The answer is many things but one thing I realized today is that I can compare pictures of a plant that I posted last year with those pictures from this year and see how the plants has grown. A good example is Hosta Wheee. This is how it looks now. I will look for last years picture.....
Whee 2013
Wheee 2012....good growth!!!

I figured you could do that, but where do you find the old picture, in old posts? So do you look in posts you've made and wade through them?

I was thinking of just adding them to my blog...

If you have added pictures to the data base in the past you can click on those pictures and the date the picture was taken will accompany the picture. I then go to the folder of that date and there are the pictures. Finding a picture that wasn't added to the data base would be more complicated. Someone may explain this better than I did.

Aha, a photo in the data base, not a posting. that makes sense. I just tried to add photos to my blog but they're not showing up. Not sure what I did wrong but I'll fiddle with it and see if I can get it to work.

Some of my pictures would need to be in the blog because they are photos of entire rows or the entire garden/bed. If I can get them to show up that should work for me.

I often take several pictures of a specific plant, close-ups, whole plant, etc. I may just add one to the data base. If I check that folder I find the other pictures.....

Huh? How? Were they posted somewhere else? How could they be in the folder with the photo in the database?

Let me count the ways ...

Dave
nice people,
knowledgeable people
polite people
indulgent user interface - e.g. "auto-jump-to-first-unread-post"
ATP Member map
plant database searchable on characteristics.
image sets!
customizable floating menu bar!
Verbose signature blocks with links
square-bracket HTML codes are so much easier to type!

Rick, I agree with all that, even though I haven't explored the image sets. Some days I'm so tired I read the threads and I want to add my two cents but I'm just too tired to type it. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of features but I know one thing, navigation is pretty darn easy and that's important or people won't use it.

>> just too tired to type it.

I had to go into a weeding frenzy last weekend so i didn't thrown out of my park. Or, worse, they would have paid someone to "just come in and mow everything down". Excpet they would have made ME pay to have my babies amputated.

The worst argument my SO and I ever had was when she killed my favorite weed. He was such a character, and I admired him and chatted with him every day on my way to work and coming home. He (well, 'she') was JUST coming into bloom when Becky "helped" me by plucking him. Tall, tough, sturdy, proud and graceful (the weed that is, maybe Becky too) - I was really fond of that weed! (And Becky, too.)

I said I forgave her, but unfortunately she can read my mind, so we "had words" for quite a while and never really reached a meeting of the minds. Every other argument has ben easily resolved (I give in) or fairly easily resoved (I give in eventually).

I'm kidding (somewhat, probably). But the Weed story is true.

So funny! Reminds me of when my daughter Jennifer moved into a new house and was just starting her beds. There were existing plants in some but she was revamping and I had brought, literally, a truck load full of plants for her. I was helping her and pulled out a milkweed. She was aghast! She wanted that milkweed. But she didn't hold it against me. Maybe because I brought her so many other plants?

>> my daughter Jennifer

She probably just has a more forgiving nature than I do.

So I did figure out how to get the photos into my blog...just drag them in! Easy enough. Now if I can keep my blog updated I won't have to write in my diary every day!

I like most everything, but since I'm getting older, I often forget the names of some of my plants that are always losing their markers. I often go back a year or two and look at postings on the Iris or daylilies forums to be reminded of the names.

Nice sharing..

Cfarmcity

I like lots of things but I love the garden pictures and data base photo's. It is so fascinating to see all of the varieties of plants, things from all over that I would never have opportunity to see like the lilium speciosum var.gloriosoides that is in the newsletter this week. What an incredible plant! The data base has been so helpful when I'm am choosing new plants for my garden as the sellers' pictures don't always give a realistic picture of the plants. So I can look at pictures from people who grow them to see what they look like in a garden. I have chosen plants because of the pictures here and I've decided against plants because of the pictures here.

It is also nice to know that there are other people out there who are just as crazy about plants as you are!

with all the above!!!

For me it's the people.They are nice all the time or make sure if someone else isn't something is said but that very rarely happens.I'm southern,long winded and some times i ask questions about the answer to my last question and it isn't a problem for anyone.It's like my second big family.We talk about plants first & foremost the plants but the are always like conversations and not a lecture or hard to follow.I have had answers to questions be so far over my head i had to look up words he used (on another site).

Everything i get from ATP is because of the people!! Dave & Trish have out done themselves with a super great site.
Plants are best when shared & here are people i would share anything i have with.

Hi Cfarmcity!

to ATP!