Goodbye to Garden Design - Another Magazine Bites The Dust

The entire staff of Garden Design magazine was just laid off - just what happened to Metropolitan Home a few years ago. Two of my favorite inspirational magazines gone...I've written for both.

What's different is that Met Home seemed robust and full of good work up until it disappeared. Garden Design has been through an odyssey that diminished it - moving headquarters to Florida, turning into more of a garden decorating and industry publication than a mag for home gardeners - but, still, it was beautiful and there's not much else out there.

 April will be the last issue of Garden Design. It's parent company Bonnier explains the obvious "The economic climate, compounded by the significan industry transition to digital, have limited the growth in advertising needed to make this brand viable for our future."

Did anyone else see the recent Sixty Minutes where they began a piece on the New York Times with the fateful words "Newspapers are an industry in free-fall"? Unfortunately, that applies to print-on-paper all too widely.......RIP Garden Design, we'll miss you.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[robin]

such a loss. One less glossy for me to read while soaking my gardening aches out in the tub. :(

[Jan Jensen]

I used to enjoy Garden Design much more about 10 years ago...lately there hasn't been much of substance that I could relate to. Lots of nice photos of beautiful gardens, which seemed more related to landscape architecture (emphasis on hardscape), and WAY off the charts in terms of expensive furnishings, etc. So- perhaps they just weren't meeting the needs of the customers as much as they used to?

[valerie Easton]

Hi Jan,
I agree - it was a beautiful mag without much useful substance in recent years. Still...an unfortunate sign of the times, and I'll miss reading it and writing for it.

[looking for logic]

This is 1 of 3 magazines that I still subscribe to. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[Molly Larson Cook]

Garden Design was always more a magazine for landscape designers than home gardeners in just the same way Architectural Digest is more for interior designers than for home decorators. This is what made Garden Design such a great resource - inspiration from the best. There are plenty of magazines for home gardeners out there but Garden Design gave us more. Even after giving up my garden space when I moved back to the city, I've subscribed just for the insightful articles and beautiful pictures. I'm very sorry to learn that it's gone now.

[ricki]

As long as 'Gardens Illustrated' remains, I remain happy. I plead guilty to contributing to the demise of the others. After a while, they all seemed to repeat themselves, and garden bloggers became a more interesting resource. Your lovely blog is a case in point.

[Scott Weber]

I'm second Ricki...Gardens Illustrated blows evertthing else out of the water, they manage to be both beautiful and accessible. Garden Design was just really just a product catalog in disguise.

[Roger Q Callaway]

I'm in the throes of finishing a walled patio that was inspired by their story on the gardening brothers in Indonesia. Of course I have $millions less to work with, but still.