Interesting question. My responding question is: If you don't know what that plant looks like, why not simply google it? I ask this specifically because "who should do the labor of information dispersal/obtaining" and "when it is the learner's/recipient's responsibility to do an aspect of the work, and what aspect of the work" is a part of my job. Here's my take on it. Prepare yourself, it may get heady :) The easy answer is that other forums are plant specific, and are more about conversations generally. Here is is somewhat "more business" and less conversation. The more subtle answer is: I am interested in eventually getting thumbnail images onto my trade list page. More for my own enjoyment than for other traders really. It doesn't take that long for someone to google, and then they will be more apt to remember the information because they had to actually do something to obtain it. It takes a bunch of work to learn how to post basic images anywhere, and even more to learn how to post images onto the trade list. If I have a plant to trade, and it's a 'really special' one, those who know what it is already are more apt to have another 'really special' plant to trade for it. It's a self-selecting market tactic, as well as a non-investment of extra labor. Some other interesting questions in this: Who benefits more from the posting of images on a trading forum, the offerer or the responder? Whose responsibility is it that there are people who know what a thing is, and those who do not? Should it be a qualifying skill for trading that someone have access to a digital camera, know how to handle images, and how to program those onto the web? (Either way has aspects of exclusion, it's simply a matter of which group it effects, and what each of those groups can do to be included, and what ease is in that particular doing.) --Tina

Personally, I do not understand what one is supposed to do with a 14 inch flower and purposely grow my flowers to be smaller than that. Yet some people really seem to enjoy this and even assume that it the purpose of dahlia growing. Reply: Here in the Northwest, dinner plate dahlias are not grown nearly as much as in other areas of the USA. Even the people who show flowers do not grow that many dinner plate sized dahlias here. I have seen shows with over 1000 blooms and only 20 or so dinner plate varieties. At the flower markets in the Northwest(like Pike Street Market in Seattle) you will see 20 or more vendors who sell dahlia cut flowers. Many are the show varieties that you disparage as too hard to grow. There also seems to be a vast cultural distance between the Dutch hybridizers who produce lines like Karma, Melody and Allegro, and the dahlia culture in the Northwest, which seems to be centered around producing flowers for show. I really like the Dutch approach, and also think it may leave American growers who are focused on the comparatively small market for show dahlias out of a much bigger market for dahlias as garden plants. Just see what a good job White Flower Farm has done in sorting through all the available cultivars and choosing ones that will look good in a garden. Reply: You mention White Flower Farm but not Swan Island Dahlias which is the largest grower of dahlias in the USA. They grow 45 acres of dahlias. They do not specialize in show dahlias but in dahlias for all purposes. They sell cut flowers to wholesalers and many times that means as many as 1000 bunches in a day. They ship cut flowers all over the USA. Unlike the Dutch growers, they do not patent their new varieties and anyone can sell them after they get some from them. They sell varieties suitable for any garden from 1 foot tall to 6 feet tall and many have dark foliage too. I grow my dahlias for: - color in the perennial garden from late June to early November - cut flowers I like most dahlias but tend to shy away from ones that have been overly bred for show, and think that some of these flowers look like overgrown sunflowers on corn stalks. Reply: The dinner plate dahlias look as you describe. However, as I previously mentioned very few of the dahlias in the Northwest shows are dinner plate varieties. Most show varieties are excellent all around flowers. I think that I am in a minority in this group. I also think that some of the older dahlias have more deeply saturated color and look more elegant in bouquets due to the color and their thinner stems. Reply: Many of the show dahlias are older varieties too. Kidd's Climax dates to before 1940. Newer dahlias are being bred with much more saturated colors than old timers. Kenora Wow is brighter than any old time dahlia. Sorbet is too. Both are easy to grow. There are many other examples. Comments? It would be really interesting if people said what they really thought . . . without upsetting anyone.

There is a book by USDA Forest Service that is free for the asking...color photos...nice book. Order a box of 40 copies from pubrequest@srs.fs.usda.gov; ph. 828-257-4830; mail: Southern Research Station, PO Box 2680, Asheville, NC 28802. You can download this book from three different sites, but I think it would be better to get the books. Who wants to print all of this out?? Even better, there are downloadable powerpoints of conference presentations to use for free.I could use the ones on the plants to make my own presentation, but some of the others would need someone a little better versed on the problem. Anyway, it's all free. Here is a link that might be useful: Powerpoint invasive programs

Nomen, I'm sorry you seem to have misunderstood the entire point and tone of my post, which was totally supportive of GW and everyone I've talked to here. I love GW, my friends here, and that's why I visit as often as practical. I wasn't trying to prescribe rules for anyone, which I'm not interested in doing at all, just talking about what I do and what I see, and comments were directed at nobody in particular at all. *I'm* not one saying "it was better with the other people." Is that not a turnoff? And no, the people posting "is this a fern?" in a discussion from 10 yrs ago about lilies are not doing so from searching. The 2 comments I made about new posts & searching were unrelated, and separated by other subjects. I apologize if I didn't make it clear that I meant searching within GW. That's the kind of searching I was referring to. And there's a huge difference between a pictureless post that says, "Can I prune a dragon tree," a question that has a yes/no answer (it's yes) or a philosophical one about what variables might contribute to success or failure, how it theoretically might be done, vs. one that has a pic & asks, "Should I prune this dragon tree, and how if so?" That's a question that can only be answered personally, and is the start of a unique new discussion. If someone read any old discussion and has something to add or say in the topic of that discussion, that's GREAT! Anyone who wants to contribute something absolutely should do so. And from reading what people post here, I've learned so much. Is there something wrong with saying I don't advise about plants I don't know well (without saying that's what I'm doing?) A lot of new people probably come here from mentions of GW and from seeing stuff I and others post from GW in other places, which I do constantly and know many others do too. It would be unreasonable to expect every new person to find this as entertaining as we do, and if they post once and never come back, that's their prerogative. I don't see that as a reflection on anyone here. If they didn't want to talk, bemoaning their absence is silly. Just saying that if that's all that's missing, more posts of little substance, and that's causing some perception of decay, it's probably not a bad thing. A busy forum isn't necessarily synonymous with a good one (depending on what your definition of a good forum is.) GW is still awesome, IMVHO.