Many of you already know that I lost my father in October: the famous Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson. Not wanting this great adventure to end, I decided to continue the adventure and keep his blog alive and, therefore, his mission to make gardening simple and accessible to all! Big shoes to fill, you say? More like big steel-toed boots full of mud, I’d say!
Before taking over from my father, his business and his famous blog laidbackgardener.blog, I was a landscaper. I started as a simple laborer, then I became a specialized worker, a team leader and finally a manager, i.e., a project manager and a garden designer. So it’s been a few years since I traded the shovel and wheelbarrow for a cell phone and laptop.
I’ve worked on many projects, from start to finish, as a laborer, designer and manager. And there have often been moments during the course of a project when I have seen uncertainty on my clients’ faces. Indeed, once the project is well prepared, the contracts signed, the materials ordered, the work begins. And then, it’s total chaos: excavators, loaders, trucks, loudmouth workers (I was always the loudest of the bunch!) They rip out, dig, transport, pile up and move. In front of the gaping hole that used to be their yard, my clients were probably wondering what they had gotten themselves into.
The Gaping Hole of My Life!
Well, that’s kind of how I feel about my personal and professional life these days. Sometimes, I look at the gaping hole that my life has become (thankfully, there’s my girlfriend!) and I wonder what $%?&* I’ve gotten myself into. It’s a lot of work managing this blog. I don’t know how my father did it! What a machine!
Then I look back at what we’ve accomplished in the past few months and realize that order is beginning to take precedence over chaos. A sense of pride washes over me: the small team at laidbackgardener.blog managed to publish articles every day, just as my father had done since 2014. Yes, I know, he did that all by himself! I’ve often said we’d need a whole team to replace him. But instead, I think we’ll need an entire community. My father gave us all his time, knowledge, energy and optimism for so many years. That’s in all of us now. And I realize that I can’t do it without you!
The Blog Continues
My plan isn’t quite finished yet. I didn’t expect to be president-secretary-treasurer of a company at this point in my life, let alone a blogger. But as the saying goes, opportunity makes the thief! I am pleased to realize that I have things to say and ideas to implement for the coming year.
I intend to continue publishing the blog 7 days a week, 365 days a year, as my father did for the last 8 years. Of course, I will continue to publish Larry’s old texts, to make his work accessible to the public and to you, his faithful readers.
Julie Boudreau, experienced gardener and communicator, already supports us with her weekly articles on gardening. Biologist Audrey Martel has also joined us, informing and entertaining us with her posts about ecology. Larry’s friend Patrick Ryan shares his thoughts on gardening in Alaska. But I’d love to have more contributions, including from international writers, to cover a broader spectrum of gardening.
In addition, several groups and associations have the same mission as we do to share our knowledge so that everyone can garden. The Urbainsculteurs, a Quebec City-based non-profit organization working to develop productive and accessible agriculture, have joined the team. Marie-Andrée Asselin, horticultural manager, consultant and trainer, has been writing excellent articles on urban agriculture for the blog for several months. The door is wide open for other groups who wish to share their gardening experience.
A Few Projects
The project that will take up a lot of my time at the beginning of the year is the redesign of the website. Of course, the articles that have served as our reference for years will be retained. My goal is to make the site clearer and the information more accessible to readers. The look will also change. Even before my father left, we had commissioned a logo for the blog, and I can’t wait to show it to you!
While looking through my father’s computer, I discovered his notes for the articles he wrote for the newspaper Le soleil. With them, I believe I can rebuild a horticultural calendar to help us keep track of gardening activities to be accomplished throughout the seasons. The calendar will be linked to relevant articles on the website, the goal being to make gardening simple, even for the novice. Initially, this calendar will focus on the hardiness zones of Canada, but over time and with the help of gardeners from around the world, a calendar will be designed that works for everyone.
Another priority for 2023 will be to produce videos to support all these articles. We all know that social networks put a lot of emphasis on videos. So, we’re following the trend! This will not only add images to the written word, but also attract a wider audience to gardening.
I’ve got a few other wacky projects, but that’ll have to wait a bit. We have a lot of work to do already.
A solid basis: the community
Like a landscaping project, once you’ve excavated, you start building a solid base on which to build the rest. Thankfully, my father left us a solid foundation. It’s time to move on to another stage of the lazy gardener’s adventure. I am fortunate to have a large and active community that has followed my father for so many years. It’s with you that we’ll begin to build the next step. I’m curious to know what you think about the future of the Laidback Gardener. What are your needs? What would you like to see on the website or on our other platforms? Feel free to share your ideas with us in the comments! We may not be able to achieve everything this year, but we must allow ourselves to dream in order to build and grow!
Happy New Year to all of you! Thank you for being with us in these difficult times and for staying with us to realize new projects!