You can continue to put your dark colored shade cloth on the inside and I will continue to suspend a white one over my GH and we can both be happy. Do you always put words in other people's mouths? I never said such a thing, and I don't see anyone else saying the same thing? You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I prefer: You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. My point was simply that at least here, aluminet is about ten times more expensive than shadecloth, and there has been no compelling evidence that it is better. (no, neither SHOUTING nor 'I've always done it that way' are compelling evidence) I ask 'why bother?'. Does aluminet last longer than shade cloth? scratch less? weigh less? Are there any good reasons to use it besides being shiny? I would guess that it is more likely to scratch as aluminium is harder than polycarbonate, whereas shadecloth is made from polyester or PET. (From memory, aluminet does scrunch up well removing the need for a rolling mechanism, but then, even time I've seen it used, it was used on the inside - maybe it degrades faster in UV or something) Clavero: good idea. be persuaded by facts, not by who says what :)

I'd like to know the answer to that as well. I have a Pretoria planted next to my koi pond and was wondering if I could safely use bt there. Anybody?

Lavender_lass - Thank you for the suggestions! I think short top herb lists is nice idea but to be useful I think the lists would have to be zone or climate specific. You may be able to combine a few zones together for a list but still you would need multiple lists for each suggested topic. That would greatly increase the amount of work and expertise to create these resources. Perhaps I'm thinking about this wrong and would welcome your comments back... But I think a list of 25 or so popular herbs and very basic info may be a far more doable project since that will cover herbs from a variety of zones and could each be designed for a specific theme - shade-loving, sun-loving, bees, culinary, dyeing, fragrance, tea, medicinal, etc. That way there should be at least a couple from each list that would apply to most reader's conditions and we could avoid the zone/climate-based lists. eibren - Thank you for your feedback! Discussing your current projects? Goodness yes and please do! The FAQ's aren't meant to stop discussions. I sincerely hope just the opposite - I hope that they would inspire better conversation rather than the repetitive (and often laborious to answer) basic questions so often seen here. I think the repetitive content gets very tiring for everyone and doesn't really encourage people to stay and read after a while. Individual herb threads - I'm not sure the threads about certain herbs really would work that well. Given gardenweb's structure, I suspect it would be better to build a faq here for an individual herb or perhaps add to GardenWeb's plant database HortiPlex. I've never used it, but it seems as though you can add info and pictures to the entries. This might also be useful for lavender_lass's suggestions. leira - You are most welcome to help! This isn't my forum, it's everyone's. Is there something that you would like to work on? I was going to work on some of the general stuff, like mentioned here first and proceed to some of the often asked things (like growing herbs indoors, multiple herbs to one pot, etc.). FataMorgana

Trudi, I started a school garden program last spring at my grandchildren's school. That's when I found this forum. (I was already a fan of the Gardenweb.) I have learned a lot about starting and running a school garden program during the last year and continue to learn everyday. I would be happy to share what I've learned and hope others will do the same. I hope we can come up with simple, practical lessons plans for all ages. Too many of the ones I've seen are based on simulated gardening experience. I'm looking for ones that actually involve working in the dirt. I would also like to suggest a seed exchange for school garedners. And lots of photos. I would also like to get out the message that starting a garden program does not have to take lots of money. We've managed to develop one that involves more than 1,200 1-4th graders, with an expendure of only a couple hundred dollars. Here are my photos, I hope others will share as well. Roberta http://home.fuse.net/grandmashouse/Newsnews.htm