Confessions of a Garden Reader

January 25, 2008 By Doug

OK, I read a ton of stuff every day. In fact, I read about 75 blogs almost every day (that’s down from 100 a month or so ago) and it is only the determined and high quality blogs that stay in my reader (or the so-different that there is no alternative) And I said at one point that I’d share some of those with you.

One blog that I read (and have for some time now) is that of George Ball. Yes, “that” George Ball – vilified in the blogosphere as the ultimate Darth Gardener for his company’s purchase and subsequent moving of Heronswood Nursery.

But hold on for just a second.

Understand several things. The first is that I spent over 20 years in the trenches running my own specialist nursery and 3 years travelling the U.S. east coast as the Territory Sales Manager for Canada’s largest perennial nursery. This qualifies me to have opinions about the nursery trade. Well, I guess any gardener/blogger can have opinions but I have some experience behind mine.

And George Ball has opinions based on his experiences in the nursery trade.

Now George and I have never met. He wrote the introduction to one of my books (Burpee Book of Bulbs) and given that he owns Burpee, this is his right. That’s as close as we’ve come to talking. Heck, he never even asked me to sign his copy (assuming he has one)

The deal is simple. This man is in the trenches. He runs one of the largest gardening operations in the US. And regarding the blogosphere, there are always two sides to every issue. I don’t want nor do I intend to enter that debate nor will I be approving comments that want to open it here.

All I want to say is that love him or hate him – you have to read him.

Filed Under: Blogs

Comments

Jim/ArtofGardening says:

January 29, 2008 at 11:03 pm

75 blogs each day? Impressive.

If you’re looking to read just one more gardening blog, please stop over for a visit!

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