Happy birthday, blog! ... and why am I blogging, anyway?

Actually, I missed my blog's birthday by a week.  Oh well, this is in keeping with my blogging patterns anyway - I have way more ideas about things I want to post than I have time to write about them. 

Over the last year I have several times re-evaluated why I am blogging.  My original idea was to build up a website with lots of content that would be helpful for people who want to have low-maintenance, environmentally friendly and/or kid-friendly gardens in zone 3.  But quickly I realized that I do not have the time for such an ambitious venture.  I down-sized my goals to mostly posting about what I am doing in my own garden, but writing about it in such a way that I might offer a few useful tips or inspirations to anyone who might be reading.  This is much more do-able and fun.

The other reason I started the blog was to drum up business for my new garden-coaching business.  Almost immediately after starting this site, I was contacted by several people looking for advice.  Wow, I thought!  All you have to do is start up a website, call yourself an expert in something, and people start calling!  Amazing!  But seriously, since I don't have any formal training and all my gardening knowledge is from either experience or reading books & magazines, I needed to have something to show people to prove I know what I'm talking about.

I haven't decided how much garden coaching I'll take on this year - it is a lower priority for me than my family and my own gardening time.  I do it purely for fun (and a little extra cash to fund my gardening projects doesn't hurt).  But now I am addicted to blogging and have found this a very useful way to keep track of what is happening in my own garden.  The occasional comments from readers who have also found my blog useful helps keep me going.

So.  Happy birthday blog!  And here's to another gardening/blogging season starting soon!

Comments

[Tania]

I've just enjoyed reading about 20 of your posts. I read one and then got addicted because you are a good writer and you drew me in. I am also a Calgarian and so I felt I could really learn relevant stuff from reading your blog.

I came searching for info on the lifespan of columnar aspens and I still have not found it anywhere online. My mother in law said that they live about 15 years but I didn't believe her and so I started searching. One website says that the faster the tree grows, the shorter its lifespan.

I have a columnar aspen in my yard, probably about 12 years old. I really like the tree, but almost every spring it gets little worms that cocoon in rolled-up leaves and then eat the leaves. I try to pick off the leaves that are rolled up. It's getting so tall that now I can't reach most of the leaves. No leaves yet...

[Janice Miller-Young]

Hi Tania,
Thanks for the feedback! 
The lifespan of columnar aspens is generally defined as short which usually means max 50 years for a tree. 
I notice that the columnars leaf out a little bit later - there are lots of columnar aspens in my neighbourhood which are only leafing out now while the regular poplars started last week.
Hope that helps,
Cheers,
Janice