Hi Will,

that was, without a doubt a really fun conference. Everything ran like clockwork. Although I joked around about herding cats on Saturday, our members were actually very well disciplined about our very tight schedule that day.

As usual your garden was stunning. I'd like to publicly thank you for showing it off to the group. You just can't form too many networking ties in this hobby and ACS conferences are the best way to do it.

BTW, you should try out the ACS website forums -- no ads, nice big pictures and no need to work through Photobucket.

~Dave

This post was edited by Glaciers-End on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 19:38

Stop the apologies and keep that camera rolling!

Thanks for the update, glad it went well and everyone had fun.

Heck, the mods should write you thank you notes each time you post pics. It drives mucho traffic to the site which = add clicks

Once again, thanks for sharing pics of those beauties and glad the tour went well.

=)

John

So Hobbiton I assume is your home and not some magical place in the shire?

I hope you guys don't go off to the ACS forums permanently. The rest of us newbies will be left looking at pictures of arborvitae and junipers.

So Tanima-no-yuki can take quite a bit of shade? I was just trying to figure out where to place mine. Love how you have mixed perennials in there as well which is what I am hoping to do.

I have bookmarked all the picture and four year progression threads. I doubt I will ever have the space for many conifers (even dwarf) so I live vicariously through these threads.

Finally, I have to ask, how many times have you accidentally stepped on one of those tiny conifers?

All it takes is $38/year to be an ACS member!

Oooh! I was hoping that you would post some photos. Always looking forward to more when you have the time.

We're going through photos now...planning to post an album on the ACS site as soon as we can. We'll put a link here when we do!

As always... it looks amazing Will! Your front lawn is exploding with great color... it sure beats the basic green manicured lawn for sure.

$38 does sound pretty reasonable but I'm going to wait and see how I do with conifers this first year so that I do not have to resign in disgrace

Ha ha ha...but you might do better - or have more fun - with the resources of the ACS - we do workshops, meetings, have publications, etc.

Sara

Here is a link that might be useful: ACS

Dave I plan on being more active on the ACS website than the Gardenweb forums for exactly the reasons you listed. Besides that, it's also assured these photos and databases will be around a long time, the gardenweb has an unstable future in my eyes.

miclino, so far both of my specimens of 'Tanima-no-yuki' are in at least part shade and doing very well. One is in 3-4 hours of direct sun and a lot of indirect and the specimen above gets maybe two hours of sun on the brightest, longest days of the year. This time of the year, the sun is only filtered for it. So far so good, though it is a bit leggy - though never a terrible thing for some pines.

I have stepped on probably 15 plants over the last five years. Most of them recovered, I lost a few, some of them had dead spots from too much damage but the great thing is that with a little pruning, most survived and it made them even smaller. :p

Thanks Will!

Check out this story about the ACS meeting for more shots of Hobbiton including a snap of the big guy himself.
Also, Dave's Glacier's Edge was featured.
Tomorrow I'll put up the final leg of the tour, Bob's place.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hobbiton featured on ACS tour

What an enjoyable article and thread, It was definitely the next best thing to being there! So well written along with great photos....5 stars!!!

Thanks
Al

It is an interesting dilemma IMO. Since the ACS forums are pay to post, newbs will not join and pay a fee just to ask questions. They will be restricted to free sites like this one. Many coneheads caught the addiction by visiting free forums and asking questions related to selections, hardiness, size, color, etc. Obviously, you have to have constant new blood to keep the demand for these rarities up and if all the experts go to the ACS forum, who will be here to answer questions and post those dazzling jaw dropping pictures to catch the eyes of the newbs and draw them in?

Just my $0.02 on the matter.

John

The Abies [Hupp's Seedling #3] came out of an Abies procera seedling bed. It may be crossed with amabalis or grandis. You have the origianl plant! Will - Email me so we can talk in depth.

Jondo3 makes a valid point. I came here with fairly basic questions and got sucked in over time in no small part by will's pics among other threads. Made my first mail order conifer purchases this year. Don't think I would have gotten into it otherwise. I think eventually I may join ACS but I think GW forums function as a feeder for specialty organizations like ACS and ACS should continue to support them (as they are doin now by posting here)

Miclino, if anything, the ACS page is taking pageviews and theoretically ad clicks away from GW. Honestly, I am surprised frequently linking to the ACS page has been tolerated this long but I am sure glad it has!

Sara and the crew post fantastic images and well constructed blogs. The site is amazing and I would easily rank it in the top 10% as far as aesthetics, design, and usability. The conifer database is a whole different animal and is simply outstanding and getting better every day.

Well I appreciate all of the encouragement and compliments here and being a new conifer collector myself, I am very much interested in sharing photos and my brief experiences with these plants. I'm not going to leave or quit the Gardenweb and I am sure the likes of Dave(all of them), Edwin, Bob Fincham, etc. etc. aren't going to abandon these forums either. That said I will be putting more and more of my efforts into the ACS instead as the advertisement blitz here is reaching a peak of intolerance to me. The photos are now very small and the adds are approaching 50% of the screen. This is unacceptable to me. I'll keep showing plants and adding whatever small bit I can to conversations as I float by from time to time but my days of posting twenty times a week aren't coming back until this ad campaign is toned down a bit.

I've also had my fair share of harassment from Gardenweb editors in the past and I dislike the requirement of posting galleries on an entirely separate and far less traveled portion of the sight. Ah well, it's not my business/forum, but I can at least make the choice of where I spend my online hours.

-Will

Regarding the new ACS site being discussed here, I’d like to clarify a few issues.

Regarding “paying for posts;” that is an overstatement. The $38 people pay to join this NON PROFIT organization is not funneled into our website -- which is entirely MANAGED BY VOLUNTEERS.

Most ACS’s 1,700 members join to support the educational mission of the Society which is to broaden the development, conservation and propagation of conifers, with an emphasis on those that are dwarf or unusual. They also join to participate in the meetings like the one I just reported on, to meet and greet, access rare and unusual cultivars (some at discount) and receive our publication, Conifer Quarterly. The Society’s single largest expense is for the creation, manufacture and distribution of CQ. That’s where most of their dues money goes.

Most of the information we generate on conifers is free to the public and available on the website, including selections from CQ and the regional newsletters. We withhold some of that as a benefit of membership -- including posting to the website database and comments to our stories and Discussions (forums.) Still, whatever expertise our members share online is free and accessible to the public, expert or newbie.

We are a Society, which is to say a collegial bunch of conifer nuts and, as a body, don’t dictate how or where our members conduct their enthusiasm for conifers. We have a new, improved platform for expressing our interests and many members are responding to the new opportunities it affords. Whatever comes of this, the public will be able to learn from it and profit from it. For free.

BTW: This morning I finished up the ACS WSR meeting report, previously linked, that contains stories and pictures about GW stalwarts Will, Dave now, our former fearless leader, Bob. - S.C.

Call it whatever you want. You cannot post in the forums unless you are a member and the dues are $38 to become a member. So, yes, you have to pay to post...

You pay on the gardenweb forums in another form - advertisement bombardment. It's money well spent for me. In the end, those really interested in conifers will be ACS members and some who aren't. To each their own though for me, I'd pay a thousand dollars a year to never see another commercial again.

I just started loading up some photos to the ACS database. I think you won't have to pay to view them and the information at least.

-Will

Thanks for the pix, Will. People don't have to be a member or pay to enjoy them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Will's posts on ACS

If using Mozilla add Adblock Plus and say goodby to adds.

I can say I have never seen another ad on the GW Forum since i installed this feature years ago.

38 bucks a year to belong to the ACS is just money well spent that takes you to another level of enjoyment when heavily involved in this hobby. Heck I can pi++ that away in one evening eating out and have nothing to show for it.

To each his own and call it what you want. I have never regretted it.

Dave

I like that the ACS allows avatar photos. I know who you are now!

They have more free content on the site than what I'd expect.

Sara you and the volunteers have really done an outstanding job with the site. Encouraged me to reinstate my membership. Just hoping the national and regional is closer to WI at some point!

Will, I don't remember the last I time I saw an ad on GW with the exception of the banner, which ever profit site has.
Try some things out to cut the non-sense.

Welcome back, Will. Thanks for the post.

@j0nd03- Pay to post? More of a perk for partnering with folks who share a common interest. There are other perks as well.

tj

As I have remarked previously, my take on the ACS is they are an outstanding, friendly, intelligent, helpful, knowledgeable, environmentally responsible group of people and I do admire their mission, goals, and webmaster skills.

An organization I have heavily considered joining and might some day when I get a little bit of shade going here.

Sara is fabulous as is her blog. The conifer sages in the group are literally among the most knowledgeable in what they do in the world.

I have nothing but respect and positive thoughts towards the organization.

HOWEVER, having pay to post forums is discouraging to newbies that want to ask questions and I have seen no counter argument to refute my feelings on the matter. It is a spectacular idea to keep spam and trolls off of their discussion forum and all but eliminate the need for a mod which is very nice since the page is apparently run by volunteers! I might do the same thing if it were up to me and I was responsible for the webmastering. I was just trying to point out a potential need for some of you fine folks to keep checking with some pics every now and then =)

Now I have made Will's fine topic go so very far off topic and I am very sorry about that, Will. If anyone feels the need to discuss this with me more, just email from my members page.

John

ps - I've been using Mozilla since it was Netscape and I have had Adblock since it was released as an add on. The only time I see ads on this site is when I use safari on my wife's iphone lol

Hi John,

in an effort to keep it friendly, I'm not going to refute your assertion. I've been a member of ACS for 13 years now. I joined in the very first year that I thought conifers were cool. Sara's just gotten going; I believe she's on year 3 and Will's only been going a couple of years beyond that.

I guess what I'm getting at is that our organization is a great place to gain experience and education and I believe that quality has a value. Quality is why I buy my plants from specialty growers instead of box stores.

I would never speak badly about GW. I've met a lot of friends here and have gotten a lot of information (mostly good, but some bad as well. It's the internet after all). However, I am over-the-moon gaga about the ACS site. It's pretty, the only ads are from conifer growers and there's a certain comradery knowing that everybody on the site is either a professional grower, a scholar in the field of conifers, or a really serious amateur. I hope over time we get scores of "newbies" who join our association for the same reason that they'd pay tuition to attend a fine college.

$38 a year. That gets me:
o full access to the website
o the privilege to attend awesome conferences and meetings.
o the Conifer Quarterly - a really cool publication
o the seed program and Conifer of the Year Program
o and probably a few other things that I've forgotten

To me, all that is worth way more than $38. BTW, lifetime membership is only $1000. If I was a bit younger, that's the way I'd go, but I did the math. Well, you know. . . .

I hope we're all good here. I'm not going anywhere. I just know where I need to focus my energy. Peace.
~Dave

As if this hasn't gone far off topic enough, I'd like to add that if you have the right browser and settings, ads are really not an issue.

That being said I completely understand the need for a separate ACS forum. The pictures on the website look fantastic. Being a volunteer office holder at more than one non-profit myself, I also understand the difficulties that go with running such an organization. Particularly the need for funding while simultaneously trying to balance the mission of the organization. It does make sense to have a paid forum for a specialty organization such as yours as it improves the quality of discussion.

I can also sympathize with Will putting in all the hard work to post pictures with no guarantee that they will be there in the long term. Makes sense that he wants a dedicated site that will appreciate his hard work. Makes it easier for us to access his pics on ACS website than have to search through the GW forums as well.

For all those reasons, what you are saying makes sense. Just pointing out that it is still true that forums like this for better or worse are the best place to get new folks involved (as was the case for me). The expertise of the posters and pictures of real life gardens is the main attraction here and without it, the forum loses a lot of its allure.

Okay, so since it's off topic and no I am not offended by that - HOW do you get rid of the ads? There is a bar of 'google ads' that are random and take up about 1/3 of the screen on the left side. The photos used to stretch almost the entire width of the browser, now they are 1/2 the screen wide or less... I use Internet explorer 10...

Do these ads only show up on GW or other sites as well? Is it a toolbar of some sort? I use internet explorer as well but have no ads taking up 1/3 of my page. The pics do only take up about half the page but I can easily zoom in/out using Windows 8 touchscreen

Will, you'd better be careful with the hot peppers...they can become an obsession in their own right. This year I grew ~40 different cultivars in 5 gal buckets. If you like, I can send you some superhot pods that'll make your red habs seem mild as bell peppers. I'd be glad to send you some, I've got more pods right now than I know what to do with :o)

In my book, it's a good thing that they ACS site has different rules since that will create a distinctly different forum, neither better or worse per se, simply different. The value add of the new site is in its distinctness; as a general premise, two different things are better than more of the same. If it's important to you to participate, that suggests you should be an ACS member :o) And if you want to ask a question about a plant but you're not a member, the GW forum is as suitable a place for that as it ever was. After all, folks aren't going to stop participating here if they've been active members until now...

Alex

This post was edited by maple_grove on Fri, Sep 20, 13 at 11:18

Great overview photos Will and love the individual shots you took and shared with us. Thanks.
Cher