Support for a Garden Tour forum?

I have been viewing other diaries lately. Some people have stunning garden beds. I could never have the hosta bed I saw on one, but it was admirable. It can be awkward clicking on individual diaries and individual pictures. It's nice to see the progress of some gardens and to see mature gardens, too.

hiya fireant13,

There are truly some lovely gardens here in DG land. And it will be great when we can have a forum to discuss them in, ask questions of the gardeners, and just have a rousing good time admiring the seemingly limitless talents shown throughout this site.

Keep hoping,
don

I'm listening ;o)

Hiya Terry,

So good to see you here.

I don't know if you've been following this thread in its more lucid moments, but the idea we had was to do Garden Tours via our personal diaries and then have an open discussion forum where novice and expert alike can discuss the how-to's so to speak. A cultural exchange of ideas and experience that could basically only happen here at DG. Many of us have been very busy updating, or even starting our diaries in the hope that we would be able to make this new forum a reality.

In many of the forums people ask to see a garden and not just a plant. It was initially suggested that we use another existing forum, but with the volume of conversation expected in the proposed Garden Tour forum we could very well interrupt the pre-existing flow of said forum. I know we're getting pretty heavy on forums and it's a lot to follow, but I think with the tie in to the Garden Diaries we've struck a somewhat unique cord of "larger picture" discussions. I certainly have enjoyed visiting the diaries I've been invited to visit and can't think of a more valid gardening topic than "Why I mixed those Caesalpinias with the Salvias"...lol. I did by the way...lol. It wasn't successful. A Garden tour forum would allow others to see our diary entries and see why a particular thing was done or undone, moved, or just plain tossed.

I know you guys are really busy, and I'm not sure how complicated adding a forum is, but I do sincerely think that this particular forum and it's tie in to a truly underutilized feature of the DG site would be a valuable and lively addition to the many marvelous facets already here.

I do promise no Ed McMahon rants......lol.

best to you always,
don

But so many of us LOVED that Ed McMahon rant!

I'll second what Don said. It would be great to have a specific forum for this. I've been a little remiss in working on my diary tour, but I've had a great time going through the others.

Besides touring gardens, I also think it would help us get ideas from people in the forum. I have a side space that I've recently cleared of weeds. I would like to post a picture of it and see if anyone can suggest plants, arrangements, and hardscape. I could go to the Florida Forum for plants, but I think having a forum that addresses garden plans would be more helpful.

The one thing that's made me hesitate to move on this idea is that I think some folks will probably (mis)use the forum to create their tour as a thread, and the forum may be somewhat of a mishmash of discussion threads and quasi-tours.

But then again, I guess there's no real harm if that happens. The forum "regulars" can encourage them to start a tour in their diary (for all the reasons it makes sense to use the diary - maintenance, others can access it, and even be on a "watch" list to know when it's updated, etc.)

hiya Terry,

That was the initial resistance by us as well when this idea was conceived, but maggiemoo had the marvelous idea of putting the tours in the Garden Diaries, and then use the forum as a discussion platform with links to diary entries so that the quasi-tour stuff could be minimized. It turned out to make perfect sense and the Garden Diary is very user friendly (It would have to be to get me excited about it...(no don is a moron jokes, I get enough of them at home....lol, from the horses no less).

I feel like there will be enough 'regulars' in the GT forum to guide the rest into the regular use of their diaries as the platform for their tours and since we can indeed put a diary on our watchlist (fabulous idea btw), we can see when our favorite gardens/ gardeners or those wishing for insights have done something new. There seems to be synchronicity here in a kind of new and creative way between the proposed forum and the marvelous benefits of the Garden Diary feature of this site.

This could turn out to be a great forum...and at the risk of sounding like a skipping record, I, for one, think better/ more active use of some of the personal features of this site thoughtfully offered here would be a good thing (quoting Martha...lol)

best to you,
don

We could have an explanation at the top as well as periodically as it gets lost in the discussion.

Add a sticky at the top for an explaination?

I would agree that this forum would take a little while to settle in to it's full creative potential, but it will and it would also grow and add to people's knowledge and input into DG
AL

Before I found this thread, I never dropped in to other people's diaries, but now I do. There's the privacy feature, if someone doesn't want something viewed by others.

To reiterate a point made earlier, having a "next frame/last frame" function or something of a similar nature would be be helpful in scanning a 'tour' of several frames.

I agree. Clicking on each picture to enlarge it is time consuming.

Ditto, ditto, ditto! I love the way this would encourage use (and even awareness) of the Garden Diary, it is such a great feature! And I love the interaction this would create over discussion of the diary entries (the tours). And, and, and.... well said in the above posts.

I have been thinking that a sticky at the top of the forum would be good also, to post some simple instructions to get people started on their own diaries (including their tours.)

Waiting, with bated breath (what is that, anyway?)...

(P.S. About those Ed McMahon rants, they will be on the Ed McMahon Forum, when that one is opened, lol.)

Is Baited Breath what you get after you eat fishing worms?

bigcityal, I love your flagstone paths. That's what I want down the sides of my house.

Thanks Fireant. Kids love to hop along on it.
I'm working hard on my forum(which doesn't exist), I'm entering everything I can find.

Okay, bigcityal, I admit to having flagstone envy! I noticed all the branches (fir?) on the bed with snow all over the place in your "garage bed" diary. Are they to protect the dormant plants from the cold?

I also have coneflower and cosmos envy! I can't get any of the purple Echinaceas to grow very well for me. Do they like moist soil?

MM,
We don't have much snow right now so those were new photos. Boughs are used to help keep the ground/plants cold in the winter so they don't warm then cool a lot, which is more of a plant killer than 20 below.
I just got my 'Double Click' cosmos in the mail I am so excited. Cosmos are real easy to grow, what problems do you have? I get about 110% germination. They don't need a lot of water.
Coneflowers might not get the 'cool' period they need for the seeds to 'ripen'? for you, but I would think started plants should do well, they don't mind the heat here and can take some dry weather. Orange Rudbeckia is far tougher than Echinacea Purpurea - nobody ever mentions that.
I am glad I will have a lot of my diary done before spring because it will show the changes I make this year in it.
As a forum note I have looked at other diaries and have thought it would be great to leave
comments in there more specifically(like plantfiles).
Al

I think comments would be helpful, especially for those of us who lack experience. We could also admire a well put together garden.

I've started working on plant lists for each area, but it's turning into a lot more work than I thought it would be when I started. Might have helped if I had made lists of these before - I was doing good just to get everything labeled. I've had to resort to pulling out plant reciepts and using those. When I get plants, I save the reciept in a file and mark where I put it. I have a folder about 3" thick!

hiya sstateham,

I've visited your diary, as well as many of the others started recently by contributors and friends in this thread. I think you're doing a fabulous job of documentation! That pond is incredible, is the whole thing on your property? What a treat it must be to actually have a natural aquatic ecosystem on your property. I'd be fishing most of the time and no work would get done around here...lol.

I do hope that we've been persuasive enough to get our forum so that we can discuss each other's diaries at length. What a specieal place you have.

bigcityal, your's is really evolving as well. I'm kind of falling behind on mine right now, but intend to spend some time on it this evening.

fireant 13, Monica's art is just wonderful. Boy she's got talent!

best to all,
don

Don - Thanks!! Yep, that's the back yard. We're on six acres surrounded on three sides by woods, and the pond covers a little over 1 acre of it. The previous owners had "landscaped" the margins of the pond, but I've been letting it go back to nature for three years. There are still some daylillies that have survived from before, but not it's mostly grasses and such. Much easier to take care of, the local critters like it better, and the fish are much healthier. The front acre is house and my garden beds, and the back five are pretty much as mother nature intended.

I haven't been working on my "tour" as much as I'd like, I get really busy at work this time of year. I have enjoyed going through the others as they evolve, though.

Terry - if you're still out there, what's the liklihood of getting a forum?

Stacy

Yes, Terry, what's the liklihood of getting the forum? :-)

I've been working on my diary, but am having LOTS of computer trouble when I open my photo viewing program lateley. I can post pics I've already :processed" for posting, but if I start trying to look around for the pics I want to use for my tour, everything grinds to a halt. (Grrr...)

Still enjoying other people's diaries though!

Thank you, drdon. Monica's college required that she learn art before design, but graphic design is her real love.

(I don't have much to photograph in the garden, so I put her pictures up instead.)

The diaries are great--so many talented people and so many beautiful plants. I hope my scruffy property can be shaped up.

drdon,
The evolution of this thread has kept me captivated since the third or fourth post. I thought so much of the concept I went ahead and formulated a garden tour in anticipation of your idea being implemented. You and any other members are invited to tour it. I would welcome feedback.
Thanks for the idea.
J

J - Where did you get the layout? That's outstanding! If I had something like that making my plant lists would be a heck of a lot easier

I've also visited jmorth's Garden Tour diary.......isn't it marvelously organized? I would think that this could be a sticky at the top of the forum as a "How to do it right example"........just fabulously executed.

As many of you know there's a bunch of stuff going on here at DG right now. Something big is about to happen apparently. Since this thread has gotten Terry's attention, let's hope the we've been persuasive enough to warrant a forum after they've finished whatever it is they are up to.

I have to say that there really are some great Tours materializing and certainly enough of them to keep a lively conversation going at this time.

best to all,
don

Spread the word through the other forums, and I'm sure we'll drum up a lot of support!

Tplant in Florida Forum is looking for ideas for a garden after Wilma took down trees. He has pictures posted.

sstateham,
Layout came from before utilization of computer. It was orginally a hand drawn map that was redone yearly. I scanned in the outline and standardized borders. I use the Paint program to update a/o change entries on the map. There is also a Paint.net program I'm hoping to learn and utilize for this coming year's garden changes. The paint.net program features layering.
Thankyou for the feedback.

What a fabulous idea! I've taken a quick peek through a few of the diaries and am hooked. I can hardly wait to see a Garden Tour Forum. It may just get me through the winter.

It is easy to get hooked. I even like the crayon drawing someone did of a garden. (I need to note where I find stuff.)

fireant, I have entries in my diary w/links to things that I want to be able to find later. I think I call it "Usefull info".

maggiemoo, that's a good idea.

When did we get 157 forums?

This message was edited Jan 10, 2006 5:43 PM

Pssst! Here you go!

I intentionally set it up to disallow photos and to allow non-subscribed members to participate. But I'm certainly open to discussing whether those edits are the most appropriate way to encourage everyone to use their Garden Diary for a tour, or not ;o)

Wooo hooo!

Could this be the end of this 160 reply thread?