Check out Best Garden Blogs. You can go to the best garden blogs on the internet, meet some of the bloggers, and learn a lot of fascinating stuff!

Here is a link that might be useful: Best Garden Blogs

I'm glad someone else besides me isn't a fan of blogs and such. I prefer the INTERACTION on a message board, the give and take. Blogging and Facebook have all but killed off favorite message boards of mine; they're shadows of what they used to be. It saddens me.

Off topic, I know, but I just felt like responding...

I'm another that prefers the interaction of a forum discussion.

As do I. I just can't get into facebook.

me too

I peruse blogs when I'm in need of a gardening fix, mostly in the winter. In good weather I'm outside all day, but in winter I have more time to read online.

I subscribe to Margaret Roach's and also Nan Ondra's Hayefield. Both of them are here in the cold northeast, so they write about plants I can grow, and suffer the same weather and pest problems I do. Both very knowledgeable and interesting.

Here is a link that might be useful: hayefield

I like the interaction on GW, but I don't always find what I'm looking for, and I tend to be quite visual, so I look at & read blogs with lots of photos along with text. I looked at the three mentioned above and added both Hayefield and Tim Wood's, but I find all the extra frames and moving pictures in 'A Way to Garden' too distracting.

I most often read design blogs, and even though many of the designers and gardeners have quite different physical situations (climate, lot size, etc.) and styles from mine, they give me food for thought and often make me look at my own garden differently. My current favorite is Dirt Simple by a designer in the Detroit area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dirt Simple

babs,that will be something to explore; th you. Have you seen gardendesignonline ? it's mostly a source for sources, linking you to other websites,articles, events, books, mags,etc. and can often tell you interesting things.

have you ever looked at the design pp. on our site? hope someth there might have been of interest at some point..........

you know what drives me crazy? prob this has been written about alot,and prob i have missed those discussions because i have not looked at many blogs, deep breath......
but what really bugs me is the kazillion blogs that seem to be out there that are just a complete waste of anyone's time, perhaps save for the author. I know this sounds harsh; i am ranting a bit, but still....... When I have browsed through some of those "lists of other recommended gardening blogs" found on some gardening sites, i have often come across a blog w/ a great title(that's what draws me in, of course) but that is basically a laundry list of some kind: exactly how many and what varieties of 13 tulip bulbs someone planted, etc. You get the idea......."how many words can i use to tell readers about some project or act that has no educational or entertainment value whatsoever?"(Hey, I'm not brutal or anything, right?) Has someone come up with a blog-specific term for the charming phrase, "mental masturbation"?, what my mom used to euphemistically call "belly-button gazing" ? anyway, if that's how a gardener wants to spend her time, keeping her public appraised of her laundry lists, that's fine, but would somebody PLEASE enact a law that prevents said gardener from giving her blog a great name?!no fair.
best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

p.s. i have the distinct feeling that blogs are like certain home crafts, the latest trend to try, and that the great majority of them will be abandoned within their first year. I have this cartoon in my head of the world wide web as the solar system, populated by planets and book-like objects. On the cover of each book is the title,"My Diary" with an X marked through it and,scrawled in its place,the title "My Blog", and these millions of blogs are floating around outer space with used candy wrappers and empty beverage cans, like a zillion pieces of discarded trash.....Maybe the future is closer than we think...!

babs, started looking at Dirt Simple. Neat! Not at all (of course) like what I was ranting about.
thanks much,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

I found a wonderful list of gardening blogs at:

http://www.gracepete.com/2010/11/post-freeze-bloomers.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening blogs

Hey Mindy -

Here are two more for you, neither of which are particularly perennial related. Paradis Express is almost all pictures, most often garden related, but also visual arts, as the Frenchwoman who writes it (brief explanations at the end in both French and English) is in advertising. She pulls pictures from other blogs, artists' websites, landscape design company sites, etc (credited and linked along with the explanation), so I've found several blogs through her. http://paradisexpress.blogspot.com/

Garden Porn is written by a California (Bay Area) landscape designer who sometimes posts on the GW design forum. Stunning stone and metal work, and she sometimes posts on a theme, like pools, hills, paths, etc. I like the thought that goes into her designs as far as how the owners plan to use their space along with how the aesthetics fits in with the surroundings and buildings. http://www.deviantdeziner.blogspot.com/

I did read through everything on your website when you first posted about it, but haven't gotten back to it recently. I imagine that you have added things since then, so I'll have to revisit it.

There are a couple of posts on design-related blogs & websites that I started about this time last year on the New England forum as well. They both start "Web design resources." Maybe I'll have to get back to doing that again . . .

that's super babs, i'll look at those.

i do think marg. roach does an excellent job.too much on @ pg for me too; prob her savvy NYC marketing background directed to a younger crowd.....? but when i focus on the educational pieces, i think they're very intersting and well done and illustrated. last night i was looking at her piece on salix eleagnos.

have you looked at the garden professors site? i've linked to it but not read it yet.
th much,
mindy

Here is a link that might be useful: garden professors site

well connie, you certainly have the sun and the heat down there for it, but you might have to look hard for crappy free draining soil!
best,
mindy

I like garden rant.

Mindy,

I like Garden Professors - love the science behind the horticultural practices. And Garden Porn as someone else mentioned is a really good one as well, Michelle has outstanding pictures and does amazing work. I especially love the progression photos she adds of her work over the years.

To add: Check out Janet Macunovich's E Letter distributed about twice a month. She has been a practicing horticulturalist and a working landscaper for about 30 years in Michigan and been teaching winter workshops for about 20 and has authored about a dozen books. She has an amazing talent for combining the artistic with the practical. To get on her newsletter list send her a note to: jmaxgarden@aol.com

I've tried really hard to like Garden Rant but I don't - too much "snarkasm" there by both the posters and some of the responders. Susan Harris has a pretty good blog in her own right but I don't care for the other authors much. And some of the guest ranters are really about pushing their own blogs or egos as well which is rather annoying.

If you like those sort of topics (recipes, green living, gardening, etc) I recommend Shawna Coronado at Thecasualgardener.com instead. I've met Shawna and she comes across both in her writing and in person as a much nicer and much less judgmental individual.

hey native, where ya been? thanks so much for those recs! really helpful! i've signed up for janet's. funny, susan harris and i emailed a bit when she featured us on a gardenrant and a mahoney's blog at xmas time; really neat person. (And, if you look at her photo, you see that she and margaret roach are giving meryl streep a run for her money in the 'beautiful women over 40' category! Ah, beauty and brains and gardening talent- an unbeatable trio!)

best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

Janet Macunovich is a local gal, and I really enjoy the articles she writes for the monthly local gardening magazine. I think the above assessment is right on - she has a knack for combining practicality and artistry. :0)

native, that email address doesn't work for me. might you check it and/or email her w/ my address, for her enewsletter?:
cottonarboretum@comcast.net

thanks so much,
mindy

Mindy,

I was pretty busy up through the early days of December with fall cleanup and dormant pruning. And then I just sort of got wrapped up with the holidays and visiting relatives. I was really missing GW though.

I will send your information on to her - Janet and Steven are really great about adding folks to their newsletter. I think sometime in the future they will be introducing a website as well. For your area, I think she makes twice a year pilgrimages to Massachusetts for very low cost work shops and does demonstration pruning on site at a client she visits twice a year up there.

I do like Susan Harris - she is the only one of the quartet though. The other three I'm not keen on though. Susan kindly posted a picture of my front garden one year on her blog and on GR.

A very respected GW gal said something similar about 1 or 2 attitudes on the professors' site, but i've not looked at it yet.

If you do communicate or see janet, i hope you could encourage to come tour and visit us. I'd love to meet her.
thanks native,
mindy

I just posted about this over on the Hudson Valley forum (mostly inactive). Specifically regarding how the great quality of garden writing available online in blogs has replaced my desire to continue subscribing to garden magazines that repeatedly disappoint. Anyone else cutting back on their mag subscriptions?

Here's some of my favorite blogs:
May Dreams Gardens
A Way to Garden
The Medieval Garden Enclosed
Serenity in the Garden
Studio G
Digging
You Grow Girl
Growing with Plants (which i just discovered, and am really enjoying so far!)

I was so inspired by all these great projects I finally got up the courage to try a little blogging myself. We'll see how it goes...

Here is a link that might be useful: Hudson Valley Garden Journal

I only subscribe to Fine Gardening and they never disappoint; I think they're tremendous and wouldn't even consider not subscribing. I dare say that no serious (non-food)gardener would be caught...... no i won't say that because i'd never finish taking the arrows out of my back if i did.

needless to say, blogs and their fans are as varied as anything else today, but garden blogs rarely give me the in-depth info i'm seeking and Fine Gardening does. Once upon a golden gardening era, Horticulture magazine was a thing of pride, but now it's like a lightweight and unattractive supermarket periodical.
best,
mindy

" arbo" ..... oh I have to agree with your about so called candy wrappers and bits of this and that floating all about the web, leftover abandoned Journals and blogs, I've tried going to so many that haven't been updated for SO long, and never had many posts to begin with.. and it's usually one I've been looking forward to reading. I too, am taken in with the titles of some of the blogs, they sound so juicy! I know there are a few good ones out there though, so, I'll keep looking.

Mindy - agree with you regarding Horticulture. I tried it again last year after letting my subscription lapse for a few years, and again was disappointed in the issues I received. Didn't renew again, wasn't worth it.

You all have some great Blog Newsletters. I have enjoyed them and bookmarked.

I like forums better also. This one has Wiki and good tips,

http://www.blossomswap.com/wiki/container-gardening-guide