Also I was looking for a plant yesterday and came to the PF page on it. Says some members have this item. So of course I clicked the link... I noticed it was someone I traded with before and dmailed them. Asked if they still have it. The person wrote back and said "Yeah what ya got??!!"" ha ha So hopefully we'll do a trade.
This is Truly the benefit of having a trade page up! And in the future when I organize all my extra seeds. I too will add to the HAVE list. But for now I have to Journal my seeds because they are seeds I'm actually going to sow for myself. For Instance there is a particular seed in my Journal that I just can't trade because I have just enough for my own Trial and Error.
TRADELIST are for TRADING Not Inventory
goth..I like your last post. You are so right! Shipping is too high now. I mailed a box the other day and it was $10.00. I told the Post Office guy.."I think you weighed that wrong. Do it over!" Then I got the whole story about weight and distance. Things have really changed.
The main reason why I state the size.... If it is a baby, I say it is. If it is a mature offset, I state that too. But getting two foot tall hosta leaves in a box without breaking them is a challenge. My trades have been averaging out to about 10 bucks per box in postage but to me it is more about the sharing and the anticipation of getting some new starts. I don't expect to get full sized mature plants. I dmail the trader when I receive their plants and thank them regardless if one bag was a little soupy or a few of the hostas were rolling around on their trip and all of the leaves were broken.
I know I can run out to a nursery and get some excellent deals on clearance plants that are much bigger and have more plants per pot but it is not the same.
I had to stop writing mid post because I heard the mail lady's truck. I got a weighty box. What started out as a cold miserable rainy day suddenly got better. I knew what it was. I saw the DG username one the box and I knew what was in it. A Japanese Maple, Threadleaf Cypress, Icicle Coneflower, Creeping Phlox and Hosta Loyalist. I expected small starts. It was like christmas opening it up. The sender had told me how to open the box as not to damage the maple. The maple is gorgeous and almost two feet tall. It wasn't a single hosta, it was a clump with about 10 plants. It was a big mass of Phlox. Quite a few coneflower plants in a clump and a small cypress. My neighbors think I am nuts as it is with so many plants in the yard and all of the ones in pots on the driveway. Here I am out in the cold unpacking, dividing and potting up the new plants. Mixing up more potting mix with super cold water from the hose. It is a rainy, windy and cloudy 55 degrees out.
My miserable day turned into a good day because of that trade. I can only hope that what I had sent made them as happy as I am right now. That is why I trade. I get more than just plants. I get anticipation. I get a brighter day. Not every trade will be a great one, not everyone can package perfectly, not everyone has the same gardening abilty, internet/computer savy or financial resources for unlimited postage for trading. We are all different, that is why every trade will be different. That is why we all do our trading lists in different ways. When dealing with people, people will be what they are. Not everyone is nice. It isn’t fun when someone ignores you or is just plain mean but don’t let it change who you are. Don’t let them keep you from enjoying trading and making new friends. It will always be a crap shoot unless you find a circle of good friends to trade with that you know will turn out well. This was the fourth trade I have received and I am still waiting on the other two. I can only hope they will be as enjoyable as this one or the ones before. I have been here a month now and I have been frustrated at having a hard time finding people that want to trade. I dmailed a local that trades and posts about it in forums but I got no response. I didn’t take it personally, it is the internet.
Frank
I've been following this thread with interest and want to let you know that I've been guilty of not always answering my dmails for trade requests. I didn't stop to think that some people may feel this is rude or take it personally. After reading this post I don't think I'll ignore them anymore. If I don't want to trade I'll just politely tell them no thank you. But I'm making a pledge to not ignore them anymore. :-)
ButterflyChaser, I'm with you. I'd much rather be able to copy a word document to my trade list. Much less time consuming that way. I think we could actually set that up on our blog (diary) here. We can then instruct people to go to it with a link on our trade list page.
Joy
You know, I've never even checked out the blog/diary. I did just finish my doing my trade list. I like that I can add my own pics to it. But it sure does require a lot of clicking. And I haven't mastered the "genus" yet, so a lot of my entries don't correlate with a Plant File. Maybe I'll perfect it someday, but I've spend enough time on the computer today. I need to get up an move around now...
I use the PF tremendously. Therefore when I'm at a page I just click "Add to your Want/Have List" or "Add this plant to your journal". It's easier to look up the plant you have so you don't have to type in anything but the plant you're looking for.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?Search=Search+plants
When I see the plant I then just add it from the PF page.
sometime I will add my plant, yes for inventory - how dare I, on my tradelist, but I will deactivate them so you won't see them. But with 3 kids, i'm easily distracted, so i will add a note **not yet available for trade** and come back and deactivate them later.
Oh, yeah, I used that Journal thing and it's too much work!!!
This message was edited Oct 7, 2009 9:57 PM
I don't do trade list....I did....but you get all kinds of "nut jobs".....sorry if I offended anyone...so I took mine off...I only trade with friends or friends of friend...
''nut jobs'' just what were you trading? ^_^
lol lol I like the unusual plants....lets say they wanted a ylang ylang tree for marigold seeds...
Some people place a 'value' on their plants, some don't. Some think that if you have it for trade, it means somehow that you don;t want it, or that its 'extra' in some way, and that you should be willing to take anything for it in trade, just to get rid of it. Like Ylang ylang for seeds.
At the risk of sounding hoity-toity (I love that phrase, my grandmother used to use it a lot, LOL) I do place a value on my plants. Especially if its something unusual, somewhat rare, or was originally expensive. I would like to get something in trade that is approximate to the value for it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
The truth is, I can plant many of the unusual tropical plants I have (many but not all) out in my yard, even in zone 8B, and with a little extra effort in the short winter here, pull them through to the next spring. I do this a lot when I cannot get a trade that I want for something, as an experiment to see exactly how hardy things are. That is a heck of a lot easier for me that boxing stuff up, driving 6 miles to the post office, standing in line and paying $10+ to ship something to someone.
I also throw stuff on the 'magic compost pile' in the woods, where its sheltered from the frost and gets covered by a layer of leaves in winter. In spring when it rains, all sorts of salvageable stuff pops up out of the compost pile. Vines root, old bromeliads pup, gingers sprout off of stem cuttings...I've recovered tons of stuff that way
I understand....I think people look at magazines and see stuff they want not considering the rarity or the cost..as you said....but I have came across some that are just outrageous...you see what they have (inventory or other wise) then see what they want....when I get request..( just sent out a box yesterday from an OLD garden web post) and I think a request is a "not in my lifetime''...LOLLOL I try to tell them the cost of the size that are getting and what goes into that plant....I tell them you can't just get these seeds/plant at your local nursery/ mass marketer... some have totally understood and other ..lets say they get UPSET that you dont want great aunts cousins nephews marigolds...lol lol lol
On the compost thing....that's tooo funny.. I do the same thing and yesterday I checked the ''tropical compost pile'' and had two bananas.. Abyssinian banana..the roots still had the seed on it...woohoo...
But I have to bring stuff out and in for the winter because I have plumeria trees and such..
pic is of my seed pods on my plumeria tree I took last night...
This message was edited Oct 8, 2009 6:18 AM
PLumeria are some of the things that I don't leave out all winter either. Don't want to push things TOO far, ha ha.
If I listed everything I TRULY HAVE. I'd be in trouble...LOL. I don't trade for any seeds I can buy in the $1.00 store or supermarket.
I am late with my entry on this topic, but I am also irritated with those who will not reply to dmail when all you need is a simply "yes" your package has arrived. After several dmails, I had to go to the plant forum to get a response from this individual. Still waiting on my package.
those are the worst trades. I would post a negative feedback.
I don't send ANY plant trades without a delivery confirmation number. So I know for myself if they got it or not. But Yes it's nice to hear from the person if they have been in receipt of the trade. I sent a package to someone that TRIED to say they never got it. Had to tell them they were lying because I did a click and ship and it was Delivery Confirmed..ha!
Well, Delivery Confirmation is not always 100% dependable, unfortunately. It only tells you that, yes, it was delivered. To someone. Somewhere. Sadly, it can still be delivered to the wrong person. I have received packages that were DC tagged that were not mine twice. I live on 85th TERRACE and these were addressed to 85th STREET. Fortunately I was nice enough to take the boxes over to the stranger who they belonged to.
So, if someone says that they didn't receive your box, it may happen to be true, due to human error on the part of the USPS.
Yes I suppose...
True DC is not but twice recently I sent packages to 2 people, the first I used the DG address on file which turned out to be 2 years old.
My mistake for not verifying with the Paypal address. The second one, I emailed and asked for address verification and no response so I send to the verified address with Paypal. 3 weeks later, the buyer responds asking if the plants had been mailed yet and gave me an address different from the Paypal one. I replaced the first package at my cost but not the second.
I also recently did a trade with someone and wrote to let them know that I received their water plants but never heard back that she received her end although I did verify her address and DC showed it delivered.
Yeah I guess these things can happen...shame. In all my years I just never had that happen.
DC is quite beneficial. Be sure, if you print your postage online, print the "SCAN" form too and have that form scanned at the P.O. so your package will show up in the system right away. If you don't, you can't track any problems in transit because they'll only scan and document it upon delivery. If you have the scan form scanned, you can often see if a package is misrouted. I sent some plants to a trader in KY, just 6 hrs from me. When it didn't show up after a few days, we looked online and it was bouncing around out in California! Fortunately I packed well, so the plants were still fine 12 days later when she got them.
Once I sent a huge box of scrapbooking supplies to a customer. Two or three weeks later, she didn't have them. I looked online and saw that the P.O. had attempted to deliver twice and left her "pink slips" to pick up her package. When I told her, she said she had been so busy that she didn't pay any attention to the pink slips, just glancing at them and tossing them, thinking they were junk mail. She retrieved her package that day before they could return it to me.
DC is always a good idea. And if you print your postage online, it's free on Priority mail packages.
Also, did you know that you now get a discount on most packages if you print the postage online? Sometimes for me, the discount comes out to $1 plus the free DC (which is another 70 cents).
I like having DC so I will know if it made it there OK.
This message was edited Oct 14, 2009 4:04 PM
Velmansia, sorry you had a bad experience with her too. That's why I always look at people's feedback now, before trading. Unfortunately, these people can also retaliate. She left the one bad feedback that I got, and even lied, saying I sent her nothing, when I sent her a large box full of MANY healthy large plants that cost me at least $12 to send, while after waiting a month for her box, it was about 4 inches square and contained some dead unlabeled tubers - not exactly as promised, to say the least. Needless to say, none of them came up after I planted them. And her feedback promise to send what she promised but "couldn't find," in the spring, came and went as well. And of course she didn't bother to tell me when her plants arrived until I asked her.
Hopefully you at least got what you asked for from her. But you really should only send what you feel good about sending, and not let anyone intimidate you into trading anything you don't want to trade. If someone gets nasty, as did this person when I complained about what she sent, I just won't have anything more to do with them. The point of Dave's Garden isn't about getting things from people, and those people who are here only to do that don't really deserve another word or thought (if possible).
I remember her posting that she was about to resign from DG because someone was attacking her and to think I felt sorry for her back then. Well, I am still waiting to get a response from her . I deleted the entry because I didn't want to get away from the main topic.
OK. I'm happy to drop it now, but wanted to respond to your statement.