# 🌱 Digital Gardens MOC A map of content for notable digital gardens — collections of evolving, interlinked notes that grow over time rather than being published as finished, chronological posts. ## Why people build them - To **think in public** — sharing half-formed ideas, not just polished posts - To escape the pressure of "finished" writing (seedling → budding → evergreen stages) - To build a **personal knowledge network** with dense bidirectional links - To resist algorithmic feeds and own their own corner of the web - Because writing and linking notes forces clearer thinking ## The classics - [[Maggie Appleton]] — illustrated notes, growth stages, the canonical example - [[Andy Matuschak]] — evergreen working notes, side-by-side panel navigation - [[Tom Critchlow]] — streams, campfires, and gardens; non-performative blogging - [[Joel Hooks]] — "my blog is a digital garden, not a blog" - [[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]] — the "mind garden" concept at Ness Labs - [[Gwern Branwen]] — the most rigorous garden on the web ## Dense knowledge bases - [[Nikita Voloboev]] — "Everything I Know" wiki - [[Soren Bjornstad]] — TiddlyWiki Zettelkasten - [[Bill Seitz]] — ~17,000 pages, running since 2002 ## Distinctive design - [[Buster Benson]] — notes organized as "piles" - [[Gordon Brander]] — design-pattern cards - [[Azlen Elza]] — experimental navigation ## Approachable and personal - [[Neil Mather]] — multi-topic garden with visitor guides - [[Chris Biscardi]] — developer-focused garden ## Directories for finding more - [Digital Gardeners repo](https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners) — Maggie Appleton's curated resources and gardener list - [best-of-digital-gardens](https://github.com/lyz-code/best-of-digital-gardens) — ranked list of 100 open-source gardens, updated weekly - [awesome-digital-gardens](https://github.com/kyrose/awesome-digital-gardens) — inspirational gardens and tooling ## Key reading - [A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) — Maggie Appleton - [The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral](https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/) — Mike Caulfield, the original essay - [Of Digital Streams, Campfires and Gardens](https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/10/of-gardens-and-wikis/) — Tom Critchlow - [My blog is a digital garden, not a blog](https://joelhooks.com/digital-garden) — Joel Hooks - [You and your mind garden](https://nesslabs.com/mind-garden) — Anne-Laure Le Cunff