Ink & Penstemon

I began this blog because I was turning into a professional lurker. The comments I left on other people’s blogs were becoming so long it looked as though I was staging a coup. Since I entered the blogosphere, I’ve observed that most bloggers start blogging because they seek community and approval. Fortunately, the internet is profuse enough to slake most people’s thirst for recognition, yet, finding someone with a blog that is genuinely unique from all other blogs is like spotting a unicorn. This blog is not exceptional. Given what little traffic I get, I realize that only a few find this blog interesting. Though I do crave community and approval, I’m happy with carving out my own little garden niche on the web. 

I am trying to improve my writing and it’s coming, slowly. Many of my posts have an opinionated or congratulatory air verging on pretension, but I like to think that my self-depricating sense of humor offsets any nerviness on my part. My style does tend be prolix, but, fortunately for you, I abhor the gushy & florid transcendental-naturalist style that plagues many a garden blog. There will be no “soft, sparkling beams of morning light dancing on unfurling blooms” here. If you want double-rainbows, go to YouTube. You will not find me attempting to augment my posts by peppering them with emoticons and exclamation points, or through the indiscriminate use of multiple typefaces of varying size. In my professional life, I’m a printer and typographer, so that grates especially. Here, word craft is trump, as it should be.

As for the gardening side, I’m irritated by gardeners who insist that their mature, 30-year-old garden is a work in progress when they are really just tweaking it. My garden is less than five years old. It’s a garden in its gawky adolescence. I’ve got bare dirt, failing plants, and weedy ground playing out in realtime. I like to think of posts of this nature are “motivational.” As for the inspirational, a blog is the only way to showcase a garden. You can stick to the subjects you know about, use a litany of macro-shots to hide the weeds and anemic looking plants, and include pictures of other people’s gardens which look better than yours yet still attract traffic because of the eye-candy appeal. That aside, I like my garden and at times it looks rather good. When it doesn’t, you’ll be able to tell from an increase in reblogs and news links.

Still, one can’t support a blog readership on fluff indefinitely. I want to see if I can have a garden with shade, interest, and color without relying constantly upon agricultural practices like irrigating, fertilizing, and amending the soil liberally. You can’t keep fighting with the land in the West or it will break you. But I’m finding that departing from tradition is a challenge. 

So that’s the great experiment. I want to see if writing this blog will help me evolve as a gardener. If the blog turns out to be more of a distraction, you’ll know because I’ll monetize it to justify its existence. So I welcome all novices and dilettante gardeners. This blog is for all of us.