Perhaps the future holds yet another change -- to "International Gardening Association" ... why not?

Larry, I love the way you put into words my thoughts.

Dave and Trish are still here. And so are we. Think of the new friends we will make! I'm a moderator on two forums and I am looking forward to welcoming new people.

Don't get hung up on this people. The change is going to be beneficial to us all!

Stay positive, and give it a month and you will wonder why you were so upset.

Like Suzanne, I'm going to play in the dirt.

Some hollyhocks of mine to sooth our souls.

From my perspective, looking at the site url and the welcome on the home page, I am a member of Garden.org (essentially an international gardening organization), which is affiliated with the National Gardening Association. Well, at this point in time anyway this is the way I see it.

What's important, right now, to me, is that no big huge corporation of bean counters took over this site. It's still ATP, even if the name changed . And Dave and Trish are still completely in charge, not some huckster corporation looking to make beaucoup unnecessary changes, siphon money off the site, then sell it later on! Just gonna take time to get used to a new name.

@Boopaints - the hollyhocks are lovely - I have never been able to grow them successfully. Thanks for the uplifting image.

I just now went back to the home page to click on an ad or two to help support this wonderful gardening site...but none are showing right now. I had read a posting somewhere on the site sometime ago that the owners of the site will get money for all that views the ads...even if nothing is purchased. Sooo, hint-hint!

Correction...ads do show on other pages, not the home page itself.

Hmm, hint hint?
I don't have too much of a problem with a garden or plant related interesting ad, but as I am looking at the newly included pages, I see the same obnoxious ad I have been seeing on other sites - to explain, we had a wonderful family celebration a couple of weeks ago at one of the Kalahari resorts. Guess what grins at me from every site now? You guessed it, kids riding down water slides at the Kalahari resort.
Don't mind me if I wait to explore those pages a bit more when they are better integrated.

I don't see ads on any pages ... I guess I set my preferences to disable ads.

For anyone who doesn't want to see advertising. Go to your profile page and:

Select: Change Your Site Preferences
Scroll down to where it says Disable Ads on the Site?
Look to the right and select: Yes, remove the ads

Don't forget to click the green area that says Save your changes.

I do not see a "Disable ads..." under my site preferences. Maybe my profile is different - this is not real important to me. I just want to understand.

Still wood - if you go to "preferences", go down to question number 9.

#9 for me is "open external links in a new window".

Click on the little people icon & that takes you to your profile page. That's where you will find the ability to change your preferences about ads. Disable ads is the one just above "open external links in a new window".

Hmm ..... That's interesting. I was assuming that all member preferences listed were the same for every member?

@dave - ??

For me, the one above "open external links" is: "Automatically jump to the first unread post in thread"

This is not a big deal, but now I am curious.

If memory serves, I think that the "disable ads" option only becomes available to a member after a certain number of posts. I have no clue what that magic number is, though!

I don't see that option in my profile menu either. No big deal to me, as long as I don't have to hear them.

The ability to remove ads through your preferences is unlocked once a certain level of activity is reached. I don't have the specific numbers in front of me right now.