Meet Colleen. The effervescent garden blogger who oozes sanguinity as she comments and shares her garden posts. I've been following her blog In the Garden Online for a little while and really enjoy her spontaneity and obvious love of her garden and gardening in general. Her generous spirit like Val and Kerri before her has given yet another great post to move our gardening efforts forward.

I'd like to thank Stuart up front for inviting me to be a guest blogger while he's gallivanting around Tasmania. Unfortunately, it's winter here, so I'll have to forgo talking about gardening. Instead, I'll talk about one of my other favorite subjects: garden blogging.

Can garden blogging make you a better gardener?

This is one of those 'chicken and the egg' questions, but as far as I'm concerned, the answer is a definite, absolute YES! I've been a gardener for a long time, first in a small bed in the first place my husband and I rented, and now in my own quarter of an acre outside of Detroit. I've loved it since the moment my first seed sprouted, but something happened when I started blogging about it in the summer of 2006. I noticed more. I became not just a gardener, but an observer of my own garden.

The strength of any blog lies in not only having something to say, but in posting frequently. There have been so many times when I've thought "I have nothing going on in the garden, but I really should make a blog entry". On those occasions, I've gone out to the garden, walked around, and, lo and behold, found something interesting to write about, whether it's been my adoration of all stages of a flower (not just the full-bloom stage) or a rant on the compost restrictions in my neighborhood.

And, when you observe more, you end up doing more. You catch problems early on, before you have a disaster on your hands. Maybe most importantly, blogging has made me a more active gardener. I'm one of those people who has thousands of ideas 'the type of person who's always saying "oh, I'm going to do this in the garden...."' and among all of the other parts of my life, the garden projects get neglected. Now that I'm blogging, and posting my photos on the blog, I feel like I have to do those projects I say I'm going to do. It helps me fight my tendency toward procrastination. And I need all the help I can get :-)

But perhaps the biggest benefit to blogging about gardening is the community you become a part of, and, even better, the friends you make. The best place for gardeners to learn, more than books, magazines, or television shows, is from other gardeners. I have learned more about plants, compost, tools, and garden design in this last year of garden blogging than I had learned in several years before blogging.

When I'm stumped about a problem in my garden, or trying to figure out whether a seedling that popped up in one of my beds is a weed or a perennial, I know I can post it on my blog, and someone will have an answer for me in no time. As I alluded to above, it goes deeper than just getting cheerful advice from fellow gardeners. I consider some of the garden bloggers out there to truly be my friends, even though I'll most likely never meet them.

I'd be hard-pressed to find cooler, more enthusiastic people anywhere else. I'm biased, of course, but if you're looking for what a blog should be, you would do well to take a look at any of these blogs, all created by bloggers who I consider to be friends:

Kim's A Study in Contrasts: For beautiful writing, gorgeous photos, and a keen eye for stunning plant combinations, this is a can't-miss. Besides that, I have the nagging suspicion that Kim is my long-lost sister :-)

Carol's May Dreams Gardens: Carol is one of those people who has helped make garden bloggers into a true community by founding both the Garden Bloggers Book Club and the new Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Annie's The Transplantable Rose: Annie has a way with words and a penchant for storytelling that makes you lose yourself in her blog.

Anthony's Compost Bin: Every gardener should be in love with compost. Anthony's enthusiasm for it is contagious.

And, finally, Stuart's Gardening Tips 'n' Ideas: I remember the first time I read Stuart's blog. He was writing about his frustration with garden blogs, and how he wishes there was more real, meaningful dialogue on the blogosphere. I was fairly new to blogging, and took his rant to heart, especially his hope that gardeners would start extolling their gardening passion rather then just quietly walking by. So, you could easily say that Stuart is one of those people who helped me become the kind of garden blogger I am.

I think, soon, those of us who blog about our gardens find that the blogging becomes almost inseparable from the gardening, and that the gardening is inseparable from who we are as people. Garden blogging is addictive, but so is garden blog reading. Here's a salute to those of you who blog, and my hope that those of you who don't yet blog will consider starting! Drop me a line when you do :-)