September 2016 #gdnbloggers chat

Hello all, Happy Bit-Between-Summer-And-Autumn! I'm ridiculously chuffed to be able to tell you that our guest host for Sunday's #gdnbloggers chat will be Lia Leendertz, wonderful garden writer and all round good egg.

Lia has just tipped the half-way point for the crowd funding page for The New Almanac and, in the spirit of this terrific new project, we'll be looking at the influence of the changing seasons upon us as garden bloggers.

How do seasonal shifts affect your moods, your available time, your gardening and, of course, your blogging? Do you make use of seasonal events to drive your editorial schedule? And do you find any difference in your site traffic according to the time of year?

We'll conclude the hour with ten minutes or so of "questions from the floor" for Lia, on all things garden writer-y, allotment-y and what ever else you can thing of to which to append "-y".

Do join us this Sunday evening, 7-8pm on Twitter with the hashtag #gdnbloggers, or on Twubs at http://twubs.com/gdnbloggers. Hope to see you there!

Lia's crowdfunding page is https://unbound.com/books/the-new-almanac

Petra's blog post is here http://oxoniangardener.co.uk/theres-something-lia-unbound-almanac-12797/

#gdnbloggers chat #4 – Chelsea Chat running order

Some of us have commented that there have been too many questions to get through in an hour. So we’ll try a more free-flowing discussion this time round, and see how things go! It's unlikely we'll run out of things to talk about! Here's the rough plan for our Chelsea Chat.

There's no escaping Chelsea in May! Did you get there? Do you blog about the RHS Shows, or are you more fringey? Or do you find the whole circuit irrelevant, and prefer to stick to real gardens for your blog? Whatever your thoughts, hope to see many of you there. 7-8pm on Twitter with the hashtag #gdnbloggers.

#gdnbloggers chat #3 – running order

Hello everybody, and thank you all for keeping Garden Bloggers going on Facebook and Twitter. A quick reminder that the THIRD #GDNBLOGGERS CHAT is this Sunday at 7pm. We will be looking at: Other people's content - Guest Blogging, PRs and press releases, and the idea will be to structure the chat around the following questions.

19:05-19:15 What are your thoughts on Guest Blogging? Is it something you already do, or are interested in starting?

19:15-19:30 Would you have Guest Bloggers on your own blog?

19:30-19:45 Do you do product reviews on your blog?

19:45-19:55 Is your blog on the PR radar and, if so, is it something you actively encourage?

Finally, if time, a bit of housekeeping -

19:55-20:00 How are you finding the Garden Bloggers experience? Is it working? Any frustrations?

Hope to see you there, spread the word folks, and happy garden blogging!

Andrew

#gdnbloggers chat #2 – running order

Hello everybody, and thank you all for the amazing contributions you've made to the ‪#‎gdnbloggers‬ community here and on Twitter! A quick reminder that the SECOND #GDNBLOGGERS CHAT is this Sunday at 7pm. The general theme will be around what motivates us as garden bloggers, and the idea will be to structure the chat around the following four questions.

19:05-19:15 Why do you blog?

19:15-19:30 How do you get your ideas for blog posts?

19:30-19:45 Do you ever get blogger's block? What do you do to get out of that hole?

19:45-20:00 What do you think garden bloggers have to add to the mix of garden writing in the traditional media (print and online)?

The inaugural chat was a glorious bunfight of a thing, but the feeling generally seems to be that it was a little chaotic! If we can keep roughly to the topics and the time slots outlined above, I'm hoping we'll all find the whole hour a bit more beneficial. A slightly more structured approach also means you can skip a section if it's not of particular interest to you.

Hope to see you there, spread the word folks, and happy garden blogging!

Andrew

#gdnbloggers chat #1

In the first #gdnbloggers chat on Sunday at 7pm we'll be introducing ourselves and our blogs, and discussing what we want from future chats.

The start of something...

The following text was posted on the ALL HORTS Facebook page on 20 February 2016.

GARDEN BLOGGERS #gdnbloggers Thank you to everyone for your feedback on the garden bloggers post a few days ago. There seems to be a lot of interest in supporting one another, sharing information, and a monthly twitter chat! I've registered the hashtag #gdnbloggers and set up a home for it at here. You don't ever have to use this page, but it looks like it might be quite useful for following and participating in the twitter chat (you can use the twubs service to follow any twitter hashtag, have a play around!).

THE FIRST #GDNBLOGGERS CHAT is scheduled for 7pm-8pm on Sunday 28 February 2016. I have a whole host of questions and topics, but I imagine it would be good to use the first session to introduce ourselves and our blogs, and to voice what we'd like to get out of this forum so that we can get the most out of the monthly sessions. I'll post the actual questions here, and tweet them, a few days before the event.

If this takes off, it would be great if we can get some special guests to take part and share their expertise. I'll try not to get too carried away just now, though.

In the meantime, thank you to everyone who's already started to use #gdnbloggers on their tweets - can I encourage everyone to include it when appropriate, particularly when publicising your latest blog post. And, in the meantime, to continue supporting each other with retweets, Facebook shares and just as importantly, blog comments! Hope to see you all next Sunday on Twitter!