The Wonderful World of Garden Blogs

Once upon a time, Town Mouse and Country Mouse resolved to collect their thoughts, pictures, and stories on a blog for all to see. The also thought they'd enjoyed reading their blog in their old age. They started with a few posts, and then a few more, and found, to their delight, that there were others out there, collecting and posting the thoughts, pictures, and stories of their own gardens. Now, Town Mouse and Country Mouse weren't born yesterday. They had known that there were other blogs out there, but they hadn't really looked very hard and hadn't known how many there were, and how amazing some of those pictures and stories turned out to be (in fact, Town Mouse is so embarrassed about her own rather mediocre photos she's getting shy about posting photos and asking for a new camera with zoom for her birthday).
So where does Town Mouse like to visit? For starters, she likes to go to her plot at Blotanical. Blotanical allows all users to find garden blogs using maps, blog names, or topics. Blotanical also has lists of most visited and most favorited blogs, as well as picks. Now, those favorites and picks come from blotanists, users who sign up for blotanical (it's free). If you're signed up, it gets a little weird. You get a plot, on which your favorites and messages are displayed for easy access. But you can only pick favorites and leave messages when you're on someone else's plot . Regardless, it's great fun. Town Mouse now swing by pretty regularly at a plot in Portugal about the Portuguese flora, a German blog that's partly political and partly about gardening (right now, they all have the flu), and just discovered the blog of a New Zealander whose passion is Pacific Coast Iris. Who knew?
Closer to home, there's From Seed to Table, blogging about her garden and posting tasty recipes, Daffodil Planter (in the foothills, an exceedingly entertaining blog), Garden Chick in SF (great advice from a professional), and GardenNatives (common sense and great pictures).
Then, finally, there are the godesses and gods of the blogosphere with stunning photos, thoughtful texts, and thought provoking posts, such as Jan of ThanksFor2Day, Carol of May Dreams Gardens who started the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, the gang at Gardenrant and the gang at Gardening Gone Wild, and Philip of Philips Garden (also closer to home). And....
And after an hour, no, two hours, no, four hours of traveling the blogosphere, Town Mouse said to Country Mouse: Isn't it amazing, here I've been enjoying so many beautiful, far away places, but still haven't finished the pruning and weeding. Not to mention snapping a few photos for the next post. And she looked outside, saw that the rain had cleared, and picked up her gloves and her pruners.
(Actually, Town Mouse, believing posts without pictures are not acceptable, first searched for and resized to images, from last year's collection. So, here is Styrax officinalis -- California snow drop bush -- and, a small miracle, a Trillium. They should bloom again in two months. )