Blogging Is Dead

According to Wired Magazine it is:

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004
By Paul Boutin

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.

Scroll down Technorati's list of the top 100 blogs and you'll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can't keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.

Is he serious? Puuuhleeeassse!
Well, at least I can have total faith that we 'Amateur Garden Bloggers' won't ever budge. There is much (too much) for us to babble about - and in a fun way. Plants, and the voracious appetite for the information about them, will never go away. Especially with the times sucky economy and the movement toward sustainability and Global Greenness. Blogs make new growers comfortable. They get the information in a less competitive way when communicating with another who has already grown whatever it is they're looking to try for themselves. Who wants to be preached down to by some 'professional' when you're just starting? Garden blogs are a great way to ease someone into the growing experience . . . without being made to feel stupid or ignorant. We all make mistakes - and if we're smart, we'll blog about those too!

I find that most serious gardeners are a stubborn lot. It won't be so easy to shove us off our soapboxes blogs.

Hmmmm...

I finally get time to sit down and have a nice leisurely peruse through the blogs listed on Voices at Gardenweb, and I get this:

site disabled.

~sigh~

Back to my favs list and the Power Guides.

While I'm Thinking Of It

. . .
The mums are fab this year!
There has been an awful lot of controversy over chrysanthemums.

Better to fall plant?
Spring plant?
Start by seed inside under lights?
Start by seed with wintersowing?
By cuttings in spring?
Mulch heavily?
No mulch?
Pinch?
Don't pinch?

Guess what - In my experience, they pretty much all work here in zone 5 - it's really up to the mum. Do they like you? ;-) Experiment to see what works for you.

So far, I've broken every single rule. I don't mulch. I don't pinch. I don't fertilize. I have some growing in full sun, some in part shade and still others in the dense matt of roots in total shade at the base of a sugar maple tree. They are the one perennial in my yard that is completely ignored and still come through our tough lake-effect winters like total champs!

The best mums I've had so far are the ones people chuck out every year, like these: Rescued.
I'm going to scout out the roadsides again soon. Some people are so wasteful!
:)

Not Enough Information

I do it constantly - looking through my blog for last years info, that is.

And you know what? I find that nine times out of ten, I never even wrote about what I'm looking for!

I need to stop that, I really do. At the time, I always think, "So I took some cuttings. So what? It's something so small, why even document it? I'll wait until I have more than five words to do a post."

Well, how about for the simple fact that next year I'm going to want to know what I did . . . and when, for Pete sake!

It just seems so pointless to post one lousy sentence of "I took however many cuttings of whatever today." But that's the point - that there IS a point.

When I type Purple Heart into the search box, it's because I want to know what I actually did with that damn Purple Heart! Especially if I've lost them all somewhere along the line.

So, from now on, I vow to post every stupid, mindless speck of info I do with my plants whether inside or outside, seed or purchased. Period.

Wow, this is going to start becoming one long, continually updated and boring blog.

Go me!
:)

Oh, and I cut and poked 3 cuttings of Carolina Purple potato vine today. So there!