Chronicle Drops Garden Columns

A letter to readers of my Chronicle/SFGate Column:

As of July 29, 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, and SFGate.com has dropped all garden columns, including Golden Gate Gardener. They are combining the Food/Wine section and the Home/Garden sections into one section, and plan to cover mostly design and food. Gardening will be an occasional topic, mostly based on interviews with garden-related business owners or about particular gardens. There will be an occasional book review.

I am told that this decision is based on a marketing study showing readers prefered more on home design and food, and weren't particularly interested in gardening. I was also told that if they got a lot of letters from people who missed garden coverage, they might reconsider. So what do you think of this decision? You can send comments to [email protected].

I will still appear in the Chronicle from time to time. I have a book review scheduled for late summer, but no more Q&A column. I will miss being able to help gardeners with questions and get good gardening information out to the Chronicle readership.

I will continue to give talks around the Bay Area, and keep my lecture schedule at the top of this blog.I will also continuer to write in this blog and can offer short answers to your questions here if you send them via comments.  (And if you come to a lecture, please let me know if you are a column and/or blog reader.)

Thanks to all of you who wrote questions to me at the Chronicle and to those of you who told me in persion that my advice was a help in their garden! It was great fun helping you all out!

Pam Peirce