Sounds like a wonderful idea to me. I went to the Botanical Gardens in New Orleans last year when they had the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase with the Art Museum at City Park. (Jefferson's America; Napolean's France) They had some awesome exhibits. Josephine's desire to have one of every plant led her to have Napolean require his ship captains to search all boarded vessels for seeds and cuttings. I'm reading some historical novels about Josephine now.

I remember the start of this forum and the discussion leading up to it. I also agree that people are a bit unclear on what it's about. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have a place to discuss rehabbing and renovating as well as garden history and restoration, but it never really took off.

Some of the topics overlap the Landscape Design forum, and others would probably be best dealt with on specific forums like shrubs, trees, stone, etc. As a result, the history aspect seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

In view of the lack of activity, I'd be in favor of focusing the forum more on Garden History and Restoration, if possible, and changing the name as necessary to attract more history people via search engine hits, etc.

Thanks for the comments riverwoman and SayPoint. SayPoint, I am starting to think that we may have more success with the more modest proposition of changing the forum name to Garden History and Restoration than creating an entirely new forum at this point. Let's see if others care to comment. Kate

That sounds like a good idea. Just change the name of this forum to Garden History. Then we can hope that anyone Googling "garden history" will find this forum. And, Kate, good job in posting this question to several forums. I hope some new contributors will find us through your posts.

Don't think there should be two forums. Another thought for a title might be...Renovating Old Gardens. This would probably appear in the list of titles as....Garden Renovation. We are not dealing here with only historical gardens, but redoing overgrown/outdated ones. When possible it is always easy to address the historical perspectives when answering specific questions.

How about calling it "Historic Gardening and Restoration"? That was what I hoped this forum was going to be about when it first started.

Fran

That's a great name, Fran. I think it would help get this forum back to its original intent. Hopefully, it would attract more historical perspectives toward restoring an old garden instead of just the basic "What do I plant here" requests.

"Once upon a time", now there's a good place to begin a comment about garden history, once upon a time ginger had a great idea and we started so well. Look back over the 9 pages that take us back to the beginning of 2004 and review what was working and what was not. There were some ego clashes that are inevitable but also some good stuff, it may well be that the present title is too broad but we failed to support one another then, so do you really think that a change of name will change that?
Look over a thread such as "Forget the history" and see how it develops from interested shared enquiry to something else less comfortable.
Look at the way a suggested book study fizzled into nothing.
Ginger had a great idea that we did not support, maybe I should say present company excluded because the names on this thread are the supporters, if only a change of name would do it.

The name of this forum is ambiguous. Forum names should be short and sweet--and clear. I do support a Garden History forum that would include all aspects of the subject, from books, travel, restoring private and public gardens, and whatever. If there is an interest in Garden Renovation, perhaps that name would make the subject of this forum clearer, altho I think renovation is well covered in other forums, such as the regional forums, perennials, shrubs etc. But judging from the fact that this forum has not filled even ten pages in the several years of its existence, I think it is time to clarify the name of this forum and perhaps add an additional forum. Why hang onto something that is not working?

Well Ginny your message is a bit strong, including "several years" which in reality is eighteen months, would it be more productive to analyse why it is not working?

Think the forum started in January 2004 so it's 21 months--close to two or several years. But why nitpick? Pointless. And the analysis has been going on if you read several threads. Just no clear-cut agreement on what to do, if indeed we can do anything. It all depends on the owners of GW.

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was no Garden Web. There was something called newsgroups, and the administrative decisions about these were made in a newsgroup called, surprisingly enough, news.groups. People would come from far and wide to ask the gods of news.groups to make them a new newsgroup, and the gods would always ask the same question. "How much support is there for this topic right now." They did not believe in the 'Field of Dreams', if you build it, they will come. They knew, from their years of goddom, that they will not come unless they are already here. To those who persisted, they had one word, Listserv.

So to begin at the beginning, just how much support for a Garden History forum is there? Is there enough expertise currently on GardenWeb to satisfy the desire for knowledge, or is this an attempt to connect with new people? Is there any evidence the new people want to be connected with?

This simply may be a topic without enough legitimate interest to be viable. It happens.

Sigh. I'm afraid Mad Gallica is probably right. I know from my experiences trying to find people to swap knowledge with, here and in both the Professional Gardener and Japanese Garden forums, that I don't seem to get much feedback on anything useful. It seems virtually no one does what I do: namely, work at a museum with a historic garden where I am responsible for maintenance and further restoration of significant garden areas, especially but not limited to a Japanese-style garden that is extremely important to the history of that style in America. But the professional gardeners all run nurseries or their own design/build or maintenance companies, the Japanese garden people discuss philosophy, and here it's been people asking what kind of hedge should I plant at my new house. Call me a statistical outlier, I guess.

Fran

Hello to everyone: I've been off-line for a bit, but am glad to see a number of others have weighed in on this topic. (Believe it or not, one of several unfortunate developments in the past couple of weeks was a garden history emergency -- more precisely, a historic preservation emergency threatening numerous gardens and backyards in our neighborhood. Still not resolved, and very distressing.)

There are lots of great suggestions above, demonstrating ongoing interest in a forum more explicitly geared toward historical topics, albeit without consensus on exactly how the parameters of the forum should be defined. MadGallica asks what is in some respects a chicken-and-egg question. If you go back to the various threads, including the "where are the history folk" one, I think that plenty of people, including many who frequent other GW forums, have expressed general interest in the topic of garden history, but there has perhaps not been enough activity on the forum over time to hold people's interest.

INK asks for some more analysis. I actually thought we had done a bit of that on the other "where are" thread. I think INK is correct that any forum is only as good as its contributors, and that forum title alone will not make a successful forum. By the same token, however, I think that some confusion about the purpose of the forum contributed to lack of support over time, and that the failure to include the word "History" in the title of the forum made it difficult to draw in potential new contributors with that interest. I don't wish to put words in Ginger's mouth, but my recollection is that her initial (and very creative) concept for the forum was to focus on "garden renewal," and that history was added in as a way of potentially expanding support for that forum. "Restoration" was chosen for the title, I believe, as a kind of compromise term that would potentially cover both topics, but perhaps in the end did not serve either topic well. No one's fault here -- live and learn-- but from this perspective, I don't think that the forum to date has really been a fair test of whether there is a forum devoted to garden history can be sustained.

Since there seems to be interest in giving history another try, but not necessarily a stampede of people lining up for a new forum, I'm going to return to my initial suggestion (again, on the other thread, which I will link below) that we simply ask GW add the word "History" to the title of this forum: i.e., "Garden History and Restoration." I think we're likely to be more successful with this because (1) it is simple and involves minimal work for GW management; (2) it addresses the concern about potential new participants and experts not finding the forum on the internet; and (3) because of reason #2, has a chance of increasing overall traffic to GW, rather than just slicing the pie differently. It could be an easy experiment to see if we can renew and sustain discussion of historical topics, and would not preclude asking for a new forum in the future if circumstances so warrant.

Anyone second this motion? Kate

Here is a link that might be useful: the

Kate, you have put a lot of thought and consideration of everyone's opinions into your suggestion, and while my preference is still for a separate Garden History forum, I second and support your proposal.

We garden historians/preservationists may not be very numerous, as Fran noted, but we are growing. Witness the establishment of a landscape history group by the Society of Architectural Historians last year and the Historic Landscape Inititative, among other groups. So get in on the ground floor! Say you were present at the creation! Join the discussion at the (we hope) new Garden History/Restoration forum! :)

Thanks for the second, Ginny, and for an enthusiastic marketing pitch. Are there others who want to weigh in?

We have a sencond and let's bring it up for a vote. The name change seems to be a fine and easy fix to bring in those more interested in the hysterical... woops.... HISTORICAL, topics concerning gardening.
P

Just what is a historical garden? It it a garden that is old, maintained in whatever way necessary to make it older? Is it a garden that uses only methods from the past (i.e., no gas powered trimmers)? Is it a style thing? I would like to know. From what I can see the restoration people don't seem to think as much about what used to be there as how they want to make it different.

Spunky, I think that can probably defined in a number of ways, and I'll let others try to do so. For my part, I'd like to just note (quickly) that I don't see the topic of garden history being limited to the maintenance and restoration of historical gardens, however you define them. -- Kate

"Historical garden" could mean a number of things and all could be discussed on a garden history forum. Could be a garden of historical significance, or a garden in a particular historical style, or one featuring historic plants, etc. etc. Let's keep it open to attract a wide group of participants.

To be honest Kate I don't think this is the place for any style of serious enquiry, witness the outhouse thing that forever rises to the top and you must agree that frivolous is more in tune with what people want. I am doubtful that a change in name will change that.

Well, let's see, we have three "yeas", zero "nays," and one doubting Thomas who have weighed in. :)

INK, I can't promise that a name change will reinvigorate the forum, but is there a real downside to trying? As I think you've been trying to suggest, any forum is only as good and as active as the people who participate. The object of the name change is to try to draw more participants, perhaps with additional perspectives to contribute. It would be a relatively simple change for Garden Web to effect, and worse case scenario is that the name change has no effect on the current pace or nature of dialogue on the GW forum, so we're no worse off from where we started.

I didn't mean to turn this into a rigidly parlementarian exercise. Reading over all of the posts above and on the earlier thread, I'm struck by the fact that everyone seems to agree that the GR forum has been fairly inactive lately, a number of people would welcome more historical discussion, and not a single person has weighed in to oppose a name change. On that basis, I'm ready to send an e-mail to GW management and see if they'd go for the proposed name change. I'll wait until Monday in case anyone wants to weigh in further here. Best to all -- Kate

I noticed that this forum is listed as Garden History but calls itself Restoration which confused me. I have no problem with the two being combined, as long as knowledge is shared. This is probably my first post in about 6 months(or longer) so I am no star in the 'sharing' side right now, but I would like to see contributions regarding some of the academics and historical references, as well as restorational projects.
Garden history is a relatively new subject in the world of academics, particularly the further back one delves. New scientific methods though have made it possible to ascertain the design of much older gardens into antiquity. Currently, of course, the majority is European stuff, but as the middle east stabilizes there is a chance that early Persian and Egyptian gardens can be unearthed and described.
American gardens are rather more modern, but still illustrate the classical strains and influences that came with global travel in the 1800/1900's and the wealth of the east coast. The whole subject is thus worthy of discussion as it covers such a wide selection of sub-genres. I hope to contribute more frequently to help maintain the interest in this board.

This is a really great idea and I wish it would happen. The current title is just too confusing. And, BTW, whatever happened to urbangardener? Her ideas were great and I wish she would re-join.

So, has anyone brought this to the attention of the IVillage people for action?

Maybe this forum's name should be changed to Garden History. Historic restoration could be a part of it.

From the low traffic of this forum, it's evident that the concept of "restoration" itself - besides being vague - is too small an area of interest, unless it's in terms of historic restoration.

Hey, at least there is some action now that the outhouse dicussion has bottomed out. Even if my twisted imagination only sees Jo's ivillage people in action as a somewhat x rated activity it is good that we are talking again.