Article Guidelines
The Public Garden, the quarterly journal of the American Public Gardens Association (APGA), is designed to serve as an information resource for members of the Association who are its primary readers. Readers include public garden directors and other administrative staff, board trustees, curators, educators, horticulturists, volunteer coordinators, researchers, librarians, conservation specialists, arborists, and development and public relations professionals. Other subscribers include libraries, companies that provide products and services to the public garden community, and others with an interest in public horticulture.
Because The Public Garden is a professional resource, each issue explores a theme of current concern to those working in public horticulture. In keeping with the journal's resource mission, feature articles cover different aspects of the theme and focus on presenting information and ideas that will be of long-term interest to a wide range of readers across the country. According to surveys, the journal is not a "throwaway" publication--readers keep the journal and share their copies with colleagues.
Also featured on a regular basis are departments that do not necessarily relate to the issue theme. Those departments include:
- Book Review
- Collection Profile
- Garden Portrait
- Special Report
- Viewpoint
The majority of authors are professionals working in public horticulture or those who have a very good understanding of public gardens and issues affecting those institutions. All authors contribute their work to the journal for no fee.
In general, feature articles are 1,000-3,000 words in length. Except for the Special Report, department articles are anywhere from 700 to 1500 words. All articles are submitted electronically as Microsoft Word documents.
Anyone interested in contributing an article to The Public Garden should send a letter outlining the proposed article and its major points to:
Madeline Dobbs, Editor of The Public Garden
351 Longwood Road
Kennett Square, PA 19348
mdobbs@publicgardens.org
For additional information, please call Madeline Dobbs at 610.708.3011
