I bought that book but felt it didn't offer enough suggestions. (Good as far as it went.) I agree that visiting the Bot. Garden in CH, the Bloomquist native section at Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, the native garden (forgot the name) in Asheville...not the big Arboretum but the smaller one closer to town. In SC I did go once to the gardens at Clemson but was disappointed...maybe they have added more natives now since Patrick McMillian is there, and he is a big proponent of natives. He would be one to check if you have questions for your area...very nice young man with incredible knowledge. Also, if you don't travel much, NC State has great photos with cultural requirements for a lot of wildflowers and native shrubs. I imagine Clemson does, too, but I don't usually "cruise" that site since I no longer live around there. Oh, I bought a Shumard oak years ago, and it is too big now. Nothing will grow under it, not even weeds! Oh, well. My cat likes the empty dusty dirt to roll in and dust himself. I wanted to mulch it, but my husband said I could not take away my cat's pleasure-place.

Well we have had around 60 responses regarding starting a Canadian native plant forum here on Gardenweb - honestly I don't think it would matter if we had a thousand responses as far as Garden web goes, I think they believe there are 6 people living here in Canada - Thanks for knottyceltic for answering questions and responding to peoples growing interest in native plants. It has come to my attention today that there may be a alternative. I actually received an email from a member who thought I started this group..lol which I didn't anyways I'll get to it - the group is called http://groups.y****.com/group/nativerareplants/ (just select the URL copy and paste) I have replaced ahoo with 4 stars I suggest that if you are interested in native plants to join and support this group and most of all have fun learning & trading our own native plants Cheers Jeff

I guess we can be done with this now that the event is over. Hope it energized a lot of people to get out and remove invasives.

Gee I don't know if I can help you more than NYWOODSMAN (joking of course) ;o) Are you planning to fill in the page with all the growing zones in it? That seems like an awful lot of work. Why not just start with your own state and get it all filled in rather than posting all the zones and leaving people scratching their heads as to why they are dead links. Most people get annoyed with links that don't work. The index page (main page) really needs a punch of colour so why not create some photo images (using your own will be easier) to make a montage of your state's native flora. Use it as a logo for each of your pages. Articles page and links looks good but again, very plain. Contact page good...easy to use Botanical Dictionary... will you be adding to it on an ongoing basis? If so, you may want to create (I think they are called...) jumplinks or hotlinks or something like that where you can jump to a spot on a page without having to scroll down looking for it. So say you want to look up "leaf roller", you will just click on "L" at the top of the page to jump down to the "L's". The Language of flowers page... I don't understand why the title "Language of flowers" is written 3x before you get to the text and then the hyperlink is located in the tiny green word "this link". I would either get rid of all the "Language of Flowers" titles leaving only one and hyperlink to the title in addition to the "this link". this page also needs something pleasing to the eye, either a logo or a few pictures of native plants, shrubs or trees. Soil/Mulch page...good but again needs some pictures. Drive around and take close up photos of your hand with each type of soil in it. Simple but effective. If your camera is fast enough to capture it, spilling a bit of each soil off the side of your hand will show the density of each soil type in addition to the general appearance. Garden Supplies page... use store logos if you can to showcase your sponsors. It's visually more pleasing and attractive to potential customers. You might also make suggestions for tools that work with various soil types. State Trees and Flowers... cool idea, possibly hyperlink each tree's name to an image of the tree species so that people can look at it as well as read about it. native plant societies page... looks good, very plain but in this case, plain is ok. The only thing that might make the page a bit more user friendly is to place the "state name" in Bold print. Public Garden of the month page could use a photo or logo from the park, otherwise it's good and complete with a map link. You 'could' provide a direct link to each featured garden but it's not necessary as you have the form there already to do the search. Book reviews... a work in progress as well. Have you considered to add comments on what you found useful and not-so-useful for each book? The reviews don't look like so much "reviews" as they are "synopsis". you could also consider letting readers submit their personal reviews using an online-form. Of course you will want to review the submissions before they are placed on the page but it will give a better rounded perspective on each book if you allow comments from other readers. Free Gardening Books page... looks good but again lacks "punch". You might consider a logo at the top of the page and then thumbprint photos of the book jackets (if that's legal to do, which I expect it must be if the books themselves are already in the public domain). Hope that's somewhat helpful. You have a big job ahead of you with some of those pages, esp. the Growing Zone pages but best of luck to you in creating them. Barb southern Ontario, CANADA