Mike-

I think part of the problem with this site is that it is not very "user friendly" and that might put people off from using and contributing.

I contribute to a couple other non gardening forums. They break out sections by category. For example, for digital film they are seperated by "Cameras", "Film Techniques", "Forum Member Films". Even within these categories they can be broken down further. Cameras section can be broken out by Nikon, etc. Forum member films can be seperated out by "For Comment" and "Not for Critique" and "In Process". It is much easier to find what I need when the site is easier to navigate.

The point I am trying to make is that users have to slug thru each post. Even the "Search" function needs to be limited by "member" or "date".

Also, I cannot figure out how to post pics and I do that on other forums very regularly. I have a neat pdf from the AZ State extension office on Citrus that I think newbies would benefit from but I cannot figure out how to post it.

Just one man's opinion but the site user interface may have more to do with lack of participation than lack of interest. *shrug*

To post links, you can simply paste it in the 'Optional Link URL' at the bottom of the Message window.

To do multiple links within the message window, paste the URL between the single quotes below, but use the 'less than' and 'greater than' brackets ' ' rather than parentheses.

Use this code:

(A HREF=' paste URL here ')Univ. of Arizona(/A)

Not sure if these are the PDFs you were refering to.

Univ of Arizona Extension

Dave-

Hey, thanks for the link! Looks like there might be some useful info in that link, too

What I have might be in there.
What I was referring to is AZ1492 "Diagnosing Home Citrus Problems" Apr '09.

Having a bit more granularity in the user interface would allow members to access this reference material easier.
Someone looking for prob diagnoses might easily miss the link in the body of the post or even skip the thread altogether.

Hi everyone.....

Dave, did you get your grapefrutit yet? You know you can't wait to get one..lol.
I am going to Logees this weekend, if you would like me to pick up a small 6inch high one, for you to see grow, let me know and I will pick one up for you. It will flower and fruit at such a tender age..I will post a pic of my ruby red here by tommorrow..You have to come back and see how cute..
This way I can pick the cream of the crop one. I will ship it as soon as I get it..

Keith, another way to post pics is to down-load them to photobucket..

Then when you bring the curser over to a pic, it will make a drop down selection...If you select the third option, just click till it says "copied",
then go back to what you are posting on the forums, and paste..That is it.

When you do a preview, your pic will come up..Hope this another way of helping you...

I am glad you are here with us!

meyermike: you live near Logee's? Jealous! One thing about this site that applies to all forums are the titles members use for their posts. Better titles = better response & better sharing of info. Titles like "I have a problem" or "seeds to trade" would elicit more attention being more to the point like "I have 3 types of echinacea seeds to trade" or "what time of year is best to repot my Persin lime (houseplant)?"
Your plants looks incredibly healthy by the way.
Keith p makes a good point, many are lucky to be growing outdoors & inground in Ca or FL. We grow in pots in zone 5 that must be manageable for the trips to the shower and getting through doorways. I don't necessarily think this forum needs to be divided into sub groups for those who don't have the patience to wade through......... but better post titles.............

Yes this forum is antiquated for sure. Still there are more members here that contribute than any other gardening forum I am aware of.

There is another forum that claims to have roughly 500,000 members. In their Fruit and Nut forum which covers Orchards and all fruits and nuts including Citrus they average less than one post per day.

Twice I paid the $ 19.99 per year membership fee in order to be able to see pictures and more than the 1st three posts per thread. Both times I felt ripped off. This last time I posted in three threads and its been three months with no responses.

As antiquated as it is Garden Web rocks. Not because of the forum or how its run (I hate pop ups). It rocks because of the people who take the time to help each other.

I still wish Garden Web would upgrade the software to give us a more modern look feel and function as it is way out of date. Even if we lost most or even all of the current content it would be worth it in the long run.

I have no complaints! Maybe confusion reigns here in this thread. I thought that the poster was comparing the citrus forum to the container forum. This forum will be slower because most people have one or two plants in containers, but not everyone can grow citrus. Citrus is pretty zone picky! I'm pretty lucky to live in a zone where it thrives, and I don't post much here because we have very few problems with it.

My biggest problem is leafminers and thripes, but I use spray here and there, and that takes care of that.

Sorry if I bored you. I love this forum, and most of the threads are cool. I'm happy it's running. I belong to a winemaking forum that has been down for 2 months now, and I miss it terribly, so I have zero complaints. This forum seems modern enough to me!

I say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Mike, most of the forums slow down dramatically at this time of year. Gardenweb forums continue to be a 'ask questions/get help' type of venue, rather than a 'show and tell' or a chat forum.

Be patient and you'll see an increase in visitors in a month or so.

I like this forum too! Not sure what makes it antiquated. Also if the forum is very busy all the time, it's hard to keep up!

Ashita

Absolutely beautiful to see you all here.

I see we have a member from Tokyo...Awsome. It is so nice to see this forum reaching far parts of the world! It is nice to see such a great spirit here..

Are you growing many citrus there ashita? Good to meet you.

Mike..:-)

Desertdance,

"Sorry if I bored you"?

Don't be silly.

We all add flavor to this forum...What you have to say is just as important and exciting as the next..:-)

Rhizzo, looking forward to spring. I think my citrus are starting to respond to the lengthing of days...Hoping you are well.

"What makes this forum antiquated."

Modern forums have these features....

Members can upload a personal avatar of their choice.

Members have space under their avatar for a personal message for all to see.

The search function can be limited or expanded by date. The ability to find all posts posted by member name or all threads started by a particular member or even in a particular forum instead of site wide.

The ability to save your searches and favorite threads for future reference.

Have a live chat room that can be made public or private by the members in the room.

Have a private messaging system that alerts you on screen when you have received a message in addition to email. The ability to choose who can message you and who can't.

User selectable themes.

Have a friend function so you know when one of your friends in online.

The ability to edit or delete your posts.

Have a spell checker built in.

Have forum calenders and personal calenders for forum members and the user can chose to allow no one to see their calender or to allow everyone to see it or just their friends to see it.

The ability to upload and store your own photo album with the ability to post those pictures in your posts.

WYSIWYG editor with emoticons and image attachments with the choice of adding clickable thumbnail images or full size images from the users personal album or through URLs or imgs pasted in the editor.

The ability to ignore (make invisible) posts/threads/personal messages from members who you chose not to associate with.

There are even more features in modern forum software but thats what I can think of off the top of my head.

Yes Garden Web is a very antiquated forum with few member features. Its still may favorite though because of the people.

Oh my! Now I know!!! LOL! Not sure I would have time for all those features!

Meyermike -- yes, I have a biggish yuzu in the ground. I have just made marmalade and yuzu liqueur with them. Lots of fruit. All the others I have are in pots, and as I am rather neglectful, they sulk! I have a seville orange grown from a seed. It's about 17 or 18 years old now.It has now flowered for 2 years running. I have 3 key limes all grown from seed, no flowers yet, 2 kaffir limes, one blood orange, variety unknown, one apparently tangerine grown from a seed from a tangerine bought in Malta, a ponderosa (maybe-- the skin looks a bit smoother than the pics I see online) and I got rid of an unproductive kumquat coz I just don't have the space. Most are grown from seed as only the most common varieties of non-Asian citrus are available here. There are lots of different citrus here in Japan. Tastewise I like kabosu and ponkan. The satsumas are rather insipid and very sweet, I think.

Ashita

That is just awsome...

Thankyou so much for sharing...It looks like you have a great love for these beautiful trees too!

I am not sure of the weather or the kind of zone you live in, but I suppose you have them in pots to winter them indoors? You said you had no room for a kumquat. Amazing, and to see you have some plants for that many years!
Looks like you know how to grow in containers well..

I have never been to your country and always wanted to visit. I almost got a book to read about your climate and culture.

Nice to meet you here, and I wish you all the success with your citrus. Thankyou..

Mike..:-)

Mike, I mainly have them in pots because I have a very small garden, and sometimes move them around to catch the sun, or in the winter move them into a corner to make space for winter flowering plants (also in pots). Also I move them into the house or under a tree if there's a typhoon coming. I have a sort of rotating system! It's a bit like a merry-go-round! I leave them out in the winter -- it doesn't often go below freezing point, and cover the limes. Even so they do defoliate quite a bit :-(

Ashita

It is so nice to see how many treat their trees differently than mine, ours...

Good job. If ever some day you feel motivated to take a few pictures and show them off to us, it would be an honor.

Thanks for responding and sharing your experience from there to us..:-)

Mike..:-)

We could a debate about soil amending for trees like on the conifer forum and we would have a lot of posts. I just planned a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree. What kind of soil do they like? Here is a open question for debate.

The kind that will not soffocate, or rot their roots..:-)

Oh, add to that something that would stay evenly moist, provide proper drainage, and dry out between waterings.

Mike..:-)

Tropical Thought, I use a sandy-loamy soil. It stays evenly moist but doesn't retain too much moisture to cause root rot. My soil comes from creek bottonland at the foot of a sandstone mountain. It is alluvial sand that washes up on the banks when the creek floods.

Mike said: "It is so nice to see how many treat their trees differently than mine, ours... "

I agree - this is very informative to a novice actually. I've been reading lots of various people's tips here, and I've been doing a lot of 'learning by doing' as well:

I have some grafted plants, but I also like sprouting things from seed, and have a mix of both. I got some very exceptionally seedy pummelo, yuzu and kumquats, and saved the seed from all of them, simply as an educational experiment: try to start them, in a wide variety of different soil mixes, just to see what seems to work out best, which ones growth is most vigorous vs most sluggish, etc. They are just starting to get going, so it's a little early to know, but it's a fun little wintertime experiment nonetheless.

I also wanted to see what would grow true to seed (pummelos are rumored to be unreliable in that department). The pummelo seedlings do smell like the fruit when you rub the leaves, if that's any indication. Ditto for the yuzu, which is something that should really, really be more widely cultivated.

Yes, yuzu is something special. If you have never smelled one it is probably difficult to believe,but they're sort of like the gardenia of the citrus family! Here from about November onwards you can buy a small fruiting yuzu, about 20 inches tall, in any small flower shop. Japanese buy them in the same way I might buy a parsley plant or two, to have a ready supply. When they have used up the fruit they just toss the tree and buy a new one the following year. Little slivers of yuzu peel garnish Japanese dishes, the juice is squeezed into soy sauce and rice vinegar to make a dipping sauce, grated peel flavors all sorts of things. They make a kind of jelly with the juice using agar agar instead of gelatine, and they make something called yuzushu, yuzu-infused white liqueur. It's endless. They also float 4 or 5 yuzu in the bath water. I make yuzu marmalade (divine) and yuzushu. The peel is wonderful used in any of the ways you might use lemon zest. Specially good in pound cake!

It's folklore that yuzu take some years to fruit, so try to buy a mature one if you can!

Ashita

Ashita, What is a yuzu?

Well, technologically speaking, the technology is old, too, although that only means that it is three or more years old. However, the cost of replacing it, would likely be prohibitive to the owners. I am a web developer so I know ( ... and it's a job I would love!)!
A couple of things that might help if you are using Firefox:
1. Use the popup blocker.
2. Right click on links and choose 'Open in a new tab'; then you will not have to constantly reload the page.

Hi mmeverett, yuzu is a very popular citrus in Japan and Korea. It is very scented. I'm posting the Wikipedia link!

Here is a link that might be useful: Yuzu

Does the Yuzu grow abundant fragrant flowers too?

Thankyou

Not sure if the flowers are especially abundant, but they are very fragrant, and so are the leaves,

Ashita

Mike

I have my top scientist working on it. I will let you know if we come up with viable ideas.

Steve

I think I know who he is Steve, it’s not going to work, just get the other guy🙈.

I should point out that this thread came up when I put in the search words "japan typhoon niceguy". I was looking for articles from the user theniceguy so I thought I would make a comment for us all to enjoy. I have often felt this way when there is no activity on the citrus forum.

Bob, right on..Ha

Steve, lol, that is way too funny. Thanks to people like you and Bob these days, and many other good friends here, since then it has become much better)

I used to be much more active. I may be an example of why we as a group aren't as active now. rhizo made a valid point that this is a slow time of year for citrus. Those of you in the north have your trees indoors and my in-ground trees are mostly dormant although a few of my trees beg to differ. I was more active when I first got started and had bookoos of questions and was just posting photos of my trees for the first time. Now, I post once in a while but most of you have seen all there is to see of my trees. I'm also spreading my time into some other activities now that I have most of my citrus needs figured out. It's always been a great and very active forum and most of us still come through here now and then, just don't have anything newsworthy to share yet.

That being said, I was shocked Friday when I walked by one of my Ponderosa lemons and saw little purple leaves sprouting....almost certainly will get frozen if we get the cold snaps we always get in February. It's been sooooo mild here this "winter" that I have an avocado growing outside that came up from a seed I tossed out with other compost under my kumquat tree. My calamondin is also unaware that it's February. It's smack in the middle of a rather large burst of blooms.