I'm so glad you asked, because I always mean to start one but somehow it doesn't happen!

Potagers are being expanded, so they contributed to the bulk of the notes.

Most of my rose notes have to do w/ drought tolerance & health, although there are some notes on which bloomed early, etc. I plan to explore using natural means, such as citrus oil to possibly help with disease (no idea whether that works).

Every few years, I decide that I'm being a lousy gardener because I haven't kept a garden journal. Lots of trying to remember things off the top of my head, and consulting friends who keep track of rain and weather and such, worked okay ... until my garden got to be the size it is today. Instead of trying to do it the traditional way again (and potentially failing, again) I decided to enter the 21st century and blog my garden journal. Now I have photos galore, along with my notes and thoughts on things that I have done during the past year. It's been perfect for me, and allows me to share my garden with others ... bonus.

For the purposes of this post, what strikes me most is what I must do differently next year ... my Front Border is still over-run with weeds, the two ends of my Hybrid Tea bed are much too shady and the roses are struggling (the middle of the bed is doing famously, however), my ramblers on the Rambler fence are happily trying to take over the world, and I discovered that I shouldn't plant baby tea roses in a frost pocket if I want them to survive.

Some successes ... the arches in the Rose Field are beginning to create the most wonderful tunnel. The Arcade, a tall pergola structure, is a huge success ... though I was hesitant to make it so large when I was designing it (thanks for the push, honey).

I visited many other gardens this year, and I brought home notes to use in my own garden in the form of photographs ... which I shared, in order to tell my garden friends what wonders I'd seen. Robert's garden in spring (and when it was shutting down in fall, as well), Pam Harper's garden, cemeteries, roadsides ... anywhere I find roses, you would find me with my camera.

If you haven't visited, you are welcome to peek into my world. I love visitors!

Connie

Here is a link that might be useful: home and garden blog

I try to keep up with my journal but I often forget about it for weeks. I like to record the weather, when things bloom, first frost, when the black birds arrive to nest, when and what I fertilized with. I try to write down the plants and roses I have bought and when they are planted. I have messy maps of where the new ramblers are, because it is hard to keep ramblers labled. What I wish I would do is to make a sort of wish list so that when I'm at a nursery I can look at it instead of consulting my poor memory.

I will begin my 28th garden journal some time in spring. The present one will last long now because nothing much happens in my garden now that it is covered with snow. I may note if a special bird visits our feeders (always looking out for goldfinches), or if I get some really brilliant idea for a new border or bed. But when I start sowing seeds indoors I will get busy writing nearly every day. I also keep a file of all plants in the garden, and a sad file of all the plants that failed. I also have a wish list I can print and bring to the nursery or keep to remind me when I order from an online source.

My journaling has ebbed and flowed with the times, sometimes I am a prolific writer and cataloger of my life and gardens, other times, not so much. This year I ran out of room in the journal I have been keeping for five or six years now, I just checked and the last entry was June 6 of this year when I said I was running out of room in the journal! I guess that would be a good thing to ask for as a Christmas gift from someone.

Wow mariannese, 28 years of journaling! What a lovely history for you, and perhaps family members who would love to see those memories and knowledge for the future. What a treasure.

Some years ago I took a class in Women's Journals and Memoirs. It really honed my writing skills and dicipline to write daily. I learned the things you write about don't have to be life changing or monumental, just daily musings about what you experienced and saw and felt that day, nothing more. That's what great about journaling, you aren't out to write the Great American Novel (or Danish or Chinese or any other nationality) but just documenting your life in a way. I tend to mix personal feelings in with garden notations, I think the two are often intertwined.

I love to throw in sketches in my journal as well, sometimes plans for a new garden, sometimes just a quick drawing of my dog lying on the porch, or whatever inspires me at the time. Some of the plans in my journal are invaluable to remembering where I planted what! I tend to list new plants I bought and where I planted them (thankfully) so I can find them later and remember their names.

In essence, I keep most of my personal thoughts and ramblings in my handwritten journal, but I am also a relentless cataloger and organinzer of plants which I do on the computer. I have lists and charts galore of roses and other plants with photos in my own personal database that I can reference from time to time. It also keeps me busy during the winter months when cataloging and organizing is my only garden chore.

Here are some random excerpts from my journal 2009:

2/28
I've ordered 21 roses (eek!) and now I have to figure out where to plant them all... "Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts"
4/23
Zandi's 16th birthday! 4 eggs in the bluebird nest. Going to be a warm weekend, temps in the 80s. Pruned back all old canes on Maggie - she's put up 3 new thick basals so we'll see how she does... There's a Carolina wren nesting in the garage amid the spray bottles...good thing I don't keep toxic chemicals!
4/28
Cardinals have a nest in Knockout. Now I can't SP it.
5/1
Happy May Day! Ugh, its raining - again.
6/6
I'm running out of room in this book...ripped out KO today (yay!) and replaced it with Earthsong...

Happy journaling everyone!

No journal, so I will note the most exciting things I WOULD have put in a journal if I had one.

These, as usual, are regarding saving/reproducing interesting roses. We have an ancient (from where it is and the size of the main canes, we figure at least 80 years old) Duchess de Brabant (AKA Comtesse de la Barthe, AKA Countess Bertha) in our garden. It is growing sort of inside of a huge old Le Vesuve, so it took ( I am slow) several seasons for me to notice it. For some reason this past Spring it went crazy blooming. Then I got the Australian rose ladies Tea rose book, which featured this rose. Then I read some comments about how old cultivars might in some cases be better than new ones. So, I decided to try and root a cutting from my ancient plant. I am not good with cuttings, but one little plant survived the 4 I took, and it is now planted out by our sidewalk - I can't wait for Spring to see it bloom!

Another old old plant I took a cutting from was the polyantha Margo Koster. Actually, I have dug up and transplanted that plant from its original spot twice, because the original spot was in deep shade under a huge old barberry bush. Both times the transplanted plant did fine, but the original old plant also came back in the original place - so now I let it be there - it must LIKE being under the barberry! It had sported to (a stable) Dick Koster plant in the past, so I keep an eye on it to see what it is up to. Last year it produced 3 blooms that were half the normal peach color, and half white! (I called them Creamsicle). Jeri told me that it might just be a weather/temp anomaly, and not a sport, and that may be the case. Just in case it was a sport, I tried to root 2 cuttings from the teeny tiny canes (can't really call them canes - they were about 1/8 inch in diameter!) with the weird blooms on them. They both rooted, but I lost one to squirrels, who kept digging it up in its pot so they could plant peanuts (my fault - I leave out the peanuts). I put a plastic cloche over the surviving one, and so far that has worked - it is putting out tiny leaves, and has survived our last 2 rainstorms. So, another reason I can't wait for Spring - I want to know whether I just have another plant of Margo Koster, or whether the creamsicle is really a sport!

Jackie

Oh no, linrose! Not 28 years of journaling, only 16 years. Some of my notebooks have been rather thin. I loved an American one with pictures of garden tools on the cover but they stopped selling them. Now I use a thicker kind but I write less so they last about a year. I wrote much more in the beginning of my gardening career and used to finish more than one book in a year. I write whenever I have done something particular, added or moved a plant, made a new colour scheme or jot down names of plants I must have. My memory is bad so I have to make sketches of all new beds, etc.

Wow, you guys may be turning me on to journaling. Where will I find the time though? And the consistency? A rose friend and I were emailing rather regularly, so I thought of them as an electronic journal, but I don't ever refer back to them. That would seem to be the point. I kept a journal several years ago as a sort of therapy during a rough emotional time. I don't really want to refer back to that one, but a garden journal would be so useful and educational. I think I'll look for a special journal book. Thanks everyone for the thoughts you have shared. My brain is becoming more scattered and forgetful so I need this, that is, if I don't forget! Also, some things I'll probably miss writing down because I won't know they'll be useful. And DH would NEVER see me if I were working in the garden AND writing in the garden. Poor guy.

Sherry

I don't have a garden journal but I do have a rose notebook. It lists all the roses I have, the ones I've discarded, the ones that I would like to have some day, data about roses I've bought, when and who I've bought them from, and lists of roses by location i.e. bed by dining room, square bed in front of house, roses lining the driveway etc. I also have lists of roses I've seen and liked in books or in gardens, and heat-resistant roses. I also have a list of favorite roses in my garden, which of course will change over time. In addition to my notebook I have a file on my laptop with photographs of my garden and my roses and another file of roses gleaned from the internet which I especially like.

Ingrid

My garden journal has lots of blank pages the past couple of months!

Actually I got serious about keeping one last year when my mother died. We were cleaning out her things and I suddenly realized I had nothing with her handwriting on it. All those notes and letters she had sent me over the years I had not kept. After all, there would always be more... So my father suggested I take one of her journals. There was not much in them, just things like "Rained all day, called Paula, bought new shoes", that sort of thing. But I was much comforted by having written evidence of her life and thoughts in my hand when ever I wanted it. While I had kept a very casual notebook for years, I got much more faithful about it after that.

But just lately, not so much. I'll get back to it, I know.

Rosefolly

16 years is still very impressive by any standards mariannese, congratulations. Once you have the dicipline to write it becomes almost automatic, there's always a few moments in the morning over coffee to jot down a few thoughts, or at the end of the day after chores. Some people keep their journal on the nightstand so instead of watching TV before bed they can record their thoughts on the day. It may only amount to a couple of sentences about the weather but it's something. I say if there's time to post on the forums there's time to write in your journal!

On the inside front cover of mine I keep relevant weather data about where I live such as first and last frosts, rain amounts and temperature averages per month. I never remember those things and it helps me plan and compare weather from year to year. I can be a real weather nerd sometimes.

It's not necessary to write every day. That just puts pressure on us to do so. When the spirit moves is the best time, and like I said, once you get in the habit, it can get easier and more natural - even liberating! If you are at the end of your rope with Japanese beetles, or blackspot, or the rain, or the drought - just vent in your journal! I even look back on old journals to see the date I saw the first JB, or the first day over 90 degrees or what have you.

Also, a note about what kind of journal to use - I never found I could write in a beautifully illustrated and bound journal - I was afraid to ruin it with my scratchings. I started with spiral bounds but switched to sketch books because I wanted to have plain unlined paper I could use to write and sketch in. I use a fairly small notebook, about 6" x 9" which is big enough that my hand doesn't get cramped but small enough so that two lines in an entry doesn't get lost. And I almost never use pen, again I'm nerdy and use only pencil - it is a sketchbook! - I love my Ticonderogas! Maybe it gives me peace of mind that I can always erase. And I do, especially when my garden plans change and I have to change the name or location of a plant in a sketch.

I'm rambling, but I love this topic. Thanks for starting it Juliet.

I always start a journal and even fill it in quite enthusiastically for a few months - mainly January - March. Then it starts to get really busy and the gaps appear until there may be many weeks between entries. There will be a vague attempt to write down what I have sowed and when but by far and away the most common entry is the To Do list. This list never gets any shorter (but the handwriting gets more ragged. I may manage to record something possibly useful such as date of last frosts and there will be two or 3 attempts at vegetable rotation plans - but the journal can NEVER be found when this information is required. There will be resolutions - frequently, the same ones cropping up year after year. If I haven't left it outside or lost it in the shed, by the end of the year, there may be some sort of reckoning......but usually boredom sets in and it's back in the realm of fantasy - wishlists, new year resolutions (hah!) More To Do's. This year though, I am going to do it differently...as if.

I have loved reading about the way you all keep a record of your gardens and love reading about all your journal entries about your gardens. Thank you all for the interesting responses.

I forgot to mention about my journal entries regarding my little hummingbird friend that was my constant companion this whole gardening season.

Juliet

Here is a photo of him

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