Loyal readers may have noticed a pause in new articles here on the Greenbelt Online Blog in the last few weeks (except for the latest in Owen Kelley’s brilliant research about the maglev) and I’m here to tell you why.
My other blog, the team effort GardenRant.com that launched in 2006, is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a new design, two new exciting voices joining our five regulars, and no end in sight to the work involved. Here’s our announcement about the changes.
When I moved to Greenbelt and began what’s now this blog in 2012, I’d been garden-blogging, alone and then with partners, for seven years. I first approached the News Review with an offer to beef up its online content and when that idea proved to be premature, someone suggested I start a blog about Greenbelt, and that’s turned out to be a great way to learn the town and for people here to know me.
And what a relief it’s been to write about something other than the small world of gardening. Writing about Greenbelt has been freeing.
Occasionally I’ve even been able to cross-post on both blogs, covering public gardens in Greenbelt, and of course my own little townhouse garden in GHI.
GardenRant’s Anniversary
So while slacking off on reporting about Greenbelt have I been busy redesigning GardenRant site myself? No, we hired people. But leading up to the big relaunch I spent most of the winter editing our vast archive of almost 5,000 articles – no lie! I’ve whittled them down to our best and most evergreen 1,200 or so, and repaired damage to about 600 of them caused by an ill-fated, site-move.
I’m also organizing the 1,200 keepers, republishing the gems, soliciting lots more guest authors, and then promoting the hell out of all of it. The pace will keep up until July, our official anniversary.
Back in Greenbelt
For Greenbelters I’ll be posting more frequently to Greenbelt Online’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and I hope you’re following it over there. Guest authors will also be posting here – more coming soon from Owen Kelley, fighting the good fight against the maglev. (We thank Owen also for joining us on the Greenbelt Online Editorial Board.)
About guest posts – Do you have something to say related to Greenbelt, or maybe a resource you’d like to create for Greenbelters? (A recent one by Jamie Jorgensen is the “Birds of Greenbelt.”)
Write me: editor@greenbeltonline.org. We’ll work together to make it look good.

A Blogger’s Story
The first writing I ever did, in print or online, was for the Takoma Horticultural Club newsletter – not a fun or creative outlet. But when I heard in the summer of 2005 that it was easy to start a blog I created the “Takoma Gardener” blog the very next day and that got the attention of the women (one in California and one in NY) who were starting GardenRant and asked me to join them.
That early history and the ensuing 15 years are chronicled in my article “The GardenRant Story,” which is bluntly honest about our “tragic” technical mishaps and my initial insecurity about partnering with professional writers in the venture.
Happily, Greenbelt has been so welcoming, I haven’t experienced the same fears in writing for this blog.
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