Macrocentra said:I'm not from GardenBuddies. But just thought I'd stop by to say hello and welcome to everyone.

Feel free to join us. The more the merrier! I'm from south of Atlanta, Georgia.

Oh so your soil is like ours out here, I go to the feed store and get golf course lime in pellet form and
hand toss in the garden beds and use the drop spreader for the lawn. What fun!!

Hello again from Scotland used to be on Gardenbuddies as Scotkat.

seilMI said:The GardenBuddies site was closed down this week. We are all very sad but some of us do want to stay in contact. So I'm starting this thread here in the hopes that we can all still get together and share our gardens and news about what we've been up to.

I joined here a few years ago and it has been a great experience. There is so much information and I've met so many new friends. Please explore the site. I'm sure you will find many topics of interest to you. In the meantime we can all gather here and keep in touch!

Hello Seil from Scotkat

Roelie said:OH I will try. I am Roelie live in Holland had first a garden with all kind of flowers and later many Clematis . Was near Debby in the Silverstar vinery got hearttroubles and went home came in the hospital been operated and in stead of three weeks I was half an year on travel . Was years a member near Garden buddies and now a member here for a year but thought it was only for the newsletter and hope I come in. If I later on see this mail it is a success
Must think on my first days on GB I had so many highlights that were the writing mistakes I made there they gave a red line. I am two days searching everywhere what is here and have to learn a lot but if it is dry and not so stormy I will have a look for pictures of my helleborus

Hello Roelie hope you are well.

Welcome Kath! I see your message but there is no photo. Can any of the rest you see Kath's photos

I'm going to add a picture of one of our earliest blooming azaleas taken today.

Hey, Kath, good to see you! I don't see any photos either though.

karmahappytoes said:Oh so your soil is like ours out here, I go to the feed store and get golf course lime in pellet form and
hand toss in the garden beds and use the drop spreader for the lawn. What fun!!

I thought lime was for soils that were too acid-- pH too LOW (significantly less than 7). Our problem is the opposite -- pH too HIGH (significantly more than 7). I grew up in Jasper County, Illinois, and the older farmers told me about the old days when much of the area was almost useless for row crops because the soil was too acidic, so they grew a grass called redtop for hay-- redtop could stand the sour soils. At some point before I was born they started bringing in lime by the railroad car load to sweeten the soil. Then the redtop went away and was replaced by corn, wheat, and soybeans. Farmers there still have to apply lime to the fields every few years. (I don't remember exactly how often.)

Acid soils tend to be associated with high rainfall areas, alkali soils with low rainfall areas.

Hi, Scotkat!! It is so good to see you here!

I don't think Scotkat was trying to post pics, so that's why no one is seeing her pics. She did quote something where Roelie mentioned going to look for her own hellebore pics.

Yep, Karma is right. I put lime in my raised beds sometimes because we have acidic soils to begin with and the peat moss just adds more acid, so they are very low pH and I can raise the pH up with the lime (move it toward neutral on its way to the basic end of the spectrum).

We put lime on our soil every winter because it is somewhat acidic.

I am going to post pictures of our most recent get away. We went 4 different places and I'll share the pictures over 4 days. Our first stop was St. Mark's National wildlife refuge near Crawfordville, Florida.

MissAlice said:Welcome Kath! I see your message but there is no photo. Can any of the rest you see Kath's photos

I'm going to add a picture of one of our earliest blooming azaleas taken today.

I see your photos Alice .

Ooohh, those are nice pics, MissAlice!

Beautiful pink!!

I love the purple crocus!

I hope you all venture out into other forums when you feel comfortable with this site. There's a perennial forum where we chat and post pictures of our blooms. A butterfly, birds and bees forum for pictures and more chatter.

I hope to see some of you and your photos on other forums.

Great photos, Alice! It looks so beautiful.

Here's a little something I came across that I thought you'd all get a kick out of, lol!

Thanks DJ, karma, and seil! Seil, I love the peeps photo--how funny.

Does anyone know how to quote just part of a post--not the whole thing?

Here are some pictures from Wakulla Springs State Park which is also near Crawfordville, Florida. Their cruise was one of the best boat trips we've ever been on for both bird watching and alligator observing! The boat was only 50% full and everyone wore a mask so it was very safe! A highlight of the trip was seeing two manatees! You can see one sticking it's nose above water in the third photo and one swimming past the boat (under water) in the fourth photo.

@MissAlice

You click on the "quote"
option in the bottom right hand corner, and then you backspace to delete what you don't want to use in your quote. It takes a little practice, and a lot of patience!

thank you Alice these pictures are also very nice
I still think it a little difficult to find things. I have been in the garden but it was still cold . For an half hour and then go it and take a coffee . I like the black birds with the red near the white one . I am not so very well with birds

David_in_KS said:I'm not certain about the rules for posting photos, so correct me if I'm doing this wrong.

We've naturalized several varieties of crocuses in our back yard. They're always our first blooms of the year, and keep up the show for about a month. The only downside is that we don't mow that part of the yard until the foliage dies back, so by the time we do mow it's like making hay. These photos were taken 2021-03-11.

Area photo:


They are lovely David.
Close-up:

Kath asked about Megan--Denise's daughter. She found out I was trying to locate her and she contacted me today. She is doing well! I asked her permission to share with all of you and she said it was fine.

Denise's brother died yesterday. I assume he was the one who gave the marrow for Denise's transplant.

"It's getting to be around that time of year where I start to grieve again more strongly than before for my mom since she was especially sick and almost died once before June 24th.
It's so nice to hear about my mom sharing with gardenbuddies about me. I never took her for granted and realize as an adult his proud she was to have me as her daughter. How much she gave up for me and how much she created so I had the most amazing childhood!"

"I'm doing well overall. I just moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin with my boyfriend Tyler and I started subbing as a paraprofessional in all trade levels. I'm working on my Masters in Education with a Graduate Certificate in Family and Consumer Sciences so I can teach middle and high school students about hoe to be an independent adult who contributes to society."

It was great hearing from Megan!

Megan sent Today at 3:22 PM