Why I Write

March 2012 completes 4 years of writing articles for this blog.  I began with the post, Why I Write in April 2008.  I wrote a 2nd version of Why I Write in 2011.  During that time I have posted weekly, sometimes more often. I began to feel that I couldn't keep up that pace during the 4th year.  I had written most of what I wanted to say about gardening during the previous 3 years.  I edited many of my old posts & deleted a few.  I will continue to do that.  I'm very pleased with the expanded plant list I made for The Blue Garden.  I created lists of Trees, Perennials for Sun, Shrubs for Shade, Native Plants, Japanese Plants, Winter Flowers & Purple Flowers in 2011.  Those took many hours of research & left me nearly exhausted.  (All of my plant lists & articles of garden advice can be found in the pages shown across the top of the blog, just below the title.) 

This is primarily a blog that provides information about plants, gardens & landscape design in the coastal Pacific Northwest, USDA Zone 8 & other similar climates.  However, many of the visitors to this blog come from outside my area (see the lists below) which is a fairly wide-spread group of people. This winter I posted a series of articles about my exploration of plant communities in South Africa in 2009. I hadn't posted them before because the plants won't survive the winters in USDA Zone 8. But I've realized that South Africans & people who live in USDA Zone 10 can read this blog as easily as anyone else. I plan to post less often in the future, about 2 posts each month. I hope this will give me more time to read other garden & nature blogs. There is a whole world full of them. Visit blotanical, or do a web search, to contact the garden blogging world.

Here are the top 25 countries for visits to this blog in 2011:

1. United States 9,588
2. Canada 871
3. United Kingdom 557
4. France 361
5. Poland 199
6. Germany 197
7. Italy 194
8. Spain 177
9. Australia 173
10. Netherlands 158
11. Brazil 138
12. Hungary 106
13. Belgium 104
14. Czech Republic 101
15. Portugal 87
16. Turkey 82
17. Russia 76
18. Sweden 71
19. Croatia 65
20. India 64
21. Romania 58
22. South Africa 53
23. New Zealand 51
24. Ukraine 48
25. Slovakia 47

Here are the top 25 states within the US for visits to this blog in 2011:

1. Washington 5,088
2. California 1,090
3. Oregon 558
4. New York 293
5. Texas 201
6. Pennsylvania 141
7. Illinois 133
8. Florida 129
9. Virginia 123
10. Massachusetts 122
11. Ohio 108
12. North Carolina 108
13. New Hampshire 103
14. Michigan 89
15. Maryland 86
16. New Jersey 78
17. Colorado 77
18. Georgia 76
19. Utah 67
20. Missouri 58
21. Minnesota 57
22. Connecticut 54
23. Wisconsin 52
24. South Carolina 51
25. Indiana 48