Blogs are a lot like children; they're a lot of work, still you seem to find the time and love for all of them. Each one develops and expresses their own personality too. So when I took on yet another blog, I thought long and hard about my capacity to give enough attention to it while not neglecting the others. You don't wany any blog-ling rivalry.
Some garden bloggers slack off during winter, but I keep slogging through. It's tough to find subjects appropos to the moment when the snow is piled high up to your eyeballs. It's tempting to take off for the winter and report from some sunnier clime. I don't rule that out for the future...someday.
Meanwhile I thought you might like to see what's going on at my other blogs. At the Minneapolis Star Tribune "Your Voices", I try to do gardening or wildlife topics with a much more local twist. Every now and then I venture off the gardening path and usually get myself in deep mucky mud. The general gardening audience is nice, even amenable; but the general public can be pretty brutal on bloggers, it's bloodsport at best.
This week in the Star Tribune I blog about my Afternoon at the Orchid Show, in the beautiful, vintage conservatory at Como Park in St. Paul. It's a tropical oasis in the middle of the snowy city where you can go to see and smell plants growing. Think green anti-depressant. Make sure you read to the end before you get all over me about orchids!
Graceful Orchid at Como Park Conservatory The Garden Buzz
After Herb Companion magazine recently asked to reprint an article of mine from The Herbarist in an upcoming, enlarged issue; they also offered a guest blogging gig. I think it's a great opportunity to get back to my herb gardening roots, while bringing in a bigger audience for The Garden Buzz. I will probably just post twice a month there.
The Herb Garden at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum The Garden Buzz
With so many people new to gardening and herb gardening too, my first post is Growing Strategies for Beginning Herb Gardeners. It talks about the best ways to propagate herbs for a bigger, better herb garden whether by seed, division or cutting; this helpful list is a good leaping off point.
With all these blogs I try to dig up the same quality of writing you find at the "Buzz. In addition I always supply my own photography 98% of the time.
Speaking of photography, during the winter I received several photography awards; Blue, Red and White Ribbons for three separate photos in the Wild Ones (that's a native plant conservation group, just for the record!) Native Plant Photography Competition and an Honorable Mention in Horticulture Magazine's annual photo competition.
Prize-winning photo: Native coneflowers at sunset, Minnehaha Headwaters The Garden Buzz
Garden writers are supposed to toot their own horns, but self-promotion still makes me uneasy. But there you go. I'm always trying to improve upon my photography skills, so these awards are meaningful in that I'm better communicating the story to my readers through visuals as well as the written word.
Am I getting too big for my gardening britches? I hope not. There's just more to love.
