It is best you post your pix to alt.binaries.pictures.gardens, unless you
have your own photo website, of course.

Leave the "Master Gardeners" to do what they do best.............potting up
plants and pulling weeds!!! You don't want to hurt their little heads by
making them try to think too hard. Most of them think plant taxonomy is
either stuffing dead plants or garden expenses they have to account for on
their income tax form.


Lynda LeCompte wrote in message
news
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 18:40:41 GMT, David J Bockman
wrote:

I say post them, I love id'ing plants. )

Dave

Okay... you asked for it ;-)
In fact I was just about to don my cam and go do the deed after reading
madgardener's post - which I will respond to properly after some time
outdoors. It's a beautiful day... much can be accomplished. Where's my
gloves...
--
Lynda

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:28:21 GMT, Lynda LeCompte
wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 11:25:30 GMT, Frogleg wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 04:10:19 GMT, Lynda LeCompte
wrote:

In response to one of my posts about my recently acquired garden,
someone posted that an agricultural organisation would send someone out,
usually a volunteer master gardener, to help with identification of
plants. I thought this was an excellent idea, but didn't think to ask
how to go about this.

You might start looking he

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/mastergd/

hehe - yes, thanks.
Spooky actually, as I found this site this morning before I took my son to
school and was going to post about it when I got back... but ya beat me to
it :-)

When I was first searching, I made the mistake of using 'agriculture'
instead of 'horticulture' in the search strings. Duh!


^_^ I used "master gardener" and as it happened, there were
references on the first page to Texas.

The usual response is "call your local extension agent/office," which
is rather cryptic sometimes. Many (most? all?) state universities have
a public service operation that is a coordinating information resource
for local agricultural, horticultural, home (cleaning, canning),
social, and other topics. They vary in usefulness. I discovered,
looking for some specific info on the web, that many are ready to
supply the same 1950s pamphlets that must have been distributed in the
millions. However...they *do* generally coordinate Master Gardener
programs, handle things like soil-sampling, and *may* have a genuine
expert on local conditions.

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:55:53 GMT, "Cereoid-UR12-"
wrote:

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

You are asking for expert advice from "Master Gardeners"?

That must be the funniest thing I've read all year!!!

From what I've seen, they couldn't even identify their own hands in front of
their faces.

I don't think this is quite fair. While I'm sure the MG programs have
their fair share of retired postal clerks who decided to take up a new
hobby, I'm also confident (no personal experience, as usual) that
lifelong gardeners may also choose to participate. Most plant folk are
willing and eager to share their experience and knowledge. I *did*
have one 'extension agent' go through all kinds of hoops and
information/analysis resources to help me with a tree problem. Shoot,
if there's someone who can say, "I don't know, but there's this guy
who lives about 5 miles from you who's an expert," it's worth making
the effort.

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:33:45 -0500, madgardener wrote:
snipped here and there

Over here in Tennessee what I advise the newly arrived to this region
(the ones from Florida who are used to zone 8 and 9 and are now facing
zone 7 with undertones of the former 6b zone and want "something to
bloom all year......'try silk plants' lol)

hehe - I wouldn't kid too much. What is it with the silk plant folks over
here in the U.S? A relative of my hubby's was actually amazed when she
realised that I had 'real' plants inside my house.

but seriously, I would go
to the phone book and look in the blue pages.

Well, I think I found the right people, but judging by what some on here
are saying, I may not get the kind of help I was after. But here's the good
news...

.... I was chatting with my new neighbour yesterday, who came over to
apologise for not coming over sooner and asking if we needed any help
(however, when I pointed to the rake he looked at me as though I had asked
him to cut his head off... lol!). Anyway, it transpires that he and his
wife are keeping in touch with the lady who used to live in my house. She
was the super gardener that tended these lovely gardens. My neighbour
thought that she might be delighted to come over and take me through what
used to be her gardens, telling me what's what. I probably couldn't get
much better than that!

and send me some of yer pics! I'd love to see them. Get up
in the faces of the plants and such so I can see the buggers...

Well, I've taken the pics and I'll start another thread for that one. Even
though I'll have Mrs ex house owner coming over at some point - hopefully -
maybe - it might be good to get some other's input on what's what and
what's best to do. If anything it will be a bit of entertainment for the
experts out there, where they will be able to say, "you don't know what
THAT is!?!?" :-)
Thanks all!
--
Lynda

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 20:53:06 GMT, gardenia wrote:

If you don't find the help you need there, take a short road trip
down to Seabrook and visit Maas Nursery.

http://www.maasnursery.com/

Thanks Pat.

Hit the wrong key combinations and my post went before I wanted it to.
Whereabouts do you live in Brazoria county? Believe it or not, there's a
huge difference between the northern section of the county (Pearland) and
the southern end of the county (Freeport) because of the water.

I'm actually in Pearland - well, a little village called Brookside on the
outskirts of Pearland. Hubby played a gig at the Balinese in your neck of
the woods recently. Cool place.

pat, your neighbor down in galveston..

:-)
/waves
--
Lynda

Lynda -- Just take pics of each and post them to your web site. You'll get
a quicker response and it will likely be more accurate. When photographing,
be sure to get a few of each plant in particular -- flowers are very helpful
and pics that show the textures of the leaves help as well.

Given those pics and an e-mail address, you'll find far more useful
discussion and knowledge through online resources than having a single
person come out. FWIW, don't be tripped up by the title "MG" -- quality of
MG programs vary widely from state to state and the quality of the
individual varies widely within the programs.

James

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 01:16:23 -0500, JNJ wrote:

Lynda -- Just take pics of each and post them to your web site. You'll
get
a quicker response and it will likely be more accurate. When
photographing,
be sure to get a few of each plant in particular -- flowers are very
helpful
and pics that show the textures of the leaves help as well.

Given those pics and an e-mail address, you'll find far more useful
discussion and knowledge through online resources than having a single
person come out. FWIW, don't be tripped up by the title "MG" -- quality
of
MG programs vary widely from state to state and the quality of the
individual varies widely within the programs.

James

Yah - thanks James. I had already posted some pics (The 'Plant ID
Extravaganza' thread), as you suggested, and am about to post my followup
to that. Thanks for the input :-)
--
Lynda