I was a bit surprised by Trish's assertion that it is not feasible to offer a world-wide gardening site. In my mind, that is what both Dave's Garden and All Things Plants were about. Apparently...not? I always enjoyed chatting with and learning about gardening around the globe. I would hate to lose our international members who bring such valuable depth and rapport to the site, and hope they are not put off by the new name. I also agree with those who think National Gardening Association looks and sounds stodgy or exclusionary - and the stated mission to "educate and encourage gardening in the US" certainly sounds limiting to me. Although I don't dispute the NGA has been around for 40 plus years, I've never heard of it myself, and would not be drawn to it.

But, not my site, not my decision. Personally, I will continue to refer to whatever this site evolves into as "my plant people". Works for me.

Quietly tiptoeing away now, no offense intended to anyone.

It appears the "charter" of the NGA is the all important factor here. I looked for the original charter to see what it says. I found this on the cached site:

National Gardening Association has awarded grants to 10,000 youth gardening programs. Awards have been distributed in 15 different countries around the world impacting 2.2 million young gardeners.

http://garden.org/about/opport...

Seems the old charter included the world.

NGA's educators regularly attend and present at national and international youth gardening conferences, including the "Gardens without Limits" conference in Metz, France, connecting with garden program directors around the world. Our resources have benefited educators across the country and around the globe, many of whom rely upon our curricula, programs, and funding.

http://garden.org/about/progra...

That's true, but didn't I see a post from Dave or Trish saying it is now going to be a ""for profit" site?

threegardeners said:That's true, but didn't I see a post from Dave or Trish saying it is now going to be a ""for profit" site?

Dave & Trish have stated it's to be a non profit. Do you see where it says it was originally a for profit org.? I don't.

https://www.lawnstarter.com/bl...

https://www.lawnstarter.com/bl...

"Dash Works now runs the National Gardening Association as a for-profit enterprise from the Whitinger family’s 90-acre farm in East Texas, with Dave serving as executive director and his wife, Trish, serving as chief operating officer."

My mistake. I thought they said non profit. Obviously I was wrong. Thanks for the correction.

extranjera said:I have to say I agree with Elaine. This NGA sounds old, stuffy and definitely American. Not very welcoming. If all these other things can change, then change the name too so it is more inclusive.

What is wrong with something sounding American? This country is very welcoming as is the garden site Dave and Trish run.

The name is the important thing here, the NGA has closed and sold it's assets. The domain name, and website (name only) is what have been bought and they will bring a lot of traffic. It's business.

I had forgotten the change was coming. I've been busy - what can I say. I had a couple of extremely minor glitches when I logged in and got taken to the most recent page I'd been at rather than the home page. As I said, no big deal, except I thought, "what's going on!" The the light went on and now it no longer takes me to where I've last been either. Very smooth transition. Congratulations!

Nothing wrong with sounding American, it's that the word National sounds possessive.

On the butterflies thread we were chatting about it, and my thought was that it's like All Things Plants was a wonderful butterfly that's been stuffed back into an old, dusty coccoon.

I don't quite see why the name "National Gardening Association" would be perceived as old and stuffy... or why it would sound like it is strictly for U.S. gardeners

It seems to me that this has only expanded the scope of ATP, with more info available and more of an audience to share it. Nothing stays the same forever... a lot of us here have been through a lot already with Dave and Trish and every change has turned out for the better; I don't see any reason to expect that won't be the case this time.

Well, I for one don't like it at all. Now I am going to have to remember to type to NGA instead of to ATP.

I love the new name. The implicit gravitas in the name makes the site sound more impressive and more serious.

Jay. we could always say "Welcome to NGA -- the site formerly known as ATP"

(or if you are really feeling ambitious you could type both names out in their entirety...)

I love it, and know it'll be even better than it was when all the initial work is done.

The desktop link I had for ATP only goes to the home page once. I like it to always go to the home page. When I go back, it leads me to where I was reading before. However I may have finished reading the thread, and it goes back to the beginning of the thread. I assume there is some cookie sending me away from the home page.

It's just a change, Folks. I get it. Change is hard. But I'm still here, Dave and Trish are still here. We're ALL still here so really nothing's changed except more exposure and adding more fun and exciting new members.

I always referred to ATP as "My Plant People" as in , "I'm going to have to ask my Plant People". From now on it's going to be "My Gardening People" as in "I'm going to have to ask my Gardening People for advice, suggestions, ideas, hints and everything else that pertains to gardening" like I always have. Nothing's changed for me.

I think this is the place to note glitches. It's nothing major but when a member posts a link to a page on the AIS Iris wiki (Iris forum discussion) the rest of the readers get an error message instead of being taken to the linked page. The link in question is located in "Post #1121379 (38)" of the 'Irises WANTED by ATP members' thread. I know you are really busy Dave, this is a minor issue. We would appreciate it if you can look into it when you get a chance.

And congratulations on a remarkably smooth transition! I'm sure once people get used to the changes things will settle down and return to a more normal state. Thanks for all your hard work to make this change as painless as possible.

She added a period at the end of the link, that's why it doesn't work.
By the way, you can click on that post number and then copy and paste the URL to link to that particular post.

flaflwrgrl said:It's going to be hard to stop saying ATP & start saying NGA but it will come in time.

That what I'm thinking also.