Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal

A Garden Journal

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When I created this blog it was with the idea that I would make a journal of my own garden and the experiences throughout the growing season.

I have done that, to a certain extent, but because blogging has turned out to be more community-oriented for me, rather than introspectively writing down my garden’s facts and follies, I think I need more of a hard copy journal.

Why? Because I am now at a stage (whether age or simple quantity of things to remember, I don’t know) where I forget which plants I planted, what cultivars I had, or want.

Perhaps because in a hard copy journal you have the things right there in front of you, and with a virtual garden journal they fly off the front page all too soon…. into the vaults of the “archives”

…And we all know how often we open those archaic archives!

So as much as I like this new fan-dangled Garden Journal as Garden Blog experience, I am finding a need for digging up one of those first posts I wrote and making myself something I can paste and write in just for my own private reference.

One thing that the blog has done for me: it has been a place for pictures… it forces me to take more pictures than I would otherwise (to show examples), and it makes it possible to see them in an organized way. My own photos at home are all unorganized in boxes.

So long live digital photography! I notice that as the poll winds down, even more people have expressed how much pictures are a part of garden blogging for the reader.

You know, I might have guessed that from the way the publishing field puts out mostly garden books with extravagant photographs, but I needed the reader input to bring to my consciousness.

There is something about seeing the picture of a garden that inspires us.

Well, I am going to go ahead and make a journal just for the no-frills recording of plants and plans. I could probably benefit from something like that in continuing the blog- it will be nice to have a reference point that doesn’t require me to rack my little brain, sometimes!

Tags: garden+journal

About Ilona Erwin

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

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Comments

  1. Annie in Austin says

    You’re probably right about the photo, Ilona. I kept a paper diary for years, but seldom took flower pictures until I started the Divas website and then began to garden blog. The photos do add a lot to the record!

    I still jot down stuff on paper, and also have a spreadsheet to keep track of the names of the plants, common, botanical and cultivar, where & when they were bought, etc. The last column is one I to say I got rid of a plant or it croaked.

    Good luck with the journal!

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose