5 years of Blooming Fun...

Life is always entertainingly busy around these parts. Right after the holidays, people came back to work, looked at their calendars, and freaked out about the time, and bombarded me with “we need to get this done” statements. Those sorts of announcements  don’t bother me at all, as I like to be busy, but I’ve been so busy that I plumb missed my own blogaversary.

Somehow, I thought it was at the end of the month, not two weeks ago. Whoops. Well, at least it wasn’t my own anniversary, a birthday or something else of import.

Five years is a long time in the Internets, isn’t it? The blogosphere was a different place back then; most of us had never heard of Twitter, and Facebook was one of those geeky sites that most of us didn’t bother with. When I started writing my blog, I was still on dialup, and had it not been for the local company, Cross Country Television, which invested in my small community and a few others in outlying areas, we’d STILL be on dialup. Smartphones like the iPhone were a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eyes back then, and gathering-place websites like Blotanical and BestGardenBlogs hadn’t come into the picture.

There are approximately 345, 872, 917 or so blogs these days, on probably every conceivable topic, including on every aspect of gardening and plants. Blogs do come and go, rather a lot like plants; some take nicely to the soil, start off strongly, then dwindle and fall by the wayside, overcome by weeds or the demands of life. Others go steadily along, building a readership and in some cases, even better, a career—I can name at least half a dozen friends who started out with writing blogs and parlayed that into paid work of all sorts. I’m very proud of those people, as I’m proud of anyone who stays with this pastime for any length of time.

It CAN be a challenge to keep a blog up. It requires commitment, and ideas, and time to do the writing. It also requires, at least in my worldview, time spent getting to know others in the blogosphere, reading their posts, leaving comments for them, asking questions. But it pays off in so many ways, as the annual Garden Bloggers’ flings and Meets demonstrate: people start out talking across the ether to one another, and develop friendships across countries, oceans, continents. I have yet to get to one of the Flings, but maybe this year, although this could be a pretty busy year for me.

Over the past five years I’ve learned many things, both from reading other blogs and from keeping up the commentary here. I’ve learned how to grow hellebores, gotten brave about buddleia, and happily admitted that I don’t have time or inclination to grow vegetables. Not surprisingly, I still hate goutweed. I’ve ‘met’ many garden writers from around the world, been able to read their books and promote them in some small part. I’ve gotten to introduce readers to other bloggers, and encouraged more than a few to take up blogging themselves.

And when the muse has refused to visit me and I’ve thought it time to pack it in, I’ve been encouraged and supported by many kind and generous words, letters, and more, across the world. Especially over the past year, when I was writing my soon-to-be-released book, you’ve provided a comforting link across the miles.

So, thank you all for your wisdom, your photography, your advice and camaraderie and all other good things over the past 5 years (and 18 days, 600 + posts, and counting). As you can see, I’ve revamped Bloomingwriter’s appearance in keeping with the need to promote and celebrate Plants for Atlantic Gardeners.

The book isn’t out yet, but I’m going to give away a copy of it to someone who leaves a comment after this post. So poke your muses, please.

And here’s to many more years of blogging, gardening…and most importantly, friendships.

But far less goutweed.