In the Company of Garden Bloggers

In the company of garden bloggers.

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me --
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee --

Emily Dickinson

Gregarious. I always liked that word. I would rather be among a large crowd of merrymakers than alone. Perhaps that is why social networking feels so natural to me. I know there is plenty to worry about when we share so much of ourselves with so many, who are merely casual acquaintances, or even for that matter, strangers. 

But when we thrust out our hand and introduce ourselves, confident that we are among good company, we make friends of strangers and so this week, I made a lot of new friends when Garden Putter joined a host of other garden bloggers on the new website, BestGardenBlogs.com.

Take for example, my Indonesian friend Kaima Towira, who is an inspired craftsman of bonsai at TohBonsai.com. This is a gallery of his work. My new friend would be horrified at the bonsai work I do in my garden, where one year I planted a Japanese maple in a spot where it could never possibly fit in its mature form. So every spring, I whack its poor top off, while apologizing profusely for the assault. Kaima has been practicing his self-taught art form for two decades and but for blogging and internet networks, I doubt we would ever cross paths.

This morning, I am enjoying reading from a new friend's blog, This Grandmother's Garden. She too has a beautiful rose clinging hopefully to summer in her garden. The difference is, her garden is in the mountains of Utah. The hardy Utah rose hung in through the chill of an icy snowfall, truly The Last Rose of Summer.

And here's Brooke Berry Kroeger of southern Indiana, whose November 7th photograph of the sunrise over her butterfly garden made me want to jump Mary Poppins-style right into the scenery. Brooke's blog is Creative Country Mom's Web Garden and she's my new friend, too. And I've always been inspired, if not a little intimidated by the talent of my local garden blogger friends Susan Harris, Elizabeth Licata, Michelle Owens and Amy Stewart, who rant and rave at Garden Rant. But they're my new friends, too.

So, though we've may have never met in person, I thrust out my hand and my heart to all my gardener friends--Susan Morrison, Jan Huston Doble, Charlotte "Daffodil Planter" Germaine, Anna "FlowerGarden Girl" Looper, Grace Peterson, Sharon Lovejoy, Carolyn Choi, Susan Tomlinson, Eddie Ceyssens, Tyra Hallsenius Lindhe, Kathy Jentz and Paul Nuhn. May there come many more. The Putterer