Showing a bit of Versatility

Farmer's Market Dahlias from this past summer.

I have been honoured thrice over with a Versatile Blogger Award. Many thanks to the thoughtful blogging friends who have given me with this award.

I believe that as the recipient of this award, I must reveal 7 random things about myself. I have decided to stretch this mandate just a bit: I am going to divulge 7 random things about this blog and in a roundabout way, tell you just a little bit more about myself. So here we go:

1. With the exception of one guest post, all the content on this blog is original. That's right, every spelling mistake, every grammatical error, every instance of word repetition is all my own doing. No one else can be held accountable.

Recently, I have been approached by several parties offering their services in creating fresh "content". I never ever think of any of my posts as "content". This blog is more personal than that.

Farmer's Market Dahlias from this past summer.

2. Except where indicated, all the pictures are my own. Not everyone is a photographer. I get that. Sometimes you need to use an image to illustrate a subject you are describing in words and I think that is fine. I've done it, but always make a point of crediting the source and photographer.

I do have a pet peeve about blogs that show nothing but magazine photographs, and present them without any credits, as if they were original images. Some of the interior design blogs are notorious for this.

I would much rather read a post with a well-intentioned, soft focus picture that has been taken by an amateur, than a post with a professional shot appropriated from a magazine.

One of my peonies and some lilacs.

3. It takes time to be original. I wish that I could post more often and more regularly. It takes hours and hours of my time to do the photography for this blog.

I also have to add that taking the pictures is not work, it is pure pleasure.


4. I am not a gardening professional or even a master gardener. If I could go back and do it all again, I would probably be a landscape designer. (I may yet make the transition. Becoming a master gardener is also of great interest.) As a non-professional, I can only humbly offer my knowledge as an experienced amateur gardener.


 5. This is not a money making enterprise. My meddling son, greatly concerned about the amount of time I was spending working on this blog without remuneration, pressured me to add Google AdSense. To shut him up, I relented, but banished the ads to the bottom of the website.

I think I made a big $8 in the first month or so. (I hate to think about the hourly wage I received for putting that month's blog posts together.)

When this morning, I checked on the total amount earned, so I could write about it accurately, I noticed my AdSense account had been suspended because of some unknown violation. Gosh, I guess I never  see those 8 bucks now! Oh well!

Mixed flowers from my garden.

6. I am willing to get personal. Perhaps I am foolish, and should guard my privacy more carefully, but I have made this blog a personal account of my garden.

Even evil Goutweed can put on a pretty face.

7. Don't imagine for a minute that my garden is anything near to perfect just because I take pretty pictures. One of the flower beds has been completely taken over with goutweed.

Japanese knotweed continues to send up fresh shoots at the back of the yard, despite all attempts to eradicate it.

There is a temporary, ugly-as-hell shed that my husband uses as a workshop opposite the main flower border in the back garden.

... and I could go on.

I make lots of mistakes too. I always plant perennials too closely for one. Even after years of practice, gardening is still very much a learning experience.

Siberian Iris from early summer in the garden.

Finally, I want to say thanks again to the bloggers who have given me the Versatile Blogger Award.

I know the rules state that I must now pass on the award, but I think instead I will highlight the bloggers who have given me this award. They are:

Tammy a science teacher and gardener whose blog Casa Mariposa always makes me laugh. You can always count on her blog posts to be written with great wit and creativity.

Patty a fellow Canadian, who manages two garden blogs: Garden Pomona about her own garden and Women in the Garden that highlights the contributions made by women throughout the long history of gardening.

Life is Just a Garden is a blog that I am just getting to know. I notice that from her Versatile Blogger Award post, that we not only share a love of gardening, but dogs and ice cream as well (chocolate for me please!).