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When Mesha Provo and her husband decided in March to sell their 1,350-square-foot home in El Sobrante, a San Francisco Bay Area suburb, she saw green in her garden.A self-styled "fanatical gardener," she recognized the potential draw of her labors - and she hoped to find a buyer who would appreciate her garden's beauty.

So in addition to hiring an agent to list the property, Provo started an Internet Web log - blog for short - and told her real estate agent to include the Web address on her home's Multiple Listing Service information.

Each day she wrote about and posted photos of her daisies, jasmine and roses to entice prospects. "I had this idea that I would first tease them with pictures of the garden," said Provo, 52, who is the national sales manager for Ballentine Vineyards in Napa Valley. Later, she added shots of the interior and exterior.

Her clever marketing appeared to work. The house sold for $612,000 - $43,000 more than the original asking price - to another gardener who had read her blog.Provo's story may be unusual, but it shows that Internet blogs have the potential to be effective consumer tools for home buyers and sellers.