If you are on Twitter, please join me as I host #gardenchat Monday, April, 18, 2011 at 9 PM EST.

It was about 10 years ago when I realized I was no longer a gardener who writes; I had become a writer who gardens.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but today, the distinction is very clear.

Back then (and a few decades before), I was a weekend gardener who used all available time gardening.  Maximizing my hours, I would shop for plants, amendments and such, after work and at lunch, so my weekend hours were not wasted running around.  Then, as now, I like it when I never have to go anywhere on the weekends.  (Accept for garden tours and open houses.  Those don’t count, right?)

As an example, THEN, at the end of each productive day, I would write about my garden forays.  Actually, it was more like documenting those forays.

NOW, I write about the nuisances of each tiny fragment of each foray.  I want to remember more than I weeded; I want to research and know what I weeded, how I could prevent it next year, how I could kill it, how does it spread, does it feed wildlife, could it be considered more than a weed on any level?  As I weeded, I would also consider ways to change my lack of tolerance for it.  After all that, I want to write about it.

Not only did I want to write about it, I wanted to wax poetically, too – to explore the weed from many facets, not just to express my intolerance but to find the good in it, if there was any.   And if not, at least show that I explored it.

I also want to relate the weeding experience with, say, the arctic cold that followed prime weed gemination time, precipitating the need for me to be weeding at all and the determination of doing it now and not waiting for a day when the sun’s rays would warm my shoulders.

I owe a lot of my good fortune to seeing so many gardens and meeting the gardeners whose passion it was to make the gardens they did.  First and foremost, my work with the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, is what, I believe, lead me to do this point.

As a freelance writer, I’ve been very fortunate to get some great garden writing gigs.  This, I owe to perseverance.  Just like making a great garden takes hard work and perseverance, so does diligently working at one’s craft of writing.

I take immense joy when profiling a garden, a gardener, or a plant, and if it resonates with my readers.  My goal is to have you feel like you are there with me as I journal the experience.

During the last 3 years, I found a new medium to write – social media.  Starting with Twitter, I’ve written nearly 10,000 tweets.  These tweets didn’t amount to anything amazing like the guy who tweeted the entire New Testament (King James Bible).  He was on a mission.  When I started tweeting, I had no mission other than looking for ways to share my most recent blog posts.

I soon found Twitter opened many doors for me – beyond what I thought was imaginable. I also found there was no convincing others of this, though.   I later realized, people either got it or they didn’t.  My evangelical days to get people on Twitter or any other social media platform, are over.  I know how it helped me share my messages and I grew tired of listening to other’s defend why they don’t want to do it.   I felt it was best to just lead by example.

While on Twitter, I met a community of gardeners, writing 140 characters at a time.  A huge community.  There were more mes out there, then I could have ever guessed.

Chatting with friends on Twitter, led me to opening a Facebook account, both for Helen Yoest and Gardening With Confidence™. I like Facebook.  A wave of us twitterers went to Facebook, as opposed to the high school and college kids who started micro-blogging with Facebook first.

I’m of the opinion, Facebook, is not being used to it’s fullest, by most.  The vast majority aren’t.  My goal is to direct my friends from the Helen Yoest page, to like me on my Gardening With Confidence™ page.  If you haven’t done so, please do me the honor.

There are many advantages to the business page that aren’t present on the personal page, such as having a landing page, creating discussion, putting up photo albums, and other cool stuff.

With all that is possible, Twitter and Facebook are both considered micro-blogs, but truly, Twitter, is a minimicro-blog, compared to Facebook which acts like a grown up manlymicro-blog.

As I blogged and micro-blogged via Twitter and Facebook, I learned the value of this form of communication; after all, I’m a garden communicator – and blogging and micro-blogging are just other ways to communicate. I also learned everything I need to know through social media.

While I’ve given up convincing friends and peers the power of the internet as a means to communicate, I am still convinced, communicating via social media deepens one’s digital footprint, resulting in ramifications that can’t be defined, yet.

This led me to being evangelical to JC Raulston Arboretum in starting a Facebook page They listened and are glad with their growing success.  I’m pushing for a blog and still hope to see that happen one day.

I also preached to the North Carolina Nursery and Landscape Association to start a blog and to have a Facebook and Twitter presence.  Another success story.  The goal was more traffic to website.  Bingo!  Plus, we were able to educate in a more friendly, one to one way, which is the real appeal to social media.

The next thing I know, my writing, through social media, has caught the attention of businesses wanting to use this mechanism to reach out to others.  A good example is the Moss and Stone Gardens – Where Moss Rocks! blog, Twitter @Moss_Rocks, and Moss and Stone Gardens – Where Moss Rocks! Facebook accounts.

In the short time we’ve been launched, I’ve received a few email from David Spain, one the owners of Moss and Stone Gardens, to tell me his webiste has received record numbers of unique visitors. I’m not surprised, through his blog’s anaylitcs, I see the numbers of hits he’s received.

I’ve gotten many other companies and individuals, representing companies, blogging, tweeting, and booking faces.  I still see (and communicate with) them on the net, so I will assume they are still doing it, because they found success.

So how is blogging and micro-blogging writing?  If done right, it takes finesses.  Each tweet or fb post is done with purpose, taking the reader on a journey. Each word is writing — weather it’s for a 140 character count or a 2,500 word count for an in-depth journey through the garden gate.  It can be more that shouting a meme or stating what your had for breakfast.  It can resonate, interrupting your day with a reason for deep thought.

Others are catching on.  Lately, my dance card has been full as companies recognize the power of the internet to promote their products.  Because of my blogging, in the past calendar year alone, I’ve attended 5 media tours.  Earlier this month, I was fortunate to travel to Miami to visit with Costa Farms; next month, I travel to Little Rock to visit with P. Allen Smith.

It is my hope, both will recognize the value of having regional bloggers to help the good works of both companies – with me at the pulpit in the southeast, of course.

In the mean time, I’m still working on my book and hope to have it complete by the end of the year.  Writing a book is the old fashioned measure of writing success.  Alas, I’m a bit old fashioned; I have a book in me.   But, I’m also a modern girl, who likes the fast pace of social media, so step aside baby, I’ve got a tweet or two in me, too.

Here’s where you can find me writing….

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.