Hello Goldcroft, I used to come on here years ago, before the days of logging on. I would say the forum now has more traffic going through it than it used to, and that on the whole those posting replies are better informed about their subject than they used to be. I would guess that quite a number of the people on here have been or still are professionally involved in gardening in some way. I've worked as a gardener for sixteen years, and if I put my mind to it I could probably answer every question that was posted. Yes I know how to grow very big vegetables, I could help with the bamboo fencing, and there aren't any great secrets to handling Heucheras successfully, but I suspect that there are other people on here who know much more than I do about these and who take a much greater interest in them. My answers would show knowledge, theirs would show love, or whatever the gardening equivalent of that term is.

We're just all to busy in the garden! But its raining at last so time for a breather.

Interesting question Goldcrest. I dont think the forum is dying but it maybe has abit of rot.
We all lead busy lives. It isnt always possible to visit the site log on and answer questions. Sometimes you dont post because maybe you dont know the answer-even when you work in the industry as gardening is such a wide subject.
Myself I find to log in I have to close down my firewall which protects my PC from attack when connected to the net so in affect I take a risk when I log into these garden forums.
Finally what about those who post the questions. When you have answered the posters question they dont always reply to the posts with a thank you. I use as an example a poster named Josephfamily who asked about pruning a form of willow. I responded with the only reply. Did I get a thanx? what do you think? I am more than happy to help but its a two way street.

I Know I'm a new memeber, but I Think I'm going to have to agree with Plantzzman... re it being a too way Street, I don't have the fire wall Problem, but Sometimes I Can't get onto this stite...... it comes up with an error, Page cannot be found or Connecton time out...

Has the forum got quieter since all the flashy advertising appeared, I wonder? I only come here now if I've first changed my settings to 'text only'.

As for the rest, I have to agree with plantzzman that when you spend the time to get the right answer to someone and they don't even bother to say that they've read it, or that it was what they needed (let alone to say thanks), then you wonder why you bother.

I normally go on to the pond forum and do come on here occasionally but do not have enough gardening knowledge probably to answer questions, but I have responded with what I know but also advising the poster to wait for more knowledgeable posts than mine.
I also was very disappointed when I posted a question. No one replied to that for weeks. I did respond to a girl here who wanted to know what plants she could have for later flowering to put in a pond. I told her what I had in mine and was willing to send her some cuttings if she sent me her address. I still haven't even had a response to that, so after posting the question, did she not come back to see if anyone could help her??
The only response I got was from one of our regulars on the pond forum who now is the happy owner of some lovely primrose willow.
The pond forum has many new members than when I joined so that is going strong but I hate all these popups and adverts everywhere so I included a new forum on my website which has no adverts. A lot of people had problems with the adverts poping up every few minutes.
If anyone wants to see my pond and garden you can find it on www.the-horsfalls.co.uk it shows how the garden looked originally and how it looks now with planting and a pond.
Alison

I Think You have a Good Point Miranda about the flashy advertising... I Find it distracting when I'm trying to read a post..... But That's just my opinion

I've been here years, too. It used to be quite chatty and lively, with regulars posting on several topics a day (remember Alan, Martin, Sheila, Mark?). But gradually they left or were banned, possibly because our idea of what was appropriate or on-topic didn't coincide with the management's view. At the end of the day, this is a US Forum, and we're the foreigners with different traditions. Idle chit-chat was positively discouraged, so now those of us old un's who are left restrict ourselves to a one-line question or reply now and again.

You can't imagine how many times I've written a long reply to a post, only to delete it and move on. It's useful, but it's not fun any more.

So it's not dead, but it isn't lively and it isn't ever likely to be again.

Your knowledge of this site obviously pre-dates mine, CrazyLady, but what a pity. I joined in early 2003. But it does sound like you had much more fun then. Oh, well ....

I have to say that logging on has killed most of the forums of any repute and is bound to restrict the number of fresh posts.
Gardeners will not wish to set up a username/password and fill out lengthy forms just to get an answer to a problem.

If anyone still has flashy adverts displaying, that is their own choice as it is a simple matter to block them. Firewalls should not be any problem if configured properly but timeouts and such are just a quirk of the busy Internet.

The insinuation that this is a US forum is absurd. It has US owners but this is 'Gardening in the UK' posted mostly by UK gardeners for UK gardeners. Our climatic conditions are such that our problems and advice may seem odd in any other country.

As for myself, I do not answer postings so often these days as I tend to be too contriversial for this forum, but take my word for it that I know the endurance limits of most plants because I test them.

Replying to questions about showing would be like smoking in a gunpowder factory and I do not need the flack that would come my way.

Anyway, it has stopped raining so I'm of for a quick tour befor dark.

Moriati

Personally from a log on point of view what other ways could opperate on this site where you can be sure the person posting is who they say they are unless you have to log in?
As for firewalls I go with the approach of having it tweaked to protect me from as much as possible. This leads to the problems I have suggested.

Hi plantzman. With due respect, I put it to you that your firewall is not tweaked properly at all. If you need to turn off the firewall to access a site the setup is critically flawed.

Similarly wuth logging on. No way does this verify that the person posting is who they say they are. Logging on tells the server I am who I say I am.

I say I am Moriati. Ha Ha Ha.

The logging on procedure became necessary because of an increase in abusive and offensive contributions on some forums, as far as I understand.

I've actually returned to this forum in the last year - tried to use it long ago, before logging in, and found that there were just not enough users to get useful replies. I used to ask my questions on the American specialist forums. Compared to that time, this forum is now quite lively!

It seems inevitable to me that a gardening forum flags a bit in the summer - we're all outdoors!

It isn't as busy as it was when I joined in 2001, summer or winter.

Plantzzman, there should be some work round you can do with your firewall. On this machine there's a firewall, as well as five other security programms constantly running in the background, and we have no problems, nothing needs to be adjusted when logging in.

I think the main answer is that it is summer, and gardeners don't want to be indoors with a computer screen. But I do find (in other areas of life) that people are generally less happy with email / internet, largely because of the vast amount of unsolicited junk swilling about (spam filtering isn't the whole answer, before you suggest it!) It is noticable that where, a couple of years ago, an email would be standard practice, there is now a request to "put a note in the post".

Chris

It's probably that it's summer as others have said. I'm certainly spending all the time I can out in the garden. That said I look in on this forum regularly but I'm more likely to ask than answer a question. I wish I had greater experience I could share, but with time and a lot more gardening, that will come.

From the firewall point of view when installed the reccommended levels of Norton my firewall provider allowed cookies etc. Now you can argue for and against cookies but personally I would preffer that they are not accessed on my system-it's only this little biscuit sorry cookie issue that makes logging in alittle more work. As I am only logged into this site for such a small period the fact my firewall is turned off causes no problems-I can be sure of this having done it for years now. I have plenty of anti virus and anti spywear running.
Moriati as for logging in if I input an incorrect password the sites does not let me in. Therefore as I am the only one who knows my password I am who I say I am.

I have two computers. One runs under Windows 98, and the other under 2000.

With the 98 I switched to Mozilla and configured it so I get no popups or flash player debris. It's great.

The 2000 is not as obliging.

I like Nortons but it can be clunky in use. Mostly I use AVG and Window Washer to keep the greeblies at bay.

I guess any forum goes through droughty times (and good summer weather!)

It's nice to get a thanks from the original poster. However, those of us who come after - sometimes months later - are also very grateful for those full and well-considered replies. Thanks to all who share.

One of the problems with this site, in comparison with others, is that it is difficult to post pictures, which are essential in any gardening site. I once asked how to do this and it was so complicated I gave up. On other sites it is dead easy to resize and upload pics. I think the fact that we see so few pics reinforces my feeling.

"So it's not dead, but it isn't lively and it isn't ever likely to be again."

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion CrazyLady, but that is a very sweeping statement to make. This Forum like any other is just what the contributors make it (subject only to possible 'interference' from the Provider). How 'lively' it is, is dependent on the 'liveliness' of the current contributors, many of whom are probably on holiday at the moment.

Having said that though I do remember a while ago posting a subject which received one hundred replies. Doesn't happen now but that doesn't mean it won't happen sometime in the future. It's up to us!!!

I come back from a month's holiday to find that the forum has apparently been at Death's door during my absence. Surely I don't fritter away that much time on it? Maybe it was pining for me. Aww....

The garden forum has always seemed like a sleepy and civilised backwater compared to another forum (in a completely unrelated field) that I contribute to. It seems to me that forums are the sort of thing that have a cyclical nature, and contributions will ebb and flow as old contributors get bored and move on and new ones join. As it is so firmly information-based, I think that it will always attract a steady stream of interested participants as long as there is a hard core of really knowledgeable posters underpinning things. I have certainly been amazed and impressed to read answers from people with incredible expertise in their field providing the sort of highly specific information & advice that would be quite difficult to get from other sources.

Re saying thank you - I am probably an offender here. Sometimes I do remember, sometimes I don't. Please don't think that the information is not appreciated if it isn't said. Sometimes I think that too firm a thank-you closes the possibility of further aditions to the thread. Also, when I post, I do so because I'm in the mood to do so, because I enjoy contributing, not because I expect to be thanked. The best form of reward for me is to see a lively thread developing which pick ups on previous contributions.

Spot on Garden Nerd.

The problem is that it is a vicious circle. People do not visit because there is mostly nothing new to read. I used to check it a couple of times a day, now it's a couple of times a week.

Over the past number of years I have hardly ever risen above the status of 'occasional visitor' to this forum. My initial interest in the Garden Web forums was in trading seeds with other gardeners, especially in the U.S.A. As a result my garden now has an interesting range of trees and shrubs which would otherwise not have been readily available to me. I have never found this forum or the European forum matched that of the U.S.A. in this area and because of this I have never had more than a passing interest in it.

When restrictions were placed on trading seeds with gardeners in the U.S.A. my visits to the Garden Web forums became less frequent and my visits to this forum decreased as a consequence.

On the occasions when I have placed a request for information, for example for information on gardens in a particular area which I wished to visit, the response has been most generous and helpful.

The forum will continue to be used as long a people find it of use.

Paddy

I have only visited the forum for the first time as I have been given an olive tree and dont know hoe to care for it. I was really pleased to find a generally related question and the responses covered mostly what I needed. I am quite excited at finding the site as I dont know very much technically about gardening but I love doing it!

So please all keep looking in as I'm sure there's going to be lots of questions from me!

OOOh you pessimist Crazlady, Iv'e been off here for about a year and nothing seems to have changed, I know I have just been way too busy and I suppose that applies to a lot of folk, but here is the reason that there are not so many folk on GardenWeb ~ they are all too busy propagating and selling their produce on eB*y ~ ha, ha ~ check it out, unbelievable !
That must have been one cracking subject robbyEm ~ 100 replies wow.

The forum may not attract the large numbers of posts that the US ones get, but whenever I've posted a question I've usually received a helpful and knowledgeable response - unlike some gardening newsgroups, for example, where questions can be met with a variety of sarcastic, flippant or downright hostile responses.

I agree with Paddy that the restrictions in trading with the USA and Australia have made life on the forums slightly less interesting, but having said that, I have had generous people sending me seed without any thought of recompense other than a genuine thank you.

As a professional gardener I suppose that I don't always find as much on the rare plant scene as I would like, but it's good to be able to keep contact with each other in spite of that. I still recognise many 'old' names that have always been about.

One thing that I feel is a pity, which I have mentioned in the past, is that many posters don't fill in their member page. If I look somebody up and find that their zone is London, full stop, then it's a bit boring really. Read mine and come to see the garden - I'd be pleased to see you!

Maurice.

Ha! Things are a bit slow so lets have a pop at Moriati. (Again).

Well at least one moonless night I managed to escape from Albania just to please some of you grumblers. I will get round to adding a few details one day but you all must appreciate that a few of us enjoy the anonimity provided by the Internet.

It is also my sad belief that it is not just the forum that is dying but the very idea of gardening as a hobby is as good as dead, particularly in the younger generations.

People want things easy, office types think it would be a good idea to 'grow their own', then find it touch and go whether the fork or the back breaks first.

Maybe Moribund might be a better description of the forum rather than dying. There seems to be a reliable core of posters that number maybe 40, possibly more. (Someone ought to do a roll call), but this is insignificant compared to the www. If I only got 40 visitors to my site I would be extremely worried. Mind you, we do not know how many non-contributing visitors read the posts.

OK. I'll go back to Albania and leave you in peace.

Moriati

Gosh, Moriati, do you really live in Albania? Can we come and visit?

Hi all

I think it depends on the parts of gardenweb. I've not been on the UK bit much as I tend to make a beeline for the roses and clematis and of those two the Rose Forum is far busier than the clematis forum. However I can answer the posting pictures question. Sign yourself up for an account with http://photobucket.com (free) upload your pictures onto that site and then copy and paste the tag line into your message

Should look something like this only with these on each end
img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/esthomizzy/IMGP1622.jpg"; alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"

And this is what the real picture looks like
{{!gwi}}

Hope that helps

Esthomizzy

Here is a link that might be useful: Photobucket