In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss Joanne's experience at the Garden Bloggers Fling in Philadelphia this September.

The Garden Bloggers Fling began in Spring 2008 as a meet-up for garden bloggers across the U.S. It soon became a must-attend, blogger-run annual event (paused only by the pandemic) hosted by organizers in a different city each year. Today the Fling has grown — while the name has been shortened — to include content creators across the international online garden media. Joanne was one of almost 100 gardeners who visited 15 private and public gardens in three and a half days.

Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:

• How did you first hear about The Fling?
• What is involved?
• How many flings has Joanne attended?
• What were some of the interesting gardens you got to see?
• What was the schedule like? What did you do on the first day?
• The fling is successful thanks to the many industry sponsors including:
  • Garden Media Group
  • Longwood Garden
  • Proven Winners
  • Monrovia
  • Bailey Nurseries
  • The Great Grow Along
• When and where is the next fling: July in the Puget Sound area of Seattle.

Learn more at www.gardenfling.org or search online for #thefling.

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.  

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne and Matthew via their websites:  

Joanne Shaw: down2earth.ca 

Matthew Dressing: naturalaffinity.ca

Resources mentioned during the show

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

Down the Garden Path Podcast

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe to be notified of new content. You can now catch the podcast on YouTube and Patreon.