A high proportion of the posts dealing with mainstream medical topics are by people who see this forum as a place to denigrate evidence-based medicine. Then, when others respond to false and misleading claims and set the record straight, they are criticized for not sticking to herbal topics. Similarly, when a particular herbal or other alternative remedy is questioned as ineffective and/or dangerous, there are often gratuitous followup posts attacking mainstream medicine, when the original poster has not recommended or even mentioned mainstream treatment for the problem. So, most of the time it's alt med advocates who bring up the subject of mainstream medicine. There are instances where a poster asks about an herbal treatment for a problem, and is advised to seek an accurate diagnosis first from a physician before pursuing any treatment. This is not meant to rule out herbs or supplements as eventual treatment, but some find it unacceptable and threatening to mention physicians in any context other than a critical one. As for ad hominem/personal attacks, the best strategy is to disregard them and only address health-related remarks and questions. Once trolls realize they can't get a rise out of opponents or spark a flame war, they usually get bored and leave.

Hello All, I have been reading this thread with interest and fascination. Some of what I have to say is a day late and a dollar short, but opinion is that if I could not be assured of a label being true 95% of the time I would just as soon not have any label at all. Its better to knowingly have a no-name violet than to think I have a violet with the wrong name. It does not bother me that I cant go down to the local supermarket or Home Depot and buy a named violet. I havent been able to do that for years. It doesnt surprise me that massmarketing is not conducive to it. Because of this I have been buying named violets from specialty and mail-order stores as long as having named violets were important to me. Its nice to know now that there is a place to find named Optimaras. I have told the story before so for those of you who have already read it, my apologies. My introduction to violets was almost by accident. If it werent for my Grandmother I may never have grown them. I had always heard that they were difficult to grow. One day my grandmother told me if I were to take a leaf from her African violet and put it in a glass of water it would sprout roots and little plantlets.She was right and they did. The Violet had no name. I didn't care about names back then. In fact, I may not have realized that they had names. Soon I was asking people if I could have a leaf from their violets for me to propagate. No I dont have the origonally violet. I gave it away. I kick myself every time I think about it. But, getting back to my grandmother. She went to the grocery store and bought whatever violet happened to catch her fancy. She probably looked at them by color. I know that she liked the dark violet ones. The ones that we all think of when we think of an old-fashioned violet. She didnt care about names or anything like that. She just wanted something that looked good on her little table next to the window. She always had sheer curtains on the windows that she never opened and the violet would wither away after a few months. She would then throw it out, go to the grocery store and bring home another. I once grew a bunch of violets from seed. Without going into all of the gory details I had to get rid of them fast. I was going to physical therapy at the time. I boxed up all of the violets, brought them into the physical therapy place and gave all of them away. Nobody asked me anything about names. They were just happy to have a pretty violet. I really believe that my Grandmother was and many like her are the kind are customers that buy the majority of the African violets in this country. Some of these people in that majority group decide that they want to go to the next level, which includes having named violets. I am convinced that some would never have happened onto the next level had they not bought a no-name violet at the grocery store or had been given a gift of a violet from a friend. A little no name Violet started me in a hobby that has lasted for over 25 years. I am very grateful to my grandmother and that little violet for giving me so much joy. Larry

I've about HAD IT around here guys! I haven't posted since the NEW & OBNOXIOUS advertising showed up right in the middle of the list of threads---AND---it started showing up right along with the replies in each thread--as if it was another reply! I think I may have finally hit my NO MORE limit! To me the ad in the middle of the list of threads put an automatic STOP on looking down the threads, and, I at least, was finding myself looking ONLY at the half a dozen threads ABOVE the advertising and never making it past the ad to the threads below it. I had posted above, in my reply to MamaSylvia, that you could "easily" just glance down the list of threads to check the dates and such, and with the ad in the middle that is in NO way easy to do anymore. ENOUGH! There are already BIG FlAsHiNg ads ALL OVER the place---not to mention the obnoxious IN-TEXT ads that you need to either take the time to "disable" or you risk ACCIDENTALLY mousing over them and suddenly having a BIG obnoxious box pop up that blocks what you're trying to read! Advertising is one thing, but iV seems, EVERY TIME, to come up with the most OBNOXIOUS and INTRUSIVE stuff in existence! I said above that when something like this happens we all rant about it and then "get over it," but if the "new" ads don't Go Away, I don't think I'm gonna get over this one! Having that ad breaking up the "flow" of the threads is just TOO intrusive as far as I'm concerned! Many of you probably don't remember this, but right after iV took over there were banner ads that couldn't be described as anything but por_ography!!! They had the "P-word" image flashing all over the top of the site! It was only when people started opting out and they weren't getting their CLICKS anymore that that garbage went away! They can post all the Garbage Advertising they want, but if the site isn't getting enough hits it's not doing them any good! NOW, having just said all that, I just pulled up the main RMG page on a separate screen--and for "right now" the New Nasty seems to be gone! I suspect it must have had something to do with the "script loading" problems many of you seem to have been having. I googled that and, yes, there are rants all over GW about it! There's no way they can try to stick all this Obnoxious Garbage in a site with such Obsolete Software and expect it to keep working! They want to just keep milking $$$ out of all the goodwill there is around here between the Gardeners who have come to know and like each other---without spending a penny on updating the site! I'm not having the "script" problem, and from the info on the search page below it looks like it's browser dependent. I use Safari, and that somehow seems to evade it! There are suggestions on some of the linked threads about how to TRY to stop it---but in my opinion, WE should not be the ones that are trying to fix it! Hopefully, with the disappearance of the new Obnoxious Advertising, the script loading problem will be fixed for all browsers, but I am still just about up to the hilt here! Even took some time trying to figure out if I could somehow start a separate forum JUST for Rocky Mountain Gardeners! With my feeble knowledge of computers, I'm not sure that's even a pipe dream, but I am TOTALLY fed up with this place right now--and if the "new ads" come back I may be gone! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: GW script loading problems

There are of course forums in existence for some genera/families that have many members that are cool growing tropicals. However, in each case the true cool growers can be grown only by a minority of people. Moreover, people who grow one type of cool-growing plant are likely to grow others. To put it all in one forum makes sense. There are a lot of practical considerations, for example, trading. Say, for example, one has seedlings/rooted cuttings of a plant that can only grow in Coastal California or a cool greenhouse. Post on any of the forums. Most of the people (in my experience) who will be interested in trading have conditions that are impossible for growing the plant. Here are the options: 1) Let them worry about it and send the plant to a sure death. 2) Caution them that it won't survive, but send it anyway. 3) Refuse to send the plant to those without appropriate conditions. Since this thread is a little boring with no pictures, I'll add one, to include two concrete examples: '' The Passiflora is P. 'Mission Dolores', P. parritae x antioquiensis. It's a strong grower when happy and really easy to propagate. Two node cuttings root in a couple weeks. The Bomarea on the top is Bomarea caldasii (the yellow flower on the right is also a Bomarea, if I remember possibly a variety of B. caldasii as well). Each flower produces about 100 seeds and each umbel can have dozens of flowers. So there are potentially thousands of seeds per umbel. The flowers above are "samples" brought by one of the propagators (who created the Passiflora hybrid) to help sell plants at Strybing (SF Botanical Garden). The Passilflora is 7 inches in diameter with 18-24 inch peduncles, which makes the Bomarea umbels look strangely small. Although I cannot claim credit for the flowers, I do grow both of these vines. I'll have to hack back my Passiflora starting later in the year. I hate to toss material for interesting plants. So I'll hopefully have a large number of cuttings rooted. My Bomarea was bought in bloom/bud earlier this year, but aborted seeds when we had a couple days in the 90s (June-Aug. average: 74/55). So if I end up with extra cuttings and seeds and want to distribute them for postage, which forum(s) do I post on? I likely will put the Passiflora on the Passiflora forum, although I know I will run into the problem described above. I've already decided to go for option (3). There is no appropriate forum for the Bomarea. Vines? California? If I end up with a zillion seeds I might go for option (2). Or perhaps suggest that people sprout the seeds then trade them for something suited to their climate. I don't like either scenario, and I would prefer to at least have the forum enriched for those who can potentially succeed with a plant. I tried posting a set of seeds for postage on the California Gardening exchange section earlier in the year. Of seven, three were highland tropicals, one a cool-growing Chilean annual, one S. African, and one lowland tropical. I didn't get a single response. See link below Here is a link that might be useful: Highland tropical seeds ignored on the California forum