What’s Changing in 2025?
This winter I am moving my website and its content to a different website host, from Squarespace to WordPress. Now I won’t bore you with the minutiae, however, the big picture is that the Modern Garden Guild will be closing.
And I’m opening a different subscription service over on the new website. You don’t have to do anything: I will close the MGG before the end of February (at which time many annual Founding Members joined) so you won’t be charged for another year — or month — of content after February.
Your subscription will get canceled by February 28, 2025.
I can’t move you all over to the new website; cancelling the Guild at the end of February, and launching the new website and functionality at that time (or soon thereafter).
The catch? If you want to continue to have premium access to my gardening content, you’ll need to join the new platform. See below for details.
Why make this change?
First and foremost, I’ve outgrown the limited functionality of Squarespace, which is mostly known for hosting online retail shops. In 2018, I was drawn to the easy website design, which I did myself for many years (that’s probably why it’s so disorganized!), and I was keeping it simple. It worked, until it didn’t. The website hasn’t been working for me for 2 years, but I’ve been too busy to dedicate the time and resources to migrate.
Here’s a sneak peak at the site under construction:
As many of you recall, we quickly learned that within the MGG (when you’re logged in), we couldn’t search the website for posts, which is completely ridiculous. I appreciate you sticking with me despite this archaic dysfunction. As the posts accumulated, it became very difficult to find things, even for me. So I created new categories to try and make things easier to find but it was a crutch to bide time … until now.
By moving to WordPress, I am gaining extraordinary functionality (even though the bar is set quite low currently). The site will look and feel much better. Posts will be organized by category and easier to find.
A sneak peak at the new site as a work in progress.
Another massive upside is that I’ll finally be able to integrate a discussion forum/community board within the website rather than trying to use Discord which we did for a brief moment.
I plan to continue to pen blog posts seasonally, such as my what I’m sowing now posts, while continuing to connect with you (off socials and in the discussion forum!) which is the best part of my job as a gardening content creator.
I sincerely miss our exchanges and hope we can reconnect meaningfully in this discussion forum, which I liken to a garden club of sorts. It’s the place where meaningful and supportive garden conversations will happen. That’s my hope.
Come to learn. Stay for the community.
(And by community, I mean YOU! You make this space magical.)
What’s changing?
I am returning to a blog format rather than a website whose purpose was to try and funnel sales. (I am not a salesperson, I don’t like marketing myself, and I didn’t really try to grow my Modern Garden Guild because as you know, our garden is oversized and our life full, so returning to a blog feels like a great move for my sanity and capacity to give to the gardening community.)
This means that most of my posts will be public. However, I am turning ads on to my website. This means that users will pay one of two ways, either from passive ad revenue while reading my posts, or by subscribing, where you’ll get:
An ad-free experience
Access to subscriber only posts
Weekly videos like I’ve been doing since September
Discussion forum/gardening community board
Your gardening questions answered by me
What will it cost?
$5/month or $50/year for current and former MGG members
$6/month or $60/year for new and future subscriptions
I’ll continue to update you on this weekly in February, along with any seeds I decide to sow! :)
Questions? Shoot me an email: meg@megcowden.com
