New social-media site for gardeners launches

A new social-networking website for gardeners, DigtheDirt.com, launched last week. The website is the brainchild of Seattle-based Web veteran and gardener Cliff Sharples, who calls his team's creation “a gardener's virtual playground for meeting, seeking, learning and obsessing over shared enthusiasms.”

DigtheDirt's database of plant data, care instructions, gardening how-to articles and landscape ideas are cross-referenced and dynamically assembled for a home gardener based on the type of gardening or garden topic that that person might be interested in. With more than 200 topic centers, gardeners can come together with other gardeners, horticulture experts, landscape designers and gardening professionals to share ideas, carry on conversations, ask questions, view photos and make friends.