I was one of several garden bloggers inteviewed by Doug Green for an article on garden blogging for The American Gardener, which is published by the American Horticultural Society. I thought the article was a good overview for beginners on the topic, not going too deeply into the technology behind blogging but maintaining accuracy.
Really, you shouldn’t need to know any more about how blogging works in order to blog, than you need to know how a car works in order to drive it. I don’t think we’re quite there yet, though I’m trying to do my part.
Gardeners appear to be slower than other groups to investigate and adopt new online technologies. Stu’s tutorial on online tools for gardeners sparked some dialogue between Debra Roby, Amy Stewart, and their various commenters.
Getting Older Gardeners to Blog
I’d especially like to know what would make blogging more appealing to older gardeners. (Older meaning old enough to be my parent, and I’m almost fifty.) They have a wealth of experience to share, but are the least likely to share it online. Looking at my own parents, I can see many reasons why.
- Limited time. We all struggle to find time to garden. Then we struggle to find time to write about it. For many of our elders, it takes more time to do everything: dressing, eating, walking–you name it. And then they have medical conditions that take up additional time to manage, as well as possibly slowing them down. And with mortality staring them in the face, time becomes a precious resource, not to be squandered. So before anything else, an older gardener has to be convinced that using the computer is worth her time.
- Physical obstacles. Let’s face it, it takes a certain amount of geekiness to figure out how to change the text size for your monitor or browser, and many novice computer users don’t even know it can be changed. Joint pain can make using a keyboard, mouse, or trackball uncomfortable or even painful, and your local discount store isn’t likely to carry specialized alternatives. And if such devices can be found, they are often more expensive than standard replacements. Faced with these kinds of hurdles, is it any wonder many older people decide it’s not worth it?
- Lack of familiarity. I have often found information for my mother that she couldn’t find for herself. Usually it hadn’t even occurred to her to search online (though this is getting less frequent). If it doesn’t even occur to you that you could keep an online gardening journal or ask questions of other gardeners, you’re not going to try.
I got started thinking about this when I realized that Eleanor Perenyi, author of Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden
More information
- Keys-U-See Large Print Keyboard
Has larger keys and larger letters on the keys
- EnableMart sells all sorts of assistive technology devices: keyboards, monitor magnifiers, mouse alternatives and the like.
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60 responses so far ↓
1 Linda MacPhee-Cobb // Nov 20, 2007 at 4:48 pm
That article is just wrong. I blog and I’m older. There are a several garden blogs I link to in the Houston area by older gardeners.
I think who ever wrote that article failed to do his/her research.
2 Robin (Bumblebee) // Nov 20, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Hi Kathy,
Despite the previous comment, it is a demographic fact that older people–by that I mean people older than you and me and closer to 70–are not online in great numbers. Although I’m glad that Linda is here blogging with us, one person does not prove a trend wrong. As for older gardeners not blogging, it’s most likely a matter of statistics. Fewer people equals a smaller pool of potential gardeners willing to blog.
Perhaps the better solution to capture all that wisdom is for “younger” bloggers to interview and pass along the pearls they collect. I sure wish my grandfather were here for me to do a Q&A with. And I wish I had photos of his garden. He was a “master” before they had master gardeners.
–Robin (Bumblebee)
3 mss @ Zanthan Gardens // Nov 20, 2007 at 7:52 pm
About six years ago when I first started blogging years, I met another Austin gardener who had a garden web page. Ever the evangelist, I encouraged her to update her site and try blogging. She told me that she thought blogging was for young people. She’s in our generation, so her response surprised me. To old to blog at 50?
I don’t know if it’s an issue of age as much as an issue of experience. In my professional life I worked with computers all the time; they’re just a natural part of my life–like driving a car. But for my parents (in their 70s), using the computer is something they do only on special occasions. It’s not that they can’t do it. They just don’t see much point in it. They feel they have better things to do with their time.
Hmmm. I was just thinking which would I find harder to give up, my car or my computer. Then I remembered, I lived for two years in Japan without a car but the first thing I bought when I moved there was a computer. I couldn’t stand being without mine–and that was before the internet!
4 Ellis Hollow // Nov 20, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I attribute the slow adoption of gardeners to blogging to two things: The blogging demographic is generally (not exclusively) younger, and the gardening demographic is generally (not exclusively) older.
So if you draw a venn diagram of blogging skills and passion for gardening, the overlap is relatively small.
The only blog I visit regualarly that has what I would call a youthful voice is Kim over at a Study in Contrasts. That said, I have no real clue how old Kim is. Are there any other youthful garden bloggers out there?
The next generation of gardeners, however, will demand their gardening information via the Internet, and won’t hesitate to blog or interact with others’ blogs.
5 Martha // Nov 20, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Oh silliness! I’m 62 and have had a garden blog for 2-years.
Maybe “younger” internet readers prefer hip blogs like Garden Rant but I disagree that “older” gardeners don’t use the internet to blog, write, research and read.
Notice that most blogs are money making activities. Young bloggers sell advertising and market their work (books, speaking, articles)because they are in that stage of their careers.
Ellen P. retired from that life as did I. We dont’ want to sell advertising or whatever any more.
As a result we are quieter than writers who are in the ramping up part of their money making years.
6 Martha // Nov 20, 2007 at 9:13 pm
And, if I may add one more short comment, the author of one of your listed favorite blogs
http://iowagarden.blogspot.com/
describes himself as a 64-year old retired physician.
7 Doug Green // Nov 20, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Just for the record - I did do my research and contrary to Linda’s comment, I’m not wrong.
The reason of course is that nowhere in the article did I say that older gardeners didn’t blog.
I did describe one blogger’s finding that kindred spirits come in all age ranges.
It may be useful for folks to actually follow Kathy’s link and read the article to discover that most of the comments are based on interviews and quotes from bloggers.
The older blogger debate was started right here by Kathy. Go to it!
D
8 Carol // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I agree with Robyn that older people (in their 70’s) aren’t online in great numbers. My own mother (78) only got online a year or so ago, and then it was because she primarily wanted to read my blogs. Now she also does some email, checks her bank statement, and occasionally does some online searches, but to do much more, she isn’t all that interested.
Before anyone jumps on me, I know that one person does not define the overall attitude toward using the Internet for an entire demographic group.
I think REGARDLESS of age, to be a ’successful’ garden blogger, or any kind of blogger, you need a passion for your subject, a desire to write about it, a willingness to post consistently, and the patience to learn how to do it. All that does take time, no matter how old or young you are.
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
9 eliz // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Well, I recently did a talk for a gardening club that was mainly 60plus and none of them blogged, read blogs, or had any intention of ever blogging. They seemed skeptical when I suggested that the internet culd be source of gardening knowledge, taken judiciously.
This anecdote, which proves nothing, could be combined with the fact that we are in a geographical demo (Rust Belt) where blogs are less seldom read. That survey was recently released and shows readers of blogs in WNY in the low single digits.
10 eliz // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Jeez, I meant seldom read, not less seldom read. This–and all my other typos–is what comes of blogging too late at any age.
11 debra // Nov 21, 2007 at 2:14 am
Kathy, you obviously have struck a chord! For people of our generation (late 40s) we are in-between the baby boomers and the next generation. Or we are very YOUNG baby boomers. At any rate, you are a pioneer - and your blog inspires so many others. I’m glad you raised this issue and I look forward to reading the article PS your blog-helper site is amazing. xoxoxo deb
12 Xris (Flatbush Gardener) // Nov 21, 2007 at 7:45 am
Most younger people don’t have access to gardens. The population is increasingly urban, and apartments/condos/coops don’t afford as much in the way of gardening opportunities. Community gardens are not as common nor as close as they need to be for widespread access.
That’s not to say there isn’t interest. I’m finding a lot of interest in gardening among younger people in my neighborhood. We just need to find opportunities for them to get into the dirt.
13 Kathy Purdy // Nov 21, 2007 at 8:09 am
To Linda: I never meant to imply that the article was about older gardeners not blogging. It was a general introduction to garden blogging. It got me thinking about how gardeners as a whole are older than the general population as a whole, and thinking about what would get the oldest gardeners blogging. And, as I said, I had Eleanor Perenyi on my mind.
And I also want to point out that I defined “older ” pretty narrowly: old enough to be my parent, and I’m almost fifty. I took a look at the picture on your “About” page, and you don’t look almost 70.
14 Robin's Nesting Place // Nov 21, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I only started blogging in April of this year and the reason I hadn’t started before then was simply a lack of knowledge. I thought it would be far more complicated than it was. I thought I had to know how to design a web page or something as equally difficult and the task seemed daunting to me. I love blogging and wish I had started sooner.
I would imagine that many older people are like I was and imagine it to be complicated or they simply lack knowledge and do not know what a powerful and enjoyable communication tool it is.
My own parents do not own a computer and I couldn’t even begin to imagine them blogging about any topic.
15 Kathy Purdy // Nov 21, 2007 at 9:18 pm
To Martha and Linda: in my post itself, I never said that there weren’t any older bloggers, I just said they were less likely to blog. And Martha, as I said to Linda, I defined “old” as “old enough to be my parent,” so neither you nor Don the Iowa Gardener qualify.
But since you guys are so upset about my painting all my gardening elders with the same brush, I’m modifying the title of this post.
16 entangled // Nov 21, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I think it’s probably inertia. People who formed their habits long before personal computers were invented likely don’t see a compelling reason to use one.
That said, I really just wanted to brag about my grandfather - he’s 95 and he doesn’t blog, but he reads mine. He recently upgraded to a cable modem after using a dialup for many years, and he’s on his second or third PC.
17 Kathy Purdy // Nov 21, 2007 at 9:38 pm
All–the people I know in their 70s include two neighbors, my parents, and my in-laws. Of those, only one is a gardener, and she has turned her back on computers, after working with them as a legal secretary and enjoying playing games on one, back in the MS-Dos days. The little online stuff she does now she uses the public computer at the Senior Center to do. Another woman gets a lot of validation through her online work, as she conducts online classes in her area of expertise. So she gets a lot of respect–close to fan mail. And this is the woman who said to me over 15 years ago, “What would I ever use a computer for?”
Five of the six elders have health related problems that affect their computer use. For most of them it is vision: can’t see the monitor, the monitor gives them headaches, can’t see the letters on the keyboard. One has trouble feeling the keys, which leads to a lot of frustrating typing mistakes. Another one just can’t sit upright too long, because of heart trouble.
So while I didn’t conduct a scientific study, I did base my pondering on people I actually knew and not a stereotype I had picked up somewhere.
18 Diane M. Schuller // Nov 22, 2007 at 4:09 pm
My response would be nearly identical to what Robin (bumblebee) has said so I won’t repeat it. What an incredibly interesting and informative blog. Found you from another gardener … I’ll bookmark you immediately so I can visit often!
Diane at Sand to Glass
& Dogs Naturally
19 Matron // Nov 22, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I must admit it took me a while to come round to the idea of what blogging actually was. There are plenty of silver surfers out there, I think older bloggers will catch on. There isn’t anywhere to tell people how old you are on your blog anyway, so how does anyone know?
20 Dee/reddirtramblings // Nov 23, 2007 at 12:18 am
One thing is certain, Kathy, you’ve certainly broached a topic that folks feel strongly about. I’ll put in my two cents. I know a lot of older gardeners. I belong to three gardening societies that are mostly comprised of people 60 and older. I am 45, and I’m one of the youngest in every group. Out of these men and women I know, I can count on my fingers the number of them who actually use the computer a great deal. I can’t imagine any of them blogging. They are worried about posting comments on my blog! However, in the American Hemerocallis Society, there is an online email robin, and many of the people on it are in their 70s, so who knows? Maybe blogging is next.
21 Linda MacPhee-Cobb // Nov 23, 2007 at 1:11 pm
You are kind and I’m not pushing 70 but will be pushing 50 sooner rather than later.
Most gardeners I know are older, as are most garden bloggers. I found very few blogs on gardens by younger people.
Blogging like most computer things ( email, im, texting, websites ) are taken up by the young first. Then by older folks. Blogging is still pretty new.
22 Kathy Purdy // Nov 23, 2007 at 1:32 pm
It is quite true that you can’t tell how old a blogger is unless they choose to tell you. I find I tend to assume that any garden blogger I read is about my age, which by my own self-centric determination is the typical or normal age! I figure I must be middle-aged because I’m just about halfway to 100. My children consider that old, and my parents wish they could be that young again.
As Xris pointed out, many younger adults don’t have the land in which to garden, so while they are more likely to blog, it is less likely to be about gardening. The oldest gardeners quite possibly have given up their gardens–and their houses–because of health reasons, and those that are still gardening have those obstacles to blogging that I mentioned above.
That leaves the bulk of the garden blogging to us middle-aged folks. We’ d like to see those younger than us get into gardening and those older than us into blogging. I don’t have the answers, but I’m asking the question: how?
23 Mr. McGregor's Daughter // Nov 23, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I know a few older (70’s) passionate gardeners. They don’t have time to do a blog as they are too busy with grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other family, or with other hobbies or activities. Just considering the number of emails my mom forwards to me, I can’t imagine she has much time online once she makes it through her daily in-box!
24 Linda MacPhee-Cobb // Nov 23, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I’m not sure we need to encourage them to blog.
I think gardeners who normally keep journals and are technical blog. The others write books, give talks and use other means to pass on their gardening knowledge.
Better each to his own form of communication. If it pleases someone they are more likely to do it.
In some ways the recent blogging and web 2.0 explosion has removed a lot of diversity from the web. I know many webmasters are now looking for ways to get that diversity back, myself included.
25 Heavy Petal // Nov 24, 2007 at 1:58 pm
As a “younger” garden blogger (I’m 30) I find the opposite holds true. So few people my age are really into gardening - I’m always the youngest at any course I take or lecture I attend - and it’s the same way in the blogosphere. Hence my personal mission to convert everyone I know into a passionate gardener!
26 Martha // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Kathy - What a stimulating topic! You have to have hit a nerve to get this much input from people who would not usually post.
Glad to hear from a 30-year-old complaining about the lack of younger gardeners, too.
Maybe we all wish there were more gardeners, period.
27 jv207 // Nov 25, 2007 at 8:05 am
My resolution for this long weekend was to begin to blog. I’m in my mid-late 50’s and e-mail all the time, use a computer at home and work all the time, but had not done any blogging. So I’m starting today.
This is a whole new world and is a bit overwhelming. How will I find my way back here? Where do I go to find what I need? This exploration takes time.
Now that winter is here, I won’t be outside for the entire weekend in the garden. So I’ll try blogging and I bet I’ll be a better gardner. I’m hoping that blogging will help me at work, too. I’m hoping that blogging will inspire me to try other new things as I end my career and go towards retirement.
28 Neil Moran // Nov 25, 2007 at 9:26 am
There are certainly many reasons to blog or not to blog, just like there are many reasons to write a letter or not to a friend, back in the “old days” before blogs. People who couldn’t get out a letter probably wouldn’t blog today. However, I think the fact that garden blogs were featured in the American Gardener is reason to believe that they are gaining popularity. With the baby boomers hitting their 60’s I think you’ll see an increase in older folks blogging. As for younger people gardening? I keep hoping that more folks will pick up the itch, especially as we hear more concerns over food safety. Actually, I think there are more young people gardening than we think. These gardeners just aren’t as passionate as we are. They grow a few tomatoes and keep some hanging baskets. Or perhaps, they plant a few trees. These folks probably aren’t passionate enough about the subject to blog. But like I said, I think there is an older generation coming along that are both passionate, computer savvy and have the time to get into gardening and blogging. Okay, call me the optimist!
29 Heavy Petal // Nov 25, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Neil, I think you’re right - gardening is beginning to catch on within the younger generations. But I think it’s for different reasons than preceding generations. Younger gardeners may become interested in gardening for the food security issue you mentioned - growing locally and organically - and also as an extension of the DIY/craft movement.
30 bill // Nov 26, 2007 at 3:19 pm
It’s certainly the conventional wisdom (and likely true) that gardening is more prevalent among middle-aged or older people and computer savvy is more skewed to the younger generation. But I think something else is required than just computer savvy to make a blogger. Until I retired last year I mostly worked with geeks in their 20’s and 30’s who were wired into the internet 24-7 (including their blackberries) yet not a one of them ever admitted to being a blogger (or a gardener either for that matter). I also know a good many people in their 60’s and 70’s who are comfortable on the internet and none of them are bloggers either as far as I know. I think blogging has more to do with an interest in reading and writing, added to a familiarity with the computer as a tool and a desire or need to communicate. Most people of any age are just not comfortable with writing.
31 Carol // Nov 26, 2007 at 9:37 pm
It almost sounds like an entire generation of gardeners, with all their secrets, is going to die off and all their knowlege and experience gained will be lost. We ‘younger’ bloggers should seek them out and help them tell their story. We could teach them to blog if they are so inclined, offer to let them guest post on our blogs if they feel they just have a few stories to tell, or interview them and post about the interview. I bet we could find these older gardeners in our neighborhoods, at church and in local garden clubs. And like most gardeners, if you visit their garden, they might say they have nothing to say or write about, but if we just listen, they’ll probably say a lot.
32 bill // Nov 26, 2007 at 10:08 pm
This is no different than it has been for all of history. But I think that interviews with older gardeners would make extremely interesting blog topics.
33 Annie in Austin // Nov 28, 2007 at 11:49 am
You sure ask interesting questions, Kathy! I’ve tried to formulate a comment for this post for several days. The techological aspect sounds true as does lack of time and difficulty with computer screens, keyboards and uncomfortable chairs.
But reading this last bunch of comments makes me think Neil and Bill have found another reason - most people are simply not comfortable writing anything, let alone blogs. Those of us who feel compelled to write will do so no matter how crummy we feel! And we’ll bug our family members for tech help at all hours of the day or night to get those posts up.
I also think your target age group has a much stronger prejudice about keeping their lives private - even when the subject is gardening.
Other comments lamented the lack of younger garden writers… well the over-40 group may be dominant, but in addition to Kim~ Blackswamp Girl and Andrea~Heavy Petal, other bloggers have mentioned that they’re in their twenties or early thirties:
Katie in California is still in her twenties
http://www.gardenpunks.com/
Rosemarie in Illinois
http://rosemariegarden.blogspot.com/
Laura in Texas
http://plays-in-dirt.livejournal.com/
Genie in Iowa
http://inadvertentgardener.wordpress.com/
Mr Brown Thumb in Chicago
http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/
Colleen in Michigan [yes, the person who started the Mouse and Trowel Awards is only 30!]
http://www.inthegardenonline.com/serendipity/
Wicked Gardener in Florida
http://wickedgardener.blogspot.com/
I’m a decade older than you, Kathy, so while not old enough to be your mom, am old enough to be the parent for anyone in this group.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
34 Kathy Purdy // Nov 28, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Carol, I have been thinking along those lines: what can I personally do to help an older person who wants to blog, or at least wants to use the internet to communicate?
Annie: you astound me not only with your breadth of reading but your attention to detail, keeping track of all those bloggers and what they’re doing and how old they are. I was aware that Colleen was a “youngster” but somehow had missed that about Mr. Brown Thumb.
35 Jean Campbell // Nov 28, 2007 at 10:14 pm
A young man who came to give us an estimate on replacing the furnace took one look at our computer room and blurted, “Wow! I didn’t know OLD people had computers.” We gave the job to a middle-aged man with better manners.
I blog. I could be your mother. I have a whole list of personal blogs that I maintain: garden, grandchildren, high school reunion, ancient family photos and the profession from which I retired.
I’ve dug many gardens and scattered many seeds. Why wouldn’t I share my experiences? Why should you leap to conclusions? My eighty year old neighbors have his/hers computers.
36 Kathy Purdy // Nov 29, 2007 at 7:27 am
Hi, Jean–I’m glad you stopped by. I don’t feel I’m leaping to conclusions. I didn’t ask, “Why don’t any elders blog?” I want to know why more of them aren’t blogging. I certainly don’t assume that they are without computer access. My mother has a computer; my father has several. My dad spent his career programming computers–and so did his mother, my grandmother. Neither of my parents have a blog. (My grandmother is no longer alive.) None of the people I know that are in their seventies or older blog.
I haven’t found the statistics, but my personal experience seemed to indicate that a smaller percentage of that age group blog, compared to other age groups. I wondered why. I speculated on the reasons, based on the people I know. That was the basis of my original post.
But I want to be educated. Tell me what you know. What prompted you to start blogging? Did you teach yourself, or did someone help you get started? How many of your similarly-aged friends are also blogging?
If they’re not blogging, is it because they just don’t want to? Do they hate to write? Do they prefer their privacy?
Or are there obstacles in their way, such as the ones I mentioned in my original post, or others that you know about, that, if removed, would enable them to enjoy blogging?
I have gotten enormous pleasure from blogging. I have made many friends and enjoyed many professional opportunities that I would not have had, if I hadn’t been blogging. I have had help from relatives and complete strangers along the way. I’d like to help others who want to blog, and I’ve been trying to think about what help they might want or need.
37 bill // Nov 29, 2007 at 9:54 am
Are you familiar with Ronni Bennet’s blog http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/
The subject of elders blogging is one of her principal topics and you can find links there to lots and lots of blogs by elders.
38 Jean Campbell // Nov 29, 2007 at 10:33 am
In 1985 I wrote instructions while my brother showed me how to ‘boot up’ his office computer with a floppy disk to write a paper for a college class. We bought a computer in 1988 after a son’s girlfriend told me that her parents’ friends ordered their groceries by computer and picked up the waiting bags next day. (Kroger dropped that service soon after, but I was on my way, self-taught.) Someone gave me the code and password to access the University system and I spent Sunday afternoons surfing the net before there was internet, just university and government access: white letters on a black background. I went from there to Pr*digy, BBS sites, MIRC chats and then the Web opened up.
Maybe it’s the term ‘blog’ that stymies older users. I had to look it up: WeB-LOG. What it it had been called ‘Diary’ (PixDiry)or ‘Journal’ (PerJour) with an old-fashioned ring? Oops, been viewing too many LOLCats!
I suspect that you may miss many blogs that are personal — families exchanging photos of grandchildren and cousins. How will you know, if the sites are kept non-public? I also suspect some find sites like Google’s Page Creator preferable to learning a difficult blog site like Word Press.
I do have Medicare-aged friends who blog. I see fewer garden blogs than general blogs: recipes; daily observations including some geneaology; a florist’s daily blog that includes family reports; chronicles of an illness. We help each other. I recently helped a friend put a stat counter on her blog by typing the steps on IM chat while she followed directions.
Perhaps we senior bloggers are just not as in-your-face as the Myspace crowd and those who actively seek to get their blogs noticed. I think some prefer sites like Garden Web where the exchange of ideas are shared by all.
Since I started tracking hits on my blogs, it’s been fun to see what was Googled to find me: Rabbit Tobacco, and Good Guys Wear White Hats/Could Have Been a Cowboy topped the list until I made photos of a cropdusting plane overhead and an Ag site bot picked it up.
nj
39 Lise // Nov 29, 2007 at 5:03 pm
My experiences confirm yours, Kathy. My parents–soon to turn eighty are totally overwhelmed by email and don’t use the internet except to check college sports scores. They aren’t interested in the subject, even to see my blog, and have turned down my offers to help them get set-up with a computer. At 53, I am the most computer literate of my friends and only know one person that blogs (though she is a garden blogger). My work with the landscape construction industry has led me to believe as a whole they are slower to adopt new ideas in general–they tend to be very conservative and distrust technology. Very few young people are going into the landscape industry–for whatever reason–low wages, a culture that distrusts youth and new ideas, maybe even because it’s just plain hard work. I think the disconnect from nature is stronger in younger generations because they have become immersed in the digital world where they don’t have to navigate the sometimes uncomfortable vagaries of relationships. My experience is that older generations are more apt to have face-to-face contact–its what we are used to, while younger people are more likely to have online relationships because they have had that exposure.
40 Pat Leuchtman // Nov 30, 2007 at 10:08 am
bill,
I am new to the blogosphere (I’m 67) but not new to computers and the Internet. I think you have absolutley touched on an important point that to be a blogger you can be any age, as you can to be a gardener, of one type or another, but to be a blogger you need to want to write. As a former teacher (among other things) I know that writing is something that many people do NOT enjoy.
41 jv207 // Dec 1, 2007 at 8:29 am
I’m catching up reading all these comments — and of course what comes to mind is that younger folks, while totally tied to electronics, also have not been able to afford their own house/property yet. No yard means no garden - yet. I moved into my first house with my first marriage and there was a garden in the back yard. I was 33. I became adicted. I was amazed that I found myself wanting to learn, reading up on gardening and spending money on bulbs and plants. Now what I have to do is get that same curiosity back again and explore the web and blogging. I’m catching up. Loving it.
42 Paul // Dec 1, 2007 at 11:41 am
I have been trying to encourage more gardeners of all ages to blog with some degree of success through various posts at my blogs. Thanks for the item and let’s hope that more take us up on the “challenge” and share their wonderful gardens
43 Bare Bones Gardener // Dec 5, 2007 at 2:39 am
I have to agree up till 6 months ago I had no real idea of blogging, I certainly would never have considered writing one then, and I’m only in my mid 40’s.
Another issue again though, is the lack of ganders in this gaggle of garden bloggers.
44 Hanna // Dec 5, 2007 at 10:19 am
I think that older people don’t blog more because it is personal information and many were brought up that you just don’t go showing off or sharing things with complete strangers, which is essentially what you do on a blog.
I know even my mother, who is in her 50s, mildly disapproves of my blogging. She thinks it is just not my place to talk about personal things, even if they are as mundane as a garden.
My grandfather, who is in his 90s, is appalled at the idea of blogging. The idea of sharing personal stories with the world sounds like terriblly bad manners to him.
45 Annie in Austin // Dec 5, 2007 at 11:03 am
Females may abound in garden blogs , but I think the guys still lead when it comes to didactic websites like Doug Green, Whispering Crane Institute and a lot of the regional advice sites like Way To Grow in San Antonio.
It will take me too long to add the links here, but if Bare Bones wants to take a Gander at some of the garden blogs written by guys, he can go to my page and start at the East Coast with New Jersey bloggers Anthony at ‘Compost Bin’ and Ki at ‘Muck’n'Mire’, New York’s Xris in Flatbush, and Craig at ‘Ellis Hollow’, and Connecticut’s ‘Digital Flower Photos’. He can look in North Carolina for both Christopher at ‘Outside Clyde’ and David, at ‘Leave Me Alone, I’m Digging’. Other guys in the south are ‘Niches’ in GA, Alabama’s Phillip at ‘Dirt Therapy’, Jon at ‘A Mississippi Garden’. Back in the midwest find Nebraska’s BenjaminVogt at the ‘Deep Middle’, Don at an ‘Iowa Garden’; Illinois bloggers Chicago’s ‘Mr Brown Thumb’ and Hank the ‘Lake County Clerk’; here are three in Texas - Bill at ‘Prairie Point’, Lee at the ‘Grackle’, and Tom Spencer’s ‘Soul of the Garden’. California has Chuck at ‘Whoreticulture’ and Trey the blogging Nurseryman at the Golden Gecko, and across the ocean is the inventor of Blotanical, Australia’s Stuart at ‘Garden Tips n Ideas’.
From the compulsive listmaker Annie at the Transplantable Rose
46 Katie // Dec 5, 2007 at 11:16 pm
I saw that Annie mentioned me here…
It’s really quite interesting and funny to me that you pose the question you did. I feel the same way you do, but I think my question is a little scarier:
Why aren’t people in younger generations interested in gardening?!
I’d love to hear what more people have to say about gardening, especially anyone from any age that can pass along wisdom to other folks.
Katie at gardenpunks
47 Kathy Purdy // Dec 6, 2007 at 7:29 am
Katie–older (than me) people and blogging occurred to me first, because my best garden buddy (who happens to be old enough to be my mother) turned her back on computer stuff about the same time I was getting more into it. It makes me feel sad. Also I really could see Eleanor Perenyi blogging . . . if she wasn’t in her early nineties.
I have several children in their teens and early twenties, and most of them are interested in gardening to some degree. It wasn’t until I went to the GWA Symposium and listened to a presentation on attracting younger people to gardening that I really got a clue that my children were atypical in this regard. Then Hannah’s post made it even clearer that the up-and-coming generation is different. Funny, I don’t feel old inside.
48 Gardening Junkie // Dec 6, 2007 at 10:22 am
I remember one 70+ year old gentleman tell me that he has no intention of using a computer. It seems that a lot of the old timers are set in their ways and have difficulty with new technology, especially with computers and with the Internet. The sad part is that the Internet is an excellent vehicle for personal enrichment and for keeping one’s brain working, even if a person is 70 or older. Is it not ironic that the people with the most to share and who embody the “gardening imigination” are the ones who cannot pass along this wonderful knowledge and information to other garden lovers simply because they refuse to go online?
49 CommonWeeder // Dec 6, 2007 at 4:33 pm
This conversation pushed me right over the edge to start my own blog. The website will come next month. I am 67 and for the past 25 years or so I have had a weekly garden column in the newspaper. I’ve done a lot of other things to0. Working in a community college, an arts education organization, and most recently as the director of a small public library. Change in my life and change in the garden. It’s all inevitable. Thank you for the push and I hope to talk to you at CommonWeeder.blogspot.com
50 Kathy Purdy // Dec 6, 2007 at 9:03 pm
CommonWeeder, I hope you find it as rewarding as I have. Looking forward to reading what you have to say.
51 Me… In the media… People… Blogging… Gardening… // Dec 6, 2007 at 9:32 pm
[…] appears that this article has touched off a bit of a discussion on Cold Climate Gardening about blogging, gardening and generational clashes. Kathy Purdy asked: I’d especially like to know what would make blogging more appealing to older […]
52 Rachel // Dec 7, 2007 at 10:35 am
[Note: I followed the link here from Annie’s Transplantable Rose.]
To me, it seems that gardening and weblogging are two hobbies which, if ven diagrammed, have a fairly small overlap. For what it’s worth, I turned 31 last week, I’m an Austin gardener, and I (sometimes) log my gardening on the web. I was an online journaler long before I was an online garden weblogger — I started journaling on the web when I was 23. Journaling is a hobby that seems to have a wider scope of age; I was among the youngest of the journalers that I knew at the time. Weblogging is becoming more and more popular, but mostly among a younger demographic. (That seems to be changing, for what it’s worth.)
Gardening, on the other hand, seems to be a hobby primarily undertaken by people 10 or more years older than I am. (Granted, most of the gardeners I know are older members of my family.) That demographic seems less represented by webloggers in general. My contemporaries in general don’t seem very interested in gardening, beyond putting some flowers in the ground once a year. I think I caught the bug genetically.
These are all generalizations, of course, but based on my personal experiences and observations. It’s a very interesting question!
53 Benjamin // Dec 9, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I live in the suburbs, though Lincoln, NE is pretty much a giant suburb of Omaha 40 miles east. Still, though young people abound out here, it’s only older folks I see messing in their yards or tending flowers or tossing comments at me from the street about my hostas. Me? I’m 31 and this summer I was outside EVERY day. But I put up a fence out back so no one would see me with my shirt off, the sculpted muscles, the sweat dripping of tight tan skin, the muscular heaves of clay soil, the dirty bad boy hands full of sweet manure. Sorry about that, it’s cold out and I’m stuck inside missing my summer planting.
54 Ali // Dec 10, 2007 at 7:25 am
I wonder myself sometimes, why don’t more young people garden? It’d certainly make me feel like less of an outlier. Except that I know it comes back quite easily to rental situations, crowded share-houses with unevenly divided responsibility-taking, and the fact that gardening has a lot to do with housing security, with the knowledge that you will be here in six months or two years or ten years to see that plant mature. At 24 I’m easily the youngest gardener I know “in real life”- i’m not familiar with the ages of the gardeners I know online. My peer group find my obsession with hobby fascinating & worthwhile, and I’m proud to have inspired a few portable, container-grown herb-gardens & the like, but I can’t pretend that my friends & I have the same access to resources as say my parents, who own their land and have the ability to make certain decisions about how they use it.
I really enjoy the burgeoning urban/small-space/rental gardener knowledge bases forming around the web, but I also love how much gardening gives me something in common with people of every single age range. My 85-year old across-the-road neighbour has told me she was worried by me at first, of my shaved head & facial piercings, but knew I was “OK” when she saw me out weeding the front garden Saturday after Saturday. Now we bond regularly over geraniums and tomato advice and the dire lack of diversity in supermarket produce.
But I am of the generation who relies heavily on the internet for all my gardening advice, and has done since I started (all of six months ago and going strong). I wonder if this makes me a different gardener to someone who learnt using books or television shows or by being lucky enough to have a garden mentor. I certainly think it makes me a more extroverted gardener. Every interesting thing that happens in my garden is a potential blog-post, after all.
55 Dave // Dec 10, 2007 at 1:06 pm
In my experience, it seems that gardening is an inherited passion. I’m a 27 year old male, and I can think of three people among my peers that love gardening - two of those people are myself and my brother. The one other person I can think of grew up with parents that grew just about 100% of their own food. I don’t know of a single person that loves gardening who didn’t grow up with gardening parents. Of course, this is just my observation - I am sure there are exceptions to the rule, but I haven’t seen that in my experience.
I do agree with Kathy on her reasons why older gardeners tend not to blog. I know my parents or grandparents would have no idea why they should blog, much less any idea where to start if they did want to blog. As a younger generation of technology-wise gardeners, I think it’s our responsibility to learn first hand from some of these older and wiser gardeners, and then we in turn can blog and share our new found knowledge with the next generation of gardeners.
56 Why aren’t there more young(er) gardeners? | Cold Climate Gardening // Dec 14, 2007 at 11:19 am
[…] too long ago I was ruminating on the possible reasons why more older gardeners aren’t blogging. Besides all the reasons I mentioned in that post, there was also a more personal reason for […]
57 Bob Ewing // Dec 15, 2007 at 11:18 am
Is gardening as an activty growing or declining, I am 60 and have been gardenngn for about 15 years.
The people I talk with locally rarely blog and that seems to be from the age of 40 up; perhaps it is the smaller rural community, I do not know.
58 Anne // Dec 15, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I don’t consider myself elderly or even close to it, but I’m over 60, garden almost daily, use computers around 2-3 hrs. daily, and regularly read a few blogs, especially about roses and political sites. I do know a lot of over 60-70 yr olds who blog daily about politics, 9-11, The War, and matters of impeachment. I also know several under 3o yr olds who garden, and we talk about it by cell phone or in person often. There certainly seems to be some people over 60-70 who are active in the rose arena of gardening who are also pretty active on several garden or rose sites. Certainly, really young people do not get as exposed to gardening today, just by the fact that living in apts. and zero lot line homes are not conducive to learning about gardening. I work in the landscape industry, and am a plant consultant to many rather wealthy persons who have their yards “landscaped” professionally, and then proceed to hire gardeners. Not much chance there for exposure to gardening. I don’t add my 2 cents to many blogs often because I usually don’t have the luxury of time. Occasionally I see such a glaring error in facts or I.D. about certain plants that I do respond, but I’d rather have hands in the dirt, or face to face contact in sharing about plants. Living in a warm winter climate also encourages me to spend more time in the yard and not blog about it.
59 Bill Plummer // Dec 19, 2007 at 10:51 am
I’m soon to be 81 and am on line several hours per day. So why don’t I blog? I never thought of it until the article in the American Gardener. Then I realized that Kathy had sent me an email after I failed to show up at an Adirondack Chapter NARGS meeting in Ithaca. So come Februart I may get off my duff and give it a whirl.
60 lisa // Jan 2, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I am WAY late to this party, but I just wanted to say that I agree with the comments how many folks just don’t necessarily like to write, or have the time it takes to blog. I’m 45 and my eyes already bug me while staring at the computer screen, plus I feel that many folks (young and old) get enough out of doing something-so why talk about it? Personal security may be an issue too, although I’m pretty sure that our benevolent government can tell if you have spinach in your teeth at any given moment from any spot on earth, so who are we kidding? And as much as I enjoy blogging (1 year+), at times it seems to take on a life of its’ own and feel like an obligation. (Which is when I step away for awhile.) My blogging didn’t start until I’d read a couple, and my co-worker showed me her MySpace and LiveJournal pages, convincing me that it’s no big deal. She even showed me the html codes to create links in my text. I agree with the idea that there are a lot more folks of every age out there in cyberspace than we realize, they just don’t let on. Heh, my mom (74) says it best, “Why do people talk so damn much anyway? Isn’t anything private any more?!”
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