Of links, searches, and the garden blogosphere

When I started GWI in April, 2005, I didn’t think there was such a thing as a garden blogosphere. To my knowledge, there was one other gardening blog, 1,2,3, go—garden! (though it was not called that then), and, thanks to sitemeter, I knew I had about 4 visits a day.

What a difference a year makes. Though GWI will never compete with blogs that owe their popularity to their witty and enlightening critiques of celebrities, I now have a respectably higher visitor count and, much better, I have learned about a world-wide network of gardening blogs, many of them collected in gardenweb.com’s Garden Voices. What a great idea that was.

Many gardeners have been kind enough to provide links to GWI—thanks!—and I try to reciprocate, though I’m not really into long blogrolls. The best blogs get lost in the shuffle that way, and I think a link to Voices is probably a better service when all’s said and done.

It’s interesting to see how people find their way to a blog. A good third of the GWI visits are driven by Google, and, ironically, the searchword that invariably leads them to me is “sempervivum,” a plant I trashed a couple months ago. (I still don’t like it.) I also come up in the early pages of searches for “intoxicated,” and, rather unfortunately, “driving while intoxicated” (if typed without quotes). Oh well, hopefully I provide a pause of comic relief for that undoubtedly grim research.

Anyway, all this is to say “Thanks!” to Garden Voices and the other bloggers, and “Cool!” as a general comment on the fun that garden blogging provides—when you know there is a community out there.

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

Comments

Kelsgarden said…
lurking around and loving it ;)

thanks!

(and it was a long tangled blogroll from garden blog to garden blog that brought me here)
LostRoses said…
And here I thought garden blogging had been going on for years and I had just missed the boat. I'm astounded at how many blogs have "sprouted" since the two you knew about only a year ago. I just discovered garden blogging in June and have spent many an evening following links from blog to blog since then. The trail gets a bit convoluted (kind of like trying to follow the root system of a spearmint plant) and sometimes I'm not sure where I started from.

Now, good grief, you tell me about Garden Voices and their long blogroll just in case I come up with some more spare time. By the way, you may not be critiquing celebrities, but you are certainly witty and enlightening!
Unknown said…
I am a regular visitor to GWI. I enjoy your writing and occasional reference to wine and gardening. Your site name is the best out there, and is what attracted me in the first place. We had our first “Creekside Festival” last night, which featured David Girard Winery pouring. It was fantastic, and we are going to try and get a couple of other local wineries to participate next time. Fine wine plus gardening, a match made in heaven.

Popular Posts