GardenStew is 20 years old!

Hi all,

I wanted to post about this on the 25th but unfortunately my power was out for days because of our most powerful storm in over 60 years.

But get this, GardenStew was 20 years old on the 25th of January! To say I find this hard to believe is an understatement! When I started the website I was just a few years out of college but now I'm in my mid-forties

Throughout the years it's been a pleasure reading about all your garden adventures and viewing all your wonderful photos. The site has gone through quite a few design changes throughout the years although not so many in the past decade. I've included some old screenshots below!

2004



2005



2006



2007


What started as simply forums evolved into blogs, a plant database and a personal digital Garden. While these features haven't been as active as the forums I'm still happy to see them used from time to time

All long-time and new GardenStew members are treasured equally but I must make a special mention to Eileen, our very first moderator who sadly passed away last year. We really miss you around here.

And as happens with such a long time period members can come and go, and sometimes never return. With the anonymous nature of membership I want to give a mention to members who we didn't get to say goodbye to and don't currently know the status of (thinking especially of long-time moderator Toni - hope you are well ).

So what does the future hold for GardenStew? The honest answer is I don't know! I'm happy to keep the site running for as long as it makes sense to and I don't see that changing any time soon! I find it funny how GardenStew has survived the asteroid that was social media like Facebook and Twitter. That destroyed forums on the Web by sucking away attention, but GardenStew must be the hardiest of plants to still be around

As a small thank you for helping us get to 20 years any member can get a custom title to go alongside their profile pic e.g. mine says "GardenStew Founder". Just let me know in the replies and I will set it up for you

What are some of your best memories of the time you have been on GardenStew so far?

 

Eileen really provided us with such gifts, including yourself Sjoerd. She was a treasure. It's great that we have her posts her as a memory.

Really?! That's so cool! Any chance of a photo? No pressure

 

Wow, thank you @Netty and @Clay_22 for the mug pics! They even have an old variant of the logo text (G and S are different sizes).