Personally, I think the best place to ask the question would be a forum that is most closely associated with the plant(s) you are interested in possibly purchasing from the merchants. For an African Violet, I'd probably ask in the houseplants forum or the gesneriad forum. For a daylily or rose I'd ask directly on those forums. I think that increases the chance that someone who has experience with the company will actually see the question. They might not be checking here as often and might never see the query. I'm assuming it's not always a bad thing to ask the same question on several forums, but I could be wrong in that assumption. Is there any way to tag such a question to indicate it is a posted in more than one forum? E.g. tag as 'this post is duplicated in '? Forum' and '# Forum' and '* Forum'. Or if a company is a general plant source, but offers a lot of vegetable seeds, then that might suggest a forum where you might get feedback on the question.

needrain said:I'm assuming it's not always a bad thing to ask the same question on several forums, but I could be wrong in that assumption

Cross posting the same thing to multiple forums is discouraged for many reasons. The most important reason is that it dilutes the conversation into multiple threads and that's not good. It's better to devote a single thread to a question so that all answers and responses are collected into one place.

I agree. But if the question or conversation isn't in the best place to start with, it may not get a good response. Or possibly no response at all. How many African Violet aficionados are likely to see TK's question, I wonder?

Edited to add.

Don't you hate the never ending possibilities we can come up with :). Some that just aren't feasible.

needrain said:I agree. But if the question or conversation isn't in the best place to start with, it may not get a good response.

This demonstrates the need to post to the right place.

I move threads around from time to time, too. If someone posts a question about daylilies to the "Ask a Question" area, I'll move it to the daylilies forum. Works great.

I did post that question in the houseplants forum under an active AV thread. No one seemed to have a company to recommend who had the AV I was interested in buying.
Post #791797 and #791983

Yes it does! Tk, if I wanted a particular plant like an African Violet, I would post a specific question to the Houseplants forum.

If there are specific things you're looking at from Honeycreek, go to the specific forum and ask "where do you buy .___?" Then when you get some responses, ask those people if they've ever ordered from Honeycreek.

As Ken says, most people are too lazy or just don't remember to endorse specific companies unless the vendor asks/reminds them to.

@dave and @trish what do you think about offering an acorn for every endorsement that members put up to the companies in the Green Pages for the next week or two? Everyone's madly ordering and/or receiving orders right now so it's a good time.

As Tk says, it will make the Green Pages a much more useful resource for us all.

We did a big green pages drive a couple months ago and got a lot of endorsements posted. We should see about doing another one soon.

I realize i think in a bizarre way, and i have trouble making myself understood, especially to dave. Sorry, i have only the brain cells i was born with. So, what i say seems clear to me. But, here's my other green pages concern. If i enter african violets, i get no results. Houseplants, nothing. Violets, 6 companies with no endorsements. I finally found the company lyndon lyon greenhouses (he sells violets, i didnt see any greenhouses) from the AVSA. That company is listed in the green pages here, but has no endorsements. I ordered some AV, and hopefully can give one soon.
Ken, if you enter orchids, it has 20 companies, none of which is tropicalplantsandmore. It appears the green pages only has a link to what is in the company name. I have no idea how to fix that. But, if im looking for an orchid, thats what i enter. If i want african violets, i wouldnt look for Gesneriaceae.

I think the search option for the green pages is a name search for the company, not the kind of plants they may be offering. There are a lot of primarily commercial daylily enterprises without 'daylily' or 'daylilies' as part of their name, but if you search for 'daylily', you only get those that have the word 'daylily' as part of the name. If you search for 'daylilies', you only get names using that word and it will not include the ones that use 'daylily'. For daylilies, though, those plants in the square 'cloud' has 'daylily' as an option. That one will bring up a lot of daylily vendors, many of which don't use either 'daylily' or 'daylilies' as part of the name. Which brings me back to my wish for a search function. Sometimes the database is good for that when you search a specific cultivar and the database includes photos from vendors. That is probably more true of daylilies and other widely grown plants than something more obscure, but it's worth a try. Even when it may not be the specific plant you are searching, those vendors carrying the same type of plant might be a good place to start a search. I've done that using the database.

But, if you dont already know the name, then the green pages are of no use. ???

tk: I myself have not personally ordered from Lyndon Lyons Greenhouses but I used to belong to a couple of on-line African Violet groups (as well as a local club) and I've known many folks who ordered from LL and always had good things to say about the quality of the plants received as well as customer service. The only negative I ever heard was that shipping charges were pretty steep.

I haven't grown many Gesneriads in a few years but I've recently been thinking about getting a few AV's other than the two Home Depot noids I currently have and I plan on browsing Lyndon Lyons website to see what they have to offer and may order if shipping charges aren't bad. I believe the company has been around a long while but Mr. Lyons passed away in 1999 so I'm not sure if the company is still family owned/run or if it was sold to someone else. If I do end up placing an order I will let you know what I think.

Yikes, I knew my "company" was small - well tiny - but I never realized it was so small no one can even find me when looking for orchids. Ouch! No wonder I seldom sell anything via ATP. Help, Dave.

Thanks for the heads-up, TK. I don't know how to change this situation.

Makes me feel better about having ordered from them. They have the most beautiful and unusal AV Ive found.

This is a matter of categorization. Right now our list of categories is:

Bulbs
Cactus and Succulents
Clematis
Dahlias
Daylilies
Fertilizer
Fruit Trees
Fruit: Soft
Hardware and Tools
Herbs
Hibiscus
Hostas
Irises
Irrigation Supplies
Lilies
Ornamental Trees and Shrubs
Peppers
Roses
Salvias
Sempervivum
Tomatoes
Vegetables

I am always happy to add new categories. Then you can go through the companies that you know of and add them to the appropriate categories. For example, we can add a category for African Violets, and another category for Orchids. Then just check off the companies that belong in those categories and presto they will appear in the list.

Houseplants
Orchids

Both are added now.

The Watchdog feature in "another popular gardening website originally created by a Whitinger" had these comments about Honeycreek Nurseries:

7 positives
5 neutrals
29 negatives

The only other online review I found of Honeycreek was one complaint sent to "Complaints Board":
http://www.complaintsboard.com...


Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses did better on "that other website":
17 positives
1 neutral
No negatives

The Green Pages are still young and there is room for everyone to add recommendations.

texaskitty111 said:.. before buying from a catalog. It was my understanding that if they have no recommendations, don't buy their products.

In my opinion the original question on this thread starts with a flaw. It has not been decided that just because there are no recommendations showing on the ATP Green Pages for a particular company that members have been told or encouraged to not buy from them.

Personally if I were looking for a recommendation for a company I would first look to the ATP members. I would either post a question in the proper forum "where do you buy your African Violets" or "have you ever purchased from XYZ Company". But I would more likely go to the database and see who owns the plant and then send a message via Tree-Mail to ask for an honest opinion - of the plant and of the company that sold the plant. But that's just me.

I like that, Greene. I also agree with several folks that increasing the number of categories will enable members to be more likely to find nurseries/hobbyists that sell that particular plant. There are just so many other categories of plants than those on the present list, such as gingers, bromeliads, plumeria, and ferns. Those are just some of what I personally grow and have interest in. The general category "Houseplants" certainly covers a lot of genera though.

Thanks for that useful info Rick.
I would have sworn that was said on more than one podcast, green. Did i hear wrong, other greenies?