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We Are: Convinced that gardening MATTERS. Bored with perfect magazine
gardens. In love with real, rambling,
chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens. Suspicious of the “horticultural
industry.” Delighted by people with a passion for plants. Appalled by chemical warfare in the garden. Turned off by any activities
that involve “landscaping” with “plant materials.” Flabbergasted at the idea of a “no
maintenance garden.” Gardening our asses off. Having a hell of a lot of fun. |
Change is good
Ever wondered about the evolution of Garden Voice, its ups and downs, including the corporate takeovers? Of course you have. Check out this great interview on Human Flower Project with Caren White, moderator of Garden Voices. Other blogs are mentioned, as well as trends in the garden blogging world. Fascinating!
by Susan
Elizabeth and I were all ears when we were in Austin for the Gardenblogger Spring Fling - she's already
reported hearing a complaint that our Manifesto is off-putting (say it isn't so!) And I heard this complaint from more than one GardenRant reader: Why doesn't Michele post more often? My response at the time - "Well, she writes for a living" - was pretty lame, so I wrote to Michele to tell her about her fans, of which I count myself, and the request for MORE from her. Her response alluded to such time demands as:
And she didn't even mention gardening or that husband of hers who needs whatever it is that husbands need (been there).
Now readers who demand more-more-more of their favorite writers are not easily appeased by such real-life excuses but I hope this expanded answer helps. I, too, would love to see more from Michele on the Rant but I'd never suggest such a thing because here's how close we came to not having her at all.
THE DAY WE ALMOST LOST OUR FOUNDER
GardenRant was all Michele's idea, you know. As she recently told Adrian Higgins of the Washington Post, it seemed like a way to take control of her career and get some gigs writing about gardening. But successful blogs need frequent posts, so Michele set out to find herself some partners to help with all that writing.
Where to start was obvious. She'd loved From the Ground Up, Amy's book about her first garden, and knew that Amy also blogged, so recruiting her was Job One. Then as a team they recruited me (based on my rant about Jerry Baker, they tell me). So the three of us created this thing and launched and everyone was happy - until 2 or 3 months later when Michele's speech-writing client decided they needed her not just on retainer but full-time, at least. So she took a hiatus for the next few months and threatened to back out altogether in favor of someone who had more time. No way, we said; take your hiatus and we'll be here when your schedule clears. So the Rant was a sparse twosome until we recruited Elizabeth. Then Michele's workload lightened and she was back! But only once a week, you say? We say we'll take what we can get and feel lucky to have it.
SO HOW DO WORKING MOMS DO IT?
I ask that question sincerely because I'm not one of them myself. Hell, I don't even work full-time, much less have parenting duties. So I'm mightily impressed that anyone can fit blogging into the impossible schedules that typify the lives of working moms - like Michele with her three young ones. But then I discovered what gardenblogging pioneer Kathy Purdy manages to do besides blog - write for gardening magazines while mothering a whole clan and home-schooling them, too. I had the pleasure of meeting Kathy in Austin and saw how generous she is with her time and know-how, despite her full life. And if I EVER feel busy or harried I'm clicking back on that link about her family. (And btw, Kathy, you must be an awesome teacher because your kids can WRITE!)
Photo by Michele of her kids at a daylily nursery, with the nursery owner. Future Gardeners of America!
Here they are, fresh off Colleen's keyboard. Good news - there's lots of new names in the list, so lots of promising links to explore before final voting.
Here at GardenRant we're pleased as punch to have earned your nominations for:
We've seen a few hints of Michele's obvious familiarity with the farming scene in Detroit but finally, we
get to read the whole story - in the April issue of O Magazine. Rant readers won't be at all surprised by this assertion:
The fact is that farming in or near cities makes considerable sense in the world at large, as the political, environmental and economic costs of trucking food thousands of miles head through the roof and "eating local" seems increasingly like the responsible thing to do, as well as the food lover's choice.
And here's another great quote from her article, this time by a garden organizer:
I used to have the foolish idea that urban gardening was all about the food. Now I think that food is only a small part of it. Gardening here is about beautification, community building, friendship.
There's lots more where those came from, and wonderful photos of "wonderful people." Don't miss it.
Wow, still more media attention to garden coaching - this time in Newsweek. And with each story, new coaches are getting listed in the Directory and hanging out their shingle, so it's all good news for our new profession. Here's our growing collection of press clippings - let me know if we've missed something.
Thanks to gardenwriter (and future blogger?) Adrian Higgins for his profile of GardenRant in the Washington Post, and welcome first-time readers!
You might start your tour of GardenRant with our Manifesto on the left, followed by links to our bios, and "About Us," which covers GardenRant itself. But we hope you spend some quality time browsing our articles under "Categories". And if you click on the comments at the end of each article you'll soon discover that our readers ROCK (even when they're taking us to task for something or other, which happens with shocking regularity). Or just head straight for our Hottest Rants of 2007 or 2006.
GardenRant's opinionated writers live in California, New York, and Takoma Park, Maryland right here in the D.C. area, and local girl Susan sends a special welcome to friends, neighbors, and her buddies in the DC Urban Gardeners.
A shout-out to Patrick Berkery at PhillyBurbs, who has this to say about GardenRant:
Simply put, the from-the-hip horti-centric blog Garden Rant is one of the most honest and unabashedly unpolished online resources for gardeners out there. That is what makes it such an engrossing, refreshing read.
Here's a nice long look at the question we're always asking: Is gardening on the up or the downswing? And it seems that PW takes the National Gardening Association's assertions about gardening's popularity at face value, unlike Rant readers, who tend to dismiss it as hype because the NGA counts people who mow their lawn as "gardeners".
But moving on, all the gardening publishers weigh in with their strategies and - no surprise - the primary focus is appealing to those Internet-savvy young folks.
Bonus items: Domino Magazine is mentioned, and in a good way (cue Michele), and Jeff Gillman gives a nice plug for GardenRant and Cold Climate Gardening. (Thanks!)
We're definitely on a roll. Here's the article in today's CSM, and because it links to my coaching site and touts the Worldwide Directory of Garden Coaches there, I expect still more new coaches to sprout up between now and spring. Goody!
For thirteen years, Upstate Gardener’s Journal has been the regional publication for gardeners from Ithaca to Buffalo. It has seasonal advice, plant-focused articles, and a great yearly directory of everything garden-related in the area. For example, in Nov/Dec, there was a piece about Sycamore Gardens, which looks highly visitable—actually, gorgeous.
Jane Milliman, the founder/editor of UGJ also writes for the Rochester paper and was nice enough to mention not just Garden Rant but also Cold Climate Gardening and some other friends in today’s column about garden blogging. We don’t have a ton of garden bloggers in these parts, so I hope Jane’s column will inspire more of the local gardeners to start. If (hint) she also writes about blogging in UGJ, more Buffalonians will see it. I mean, here we have 300 people who invite strangers to come through every year, and only 2 of us blog? Come on, people.
Anyway, thanks for the mention, Jane, and keep up the good work with UGJ. That’s her, above. I took that picture at a local garden fair that got pretty much rained out. Nobody came, and she still had to sit there, poor thing.
