Thank you @Calif_Sue, after having marked the category "private view" 2 times, i guess i am just not destined to be able to get this to work for me.
I give up...what should be a simple logical sequence of events remains a mystery. The instructions i received were straight-forward and logical but they did not work, or i could not discover out how they worked if they do.

When you are on the manage category page, to the right is the edit (paper and pencil) and the trash can. If you click on the edit, mark it as private, then make sure to click the 'Save your change'.

@Calif_Sue...Ahhhh, this is a new instruction. I have done what you suggested. How does it look?

At this time, it's either private or it's not there at all.

vitrsna.
I think that explains the sequence of events! If you set up the category and select it as private at the time then click on add category I think it is all done at one time. But if you set up the category (the default is probably public) and so you would have to edit and save. Sorry I missed that and lead you astray.

As Chelle said, on your profile, it's not there, to us it appears as if you do not have a plant inventory list.

A big thank you @Calif_Sue and @chelle It does now appear on both my profile and in the plant list, to me. I guess this means every time i make an entry, i need to go through the same process...don't worry, i have written it down. It is cumbersome and the program is misleading, but i'll give it a try and probably become accustomed to the program's eccentricities.

Not to worry @Seedfork...no need for an apology. The program in this regard is both cumbersome and confusing. Maybe this part of the program was an afterthought and sort of awkwardly added in a hurry. I appreciate your help and input always

I dunno. It seems pretty intuitive and I've never heard of anyone having trouble with it before today.

So, why did it take 4 people 2 pages to give me the correct instructions, hmmm?

Seemed easy to me too, just have to remember to hit the save button.

I just did a new test category, named it "Current Arranged Trades', set it to private. Then I went through my plant inventory list, clicked on the edit button and clicked to add it to that new category and clicked 'Save your changes'. It would be the same to add a new plant from the database, click the 'add this plant to my list' and select the correct category. If it's set as a private category, only you would see it.

vitrsna said:So, why did it take 4 people 2 pages to give me the correct instructions, hmmm?

But we can be thankful that we have so many great members willing to take the time to hold someone's hand through a process that is new to them.

Wow
For the record, I had trouble, too--
I started making a plant list a while back, set all my categories to 'private' when I set them up, added a few plants to each supposedly private category but only one category was actually private. I couldn't fathom how to get the others to be private and I had no idea what I did to get the one category to be private and not the others--so I bailed on the effort 'til I saw this.

Just went into the manage category page and edited each category--each was listed as private so I didn't have to reselect that, but I did click save changes for each category, and just now when I checked from my partner's page I see that it was successful!
Now it looks like I have no plant list again instead of a barely started plant list not sure why it really matters I guess I just wanted to 'keep it private' until I had a more respectable plant list since one of the first plants that I put in was marked 'used to have' along with a note to self about how I killed it (accidentally, of course)!

Possibly what may be happening is forgetting the step to scroll further down to hit that 'save changes' button?

Hey, that's great @dirtdorphins! i noticed that there were a hundred or so readers and i was hoping the thread would maybe help out some other people. I still don't know if i have to make a category private every time i make a new entry, but i guess i'll do that just in case. I think the function will be handy...right now i have things scribbled on napkins and odds and ends of paper and that is really not working for me at all i will ask someone to check my list until i have some confidence in the program.

I would like to mention here that there is more to consider when deciding to make a list private or not, other than just trading or selling. It was mentioned that this looked like it was made for traders being it was public.
One thing I really like about having the plant lists as public is when you look up for instance a daylily in the data base it will show how many people have that plant. Now if you are interested in a specific daylily you can see who is growing that plant, if it is for sell or trade that is marked when they enter it. If it is not then you should not be contacting them trying to get them to sell or trade. But, if you would like to know if the plant multiplies rapidly, if you want to know if the scapes are strong enough to hold up the flowers, if you want to know if the scape is tall enough to keep the flowers out of the foliage, etc. You could ask in a post for that particular person to be kind enough to provide the information. Most people don't mind at all talking about their plants and giving info about them. I know a lot of people don't bother with a plant list and keep it private when they make one, but there are reasons to make a list and keep it public. If I see 10 or more people showing to own a particular plant and they are scattered all over the country that pretty well indicates that plant is a keeper.

Seedfork said:I would like to mention here that there is more to consider when deciding to make a list private or not, other than just trading or selling....
... If I see 10 or more people showing to own a particular plant and they are scattered all over the country that pretty well indicates that plant is a keeper.

I use this information often.

@Calif_Sue...as i recall, the "edit" option was not showing in one location but the "Private" option could be chosen and the "Save your Changes" could be used. I figured those two choices ought to make things work for me. I'm not sure if the "edit" option was on one page and not on another page (where the Private/Save your Changes was). At any rate, i was Selecting "Private" and "Save your Changes" but didn't know that i had to accomplish this via an "edit" option as well. So if you "Edit", "Private", "Save your changes", it seems to work but if you "Private" and "Save your changes", it does not work. I think this was my problem.

Not sure why. Maybe your browser?