Chuck Edwards

Brekon Land Design

Boise, Idaho

This is a LONG newsletter. I've been super busy with spring cleaning and adding in your suggestions. It's so long, I thought about breaking it in half, but decided to add these quicklinks instead:

Events | Mobile v2.0 | Images via iPhone | Bloggers | Twitter | Featured Garden Designer

More Events - Organizations, Reminders, Comments

The Garden Calendar keeps growing so much faster than I can keep up. At one point in March, we had over 200 upcoming garden events across the US and UK. The number of blogs and websites running the events keeps growing. We are very quickly becoming the largest garden calendar on the web not only in terms of number of events but also number of partners publishing events for their area.

As requested by members, I'm opening the calendar up to professional and enthusiast non-profit organizations (garden clubs, state designer organizations, etc). If you are with one of these great community organizations, contact me so that I can get you setup to add your events.

If you are attending an event, make sure you let everyone know from the Event Details page (the page you get if you click on the title of the event). As part of the attendance, gardens and organizations can invite members of the community to the event. You'll receive a message in your inbox asking if you are attending.

Finally, also per member request, you can add comments for events you are attending or have attended. Simply go to the event (after you login of course) and let everyone know what you thought about it.

Mobile Web v2.0

I know the mobile web version of the site is extremely popular among some of you. In fact, it's the largest garden/plant/design site for the mobile web. If you don't know what the mobile web is, it's a website specifically formatted for use on a smartphone such as iPhone, Android, etc. Open a web browser on your phone and go to http://landscapedia.info/mobile.

The version that you've been using was the very first mobile site I ever did. Well, no longer. If you haven't see the mobile web version for a while, take a look. It's exactly like the garden tours, so both are nice, clean and fast. Take a look, and let me know what you think.

Contribute Images from the Mobile Web

While I was reworking the mobile website, I took another look at the whole issue of being able to upload an image from the iPhone. Apple still doesn't allow you to upload directly in Safari, but I found a way around it. iPhone users can now take and upload plant images on the spot using Quickpic. I'm still looking for a solution for Android phones. If you know of one, shoot me a message.

Bloggers Unite

If you are one of our blogging members, check out the Blog Help Desk. I'm writing a blog (yes, and I actually update this one regularly) that's gotten quite popular among garden bloggers. I am teaching bloggers how to add free content, get more traffic and other technical questions.

Also, if you haven't added your blog to the New Media category in the Communities, make sure you do it. I'm going to put together a bundle of all member blogs so that anyone can easily subscribe through an RSS reader such as Google Reader. If that doesn't make sense to you, then you definitely need to read my blog.

Twitter Lists

I know a lot of you are on Twitter. You can find me on there @landscapedia. What you may not know is that I've created lists to help you find your favorite tweeters. If you tweet, let me know so I can get you on the lists. If you want to find some great folks to follow, check out the lists.

Featured Designer

Landscapedians selected Chuck Edwards (profile | garden designs) of Brekon Land Design in Boise, ID as the featured designer this month.  Chuck has been featured before when I used to select the designer.  Take a look at his work and show him some support!