Sustainable-Gardening.com is about 18 months old now and has evolved in ways that made the old design all wrong. Like my name and "coach" in the header, when the site’s now a compilation of writing by 20 of us. All my original gurus – Ann Lovejoy, Lee Reich and Linda Chalker-Scott – plus lots of writers I’ve more recently come to admire – Andrew Bunting, Don Engebretson, Joe Lamp’l and many others. So here’s what’s new:
- The tagline in the header is "Practical answers from native-loving garden gurus." That’s supposed to make the point that the authors are people who know how to grow plants in the challenging world of landscapes. And because they’re actual gardeners, they level with readers about what really works.
- Better organization, with plants and how-to in the navigation, and Other Resources (videos, garden gurus, coaches) compiled elsewhere.
The parts I’m still dithering over are the header photo and what should be on the home page (which isn’t how most readers approach the site, having reached it by Googling to a specific page). This boxed lay-out could be switched to a column approach, like the one we’re using for the newsletters.
Just for comparison, here’s the old design. New design by Lucas Sanders.
.jpg)
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been reading along here for a while and was excited about seeing your new home page, but the header is not showing at all, and neither is the left-hand column. Maybe just a small coding issue? Anyway, keep up the great work! I love finding like-minded gardeners.
Thanks for commenting, Carole. Your guess is essentially correct — a configuration file was accidentally deleted from the server, causing the issues you discovered. This probably happened while I was uploading an unrelated change late this afternoon, so the glitch was present for less than 3 hours before I restored the missing file at about 7:15 (when Susan noticed your comment). I’ll do my best to ensure that this problem can’t happen again in the future.
Like Susan, I welcome further feedback and hope everyone enjoys the new site!
This is a personal preference thing, so it might not be what you are looking for. When I see a blog with one wide column and two narrower columns, it’s hard to stay focused on the wide column if the two narrow columns are side by side. I think my eye wants to be in the mddle of the page, maybe because that’s how a good many garden blogs are laid out. Again, just personal preference, but I don’t like the wide, narrow, narrow format. I prefer narrow, wide, narrow. As far as the rest of the design, I need to go explore.
Problem resolved. Lucas, you’re a genius! I love the new site. I am always thrilled when I see research-driven information, instead of just a rehash of the same old drivel. I am currently finishing my thesis called Conservation Gardening and Sustainable Landscaping, so I have spent the last several years up to my eyeballs in research…..and can’t wait now to put it to some practical use! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Kim, I think all the pages except Home may meet your criteria – check ‘em out! Here’s one: http://www.sustainable-gardening.com/lawnsubstitutes/
Susan,
Great upgrade, I have been the local sustainable gardening guru in the Puget Sound region of Washington State for the last twenty years. We produce 15,000 flats of perennials, annuals, and vegetable starts in a coconut based potting soil that has been registered organic for ten years now.
My year old website uses open source web 2.0 software that is very easy to manage. Check out the video I made in 2002 on sustainable horticulture.
We are having a spring for the record books this year, every weekend has been sunny since early April with rain mid week every week.
The winter was so severe Seattle had 20 days with measurable snowfall and temperatures dipped to 16 degrees the first week of March. This has forced all of us gardeners who practice zonal denial to dig deep into our pockets and replace much of our landscapes. The economic situation has everyone else planting vegetable gardens and putting a run on tomato plants and emptying seed racks. This trifecta is capped off by the fact that this May has five weekends in it with the 1st being a Friday and the 31st being a Sunday.
Sustainably yours,
Scott Titus
Windy Meadow Nursery
Hi Susan. I like the new look very much. It’s not a drastic departure from the previous design, yet it has a fresher, more contemporary look that I think a lot of popular websites now have and are adopting. I love the colors and I think the header is fine. To me, it communicates sustainability, plus the colors are beautiful. It’s an inviting home page and you have a fantastic pool of contributors. It keeps getting better. Way to go!
Great improvement Susan. Looks very professional and has an “excitement factor” like you know you will find some good information on this site!
Shirley
I like it! It’s clean and less cluttered.
(BTW, I love this blog!)
Connie
I like it Susan! Very smart looking…gail
Hi Susan: New look is great. It kinda jumps off the screen at you, colorful and easy to follow and read. Its a keeper.
Have a great day,
John
I like it very much. Clean and fresh. Nice job. Very attractive. Kudos!!
This is clean and easy to read. I like it!
I like the header. The words are clear, concise and I know exactly why I’m here to read your blog.
Since you asked, I hope you don’t mind if I make a few suggestions.
In your near right-hand column, you have “Main Site” grouped first. Have you tried that grouping under your photo? I find “Categories” or “Topics” is used so much more than any other way of finding information on my own blog, so I put it as the first way to find info on my left-hand column.
Under categories the “Uncategorized” probably doesn’t get many hits? If you can tag what’s there, do so. I use “Musings” but “Random Thoughts” or some other tag that rouses curiosity might be good.
I put badges (like AllTop) as the last thing in my side bar. When I first started blogging, I thought they were important. Now, everyone seems to have a lot of the same badges. By moving the badges down, then perhaps your “Email Subscription” and the “Latest Newsletter” text blocks will line up side-by-side in the two columns. You want readers to signup.
Can you caption the photo? If so, can you make it clickable to an article about what’s shown in the photo? For example, I’m using my deer resistant garden photo. If folks click it, it brings up all the articles from my blog about that topic.
This looks great!
Cameron
Thanks for all the encouragement, y’all! And Cameron, thanks for the suggestions but it’s the website itself that’s new, not the blog. Oh, whatever! S
I think it looks great! A fresh new look.
I couldn’t, however, find a link to this blog from the main page – is there one there?
Oh duh – I just found it.
Have you considered putting a link to it in the top navigation?