I don't think I had a biggest or most pressing. I guess the questions came to be as I had to learn how to battle the problems I encountered. A great thing to explain though would be when to start your seedlings. I'm in zone 6 and I have to start my lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant indoors. I can direct seed radish, squash, pumpkin, melons, and corn. That can be a huge topic because it changes with zones, but it would be something that beginners probably wouldn't know. Soil basics would be a great chapter too. Where you can get your soil tested, how to prepare your soil samples, understanding the results, and then amending your soil to correct any problems. Such as, if the pH came back as 5.5. How much lime to add, usually the back of the bag has a chart that will show the square footage across one axis and the pH across another. Then you just match the two and it will give you the pounds of lime to add to get a neutral pH. Most frustrating: VARMINTS! Pronounced "GROUND-HOGS"! Nothing is worse than working diligently in your garden only to come out the next morning and all of your cauliflower is gone! Common problems: bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs (repeat that a few hundred times), drought. Diseases are a common problem too. This could be a huge topic, probably a book of its own. Ortho has a really awesome book out that has most common garden plants listed, then for each plant it lists the most common diseases and pests. Along with pictures of what a disease looks like, what the pests look like, and your possible defenses. How much would I pay? Probably nothing for a course. Not that I'm cheap, I just can't afford the time. I usually Google around for my answers or post them on forums such as this one. For a book, I've paid $40.00 for a book or two on specific gardening topics such as how to prune and train trees. I think in this forum you're going to find a lot of do-it-yourself-ers. People here tend to try what the want and then learn from their mistakes. In fact, a lot of gardeners I know are like that. That's what is nice about gardening, you don't need a heap of book smarts to get great results. A few simple rules that need to be memorized and then a huge amount of work that needs to be done. Good luck on your book. Maybe check out that Ortho book, I can't remember the title, but it is was published by Ortho. A local nursery had one that I used to pair my apple trees for cross-pollination. That is another topic for fruits too! Cross-pollination vs self-pollination. Pollinators......I think that you're book is going to have to be 15 or so volumes to cover the amount of information that your survey is trying to gather.

I wish I could be so optimistic. I have driven and ridden scores of thousands of miles in SC's countryside for nearly a third-century and all the while with more than a casual interest in fruiting plants. This was all over the state with only a few exceptions. Added to the rural through-roads and side roads, of the past two years I have driven an intensive few thousand miles on small country roads and dirt roads. I also deal with rural people not rarely (regarding unrelated problems) and I talk to county agents or staff in several counties or regions. I see some muscadines and figs, some scattered pears, occasional blueberries and plums, and the rare apple (probably far more common in the mountains and higher piedmont). Pecans are pretty plentiful though, and very occasionally a chestnut is seen. I probably wouldn't notice scattered blackberries, but would see a row. I might miss a small plot of strawberries. Big rural yards often have their fruit bushes and trees in the wide front or side expanses where it is possible for me to see them. City people are more backyard oriented. Commercially I see peaches, pecans, muscadines, apples (upstate only),strawberries, blueberries, pecans, and even one chestnut grove and one kiwi vineyard. The evidence that these can be grown here is there for all to see. A few people make jelly from the ornamental jelly plam (Butia), many banana plants are grown for ornamentals but few for fruit, loquat fruit from the common ornamentals are eaten by some, as are ginkgo nuts. I could hardly miss Japanese persimmons when fruiting in the fall but these are so rarely seen I off hand can't remember a one but my own. And what could be easier and more trouble-free to grow? I have seen fruiting cold hardy citrus, but very few. They may however be far more common near the coast. I just don't see the interest directly. The only counter-argument that is starkly obvious is that thousands of fruit plants are sold each year by the various nurseries and some of them actually are appropriate and have a reasonable chance to live (muscadines, rabbiteye blueberries, figs, a few of the pear selections, a few plums, pecans including rarely a good selection, and blackberries). Most others are doomed. Doomed peaches probably kill a lot of potential later interest.

The cherry tree is about 6 feet, the pear trees are 4-5 feet, the peach are about 3 feet and the apple about 5 feet. If you need to know specific varieties I can go out and look at the bands on the trees. I got cherries last year and one apple. The peach trees are one year old. I have never sprayed ever. I had another peach tree that died about 2 years ago. It produced fruit that had many black spots and then the leaves fell off and it died. These are all the reasons I must research the topic. I don't know anything. The only pests that I have noted are what I call bagworms. Before I noticed them they took many of the leaves from the cherry tree. I took care of them with seven dust that I use sparingly in the garden. I do get powdery mildew here and now that i think about it I believe that I had some PM on one of the trees. I really had it on my honeysuckle and took care of it with daconil. It will be back. I need educated. I know nothing about dormant spraying or really anything else. Thanks for your interest in helping me. Regards, Pife

Gary, it's more than *either* bozo *or* snobbish. Big middle of the continuum where most of us hang out. Knowing that live orchids are thrown out to die is tough. However, my 40 indoor plants are crowded, and just one of those large big box Phals would push a couple off the shelf. Denninmi, for me, the most important thing is to enjoy our orchids, whatever their source or price. I'm glad the big box stores have Phals and other orchids at low prices. I might never have gotten into orchids had it not been for one of those stores. Before then, I thought orchids demanded hothouse conditions and didn't know commercial growers existed. The stores introduce loads of uninformed folks to orchids. Your question about quality... Masses of big box orchids, identified or not, come from Thailand. Others may know if quality is similar to those from US commercial growers, but *I* feel better buying from a grower whom I can contact to see if they have an orchid not listed in their catalog, get detailed info about a particular plant, could visit if in the area, whatever. Your question about what the availability of these plants at low prices to the general public means to more professional orchid growers... I wonder about that, too, if I'm understanding your question. Have big box sales had a detrimental effect on US professional, commercial growers? My understanding is countless plants come from factory farms in Thailand, where the weather's ideal; utility, labor, transportation, & other costs are low; and the mammoth greenhouse compounds are largely or completely automated. It seems impossible for US growers to compete, but perhaps the two markets largely draw different customers. Or maybe hobbyists continue to buy from US growers while shopping at big box stores for inexpensive, blooming orchids that aren't available from US growers at those prices anyway. There are bound to be other variables. And... just know - for $15-$25 plus shipping, you can get a blooming size Phal from a US commercial grower, or one of the multitude of other orchids that grow in Phal conditions. These plants aren't likely forced to bloom, as the big box orchids are. If you order during the orchid's natural blooming season, you'll receive a spiking plant. Otherwise, it will flower during its next season, as most of yours probably do now. Enjoy, WhiteCat8