trin writes

Before I ask any more gardening questions, I would just like someone to
clarify for me the relationship between Garden Banter and this
forum(I'm sure I'm not meant to use that word). I found the you through
Garden Banter and thought it was part of that site. Is it not?

No, uk.rec.gardening is not part of gardenbanter. It existed long before
gardenbanter was even thought of. It will continue to exist even if
gardenbanter folds. Gardenbanter merely copies our posts to its own
site, and redirects your posts to uk.rec.gardening.

I notice
that below my name in a post it says registered user rather than
usernet poster.

You are a registered user of gerdenbanter and are using gardenbanter to
read and post to the usenet newsgroup uk.rec.gardening. I am reading
uk.rec.gardening direct, using software capable of reading newsgroups -
in my case Turnpike.

I started posting here because it made sense to ask questions about
gardening in Britain to a British group.

Indeed!

If this is a private site or
invitation only please accept my apologies.

No this is an open newsgroup (*not* a site) and you are very welcome.

I'm afraid I tried to read the link about usenet in garden banter. It
was called Lost in Usenet..... and I'm still lost


Try an experiment -
go into Google, look at the line above the search box and click on
'groups'
Then enter any word you fancy and click 'search' - that will bring up
posts from newgroups containing your search term - that will give you
some idea of the huge number of newsgroups that are out here
--
Kay