I've just finished reading Chris Garret's post "What to do when your blog plateaus" over at Darren Rowse's Problogger.

I don't like to admit that I've stalled or that my blog is becoming stale, but in my busyness of trying to complete my Garden Blog Directory update due to be released on 1 Dec, I sense that this ship is merely drifting. You don't believe me... check out my feed subscribers.

These are for the past 30 days ...the last few months don't look too much different

Now, I'm not after your compliments or reassurance that all is right with my world but what I am keen to hear is what needs to change to keep you - my down-right gorgeously, loyal readers - interested and coming back for more. And, while we're at it, what things turn you off about my blog.

How's the writing style? Content? Humour (or lack of it)? Photographs? Interaction? Helpful advice? Ya-da, ya-da!!!

For instance, one of my friends recently unsubscribed from my email feeds. I was devastated until I found out that the reason was because he couldn't read the font-size I was using. Just a few changes and it's all good again.

So, I want you to be as candid as you like. I've put on my heavy-duty, chain-mail suit to limit the flesh wounds, so anything you add will be taken constructively. Even if your smell-o-vision LCD screen is picking up on my halitosis, I want to know about it.

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What an interesting discussion that has emerged within the gardening blogosphere! First, Debra Roby picked up on my Learning how to use your new gardening tool: The Web post stating that it "made me feel like I was living in the past." Then Amy from GardenRant picked up on the discussion and had an incredible number of insightful commenters offering their opinions and suggestions.

Now that the pot has been well and truly stirred it's time to watch what will happen as it continues to simmer. To skim a few points that have been raised, here's my view on what some have been saying;

• Most gardeners seem to be in the older stages of life and are therefore less likely to adapt to changing technologyies
• On the other hand, those that have adopted these changes continue to use them but find that they're only a tool and gardening remains the focus (Preach it, sister!)
• We're reminded that we should look at these technologies in the eyes of our readers. What features are they seeking - if any?
• And finally, we should be very aware that information overload is certainly not what most gardeners are looking for.

It's ironic that the last point was the catalyst that prompted me to write the post in the first place. The reality is that there is so much information out there that without the right tools at our disposal we will struggle to make sense of it all.

And who do we trust to get relevant, reliable information? Google? Certainly not. Even this monopolistic search engine is realising that groups (such as gardeners) don't take their lead from large corporations. We instead, rely on networks. Trusted people with trustworthy reputations.

There are more tools on offer for gardeners and I shall write that post at a later date, but for the time being the seemingly archaic web tools I pointed out earlier are a good place to start.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of you may remember my rant more than a year ago about current media trying to break into the blogosphere. In it I posed the question whether garden writer, Jane Owens, was really running a blog or whether this was just another website under the guise of a blog.

Lo and behold, Jane Owens has "opened her address book to share her top pick of gardening websites" - and not one blog made it onto her list.

How does Ms Owens view the gardening blogosphere? I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

In fact Ms Owens, as you're list was on UK Gardening Websites I thought you might be interested in meeting a few of these great UK garden bloggers. Hopefully some will make it into your address book for an updated list.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you've followed the cool discussion that happened earlier this week over at the 'Rant - how does Susan get herself into these fantastic situations? - you'll have noticed the *outrage* by some fellow bloggers. Apparently, you can tell people what your blog is about but then delight them later on with new experiences. Much like Amway.

The view that I can call my blog Gardening Tips 'n' Ideas and write about any topic is one I thought I might explore - keeping in mind that this is a blog primarily about gardening. (We certainly don't want to lose our focus, do we?)

So while PPP has seen all the action lately, I thought it might be interesting to introduce my new B4B (Blog for Beer) sponsored posts. It works like this, I'll give you the topic for which you have to weave into your existing blog genre - without looking too spammy - and then when we eventually catch up, I'll buy you a beer. Sound fair? Of course it's fair, stop your whining!

Here's an example;

***************************************

TOPIC: Car Accident Lawyer

As I was watering my petunias this morning, my mind wandered to flowers that were used for funerals. It seems such a shame that happy flowers like petunias and pansies don't work in cut-flower arrangements.

When my best-friends' postman's second-cousin twice removed died in a vehicle accident earlier this month, I was scratching my head wondering which flowers to use. Fortunately, Al's brother (Al was the guy in the accident) hired a great Car Accident Lawyer that was able to sue the manufacturer of the car, the Main Roads Department, the driver of the other vehicle, the three witnesses and both occupants in Al's car. Fortunately the cat had no assets, so the Car Accident Lawyer didn't pursue it.

Speaking of cat's, my catnip is doing wonderfully this season. It's a great herb that can be used as an infusion in herbal teas. As I was sipping mine in this Car Accident Lawyer's office I realised that he would be great if ever I found myself in this situation and needing a Car Accident Lawyer. So I jotted down his details - 1800 CAR LAWYER which operates 24-7-365.

All this because I was watering my petunias. I do love flowering annuals and you can grow them in your garden too.

**************************************

See! It wasn't that hard was it. Any takers for California Refinance?

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (16)

Philip Voice from Landscape Juice recently requested some info from other garden bloggers so I thought I might post it here and see what comes of it.

Here's his query;

I am looking for some evidence on garden changes/history in peoples gardens and was wondering if you have covered the topic at all or have access to any photos on garden history?

The kind of things I am looking for is old walls with a bricked up door - where did the door lead to and what was behind.

Paving that suddenly stops with perhaps a depression in the grass where it continued - where did the path lead and why was it taken up?

Perhaps an avenue of trees that looks like they were part of an old drive or track - what was their purpose?

Changes in wall brickwork (i.e. the bond might have been changed from rattrap to flemish for example) - why and what was the addition for.

A mark left on the side of the potting shed wall in the way of an old roof line - what was the addition and why was it removed?

Maybe you readers will have some info also.

If you have any questions it's probably best to direct them towards Philip than myself.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (2)

Some of my readers who have journeyed with Gardening Tips 'n Ideas would recall that this blog started off with a very different domain name. It's inception was as Gardening4Dummies.com.

Six months later, I was sent a very official email requesting me to abandon this name because it contravened applicable trademarks. I obliged even though a few bloggers recommended I fight it. The reason for my decision was because I never meant to use someone else's marketing efforts to quickly lift my rankings - I just hadn't thought the issue through.

Now it seems that Doug from Doug Green's Garden has had a similar brain freeze with his new Garden Rants. He's capitalising on a very successful garden blog with a similar name - our friends at Garden Rant.

Did you spot the subtle difference? Garden Rant: Garden Rants. I'll give you a heads up - it's the 's'.

Now I'm not sure what Doug, a very successful crusader in the online gardening scene, was thinking but I certainly hope he's planning on changing it.

I get fairly ticked when I see advertisers using the title "Gardening Tips and Ideas", "Gardening Tips n Ideas" and "Gardening Tips & Ideas" for their marketing campaigns. I know they've chosen these words because they're trying to channel surfers looking for my blog off to their own sites, thereby raping my brand name.

It's an easy win for them because it's a recognisable brand that's taken me more than 12 months to carve out. Sure, it's no Google or McDonalds but when you're a new site and wanting to get a foot in the door it's easy pickings to hang off someone else's efforts.

Doug, I'm sure this is not what you were trying to do and like me you just hadn't thought it through carefully. But, it would be real cool if you came up with another title for your very useful new service.

Maybe, "Garden Soapbox", "Garden Hot Potatoes" or if you wanted to keep the word 'rant' then maybe something like "Botanical Rants" would work. Nobody has the rights to either "Garden" or "Rant" but when you put them together, you're impinging on someone else's territory.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (7)

In the ongoing discussion on what are good ways to measure the success of our blogs, one of Kathy Purdy's readers, Katie from Gotta Garden, said this;

I don’t know that I’d use the amount of comments either…if only because I read many more blogs than I comment on. I simply don’t have the time (I’m a slow writer!) to comment on them all…surely, I’m not alone in that.

No, Katie. You are certainly not alone in that.

I too find that I read more blogs than have the time to comment. And then there are posts that just don't seem to need a comment - or at least one from me.

So I've been searching for some way of allowing readers to quickly sum up their feelings towards what I've written without going through the rigmarole of commenting. And I think I may have found it - thanks to Barb from Skittle's Place.

This tool from PostReach.com allows the reader a one-click comment to summarise their interest in the post. No email address. No serious thought. Just one quick click.

I'm going to trial it for a while just on my front page so if you find it useful, click away.

PS. A suggestion for PostReach is to provide the same thing for RSS.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (7)

If you're wondering why you're not reaching the top of the Top 100 Gardening Sites, let alone even getting a look in, it's probably because the whole system's being gamed.

Don't believe me? Take a look at these;

Java Teak (#2) doesn't even have any banners showing on their sites. Neither do Green-24 (#3), Yardiac.com (#4) (even their blog fails to include it), Hort.net (#9), YardLover.com (#16) and Avalon Gardens (#24).

Then there are sites such as Cetsohbet (#8) that have nothing to do with gardening at all. In fact, it clearly states in its description that it's a "Dating Server GlobaL Internet wen PortaL Free Site" yet ranks in the top 10 of "gardening" sites.

And why is Rex Seedco at #1. Take a look at this site and you'll notice that there is not one, but two banners counting each pageview as double.

At best, the banner you sport on your blog's sidebar is building PageRank for Top 100 Gardening Sites but it's doing nothing for your blog.

How can this site be gamed?

Firstly, the sites I've mentioned above aren't including their banners in HTML code. Their hiding them within Javascript links that still allows the counting code to work but does nothing to advertise Top 100 Gardening Sites (not that this is of much concern to us). However, it does mean that there's no transparency in which blogs or websites they include them on.

For example, I currently have 4 blogs that I look after and each of them get a considerable amount of traffic. If I were to hide the counting code (the code you downloaded and put in your sidebar) in each of those blogs it would lift me considerably in the rankings.

One would assume this, at the least.

But, it's not true. Top 100 Gardening Sites claims that it calculates your views over the past 10 days and averages it out. However, this blog (at #40) receives on average 1250 page views per day while Kathy Purdy's, Cold Cliimate Gardening at #30 receives 450 per day - based on Sitemeter stats.

Go figure how 3 times more page views results in being 10 rankings lower.

BTW - I'm not picking on Kathy as she's the only one in the Top 30 who is transparent enough to show her site stats. Who knows what's going on with the other 29?

The system needs to be fixed

If Top 100 Gardening Sites is going to be a credible source of value in the gardening blogosphere/web then it needs to seriously look at some of the issues that are letting it down. If they don't bloggers and webmasters are going to become disillusioned and discard any possible value that could be credited from it.

My hope is that Top 100 look into these issues and start to demand more, and give more, transparency from/to users.

It's a great idea but people will hunt for something else unless they fix these problems.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (21)

For those of you who are regular visitors to this blog you may have been noticing a few strange things going on: images not showing, dissected page borders plus page elements tripping over themselves.

Readers who choose to use Internet Explorer (have you not heard of Firefox!!!) have had to deal with this for quite some time - since this blog started, to be exact. However, Firefox users have justed started to wrestle the same beast.

The reason - my Garden Blog Directory (which is soon to be unveiled with a brand new name and features) has had to transfer to a new server to access some important features. In doing this, it's dragged my whole account - kicking and screaming - with it.

So, I've taken the opportunity to clean up some code that has been causing a few problems and for the first time IE users can see my blog exactly (well, almost!) how those with Firefox have enjoyed it. Yay!!!

My posting has been a little erratic as I've turned my attention to fixing up these issues and also getting the Blog Directory back up to speed - my apologies for the 20+ blogs waiting to be added, thank you for your patience.

While I can't offer too many more inside tidbits I can say that the new and improved directory will be fairly impressive - if I do say so myself. From my view point it will save me hours of work in adding new blogs which means I can concentrate on creating some great new features that have been on my To-Do list for too long.

However, this blog is still my main focus and I'm keen to hear from you if you are still having problems with reading the content, submitting comments or generally trying to navigate your way around it. If you have any suggestions then I'm keen to hear your feedback.

To all those who use Internet Explorer, I hope you enjoy the way it was supposed to be presented - before you go and download a REAL browser.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are garden bloggers and then there are the movers and shakers in the garden blogosphere. People who go beyond their own blog and can create something more of value within the blogosphere that either adds more value to it or makes it easier to be part of it.

Kerri from Color of the Garden chose me awhile back to select some recipients for the Thinking Blogger award. I've been toying with that idea for some time (obviously) and decided I would much rather reward those bloggers who are innovative and entrepreneurial rather than just great thinkers - though the two are not mutually exclusive.

All this thought has challenged me to create this list. These are the true movers in our category and I can't wait to see what they come up with next...

14. Tricia

Green Thumb Sunday is probably one of the most successful meme's in the garden blogosphere and it was Tricia from As the Garden Grows who started it. Hundreds of garden bloggers participate in this weekly 'show and tell' all linking back to her blog.

Tricia also has more than 10 other blogs on the go, including pesonal blogs, photography blogs etc.

Ed's note: The reason Tricia is at the bottom of the list even though she is highly favourited and works tremendously hard on her blogs, I hate (is that too harsh) her Pay Per Posts. It's not that I'm against sponsored posts it's just that Tricia seems to write about anything and whore her garden blog to topics about Payday Loans, Coupons, Vacuum Cleaners and copious other unrelated material. If I wanted that stuff, I'd go and read blogs about it. Needless to say, I no longer subscribe to her feed. I get enough spam in my Inbox....

13. Katina Mooneyham

Katina is responsible for a great niche blog, Katina's Little Gardeners who shares from experience as she homeschools her two children. She is also the contributing editor at Garden and Hearth and runs another blog: A.K.K.H. Natural School about the joys of home-schooling.

12. Kenneth E Point

Better known as Kenny from Veggie Gardening Tips he shares a wealth of wisdom within his blog regarding the growing and cultivating of vegetables. He has also produced a free e-book titled My Gardening Secrets.

11. Beth Lawrence

Canadian, Beth Lawrence, runs the blog Grow See This with articles and tips to help gardeners. She also offers podcasts and vidcasts with more gardening tips but in another format that is making use of today's technology.

10. Angela Pratt

Sacramento Gardening seems to have been the source of inspiration for Angela from Angela's NorCal Garden Blog. Angela produces stock art photography on her (much lusted after) Canon 5D and writes to a Sacramento audience.

She has also started another blog catering to those wanting to watch their weight.

9. Hanna, from Cleveland

In true marketing fashion, Hanna's This Garden Is Illegal arrests your attention from the very beginning. Add to that some great writing prose and you've got a winner on your hands. And Hanna could be forgiven for stopping there.

But as most garden bloggers know you don't find too many gardening blogs that don't sport a "I'm a [Flower]" banner on their sidebar. This is such a great viral method of getting your blog out and no-one has done it better than Hanna.

8. Marc

From GardenDesk blogging fame has since started a new blog called Veggie Garden Info which is a reblog of RSS feeds that discuss anything pertinent to vegetable growers. It's a handy resource and also gets bloggers exposure that they may not have had previously.

7. Doug Green

Who hasn't heard of Doug Green? Doug's blog stemmed from his original site Simple Gifts Farm but also includes sites on Perennials, Ponds, Gardening for Beginners and Flowering Bulbs.

But what makes Doug's site stand out from others is that he also offers newsletter subscriptions to his readers. Sure, most of us offer RSS subscriptions but this is a whole 'nother level. Newsletters are easy to procure and take extra time in maintaining a subscriber base and writing articles and links.

6. Mr Brown Thumb

You'll know Mr Brown Thumb from his great blog of the same name. Mr BT has an obvious knack for photography and covers a wide range of plants.

His side interests include the Google for Gardeners custom search engine (you will find this on his blog) that can also be added to your iGoogle page as a easy gadget. Mr BT also has three other blogs: Garden Hacker, Garden Rate and Review and Gardening Seeds. It's pretty hard keeping up with one gardening blog let alone four and the latter two haven't been posted to since April. It will be interesting to see how these go.

5. Douglas Welch

Doug's blog, A Gardener's Notebook doesn't get a huge amount of traffic but subscriptions to his feed almost top more than 1500 readers. And that's just his blog. Doug also offers his readers the opportunity to subscribe to his podcasts via iTunes.

4. Kathy Purdy

One of the original garden bloggers, Kathy has been pouring into her blog Cold Climate Gardening for more than four years and it's a great source for gardeners dealing with cold climates.

Kathy also maintains a garden blog directory on her site that lists hundreds of great reads worthy of adding to your feed reader.

3. Carol

Carol is an Indianan gardener who blogs about her garden and various gardening topics through May Dreams Garden. It's a great blog and she's shared some great posts over the years especially her article on garden hoes.

She is also responsible for the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day that encourages garden bloggers to show what's blooming in their garden on the 15th of every month. Carol also maintains the Garden Bloggers Book Club (try saying that without pronouncing Book as 'Blook') that is a virtual copy of a physical book club.

2. Colleen Vanderlinden

The magnanimous Colleen has been quite the blogger of late. Not only does she keep up with her personal garden blog In the Garden Online but she is also a Feature Writer at Suite101.

And who can forget her mammoth efforts when it came to putting garden bloggers on the map with her Mouse & Trowel Awards. These awards which aimed to mend the obvious exclusion of our category within the Bloggies did just that.

1. Susan Harris

A noted contributor to Garden Rant, Susan also maintains her own blog Takoma Gardener, started the DC Urban Gardener News for DC Master Gardeners among others, and also has time to produce, and star, in the odd gardening video.

Susan has also started a new site called the The Gardening Coach which aims at offering garden coach services to gardeners who need a little encouragement.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (15)

As a fervent reader of Seth Godin I had often heard him discussing the virtues of his Squidoo Lens site and 'umm..ed' and 'aah..ed' as whether I should head on over and set something up.

Well, I finally did yesterday. I've called it 60 second Home Garden Tips and it's full of some of the things that I have enjoyed about gardening. There's a quiz asking for you to vote on your favourite Celebrity Gardener or submit one that I haven't added.

You can do the same with the Gardening Tips, voting for the ones you've enjoyed and adding others from the around the web. I'm keen to see how popular these lenses are and can become and if they offer any tangible traffic benefits to blogs.

It was good to see Colleen from In the Garden Online has already created a lens for her blog as well. If you would like to create your own you can do that here...

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (3)

I usually become bored with blogs by photographers as they all seem to assume that their pictures speak a thousand words. They post an image and then leave it up to the reader to take it or leave it - the latter being my default choice.

That was until I came across David Perry's blog. With a camera, this guy seems unstoppable and his photographs really don't need any explanations, but fortunately he continues the story each time. With some posts, the journey progresses with follow-up images while others continue with descriptions, anecdotes and general observations.

I have never REALLY raved about any other blog until stumbling across David's. Some have awesome images. Some have great written material. But most sadly lack when it comes to both. David's blog succeeds.

And what I enjoy more about David's candid thoughts is that they come from a guy who acknowledges his gardening experience and limitations. This is how he describes his blog;

If I were to somehow leave the impression that I consider myself some sort of gardening expert, I’d be misleading you.

I’m not. I am instead a practicing gardener, still quite capable of unintentionally wounding and sometimes even killing plants that I really just want to nurture, a guy who despite that (ironically), has always found healing with his hands in the soil. I’m also a guy who sometimes struggles with feelings of inadequacy in the presence of gardeners who can see so much deeper into a garden’s bones than I, so much more intuitively into a plant’s nature ...and lets not even get into those who can effortlessly rattle off the Latin name of every botanical specimen in sight. This blog is not about gardening expertise or plant snobbery. It is about permission, a sort of blue-collar love affair with gardens.

And oh yeah, coupled with that from time to time, a bit of shared expertise in the art of actively seeing ...and then capturing what one sees.

Plus he shoots his pictures from a Canon EOS1D - just wait while I wipe up the drool.

If there were a blog that I would truly recommend for the feed reader - David's is it!

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you're looking for a new way to decorate your iGoogle search page then the Featured Gardening Blog gadget may be the answer. This new gadget has been developed to randomly feature a blog from the Garden Blog Directory every time you refresh your page.

For more information and how to install, read here...

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a brand new feature on the blog directory starting from today. Although it's only been made public in the last few hours, the code has been running to tally the sites most visited over the past six weeks.

Congratulations to Pam from Digging who's topping all the charts at the moment as the directory's most visited site.

All the details are here...

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Gardening Blog Directory has just received one of its most important updates - a new blog. No, not a new gardening blog to put on the map but a new blog about garden blogging.

This new blog will allow me to inform you when new blogs have been posted - so you can go and meet some new gardening friends - and also share when updates and modifications have occurred on the directory. I'm really too undisciplined to keep up with a newsletter and blogging gives me the freedom to tell you about a new change without waiting a fortnight.

The blog itself is fairly basic at the moment but it will grow over time. As it won't be updated on a daily basis you might want to consider subscribing to the RSS feed and keep it in your feed reader.

And, comments are still available for you to share your suggestions and feedback.

Are you ready to take a look? Here's the link.

Posted by Stuart | Permalink | Comments (0)