Dig up gardening advice on the web
Get helpful tips and hints for creating a fantastic garden
By Cheryl Embrett
Help, how do I keep my pansies from looking scruffy? What’s that tall, fuzzy-leaved plant growing in my garden with saucer-sized blooms? Can anyone help me find a gladiolus named Janice?
These are just a few of the questions that Susan Johnston from Oakville, Ont., has helped answer during her years as the librarian for ICanGarden’s online forum. “Because I spend a lot of time looking for information for my own garden, I’ve got a fairly good idea of where to go and how to find good new sources,” she says. “Gardeners love to talk about gardening and share their experience.”
Bonding over a common interest
Johnston says you quickly start to recognize regular participants on the forums and get a sense of their interests and expertise. “There’s one guy, Ed, who’s a regular participant who clearly has lots of experience,” she says. “It turns out he’s in his 90s! I suspect the forum is a way for him to stay young and pass on knowledge.”
Given their ability to bring together gardeners of every age and level of experience, it’s not surprising that online gardening communities are so popular — ICanGarden draws 4,000 visitors a day on average.
Helping enthusiasts, new and knowledgeable
“There are a lot of new gardeners out there and the Internet is a great research tool for them,” says Master Gardener Lorraine Flanigan, a gardening writer and online editor for Canadian Gardening. “It’s there when people want it to be . . . they don’t have to line up at a nursery at the height of gardening season to get the information they want.”
“The forums allow for a fair degree of anonymity, so people can ask ‘dumb’ questions that they might be shy about asking an expert gardener neighbour,” explains Johnston. New gardener Tena Wheeler from Grand Rapids, Mich., went to the ICanGarden forum looking for information about some of the plants in her backyard and got hooked.
“As I tried to grow a castor bean plant, the seed actually turned out to be a cow parsley weed,” she says. “If it weren’t for the forum, I never would have known I was harbouring a giant weed — and it did stink. Phew!”
Digging into worthy sites
Whether you’re looking for gardening information and advice or just want to chat with fellow green thumbs, there’s sure to be an online gardening community that’s right for you.
ICanGarden
This is one of the first Canadian gardening web sites and it’s certainly the most comprehensive. “It’s always on my top 10 list,” says Flanigan. It features thousands of articles from more than 150 reputable gardening writers and has information and links to hundreds of gardening clubs, events and suppliers around the world.
Canadian Gardening
This companion site to Canadian Gardening magazine has a popular forum called Garden Talk. The GARDENet section of links allows you to search through hundreds of gardening sites, organized by category, to find information on almost any gardening topic imaginable.
The Garden Watchdog
Vancouver gardener Anne Garber always checks out suppliers before ordering seeds or plants online. “You’re only as good as the reputation you get out there,” says Garber, managing director of a western Canada regional portal called evalu8.org. “If you’re ripping people off, the word gets out very quickly.” The Garden Watchdog — part of larger gardening site Dave’s Garden — helps sound the alarm. It rates more than 5,000 mail order plant, seed and bulb companies, including close to 400 Canadian companies, and provides comments on service and quality of product.
Explore Cornell — Home Gardening
For reliability, you can’t beat university or government agricultural/horticultural sites such as the Cornell University site in the United States, says Beckie Fox, editor of Garden Making and the author of The Potted Garden (Pearson Education Canada, 2002). An extensive database of gardening how-to information is regularly updated by horticulture experts. Flanigan, another fan of the site, says that Turf Guy, Dr. Frank Rossi, offers one of the best lawn care calendars she’s seen.
GardenGuides
Over 10 years old, this site has an extensive library of growing guides for flowers, vegetables and herbs, and an in-depth Tips and Techniques page. There are also active forums and a huge archive of gardening articles.
Toronto Botanical Garden
This local gardening site in Ontario can plug you into all the latest and greatest gardening events in your community. It lists tours of both public and private Toronto and surrounding area gardens, as well as new gardening lectures, workshops and even plant sales happening at the centre.
