A Few of My Favorite Blogs

I HAVEN'T DONE ENOUGH -- couldn't possibly do enough -- to thank the fellow bloggers who have made blogging such an enjoyable experience during the past year. Here are a few of my favorites, classified (roughly) according to the types of topics they usually write about:

Conventional gardening

I confess that I don't often read blogs about gardening as it's usually practiced. However, a few such blogs are such standouts that they attract my attention even when I'm trying to focus on blogs that are supposed to be closer to my own interests.

One such blog is Bloomingwriter, by my friend Jodi DeLong. Jodi is a fine writer and photographer, and so passionate about her topic that she can get you carried away with the glories of a new plant even when you're weakly protesting (as I often do), "but ... it ... isn't ... naaaaaa .... tiiiiiiive."

Garden Rant, which has a slightly subversive attitude toward gardening (e.g. "Bored with perfect magazine gardens"), belongs to several garden writers--one of whom, Susan Harris, frequently writes about the issues that interest me: sustainable gardening, wildlife-friendly gardening, and native-plant gardening.

Nature watching

This Week At Hilton Pond is a naturalist's account of his observations at the Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History in York, SC. The weekly reports typically tackle a specific topic (a recent one was all about saw-whet owls); they are information-filled and always include wonderful photographs.

In Pines Above Snow, Julie Dunlop makes superb recommendations of books about nature. I love her intelligent, thoughtful way of writing about two of my favorite topics.

In Bootstrap Analysis, "Nuthatch" writes about birds and other wildlife, books, and does occasional reviews of scientific literature on topics of interest to wildlife-friendly gardeners.

Wildlife

Written by several people, 10,000 Birds seems to be emerging as the pre-eminent blog for bird lovers and bird watchers. The volume of posts can be overwhelming, and if you're not a bird watcher you probably won't be interested in many of them. But quite frequently one of the authors will devote an entire post to a single topic that is of interest to wildlife-friendly gardeners (an example was a recent post on milkweeds).

Keri Dearborn's AnimalBytes gives delightful, fact-filled introductions to garden wildlife, especially invertebrates. Keri is a writer, poet, and urban naturalist who lives in the Los Angeles area.

Bug Girl's Blog is by an entomology PhD who is also a frequent guest blogger at Skepchick.

Wildlife-friendly gardening

In Suburban Wildlife Garden, Dawn, a bookseller in Austin, Texas, relates her efforts to create a wildlife-friendly garden. Dawn has assembled a particularly nice set of links.

Hope Kuniholm has described her habitat garden at her website. This isn't precisely a blog, but I include it because it's a great example of an attractive habitat garden in a relatively small space. Hope gardens in New York State.

Frogpond is about Australian gardener Jo's you-know-what. I love the photos and hope she will keep updating it.

Gloria, a Chicago-area gardener, is developing an excellent blog about her wildlife-friendly garden, Pollinators Welcome. I particularly like how fact-filled many of her posts are. For instance, a recent post is all about leaf-cutter bees.

Native-plant gardening

See Native Plant Girl for "news and resources for Toronto [and other] native plant geeks, gardeners and stewards." With tons of great links.