Blogging can lead to....

I started blogging almost 3 years ago and went ahead really on a whim, as a progression from writing on my website about my garden and presenting things I make on my computer. In the beginning I didn’t have any response at all, no comments from anyone, for almost a whole year. I could see that I had visitors from my statistics, but didn’t know if people stayed and read or just skipped past to next blog. I joined Blotanical in December 2011 and that’s when my visitor statistics started picking up and comments began to appear.

My tiny London garden has been the main topic of my blog throughout, although I have from time to time written articles about other topics too. My garden is the most important room in my house and as a housebound it is now the only place where I go on ‘photo safaris’, usually several times a week. There is something new to discover all the time, even on a blustery day in late October like today. Blogging has lead to my garden having changed considerably the last 2 years. I have visited so many beautiful blogs where I have read about plants I have never even heard about. As the curious person I am, I often look up plants I read about, to see if they could possibly grow in my own garden. If they can, many of those I have read about have ended up on a shopping list to the many mail order companies I use for plants and garden supplies.

I had never heard about David Austin Roses until I was introduced to them on someone’s blog nearly 2 years ago, now I am completely hooked and would have liked to have many more if I could only find space for them! This is my beautiful 'Scepter'd Isle'.

And this is 'Wildeve'.

I would not have known that daffodils come in white too unless I had seen them on other people’s blogs, the ones in the parks around here are all yellow. This is 'White Lion'.

And I had never heard about Anemone blanda mix before, now I can’t
get enough of them!

They make a great display in between the crocuses down at the woodland corner of my garden in the spring.

But blogging has lead to other things too, I feel much more confident as a gardener, I have learned so much! Even though we all have gardens in different countries and in different climates, we have many things in common and so many tips can be adapted to suit whatever conditions we have. My style of gardening is pretty much trial and error, with a dash of research online when I am stumped. Thank heavens for Internet, I have no neighbours the slightest interested in gardening so there is no one to ask around here, thank you all, fellow bloggers for contributing to my growing gardening knowledge!

My garden is filled to the rafters with plants, some of which I would never even have thought of putting in here. I read on a blog that contrary to what I thought, Heliniums could do well without full sun. I promptly bought one. 'Moerheim Beauty' is still alive, one year on.

And who would have thought that poppies could be so beautiful? I saw photos on a blog and just had to have one. This is Papaver orientale 'Beauty of Livermere'

Over the last almost 3 years I have seen so many plants on other people’s blogs that I would have liked to have, so many beautiful plants! OK, so I know there are some plants I can just forget about growing outdoors in a London garden, we do actually have winters here, even though they are reasonably mild, but the range of plants I can grow is quite wide and I have made a habit of writing down plant names when I see something I like. I call it my wish list and currently there are 73 plant names on my wish list. I will never be able to fit all those plants in my tiny garden so I suppose I should rename it my ‘dream-on-list’! Some of the plants on my wish list have already ended up in my garden though, Hydrangea paniculata 'Pinky Winky' arrived early this spring and I got 100 Iris Reticulata 'Pixie' and 'Harmony’ bulbs last month, looking forward to seeing them in flower next spring!

UPDATE:
I made a separate tab with my plant wish list this evening, have a look if you wonder what’s in the queue for entering my garden, or maybe you can get some inspiration for your own garden? Here in Britain we don’t use the USDA Hardiness Zone system but according to the American system London is zone 9, all the plants on my list are suitable for London and the surrounding area.

I have also taken a bit of a chance by buying a couple of oleanders and palms this summer, not really suitable for the kind of winters we have had in recent years, but I am going to give them my best shot - I saw a photo of oleanders in flower on a blog from Texas and thought ‘I would like to have those!’ So I bought some....

Blogging has made me look at many plants in a new light, before, a snowdrop was just a snowdrop, I didn’t know there were many different types, now I have 3 different types in my garden and would like to have many more if only the rare ones were not so expensive. Blogging has also made me a better photographer, with around 12 000 photos taken in my garden since I started blogging I am gaining valuable experience and I am enjoying my hobby even more than I did before. Thank goodness for digital cameras, imagine having to develop the films for all those photos, what an expensive hobby that would have been!!

And sometimes taking photos in my garden doesn’t always mean just flowers and foliage, I have seen numerous sunrises from my backdoor steps after long nights on my computer before finally going to bed. I have joined a few blogging memes and tried to post regularly on them, most of them are hosted by bloggers abroad which means if you want to post when the meme opens you have to be an early bird – or as in my case, a really late bird. The Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day meme for example opens at 5 am here in Britain every 15th of the month, I have seen some wonderful sunrises this summer and autumn!

But apart from draining my bank account by buying plants I just had to have, losing sleep and gaining a lot of gardening knowledge, I have gained something even more important by blogging. I have got online gardening friends all over the world! Many of the people leaving messages on my blog come back again and again and it is so nice to see you back here every time I have written a new post. I also feel I know you all a bit after having been to your blogs and seen your gardens and read a bit about you too.

But having online friends is of course not the same as meeting people in person, and yesterday I met one of my blogging friends from America! Beth from PlantPostings came to London together with her husband Ernie to visit their daughter who is studying here for the semester. Beth and her husband is staying in London for a week and we spent a lovely afternoon together yesterday at my house. Here they are in my garden, looking at my plants and taking photographs - quite surreal after having had only contact via our blogs and the occasional email for almost 2 years. I have never had a visit from America before, they were so lovely people and we were chatting like old friends from the minute they stepped through my front door :-)

Blogging has given me so much these almost 3 years I have been doing it, but actually meeting people behind the blogs I visit is certainly taking things to a whole new level. Beth and Ernie showed a keen interest in my tiny garden and even the weather behaved for a short period. It was chucking down with rain when they arrived but after a while the rain stopped and all the time when we were out in the garden the rain kept away and it was quite nice and warm. We had a late lunch together and the hours went by so quickly.

Have you ever met anyone through your gardening blog? Perhaps even someone living in another country? I’d love to hear about it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone thinking of meeting up like this. And if any of my other gardening blogging friends are planning to come to London, please let me know, I’d love to have a visit :-)

Until next time, take care.