Encouraging our fellow gardening bloggers: Adopt-A-Blog?

Stormy days are a great time to sit with a mug of coffee, glower out the window, be grateful to be indoors, and muse about things that puzzle me. I've had something on my mind for a couple of weeks, but it's taken me that long to pull my thoughts together in a way that I hope will encourage and challenge other bloggers in a happy, intriguing way.

One of the things I've noticed since getting really back into blogging and reading is that there really are a lot of gardening and garden-related blogs out there. And I mean a LOT. I don't remember how many there were at Blotanical when Stuart launched the site nearly 3 years ago, but I knew and read a good many of them. Some had been blogging for a while. Others started up and then joined Blotanical as word of the site spread. A visit to the site this morning shows me some 900 on the 'most visits' list, yet one blog is ranked as # 1364 in 'most favourited'. Let's just say there are a huge number, some of which I've never visited. That doesn't include those who don't belong to Blotanical, either. And I know this is the same experience for many of us. Can't possibly read them all regularly, or even visit them all regularly.


There are so many ways to keep track of other blogs now, that it gets confusing. We can 'fave' blogs and blotanists at Blotanical. We can 'follow' bloggers through Facebook, or become a fan of them. We can follow thru Google Friend Connect, or by various widgets through Blogger, and I assume through Wordpress and Typepad. And then there's Twitter...

But there are still so many out there that get very few visits, (at least via Blotanical), and very few if any comments. And for some reason, I feel really badly about that. Because so many of these blogs are very well written, with good information, excellent photographs, strong and charming personalities. They deserve to be read, commented upon, supported. Not everyone has the same interests, of course, and there's sometimes a language barrier with bloggers from other countries.

I know that people blog for a variety of reasons, but obviously most of us put thoughts out there on the Internet to communicate with others, share our thoughts and experiences. That makes it safe to assume that most want to attract readers, commenters, followers, etc. So, what can we longtime bloggers, Blotanical veterans, etc, do to encourage and help out other bloggers in raising their profiles?


From sleuthing my way around the Web and following some of the more active bloggers, I have a couple of observations. There are people who regularly visit other blogs and leave lovely, well thought out, funny, wise, comments. Some of these same people also participate a good deal on Blotanical, picking posts, sending welcoming notes to newer bloggers, dropping in to other bloggers to announce their own recent posts, etc, which helps encourage newer bloggers to participate. I don't want to mention anyone in particular because I don't want to leave anyone OUT, but my hat is certainly off to those who encourage other bloggers.

What I've been wondering is what about if we each--and by each, I mean those who feel like doing this--adopted a new/newish blog (or three or four or a dozen) and regularly visited, commented, put them in our feeds, at the top of our 'faves' lists? Would others notice and spend more time reading those other blogs? What do you think, friends? I'm sure someone has a better idea, and gardeners are great at brainstorming over gardening questions, so why not this? Could we perhaps have a conversation about this, as we while away the winter months and wait for spring?

I hesitate to call what I'm suggesting 'mentoring', which is something I have done in my real-life writing, mentoring newish writers as they entered the wonderful world of freelancing. In fact, I struggled long and hard with even creating this post because several years ago, I did a series of three posts to help out other bloggers, making some suggestions on how to make things easier/attract more readers. I caught flack in emails and also indirectly from several other bloggers who thought I was criticizing the way others blog and trying to get everyone doing things in the same way, which wasn't the intent at all. Oddly enough, several of those critics no longer blog.


This has nothing to do with bloomingwriter's visitors, for the record--I'm more than happy with my own blog's statistics, I don't do awards or competitions of that nature, and I have the privilege of receiving wonderful comments from around the globe. I'd just like others to receive more visitors and support, because they deserve such accolades. When I was trying to decide whether I should overhaul my blog, close it down, or just carry on as I could, I received the most wonderful support and encouragement. It was truly humbling, and proves my point about this community of gardeners and writers. Y'all are just awesome.

That's enough out of me for today. I'm looking forward to the conversation among this community of generous, fun and talented people. That includes those of you who are newer to blogging--what do YOU want from the community? What's working for you, what do you wish could be improved? If it merits, I'll do a follow up post based on how the conversation flows.

Increase Your Blog Appeal #3: Drawing the numbers & Housekeeping

Let’s do the housekeeping first: heartfelt thanks to all of you for your comments, suggestions, and feedback. I finally got Blogger to let me in to edit my site (ever since I upgraded Safari it’s been problematic to access the site editing options) so was able to change my background colour and darken the text font. As I said in a comment, it’s easy to change the font size of a blog I’m reading, as an Apple user. We use Apple/Command and + or – to increase or decrease the size of something we’re reading, and there are also buttons in some programs. Unfortunately, because I don’t use a PC, I don’t know what the equivalent command is, but in Firefox, for example, you should be able go to the menu under View: Text: and find the command to increase or decrease text size.

Xris, the affable Flatbush Gardener, also told us about improving blog usability with expandable post summaries (thanks and a tip of the ol’ gardening hat to you). He also mentioned sites that will analyse your website performance and make recommendations. I confess to being essentially a luddite about web-based things—I’m a writer, a quasi-professional photographer, and a rank amateur about web-based design etc, so a lot of this has been utterly new to me—and slightly scarey, too, being new! So once again, a tip of the hat to Xris for sharing these tidbits of info.

So, you’ve done all these things and you’re perhaps wondering about increased readership? I know some people don’t care how many readers they get, but others do. After all, we’re putting our thoughts out there for the world to see, and we want people to see them, right? For whatever reasons. I do my blog in part as a way to give back to the gardening community at large that I learn so much from, and to promote local nurseries and other topics of interest, plus to promote other bloggers that I enjoy. I call it gardening karma, and prefer to be positive and encouraging, except, of course, when growling about the weather, which we all do on occasion, but especially we who are Canadians—it’s a national pastime for us.


Networking: I can’t stress this enough. Read other blogs, but most importantly, leave comments. Comments are the blossoms in a blogger’s existence, even though we sometimes have to put up the word verification exercises to keep out spambots that want to take over the known universe. Take the time to say, “hello, I was here, loved your blog”, and you’ll find the recipient comes to visit—and leaves comments—and before long, you’re back and forth like old friends. My days wouldn’t be complete without regular visits to a number of blogs I especially love, quite frankly. There’s not always time to leave comments, of course, and sometimes, for reasons only known to the blogging sites, it’s a challenge to do so.

RSS feeds: I confess to not being able to explain this real well, but others certain can and have. Having a feed that people can subscribe to lets your fans know exactly when you’ve written a new post, and in some cases emails it to them directly. You can use any number of methods to burn a feed. I use FeedBurner . There are numerous feed readers for every webbrowser too, if you prefer to read your blogs right in the browser.

Get Involved with Blotanical. I’ve extolled the virtues of Blotanical before, and will continue to do so, because it’s an awesome resource for finding new blogs, tracking posts, getting to meet other bloggers, and simply having fun with garden blogging. Yes, you can collect points, (which sadly, aren’t redeemable for mixers or earrings or more plants), but it’s for fun, and I’ve met so many new (to me) bloggers as a result of my activities with Blotanical. Like anything, the more you put in, the more benefits you get out, so if you don’t sign in, send notes, visit other blogs, or otherwise get involved, you won’t see any increase in traffic. But I’ve been tracking my stats for almost a year now, and they have increased significantly by being involved with Blotanical.

One thing I'd really like to encourage: if you're involved in Blotanical, either as a blogger or a non-blogging member (or just visiting) take a page out of Carolyn's book and go visit Blogger # 300--or 200, or 176--in the top 300. Carolyn says it best, but I'll summarize and suggest that you do explore new-to-you blogs whenever you have time and inclination; whether via Blotanical, or via people's lists of blogs on their websites. You'll find an amazing, rich and terrific world of gardeners out there, all crazy about "this thing of ours" called gardening--and garden-blogging.

Answer Your Comments: If you love to get comments, then reply to them, and see how many more you get because you do give feedback. It amazes me that some so-called professional writers find it beneath themselves to respond to comments on their blogs. Others are far more generous and their comments in return are just as interesting as the posts. I cherish each comment I receive (except the spam ones) and do try to answer quickly, but sometimes fall behind. Some bloggers choose to answer comments by going to the commenter’s blog and posting a comment in reply, and that’s a nice idea too. And some have figured out how to answer each comment directly underneath, in italics--perhaps this is a feature of Wordpress or Typepad, because I can't find it in Blogger. Anyone?

Blogging Awards. Some think these are silly, or a waste of time, but I think they’re great fun. What better recognition than to be accoladed by fellow gardeners and bloggers? Some of the awards are memes, where you are awarded a particular accolade and then spread the joy forward—and I confess I was awarded two during a recent busy period of my life and lost the messages as well as neglecting to play them forward, for which I apologize profusely! One really neat set of awards is Colleen’s Mouse and Trowel awards, where you get to nominate, then vote for, your favourite blogs in a whole fine host of categories. So this is a shoutout to Colleen for all the work she’s put into those, and an encouragement to readers to get involved and nominate your favourites in the next couple of weeks.

The most important thing to remember about blogging? It’s all meant to be fun and a pleasure, not a set of tasks. In that way, it’s like gardening, so I’ll wrap this up with a paragraph from a gardening column I wrote early in the year:

• Most Importantly: Stress-less gardening. Repeat after me: gardening is not rocket science. We are gardening for the pleasures of it, not to stress ourselves with growing longer beans than the guy down the road, or perfect roses that are the envy of the neighbourhood, aren’t we? We garden for the exercise, not to wear ourselves out until we hurt all over, but there are things we can do to make it easier for those who are older or dealing with illness or injury. The main thing is to give ourselves permission to not get it all done perfectly.

Just substitute “blogging” for “gardening” and remember not to stress or worry—just enjoy blogging, as I enjoy reading all of you! ☺

Garden Blogger's Geography Project: Wrapup Pt 2!

Nothing like supper and a nap to renew one's energy, is there? If we had a prize for "most entertainingly original" post, I think it would have to go to Ottawa Hortiphilia for the highly amusing poem at the beginning of OH's post about our nation's capital city. It's a lovely city, if somewhat challenging for gardeners. Our friend Kylie writes movingly about her part of Ohio on a regular basis, but it's always a treat to read anything she posts from her little acre. Gloria writes about Chicago and the waters that define her fair city over at Pollinators-welcome, her wildlife-friendly blog plot, while thanks to Beckie I learned that Royal, Illinois, got its name from a sign on a railcar advertising baking powder.

The award for blogger-living-closest-to-bloomingwriter would be Nancy at Soliloquey, living 45 minutes from here in the next county, while Shady Gardener in Iowa has the best blog title I've come across yet: "Does everything grow better in my neighbor's Yard?" Gisela at Guildwood, near Toronto, showed us another side of Toronto that is far superior to what the tourist brochures and city hype provide. And the two sisters, Apple and Countrygirl, who garden at the end of Lake Ontario in upstate New York, entice us with castles and parks and friends' gardens to visit.

Historiana has taught me a lot about her plot in Kentucky with her musings, and she currently has a wonderful photo of a daffodil on her sidebar with the exhortation to "Think Spring, People!" Amen, fellow gardener! I bet it's fun doing Veg Plotting in Chippenham with two such affable looking felines as Jess and Skimble to help out. Jim, who gardens in Buffalo, New York, gets the gotcha-award for having Spunky Boomerang get up and bump the monitor: I usually have my volume shut off when writing, so didn't know about the bird songs on his front page. There are a lot of New York state gardeners participating in our meme, as Kerri lives in upstate New York in a region with the delightful name of Central Leatherstocking! The trolls under bridges had better watch out for those Weed Whacking Wenches out in Seattle--they sound like my kinda gardeners, for sure.

Are we there yet? Nope. Bathroom break, and then we're back!

Kris wrote a lovely and moving love story about Rhode Island's Blithewold, a beautiful garden I hope to visit in the not too far future. Another place I hope to see soon is the only province in Canada I've not been to: Saskatchewan, home of Larry's Sherwood Greenhouses but also of bloggin' bud Kate, both in Regina. Rather different from not-so-flat Nova Scotia, but beautiful nonetheless. We had a Bliss-ful experience visiting Yolanda and the Bliss Team's home in Dinteloord, Netherlands, returning to North America to bask in the warmth of another of the Austin Bloggers, Annie at The Transplantable Rose. Since we were sunning ourselves anyway, it was a quick trip down to the Tampa area of Florida to visit Meems at Hoe and Shovel, then skipped back over to Texas to visit Brenda in the Piney Woods of Tyler, in the Lone Star state. Needing a little drier heat, we skipped over to Phoenix in Arizona for a visit with Garden Djinn, where I learned that monsoons in the Sonoran dessert are called haboobs. We're having a Fundy Haboob here tonight, with a drownpour of mild, spring-scented rain, for what it's worth. From there, we headed back north a bit, to central Indiana and Robin's Nesting Place, where we got to enjoy both her fun writing and some utterly exquisite photography.

One of the joyous things about these meme has been getting to meet new-to-me bloggers, including the erudite and definitely amusing Benjamin Vogt of the Deep Middle, in Nebraska. Deciding it was time to skip across the ocean again, we sailed over to Giekau in Germany for a visit with Corinna at her Paradise Found, then caught the red-eye to Melbourne Australia for a visit at From Little Things, where I got sidetracked by the Italian lavender farm.

I could have stayed there permanently, but the cats needed feeding so it was back across the pond and touchdown at Garden Fool's plot near New York City. Since we were in the neighbourhood, so to speak, we skipped over to Lissa's home in Saratoga Springs and took a horse for a gallop down a track. (I did this once, with a retired racehorse while I was a student at Ag College, because the track was right next door to the barn...whoo hooo!) Entangled claims to be geographically challenged, but I'm link challenged, obviously, because I read the post, commented on it....and lost the link somewhere until today. And last but never least, we have a highly entertaining post from Sue Swift, in Milan, Italy, who's longing to be elsewhere.

Well...we've logged a lot of e-air-miles over the past month, and judging by your comments, had a lot of fun learning about our gardening neighbours near and far. I realized it wasn't going to be easy to pick a favourite post, as they're all my favourites...so I just cut up some pieces of paper, wrote each blogger's name on one, and put them all in my gardening hat. The random winner of a copy of The Atlantic Gardener's Greenbook is Frances at Faire Garden. Congratulations, Frances!

If I were independently wealthy, I'd send a copy of my book to each of you. Unfortunately, I can't quite go that far, so I've created a special badge/award for each of you who participated. Now you can all claim to have your very own Meconopsis, or blue poppy! A little story about this: this image is on my business cards, and was created by my uncle Don, a commercial artist in Virginia. So I have utterly unique business cards, and you now share something with a gardener and writer in Nova Scotia, wherever you are. Just right click to save it to your desktop and post on your blog with my admiration for your hard work. (is this better than an "A", Kylee?)

(Edit in the morning: I've made a smaller version, which I was having trouble with last night. Try this is that one is too big for you!)

Again, congratulations and my heartfelt thanks to all of you, and here's hoping we soon see spring wherever we garden. (Except of course for you in the southern Hemisphere, who are waiting for autumn!)

Chasing away the cold; awards, and technical advice

Wow, two awards in one week! I'm touched (and not just in the head or by frost) by such enthusiasm from other fine bloggers. The best part of this, as I told Nancy of Soliloquy, who presented me with this award, (created and started by Mind Sieve) is getting to pick other recipients.

Now, before I announce who I'm awarding this to, I have a technical question. Since I blogovated Bloomingwriter, I can't get images up on my side columns, unless they've been converted to HTML code and aren't too big. You may notice a bit of overflower on the "I am a sunflower" panel on the right side. I don't speak HTML, but I wonder if there's an easy bit of code I can add to a URL for a graphic like this E for Excellent, or for the Share-the-Love award, that will make it workable in my sidebars like the Austin Spring Fling, Blotanical, and other images that ARE working in the side. How bout it, those of you with more smarts than me....what do I do? IS it possible?

Now, the best part of getting an award....sharing the love around! For a whole lotta reasons, (mostly great writing and photography and intelligent thoughts) I'm awarding to several that are relatively new to me, (thanks to discovering them to , where as Stuart sassily remarked I DO spend a lot of time), as well as to several I've been reading for months.

Kipili, in Australia: I'm learning about plants that wouldn't grow here, but such fun! David was also the first to put up his Garden Bloggers Geography Project post.

Pollinators-Welcome, Chicago: Because of Gloria I first began learning about the wonders of Chicago, and I am with her on having concerns for pollinators of all sorts.

Shirls Gardenwatch, Scotland: Another blogger with a concern for living creatures in and outside her garden plot.

Frances of Faire Garden: Frances writes that she jumped into blogging with both feet just a short time ago, and she's become a must-read on a most-daily basis.

Debi at The Giraffe Head Tree: Debi's photography is especially fine, but she also writes with compassion and flare about many topics, not 'only' gardening!

Cindy at Rosehaven Cottage: Finally I get to give an award to Cindy, who has given me two. Across the continent, she's become a great friend, a kindred spirit who loves cats, chocolate and gardening--among other things!

Carol at May Dreams Garden: One of the very first gardening blogs I started reading, and still one of my favourites. Carol has warmth, wit, and intelligence, and days when I don't get to her blog, I feel like I've missed my vitamins.

The only 'rule' about this award is to share it with a few others--I look forward to finding MORE new blogs as a result of your choices, and congratulations to each of you for being bloggers of excellence!

Sharing the Love

Did any of you know I am a ray of sunshine? I didn't (and my longsuffering spouse sure doesn't think so, some mornings before coffee!) Well, the always-sunny Cindy at Rosehaven Cottage thinks so, and she awarded me the Spread the Love Award. She also awarded the even more sunny and well deserving Kylee of Our Little Acre and Yolanda and the whole Bliss Team with this cheery February award.

What a perfect way to chase away the grey days of what I refer to as Farch--that interminable period that starts on February Oneth and ends on March Thirty-Oneth. We're into about day four or five or maybe seventeen of grey, dreary, blah, sunless, cloudy, precipitation of various sorts days...and I'm out of good chocolate! May have to resort to eating chocolate chips when I feel down.

Here's the info on the award:

The Spread the Love Award originated from Mica at Garb-oodles Soup with Mica's purpose being, "I have met so many lovely and very talented ladies here in Blogdom, what more can I do or say to express my humbled heart to each, than to give all my Dearest Readers and Friends a special award filled with Love. So, Spread The Love dear ones, Spread The Love to those you love. Accept my award in which I have specially designed and share it with others. Enjoy the day."

I'm with Mica on this; i've met so many talented and wonderful people (guys too, though they're in a shorter supply in the garden blogger's world, it seems), and some of you have become friends across the miles, including Cindy, Kylee, and Yolanda! So how on earth can I award this (because you have to pass it on!) to only a couple of people?

Well, it's my blog and I'll make up my own rule. I'm going to award it to five bloggers, some of whom I'm just getting to know across the bloggin' miles. They aren't all gardening blogs, either, because I checked back and that's fine. You know me and rules...if I can bend them just a bit, or push them just a bit, it's a great thing.

So; my picks are:

Victoria Cummings at Teachings of the Horse, for her wisdom about horses and the adept way she learns from them;
The entire team at GardeningGoneWild, because they are encouraging us all to become better gardeners, and they take the time to reply to comments, unlike some 'professional' garden writers.
Stuart at Gardening Tips n Ideas, for all his work both with his blog and with Blotanical, where some of us are having just too much fun;
Diane at Alberta Postcards, because her photographs make my heart sing (and she's a great writer too)
and Robin's Nesting Place, because A. I love her blog and her concern for other creatures and B. I had her URL messed up on my sidebar for several weeks!

And two special recipients (because I can) my blogging buddies and fellow Blotanical addicts, Carolyn of Sweet Home & Garden Chicago and Kate of Kate Smudges ; we have this hilarious three-way-gallop going on for top post-picker at Blotanical...none of us sleeps much, obviously.

As far as I know, there's no code for this award; just copy the image above and put it on your blog especially in a post where you share the love forward (if you wish).

And for the other hundred and leventy-three blogs I read--you all deserve it too, so give yourselves a hug from me; you all make me a better gardener, better writer and photographer (because I am inspired by you) and make my life a little richer, in the things that money CAN'T buy. So there.

The Rosehaven Cottage Rose Medallion for Excellence

Well, this is a delightful way to celebrate two years of blogging! Look what I found yesterday in my mail:

It is our honor to present you and your blog with "The Rosehaven Cottage Rose Medallion for Excellence". You have received this award of recognition for your excellence in blogging...Thank you for your wonderful blog and for your friendship. There is so much about your writing that brings us joy. We feel like we've gotten to know you and consider you a friend. In fact, when we saw that a nor'easter was forecast yesterday my first words were, "Poor Jody!" :)

Heartfelt thanks to Cindy, Brent *aka Hubby*, and the catchildren of Rosehaven Cottage for this award! Indeed, they are friends across the miles, as so many of you are, and that's the true joy of blogging, isn't it? Cindy and the gang are great cheerleaders for other bloggers, but they also deserve to have cheers sent right back at them, because the various blogs at Rosehaven Cottage are not to be missed. So if you haven't already, get on your snowshoes and snowsurf over to Rosehaven, and prepared to be delighted by the wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm there.

Which suggests to me that I ought to initiate a blogging award too. But first, I'll have to figure out HOW to do the HTML for an award (oh, son...I need some help here!? ) and just what I'd like to give it to people for. I'll have to do some mulling over that, maybe as I watch the snow blow by. (We got a nice dumping of about 8 inches, but the wind is blowing here quite well and so I expect snow sculptures all around the yard before day's end.)

Change is good, when it's positive global change!

You just never know what will happen when you return to your computer after a few hours away. I found this lovely note from Yolanda Elizabet, of Bliss, chatting about plants and then telling me I'd won an award. Well! Deepest and heartfelt thanks to Yolanda Elizabet and the Bliss team for having given me a Bloggers for Positive Global Change award. (and a bouquet, of course) And congratulations to my fellow winners in this.

The BPGC award was created by the wise heads at Climate of Our Future, a positive and inspiring site in itself, to celebrate bloggers who do so in an effort to change the world for the better.

How do my bloomingwritings change the world? Well. My whole raison d'etre is to be a garden cheerleader for others to bloom where they're planted and to rejoice in all green growing things. Well, except for goutweed and the strange goo in the bottom of my fridge. I learn so much from the gardeners around me, and so I keep my blog as a way of giving back to the gardening community.

As a recipient, I now get the delightful honour of nominating five blogs that I feel are worthy of a Bloggers for Positive Global Change award. Before we get to those, here's what you need to do to participate in this meme yourselves:

Meme Rules

It’s easy to participate in this meme. At minimum, you can proudly display the BPGC badge (it’s available in two varieties: Transparent GIF and JPEG with white background) on your blog and bask in the glow of our collective good will. If you are sharing the kudos, however, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.

The participation rules are simple:

When you get tagged, write a post with links to up to 5 blogs that you think are trying to change the world in a positive way.
In your post, make sure you link back to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
Leave a comment or message for the bloggers you’re tagging, so they know they’re now part of the meme.
Optional : Proudly display the “Bloggers For Positive Global Change” award badge with a link to the post that you write up.

Now for the real fun: My winners are:

Wild Flora, author of several blogs but especially Wild Flora's Wild Gardening--friend to all pollinators, and ducks too!

Nancy's Soliloquy blog, which gently asks us to think in challenging yet positive ways.

Layanee, of Ledges and Gardens, whose garden is as big and lovely as her heart.

Sandy whose gardenpath may lead to a small garden in Maine but whose wisdom about wild plants, pollinators and other important garden friends rings round the world.

And Kate, whose smudging in the things she loves gives all her readers joy and encouragement.

I learn from these, friends I may never meet--and they make my world a better place, so they can't help but make positive global change--one word, one photo, one heartfelt posting at a time.

For the many others who also inspire and teach me, bouquets of coneflowers and wild roses--and your further recognition is coming too. You're all winners in my book, of course.