It's where you can look at pictures of poolside plantings in California one second (Bernard Trainor) and an aeroplane wing erupting out of a suburban front lawn the next. The aeronautical ornament appears on the "Shit Gardens" account that Melbourne-based James Hull and Bede Brennan have been posting for the past three years.

The account – all fake-grass follies, ugly fountains and bizarre twists – is a great example of the reach of Instagram. It has 45,500 followers and a single post can attract more than 100 comments ("Hahahahahahaa" reads a typical one).

Now Hull and Brennan have put together a book of photographs of more than 100 "horticulturally challenged" but "oddly endearing" gardens. There are out-of-whack proportions, jarring synthetic surfaces and barely any plants.

The book too – though perhaps inadvertently – points to the appeal of Instagram. It contains picture after picture of "inexplicably bad" suburban gardens but I prefer the Instagram account, which provides only a drip-feed of horticultural missteps so that they never blur into one.

There are photographs of funny-awful replicas of renaissance statues, computers re-purposed as planters and bridges without water. These flawed, albeit idiosyncratic, spaces are the perfect foil for all the faultless gardens seen elsewhere.

The strength of Instagram is that it's a mixed bag. Like all forms of social media it can be both inspiring, intimidating and funny. The best feeds are the ones where nothing is over-thought and you glimpse the world as the person posting does. It can change how you see things.

It is also a forum for exchange. Instagrammers identify plants, offer feedback and provide advice. You can see new plants being sold locally and find out about weed foraging in New York City (66squarefeet) or making a garden in Sweden (Hakesgard).

You can watch the changes in private gardens (Michael McCoy On Gardens, Brockstar64, Sally Johannsohn, Simon_Rickard, among an endless list) and at the Royal Botanic Gardens (Tim Entwisle) and see some of the "interesting and special trees" in Victoria's Corangamite Shire (Corangamite_Trees).

You can focus on indoor gardens around the world (with 630,000 followers, Urban Jungle Blog is surely the most popular), or growing and arranging flowers (The Land Gardeners), or soak up a carefully curated mix of beguiling gardens in historic glasshouses and other exotic locales (Haarkon_).

Instagram has revolutionised gardening. It's instant and unfiltered. It turns what can be a muddy, solitary pursuit into a high-tech group activity. Personally, I prefer looking at other people's posts to posting myself and I feel a bit bad about that. The whole point is that it's about sharing.

But whether you post your own pictures or not, Instagram can be both a distraction and an education. You can peruse gardens – good and bad – all day and all night without ever stepping foot in one, which makes it especially perfect for winter.

Shit Gardens by James Hull and Bede Brennan is published by Knock Knock, $29.95.