Apart from Jaxon’s Review, I also run another blog called Macro Photography Blog. It is dedicated to macro photography using point-and-shoot cameras.
One of the entries on that blog is about Mimosa pudica, known in Malaysia as the “pokok semalu” or literally, shy plant. I had written that from where I came from, the plant was considered a nuisance.
Nuisance plant?
I came from a padi farming background. Back in the 70’s, all farming activities in my village in Borneo were still done manually.
We — my parents and my siblings — used to encounter a large tract of the padi field covered by the Mimosa pudica, which we had to clear manually.
With our bare hands and a special tool — a kind of machete — we would clear the thorny Mimosa pudica from the field so it won’t disturb the growth of the padi plant.
However, Mimosa pudica is never listed officially as a nuisance plant but I had described it as such because of my past padi farming experience.
Mimosa pudica website
A visitor responded to the blog entry, saying (edited for brevity):
In the United States, this plant is not considered a nuisance, as in most places it dies from the frost, and is an exciting novelty. I thought your young gardeners would enjoy an indoor gardening adventure, growing the TickleMe Plant (Mimosa pudica). [...]
We love helping children and those young at heart to become excited about plants and nature!
Mark Chipkin, Educational Project Director, TickleMe Plant Company. http://www.TickleMePlant.com, TickleMePlants@aol.com.
Niche site
I like to think of my macro photography blog as a niche blog as it mostly discusses macro photography from the point of view of a point-and-shoot camera owner.
Until I saw the tickleme website. Then it dawned on me how one could really zoom in and create a site or blog to cater for a very specific niche such as the Mimosa pudica.
Lesson from the shy plant
Around the time I was posting the entry about the plant, I had been thinking of creating several niche blogs or sites but didn’t have the idea of what constituted a niche site or blog.
Now — thanks to the shy plant — it’s becoming clearer to me how to plan the new sites.
Link to this page