Book Review: Gardener’s Log Book

The New York Botanical Garden has published a Gardener’s Log Book to help gardening enthusiasts track plantings and successes as well as local bloom schedules and seasonal chores. It is described as boasting a, “sturdy waterproof cover to protect pages from rain and muddy soil,” as well as “authoritative appendices on composting, pruning, pest and disease control, and container gardening,” and “useful reminders by season on fertilizing, mulching, and transplanting.”

I loved the idea of this log book – in fact I’ve kept something similar in just a hard-backed lined book for years.  I envisioned this Gardener’s Log Book as something that would ride to the garden or out in the yard with me so I could make notes and reminders as I worked.  I’m afraid that’s not quite what I got.

The “weatherproof” binding is maybe a heavy cardstock with some sort of covering less robust than lamination even.  It is bound with eight wire rings so I can’t imagine that cover is going to last long.  The interior pages are a heavy paper and while they do seem to have some treatment to keep ink from running when I put damp hands over the writing, the paper did ripple.  So this paper isn’t akin to the rain-proof notepads like law enforcement officers carry.

There is a little pocket in the very back of the book, but no place to clip in an ink pen, no dividers to easily locate the different years or seasons, not even a ribbon to mark your place.

The purpose of this book is logging rather than referencing so the appendixes in the back are naturally very short.  However, I’m afraid I didn’t find them very useful at all.  There are some charts at the beginning of each season that seem to be very helpful and they include check boxes to keep up with which chores you’ve already attended to.  I will label the columns by the year I’m working in (this year being 2018) because the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 would give me a reference point.

Overall, the Gardener’s Log Book is a great concept and hopefully the future additions will incorporate some of the feedback I’m sure gardener’s will share with The New York Botanical Garden.

Clarkson Potter, the publisher of Gardener’s Log Book supplied a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.