Oak Ridge is liberal and so non-judgemental that their highly rated high school has no Valedictorians,etc. The older part of town was one of the places where Milky Spore was tested, and to this day, there are no Japanese Beetles there. The west side of Knoxville is more liberal, lots of restaurants (sadly most are chains), and largely newcomers. Huge numbers of half backs (people who retired to Florida, couldn't stand the heat and moved half way back north). Judgemental is not something that fits this part of the world. Mostly folks don't care to know your business. I met a couple, several years ago , who introduced themselves as the Lesbians who lived on the hill, and who were sure I must have heard about them. No, I hadn't heard anything about them and they were surprised that I didn't know who they were. I really don't think anybody cared. But, I've met folks who know my house and my roses, and don't know me. Someone from an adjacent county whose niece had driven him to see our house and how we were remodeling and rebuilding it because he had mentioned seeing the house so many days on his way to the ferry at the bottom of our hill. Another person, when I was launching DH and friends to kayak down the river, stopped to make sure my car was ok, and when I told him where I lived, "Oh, yeah, the old white house that's now yellow and being fixed up right nice." You will find educated, both with and without book learning. Common sense is harder to predict. There are still neighborhoods where doors aren't locked at night. Neighborliness is expected in some neighborhoods, and not in others. (Remember, I lived in New Orleans, and my T-shirt tackiness threshold is both higher and lower than most folks'.)(Lower in what I find irritating, higher in tolerance of some of the off color messages.) My red chinas look especially good today and the noisettes aren't slowing down. Take a look at the local rag, Metropulse, it's now on line and there was a real break out of voting patterns in one of the recent ones.

I keep forgetting to come back here and post about the swap, as I do it on the Mountain madness yahoo group. Sorry about that, I guess life just gets in the way. So...bear with me. Our swap IS on May 6th, and by Monday I will hear back from a special place I am wanting to hold it at. So far I have gardeners coming from Cosby, Jefferson City, Seymour, Knoxville, Whitehouse , and elsewhere. There will be an article about it in the Seymour Herald soon, and also in a Sevierville paper I can't think of the name of ( forgive me !). One of the topics I hope we can discuss...organic gardening, you won't want to miss it. Now...that's all the advertising I'm up to lol. Cheryl

I belong to the East Tennessee Daylily Society, the East Tennessee Iris Society, the UT Arboretum Society (not a garden club, but of botanical interest), and the American Conifer Society (which usually has at least a couple of local events per year) as well as some non-local organizations. If you want more info on any of those, just let me know. There are a couple of other local plant-related clubs in which I have never participated (the East Tennessee Hosta Society, the Tennessee Rose Society, The Tennessee Native Plant Society, the Knoxville Bonsai Society, and I'm sure there are others). There is supposedly a Greater Knoxville Cactus and Succulent Society, but they seem rather hard to contact or find out anything about. As for swapping plants, you just missed the East Tennessee Plant Swap. It was this past Sunday. We'll have another one in the Fall. I doubt any club would be able to provide the variety of plants available at one of our swaps. We always post an announcement here before each swap, and you can also sign up for our email group at our website, www.easttnplantswap.com If you are interested in starting a local general interest gardening club, let me know. I might be interested. I enjoy the clubs/societies I am part of, but do see a benefit to a more generalized group. Oh, BTW, I noticed you are new. Tell us a little about yourself!

littlemrslarge, congrats on building as well. I am sure you are just as excited as we are to get the ball rolling and build a new home! Also, thanks so much for finding the threads. They were super helpful! theballs, glad you found my thread and are going to follow me. We are building in the West Knoxville/Farragut area (off of Kingston pike at Pellissippi) and could not be more pleased with the location. Our family and friends all live in west Knoxville and we just didn't want to settle for a so so location, but really find a location that worked for us and our families! So it is out there if you do decide to move to Knoxville! ash6181, congrats to you as well on building in Vonore! littlemrslarge and ash6181, keep me updated on your progress since we are all in the same area!