make your future forget your past…”
And that’s the way I think about the start of the gardening year as well. Forget the mistakes of 2009. Future glories are sure to come.
To that end we have reprised our Planning Guide, a year-long compendium chock full of things to do and grow and ways to make your future garden exceed the one just past.
Stories? We welcome the return of Ball Horticulture’s Jim Nau to make sense of the buzz around the year’s new introductions. And we put the irrepressible, ineffable Mike Nowak to the test to see him demonstrate how the notion of a 20-minute garden isn’t all hooey.
More useful info comes in Deb Terrill’s report on all the heirloom tomatoes she’s been eating and growing recently (surprise: not all of them are delectable), while Rose Rankin helps you brush up on your tree ID skills. Having trouble understanding the info on a seed packet? Nina Koziol will sort it out in Gardening 101.
The appearance of the magazine itself is yet another variation on a theme. We haven’t changed our name but art director Suzanne Ray has done a redesign “to give the magazine a fresher, more modern look,” she says.
Another piece of news: State by State Gardening Magazine has taken over publishing Chicagoland Gardening. State by State has been publishing state and regional gardening magazine for more than 11 years. Its other magazines include Alabama Gardener, Arkansas Gardener, Carolina Gardener, Georgia Gardening, Kentucky Gardener, Louisiana Gardener, Mississippi Gardener, Oklahoma Gardener, Tennessee Gardener and Virginia Gardener.
Steve Giddings is the new publisher. “I have always been impressed with the quality of the editorial content found in Chicagoland Gardening,” says Giddings. “The magazine does a great job of providing the information needed to help the gardeners of this region be more successful in their gardening habits. We plan to build on this great product by offering even more how-to stories and more landscape design stories. We also plan to develop our website into a much bigger resource entity that will provide additional on-line content for our readers.”
Most of the staff will remain the same—same editors, same writers—but Bill Aldrich will be leaving us. We all wish him the best in his future endeavors.
One new addition to our website is the Chicagoland Gardening Bookstore, which now offers state-specific gardening books for Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, as well as Midwest regional gardening books. Readers can view the available titles by visiting www.chicagolandgardening.com or viewing our ad on the inside back cover of this issue.
So here we are, once again in a brand new year with new plants to grow, different techniques to try, interesting experiences on the horizon, new things to learn and do.
The overture is about to start,
You cross your fingers and hold your heart,
It’s curtain time and away we go!
Another op’nin’,
Just another op’nin’ of another show.
