I agree with the above. Plus the fact that too much personal information gets divulged or can be mined by joining facebook. I'd rather limit my online participation to forums like GW and other, less inclusive, less wide open sites. I've been a member here for a long time....going on a couple of decades......and I have seen the same ebb and flow of visitor traffic through the seasons as we are now witnessing. January, February, March are always as slow as molasses but it will pick up when the gardening season comes into to full force in the next 6-8 weeks. And I have to say that the comments about excessive ads and pop-ups surprises me. I don't experience hardly any at all and just use Explorer with the standard firewalls. Didn't realize this was much of a problem anymore regardless of the Internet server one used...... I have to be honest when I say I read more than post. Most of the topics don't hold a great deal of interest for me and I tend only to respond to questions that get neglected or overlooked or when erroneous info is provided. Since conifers are not my area of concentrated expertise, I let others respond first - there is an amazing knowledge base here :-) But I still remain pretty active in some other forums. I also live in an area where the Internet is not widely available so I am not online at home. And since my work life is pretty seasonal and therefore computer access the same, I tend not to post much in winter anyway.

Wow, lots to answer here! First of all, thanks for the kind comments. I'm so glad you guys enjoyed seeing the pics. Saintpfla, I didn't plant a single one of them. Period. Haha! I got one from a friend several years ago that he dug up from his backyard. They are, indeed, native brown-eyed Susans. ALL of mine came from that one plant, plus I have given away tons of them. Yet, they aren't invasive, by any means. They reseed happily every year, but the young plants are easy to pull or transplant or pot up for others. They are biennials and take two years to bloom, but once you have a patch of them going, you will get blooms every year. They have no discernible fragrance, to me, but the bees sure love them. They are draught tolerant, hardy, and form low-growing basal rosettes until they start shooting up tall bloom stems. They make terrific cut flowers and when these are done blooming, I will probably pull them all out. At least all the ones that bloomed. They kind of die back after they finish, so I pull them, but leave the new rosettes that are coming up so that they can bloom next year. I've enjoyed them so much, I've often considered taking everything else out of the bed and letting them really go crazy. But I like seeing the red pentas and a few other blooms in there with them, too. Tropicfreak, the only roses I grow any more are OGR's, and they go in the ground, usually. Though I do have a few in pots. When I used to grow hybrid teas, I had no luck with Jackson Perkins roses at all. Largely because they weren't on the right root stock. I always bought Nelson roses in this area, as they are on Fortuniana, and I grew them in the ground and in pots, both. With pretty good success. I don't grow them any more because I got tired of the endless cycle of feeding and spraying. If I were you, I would only invest in roses grown locally in your area on the correct root stock. The others will likely croak. Hope that's some help to you. Thanks again, everyone, for your nice comments. The bed is a mess overall, but with so many yellow flowers everywhere, who cares? I know I don't. For right now, I can overlook the weeds and just enjoy the rudbeckias. Marcia

Hi Brendastarr, I may be doing mine a bit differently, but here is what works easiest for me. Go to Photobucket, click on any pics on the same page that you would like to post on a message here. Now go all the way to the bottom of that Photobucket page and click on the box that says"generate Img & Html code". This will take you to the next page where you will right click on the first selection and select "copy". Now exit out of Photobucket and come here and type your message. Right click in your message and select "paste". When you hit the preview message button, then all your selected pictures will appear in your message. Really makes it quick and easy to post multiple pictures. Give it a try and let me know if you have any other questions, okay? Luvs

This site hasn't been the same since Spike started charging for it. A lot of folks left then, and it has never recovered. I wish it was more active too. I thought it might get better after the sale of the site, but it hasn't.