Birds & Blooms Magazine

This is a part of Logimom's This isn't my usual category W/O to celebrate her third anniversary at EP. Her request was that we write in an area that we don't usually write in. I've done a few magazine reviews in my day, but I don't subscribe to many any more, so this isn't an area with which I'm very familiar. Other participants include Logimom, jillmkk, Ruby950, Donnie013, nedipooh, patricknjacob, kamel622, sleeper54, minorthreat78, ifif1938, dlstewart, popsrocks, ed_glover, Lisa_J, gaelkm, Susie-34668, sshelle, msmorvay, AliventiAsylum, MaggsMomm, Treeseed, and bella4. Check 'em out.

And thanks to the gracious Gracef, Books Lead, for adding this magazine to the database so I could review it.


It's a good thing that I have good teeth and don't get my hair done very often. The only time I indulge in trash reading is at the dentist's and while waiting at my local fantasy salon. (I define trash reading as that which doesn't enhance my knowledge or understanding of anything substantive, and/or is forgotten within an hour.) My only opportunities to savor the delicacies offered by Cosmo, Vanity Fair, Metro Home and their ilk is while waiting - for the doctor, the pedicure, the haircut.

So it was as I sat in my new podiatrist's office last summer, awaiting his verdict on the foot surgery I'd just had. My eye took in the elderly Golf Digest, Motor Sports, Parents, Field & Stream... and came to light on something meekly hidden under the stack: Birds & Blooms.

Excuse me?

Birds & Wha...???

BIRDS & BLOOMS.

Yup.

OK, I'll try anything when faced with the crisis of Nothing to Read. So I dug it out of the pile and dove in.

And fell in love.


FEATURES

Birds & Blooms is published by the Reiman Media Group, which is also responsible for Backyard Living, Taste of Home, Light & Tasty, Country Woman, Quick Cooking, Country Discoveries, Country, Reminisce, Farm & Ranch Living, and Crafting Traditions. Catching a trend here? Warm and fuzzy, sentimental, and geared toward the homey lifestyle.

The most amazing thing about Birds & Blooms - I can't speak for the other offerings because I've never seen them - is that it contains - ta daaah! - NO ADVERTISING! I have no idea how Reiman pulls that off, but that one feature alone makes me a fan.

For the rest, Birds & Blooms is very heavy on reader contributions. Here's a sample, from the June-July 2003 issue:



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Garden Chat, with typical Letters-to-the-Editor content;



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Setting the Table, on p. 8, is reader tips on bird-feeding;



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Bird Tales covers two pages and is readers' stories about birds;



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Glad You Asked answers reader questions about gardens and birds, with responses supplied by Melinda Myers and George Harrison (no credentials given, beyond their editorships of the magazine);



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Squirrel Busters is readers' suggestions for keeping the critters away from the feeders;



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Fantastic Feeders features readers' home-built bird feeders, some of which are pretty amazing;



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That's the Spirit showcases readers patriotic garden and home displays



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Home Tweet Home - yeah, that's what it says, unfortunately - showcases more fantastic birdhouses;



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Questions Across the Fence features requests for information from reader to reader;



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Kindergarden shows off the cute grandkids in the garden;



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Backyard Banter shares ideas and suggestions for their gardens and wild birds;



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And finally, Readers' Scrapbook features creative projects and interesting photographs.

The rest of the magazine features short stories, most of which are only a page long. Some of the offerings in the June-July 2003 issue include:



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Planting a Garden Quilt, by a reader who likens the garden creation process to quiltmaking;



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Season's Just Ripe for Tomatoes, also by a reader;



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a reader's article about the wood thrush, complete with photographs and information about markings, habitat, diet, song, nesting, and so on;



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A similarly formatted article about delphiniums, by a reader;



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Well-Rooted in Family, a 2-pager about people in Maine who created their garden entirely from family contributions of plants;



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A reader's article about a cherry-picking mockingbird and what they did to thwart it;



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Ready for a Walk?, a meander through several gardens to admire plantings, birds, birdhouses, and critters;



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Setting Up Camp, a reader article, with photographs, on how she creates a garden around the trailer she rents for the summer



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a 2-pager on the blue-throated hummingbird that contains one column of information and a page-and-a-half of incredible photograph;



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Houston's Wonderful Waterways, by a reader, about... guess what;



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The Owl Has Landed, the winner of the most recent wildlife photograph contest;



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Lakefront Luxury, another reader contribution about how they designed and created a lovely lakefront garden in Saskatoon;



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Here's the Plan, a regular feature which in this month gives specs and instructions on how to build a double birdhouse with a planter in the top;



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Growing Butterflies, a reader article



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Hedge Your Bets with Rugosa Roses about these prolific and hardy climbers;



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another reader article by a man in Tennessee who maintains 24 hummingbird feeders every day;



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the winner of the Backyard Challenge Contest who created a garden against formidable odds;



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Come on Along, a travel article which in this issue features fall colors in the northeast part of the US;



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Garden Memories; and



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a tear-out page divided into quarters, with photographs on one side and detailed information on the other. The four features are the Northern Flicker, Geraniums, Morning Glories, and the American Painted Lady. The page is dotted so you can cut it apart and file the pieces.

The only item that could remotely be considered advertising in the whole issue is the penultimate page, called Marketplace, which features two products, a squirrel-proof (yeah, right) bird-feeder and a weird mannequin that you can use to train birds to eat from your hand. Both these items are written up like features, and are available through Reiman's Country Store.

The entire magazine is 66 pages long, and is lavishly illustrated. It's printed on heavy, semi-glossy paper.

Subscriptions are available at www.reimanmedia.com, and cost $14.95 for a year. That works out to $2.50 per issue, not a bad deal.


SUMMARY AND VERDICT

OK, GQ or W it ain't. This magazine celebrates the homier virtues, as do the others from this publisher, if their titles are any clue. But there's something charming about the reader-to-reader content, which accounts for about 75% of the magazine. These are the real experiences of real people, with their names and home-towns given for each contribution, rather than polished articles from experts or advertisers.

Complaints? Not many. I've always believed that the more things an item tries to do or be, the less successful or complete it is at any of them. That's the case here. This isn't really an authoritative journal about backyard birding. And if you want a magazine about gardening, with technical information and how-tos, this isn't that, either. I suspect that the relatively large proportion of photographs disguises the fact that Birds & Blooms is pretty skinny in the content department. What this magazine does do very well, however, is present neighbor-to-neighbor information, albeit with a high sentimentality quotient, that you won't find elsewhere. Two stars for the information herein.

So what is it?

Two analogies come to mind, one each for the high-tech person and the low-tech. For the former, the best analogy is an Internet chat room or forum. If you were to take a subject-specific BB and print it off with photographs, this is pretty much what you'd get. Lots of light content, suggestions, ideas, and cheerleading, with a small amount of hard information available to the determined reader.

For the latter, imagine standing at your back fence chatting with your neighbors, or walking the dog and chatting with a companion.

What saves Birds & Blooms from being branded a trash mag is the fact that some of the suggestions are pretty valuable, and a lot of the photographs are wonderful. Four stars for the charm and somewhat unorganized back-fence-style content.

So I pore over mine, and have it stashed so that I can refer back to it if I run into a bird-feeder problem. And I consider myself fortunate to live in a world where an entire magazine can be, and is, devoted to just that.

I ought to give it three stars, the average of two for content and four for charm, but I'm feeling perverse today, and I do enjoy it, so... four stars.