DO you ever wonder what it would be like to garden in an entirely different climate? Say in New Zealand, with tropical rhododendrons blooming at your back door, or somewhere in the southern United States with land that supports only okra and kudzu, or in snow bound Finland where you chip away the ice from your little rockery at the beginning of spring to find your aptly named sempervivum still alive after a six month snow bath?
If you are a curious gardener, then the Internet is the place for you. There are tons and tons of garden related gigabytes zipping around out there.
Your first stop might be at The Virtual Garden (http://vg.com), a glossy American web site where you can look up a plant in the encyclopaedia, slaver over the orchid of the month, pay a virtual visit to the Philadelphia flower show or browse through the "magazine rack". Here in Homeground, Texas born Allen Lacy writes about garden plants that turn traitor and become pernicious weeds: dandelions, he informs us, were brought to America by European settlers as a pot herb. And in This Old House you can learn from master carpenter Norm Abram how to build the "quintessential compost bin".
Everything you always wanted to know about compost is at The Compost Resource Page (http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/), and a lot more besides, such as how to build a composting toilet (don't try this at home). And if you are a practical type, try the Museum of Garden History (http://www. compulink.co.uk/museumgh) with its exhibits of old lawnmowers, watering cans and topiary shears.
But, to my mind, the most entertaining and informative spots on the Internet are the "newsgroups and "lists". These are "places" where like minded people come together to discuss their pet topic. Everybody from rank amateurs to seriously serious academics - is out there giving their two cents worth.
At the newsgroup for gardeners in Great Britain - uk.rec.gardening - (there doesn't seem to be an Irish gardeners newsgroup yet) garden problems are tossed from one person to another. A message asking about climbers for a north facing wall prompts immediate suggestions: what about the rose "Madame Alfred Carriere or the climbing hydrangea, or what about a "thin" shrub such as Cotoneaster horizontalis. Another person has a problem with "bloody rabbits", and of course, everyone wants urgently to banish slugs and cats from the garden. One poor chap, meanwhile, can get no advice on cleaning his York stone paving, and has been steadfastly ignored by the rest of the group despite posting his message four times.
My favourite "list" of Alpine-L, a gathering of hundreds of alpine gardeners from all over the world. It's the long distance, time lapsed version of a room full of really smart people (alpine gardeners have much bigger brains than the rest of us): in one corner they're discussing a cure for hellebore black rot (garden sulphur or chamomile tea, perhaps), in another they're talking about the cultivation of Alkanna aucheriana, while elsewhere a heated argument is in progress about that perennial chestnut - freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is the best thing about the Internet (it is also its worst, accounting for much unforgivable self indulgence). The Internet "allows the lowliest to speak to the loftiest", according to one of AlpineL's co owners, 77 year old Harry Dewey. It also allows Harry - in Beltsville, Maryland, USA - to shoot the breeze with me in Dublin, Ireland.