There is so much to sift through on the Internet when it comes to finding good information about growing and the latest trends in gardening. Furthermore, the subjects that are covered are endless including organic gardening, edible plants, ornamentals, climate zones, design, and self-sufficiency, to name just a few. Simple searches online don’t always yield the best results. What we’ve learned is that a lot of the best information comes directly from gardeners who spend their days with their hands in the soil, testing out new and favorite varietals and discovering new design trends. That’s why we’ve compiled our top 9 favorite garden blogs written by gardeners and garden designers. The following blogs more than pass muster for their respective categories.
Garden Design
Best blog for garden design ideas and inspiration for all people
When it comes to designing and planning gardens, Garden Design has it all, featuring thorough articles for large and small spaces and for edible and ornamental gardens alike. This blog is accessible to beginners but also caters to experienced gardeners. Articles feature design principles and planting ideas for several garden styles and include planting information as well as guidance for hardscaping. In addition to their heavy focus on design, this blog has seasonal advice and comprehensive resources for dealing with pests, diseases, and other common garden problems. The information provided even extends to caring for succulents (indoor and out) as well as house plants of all sorts. Find makeover tips for small yards, learn new ways to incorporate native plantings into your garden, and get design ideas for seating areas amongst the flora!
Highlights & Features We Love
- Easy to navigate with cleanly organized pages
- Offers extensive advice on successful growing in the shade
- Features hundreds of inspiring garden photos updated regularly, in keeping with current trends
- Highlights how to add visual interest to the vegetable garden using containers, raised beds, and other structures
Our favorite post:
Misfit Gardening
Our favorite garden blog for suburban homesteading
Emma, the self-dubbed Misfit Gardener, started her blog to help people with busy working lives to grow their own fruits, herbs, and veggies. Emma has a background in permaculture design and infuses this knowledge in many of her posts. Misfit Gardening covers topics primarily related to edibles, including fruit tree and berry management, vegetable production, preserving and canning, raising chickens, and caring for honeybees. There are also several articles about homebrewing beer, wine, mead, and cider (and doing so with homegrown ingredients!) This blog touts just how much can be done on a small urban or suburban plot. Learn to grow most of your food, raise chickens for eggs and bees for honey in just the footprint of a modest yard using organic and sustainable methods.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Offers pesticide and chemical-free solutions to growing food
- Several resources on other homesteading topics such as keeping honeybees, canning and preserving, and even home brewing
- Includes several articles on season extension to help folks take advantage of colder months
- Inspiration and support for those looking to be more self-sufficient
Our favorite post:
You Grow Girl
Our favorite blog for urban gardeners
Writer, photographer, and graphic designer-turned gardener, Gayla Trail, launched You Grow Girl over 20 years ago when she, like many other garden bloggers, found herself at a loss for good information about growing in atypical gardening spaces. Specifically, she didn’t see herself reflected in the media she came across as a young, urban gardener with a tiny budget. The site serves as an account of her personal experiences as both a gardener and with plants/nature in general. The blog not only documents her beautiful urban gardens from the years, it also provides a number of guides geared toward beginner to intermediate level gardeners (although we’re sure plenty of experienced gardeners could take a page from her playbook!) This blog is a must-bookmark for those looking to grow in an urban setting.
Highlights & Features We Love:
- Provides extensive guides on several topics ranging from seed starting to growing herbs and edible flowers
- Inspiring photos of Gayla’s gorgeous urban gardens (it’s obvious that she’s an experienced photographer!)
- Features the most unique recipes we’ve ever seen on a gardening blog!
- Occasional poetic musings give the site a personal feel, allowing you to get to know the author
Our favorite post:
My Northern Garden
A great gardening blog for cold climate gardening
Hailing from Minnesota, Mary Schier focuses on how to grow plants in cold climates in her blog, My Northern Garden. Her experience as a freelance editor of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society’s “Northern Gardener” alongside her many years of gardening experience at her old home garden in Northfield, Minnesota make her an excellent resource on all things northern growing. But Mary admits she didn’t grow up gardening. She learned most of what she knows through trial and error, a history that keeps her humble and her writing accessible to those without much experience. In addition to her large garden in Northfield, Mary recently started an urban garden in St. Paul which she details in her blog. She also has a podcast, “Grow It Minnesota” where she interviews other experienced gardeners on everything from growing summer bulbs to companion planting.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Features unique blog topics for the cold-climate gardener
- Focuses on edible and ornamental annuals and perennials that do well in the frigid north
- Makes intimidating topics accessible and entertaining
- Beautifully written, thorough, and easy to follow!
Our favorite post:
Growing Peppers in Pots in the North
Garden Rant
Favorite gardening news and views blog
This isn’t your typical gardening blog, full of beautiful photos and gardens designed to perfection. Instead, Garden Rant features the writing of several opinionated gardeners who are happy to dish out a dose of reality on countless topics. Started by four opinionated women (watch out!), this blog provides a breath of fresh, witty air with plenty of social commentary and coverage of relatively controversial garden-related subjects. The site also features posts with useful gardening information to boot! With a constant stream of new and talented guest writers, the content of this site never gets stale. Their “Ministry of Controversy” section is particularly entertaining, with plenty of off-color and tongue-in-cheek rants to keep you entertained while taking a break from weeding or sipping your morning coffee.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Community-sourced rants (lots of guest writers adding their own spin to the conversation)
- Highlights real gardens from real people
- Entertaining and informative with new and interesting perspectives on gardening topics
- Features reviews and articles on products and garden shows
Our favorite post:
Landscape Design vs. Garden Realities
A Way to Garden
Favorite gardening blog/podcast combo
NY Times contributor Margaret Roach is a wealth of knowledge and blogs about a comprehensive set of topics including growing edibles and ornamentals, garden design, and recipes in A Way to Garden. She even features entertaining personal stories from her life in the garden. In addition to being a blog, A Way to Garden also serves as a site for highlights and transcripts from her weekly NPR garden show and podcast, “A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach.” Each week, Margaret interviews experts from the field, highlighting a multitude of topics from vegetable planting how-to’s to ecological horticulture. But this site isn’t just about the practical side of gardening. Roach states, “There’s a deeper, richer harvest to be had if you let the garden get under your skin… My garden is not a mere hobby, like bowling or macrame. It is a life practice, a window into larger questions of existence. It is also a lens or filter into spirituality and science, and my constant, ever-inspiring companion.” We couldn’t agree more.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Highlights and transcripts from a weekly gardening podcast
- Features a diverse set of experts from various fields
- Offers a comprehensive list of resources with links to reference guides and sources for supplies, seeds, and more
- Provides recipes not only for entree, desserts, and side dishes but also for preserving the harvest through canning and pickling
Our favorite posts:
Hugelkultur, Nature’s Raised Garden Beds
Garden Therapy
Our favorite blog for healing through gardening
Creator of Garden Therapy, Stephanie Rose, has an inspiring story to go along with her beautiful blog. In 2006 she developed a debilitating illness that confined her to bed and kept her from doing most things in life. After three years, she slowly began to venture out into her yard for five minutes at a time and, over the course of nine years, was able to rebuild her strength by engaging with the outdoors. She taught herself how to garden using resources from the library, seed catalogs, and trial and error. Eventually she began to regain strength and was able to take on more. Stephanie says, “I ate food I had grown from seed, made all of my own beauty and cleaning products, and worked every day in an organic garden. I would argue there isn’t a better recovery program in the world!” Through Garden Therapy, Stephanie shares her personal take on gardening and crafting while documenting each step through photos so that others can easily follow and recreate.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Showcases “Better Living Through Plants”
- Features indoor and outdoor gardening information
- Access to free mini-courses, such as “Kickstart Your Garden!” and reasonably priced extended courses, like “The Power & Beauty of Creating Garden Art” and “Garden Alchemy: Organic Gardening Made Easy”
- Herbal guides about growing and using herbs for health benefits
Our favorite post:
Creating a Garden Sanctuary in your Backyard
Pith + Vigor
Favorite blog for wild-scaping garden design
In her blog, Pith + Vigor, Rochelle Greayer writes on trendy and timely topics such as landscape ideas to save the planet and garden restoration using native plants. Rochelle studied design at The English Gardening School in London, England and has installed gardens all over the world. She has many other accolades but decided, ultimately, that she wanted to teach people with normal lifestyles and modest budgets how to design and enjoy gardening as much as she does. Rochelle’s design style is soft yet wild. Her gardens give the feeling of what things could look like if humans learned to dance a bit more with nature during the process of designing our built environment. Whether you’re looking for a course to advance your knowledge, some guidance on improving your soil, or just some gorgeous photographs for garden design inspiration, you’ll find it in this beautifully artistic blog that is a work of art in and of itself.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Stunning photographs of plants and designs that appear in every post
- Incorporates principles of sustainability and a natural approach to landscaping
- Features gardens from all over the world for eclectic inspiration
- Posts are infused with Rochelle’s ethos of doing what you love with the environment in mind
Our favorite post:
Bulbs in the Grass: How to Turn Your Lawn into a Spring Garden Feature
The Frustrated Gardener
Favorite blog about growing flowers
Dan Cooper, creator of The Frustrated Gardener, has been passionate about plants for his entire life, and it shows. His grandparents introduced him to edibles and ornamentals as a child and at the young age of 14 he acquired his first greenhouse. He took a special interest in unique flowering plants, eventually got an advanced degree in landscape management, and gained some professional experience as a landscape architect. However, much of his floral garden design experience comes from the work he has done in his current gardens, which are heavily featured in this blog. The word stunning hardly begins to describe these spaces. The Frustrated Gardener has a list of all plants that he tends as well as over 1000 informative and enjoyable blog posts. Dan does a fabulous job of taking the reader through all steps of his projects with his delightful narratives and beautiful photos. If you like growing flowers, you’ll love this blog.
Highlights & Features We Love
- Has everything you could ever dream to know about dahlias!
- Provides an extensive list of recommended reading for dozens of different topics
- Features an incredible diversity of ornamentals
- Clean site layout that’s easy to navigate (with no ads!)
Our favorite post:
The Making of My Coastal Garden
That’s a wrap for now! Stay tuned as we’re always on the lookout for new gardening bloggers with a special angle, interesting story, or new take on the the wonderful world of gardening. If you’d like to suggest your favorite gardening blogger, shoot us an email at service@edenbrothers.com. We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about all these wonderful writers.