I hardly use it in a social manner. I have a few garden buddies, but they have a lot of plantings. Over the years I have used excel workbooks, paper excersise books and search and tried a number of 'garden tracking' software and things I have found on the net, but then I found Folia! It is awesome. And the longer you use it the more you realise how handy and great it is. I try and add as many pics as I can to my plantings, but I generally use it to keep track of what is growing where and when I planted it and if it is doing well. In terms of finding out info about plants, I can be a bit cautious. As the info is user added it is always best (I find) to do a bit of extra reading on a particular plant. I have noticed with a few things I have grown that the information which has been added to a particular wiki is not always accrate. Mainly in terms of botnaical names for a lot of plants. I guess that is something that is not hugely important in the scheme of gardening, although I am a bit pedantic (sp?) about getting the correct botanical names for things. Having said that, there is a great social side to the site. I can't say I have had anyone try and make me a buddy who doesnt have a planting, so thats not a problem for me. But it is nice to read peoples comments and have the ability there to question someone on something they are growing which you might be trying to and not having any luck or similar. Give it a go. It is well worth the perserving, and even if you don't want the social aspect, just ignore it. I think I used it for a week and then I became a supporter, and I NEVER pay to use sites on the net! 2009-10-26T12:05:29+11:00 false 13297 2806 2009-10-26T12:05:29+11:00 9974 I use it to keep a record of my garden, as I did when I kept a paper record. MyFolia has the great advantage that I can add photos of plants as they bloom and photos of plants leaf, flower, and location in my list of plants. I find it really useful. Sure I look at some other people's sites, there are people who have interesting things to say about their gardens, and gardens that are in totally different locations than mine and give me insights into other parts of the world, some of which keep me sane when my garden is under 2 metres of snow. And sometimes there are people who ask for identification of a plant or for advice in areas in which I have some knowledge. However first and foremost it is a rather good form of record keeping for me. 2009-10-26T12:23:39+11:00 false 13298 2806 2009-10-26T12:23:39+11:00 1175 I've made people buddies who don't have any plantings -- I buddy everyone who lives in my area. I want to see how their gardens compare to mine. If they never add plantings or write journals, having them as a buddy has zero impact on me. And if they do -- bonus for me! If I wanted to research a plant, Folia would not be the place I would turn, at least not now. I think it will become more valuable as the wiki grows, but for now, it's not a very good source for research. But if I wanted to ask a question about a plant (or about gardening), Folia is the very first place I would go. I've learned a lot by asking questions in my journals and in the groups. People are very helpful. Perhaps this is what you are picking up on as "social" -- I woudn't really call it that myself. For me there are two really valuable aspects of Folia: (1) the ability to create a personal database of my plants that links gardens, plantings, and harvests while also allowing me to document what I do and when I do it; and (2) the ability to get information from other gardeners, sometimes by asking questions, sometimes by reading about their experiences. One of the really nice things about Folia is that it can be used in different ways by different people. Some people just use it as a database and never upload pictures or write journals. Some people write journals but don't use the database aspects. Some people probably just read or read and comment. It's quite flexible. @after, I hope that you corrected the wiki when you found problems. The information will get better if we all work at it. :) 2009-10-26T12:24:44+11:00 false 13299 2806 2009-10-26T12:24:44+11:00 1713 @ Katxena - Yeah sort of! I couldn't work out how to actually alter the botanical name of the plant, so I added it as a comment to the entry. @ Poetinwood - I guess it does depend on what you want it for. You mention about 'biological reasons' What do you actually mean by that? Do you mean from a scientific view point? 2009-10-26T12:41:31+11:00 false 13301 2806 2009-10-26T12:41:31+11:00 9974 bq. somewhere you can research plants and get details about their care This web site is like less than a year old so i wouldn't expect the wiki's to be brimming with information *yet*. Also the web site is still in beta so wait until its official release before judging it too critically. bq. most people seem to be using the site for a social reason, rather than a biological reason i use it as primarily as a biological tool because as a Natural Resource Manager i am often planting indigenous species that have almost no information on them, so i am constantly adding to the wiki's my observations about when these species are flowering and seeding so i can go and collect seed next year. Despite this, the social aspect is still very important as i will rely on other people to fill in the gaps on the plant wiki's, ID plants and other observations. bq. Excel workbook might be quicker, safer, and easier to use. Safer? i don't know what is unsafe about using this website. As for quicker and easier I will again point out the web site is only in beta. anyway that's my 2 cents. 2009-10-26T12:47:52+11:00 false 13302 2806 2009-10-26T12:47:52+11:00 11525 @after, if you find something in the wiki that you think is incorrect, but don't know how to change it, you can always request a review of it -- in the red box on the right, click "request review" and you'll be able to add a note. A Folia helper will come by and check the plant. If the plant is in the correct genus, you can change the botanical name just by editing the wiki and typing in the correct name. If the genus is wrong, you have to use the pull down menu to change it. Send me a message if you want more help with it. @Poetinwood, I hope you find a way to use Folia that works for you. Don't hesitate to ask questions if you need any ideas. 2009-10-26T12:49:57+11:00 false 13303 2806 2009-10-26T12:49:57+11:00 1713 Cheers Katxena, I shall remember that! 2009-10-26T12:57:09+11:00 false 13304 2806 2009-10-26T12:57:09+11:00 9974 Personally, I think that I enjoy all aspects of folia. I am a social person, and so I enjoy commenting and sharing things here as much as I do adding plants to my gardens and pics. I don't have many friends, and those I have don't live around me, as we have done much traveling in the years of our marriage, so here I can communicate with other people, and it also does not cost me very much money to do it!! My friends and family are all long distance from here, so anytime I wish to talk to them, it costs money, unless it is on the weekend. (Cell phone). :) I too agree that the wiki needs work, and currently there are folians working on this issue. :) As to the buddy issue, if someone "buddies" me that has no plantings, I can either wait to see what they grow, and what type of person the appear to be over time, or I can go ahead and "buddy" them back. I feel good when people " buddy" me. :) And if they have no plantings, it may be that they are first year gardeners, who like what I am growing, and want to learn about my plants and how I care for them. So I take that as a compliment!! :) I hope that you find in the coming year that you find that this is the site for you. If not, I hope that you are able to find one that suits your needs. Anyway, I am glad that you joined, and I am enjoying looking at your plants. :) 2009-10-27T00:24:19+11:00 false 13315 2806 2009-10-27T00:24:19+11:00 5779 Like katxena, I buddied everyone in my immediate vicinity, whether or not they had gardens, just to see what they do. Like TropicanaRoses, I've come to think of a lot of my buddies as friends. There's a certain amount of enabling that goes on; encouragement and shared interests keep me actively engaged with my garden at a level that I might not be if I didn't have anyone to share it with. The community here has been great for advice. When I first started gardening in a totally new environment (can you believe that water freezes and falls out of the sky here? What's with that?!), I had trouble finding basic information on how to deal with the regional peculiarities of this climate. I read everything on the subject I could get my hands on, but all of the literature I was able to find on the subject of freezingness was based on the assumption that everyone already knew about freezingness, rendering it useless to me (and, I assume, anyone else who needed information on the subject badly enough to look in said literature). A few hours after I showed up here and demanded facts, I'd been completely filled in. Plantingoaks pointed me to a cool repository of weather statistics; Janietta identified most of the weird new plants in my weird new yard; a bunch of people piped in with bits of oral tradition that didn't make it into books but I probably needed to know. But on the purely pragmatic level, I've come to be able to anticipate things in my garden based on things in my buddy's gardens. I suck at following the weather; my brain has been wired to expect it to be 70F/21C and sunny almost all the time so I'm constantly surprised. Large weather systems seem to affect Xan and Katxena a few days before they affect me, and I can see exactly how their gardens were affected and plan. Things usually hit me, sneirish, and redloon on the same day, but they're a zone up on me and just slightly warmer so their harvests come due just a smidge earlier. My garlic (which was ready to harvest about a month earlier than I would have expected so I wasn't paying attention) would have been a fail this year if sneirish's garlic hadn't required harvesting a week before mine did. PaulP is much better at tracking weather than me and we seem to be hit by weather at more or less the same time. If paulp posts a frost warning, which he's very good about, I will get frost. I've gotten better at following large trends, but when we had a unanticipated frost warning late this summer and I hadn't even been thinking to check the reports, he posted the warning and saved my tomatoes (again). 2009-10-27T02:49:10+11:00 false 13318 2806 2009-10-27T02:49:10+11:00 1237 I'd have added more photos if using Flickr or another site wasn't required. I have my own website and would prefer to host my own photos (instead of having to load them to Flickr, then also on my own site for posting on my blog). I'm hoping to do better next year. :) I think I need to find more buddies in this area for comparisons like others above have mentioned. The Groups are very helpful for information. But mainly I use the site for my own tracking. At least for when I planted things and when they sprouted and when they were ready for harvest. I know if I hadn't found Folia this year that I'd be struggling to remember what happened in 2009 when it is time to plant in 2010! 2009-10-27T03:36:24+11:00 false 13319 2806 2009-10-27T03:36:24+11:00 5832 Check out the zone map XUMusketeer. There are quite a few gardeners in your area. :) 2009-10-27T04:47:17+11:00 false 13325 2806 2009-10-27T04:47:17+11:00 5779 @XUMusketeer - I felt the same as you did at first. But then for some reason I loaded on picasa to my pc and then found the upload button and realised the link between picasa and google albums. Now it is easier than ever to upload photos. I have all my folia pics in my picasa webalbum. The beauty of that is I can take the photos straight off my camera and don't need to re size them for websize as picasa does that for me when they upload. @cmagnus - I've added you as a buddy, because I have never thought about how one would garden in frozen areas! Ahh, see, you learn (or start to learn about) new things everyday with folia! 2009-10-27T08:56:20+11:00 false 13338 2806 2009-10-27T08:56:20+11:00 9974 @ after- I grew up in a very warm climate, and it was difficult to adjust to cold climates, so I know exactly where cmagnus is coming from!! I am hoping to get some things to grow here that are meant for Florida climates, but I don't know if it will work. :) I learn new things about growing in the cold all the time, mostly from fellow folians!! :) 2009-10-27T09:00:46+11:00 false 13339 2806 2009-10-27T09:00:46+11:00 5779 bq(. (can you believe that water freezes and falls out of the sky here? What’s with that?!), No you must be mistaken, I have only ever seen water evaporate from my garden, yeah that's what you must mean. You know, once I saw water fall from the sky.. wonder what that was.... 2009-10-27T10:05:31+11:00 false 13344 2806 2009-10-27T10:05:31+11:00 11525 LOL. I remember that during monsoon season in Arizona!! It was so hot that the rain evaporated before it touched the ground!! And if it did rain, it poured, and yet, 15 to 20 minutes after it stopped, the ground was dry!! Go figure!! Climate is an interesting phenomena!! :) 2009-10-27T10:11:59+11:00 false 13345 2806 2009-10-27T10:11:59+11:00 5779 This place is definitely a haven for the lot of us who are from climates that aren't the typical targets of the gardening media. :) 2009-10-27T14:24:42+11:00 false 13352 2806 2009-10-27T14:24:42+11:00 1237 hear! hear! @cmagnus 2009-10-27T14:47:56+11:00 false 13354 2806 2009-10-27T14:47:56+11:00 830 Slightly off topic, but there was discussion on the wiki and the mistakes one comes across. I have come across another frustrating wiki entry. Whilst trying to add my Pacific Coast Iris plantings I found this, which a lot of people seem to use and even a few people have edited! http://myfolia.com/plants/168-pacific-coast-iris-iris Ahhhh, PCI's are NOT bearded Iris... I think this frustrates me the most because it would take 2 seconds to do a google search and quite easily learn that they are from totally different sections and are really quite different in their cultivation. Not only is this one named incorrectly, all the cultivation info is wrong. And there is a lot of it so someone must have spent some time on it. I know I should correct it, and I will. But it is late now and I want to get some more of my plantings in my gardens. Perhaps people don't realise that when they add a new plant and put in all this info that it becomes part of the whole site and is then available to anyone with the same plant. Perhaps they think it is only a part of 'their' folia... 2009-10-27T22:38:05+11:00 false 13356 2806 2009-10-27T22:38:05+11:00 9974 @after - yep, we definitely still have an issue with naming in the wiki, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that some people edit and modify the wiki like it is their own database, rather than a shared resource for everyone. We'll keep trying to think of ways to make the distinction obvious, but let us know if you think of any changes that might help in this regard (I'm all ears on this one!) For the case that you mentioned, that plant has actually been recently renamed from Iris by someone - it _should_ be Iris but someone has changed it to suit their own purposes (I've just changed it back now). At the sake of reducing some of the good features of the wiki (in that it is truly a shared resource and everything can be contributed by any member) I might look at locking down all the high level fields like name, botanical name to Helpers only to prevent more of this highjacking occuring in the future. It's a shame to have to do this as it limits the amount of input we get on the database, but I think it's becoming more of an issue as more people join the site. Thanks for all your thoughts in this thread too - it's great to hear everyone's perspectives on the site - especially from new members, and we'll definitely keep your feedback in mind (...definitely also keep in mind that there is a "group for Feedback & Suggestions here":http://myfolia.com/groups/2-suggestions-feedback, we welcome as much feedback as we can get!) 2009-10-28T00:15:07+11:00 false 13357 2806 2009-10-28T00:15:07+11:00 1 @Nic - Ha ha. I was thinking backwards.. I was thinking to change the whole entry to suit a PCI... When all that was needed was the name changed to Iris... Duuh. Yeah it is a hard one the wiki... As with most wikis. They are a fantastic idea in theory, but like wikipedia, they aren't always a good source of info. At least here we wouldn't have people just adding random crazy things to entrys.. well I would hope not. As for the rest of the info, I think with a wiki it will always be difficult to ensure that the correct info is added. Perhaps once a wiki entry has been filled in that it gets flagged and then a helper can go over the info, double check it is correct and then lock all fields. Then perhaps you could add some kind of 'member comment field' so people can still add comments or some other interesting info about the plant, but it is obvious that it is a member comment. The only problem with that would be that it could be a lot of work for the helpers, as they would need to research to double check that it is correct. 2009-10-28T09:09:42+11:00 false 13360 2806 2009-10-28T09:09:42+11:00 9974 call me an optimist but I get the impression that wikis will ping pong around until they are about 90% filled in. Once they are mostly filled in people will think twice about just jamming junk/incorrect stuff in. also I am going the other way about wiki locking and I think changing the name should be more open. I have encountered species that are using old species names as well as some species that have the scientific name as the common name. so I would say wait till the community gets bigger before worrying about anything drastic. Maybe a red line when you start editing saying "*EDITING THIS ARTICLE WILL EFFECT ALL USERS*" 2009-10-28T11:52:46+11:00 false 13363 2806 2009-10-28T12:01:28+11:00 11525 Yeah, I don't think it is so much about people just jamming in junk and incorrect stuff because they can, but more people not really checking up and making sure that the info they THINK is correct actually is. And I agree, there are some plants whose names have been changed, and of course they should be able to be edited. also, if I don't know the common name of a plant, I will usually put the botanical name there, as I don't think you can leave the common name section blank.. can you? I think though, no matter how big the community is that it is something to think about. Actually it is probably more important in a way, as people may be turned away if they look up a plant and find that it is incorrect or messy. Having said that, the wiki here is very good, so perhaps it is a case of making sure it stays that way. As for “EDITING THIS ARTICLE WILL EFFECT ALL USERS” that is a brilliant idea... nice and big and red so you can't miss it! 2009-10-28T12:15:53+11:00 false 13364 2806 2009-10-28T12:15:53+11:00 9974 bq. I will usually put the botanical name there, as I don’t think you can leave the common name section blank ah that explains it, not every plant has a common name in every area. on a related note: i just changed 2 wikis from _eucalyptus citriodora_ to _corymbia citriodora_, but now there is 3 entries of _corymbia citriodora_ is there a way to delete the incorrect ones? (i added _eucalyptus citriodora_ as an AKA) 2009-10-28T12:54:36+11:00 false 13366 2806 2009-10-28T12:55:23+11:00 11525 You need to merge the three entries. You might have to be a helper or super helper to do that, I can't remember -- if you can't do it, just flag the plant for review. 2009-10-28T13:19:03+11:00 false 13367 2806 2009-10-28T13:19:03+11:00 1713 How do you flag things? Does that work for retailers too? Because there are 3 Tesselaars... I know I added 2 of them. I added one, and then when I went to use it for my next planting it didnt come up, so I added it again because I thought it didnt work.. My fault totally. But now I can't work out how to delete the other one. Now there is another one which is spelt wrong, so I didnt find it, but someone has plants attached to it, so is there a way to merge retailers? 2009-10-28T14:30:12+11:00 false 13368 2806 2009-10-28T14:30:12+11:00 9974 @after, The Tesselaars are now merged. I don't think you can flag the retailers. If you find something that needs fixing then "Myfolia helpers":http://myfolia.com/groups/87-myfolia-helpers is probably as good a place as any to post a request. 2009-10-28T15:39:11+11:00 false 13369 2806 2009-10-28T15:39:11+11:00 5165 Okay sweet, thanks Graibeard! 2009-10-28T16:12:26+11:00 false 13370 2806 2009-10-28T16:12:26+11:00 9974