I Did It!

In February of this year I started blogging to, among other things, get into the swing of writing again. I had been writing for many, many years about cats, cat breeding, genetics, cattery management etc and my articles have been published in many countries all over the world. I also wrote a book about the Russian Blue cats: The Russian Blue (sold out). But then my back trouble started and I was unable to write for a long time until February of this year when I started to blog about my garden and, not surprisingly, about my cats too.
August checking out the reading material after his basket inspection.

Shortly after I started blogging, I began writing articles again but this time not about cats but gardening. Writing has always been something that I enjoyed doing and I needed a new career now that my bad back did not allow me to continue with my previous one. So why not try to make money with writing articles?

I send my articles to several magazines and heard zip back from them. Bummer! But it is to be expected as the same thing has happened to many aspiring writers, even to the likes of Agatha Christie and J.K. Rowlings in their time. I guess the publishers who refused them are still pulling out their hair. ;-)

Then, quite unexpectedly, my blog won a Mousie for Best International Garden Blog of 2007. Hurray!!! And one of the reasons it had won, was that many people liked the way I write. I was very happy when I read that.
Delia being totally underwhelmed with the Mouse&Trowel award.

This happy Mousie event was even published in the local rag as it's not every day that a blog wins an award like that. Look Ma, I'm famous! ;-)

Flushed with success - not really, but I did think if so many fellow garden bloggers like my writing I must be doing something right, so let's give it another try- and I decided to send a few more articles to some magazines again, this time with the news that my garden blog had won the prestigious (grin) Mouse&Trowel Award for Best International Garden Blog for 2007 (make hay etc). And guess what? Result! I was contacted by one the Dutch gardening magazines, Tuin&Co (=Garden&Co).
As they liked my writing style too, they wanted to meet up with me and discuss what I could write for them. So that's what we did and here's the result that was published only a few days ago.
That's how much fun a garden club is!

It's an article about my garden club that I founded a few years ago. I had just moved house and didn't know a soul so I started my own garden club, as you do.;-) It was easy peasy, really. I just wrote a letter on my PC about wanting to start a garden club, copied that letter 200 times and then put on my walking shoes. I walked around my village and everywhere I saw a nice front garden I popped a copy of my letter in their letterbox. It stands to reason that when people have a nice front garden, they enjoy gardening, right?
We understand each other exactly.

And many people responded to my letter and as a result we now have a fun garden club. It's great to be able to talk with fellow enthusiasts about gardening, to share your garden experiences, your knowledge, the joy of gardening, the successes and failures etc. And it's also a great way to swap seeds, cuttings and plants too. We visit each others gardens but also open gardens, garden fairs, nurseries etc. which is great fun.
Several members of my garden club at the arboretum in Kalmthout, Belgium

I can highly recommend the above method as a great way for meeting up with other gardeners in your neighbourhood. After all, we don't all live in Austin ( the garden blogging capital of the world), Texas. ;-)
copyright: Y.E.W. Heuzen.2007