Which are the Good and which are the Bad garden software on the market?

I've bought a couple in the past.

The Complete Gardens plant selector and pruning guide is fantastic.
Easy to use, loads of information about plant care and pruning advice
and has thousands of stunning images. It's also the only MAC & PC
compatible software I've found.
I would recommend this to anyone. Well worth a look.
www.complete-gardens.co.uk or for the best price www.amazon.co.uk look
in software and type the word garden

The Bad
The Geoff Hamilton CD was the first piece of software I bought and was
very disappointed. I doubt very much that the much loved Geoff had
anything to do with the content of this CD and I feel fooled by the use
of his portrait on the cover. Many of the plants are not grown and
irrelevant in the UK, many plants do not have images or and some of the
ones that do are trees and shrubs lining American streets and are very
poor quality. Some of the pests are questionable for the UK too.
As I feel that I was fooled by the use Geoff Hamilton on the cover and
now I always read the reviews on Amazon.co.uk. The reviews come from
real people and will help you sort out the good from the bad.
Don't just look at the cover. Unless it's my imagination I think some
manufacturers are just putting new covers on old outdated stock. See
for yourself how many Geoff Hamilton Cd's there are on Amazon with
similar names. This is to avoid bad reviews I think.
I think that using famous TV personalities on the covers is a
misleading con.
I understand that the Monte Don CD is made in Australia.

To sort the wheat from the chaff I would be interested to hear peoples
comments about which Gardening CD's are good and which are the rogue
CD's to avoid.

Ted Green

The message .com
from "greenfingers3" contains these words:

The Bad
The Geoff Hamilton CD was the first piece of software I bought and was
very disappointed. I doubt very much that the much loved Geoff had
anything to do with the content of this CD and I feel fooled by the use
of his portrait on the cover. Many of the plants are not grown and
irrelevant in the UK, many plants do not have images or and some of the
ones that do are trees and shrubs lining American streets and are very
poor quality. Some of the pests are questionable for the UK too.
As I feel that I was fooled by the use Geoff Hamilton on the cover and
now I always read the reviews on Amazon.co.uk. The reviews come from
real people and will help you sort out the good from the bad.
Don't just look at the cover. Unless it's my imagination I think some
manufacturers are just putting new covers on old outdated stock. See
for yourself how many Geoff Hamilton Cd's there are on Amazon with
similar names. This is to avoid bad reviews I think.
I think that using famous TV personalities on the covers is a
misleading con.

Just as well my (CoverCD) one won't run, then...

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Hi Ted,
Unfortunately there are a lot of bad CD's out there on the market.
Unfortunately most of the gardening software comes from abroad either
from the USA or Australia. They are franchised in the UK and the
companies fool the British public by using much loved or respected TV
personalities on the covers. On sites such as Amazon look in software
and type in Garden and you'll see reviews from people. These reviews
are a good indication of which are good and which are bad products. The
reviews are well worth looking at.
But beware. Sadly when bad reviews appear the Companies just put a new
cover on the front. If it wasn't damaging the software industry so
much I would find it amusing at the number of times the much loved
Geoff Hamilton's image is being used on what appears to be much the
same if not the same CD . Although Geoff passed away in 1996 you'll be
amazed that he's going to be appearing on yet another 3D Garden Design
CD dated 2005.
This either shows the age of the software or that Geoff was not
involved with the making of the CD.
There is another good site for reading reviews for all sorts of
products not only garden software
it's called The Review Centre. www.reviewcentre.com
I hope this helps people decide the Good from the Bad.
Best wishes
Neil

wrote:
Hi Ted,
Unfortunately there are a lot of bad CD's out there on the market.
Unfortunately most of the gardening software comes from abroad either
from the USA or Australia. They are franchised in the UK and the
companies fool the British public by using much loved or respected TV
personalities on the covers. On sites such as Amazon look in software
and type in Garden and you'll see reviews from people. These reviews
are a good indication of which are good and which are bad products. The
reviews are well worth looking at.


If your eyesight's getting bad like mine or there's too much stuff on
one page like the Review Centre's pages I've found the page;

http://www.reviewcentre.com/products2105.html


But beware. Sadly when bad reviews appear the Companies just put a new
cover on the front. If it wasn't damaging the software industry so
much I would find it amusing at the number of times the much loved
Geoff Hamilton's image is being used on what appears to be much the
same if not the same CD . Although Geoff passed away in 1996 you'll be
amazed that he's going to be appearing on yet another 3D Garden Design
CD dated 2005.

Isn't that just going to be a burial plot with an arm sticking out,
holding the CD box ?

Seriously, I tried one of the Geoff Hamilton gardening design programs
and I was not that impressed. I did state this in my review at Amazon
as I had parted with hard-earned cash but they cut that part out of the
review.

This either shows the age of the software or that Geoff was not
involved with the making of the CD.

There is a danger with American produced software that it misses the
mark with regards to climatic zones and plant types.

There is another good site for reading reviews for all sorts of
products not only garden software
it's called The Review Centre. www.reviewcentre.com
I hope this helps people decide the Good from the Bad.
Best wishes
Neil


Let's see what we get in our Christams stockings. I've got my fingers
crossed for Eva Longoria but I think it's going to be yet another CD!



Richard.


--
We trade our health in search of wealth,
We scrimp and toil and save;
We trade our wealth in search of health,
But only find the grave.