On 1/6/04 15:52, in article ,
"Frogleg" wrote:

snip

My specific faux pas, it seems, was discussing coriander/cilantro.
Whether being growin in the USA, the UK, or Japan, in a greenhouse or
back garden, the growth habit of this plant has certain
characteristics with which I'm all too familiar. I can't see the
offense in mentioning some of these.

It's not a question of 'offence', truly. But it is a question of how much
use it can be to UK orientated gardeners, given the light levels and sun
hours that we get in UK. That makes a really enormous difference to when
plants can be started outdoors OR in greenhouses and how long they can
live/flower/survive outdoors etc.
I don't know where you live but the advice you in, let's say Carolina, give
to someone in, let's say Liverpool will be of no use to that person for all
too many plants. Not everyone from 'out there' is posting about Cilantro!
For example, I have friends living in Philly. They can grow almost all the
thing we can here in SW England but their winters will kill them off and
some may never bloom at all. These friends treat Norfolk Pine as a
houseplant, in Crete it grows almost wild, here it will survive in some mild
climates, such as the Scilly Isles where BTW Echiums will grow and flourish
and flower and seed, which they will not do here in *our bit* of the 'sunny'
south west but will do with friends some few miles away or in the Channel
Islands, where I was born.
So it's no good someone here or in Crete telling someone in Philadelphia
what they can or can't grow. That is why this newsgroup is UK specific
(mostly) and it is also why people who are new and post here for the first
time are asked where they live.
We are a small and misty, wet island with some very cold bits, part of which
is governed by the Gulf Stream and thus affects gardening. Here, near
Dartmoor we can't grow some things that people 40 minutes car ride to
Salcombe can grow and over-winter. The enormous variation in climate within
a very few miles in UK makes it impossible to say "everyone in Devonshire
can grow this and have it survive the winter", for example.
And even in Britain, we in Devon can grow and over-winter outdoors many
things that more northern climates can manage.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds after garden to email me)