Whether
you’re jumping up and down with anticipation about returning to Austin to
commemorate the 10th anniversary of your first Fling, or you’re coming
to verify the tall tales and see where it all started, mark your calendar for
May 3-6, 2018.
Believe
all the hype – we’re planning a whiz-bang shindig bigger than Texas for all the
bloggers who flock to the second Austin fling.
The colorful roots of the original Garden Bloggers
Fling come up each year when we gather. Whether
sharing the history with newbies or reliving great personal memories of the original event,
the interest in bringing it back to Austin has grown with each passing fling.
At a time when most bloggers hid behind the anonymity of the internet, the concept of a meet up was a novel idea. Pam Penick, of Digging, suggested we invite bloggers we were following and those following us, to come to Austin for a garden adventure.
A group of Austin bloggers had already been meeting locally for a while, and it was so much fun, we thought – let’s have a party!
We
started planning, hoping like in Field of Dreams, if we built it, you would come.
And come you did. While
we weren’t sure anyone would attend, we proceeded to plan a one-day event.
Our itinerary was jam packed with public and private gardens, fabulous food, and breakout sessions about the social and technological aspects of blogging.
Then we crossed our fingers and started blogging about it, inviting everyone we followed.
Connecting
to our blogging pals and touring gardens proved to be a wonderful
experience. We had 37 attendees from
Texas and 12 other states.
Successful
beyond our wildest dreams, we bonded in private and public gardens while extending
a big-as-Texas welcome to the group.
We
opened the Fling with a buy-your-own Mexican dinner at local icon Matt’s El
Rancho -- with 37 separate checks! While
the cacophony might have been a few decibels less than at recent Fling gatherings, we to raise the roof in our eagerness to get to know one another and
talk about our gardens and our blogs.
Our transportation consisted of 5 or 6 Austin blogger’s cars, driving
participants around town between gardens with a personal tour guide. All the bloggers thoroughly enjoyed this as it enabled them to really get to know their passengers.
Jenny Stocker of Rock Rose gave bloggers a tour of the Wildflower Center.
We
recommended folks stay at Holiday Inn Express along the highway – no banquet rooms or swanky bar and lobby there.
We then had a lovely happy hour at Pam Penick’s house.
Carol Michel spoke about the evolving social aspects of blogging, while Kathy Purdy of Cold Climate Gardening discussed the emerging technical issues of maintaining a blog.
Bloggers shared their experiences with Blogger and Word Press, monetizing blogs and the future of blogging.
These were
our first break-out sessions – a cluster of new-found friends sitting on the porch while
another group gathered in the living room.
And all with Mexican martinis in hand.
Our
last event was a lunch with a local icon Tom Spencer as our inspirational speaker
-- we actually collected checks for for our Tex-Mex lunch at the door. After all, Paypal didn’t even exist yet!
We arranged our
final dinner at the County Line, where they served up mouth-watering BBQ. We ate, made a few speeches,
and raffled off a host of fun garden prizes.
We’d received a few
donations from local nurseries for participants, and then added to them from our own stashes of extra garden books
and goodies. Everyone received a small prize.
Garden author Susan Wittig Albert signed books for bloggers at the Wildflower Center and donated a few of her books as prizes.
In spite of our shoestring budget, we all had a wonderful time getting to know each other and putting a face to the anonymous names on the internet.
Oh,
how things have changed in a decade!
We've
seen amazing gardens all over the US and Canada. Now a convention-style 3-day event with two full-sized charter buses, and a banquet with happy hour - it’s hard
to believe we started with such humble beginnings.
So, sign
up as soon as we open registration, it will fill fast. Not only will you see the
best that Austin has to offer, attendees at the Austin Fling will receive a free commemorative souvenir booklet highlighting 10 years of Flings. For those who can’t join us, the booklet will
be available to previous fling attendees for purchase by mail after the event.
Mark
your calendar for May 3-6th -- or longer – stick around for
more fun on your own. Learn first-hand why our motto is: Keep Austin Weird. We will have
information about other Austin sights and activities if you decide to make a
bigger vacation out of your visit.
Keep
an eye out for the registration announcement, and y’all come on down!
I've also gotten a lot of non-pond plants there. Hill Country carries a lovely assortment of garden plants that thrive in Austin's challenging climate. And don't even get me started on their tempting selection of agaves, cactus, and other succulents for dry gardens and container gardens. 
