Six months ago today I launched this blog – I didn’t mean to. I’d been preparing my first post – writing, inserting photos etc. I hadn’t even finished it, and I certainly hadn’t edited it for spelling or grammar, when I accidentally hit the Publish button. Oops! Lucky I hadn’t told anybody about the blog yet or that could have been really embarrassing. A month or so later I did the same thing – by that time though, I actually had some followers who get notification by email the moment I press Publish, and in some cases the email contains the actual post. Yikes, that is embarrassing! Anyways, in both cases I trashed the posts immediately, then finished them, edited and reposted. I also managed to trash some things I hadn’t intended to – good thing most of these were retrievable from the trash folder.

After a number of these little mishaps I thought to myself, ‘Maybe blogging is not for me’. My husband suggested I persevere and re-evaluate in 6 months – so here we are 6 months later and I’m doing just that. So what have I gained? Well for one, a hard-drive that’s almost full with the photos I’ve taken for this blog, not to mention the photos my sister has taken for me. And when I ask Pat to take a photo of a particular garden or vignette, she does so with zeal – from every conceivable vantage point, and at least 20, maybe 50 of each.  I have learned to do this as well – the more pictures I take of one thing, the better chance there is that I’ll get at least one that works……or not. So I go and take some more. One thing’s for sure – I’m becoming a better photographer. My eyes still glaze over when my sister talks about f-stops and apertures, shutter speeds and iso settings, but I know that I must learn about these if I want to continue to improve.

So what else have I gained? Of course some faithful readers and a handful of followers – to all of you, I say thank-you.  And to the bloggers who follow me, or ‘like’ me on Facebook, ‘ping’ me, or mention me in your blogs, I really do appreciate it. I can’t always repay the favour, but please know that every time I see that you have liked me, pinged me, followed me, or referred readers to my blog, I go right to your blog and visit for a while.

As for site stats, the number of daily views is growing, but it certainly isn’t boast-worthy. It’s enough though, that I know my efforts are appreciated. What I find particularly curious is the ‘Views by Country’ statistics – there have been views from over 70 countries, across 6 continents! Perhaps this isn’t noteworthy, but I just find it remarkable.  That someone from a culture and a climate vastly different from my own would find their way to this blog is, like I said, remarkable. I often wonder what these readers think (many of them garden in the best gardening climates in the world) when they read the humble ramblings of a Canadian prairie garden designer.

So why do I do this, this blogging thing? It’s hugely time-consuming, I don’t earn a living doing it and I’ve chosen not to accept new clients through it. It’s true I needed an on-line presence of some kind – I was never interested in advertising my design services on a traditional website, preferring instead to take clients by referral only. Nevertheless, as a landscape designer, instructor and speaker, I wanted to be able to refer students, prospective clients or workshop participants to my……….my what. Yes that’s it – my blog!

Still…….none of this is what motivates me to write. The truth is I write to give voice to the internal dialogue – that endless stream of  words that fills my head from morning ’til night. Those who know me know that I can be a tad verbose – indeed I always have so much to say.  I mean really, it’s taken me six paragraphs just to say, “I like to write. Thanks for reading!”

I know many of you visit this blog for design ideas and pretty pictures. Sorry, no design advice today – come back Monday though, for Part 4 of The Principled Gardener, as I conclude my discussion on Unity in Landscape Design. But just so you don’t leave disappointed, here’s a few pretty pictures.

Mid August in the garden. Photo: Sue Gaviller

A nice place to sit – one of those brake-stomping vignettes I periodically drive by. Photo: Sue Gaviller

A rainbow after today’s brief sunshower – it appeared just as I was about to publish this post. I’ll take that as a sign! Photo: Sue Gaviller