Would a new name for "Indigenous Plants" make it more active

I really don't know how this point keeps getting lost, but let me try one more time ;o)

The current "Indigenous" forum IS the "Wild Plants" forum - always has been.

For that reason, I've gone ahead and changed the name to Native Plants and Wild Plants, and we'll see what happens, which seems preferable to going round in circles about what *might* happen ;o)

Thanks, Terry!

I think that'll be an improvement over just calling it "Indigenous Plants" at any rate, and I don't see any reason why all of the above can't be discussed on the forum, especially given the description at the top of the forum (which probably didn't change with the last name change, either).

Good decision!

I would like to point out that any 'wildflower' plant which is an actual wild plant and not an escapee cultivated 'hybrid' plant is 'indigenous' to somewhere. So to two really cannot be separated otherwise there may just as well be a forum dedicated to each state in every country, which is unrealistic. That is fine for the likes of Sate authorities, but DG covers the world and for every country, province, state in the world there are indigenous plants whether or not they are growing elsewhere.

This reminds me of the 'North East' saga where someone is always going to be North East of somewhere! lol.

I truly feel that more people will feel comfortable with this naming, I for one had known about the Indigenous plants forum, but always felt it exclusive.

So sad and extremely disappointed because here is one point that was lost, Native plants are a distinct group because they are the only group of plants that have a positive impact on their local ecosystem no matter where that ecosystem is located. Not negative, not neutral, but a positive impact. No other group of plants can make that claim. It's a much more meaningful claim than the "because I like them" or "because they are pretty" or "because they grow well in my garden" rationale given so frequently for wildflower as well as other non-native and naturalized species.

My hopes are that all the subscribers in this thread who were so vocal about including introduced wildlflowers will post a lot so a new forum for their wildflowers can be created as a stand alone from native plants real soon.

There's no reason why native plants and their distinct role can't be discussed on the renamed forum... and actually, I think if the new name draws a wider group of people, that gives those folks a chance to learn about and appreciate the value of native plants. Otherwise, you're just preaching to the choir.

Good point critter, this could be a good way to educate more pople on the importance of native plants so who's losing?

Please don't be sad Equilibrium. I am very interested in wildflowers and also plan on re-doing my landscape with almost 100% native plants. I will always have some favorites in pots or beds that are not natives. So post away & I promise to support your posts and maybe soon gardening with natives can have its own forum, which, btw, I think it deserves!

Absolutely Angele!!!

I am very discouraged by the decision to change the name to include Wild Plants in the forum title.

Wallaby I am sorry you felt excluded in the past. I would have loved to have heard about the plants native to your environment.
I do feel excluded in the new forum, and very sad.

the forum originally was wild plants and was my Favorite place in DG. I had two full pages of posts in that forum before the name was changed to Indigenous. Please if you are interested in having a exclusively native plants forum Please please post and like I said I will support your posts and maybe very soon there will be a forum just for native plants.

I'm sorry a few are feeling discouraged when it may be a good way to introduce more people to the importance of Native plants, surely this shouldn't be as big a problem as some think?

sempervirens, I did say "but always felt it exclusive" which is a little different to myself feeling excluded, but yes it can amount to the same thing if I happened to post a wildflower and was jumped on because it was introduced. That makes people not want to post if they are uncertain, and how does anyone become the wiser without a place to ask?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to object here to the idea that new forums should be created whether or not the traffic on an existing forum warrants it.

Some times, new forums are created because there is no clear place to discuss the topic on existing forums. But a lot of new forums are "split off" from existing forums.

The rule of thumb for new forums didn't used to be whether or not a group of plants was "deserving" -- aren't they all? :-)

It used to be that when posts on a particular type of plant were outnumbering and overwhelming other posts on that forum, it became obvious that a separate forum should be and created.

Now, people say, oh I think X type of plant is really cool, and we should have a forum just to talk about it. Starting a thread about plant X in the Perennials forum just isn't enough for such a wonderful plant. Then a new forum is created, and some people go there, but often there's not a lot of traffic after the initial hubbub. Keeping Plant X threads on the Perennials forum (or wherever) might have resulted in more discussions, in which more people participated.

Sorry about the rant. Clearly I'm not such a fan of the proliferation of forums that's been going on the past year or so... and I know I've said it before.

I'd rather see an existing forum re-tooled, as we've just done with this name change. If the forum now becomes really active, and if there are so many wildflower posts that native plant topics become lost (or vice versa), then IMO it'll be time to think about creating a second forum.

Well at least something was done! One thing lost in the most recent discussions is that the thread watcher is in effect a mini-forum creator. I often forget to click on the forums because of the thread watcher. If there are three or four threads on the new forum dedicated to native plants, those people interested in them will watch those threads. They can choose to not watch the rest. They don't have to co-mingle, if that is their choice. And admin is always open to changes later on. This is a first step, not necessarily the last.

Exactly Wallaby, " How does anyone become wiser without a place to ask?"
I no longer have a place to ask about "Native Plants" because in effect the renaming of the Indigenous Plan Forum to include non native plants cancel it out. Why was it renamed without even asking the people who post regularly on the forum?
I really feel sidelined.

If every native plant person puts 'native plants' in the title of their threads, why would there be no place?? The word will then appear in the forum title and the thread title.

Sempervirens, why do think that people who like wildflowers don't know much about native plants?

There is no canceling out. The renaming is one of inclusion, not exclusion -- and it gets back to the original intent of the forum (see statement at the top of the forum). I hope there will be lots of discussion about native plants, indigenous plants, introduced wildflowers, native wildflowers, etc. now... I'm looking forward to it!

Although I noted that I'd overlooked the forum under the "Indigenous Plants" title, I probably wouldn't have posted there anyway... I'd have assumed that if I tried to post about spring "bluets" or trilliums, and if in fact they were introduced rather than indigenous, I'd have been jumped on about it... and so I'd have steered clear unless I had a question or comment about a plant I knew for certain met the forum's criteria.

Isn't it better to get more people involved?

sempervirens--the forum wasn't changed, I think a lot of people weren't aware of what the real intention of the forum was in the first place. I was among those people--I had seen the name indigenous plants and thought that it was only for discussing natives, but Terry has said that it used to be called wild plants and the original intention of the forum was to talk about things growing in the wild regardless of native status. Discussions of native plants were and still are perfectly acceptable topics of conversation, but the forum is also open (and apparently always has been) to discussions of non-natives found in the wild. So anything you were posting/discussing there before is still perfectly within the scope of the forum.

Yes, a lot better.

For many many reasons already addressed here by the native plant enthusiasts such as myself, I don't wish to be involved in a forum that isn't dedicated to native/indigenous plants. Just isn't going to happen for me. I asked a long time ago why there wasn't a native plant forum and was directed to the Indigenous forum. I said it then and I'll say it again, my books don't say Indigenous, nor do they say wildflowers. So with that being said, I'll be unchecking the newly named forum and speaking with the true native plant lovers at a different site altogether.

I find it rather disconcerting that this question wasn't even broached on the Indigenous forum, but rather here, where only a select few visit on a regular basis.

This forum is visited by the many who select to view it daily NOT as a place "where only a select few visit on a regular basis"

I've learned that it's a good idea to take a peek over here at the new threads every couple of days... whether it's a discussion about a new forum or a glitch in the system, I often learn something I'm glad to know! And if I think other folks on a particular forum would be interested in a thread on the DG forum, I post a link...

Count me as another vote in favor of renaming it simply "Native Plants." After all, there are literally dozens of forums here that are occupied with discussing exotic, cultivated plants. For those who want to discuss wild exotics, my recommendation would be to create a new forum for them or to rename the "Invasive Plants" forum "Invasive and Exotic Plants."

terryr: "So with that being said, I'll be unchecking the newly named forum and speaking with the true native plant lovers at a different site altogether."

Just curious - which site would that be? I might join you there! :)

jsorens, can you give me a link to a thread in this forum: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/wildplants/all/ that is promoting exotics or invasives? I'd be happy to move it to the correct forum ;o)

I will do that if I see one. :) I've recently discovered that this is basically a closed subject, so I won't rehash it. I wasn't meaning to cause trouble, but I do wish there were a larger community here actively planting native and discussing the process.

Jsorens, there are some of us doing that, and with time I am sure the group will grow larger, especially if we make it a fun learning experience.
Please come and have fun with us while we learn about the plants from each other's region and discover how much we have in common.
Josephine.

Gee. Been reading all of this and am completely lost. Having been a member of a certain religious denomination all of my life, this reminds me of many of their committee meetings. Or more exactly, two dominate political parties. I do hope that someone gets whatever it is that they want. For the life of me, I cannot understand just what that is. Probably should just back out and continue to lurk. Really can't figure this out.

louc. i'm not sure i do either but...to the people that are passionate about native plants it seems very important. and i guess they feel they are losing something.

help me jsorens...and i didn't look at what you said as causing trouble. i am trying to understand why you think this newly named forum can't satisfy what you are looking for. isn't native plants still in the title? or is it that it will include plants that might not be native to the u.s.?

and i think josephine has a point. she is the most native gardener i know. she is responsible for so many of the native texas plant pictures in daves plant files. and she knows that i along with many others garden with lots of non-native plants. in her quiet unassuming way she is hookin' a bunch of us, aren't you girl? lol. and by the way josephine....i have about 6 of those goat's rue that have germinated so keep your fingers crossed.

Thank you Mamajack, it would be wonderful if they make it, I have been wanting one of those for a long time.
You are a sweetheart to say those things, I do love native plants, and I hope more people will learn about them and love them too.

see!!!!! she just brings us in. lol.

I don't if this could help with the definitions but this is from the book Hawai`i's Floral Spendor.
1.Aboriginal introduction, ie, brought by early Polynesians
2. Endemic to Hawai`i
3. Indegenous,ie, native to Hawai`i but also found elsewhere
4. Introduced

LouC, I think the heart of the issue resides with the definition of "wild plant" or "wild flower". Somewhere along the line, those terms became synonymous (in some people's minds) with invasive, introduced exotics.

However, the true, universally accepted definition of "wildflower" is a flowering plant growing without being cultivated, i.e., growing in the wild.

Many - if not most - wild plants are native to where they are growing. Each state in the U.S. and each Canadian province has a native plant they refer to as their official state/province "wildflower".

A few plants growing wild are "escapees". Some of those are aggressive thugs, and few would disagree that they can be harmful if allowed to grow and spread in the wild, unchecked.

If everybody will put their biases about terminology aside, I think we'd find the plants discussed in this forum since 2001 are mostly native to the poster's geographic area.

When a non-native comes up for discussion, it's usually only a matter of time before someone points out its non-native status.

Thank you, Terry.

mamajack:

Again, I'm not trying to stir up something that's settled, but since you asked, here's my take on it.

I see discussion of native plants as being about more than gardening or discussing individual species we like. It's about understanding the biology of natural plant communities and discussing how we can restore these communities to the places where human beings live. Thus, it's as much or more about field botany, native landscape design, and ecology on the large scale as it is about "gardening." At least, that's what I'm interested in - particularly since reading fascinating books on the subject such as Diekelmann's Natural Landscaping and Bormann, Balmori, and Geballe's Redesigning the American Lawn.

If the discussion trends in that direction, I don't suppose it much matters what the forum is called. If this were still an issue up for debate, however, I would just prefer something that stressed the "native" aspect rather than the "wild" aspect. I don't agree that "wildflowers" are necessarily exotic or invasive (www.wildflower.org is a great native wildflower site), but "native plants and wild plants" implies that non-native wild plants are also part of the discussion. Again, not a big deal if that's not really what the forum is about. I'm new here so I didn't know.

This message was edited Feb 27, 2008 12:09 PM

sounds like you are very knowledgeable and that it would benefit the forum if you stayed as an educator of sorts. while everyone might not do their whole yard native if native plants could be shown in attractive landscapes more of them might be used. we need people like you for helpful insights. and also, as a reference person. while it seems that you are looking to further your own knowledge it might not have occurred to you that you are needed to help the rest of us. lol.

Well, thanks for the kind words, but I suspect I am too much in the airy realm of theory and am in dire need of some very practical grounding! I only started gardening a couple of years ago and have had a spotty track record so far. So that is a big part of why I'm here: to learn more about technique. :)

well there you have it. prob. some of us can tell you how to move that dirt while you can give us a beautiful design with native plants. we all need each other. and we all have talents that others can use.

Very well said Mamajack.

Terry said:

It's complicated. Only a few states have state "wildflowers". Some have "flowers", some have "floral emblems" (Maine's is the White Pine cone and tassel), and some call them both. Some aren't native at all, like Indiana's peony an Florida's orange blossom, Citrus sinensis.

http://www.netstate.com/states/tables/st_flowers_wild.htm