FIRST FLOWERS SUMMER!!! Mid Summer Edition

Huh. Why aren't my pics posting? I wonder if it's an iPhone thing.

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Muddy said she was having trouble posting pics, too, in the Pollinator thread.

That snake plant is quite unique! Beautiful hydrangea, SSG.

1) Leaves of my Little Miss Sunshine hosta. They start out green when they emerge, then gradually turn a bright, pale yellow over the course of the summer.

2) Erodium reichardii 'Charm' (Alpine Geranium)

3) A bloom on my super tall Dill plant (seeds from Critter).

4) Hibiscus 'Fireball' with some marigold

5) Leaves of my Heuchera americana

Alpine geranium 'Charm'

Dill

Hibiscus 'Fireball'

Heuchera americana

Catmint, I love that Fireball! Are the leaves as dark as they seem in this picture? :) I'd love a dark hibiscus, like Midnight Marvelous, but I heard that one doesn't bloom very well.

Your alpine geranium is looking so healthy! I heard they didn't like our hot and humid summers, but we haven't had our typical hot and humid summer this year. How long have you had yours?

thanks, SSG! :-) Yes, the Fireball really has dark leaves--and fall color, too! :-) I'm pleased with how it's blooming. When I got it late last season it really looked so lanky and pathetic, and then it died to the ground overwinter, but it's come back so nice.

I got the alpine geranium early this season. It's in that strange, hard to grow area of my yard that gets only hot afternoon sun, but it seems very happy there and has been blooming very steadily.

I love the way all your coneflowers and daisies mix together in your last shot! And the hydrangeas are really beautiful!

That alpine geranium is a firecracker, I love it! I have an area that it would be great for. Where did you get it?

thanks, Seq! I got it at Seasons in Gaithersburg. I really like them!

RRR, I have my first bloom on the lisianthus you gave me at the swap.

Again--here is some firsts---BUT--on the veggie front...

1--Some first pickings of my Cherokee Purple tomatoes.
The big one in front is exactly 1lb.

(never mind the containers of cherry tomatoes--I pic loads of these every day. )

This message was edited Jul 30, 2014 11:52 AM

That large tomato has other "attributes" as well---cute buns!

I just call it my BIG A$$ tomato. Haaaaaaaaaaaa....!


BTW--what's going on with uploading only ONE picture per Post???
Others have also had this problem...Anyone contact Adm. yet?

G.

Admin is acutely aware.

Oh man G! I only saw the picture as I was scrolling up from the bottom and I thought to myself, EWWW!!! What is that?!?! I thought it was a human organ or some weird body part.

SSG and Gita, I downloaded a photo from each of your posts just to look at their sizes. They were more than 2MB each. I normally compress my photos down to several hundred KB in order to post multiple of them in one post.

Donner, the admins are saying that the techs did an update and it messed up the multiple picture loading function. I've never needed to shrink the pic sizes before. Some can't even post single pictures today. It looks like the techs are working on it.

donner---

When I attach my pictures to an e-mail--they always show 1MB.
When I attach 5 photos to a DG post--I have never had any issues.
I think, maybe, they get down-sized automatically??

I have never sized any down--actually--don't even know how to go about it...

Hey--gang---

I may be off-line for a day or two. Mark--my SIL--is going to upgrade all the
components of my computer, which he built for me about 6 years ago.
ALL new parts going in! I will also be upgraded to Windows 7. They have it and love it...

OH, help me Lawd!!!! Something new to learn to use and get used to....
I am NOT good at that!!! I HATE--HATE changes from the familiar!!!

Luckily--I have the "Cloud" Back-Up system--so (hopefully) I will not lose anything...
Aina (DD) checked it all today--everything seems to be backed up.

I (we) may have to reinstall all the shortcuts to everything I now have on my
Desk Top. (LOTS!!!) I made a list today.....

See you all soon! Gita

The photo issues are due to an "upgrade", once again done without proper testing in advance of site modification. There are other problems as well. Thought I'd share my latest post to the Dave's Garden forum:

At first I could not finalize additions to my "Insects" journal, then I could not switch between journals, then this morning I when I try to view an already uploaded photo in my journal I consistently get:

"Database error: Invalid SQL: select a.comment,date_format(a.date,"%b %e, %Y"), a.image, a.entry_type, b.name1, b.rid from j_entries a, j_main b where a.eid = and b.rid = a.rid
MySQL Error: 1064 (You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'and b.rid = a.rid' at line 1)
Session halted."

There have been other little glitches, for example, in my most recent d-mail to melody of issues there several "/"s inserted in my text as seen at my end after submission.

Once again the current owner/technical staff has instituted changes without beta testing and degraded the site for their customers. Is there any likelihood of :

1. providing site-wide notification of progress on problem resolution so we do not waste time in trial and error to determine progress, gaining further frustration, and

2. someone on technical staff going to school and learning how to modify the site on a separate server and migrating the "upgrade" AFTER the glitches have been worked out?

While DG admin is great, the management is surprisingly unprofessional.

And we pay $20 a year for this. :-/

Not to open a huge can of worms or anything, but I have to mention here: I recently joined All Things Plants and have been enjoying hanging out there.

There is currently no Midatlantic forum on ATP because apparently when ATP was established, the Midatlantic folks said they wanted to stay together on Cubits. Well, by now the Midatlantic Cubits has become inactive, while the DG MAF group has shrunk because people have wandered over to ATP.

I like the DG MAF group because of the opportunities to get together in person, but at the same time, ATP has so much to offer as a site. Has anyone else ever thought of us starting a Midatlantic Forum on ATP and congregating there as a group? As a site, it's less buggy than DG, more technologically up to date, and there's also a lot going on on the site as a whole. E.g., right now (until tomorrow) they're having a Caladium photo contest, and the winners get free bulbs from the Bulbs4Less place where we did our Caladium order. Also, the plant database is much easier to add to on ATP. And did I mention that all this is FREE?

Well, just a thought. I'm assuming there's a long history here, including reasons why the Midatlantic group has stayed on DG instead of migrating over to ATP. But at this point I think MAF has shrunk anyway due to people wandering over there? Is that correct?

Catmint, the only reason I'm staying on DG is because I love the people of MAG.

Did you know that ATP was started up by Dave, the same Dave that started Dave's Garden? He's a very experienced programmer (as you can see), so there are no technical issues on that site. I have a feeling the programming/maintenance here on DG is farmed out to the cheapest vendor. It's too bad that the *free* site is far superior to the one that charges money.

Well, bugs or not, I love DG and I really enjoy talking to all of you and others on the site as well. I've been to ATP and, IMO, they don't have the traffic that DG has. I've also been to Gardenweb, and while there is way more traffic than DG, a few of the people over there are rude and/or post whores (excuse my french) who have little to offer a poster in the way of actual help. Therefore, I stay mainly at DG because of the people on this site and the tech issues are not a big deal IMO. As for the $20, it's a small price to pay for the help and friendship with people like you all and it keeps out the riff raff so-to-speak.

Oh, good point, Seq, about the annual fee keeping out the riffraff. I think that's one reason why Gardenweb people can be so rude

Ugh. I just tried to edit by post to say that it's the free and widely available aspect of Gardenweb that brings on the trolls.

And I got an error message.

well, I just tried to submit a new post, and the glitches wouldn't allow me to.

talk about ugh. I'll try again.

Okay, here are my thoughts.

1) Since it's the people who make this forum special, why can't we make our forum special on a different website? Dave (as in formerly of Daves garden LOL) has said that he will create a new midatlantic gardening forum on ATP if even 5 people express interest. Right now there is Typ (who if you all have not noticed has left this group and moved to ATP--I got to wondering where she was and that is how I got involved on ATP), myself, and someone called NJBob who I think used to be part of this group? so that's 3 out of 5.

2) Right now our own group here has gotten smaller as people have drifted over to ATP. Why not become a larger group again on a better-run forum?

3) Seq, I have seen a few post-whores and met a few rude people, not only on ATP but also here on DG. It all depends on the people involved, as you note. If this group were to migrate as a whole to ATP, we would be the same but be hosted on a better-run site.

4) I disagree that there is nothing going on in ATP. I think there is *more* going on over there as a whole. I rarely visit other parts of DG (except the insect ID and plant ID forums). On the ATP site, it seems I never run out of things to do and places to visit.

well I'd better post this before the DG buggy system causes me to lose more effort.

I also wanted to add (since the DG site is not allowing me to edit posts) that, because it seems like such a no-brainer to me (move as a group to a better-run site that's free), I am assuming there is some kind of history and/or politics as to why this has not happened.

Have you ever wondered what DG does with the $20 annual membership fees they charge? They certainly don't spend them on programming! ;-)

JB (Jackie?) is another NJ-based DGer who has permanently migrated to ATP.

It's been a slow exodus.

Here, take a look at this thread, started by a question from our own Typ (or formerly our own, I guess, since she has pretty much moved to ATP).

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1353381/

I also remember visiting the Japanese maple forum once on DG, and was amazed at how it was overrun by one particularly rude, pretentious guy. I never returned. I also have visited the Butterfly/Hummingbird gardening thread on DG but find it overrun by a few 'photo whores' (to use Seq's term), with no space for others.

On ATP, the butterfly & bird gardening forum is super-cool. I feel free to post there, even with my amateur photos of skippers, and people are friendly and acknowledge my efforts. However, I went to the 'cottage garden' forum and found it to be basically just one person's photos over and over, with others chiming in occasionally to admire. Not my cup of tea. However, the cottage gardening forum on DG is completely inactive. So, no winner there.

I guess what I'm saying is that the individuals involved make a forum work or not. I agree we have a great group here and I would not want to lose this group, but at the same time, why do we stay on such a buggy site that, as far as I can tell, will die a slow death anyway as people move to better-run sites, and the folks who cling to 'the way things are' on DG slowly die off. (Sorry to be so graphic, but that's often how change occurs...) Seriously, take a look at the thread that Typ started.

SSG, 'slow exodus'--yes, that about sums it up.

I love you guys but do you think we could move this topic about moving to another website to a DM rather than on this forum?

hi Seq. what do you mean by DM?

I'm just confused, because I'm sure you didn't mean that this shouldn't be publicly discussed, right?

Is there some kind of deep, nasty, political history here that I'm unaware of, such that the topic is hush-hush and should only be handled delicately through private dmail? Maybe it's my Asperger's talking here, but that seems kind of strange to me...

If that's the case, then someone please dmail me and enlighten me, so I can make a better judgment of the situation here.

There is a lot of nasty history here that is now all passe---maybe some
old-timers could direct you to a date or time.

It was a nasty battle when DG was sold (to the current owners) and
Dave was totally removed.. The wars were fiery!

I don't know how far back on would need to go on the DG Forum to read
all about the chaos. Does anyone here remember the date all this took place???

In the end-Dave developed Cubits--which still exists--in an autonomous way-
and then he moved on to develop ATP.

No one liked the new system here and the new owners of DG.

I belong to ATP--but am not familiar with my way around there, so i do not
visit all that ofter, Need a road map.....:o)

JB (our former GURU here of Holiday Cactus Forum) moved over to ATP ,
as she was literally threatened by some people here. She escaped....

She just sent me a D-mail asking me to ask people here to "vote' for opening
a MAF on ATP.

Seems it is already being talked about here...I cannot contribute any opinions..
I am a person who likes "same old....same old...."

Gita

Gita, if we move, I'd be happy to come in person and give you a one on one tutorial. :-) We'd make it as easy as possible.

I think it's the people who make the MAF here, and we could be the same people on a less clunky website--plus we could be reunited with members who have left us, like JB and Typ.

I am really sorry to hear that someone was *threatened* here. That is really concerning... :-(