I'm always bashing on about The Plantsman -- I tell anyone who'll listen (and some who, I'm sorry to say, pay no attention at all) that The Plantsman magazine from the Royal Horticultural Society is a vital magazine for anyone with a serious interest in plants.

It's not for new gardeners (for whom The Garden, also from the RHS, is more suitable), but for those of us with some experience of plants The Plantsman is simply  superb. And it's just won the award of Magazine of the Year from the British Garden Writers Guild. [The RHS website also won an award, you can check out the winners here.]

Published four times a year, The Plantsman includes examinations of individual plants and individual genera - often sorting out any problems with names; it brings details of advances in cultural and propagation techniques; it looks at new plants and specialist nurseries; You can see the contents of the current issue here. Only a few of the articles are available online but in this issue these include a piece on Thalictrums from Dan Hinkley and another of Hydrangea serrata from Sally Gregson. The previous issue has a piece on stokesias available online together with my own opinion piece on native plants – Too Much Gardening in the Wild.

The big problem is that, outside the UK, it's expensive – and the exchange rate doesn't help. I keep asking the RHS to make it more affordable outside Britain, and to make it easier to order online - no joy so far. Even so... This is great magazine - fascinating, well written with great pictures. And certainly deserving of its award. Oh, by the way… editor Mike Grant was valuable contributor to my recent Encyclopedia of Perennials.