I have wanted to respond to this thread for quite awhile but have not had the time. I am also a guy who is very interested in plants. I am also a man who is interested in flowering plants. Because I have a soft almost feminine voice and enjoy growing African violets and their cousins I have more than once had someone conclude that I must therefore be gay. I assure you that this is not the case. I do however have a very good guy a friend who unfortunately passed away from AIDS. He also had a similar love of plants and this was partially the basis for our friendship. We traded leaves and cuttings to increase our collections. Larry

My bad Stitz... of course you are correct. I have to be honest though I have only attended a handful of such meetings in my life. One in Staten Island, one in New York, NY (Manhattan to visitors), and one in Salem, OR. The meeting in NY was noteworthy for having Fred Clarke (Sunset Orchids) as speaker. Love those Cataseum hybrids! Its one thing to be a minority, it is quite another to be a freak. I've always felt a little freakish doing things like singing in Early Music ensembles, attending Calligraphy workshops and of course Orchid Society meetings. As the original poster was aware there is often minority representation from the usual suspects but with the obvious notable exception. I would much rather not be an exception. Anywho, thanks for the kind words of welcome. How have all of youse been doing? Being good to one another, lol? Any good flame-wars in the archives I should dig up? Fess up, I have started a new job and do not have a lot of time to get personal with the Gardenweb Search Engine. I will do what I can as a newly re-instated member of the light brigade but, really, what can I say that I haven't already said? "It needs more light". Cut and paste the preceding into any posts that you feel I should respond to. It's ok I give you permission. H

tiffaneyga, do you mean lychee? If you do, I seriously would love to know where you got a plant! I love them! I'm in Cumming, GA, and am growing dwarf peach trees (early elberta and belle of GA,) fruit cherry trees (bing and black tarjan,) strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and I have a dwarf meyer lemon tree that I will take out in the warm weather, but will pull indoors when it gets cold. Most of these I planted last year, as gallon plants, so I don't think I'll get fruit from the trees this year. Last year I had tons of blueberries, some raspberries, and I *had* blackberries, but for some reason my dogs loved to eat them straight off the plant right when they were just getting close to ripe enough to pick. I also have a few rhubarb plants, and also lots of veggies. my_nanba, I don't believe bananas would survive winter in ATL, unless you have a dwarf banana plant in a pot to pull indoors, similar to my lemon tree. I could be totally wrong, though, and would be delighted if I am! I'd love to add them to my garden!

Well not quite a newbie, but IÂll bite. IÂve always been the artistic type and every job IÂve ever had was luckily a creative one. Window displays, photo styling, fashion productionÂthen I got married, had 2 wonderful little munchkins, bought our first (and only so far) house and became a stay at home mom. I didnÂt know an Oak tree from a Rhododendron when we first moved in about 16 years ago. So that gratefully gave me something new to learn. I was closing in on my last bit of patience with Barney the purple dinosaur and the Ninja Turtle dudes. So I learnedÂand learnedÂand learnedÂbecame a Master Gardener , volunteered a lot , was hired as a Hort Manager then left after a few years to start my own design business. In the meantime the kids grew. My oldest was graduating from high school and we still had the old original bathroom that came with the houseÂand IÂm talkin OLD. So I was introduced to the wonderful world of tileÂooooooÂaaaahhhhhh. Then glass tile! There was no stopping me at that point. Started the learning process all over again. Substrates and thinsets, caulk and grout. Finished the glass bathroom, floor to ceiling and in parts ceilingÂI loved it! Then I put it all aside, seeing as the bathroom was finished and all. Then about a year later (last winter) I was hit with some strange medical stuffÂso now IÂm on MS watchÂyech. Perfectly fine so far, but thought that I may want to rethink this garden design stuff, plus working for other people was kinda taking all of the fun out of it. So I jumped right in. I had been on the Design forums here for awhile and eventually found you guys. This is where my mosaic story beginsÂ