Hi rober49, Maybe someone from your area will pop up, it`s always nice to have a garden buddy close by that way you can meet and have in person trades, makes gardening more fun! Best wishes, Karen

Hi Spiderwoman and Bulldinkie, Thanks for responding to my post. I was wondering whether to send you each an individual e-mail but figured I would post on the main forum first. The place that we bought is in Aspers right near the orchard areas and is a farmhouse with need of major TLC. We are trying to get the plumbing to work properly at the moment in the bathrooms. Incredible amounts of water damage! Once we have either external spigots to attach a hose to (None! Can you imagine???) or a second well dug, I plan on putting in both a farm garden and flower gardens in spots. We'd also like to fix up a shed and have some chickens again. I note one of you had standard cochins--nice birds. I also like the mini cochins and silkies for setting purposes. We also have a huge "barn"--sort of a one story affair with a roof over the old bank barn that burned years ago--but it isn't ready for anything except clean out. We have what used to be a meadow, but is overgrown with trees and needs clearing. Much work ahead in other words. What on-line resources do you use where people advertise their goods and services? What do you like/dislike about Adams County and Gettysburg?

hey there brighteyes I found another forum at gardenweb for succulents and cacti and youll have no problem getting ids for your plants over there. the place is a mad house.you dont need to sign up again to post over there either I noticed Here is a link that might be useful: cacti and succulent forum

I should mention a few more things. It's not necessarily that I was made to feel stupid or wrong, I see others (usually inexperienced in the particular topic) that have their comments shredded by the self-appointed experts and feel empathy for them. I started this thread after looking for and not finding an old post from the Ponds and Aquatic Plants GW forum several years ago that really stuck with me. The poster was a biologist that was very generous with his time and knowledge and that forum was lucky to have him. He had a lot of experience and understood water quality issues that typical water gardening enthusiasts encounter while pursuing their hobby. Another poster, a woman was in tears at the advice given by the forum 'expert' that she 'must' tear her pond out and install bottom drains or her 12,000-gallon pond would become a cesspool. This modification was beyond her budget and since she'd been told by the resident self-appointed expert (not the real expert, the biologist) that she was killing her koi by not following this advice, she was looking for people to adopt her mature koi and she was on verge of shutting down the pond. She had been maintaining this huge pond in her yard for 20+ years and it had always been healthy, no fish kills or water quality issues and it brought her a great deal of happiness. She merely posted asking for advice about an extended suspended algae or green water issue and foam from DOCs. The biologist came to her rescue with an alternate treatment that did not require ripping out the pond and starting over. There was a huge pissing match between the 'forum expert' and this actual expert about the fact that all ponds must have bottom drains. In the end, the pond hobbyist cleared her pond water using a low tech solution suggested by the biologist allowing her to keep her pond (and happy place). The biologist posted a couple of weeks later about the forums often having self-appointed experts that offered the same tired advice over and over. His words were a work of art and I wish I could find that post. Bossyvossy, I am right there with you on spider lilies. I must have 5 different plants that were passed to me as 'spider lilies'. Some are hymenocallis, some crinum, some lycoris and even a cleome! Proper plant nomenclature is important, I do agree. I just wish that these experts could be a bit more diplomatic when speaking to inexperienced horticulturalists. I just don't think that it's a good practice to shame someone else just to be 'right'.