Featured Blogger: Fern Richardson

This week's featured blogger is someone with a name that really suits her job - Fern Richardson. Her blog Life on the Balcony is all about container gardening (something I need to know about, as our patio garden is the size of one small table and 2 chairs...)

The blog has a real magazine feel about it - partly due to it being built on the WordPress Thesis theme, well loved by many pro bloggers. Fern makes great use of videos - there's an introductory one on the home page and a whole page of vids which really bring her expert tips to life. Here's an example of one of them:




Another great feature promoted on the blog is Flower Chat - as Fern explains on the blog: "Fleur chat is a topic-based discussion that gets started every other Thursday at 6pm PST on Twitter (#FleurChat) and Facebook (Fleur Chat group). There is always a theme (such a wildlife-friendly flowers, aromatic flowers, edible flowers, etc) and usually an expert cohost." When the Chats are done, Ferns archives the transcripts on her blog, so if you missed the live event you can still see what was said later.

An extract from a Flower Chat session, archived on Life on the Balcony

Twitter or Facebook chats are a fantastic use of social media to connect with fans, readers and the wider online community. (You can run a Chat simultaneously across both platforms by syncing the two feeds.)

There are so many things I like about Life on the Balcony - do take a look and see for yourself, you are bound to take away some great ideas!