Nearly two years ago, I started blogging to showcase my favorite gardening, landscaping and outdoor living ideas. I’m a mediocre gardener at best, and mainly wanted to share my enthusiasm for spending as much time outdoors as possible.
After I blasted out a few posts on local gardens and design ideas, an enthusiastic community of cyber gardeners quickly embraced me. Many of my new friends are masterful gardeners — plant experts who tick off Latin botanical names, swap compost recipes and practically live on their knees. Some focus on specialties, such as growing succulents, native gardens and vegetables, or chasing landscape trends.
I also connected with other wannabes like me, backyard gardeners who love the mix –nature, plants, design, outdoor living, how-to, garden art, tips, advice, successes, failures — and furiously blog about what we learn.
There are hundreds of horticulture-themed blogs out there. I tend to follow the garden bloggers who know their stuff, but also freely share their opinions, personality and passion.
Here are seven of my favorites:
1. Far Out Flora. Two self-described plant nerds who blog as Matti and Megan share the fanciful garden they created in their San Francisco backyard. Matti worked for the popular Bay Area nursery, Flora Grubb, and Megan for the much-adored seed company, Annie’s Annuals Perennials. They love succulents, bromeliads, carnivores and other “weirdo plants,” as they put it. Currently pulling up stakes and returning to their hometown of Madison, Wis., MM promise to share their four-season garden adventures.
2. A Way to Garden. Garden writer powerhouse Margaret Roach began her popular blog in 2008 after she left a consuming media job to return to her garden mecca in the Hudson Valley of New York. The first garden editor for Martha Stewart’s Living, Roach decided she’d spent too much time in the boardroom, and in 2007 walked away from her career to explore her “personal creativity” again.
3. Wabi-Sabi Home and Garden. Michele Holt explores the homestead lifestyle in this sassy blog, which covers such diverse topics as raising chickens, painting mermaids on garage doors and foraging at the local thrift store in her hometown of Austin, Texas. Not only will you find scrappy, creative outdoor living ideas; you also will make an exuberant friend who loves a little mischief.
4. Studio G. With a keen eye for art and ingenuity, landscape designer Rochelle Greayer promotes the DIY spirit and features everything plant-related — from rhubarb martini recipes to the hanging gardens of Babylon. Greayer and fellow garden blogger, Susan Cohan of Miss Rumphius’ Rules, recently launched a free, online gardening magazine packed with fresh outdoor living ideas called Leaf Magazine.
5. You Grow Girl. An original guerrilla gardener, Gayla Trail has blogged about organic, sustainable gardening for a dozen years. Originally featuring her roof-top garden experiments in Ontario, Canada, Trail has expanded to share garden advice and photos from her urban backyard projects, and has written several bestselling garden books. The latest, Easy Growing, explains how to grow herbs and edible flowers.
6. A Growing Obsession. Describing her blog as a “journal of earthly delights,” Denise Ginger tells readers upfront she is no horticulture expert. Don’t let her fool you. Ginger is an intellectual garden blogger and accompanies her reflective posts with luminous photographs of the flowers, plants and garden art in the nurseries and botanical gardens around her home in Long Beach, Calif.
7. Digging. Pam Penick writes a polished garden blog featuring her dazzling photographs and informed, friendly voice. As a landscape designer who says “y’all” a lot, Penick takes readers on tours of diverse gardens in her hometown of Austin, Texas, and anywhere she visits. Look for her upcoming book on how to create sustainable alternatives for your yard, called Lawn Gone!
SecondAct contributor Janine Robinson is a freelance writer based in Laguna Beach, California. She blogs about gardening at LagunaDirt.
SecondAct asks: Are you a weekend gardener, too? Please share your favorite blogs and finds in the comment field below.
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