Free gardening newsletter

It’s true that more gardening information than you can ever use is available free on the Internet.

But I like gardening magazines – Horticulture, Organic Gardening, Garden Design, and Fine Gardening -- and the garden sections of some home magazines – Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, and Sunset – even though I have to pay for them.

I can take a magazine along on a plane or just carry it out into the garden. I can build up a pile of them to read during the shivery winter days when I’m longing to be outdoors digging in the dirt.

And I often go back through them, “discovering” a plant that I recall wanting to try at the time but couldn’t find or got busy and forgot about.

The other day a nice compromise between online and print unexpectedly came my way. It looks as good as a magazine, but it shows up in your e-mail inbox – and it’s free.Fine Gardening calls it a monthly eLetter. (You can sign up here .)

The May 15 edition offers articles on clematis, morning glories and their beautiful kin, basil basics, window box how-tos, and remaking a flower bed.There’s an introductory paragraph and a color photo with each topic, then you click to go to a website to read the entire thing.

I printed out the one-page e-mail, which is sort of like a magazine cover, to keep as a reminder of the topics it covered.And I smiled as I did.

Yes, it’s the beginning of yet another file of gardening info – but at only one page at a time, it’s going to take years before it actually becomes a pile!

If you have other gardening newsletters you’d like to recommend, please leave a comment below.