I'm not the kind of person who commits to an idea just because it sounds nice in theory. I need to see it working. So before I decided to build my own digital garden, I spent time wandering through other people's gardens. Here are the ones that stuck with me — and why.
Gardens Worth Exploring
Maggie Appleton — maggieappleton.com
If you only visit one digital garden, make it this one. Maggie is a designer and anthropologist, and her garden is a masterclass in visual thinking. Every note is beautifully illustrated, and her essay "A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden" is probably the single best introduction to this whole concept. What I love most is that she labels her notes by growth stage — seedlings, budding, and evergreen — so you always know how developed an idea is before you read it.
Andy Matuschak — notes.andymatuschak.org
Andy is a researcher and software engineer who previously worked at Apple and Khan Academy. His garden is the most "pure" version I've found — it's essentially a web of interconnected working notes. No fancy design, no categories. Just ideas linking to ideas. Browsing it feels like eavesdropping on a brilliant mind mid-thought. It taught me that a garden doesn't need to look polished to be deeply valuable.
Joel Hooks — joelhooks.com
Joel's essay "My blog is a digital garden, not a blog" is one of the pieces that popularised the term in its modern form. His garden is practical and grounded — a mix of notes on development, learning, and creative work. What resonated with me was his framing: the word "blog" had started to feel heavy, loaded with expectations. Calling it a garden gave him permission to write freely again. I felt that deeply.
Gwern Branwen — gwern.net
This one is unlike anything else on the internet. Gwern writes long-form, research-heavy essays on topics ranging from statistics to psychology to anime. Every piece is meticulously sourced, regularly updated, and marked with a confidence tag so you know how certain the author is about their own claims. It's the most intellectually rigorous digital garden I've come across — proof that the format can scale from casual notes to serious scholarship.
Tom Critchlow — tomcritchlow.com/wiki
Tom is an independent consultant, and his garden doubles as a thinking space for his work on strategy, media, and organisations. What's unique is how openly he develops ideas — you can literally watch a concept evolve across multiple linked notes over months. It's a great example of how a garden can also be a professional asset, not just a personal hobby.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff / Ness Labs — nesslabs.com
Anne-Laure writes about mindful productivity and neuroscience, and her guide on "How to Set Up Your Own Digital Garden" is one of the most accessible starting points I've found. If the other gardens on this list feel intimidating, start here. She makes the whole thing feel doable — even if you're not technical at all.
Each of these gardens is wildly different in style, scope, and subject matter. That's the point. There's no single "right way" to do this. Some are visual, some are minimal. Some are academic, some are personal. The only thing they share is a commitment to growing ideas in the open — and an honest admission that nothing is ever truly finished.
I spent hours in these gardens. And somewhere between Maggie's illustrations and Andy's raw notes, I stopped asking "should I build one?" and started asking "what would mine look like?"
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