Really?!!!!!

Suggestions:

-- Post some messages with questions.
-- Initiate plant/seed exchanges, which generates a lot of interest on other forums, such as Hostas.
-- Post some good photos or your OGs.
-- Start a thread on Top 5 Favorite OGs. Similar question generated lots of responses on Maples forum.

I'm not sure we have a lot to worry about here.....it IS January afterall and not too many folks are even thinking about OG's at this time of year :-) Give it a few weeks and as spring becomes imminent, the pace should pick up. OTOH, there hasn't been a new post or a response to an existing post on the Heaths and Heathers forum for months. And that is a relatively new forum without a lot of traffic in the best of times.

Most people are filtering out of gardenweb in the past few months. Less people, less posts. Will there be newbies to repopulate the threads? Time will tell.

lkz5ia...maybe so, but certainly not in the Winter Sowing Forum. It's growing rapidly, and not just because it's currently 'in season.' It's been growing every year since it opened. GW added several extra pages to it's archive, so threads wouldn't fall off into oblivion so fast.

That's probably got something to do with my impression that the OG Forum is slow. There are certainly slower ones, as GG48 points out.

I think the spring season will see more posts. Today I cut down a huge miscanthus that I planted in 1999. That thing is so huge. I am going to take the clump out and get rid of it. I put a shovel around it just to see what I was up against. It did not budge. I don't know how I'm going to get this thing out.

Hi Donn
It's me again. I just saw a post that you started Eragrostis from seed. Do you have any seeds I could have? I could send you reimbursement or seeds. The seeds I have are Calamagrostis brachytricha and Ravenna. The spelling may be a bit off but I'm sure you know what I mean. I also have seeds from penstemon 'red rocks'.

I've wondered the same. Fall and winter used to be busy on this forum, but over the past several months, there have been some real turn-offs:

1. Ads that obliterate forum pages;
2. Lost user info and other site problems;
3. Lack of responsiveness from the corporate ownership;
4. A innocuous know-it-all (CA) who is often downright rude (donn and gg48 might know whom I mean);
5. Redundancy among responses (how many respondantsÂto screw in a light bulb?);
6. Lazy questions, the answers to which can easily be found through the forum's search engine.

There used to be a larger community here with greater originality and freshness, and I yet enjoy reading the responses of some (I've mentioned two). But, overall, the forum is dumbing-down as the numbers of "no-maintenance" types and dull-witted posters grows. Even the landscape forum, with historically a higher content of thoughtful (and humorous) discourse, is increasingly serviced by I-don't-know-but-I'll-say-this, self-serving responses.

brumeta, I've been observing something similar. Take away the irritations of the site and its management (and these days they are many), the forums lately seem to be haunted by a lot of ill-will and contentiousness. I've never seen so many different threads on different forums filled with snide and nasty remarks, vitriol, personal attacks and scores of off-topic and against policy posts. Is it the the site problems causing so much dissention or just winter cabin fever? Or have all the really valuable participants already abandoned ship?

And while I continue to cruise the landscape design forum, I seldom post there anymore, as most of the threads seem to be looking for free design advice, resent it when they get it and seem to be more enamored with opinions of their fellow amateurs than they are with the professional designers.

It's a sad time for GW any way you look at it. I'm keeping my hopes up spring will improve the situation.

Re: #4 - I have a pretty good idea who you are referring to :-))

Bru...I know what you mean about the lazy questions. Lots of those on the WS forum, as well, and that forum has a very extensive set of FAQs.

I thnk I know who you mean in #4 also, but thankfully, he's been quiet recently.

Dereks...I have tons of Eragrostis spectabilis seed. Send me an email, and we'll work it out. You'll love the grass. It starts beautifully from seed, and blooms furiously in the first year. I'm looking forward to it's second year.

Well, I'm feeling better, and ready to help fire up this forum. After echoing someone's comments regarding the LD forum, I decided to check it out again, looking for one of my favorite posters there, one who can make me laugh until I cry and pee my pants at the same time. I wasn't disappointed.

Among the regulars who post in LD, there can be humor, wit, intelligence and originalityÂsometimes precariously off-topicÂjoined with great camaradery. Perhaps that is what we need from time to time on this forum, and not just lists of favorite OGs, prettiest OGs, tallest OGs, shortest OGs, most deformed OGs, OGs for Baffin Island, etc. I swear, I will never write another paragraph on how to divide an OG! (Verse, maybe, but no prose).

So, to get me to shut up and to give you a chuckle, follow the url below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dr. Leda

Bru -

no need to shut up as you have good things to say and add to in most all posts you respond to. Same for donn, gg48, derek and a few others.

I agree that we seem to have run a little dry on new post topics and the stand by topics like how to split grasses is really getting old.

OOPS I better watch using the term old as there are a few of us who might be on the fringe of that connotation.

Wish I had a good post, topic or question to throw in the fire but right now iÂm just mellowing out for a day or two so the light in the tunnel is a little dim.

But Hey!! The light in the fridge does stay on w/ the door closed. (cuz I killed the switch that shuts the light off.)

Jake

I think it would help if we started describing OG's as flowering perennials and annuals. They have gotten the reputation of being big & tall specimens, and that's only a small part of their attraction, in my opinion.

Good point donn regarding the big and tall statement but I honestly believe that grasses should be left labeled as grasses and not perennials.

But again is the glass of liquid half full or half empty?

Gasses, as you stated, are perennials in most cases and maybe should be included in more perennial garden designs (which there are) but the selections mostly called out are Miscanthus and Calamagrostis.

Not bad grasses, as there are many of each, but a better variety or more specimens in the garden designs would get grasses more respect as garden perennials.

Like you this is just my opinion.

Jake

I'm not suggesting we change their name, just change our ideas about their uses. And it isn't just perennials. More and more annual grasses are finding their way into garden use, and not just the old standby Bunny Tails and Briza maxima. The success, as annuals, of Pennisetum setaceum varieties has led to development of equally successful ornamental Millets. The Wave Petunia folks were so successful with 'Purple Majesty' they developed 'Jester' and 'Red Baron.'

I guess what I'm getting at is that grass has so many other potential uses that don't seem to get much play. I walk around my seaside neighborhood, and 90% of the grasses are sentinel-like specimens, with an occasional group of 3 of the same plant. Very few layered sweeps. Very few uses of grass (other than sod) as groundcover, or mixed into flowering borders. Even professionally designed landscapes around here keep to the big-n-tall grasses.

I think I'll just set an example for my neighbors, and fill my landscape with different uses of grasses. That'll show 'em! ;>)

oops! Change 'Red Baron' to 'Purple Baron'

I think their broader use is somewhat dictated by location. Left coast landscape designers often use OG's extensively and IME with sales at my nursery, shoppers are asking for a wide variety of different grasses, with Miscanthus cultivars only comprising a rather small percentage of these. Here, evergreen grasses outsell deciduous forms by about 2 to 1 and the emphasis is on those that are adaptable to shady conditions or xeric conditions. Seemingly contradictory, but the PNW has a lot of native conifers so that shade in at least a portion of the garden is nearly omnipresent, as well as very dry summers prompting more drought tolerant plantings.

Their incorporation in landscape designs here is similar to that of perennials - only in larger gardens does one encounter large sweeps ala Oheme and Van Sweden. Nearly all professionally designed landscapes in my area include OG's to some extent, but they tend to intermixed with other perennial type plantings and small woody material. Bolder statements tend to be some privacy screening with larger growing specimens (pampas is used frequently as well as miscanthus) or with the very colorful grass-like phormiums.

At my nursery, I sell more Anamenthele than any other OG, followed by the wood sedges (Carex morrowii cvts.), bronze or leatherleaf sedges and blue fescues. And black mondo grass, although not a true OG and expensive as all get out, outsells them all. I bring in huge quantities each season from Iseli Nursery and always sell out.

I've been seeing more and more use of OG's in this area - and have been hearing more about them on various tv home improvement shows. We went thru the traditional shrub plantings at our old home - digging them up a few years later, only to replant others that eventually got just as ugly! So, our new house is being built and I've started looking around for info on different grasses that'll survive well here. Ornamental grasses will make up the bulk of my landscaping - I intend to use all kinds and heights. I also am looking into local nurseries as suppliers - or maybe online suppliers too (any recommendations?). So be patient, gang, I think there are a lot of us out there looking at OG's as an alternative to traditional landscaping.

tango491 -

don't forget to locate a real comfortable chair 'cuz you will enjoy the grasses as they grow whether you are working around the yard or just sitting in a chair.

Personally I prefer sitting in a chair but I do work around the yard as well.

Jake

I stumbled onto this forum looking for info on dwarf mondo grass. I noticed this thread because I started a thread in Favorites about forums that you like that don't get much traffic.

Feel free to talk up OG in that thread. I wouldn't ever have though about coming here before, heck I didn't even know this place existed.

After reading threads here for a couple of days I don't know if I will be planting any grasses but it's been fun to read.

MBT

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread in favorites about favorites slow forum

I also stumbled upon your forum in a search for info. on ornamental millet.
I think donn definitely is on to something. I was never been much on ornamental grasses, because I had always seen them, as donn says, as sentinel-like specimens--in colorless landscapings.
Last year I discovered "Purple Majesty" at my favorite nursery and decided to tuck a few into my perennial border behind the coreopsis--I was quite happy with the effect! As it was in close proximity to the birdfeeders, the birds were also delighted! (I wish I had taken a picture of the bright yellow goldfinches clinging to the seed heads!)
I was also pleased to see a post in the Cottage Gardening forum, in which a member posted pictures of her "red bed"; a border of red-hued plants; which featured Purple Majesty.
Purple Majesty may be the cross-over hit of the year!

ausaddict...keep digging! You'll find lots of other red grasses, including 2 other varieties of ornamental Millet from the same folks who brought you Purple Majesty, as well as some perennial red ones.

donn,
Thanks! A new door has been opened for me. I was glad to learn of two additional types of millet in your earlier post--I will definitely be investigating "Jester" and "Purple Baron"!

Several years past I was viewing Bluebird Nursery test gardens in Clarkson NE when owner Harlan Hamernik stopped to have a chat. Having known Harlan for several years he was somewhat excited to talk about his Husker Red millet that he was propagating.

This millet was a very deep blood red and very vibrant. It looks like, what I think millet looks like, a variety of maize (corn) only shorter. Very vibrant in color and very eye catching as well.

It is an annual but worth the time if you want that color and sculpture in your garden. Very attractive.

Give Bluebird Nursery a web search and see what Harlan has that many of you might find interesting and will enjoy trying and using in your designs.

Jake