Your All Things Plants weekly news: October 12, 2013

There were 8 new gardening ideas posted last week:

By spunky1 October 12, 2013 Spunky1's Annual Daylily Naming Contest Every year, ATP hosts Fred's daylily naming contest. All members are invited to participate in naming one of Fred's newest introductions. (307 words - Read the full article) (6 comments)

By dave October 12, 2013 The Daylilies Week Not-A-Raffle-Raffle! It's Daylilies Week (again!) and we're opening our exciting week with an equally exciting raffle. Break out your acorn purse because you're definitely going to want to participate in this raffle. Brace yourself for this goliath of a raffle. (604 words - Read the full article) (8 comments)

By CarolineScott October 11, 2013 Wildflowers along the David Thompson Highway, Alberta, Canada This article discusses a few wildflowers found along the David Thompson Highway in West Central Alberta, Canada, in mid-July. Suggestions for growing them as garden plants are included. While the ideas on growing are given---please do not take plant material from the wild. Obtain the plant material from Native Plant growers/nurseries. Many wildflowers are in danger of extinction due to people harvesting wildflowers in the wild. (424 words - Read the full article) (8 comments)

By dave October 10, 2013 ATP Podcast #38: October Gardening In this week's podcast Trish and Dave talk about some interesting plants they recently obtained, discuss unusual fruit tree planting ideas, and go through some various gardening chores appropriate for this time of year. (3 comments)

By LindaTX8 October 9, 2013 Wildflowers When I was growing up, few things cheered me up more than to see plants blooming, especially along the roads or in the undeveloped areas near where I lived. Back then, there was more land that hadn't been developed, and much of it still had many native wild plants. These days, there are fewer and fewer of those areas. There was no one to teach me about wild plants or wildflowers. I just found the wild places really fascinating, and the flowers were pretty, even if I didn't know the names of most of the plants. Flowers brought me joy! It wasn't until late in my life that I learned more about native plants and wildflowers and about growing plants and gardening. The wildflowers that grow here and there can give us so much enjoyment. All we have to do is stop, look around, and appreciate them! (117 words - Read the full article) (14 comments)

By Sharon October 8, 2013 Basic Glossary for Beginning Gardeners New gardeners often hear words that are unfamiliar to them. Here's a short list of basic gardening terms and their definitions. (847 words - Read the full article) (19 comments)

By 4susiesjoy October 7, 2013 Cleaning Tool for Garden Containers I've found that a round, pointed-edged paint brush is the perfect tool for cleaning pots, trays, and plant six-packs. It gets into edges and corners far better than a conventional scrub brush or cloth. The hard bottom of the paint brush is great for pushing out indents in the six-packs that were caused by ejecting the plants. (10 comments)

By Chickensonmars October 6, 2013 A Gardening Use for the Flashlight App By using a flashlight app, which is downloaded to my tablet, I should have less trouble sorting Lilium and other seed stock this year. (13 comments)

The most popular images last week from our plant database: Photo of Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Brookie Bug') by gsutche: Photo of Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Kiwi Magic') by floota: Photo of Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii 'Lipstick') by angele: Photo of Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Rorschach Test') by Char: Photo of Variegated Tapioca (Manihot esculenta 'Variegata') by jon: Photo of Golden Spider Lily (Lycoris aurea) by purpleinopp:

The most popular Multi-Plant Photos from last week: Multi-plant photo by TBGDN: Multi-plant photo by shirleythompson: Multi-plant photo by 4susiesjoy: Multi-plant photo by Paul2032: Multi-plant photo by Paul2032: Multi-plant photo by Paul2032:

Noteworthy acorn tips given this week:

8 people gave for the idea "Wildflowers along the David Thompson Highway, Alberta, Canada" by CarolineScott 8 people gave for the idea "Wildflowers" by LindaTX8 7 people gave for the idea "Basic Glossary for Beginning Gardeners" by Sharon 4 people gave for a post in "The new ATP layout is live" by dave 3 people gave for the idea "A Gardening Use for the Flashlight App" by Chickensonmars 3 people gave for a post in "Need help" by roseseek 3 people gave for a post in "Powerful Indeed!" by chalyse 3 people gave for a post in "Banner for October 10, 2013 by TBGDN" by TBGDN 3 people gave for the idea "Cleaning Tool for Garden Containers" by 4susiesjoy 2 people gave for a post in "My apologies to the database moderator who has to move my photo's." by plantladylin

The most active threads this week:

Subject	OP	Area	Replies
Discussing the new layout	dave	Site Talk forum	190
The new ATP layout is live	dave	Site Talk forum	148
Anybody want to beta test a new layout for ATP?	dave	Site Talk forum	54
WINNERS -- 2013 Daylily Tales	Sharon	Daylilies forum	51
Poor hostas or what's left of them	Lynn0805	Ask a Question forum	39
Semp Experiments regarding 24/7 light and indoor 70F wintering.	WarpJr	Sempervivum and Jovibarba forum	33
Is it possible to grow in straight horse manure?	chelle	All Things Gardening forum	32
If only the genus is known	purpleinopp	Plant Database forum	28
Banner for October 7, 2013 by Calif_Sue	Calif_Sue	Site Banners forum	26

Some new recommendations from our members:

Leftwood recommended Territorial Seed Company and wrote: All kinds of seeds, especially vegetables, with lots of unusual choices. Great garlic source too.

Leftwood recommended Arrowhead Alpines and wrote: Very knowledgeable owners and purveyors of a huge selection of unusual plants. Large selection of bulbs and alpine materials especially, and of plants that are naturally small growing.

Leftwood recommended Faraway Flowers and wrote: Faraway Flowers is a very reputable company with choice lily selections that include ones rarely found in commerce, yet very desirable. No duds here!

clintbrown recommended Sedum Garden and wrote: Sedum Garden is new. I stumbled on them by chance and ended up being their first online customer. They just opened this week. I was so pleased with the plants I ordered. I ordered several of the Delosperma 'Wheels of Wonder' series. They were $3.99 each for plug-sized plants. I was very happy when they arrived. Although small, the plants were very healthy and some even had blooms. They also threw in some bonus Sedum plants. I would definitely order from them again!

bpsgarden recommended Northern Grown Perennials and wrote: My mom and I placed an order here because they had a rare daylily my mom had been looking for. The prices were very reasonable! Very nice selection, especially if you are fond of Emerick's daylilies. He shipped plants right away. I couldn't believe the size of the plants he sent. Some of them were clumps! My mom and I separated some of them and each plant was bigger than the single plants you get from some companies. We did have one single fan, but he told us beforehand that is all he had, and he lowered the price of the daylily. We still wanted it. When we got it, we couldn't believe the size of the fan. It was a large and healthy fan, not a tiny little fan. I will be ordering from him again in the spring when I find out what I still need for my front bed. He also carries hostas and peonies, but I didn't order any of those. The picture I have attached is a comparison between the plant he sent and the plant from another company I ordered from at the same time. His is the beautiful large clump and the other company's is the group of tiny separated fans.

Some numbers from last week:

• 46 new members.
• 157 new threads.
• 3,512 new posts.
• 1,077 new images to the plant database.
• 108 new comments in the plant database.
• 7 new Multi-Plant photos.