Weekend Getaways -- 3/22/96

A Rose at the Edge
of the Thicket:
Gardening Electronically

Sarah Roberts

After being buffeted by nasty, lingering snowstorms all winter, I was overjoyed by the arrival of the first day of spring yesterday. For some reason, the temperature here in New York was running 15 degrees below normal, but at least I now have hope. I can start searching the horizon for those first tiny buds of leaves and for my favorite part of spring-the flowers.

As an apartment dweller, I don't have the option of maintaining an outdoor garden of my own, though I applaud the efforts of others. Nothing rivals the rose garden that my mother maintained for several years, with its fancy-named blooms, and some of my neighbors nurture spectacular window boxes. So I figured that in this week's surfing, I would see if there was any material on the distinctly outdoor art of gardening-just in case I was ever interested.

The most impressive site I found, in terms of volume, was The Virtual Garden; it's basically a primer for firsttimers (lucky for me). The Virtual Garden has a calendar of gardening events, plus important dates to remember, like the first day of spring. A section called The Magazine Rack is stocked with full issues of Southern Living, Sunset, and Homeground, a gardening newsletter published by Allen Lacy, one of America's premier gardening writers.

The site's Time-Life Gardening Library lists planting tips and directions for common gardening projects. The Garden Bookshelf includes excerpts from many Time-Life gardening books. ISBN numbers, an 800 phone number, and online ordering options are conveniently handy for your purchasing pleasure.

For those of you who already know how to till the soil, check out GardenWeb. Here you'll find forums on plant issues--annuals, bulbs, seeds, roses--and on lawn care, pests and diseases, and sources of plants and supplies. The Garden Spider's Web, a segment of GardenWeb, had the most extensive list of links I saw, from horticultural sites to gardening-related newsgroups and mailing lists. GardenWeb also publishes an online magazine, The Cyber Plantsman, which has book reviews and sections with titles like "Plant People."

I was pleasantly surprised by Ortho Online, the site of the wellknown bug killers, and its lack of obvious product plugs. If you're interested in roses, you must visit this site. The OrthoRose Encyclopedia is flush with text and photos of many of the 150 varieties of roses available, with names such as All That Jazz, Blanc Double de Coubert, and Sexy Rexy. The site also has an area for troubleshooting, the Rose Gardeners' Online Problem Solver.

Launched March 18 as a harbinger of spring, Gardenescape touts a build-your-own approach to gardening. When you join the Gardenescape Network, which is free, you get your own personal wheelbarrow and notebook. This site also has a garden-by-design feature that helps you choose the best plants for your particular degree of sunlight and type of soil, and it will take into account the kinds of flowers you like. You can order all the seeds and supplies you need from Gardenescape's extensive online catalog.

I also found a couple of quirkier but equally enjoyable gardening sites. The American Cottage Gardener site, an online version of the print quarterly of the same name, had an article I loved entitled "Salads," featuring a recipe for "Roman Potted Salad with Chicken Livers and Dressing."

The Armchair Gardener site with its camellias, roses, butterflies, and bird lands was another of my favorites. It has a great section called March Zone 9, which is essentially tips on what you need to do in the month of March to get your garden started if you live in Zone 9 (a technical term). And there are links to all kinds of funky sites, such as Ask Earl, Enchanted Gardens of the Renaissance, and The Vegetable Seed FAQ.

If you don't have a garden of your own, then maybe these sites will have the same effect on you as they had on me: conjuring up nostalgia for the smells and blooms of the flower and vegetable gardens of my childhood, and renewing my faith that the winter of 1996 will soon be completely gone.

Check out previous Weekend Getaways.