Austin leads nation in blogging
The garden blogging community in Austin, as I and others have noted before, is huge. More people blog about gardening in this sun-drenched, eco-minded, wired city than any other place on the planet, according to evidence available anecdotally and on Blotanical. Just take a glance at my sidebar, under Gardens in Austin, for as comprehensive a list as I’ve been able to keep up with, though it seems new local garden blogs appear weekly.
According to Wired Blog Network (link no longer available), which cited the Scarborough Research study last fall, Austinites not only love to blog, we love to read blogs. Among U.S. cities, WBN reported,
Austin, Texas, has the highest percentage of residents who read or write blogs. In Austin, 15% of adults had read or contributed to a blog in the past 30 days.
Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose closely trail Austin among blog-savvy cities at 14% and 13%, respectively. At the bottom of the ranking are Buffalo, NY, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at 2% each. (Despite its low ranking, Buffalo is home to at least two excellent garden blogs: Gardening While Intoxicated and Art of Gardening.)
This study is no longer fresh news, but it got me thinking yet again about the garden blogging group that has blossomed here. We’re a diverse bunch of gardeners and writers, and we haven’t even all met each other yet; some may have no interest in face-to-face meetings. But most of us, I venture to theorize, do keep up with each other, learning from our individual gardening experiences, riffing on common themes. In addition, many more Austinites who don’t blog follow our gardening adventures too, leaving comments occasionally and making my day when they do.
I feel fortunate to be blogging among such a great group of gardeners and readers who inspire me daily. Thanks, Austin, for nurturing our blogging community.
All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
The garden blogging experience has been so fulfilling for me. I love it when people visit my gardens, even with kids that don’t always stay on the rock paths. Even if they don’t garden it seems that they enjoy it so much. Now people from around the world can visit and I can visit theirs as well. This is just the most amazing thing to me, and everyone is just so nice and helpful. I have enjoyed it so much and will enjoy it long into the future. Thanks for all your help Pam, and of course, visiting my garden and letting me visit yours.
It’s amazing to me too, Bob. I’m glad you’ve joined the community of garden bloggers. —Pam
Your post made me wonder about the reason behind the many bloggers in Austin. Are people generally interested in gardening? Does the city have plenty of nice parks and flowerbeds? Or have you influenced people to become bloggers?
/Katarina
The Austin garden bloggers have several theories, Katarina. Austin has an educated, computer-literate population, which is part of it. Our warm, semi-tropical climate allows us to garden year round, which may entice more people to garden or at least to blog about it. And two pioneer garden bloggers—MSS of Zanthan Gardens and Tom of Soul of the Garden—live here. They inspired me to start my blog, and I’m sure they’ve inspired others. Once a few more people joined in, it just snowballed. —Pam
This is kind of global phenomenon – I think somebody should try to find explanation. Maybe extraordinary GeoRadiation?
15% is massive, but from the beginning of my blogging experience, which is 9 months already, I know that Austin is garden blogging world capital. There is no borders for gardeners bloggers 🙂
Maybe the number of garden bloggers in Poland will also raise soon. I took a humble attempt to share my knowledge and experience on that and prepared free of charge online course including video tutorials in Polish how to make a blog, explaining all pros etc. So maybe our community will grow soon 🙂 I see already newcomers 🙂
Greetings,
Ewa
Your video tutorials are a great idea, Ewa. I’m sure with your example you’ll soon have lots of company. —Pam
And I have to thank the Austin garden bloggers, once again, for not just reading Austin garden blogs, but for reading and commenting on garden blogs from throughout the world and being so welcoming to other garden bloggers. Otherwise, the spring fling might just have been a local meeting of local bloggers and not the Big Event that it was for garden bloggers from everywhere. Sure, it would have been fun for all of you in Austin, but I and others wouldn’t have been there and we would have missed out!
Aw, thanks, Carol. I’m sure I speak on behalf of the other Austin garden bloggers at the Spring Fling that we wouldn’t have missed meeting the out-of-towners for the world. —Pam
Everything is bigger in Texas. 🙂
So they say. 🙂 —Pam
Garden blogging finally fulfilled my hopes for it. I now get to kvetch with gardeners who share the same growing conditions, people with a real understanding of what it’s like to garden here, something I felt was lacking in most of the garden books and magazines I read. Even better, I get to learn how the real down and dirty for dealing with Austin’s extreme conditions from people who are far more successful or creative than I. And then there’s all those wonderful passalong plants. In fact, there’s hardly a thing growing in my garden now that hasn’t come from you, or Annie (the Transplantable Rose), or Diana, or someone I’ve met through garden blogging.
And the rest of the world seems to be catching on.
Well, you certainly started something here in Austin, MSS. You and Tom Spencer were my earliest inspirations for garden blogging. The experience has turned out to be much greater than I’d anticipated. —Pam
Hi Pam, I love this post! I started reading blogs late last year, and had no idea there was a thriving garden-blogging community. I signed up for blogger so I could post comments on a relative’s non-gardening blog without a hassle. In the process of signing up for blogger, they direct you to a page to create your own blog. I thought, what the heck, why not? Hmmm. . . what kind of blog should I have? I decided on a blog about my lifelong gardening passion.
Austin garden bloggers were among the first to greet me and comment on my blog. Early on I found Dig in Dirt, then was referred to Blotanical, and was amazed at the seemingly endless number of garden blogs. I found lots of them in the Chicago area (my home town,) and in neighboring Indiana. Austin leads the nation in blogging, and at least in the garden-blogging world, Chicago might be performing its perennial role as Second City. It seems appropriate that Austin would host the first (annual?) fling, and Chicago will host the second!
Thank you Austin, Chicago, and all garden bloggers continuing to inspire and nourish this warm, eclectic, rapidly-growing international community of fascinating, funny, talented, knowledgeable, passionate, gifted gardeners.
Well said, Linda. And by the way, I am SO ready to Fling in Chicago next time and meet all the fantastic Windy City garden bloggers. Rock on, Chicago! —Pam
It is that old saying you know….Everything is Bigger in Texas(-: Even Blogs!!!!
CA should be a big one too you would think. But, maybe everyone is to busy working in their gardens to sit down and write about them???? LOL I wonder what the rest of Texas is doing?
Perhaps you’re right, Cindee—that glorious California weather is keeping all the would-be bloggers from going inside to the computer. 😉 Well, there are quite a few garden bloggers in California, of course, but maybe they’re scattered across the state instead of being concentrated in one area?
As for the rest of Texas, I know of a few bloggers in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, as well as in smaller towns. But there isn’t the same concentration as in Austin, for whatever reason. —Pam
So true. It seems that every second blog that I click on in my daily reader originates in Austin – not just the garden blogs but others within my range of interests as well. Maybe it’s something in the water or the air there. Maybe I should move to Austin…
You would fit right in, Dorothy. But I do love hearing about gardens in other parts of Texas too. Our state is so large that Texans’ gardening experiences and plant choices can be intriguingly different. —Pam
You guys are amazing. I thank God for all the Austin blogs. Now, if we can get Him to do something about the heat.~~Dee
You said it, Dee. But I know you got a break from the heat today because it was very cool when we left Tulsa. —Pam
That is wonderful! I figured that was the case, seeing as I see so many Austin bloggers about the internet! I wish I could find more around here in East Texas, just for the heck of it. I’ve found some in Dallas that I communicate with, so that may be as close as I’m going to get. I’m happy for you guys. Austin has always been so progressive!
Brenda
Hang in there, Brenda. You may inspire other East Texas gardeners to start blogging, just as MSS and Tom Spencer did here in Austin a few years ago. Perhaps it’ll take a little while, but these things tend to snowball. Meanwhile, I’m always glad to read about your pineywoods garden. —Pam
That first in-person meeting back in July 2006 consisted of four Austin garden bloggers in one room, and it sure had an effect on me as a participant, Pam. In November 2006 six of us met, and we were eight by April 2007.
I’m inclined to believe in the ‘critical mass’ theory – once a few garden bloggers from our area started having public conversations about the alternating joy and despair of trying to grow things here, other Austin people realized they had something important to contribute to those conversations and it was easy to join in.
Did you know that the Conservancy Tour takes place on October 4th year? That’s not only the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, but also the birthday of a rather wonderful Austin person. Would we be too exhausted from looking at gardens to dine and dish together afterward?
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
“Critical mass,” snowballing, whatever you call it—I agree that it played a roll in the number of Austin garden bloggers. Isn’t it amazing how much the local community has grown and changed since that first, uncertain get-together?
As for the Garden Conservancy tour, why yes, I am aware of the date and the significance therein. I would be honored to share that day with you in some fashion. I’ll send you an email. —Pam
I recently read a study that there are two types of blog-readers…those who read for research using the blog like a quick look-up for solid information. The other type is purely impulse interest. They scan the words and pictures for something interesting…eye candy. I think the most popular blogs do both…which yours achieves…you have the huge resource menu on the right and your photos and tour-guide text can be scanned easily. Interesting ….so why is Austin so high on the per capita blog scale? Are the Austin blogs oriented to both research and impulse candy? Again…why Austin?
Why does Austin have so many bloggers and blog readers? I think it’s due to a young, well-educated, computer-literate population. Why are there so many garden bloggers in Austin? That’s another question, and I speculated about it in an earlier comment. I don’t think we can extrapolate that Austin garden blogs are better read than blogs from other places. But the study you cite about the two types of blog readers does make sense, and it seems sensible, as a blogger, to try to appeal to both types of readers if you want more of them. Of course, another way we bloggers attract readers is to participate in the social aspects of blogging : commenting on other blogs, responding to comments on our own blog, joining blog directories, etc. —Pam
Wow! How cool! I’ve learned so much from Austin bloggers. Then through them, I’ve learned from other bloggers from all over the place. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in such a great community!
Me too, Iris! What a fun trip this has been, eh? —Pam
And thanks for helping us get to know each other beyond our blogs, Pam. I love that I know so many faces to go with the blogs.
The real-world get-togethers have been a pleasure for me too. They’ve cemented friendships that began online. —Pam
I wanted to drop a plug for a new blog-directory site. It’s called Alltop.com and is the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki. Any topic you can think of (All Topics, get it) is represented there, then leads you to dozens of blogs on that topic.
How lucky you all are to have so many other garden bloggers to be inspired by & to share & commiserate with. I wish there were more Chicagoland bloggers, & we’re getting more all the time, but I doubt we will ever have as many as Austin. Must be something in the water.
Hang on, MMD. You may find that the Chicago Fling attracts a number of new garden bloggers. That happened here in Austin. —Pam
Pam, I have a few hypotheses about Austin’s blogging fame. I think that we have a uniquely challenging gardening climate; as MSS mentions in her posts, some years are wet, some years are dry and different plants grow or die in each. We can’t predict what to plant or protect from year to year, and the limestone alkaline soil doesn’t help. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from reading other local blogs, and it makes me more adventurous with some of my garden choices. Secondly, in the summer heat, we can’t actually garden, so it makes sense to write about the garden. And commiserate about the lack of rain, yet again. And lastly, you are giving much deserved credit to Tom and MSS, however, your blog is a strong motivator for me to keep my blog up to date, and I imagine it motivates others as well. You make me feel welcome and invited, novice that I am. So acknowledge your own role in the proliferation of garden bloggers!
Robin
Thanks, Robin. I remember how eager and excited I felt when I started blogging and MSS and Tom left me encouraging comments. I’m just trying to pay it forward. Seeing our community grow makes me happy, and I’m glad you feel welcome! —Pam
Well, I do have to say that you, Annie, and MSS were definitely a factor in me starting my own blog (and you three certainly saved me a lot of trial and error in my own garden). If I hadn’t had fellow Austinites to share and kvetch with, I doubt I would have bothered blogging, and would have probably been content to lurk on various garden blogs reading and not commenting. You guys can’t underestimate how welcome you make your readers feel, and I think we feel compelled to share in return. It’s the garden blog equivalent of pass-along plants! 😀
Well, thanks, Lori! Your analogy is sweet. I’m glad you’re blogging too, and I always enjoy your thoughtful and often wry comments. —Pam
I have to tell you that I stumbled across your blog awhile back and it among others inspired me to start my own. What a neat way to share with others what goes on in each gardener’s “world”! I check back pretty much weekly, but today is the first day I have ventured into the commenting section.
Yea for your comment, Karla! Of course, one doesn’t have to be a fellow blogger to leave a comment, but I’m glad to know that you’re blogging about gardening in Austin too. I look forward to reading your contributions. —Pam