A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden

by Maggie Appleton

“A garden is a collection of evolving ideas that aren’t strictly organised by their publication date. They’re inherently exploratory – notes are linked through contextual associations. They aren’t refined or complete – notes are published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. They’re less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal websites we’re used to seeing.”

As someone who struggles with perfectionism and can get caught up in finding the right container a wild digital garden sounds like a particularly fertile project for me.

“Gardens present information in a richly linked landscape that grows slowly over time… You get to actively choose which curiosity trail to follow, rather than defaulting to the algorithmically-filtered ephemeral stream. The garden helps us move away from time-bound streams and into contextual knowledge spaces.”

This metaphorical contrast of a constantly flowing stream (like social media) versus following your own curiosity down various rabbit holes reminds me of my early days of the internet and an experience I’d like to get back to.

When I realized I wanted to reframe my artist’s log project as a digital garden (or compost heap) it was clear to me that my newsletter was more of a campfire… a space for connection.

Then I continued reading to find this,

“While gardens present the ideas of an individual, campfires are conversational spaces to exchange ideas that aren’t yet fully formed.”

Love it when a metaphor comes together.

And just when I was wondering if maybe it wasn’t all a bit frivolous and I was being distracted from the real work Appleton says,

“Naming is a political act as much as a poetic one.”