Ah, this is indeed a resurrected thread! I'm a couple miles north of Biglerville. As it happens, I am actually in the process of working on my PA garden (still a fixer upper!!!) to host a tour for my Maryland (Carroll) garden club in August.--first Wednesday. It is quite a daunting prospect given the current weeds that have infiltrated and I am quite exhausted. Having country gardens is a different thing than the suburban yards that at least have some sort controls on their borders imposed by neighbor's lots. In the countryside, Mother Nature is always taking back and sending in the invading thugs! Dwarcholak, it would be fun to visit your garden-- as described it sounds nice! Yesterday, our club had a tour of a suburban yard--a plant collector with 1/2 acre lot and "garden rooms". He had a lot of shady areas with mature perennials (35 years of working on his yard), a koi pond near his patio and lots of potted plants. He likes Asian perennials and propagates much of his own stuff to plant. The thing about club tours is that we are in it to learn--people talk about their mistakes made, trials and failures--sometimes most evident. Many people are intimidated because some people really have smashing gardens and they go all out, get help to prepare for the tour or have worked diligently on the same one for years. Not everyone can do that or has achieved what they are striving for ( for many reasons)--so they don't have anyone come see their efforts. Not all tours are for showing off, they are to show PROGRESS in a forward direction. People like to see what changes are made over time from revisiting. I was one of the last holdouts because it's a drive to get to my place, but also it isn't manicured like the suburban lots. It's hard for me to keep up because I don't live there year round. And I'm still working on the old house!!! There is a Federated Garden Club that meets in Biglerville at the library, by the way. They meet up with the Gettysburg garden club (some belong to both). For a short time 2 years ago, I was in the G'burg club, but I was also the new President of Carroll GC--the job reqs were overwhelming so I dropped out of G-burg for the duration. I would like to meet some friends that know the PA area-- visit the nurseries or professional gardens like Longwood, etc as well as locals who show what they are working on and give tips. Anyone ever been to "Hosta Hideaway"? Let me know if you want to meet up. I'm in PA half the week or more, typically. You can come to the official tour (10 am) Anyone on FB?

HI Keith, I'm going on my eleventh year as a member so I may not attend so much as be obligated to share some insight on the chapter. You do not have to be an experienced gardener to become a member of the organization. You only need to be willing to learn and willing to serve as a volunteer and willing to meet new people and be a part of the team. If you are interested, please email your name, email, and phone to mg.greenecounty@gmail.com. This will assure that you will be informed of the orientation dates which have not yet been set but should be announced sometime in January. It's a great group and there's no better way to learn about gardening than being around other gardeners. Here is a link that might be useful: Details

Julia, I will probably join the group, but might not make the meets as I am in Ned and I prefer meets that are closer to home. But, I'd probably go once every month or two because it sounds like fun. I organize a meet-up group, Boulder County Small Breed. Our groups organizer gave up and let the meets falter, did not promote and let the group near expire. Not that that is bad, it takes effort to keep a heads up on that site. I took over and it only cost me...60 or 70 dollars for a six month period. I do my best to make all our meets, promote the group on Craigslist and post new messages every now and then. Oh, and I formulated the groups site to automatically write welcome announcements that I just add the new member's name and dog's name to and then remind them of the next meet. Come to think of it, it really isn't that time consuming and our group keeps growing and having successful meets. I don't know if this matters but I hate receiving zillions of emails so I rarely send out batch emails to the group. I have another thought that might help. I am in a hiking meet-up group, too, and they have a waiver form members have to fill out each year which is probably a good idea if you guys take hikes. I hope it works and I'll go check it out. Jennifer I'll put a link to my meet-up group in case you'd like to look at it for ideas... Here is a link that might be useful: This is my little group, for little dogs

If anyone is in the Coastal or Eastern NC area and would like to join Our meetup group I just started it this weekend, my hopes is to get other plant & seed swappers together so we can meet up locally from time to time with our extra seeds & plants, make new friends. http://www.meetup.com/New-Bern-Gardening-Meetup/