I hear many complaints from my clients about how hard it is to find good, local gardening information online. Sure you can find sites that may have information about what’s growing in your zone and cooperative extensions offer great information. How come nurseries haven’t gotten into the gardening news business yet? After all, they so sell all the plants, fertilizer, tools and more to local consumers. It would be a cinch for them to tell anyone who walked in the door to check out their website and subscribe to an email newsletter.
I’ve started a site I’m calling Bergen Gardening where I’ll be writing all kinds of good gardening and landscaping articles for my area. Home gardeners, landscapers, nurseries and anyone else with something worthwhile to contribute can easily register for a username and submit articles, pictures and more. There’s also an amazon.com store where I’ve added several of my favorite gardening books and tools I can’t live without. Soon, I’ll add a forum using phpbb so people can discuss local gardening topics, trade plants and ask questions. I’m looking for an automatic way for businesses to add directory listings. Until then, it’s going to be done manually. I’m thinking about adding adsense or another ad network in case a business wants to advertise locally.
The hardest part is going to be getting regular visitors. I know I have my work cut out for me.
#1 by Tykho on August 9th, 2007
Hello,
My husband and I just rented a new apartment in Brooklyn, NY and it has a small garden. I was thinking maybe it could be a great place for a landscape design student to practice their skills or build up their portfolio but I don’t know where to ask in a forum. I can pay for the price of the plants needed and of other materials but not very much more. I could spend just a couple hundred dollars. …I am interested in seeing different ideas of what could be done.
My questions are:
-Do you think it is offensive to even ask for essentialy “pro bono” landscape design from a student even if it can serve as a portfolio builder and help build name and reputation?
-If it is not, then where would be good places to ask? I thought of looking up landscape design schools in my area (Columbia University offers a MS in landscape design) or posting on craig’s list. Anywhere else?
Many thanks for your advice,
T