As soon as my wife and I first got serious about gardening, we started to look for people we could turn to for advice, as we didn’t know any gardeners in our circle of friends. In those early days, we spent countless hours on the internet, browsing gardening forums and wading through countless threads to see if they had any answers to the many newbie gardening questions we had. The web soon became our garden club and we met many friendly gardeners who were quick to give advice. We even shared plants and seeds from our gardens via the post.
Your New Garden Club Online
Gardening can be an individual pursuit if you want it to be, or don’t make an effort to reach out to the many fellow gardening enthusiasts out there. Gardens, greenhouses and plant nurseries don’t have to be lonely but they are not typical places for crowds to hang out. Designers can be stuck to their drawing boards and flower arranges tucked away in a workshop. However, with the new world of Social media you can reach out to find and share inspiration, discuss and debate and their is always a lively discussion to join with your opinions and passion. Social media is also a great platform to see others successes, and also mistakes and mishaps, to help you get the most out of your garden and hobby.
Social media is also a great way to get introduced to a host of interesting new suppliers who are out there. For flowery people, you’ll find there can be nothing like getting recommendations about the best varieties for the look your want, varieties with the best shelf life, the strong growing plants and suppliers with the best prices and service.
Of course, social media isn’t the only way to learn about gardening. Personally, I’m looking forward to my local gardening club’s open day in a couple of weeks, where i’ll see if my Lenten Rose and tulips match up to others grown locally. If my plants are lagging behind others in my area, I can use social media to investigate what I can do to boost them.
For my daily nuggets of inspiration, Twitter, Flickr and Pinterest have given me loads of inspiration, information and motivation. I feed off the demonstrations of other gardeners around the World to learn and develop as a gardener (something you seem to continue to do no matter how many years you’ve been gardening).
Great Gardening Communities
Social media can make you a better gardener, florist or landscape designer. On top of that, it’s a wonderful way to connect with like-minded people. Some of the best social media sites for gardeners, that I visit regularly include:
Gardenweb.com – The largest gardening site on the web seems to have forums for every gardening topic you can possibly imagine. Regardless of whether you’re attempting to swot about houseplants or looking for local gardening advice, Gardenweb.com is the website for gardeners that has it all.
Twitter – Twitter is definitely not just for broadcasting what you had for dinner. The social community is also home to many professional and backyard gardeners around the World. Every Wednesday evening from 9 to 10pm EST, gardeners from across America assemble to discuss growing plants from seed. Tuesday afternoons at 2pm EST, you can get tips on caring for and growing trees in #TreeChat.
Flickr – For those who prefer visuals to text – Flickr may be good place to call your online gardening home. There is the general gardening photo pool along with a myriad of specialized groups for every aspect of gardening.
Pinterest– this social network is increasingly popular in the UK and around the World. Pinterest enables you to post images and create mood boards. One of the most powerful features allows you to ‘re-pin’ the work of others which filters the way quality and useful content is shared with the large and diverse audience. Best of all, like all the top social networks, Pinterest is totally free! There’s a great article about Pinterest for garden designers on the Garden Trellis Company blog.