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firstly, if this is your first time encountering a digital garden, i highly suggest checking out digital garden terms of service for a better understanding of the dos and don’ts.

digital gardens are a type of website that has been increasingly popular over the past few years. it functions entirely different compared to the traditional blog style website that we may be familiar with. as maggie appleton explains in her article, they break away from conventional structures in four key ways:

1. connections over chronology

• digital gardens are heavily influenced by wikipedia style (or in simple terms, linking of notes) instead of the latch structure. they are often organised round contextual relationship and links rather than hierarchy and time.
• unlike blogs, which often follow a linear, chronological format, digital gardens focus on creating a web of interconnected ideas. this is inspired by wikipedia’s linking system, where content is organised around contextual relationships rather than rigid hierarchies or timelines. in a garden, every note can branch out and link to others, fostering exploration and serendipitous discovery.

2. continuous evolution

• a digital garden is never static. it grows and changes as the creator’s thoughts and ideas evolve. notes are published in varying stages of completion, celebrating the process of refinement over time, and a constant work in progress.
• in my own digital garden, notes are categorised with five tags to make my note making process more streamlined, but even unfinished ideas are shared publicly (unless they’re tagged as private). you can also check out my tag taxonomy for how i organise some of my notes.

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falling leaf are shower thoughts and barely fleshed out ideas

these are fleeting notes that i capture on the go via an apple shortcut or manually entering in notion. i may or may not delete these notes if i find that they are not as useful

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seedling are more fleshed out ideas that need to be polished and linked out

i call these permanent notes, i don’t think its the “right” term but the i’m talking about the state of permanence that they are in, not the fact that they won’t change (because they will)

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clover leaf are notes that contain a singular concept or idea

these are atomic notes that are so atomic in nature that the ideas within the note can be taken out of the original context, allowing linking with the rest of the digital garden.

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ferns are notes that are close to full form but can still change.

these are evergreen notes that have been worked on overtime, they tend to be a bit more specific in terms of topic, but the content has been grown from merging many notes

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palm tree are notes taken from outside sources but written in my own words

these are mainly notes from school at the moment, for example what i have taken down from lectures or classes that i may find useful or interesting

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fruits are from outside sources taken whole sale (reference notes)

these are all the highlights i have taken from watching youtube videos, podcasts, reading ebooks or online articles

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• if you’re interested in looking at how my personal knowledge management system looks like, you can check it out here where i show my entire second brain system

3. embracing imperfection and learning in public

• gardens encourage learning in public, an approach that values transparency and imperfection. the notes shared are not polished or final—they’re stepping stones in an ongoing journey of discovery.
• this process makes digital gardens feel intimate and honest, inviting others to engage with your thought process rather than just your conclusions.

4. playful, personal, and experimental

• unlike traditional websites, which often stick to a single theme or style, digital gardens reflect the creator’s personality and interests in all their variety.
• my digital garden includes everything i’m curious about, from niche topics to broader explorations. it’s a space where experimentation and creativity thrive, making it as much about the person as the knowledge they share.

gardens break us out of our time bound nature

the main advantage of a digital garden lies in its ability to break free from time-bound and hierarchical structures. it allows us to organise and explore information in a way that prioritises curiosity and wonder over what’s most recent. one framework of collecting information is c.o.d.e

in his book information anxiety, richard saul wurman (the founder of the ted conference) outlined five fundamental ways to organise information:

1. location

2. alphabet

3. time

4. category

5. hierarchy

while these methods are useful, they often overlook “relatedness” or “relevance.” digital gardens embrace this missing piece, prioritising meaningful connections between ideas. tools like obsidian excel at this, offering backlinking and graph views to visualise relationships between notes—something i’m still finding ways to balance in my notion-based setup.

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all of andy matuschak’s notes live within my digital garden, he has heavily inspired me to start my own and i wanted to begin tending to my garden with all the rich sources he has left us. overtime, there will be lesser of his ideas as i start to populate my own garden. i highly suggest to check out his own website here.

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https://blog.ryeones.com

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