And the nominees are:

Blogging Categories

Best Garden Blog Design:

• Cold Climate Gardening
• Digging
• Gardening Gone Wild

Innovation in Garden Blogging:

• Garden Rant
• Gardening Gone Wild
• May Dreams Garden

Best Photography in a Garden Blog:

• David Perry: A Photographer’s Garden Blog
• Digging
• Flatbush Gardener

Garden Blogger You’d Most Like as a Neighbor:

• Annie from The Transplantable Rose
• Carol from May Dreams Gardens
• Jodi from Bloomingwriter

Post of the Year:

• Garden Rant “The Commencement Speech No One’s Invited Me to Deliver”
• May Dreams Gardens “Garden Attention Distraction Syndrome”
• Mr. Brown Thumb “Everyone’s A Garden Coach”

Best Writing in a Garden Blog:

• Bloomingwriter
• Garden Rant
• May Dreams Gardens

Best New Garden Blog:

• Faire Garden
• Gardening Gone Wild
• Plants are the Strangest People

Best International Garden Blog:

• Bifurcated Carrots, Netherlands
• Bliss, Netherlands
• Ewa in the Garden, Poland

Best North American Garden Blog:

• Bloomingwriter
• Garden Rant
• May Dreams Gardens

Garden Blog of the Year:

• Gardening Gone Wild
• Garden Rant
• May Dreams Gardens

Garden Web Site and Podcasting Categories

Best Gardening Podcast:

• Alternative Kitchen Garden
• Garden Fork TV
• Wiggly Wigglers

Best Forums:

• Dave’s Garden
• GardenWeb
• You Grow Girl

Garden Website of the Year:

• Blotanical
• MyFolia
• You Grow Girl

Congratulations to all of the finalists! Final voting is now open. Voting will end at midnight, EST on May 13th. Winners will be announced on May 15th. Good luck!

The links below will take you to the ballots. The first link is for the blogging categories, the second is for the website and podcasting categories.

Blogging Categories

Podcasting and Web Categories

Nominations are now closed for the 2008 Mouse & Trowel Awards. Please check back on Tuesday, April 15th for an announcements of the finalists and the final voting form.

Thank you!

Here we go! Time to nominate your favorite blogs, bloggers, sites and podcasts for the 2008 Mouse & Trowel Awards!

One nomination form per person, please!

Nominate up to three blogs/sites for each category. Include URLs unless you know for a fact that I’m familiar with the site or blog.

If you make a mistake on your form, or forget to nominate someone, just email me the corrections and I’ll update your ballot.

Have fun!

Fill out the nomination form here.

Two weeks until the beginning of this year’s Mouse & Trowel Awards. I can’t believe it’s been a year already. Time flies when you’re having fun

The nomination phase will run from March 15th through April 13th. The format for nominations will be the same as it was last year. On March 15th, we’ll have the nomination form up here on the Mousie site. You’ll write in up to three nominees for each category. Only one nomination form will be accepted per person. At the end of the nomination phase, the top three nominees in each category will be placed on the final ballot.

Category Changes

I’ve made a few changes to our categories this year, based on feedback from last year’s awards. Categories like “Best Plant/Seed Source,” “Best Magazine Site,” and “Best Informational Website” have been eliminated. Two reasons for this: these categories got the fewest number of votes/nominations overall, and they don’t really fit into the rest of the awards. We’re going to keep “Gardening Website of the Year” and “Best Forums” because there are always new sites and forums popping up, and they are important to many of us in the blogosphere. I had toyed with doing a “Best New Website” award, but in the name of simplicity (I don’t really want to bother having to determine when exactly a site started up to see if it is eligible to be considered “new” or not) if there is a new site you like, please just nominate it for “Site of the Year.”

As far as the blogging side of the awards go, we’re keeping all of the same categories as last year, but we’re also adding two new ones: “Best New Garden Blog” (blog whose first post was posted on or later than March 1st, 2007—this is easy for me to doublecheck, and we want to reward new bloggers!) and “Post of the Year”—a post that just stood out, either for being deeply touching or highly informational, or for being entertaining and original—it’s up to you.

So, to give you a complete list, so you can start thinking of which blogs and sites you want to nominate, the categories for the 2008 Mousies are:

Blog Awards

• Best Writing
• Best Photography
• Best Blog Design
• Most Innovation in Garden Blogging
• Best North American Garden Blog
• Best International Garden Blog
• Garden Blogger You’d Most Like to Have as a Neighbor
• Best New Garden Blog
• Post of the Year
• Garden Blog of the Year

Website and Podcast Awards

• Best Gardening Podcast
• Best Gardening Forums
• Gardening Website of the Year

I’ll have a badge available for the nomination phase on 3/15, and anyone who wants it will be able to get the code here.

I can’t wait to see what this year’s awards will bring! I’ll keep everyone posted on any updates and news. If you use a feed reader, please consider subscribing to this blog’s feed, so you don’t miss anything!

It was my intention when I started the Mouse & Trowel blog to pass along tips and ideas that would make it easier to blog, help increase your readership, and maybe make a little money in the process. It was also my intention to highlight great garden blogs and websites all year round, not just during the Mouse & Trowel Awards. To put it plainly, I have done a crappy job of it so far. From here on out, I promise to start doing all of the things I meant to do on this blog.

For those of you who are interested in making a concerted effort to increase your traffic, today’s post may be of interest.

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking site. The gist of it is that you sign up, create a profile, and start submitting sites that you like. That’s the first part, and that’s where you’ll submit posts in the hopes of attracting new readers. But it won’t get you anywhere if you don’t do the next part. The other part of StumbleUpon involves interacting with other Stumblers by becoming fans or friends, rating or reviewing each other’s content, and learning along the way what type of content strikes a chord with StumbleUpon users. I’ve seen plenty of people throw up a profile, submit their own sites or posts, and expect to attract new readers. It doesn’t work that way. When you use StumbleUpon, and become friends with other stumblers, they see every site you review. Depending on your friends, they may review your submission. When they do that, all of their friends see it, and so on and so forth. If you’ve submitted useful, unique content, there’s a good chance you’ll see a nice increase in traffic, as well as attract a few new regular readers.

What to Submit

Which brings us to the question of what to submit. It’s best to keep in mind that the typical SU user is in their early twenties to mid-thirties. Posts that contain useful information about starting a garden, easy-to-grow plants, or book and product reviews tend to do well. In my experience, I’ve seen over 33,000 hits from StumbleUpon in the last year. The overwhelming majority of those hits came from two articles/posts: Ten Vegetables You Can Grow in Shade and Ten Long-Blooming Perennials. What do they have in common? 1. They’re useful for beginning gardeners, and 2. They’re straightforward. I know plenty of you do posts like this, and they could definitely earn you some nice traffic from StumbleUpon.

Drawbacks to StumbleUpon

There are a few drawbacks, so it’s good to keep them in mind. 1. It takes time. It’s best to login at least a few times a week and submit/review stuff. You also have to be willing to interact with other people, because that is what will drive your traffic.

2. You can’t just submit your own stuff. If you keep submitting only your own posts, you will reach a threshold where SU won’t allow you to submit anymore from that URL. To prevent this, be sure to submit other pages and posts as well. Other garden blog posts you like would be a nice touch

3. While some SU users will stick around and become regular readers, the vast majority will come, check out the post they saw submitted on SU, and leave. It’s good for traffic, and for exposing more people to your blog, but most SU traffic is not long-term.

4. SU users generally don’t bother clicking on ads when they visit a site. If your goal is to attract traffic so you get more Google clicks or whatever, this won’t work for you. SU users come, look at the post, and leave. They don’t tend to explore the site and click around.

As I said, these are generalities. I have a few subscribers who came to me from StumbleUpon, so every once in a while, one will explore and become a regular reader.

Final Thoughts

You may be wondering what the point would be of using a site like SU. After all, the gardening community already has sites like myfolia.com that connect gardeners, as well as a multitude of garden blog directories. The thing is that with garden-centric social networking sites, you’re preaching to the choir. That’s fine, but if you want to attract a new type of reader, maybe someone who likes gardening but isn’t involved in the online gardening community, a place like SU is a good place to reach them.

If you want to see what a StumbleUpon profile looks like, you can visit mine at cvanderlinden.stumbleupon.com. You’ll see that my stumbles tend to be pretty diverse. I don’t keep it limited to gardening stuff. You may want to, or you may choose to be an eclectic stumbler like me. That’s totally up to you, and there is no wrong or right way. If you decide to sign up, send me a message over there

Happy Gardenblogging!

Colleen Vanderlinden
http://www.inthegardenonline.com
http://www.mouseandtrowel.org

I’m gearing up to start working on the 2008 Mouse & Trowels after the holidays are over. There are a few things I’m definitely considering for next year’s Mousies, and I thought I’d post some ideas here and see what kind of feedback I get.

Practical matters first: this won’t affect the voting from your end, but my technical department (A.K.A. my husband) has put together a system to automatically tally the votes as they come in. It will definitely save me some time, since last year I tallied all of the votes by hand. Yay!

Next on the agenda: prizes. I seriously wrestled with the idea of awarding the winners prizes. I considered trying to get sponsors for the awards so I could give the winners a little something. In the end, I decided against it for one big reason—the Mousies were created so that garden bloggers and webmasters could be recognized by the most important people: their readers and their blogging peers. The way I see it, being called “the best” by that group of people is the most rewarding thing imaginable. If prizes are important, let me know and I can start looking into it for the 2009 awards.

New Categories. I’ll be adding three new categories this year: Best New Gardening Website, Best New Garden Blog, and Best Post. The “best new” categories will be open to any blog or site launched after March 1, 2007. We’ve had several great additions this year, and these should be good categories. The Best Post category does a couple of things: it opens up another category for a blog that might not get get enough votes/nominations in one of the other categories, but that nonetheless deserves some recognition, and it also awards the ability of a blogger to thoughtfully address some aspect of gardening in an outstanding post. This is open to interpretation—basically the gist is, any post you’ve read since March 1, 2007 that really struck you, made you think, or otherwise touched you deserves a nomination.

Length of Nomination and Voting Stages. We’ll keep them the same as last year, allowing a month for each stage.

Timing of the Stages. Nominations will begin on 3/15, voting on 4/15, and the winners will be announced on 5/15. I considered moving everything up a couple of weeks this year, but I really want the Mousies to become a May tradition. The only hiccup this year is that my baby is due on 5/24, and, if baby #3 follows suit, it will come at least 2 weeks early, like its sisters. Everyone will be kept updated on that. No matter what happens, voting will close on 5/12.

Okay, enough for now. Any thoughts, questions, suggestions? I’d love to hear them

Several posts over the last week have caught my eye, made me think, or made me smile. In case you missed them, here are some of the garden blogosphere’s best posts:

Patrick over at Bifurcated Carrots did a thought-provoking and informational post about the importance and worldwide impact of saving our garden seeds, as well as the impact a blog can have, in his post Making a Difference With a Tomato and a Blog.

India Garden has a post up about what we’re really eating when we buy produce at the grocery store, and why those of us who grow our own should feel really, really lucky, in her post Food for Thought.

David over at Snappy’s Gardens Blog has a terrific, and beautiful, post up about his visit to Harlow Carr. Check out the gorgeous plant combinations he captured in his post Painting With Flowers.

Over at Morning Glories, Beth discovers the impact of diminutive blooms in a cottage garden in her post, Small Flowers, Big Impact.

Mr. Brown Thumb shares seed-saving techniques in his post, When I Collect Cleome Seeds.

Over at May Dreams Gardens, Carol is undertaking the Ritual of the Tiniest Tomato, and inspiring other gardeners to play along!

At Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas, Stuart’s post about Designing a Japanese Garden Using Australian Natives has plenty of good tips, even for those of us who don’t garden down-under. The idea of taking our own native plants and adapting them to a Japanese garden is an intriguing one, and Stuart gives some good guidelines to follow.

Michelle’s post over at Garden Rant on growing potatoes to help break up clay soil was something I’ve never seen before, and I’m eager to try it. Check out Easy-Peasy Recipe for Clay Soil.

If you ran across a post that wowed you this week, share it in the comments! Happy surfing

Susan Harris is easily one of the most active people in the online gardening world. Best known for her work on Garden Rant (which won three Mousies in 2007), she also maintains her personal gardenblog, Takoma Gardener, as well as the website and blog for the DC Urban Gardeners. Last week, she launched Sustainable Gardening, and to celebrate the launch, I thought I’d sit her down and ask her a few questions. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’m not podcasting yet….I have a feeling Susan and I could gab for a long, long time

On Sustainable Gardening…

What is “sustainable gardening” and why is it important?
The way I use the term it’s a combination of environmentally sensitive gardening (I like the term ecogardening) and low-maintenance gardening. So it sustains not just the environment but the gardener, that often-forgotten factor in the little ecosystem that is our garden.

What was the most challenging part about launching a new site?
God, that’s an easy one - the technie challenges of finding the right program and server, which I settled on only after trying two programs I soon rejected. (And Colleen, I bet you know what a pain it is to keep moving your domain name around - oy!) It’s also taken me months to figure out the concept and the voice, but at least that part’s fun.

You have experience in both traditional print media and blogging. How do you think your experience with these kinds of media affected how you went about creating a new site? Were there practices or ideas you took from one or the other that you applied to having a website, or did you feel like you were starting something totally new?
I’m definitely borrowing on the great conversation that goes on in the online gardening world by including links to as many blog posts as I can find on each topic and each plant I cover. I don’t pretend to have all the answers (and who does??) so I’m including as many views as I can and making sure I indicate where each writer is gardening. Location matters is my new mantra.

Now on the print side, I have all these columns I’ve written for my local paper, aimed at beginning gardeners and the general public, so I’ve included them on the site, too. But because they’re now on line, I can update the articles as the science changes or for any number of reasons. Add up all those advantages and I’m a diehard webbie.

On Gardening Videos…

I know that you’re going to be using Monkeysee videos on Sustainable Gardening, and that you are their Gardening editor. Can you give us a little background on Monkeysee?
Here’s how it happened. Some web-savvy entrepreneurs got financial backing to create a high-quality website for how-to videos, and they happen to be located in my area. They asked me to write and appear in a video and when I saw the final product, I saw the potential for providing some really helpful eco-gardening information to the public free on the Web. So I volunteered to choose the gardening topics covered on Monkeysee, then round up the best experts I could find all over North America to write and star in the videos, and the response has been really positive from gardenwriters, nursery horticulturists, landscape architects - you name it. I’m excited as hell for the site to launch late this summer.

On Garden Rant…

What is it like doing a team blog? Can you tell us about some of the challenges, as well as some of the advantages of blogging with three other people?
Great question, one that only another blogger would even think to ask. It’s certainly more fun working on a project as a team - it becomes an US thing, not the ME things that individual blogs are by definition, and that’s a nice change. We play off each other sometimes, even enjoy disagreeing. And we pitch in for each other when we’re super-busy or trying to catch a plane. My GardenRant partners also happen to give me outstanding professional advice, which I always follow.

On the down side, a team blogger gives up some control, for sure, but the way GardenRant works is that we all have total autonomy over what we write, so the things we have to agree on - well, they hardly exist. Choosing the blogging program to use was no fun - for me, anything technie is stress-inducing. But the next step - choosing a designer for the header - was easy because our choice was unanimous and we instantly loved their very first attempt. Now how much fun is that?

You have a very active and loyal group of commenters over at the Rant. What do you think it is about your blog that invites this kind of (sometimes passionate) discourse?
Well, the very act of ranting (and raving, which, for the record, we do more of than rant) sparks passionate responses. But we LOVE what the commenters bring to the site and we’ll do almost anything to get them to join in. Remember we even gave Sloggers to the ones we hear from the most as our little “Thank you and keep ‘em coming.” (And of course you remember - you were one of them!)

On Garden Coaching…

First off, congrats on all of the attention your Garden Coach Directory has gotten. I was so happy when Marty Hair covered it for the Detroit Free Press. Is it really as simple as “I’m an experienced gardener, hire me to help you.” Or are there qualities, in addition to gardening knowledge, that a good garden coach should possess?
I think garden coaching works best when the coach has the qualities that make any teacher effective - not just knowledge but enthusiasm, lack of judgment, and the ability to meet clients where they are and not impose your vision on them.

What do you think accounts for the increasing popularity/demand for garden coaches?
That’s exactly what Marty Hair asked me and I think the plain answer is that the original New York Times story created buzz in the first place, which started people advertising themselves on Craigslist and led to my Directory and more stories and all of a sudden there’s “increasing popularity/demand”. It’s lots of fun, especially seeing the attention the Directory has brought to gardeners who are doing some great teaching, like the Michigan coaches highlighted in Marty’s story. I mean the NEED for it is huge and has always there but the demand, the attention? That’s the result of one story, which has led to others (and probably more to come).

On Random Stuff I’m Curious About…

Name three gardenbloggers you’d love to have as neighbors (besides your Rant partners….I think we can assume you like them )
First, I wish I had MUCH more time to read gardenblogs than I do. I try to stay up on the gardening NEWS, so I check blogs that comment on news. But based on my very limited reading and off the top of my head: Craig Cramer (Ellis Hollow), Pam Penick (Digging) and Michelle Derviss, (Garden Porn), primarily because I’d love to be able to drop by every week or so to see what’s new in their garden. Plus, gardening in Austin or the San Francisco area would be awesome. (Now Craig in Ithaca, NY is another matter - I’d have to escape those long winters somehow.) Oh, and I’m sure they’d all make good neighbors and gardening buddies, but did you notice my priorities?

Next President of the United States? Do you have a favorite yet, or is it too early to call it?
Whoa! I try so hard NOT to be political in my writing and there it is, the question! But I can’t resist and will answer that the Democratic field is littered with people I’d be happy to see inaugurated, okay? Like all Dems, I want desperately for one them to take the White House.

But a fave? It’s gotta be Joe Biden, who I just watched being interviewed by Charlie Rose for an hour and he was amazing. So as much as I want history to be made, I do think this white guy happens to be the best qualified for the job. (My dream ticket is Biden-Obama.) I’ve watched Biden in action in the Senate for almost 30 years in the Senate and he once gave me half his sandwich and chatted me up quite amiably between mouthfuls (we were waiting for a hearing to start). I think he’s a damn decent guy and the real straight-talker in American politics. Colleen, see how you’ve gotten me all worked up now?

Thanks so much for the great questions and everything you do for the amazing word of gardenblogging!

Thanks, Susan, for a great interview!

Just because I’m weirdly curious about these types of things, do me a favor and take the M&T poll, below. If you’d like to expand on your answer, or if you find blogs via a method I hadn’t mentioned, I’d love to hear it! And, thank you in advance for participating

We’re lucky to have another guest post today! Beth from Morning Glories has an interesting take on garden blogging, and an overall blogging philosophy that I definitely share. She’s another new face on the garden blogging scene, (though I see her comment on plenty of blogs, so undoubtedly some of you already know her) and if you haven’t checked out Morning Glories, it’s definitely worth a visit. Without further ado, I’ll turn it over to Beth

LET’S TALK SHOP

When I visit my favorite shops, I enjoy soaking in the atmosphere, looking over the merchandise, getting new ideas, and perhaps leaving with a new acquisition. Sometimes I’m in serious shopping mode when I need something I know the store carries; other times, I’m just browsing for fun and ideas. With each of my favorite stores, I enter knowing what to expect but also anticipating the delight of encountering the new and unexpected.

Hosting a blog is a lot like being a shopkeeper. My online establishment is open 24/7, and every day I greet new and returning visitors. When “customers” visit my blog, I envision myself welcoming them to a very real place. I want them to enjoy their visit and make it a regular stop in their online outings, just as I have my favorite bricks-and-mortar shops that I return to again and again.

Here are a few blogging lessons I’ve learned from visiting a lot of great (and some not-so-great) shops:

Find Your Niche – Who knew a whole chain of stores could be based on honey-baked ham? That’s a niche – and a successful one. Whatever your blog topic is or will be, there are people all over the world who share that interest with you. And if you’re passionate about your topic, your enthusiasm will shine through in every element of your blog. You won’t have to “construct” content; it will flow naturally. You’ll just have to shape it and polish it to suit your style.

Be Unique – Like a hodge-podge shop, a blog that tries to be all things to all people lacks a defined personality. It isn’t a very interesting endeavor for the writer – or the reader. By infusing your unique style into your site, you create a shop that’s unlike any other. Within your topic, are you the contrarian always playing the devil’s advocate, the expert sharing “just-the-facts-ma’am” information, the irreverent humorist, or the friend dishing about all the latest happenings?

Create an Ambience – A cozy collectible shop has a very different atmosphere than a sleek high-end electronics store. Create a design that’s consistent with the blog topic and your own personal style. The more aesthetically-oriented your topic, the more sensitive your visitors will be to all the design elements: graphics, font, colors, white space, etc. The look of your site has a powerful and immediate effect on everyone who visits. First impressions count.

Organize the Layout – A store needs to be organized so customers can find what they’re looking for. A blog, even more so – because it’s truly a self-service establishment. That means a user-friendly page layout and content organized in archives and categories. Yes, it can be fun to paw through jumbled merchandise at a flea market in hopes of finding buried treasure. But visitors will appreciate the connections you provide for internal content and external resources.

Carry a Quality Product Line – The main reason we frequent a particular shop is because it carries merchandise that we want or need. Translation in the blogging world: “content is king.” Unique, high-quality content is what keeps blog readers coming back. Every post won’t appeal to every reader, but that’s why different stores have different clienteles and most stores have various departments. The key is to balance consistency and variety. Post frequency is important too; a shop can seem stale if we keep returning to find the same displays on the shelves.

Offer Great Customer Service – Who doesn’t appreciate walking into a shop where you’re known and greeted as a welcome guest? It’s all about hospitality. One of the great pleasures of blogging is getting to know your visitors. Though we don’t meet face-to-face, we interact and build relationships through comments, email and reciprocal blog visits. To provide a pleasurable and hassle-free experience for your visitors, answer questions, respond to comments and emails, and resolve any site problems that you have control over as quickly as possible.

There are shops – and blogs – catering to every interest. As a blogger, what I’m really “selling” is my passion for my specific topic. My goal is an effective blend of information, inspiration and entertainment that reflects my style, experience and personality. Like a shopkeeper, I want to give my visitors the kind of personal service that will make them look forward to returning. So if you should visit my blog, please imagine me greeting you with a smile and saying, “Welcome to Morning Glories!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Beth lives and writes in Southeast PA. She celebrated the “grand opening” of her blog, Morning Glories, on June 7, 2007.