Hubby said a year ago "HGTV should be HLTV" meaning Home and Landscaping TV. I want to learn! I WANT to learn more about composting, container planting, good ol' planting dirt, pruning, propagating, new gadets to make gardening a bit easier for us older folks, what plants go well together, fertilizing, etc! The closest I can get is Paul James and now all I see in the wee hours of the morning on weekends are reruns of reruns of reruns of Paul James. I figure that Paul James doesn't have cleavage so, he's out. I've written HGTV before, several times and I've received some very nice 'form' letters back. That's as far as it went. I'd be very happy to email/snail mail anyone who might listen to my idea of what the "G" should stand for in HGTV. Thank you! Amity

WOOOW WOOOW!loving this post, had come to the conclusion after a year of being here USA, that the great expance of the US meant that consumer pressure didn't exsist, well done you and I will be joining the protest. my idea would be to choose dates for people to e-mail, this lets them know that it is organised, and people feel strongly on this subject, don't choose one date as this will overload the servers and in these days could be concidered terrorism! so much for free speach!. Landscape programs are cheap because they will get free stuff which they can advertise, and produces miraculous results quickly, also start cancelling you subscripions to the network that lets you watch this channel, I don't know it, so it maybe on a basic channel, but if not go to a basic subscription and tell your provider why! even if you loose some channels you like! you can always reinstate them in a few weeks, just get the point across, my feeling is that I pay for a package that is v expensive and all I watch is PBS and BBCA and I haven't watched them for 2 weeks, TV is rubbish here! never thought I'd say this, we are forced to pay $200 dollars a year by law! in the UK to watch TV (you can get sent to prison if you don't pay and people do!) which pays for BBC, but by heck it means that all the other channels have to keep up and we have some good programming! and the BBC by Law has to do educational stuff! and no ads, 4 channels and 7 radio stations, realised what good value it was now I am here, rant over good luck

Being in NYC, I'm privileged to have lots of clubs to join. It's actually a battle not to belong to ALL of them! I was in my local C&S Society, for 10 yrs. 'til I had to leave due to bad politics of new leadership. I'm in my Indoor Gardening Society more than 10 yrs. now & on the Board of Directors for a few yrs. at least. Other than interesting speakers, we often have plant sale tables which rock. I've gotten most of my Sans. collections, 12 diff kinds & not a yellow stripe in the bunch ;>) from friends here & the plant sale table. I ended up giving a Sans talk to the whole Group (abt 40 people) in Feb. 06, w/ great help from our friend here Norma (Dufflebag, who I haven't seen around since end Dec?). I was assisted in demonstrating their potting by my now deceased Hoya mentor. Indoor Gardening overlaps w/ other Societies, like Begonia, Bromeliads, Gesneriads, etc. so they bring their extras or propagation results to share w/ us. It's where I got my first ZZ, of which I've grown 4 plants from either single leaves or bare stems. Also Euph milii moratii (which I've never seen available commercially). A friend & mentor who died in Sept. used to propagate both these plants for the group; I hope to take over that task for the Group in his memory. Recently we had a great talk by Hydro people from whom, I bought a large variegated Hoya kerrii which grows in leca stones & gets watered every 3 wks. Since Oct. it's doing great (notwithstanding the fact that I accidentally knocked it over last month, spilling Leca stones (little porous fired balls of clay, all over the floor & of course, breaking off the vine that had 3 peduncles on it ARGGGGGGG))! Last month I just came home w/ a rare Pelargonium dasyphyllum w/ fern like leaves, very nice! No fees have been paid for this endorsement ;>) Need any more reasons??

I haven't been back to this forum for a while; It's good to see some activity on my old complaint threads! I suspect that almost everyone's mileage will differ. Each state will likely have somwhat different interpretations of the fed regs, and will certainly have their own rules. In areas with already strong MG programs, I'm certain that things will continue for at least a while. In my area that isn't the case. To be fair, the U of Mn continues to support research and outreach, and each county does have an extension office here. But more and more counties are like mine, with a part-time assisant (secretary) whose time is shared with another office or two. Our extension office fields calls for 4-H, some county health programs, pregnancy & early childhood development and some drug abuse prevention services programs as well as the ag and hort stuff. There is now an extension agent's name on the building directory, but I happen to know that she lives and works 90 miles away in another county. There is no computer or phone on her desk, so I assume she attends occasional meetings here, but largely telecommutes from her office in that other county. While the farm economy is small in our area, I did notice a yellow pages ad in the new phone book for a "farm consultant", so apparently the slow loss of free help from the government creates an opportunity for entrepeneurship!