Bill at Prairie Point just posted this blog meme, which I read with interest. Why do we blog? Do we share our blogging hobby with family and friends? How has blogging changed us? Reading Bill’s answers made me thoughtful about my own reasons for blogging, so I thought I’d join in. I hope readers of Digging will do so too.

Are you satisfied with your blog’s content and look?

Regarding the look, I’m pretty satisfied. I’m not a tech person, so my husband, who is, helped me set up this blog. We used a WordPress template, but I wanted a unique look, so I changed the colors and fonts and individualized it as much as I could.

Bill wrote, “I think most of my audience uses RSS readers, and they don’t even see the design.” I guess I’ve been naive about RSS readers. I always assume that readers see my actual blog, not just an RSS feed. While I’m flattered if people want to read Digging often enough to subscribe to an RSS feed, I do hope they’ll visit my site now and then to see it the way I published it.

Regarding content, I’m happy with my photographs, and I get a lot of nice comments about them. But I have text envy of several other bloggers (Zanthan, Transplantable Rose, Sign of the Shovel, to name a few). While I spend way more time than I should on blogging (just ask my husband, who is always saying, “Is Pam blogging AGAIN?”), cropping my photos and trying to get a few decent sentences typed, I suspect more time would yield better results. Alas, there just aren’t enough hours in the day for family, work, and blogging. And, oh yeah, gardening, the reason I started blogging in the first place.

Does your family know about your blog? Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog, or do you consider it a private thing?

I’ll answer these two questions together. I unashamedly told everyone I knew about my blog when I got it off the ground. My family and friends dutifully visited and sent me many kind comments.

I’d conceived of my blog as a replacement for my paper garden journal, a showcase for my garden photos, and a way to advertise my business of garden design. I even put my blog address on my business cards. But as my blog evolved from a straightforward journal into a communication with other garden bloggers, a search for kindred spirits, and a self-consciousness about my prose and my topics (I began posting frequently, worried that readers would forget about me; visiting other blogs and commenting to maintain this newfound sense of community; working longer on my posts to improve them, conscious as I now was of all the great blogging out there), I noticed that my enthusiasm for blogging was all out of proportion to the reaction of others when I told them about it.

When I had posted on something that I thought a family member would be interested in, I’d ask a few days later, “Did you read on my blog about [whatever it was]?” Almost always, the answer was no. I realized that while family were supportive of my blog, and a couple of them were even actively interested, most had better things to do than keep up with the minutia of my gardening experiences. Fair enough. Now I look to the blogging community to fill the need for readership that I believe every blogger craves.

I still find myself trying to explain to my husband what blogging means to me. Just now, he came in and asked what I was doing. I explained what a meme is (he raised his eyebrows incredulously) and why I’m doing this one, but he still doesn’t get why I enjoy blogging. I would say that it’s because he doesn’t have a strong interest that would grab his attention, the way gardening does mine. But that’s not it. He is a serious runner and triathlete, he keeps a computerized journal about his training and races, and I know he could easily find a like-minded community to blog with. But he’s just not interested in sharing that way. And that’s OK too. Blogging isn’t for everyone.

Also, as my blogging became more personal and opinionated, and less like a daily log, I began to feel constrained in what I could say, knowing that potential clients might be reading (remember, I’d put my blog address on my business cards). To remedy this, I set up a separate site for my garden-design business and changed the address on my cards. I link to that site from here so that people can find my business information if they visit Digging and like what they see (I’ve gotten many clients that way), but I prefer that my business site and my blog be kept separate.

Has blogging brought about positive changes for you?

You bet. It has connected me with local garden bloggers, whom I now count as friends. Many times I’ve learned things about plants and design from other bloggers. I think I take better photos than I used to because I know that others will be looking. I’ve found a sense of community that means a lot to me, even though it’s mostly anonymous or even spread around the world.

Do you only read blogs of those who comment on your blog, or do you also like to find new blogs?

First of all, I only read garden blogs. I just don’t have time to expand my blogging beyond that narrow range. I actively search for garden blogs in Austin and in Texas. And I do read the blogs of those who comment on mine. But I visit many other blogs that are just mentioned in passing on someone else’s blog. I may not list them in my sidebar, but I may still visit frequently to see what they’re up to.

What are your thoughts on commenting? Is it important to you that people leave comments?

YES! Comments are very important to me. My blog is not just a personal journal anymore. It’s my participation in a community, and I feel isolated from that community if I don’t receive comments.

Realizing that other bloggers must feel the same, I now make an effort to comment on the posts of those I read regularly. Whereas in my early blogging days, I might have commented only if something really struck home with me, now I comment as often as possible so that those bloggers will know I read them and was interested.

Does your visitor counter matter to you?

More than it should. It’s probably like looking at the scale when you’re dieting—you shouldn’t do it more than once a week. But I find myself checking it every day and feeling disappointed if the count is down (the opposite of dieting in that regard!).

Do you try to imagine what fellow bloggers look like?

No, I don’t. I rarely pay attention to the tiny, personal photos people put on their blogs, and I don’t include a photo of myself on mine. It’s just not relevant. Plus there’s always a safety issue in my mind about having personal photos on my blog.

Do you think there is a benefit to blogging?

Sure—fun! I do it because I love it. It gives me personal satisfaction, community, and even occasional praise.

Does criticism of your blog annoy you?

I haven’t had any yet. It would depend on what it was, I guess. I wouldn’t want someone to come barreling in with criticisms of my garden or my blog, but gentle suggestions or questions would probably be fine. Maybe. 😉

Are there any types of blogs you avoid?

Yes. As I said earlier, I only visit garden blogs. Among those, I don’t visit blogs that sound angry, that try too hard to instruct me on how to garden, or that go off-topic all the time. Of course, I go off-topic myself now and then—everyone does, and it can be nice to get fresh (non-gardening) insights about your favorite bloggers. But generally I like garden blogs with plenty of photos, lots of personal insight, local flavor, and a fearlessness about revealing what they’re doing wrong (or right).

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By the way, Bill’s meme led me to two unfamiliar blogs I enjoyed visiting: Roundrock Journal and Somewhere in NJ.