Credits
EDITORletter
Kathy Jentz Editor/Publisher Washington Gardener 826 Philadelphia Ave. Silver Spring, MD 20910 Phone: 301-588-6894 kathyjentz@gmail.com www.washingtongardener.com Ruth E. Thaler-Carter Proofreader
Your editor hosting virtual garden talks and garden club meetings via Zoom.
Zooming Virtually
Before this spring, I had participated in a handful of online meetings and even hosted two webinars myself for GardenComm, the association for garden communicators. I was so grateful to already have had these experiences under my belt when I was putting together my garden club’s virtual meetings this spring and then holding my own gardening webinars over the last few months. There is much talk lately of “zoom fatigue” and I have felt it, too. There are only so many hours in a day where you want to be sitting and staring at a screen, so I was a bit hesitant to switch my talk for Brookside Gardens from in-person to online. I worried that we wouldn’t get as many folks to sign up for it, since they’d be spending a Saturday morning on the computer and not out in the garden. I was pleasantly surprised that the session sold out with 99 attendees—including several from outside our growing region! People who could never have traveled to see me at Brookside were now able to take part in the online format. That experience showed me that virtual meetings have many side benefits and are here to stay. After this isolation period is done, we can continue to meet online when it makes more sense than being in person. I can see that from now on, we will not need to have another “snowed out” garden club meeting—as long as we have electricity and an internet connection, we can still gather. Of course, there are still innumerable reasons to meet in person. We lose out on the social time and spontaneous friendships that result from attending live events. I miss being able to mingle with attendees before my talks and staying afterward to chat a bit longer with my hosts. I also miss the “extras” we get from meeting in person—from sharing snacks, plant divisions, and seeds to the speakers being able to sign and sell their books directly with the attendees. Garden tours through photos and video are terrific, but they are far from the experience of visiting a garden in person and using all of our senses to take it in. I know that each of us picks up on different aspects of a garden and the photos I am seeing are just one person’s take on the garden. By looking at the photos people share on social media from the same gardens I’ve toured, I can easily see how each of us encounters that natural world in a unique way. The virtual tours are merely an appetizer that makes me want to get out and visit them even more. I look forward to the post-COVID days, when we will be able to make that choice. Remember: Gardening is not canceled! Happy gardening,
Kathy Jentz, Editor/Publisher, Washington Gardener KathyJentz@gmail.com 4
WASHINGTON GARDENER
JUNE 2020
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