So the Forum goes live - the latest of the upgrades that webmaster Hugh has been pushing through over the last few months. And I thought I’d get in right at the beginning - and anyway I'm in a different timezone over here in England. It's coming up to 1 o'clock lunchtime (5 hours ahead of EST) and it's bright and sunny here in East Yorkshire (originally I'm from London) and there's snow on the ground again which is unusual here.
I'm Malcolm McGregor and some of you will have found out that I’ve just been appointed as the next Editor for the NARGS Quarterly (details on the NEWS page of the website - along with a great offer for Vojtech Holubec & Pavel Krivka’s wonderful book on the Caucasus - at $30 or $40 - domestic US or elsewhere including shipping - this is a stunning offer for a stunning book). So I’m particularly interested in finding out what people feel needs to be done.
My first issue will be the Fall issue so there’s plenty of time yet for me to work through a lot of stuff. But there’s already some things that I’m clear that I want to do including such things as using color illustrations throughout. But as far as content is concerned there’s also the ideal that every issue should have something for everyone. It seems to me that these are some of the things that the Quarterly should cover:
PLANTS - native/non-native/wildflowers/garden plants - growing/taxonomy/identification
ROCK GARDENER'S GUIDE - gardens/nurseries/wildflower sites - guides to Raleigh or Calgary or Ann Arbor or Salt Lake City or .......
PLACES - North America/foreign places - safe/dangerous - plant hunting/plant-guides/visiting/driving/walking
HOW TO GUIDES to taking cuttings/growing bulbs/building rockwalls/ mixing compost etc etc etc
PEOPLE - who's who - gardeners/writers/seed & plant collectors - North America/Europe/further afield
HISTORICAL articles - growers/nurseries/plant introductions/people etc
BOOKS - reviews/revisits/guides
and each of these could be at any level from Beginner to Expert; they can be text-based or picture-based ... if I get it right everyone will find something that appeals in every issue.
Obviously when it comes down to it no issue will have all these topics - but its an ideal and over two or three issues I’d hope to try and maintain that sort of mix. So any ideas or reactions would be really welcome .... in the end the Quarterly is in your hands as much as mine ... so I'm really looking for what you think.
Do you read the Quarterly from cover to cover? Do you just file it away? What do you want to see in the Quarterly? What do you want me to do to give you the journal you want?