How to Find Great Plants

In November 2010 I decided to host a monthly carnival called “How to Find Great Plants.” (HtFGP for short).

All bloggers are invited! Posts in this carnival should be about a food or ornamental plant that you’d recommend to others. For example, you might want to describe your love affair with sedums or your preference for ‘Rattlesnake’ pole beans. Photos-only posts are fine as long as you label the plant pictured. Use the scientific name or not — it’s up to you!

This is a slightly hybridized blog carnival. All qualifying entries will be included (chronologically as they were received) but each issue will be designed to look like a newsletter. A handful of the best submissions will be highlighted each issue with thumbnail photos and a review.

Entry due dates will be the last Friday of the month, and publication will occur the following Monday (check for the due date & submission widget in the right sidebar on my blog). Please include a link to Appalachian Feet in your entries (you can use http://www.appalachianfeet.com/ since the carnival link isn’t available until the publishing date).

It’s easy to participate, here’s what to do:

Write a new blog post or reuse an “oldie but goodie” that recommends a plant you love (it does not have to be published on the issue’s due date, just sometime prior to it)
Make sure your blog post includes at least one photo of the recommended plant and that your links and info are up-to-date
Click on the following blue frog icon to submit your post (you can submit multiple posts but only the most recent one will be used per issue):

(This spring’s next issue is set for June).

The next issue’s submissions are due January 28th, 2011 and publication will occur the following Monday, January 31st, 2011.

IF YOU ENTER MULTIPLE POSTS, I WILL ASSUME YOU WANT THE MOST RECENTLY DATED ONE IN THE CARNIVAL.*

*Tips: I recommend entering one of your existing posts early on in the month as insurance… you can always replace it with a newer one before the deadline. One of the nice things about this carnival is that you don’t have to remember to write and publish your post on a specific day in order to participate. That means you have a full month to prepare and enter your post at your own leisure… which can lead to procrastination or forgetfulness.

Writing and entering a post the day before the deadline will drive traffic to your most recent articles whereas recycling an old post you love will get it additional attention. You need to decide which you would prefer. Also, when I make the chronological posts list for the HtFGP issue, I’ll honor the placeholder of your first entry. For example, let’s say you have an old post on garlic that you submitted as link #2 on the inlinkz page. Then you write a new post on onions near the deadline and it places #33 on the inlinkz page. I will take your recent post on onions and list it in the #2 spot, but the garlic post will not be featured.

Click on the archived issues for examples of what this carnival is looking for:

Archives: