I've been garden blogging for over 10 years. Blogging is fading--everyone now spends almost all their time on facebook groups and/or pinterest, or photo-only blogs like tumblr, and the teens are on snapchat. Look at how gardenweb is fading--everyone is going to facebook.

Keep copies of all your photos and any text you want to keep backed up on your own machine. You never know what will vanish. I used photobucket for years and now they want several hundred dollars a year for linking and they took away access to my account to get me to pay up. No, thanks. I can't even delete my account because I can't access it without paying a year in advance. No, thanks.

Interior design blogs associated with an ID are still pretty active, and mommy blogs still seem to be something of a thing. There are some great garden blogs and it is a great way to meet gardening friends. Blogger seems easier to me than wordpress, and I've seen some wordpress blogs hacked.

Cheers Hoovb, (have followed your wonderful blog) - I did actually join Facebook for about 36 hours before exiting rapidly - ghastly stuff - inane, unwieldy and filled with objectionable people I did not want to be 'friends' with (quite a few being bloody family).

Not really fussed about readership...more for my own amusement as I have no trouble rambling on aimlessly (at tedious length)...so again FB and definitely the nitwits favourite - Twitter, are out of the frame.

Still, typical - always catching up, the slackers lament.

I have a blog- where I store my 'garden maintenance manual', which also records the changes to the garden each year and plans for the next year. It's only updated once a year - it's my winter garden project :-). I use Wordpress. I didn't do much research before choosing that site. I don't have either the time, interest or discipline to do regular posts, especially during the garden season! The blog is really just for my records and for the interest of a few friends and family. We would leave a paper copy for a future owner in in case such a person would be interested in continuing the garden in some way (unlikely IMO!). I have no ambition to generate a wider readership....

Campanula - it strikes me that a lot of your comments may be specific to your location,it's history and culture, and mindset. While I'm sure there are large estates in various places here, they are not a prominent issue in the gardening world here. In the days when we travelled to the UK, the Good Gardens Guide (if that's the correct name...?) travelled with us and we always looked for gardens to visit. Clearly those gardens were not anything we aspired to personally! But they did provide inspiration and we appreciated their place in garden history and the introduction and development of ornamental plants that the historical owners of such gardens often were significant contributors to. And we appreciated the current owners (private or National Trust etc.) making the gardens available to the public. I sometimes wish there were more such gardens available to visit here....

The 1% issue is one that seems to get tied up in knots. On the one hand, there is a widespread celebrity culture that seems devoted to admiring, and desiring to emulate, the rich. On the orther hand, there is a strong streak of envy that can get nasty. I think it is more productive for society to focus on investing in/strengthing things that increase well-being across a wide range of groups and try to see the world in a more inclusive way rather than 'us' versus 'them'. (For the record, I started life in something close to the bottom 1% and, while by no means in the top 1% (!), have risen considerably up the scale thanks to a good education, healthcare, reasonable ambition, and a reasonable amount of luck!)

Good luck with your blogging adventure. I'd read it.... You have a very interesting 'voice'.

I'd like to read the blogs mentioned above. Where can I find them?

I would be interested in reading your blog. I think you are the right person to take on these issues and it is good for more places than England.

With your skill in writing, I would gladly read a blog you devised, if only for the entertainment value ;-) I don't routinely read gardening blogs - serious gardeners do tend to be highly opinionated individuals and I often tend to discount those whose opinions differ significantly from mine :-)) - but there are some I do visit more or less frequently, if for no other reason but just to review what is being discussed.

It has been suggested to me more than once that I start a gardening blog but I just do not have the time to devote to doing a decent job of it. I spend too much time here on GW as it is and have no interest in Facebook or other social media outlets. I have written a few published articles but that's as far as it goes.

Keep us informed as to your progress. I'd bet many here would welcome your blogging contributions!!

Grief though, reading back my (ahem) manifesto, it sounds a bit dull and worthy. True, I am quite angry (Forked Off in fact) but there are enough furious lefties without my adding to the list...but on the other hand, I was terrifically restrained about Chelsea this year (usually the occasion for massively sweary polemics) and I am definitely missing the virtuous glow from a well-deserved take-down - whatever Chelsea and such are, no-one in their right mind could mistake it for actual gardening. Also, a bit of a double whammy on the health and employment front has resulted in huge belt-tightening so although I really take issue with 'politics of envy' suggestions (not from you, personally though, Woody), I am inclined to resist whining in favour of rising to a challenge...although my culinary skills, never much in evidence, have further diminished to basically stuff on toast...

Anyway, I am attempting a horticultural attempt at freeganism...or buying nothing. Spank me if I start referring to a 'journey' though...or worse, fall off the austerity wagon in a fit of forgetfulness

I swear, GG, I am really, really hoping for 'opinionated'.

I, too, would read your blog, Campanula.

I would definitely read your blog too, Campanula! That being said, I'm finding that I am becoming a victim of this world's attention deficit disorder - too many things vying for my attention in crazy bursts. More recently I've been enjoying YouTube stuff - and even that I haven't tuned into much recently - but that is more about the personality of the presenters than anything. There's one guy who is so into what he is presenting - he's almost like a little boy in his world and he's just a joy to watch (I think I'd be like him if I were a YouTuber).

I have blogged, and currently have a blog. Wordpress is a pretty simple site to use. I actually have thought about starting a second blog strictly for gardening...as a previous comment mentioned, mostly for my own documentation, not for traffic.

Give it a try! You can call it quits just as quickly as you give it a go so there's not much of an investment. I don't have any experience with with anything other than wordpress, so not much here in the way of advice, but it was easy enough to get started with Wordpress and it took over four years before I made it to the data limit for free storage space. Now I think I spend about $3 a month for the additional space.

I'll second Hoover boo's comment that you meet great gardening friends, but I'll also agree Facebook and instagram seem to be eating away at the blog world. It's so much easier to scroll through pictures and read pithy memes than it is to invest three minutes in reading a blog post.

YEA, you need more photos, get over that fear of your camera and the photo library on your computer.. If you need help with understanding how to correct fotos and make them luscious, get a hold of me. I have done long distance tutorial on Apples Photo . I recommend them if you have an apple. There are more complicated ones , but that is easy-peasy. I have even done photo editing for my sister's lecture that she gave in London, Barcelona and Alexandria. I never saw her. I think she was in Tunisia and some island off the coast of Catalan.

Aw Bless - course I don't have an Apple - I have an absolutely ancient Dell with (shudder, shame) Vista (despite it not being supported any longer). But yeah, piccies will be my failing (cluelessly, I lost the manual to my camera and have not actually managed to change the setting (landscape, thankfully) so it really is a mentalist point and click (roughly in the hoped for direction).

You can still mail them to me, or someone who can correct them and mail the file back.

I'm not into blogs (not anyone's) -- my time is already stretched too thin as it is, I don't want to go to different sites to read what basically amount to opinion pieces. I much prefer the back-and-forth of forums, and what I like about GW is there are so many topics to read about in various forums on any given day. I'd much rather see you post your opinions here, Camp!

mxk3 - that's pretty much my view too. I prefer the dialogues on the forums to monologues on Facebook or most blogs. Camp. - keep posting here too please if you do start a blog....

I thought there was usually a pretty good to and fro with blogs...is that not the case, Woody? True though, I like a forum dialogue rather than just posting into the void...I do worry that Houzz 'owns' our input. Not precious about my ramblings, God knows, I can do it all day so it's hardly pearls of wisdom or anything...but the changeover from GW resulted in a heap of stuff being lost...and, with my annual fail of standard note keeping (and the memory banks of a red setter), past posts were well handy...

Camp. - since my blog is inactive except once a year, there have only been one or two comments and I do nothing that would publicize it to generate more. Generating comments was never my intent, so I don't know what the norm for blog commenting is. I rarely read any....

Campanula, are you only interested in the writing aspect of social media? For example, what about podcast discussions or YouTube?