Campanula, are you bringing this up because you recently discovered the old fracas, or has something else just happened?

Melissa

I have no idea what is going on, but I can think of two D sites: the rhymes y'all have above, and a site created by a rift here that has a D that means dry and sandy. Camels... that sort of D. SandyDryCamelRoses.

If we can't say it here, I didn't even know, but I'll be careful in case. Hope it helps, lol.

The forum administrator banned specific mention of ALL competing sites. The Raves Harden site is a good resource for us Yanks because there is an area for review of vendors (yeah, we do that for rose vendors here, but if you're looking for perennials, check the reviews on Raves Harden before ordering). A schism occurred several years ago and the dry camel site was created and it was quite active for a while. I visited there recently and not much was going on. I guess summer in the desert takes a toll on roses. I'm like Seil and choose forums based on the climatic conditions.

I think SandyDryCamelRoses is defunct. A pity. I was trying to find it last night.

Gods no, I am not trying to wind anyone up or bring up tricky issues, I am just naturally nosy and when Kim, I think, mentioned the 'site beginning with D', obviously, my curiosity went into overdrive. I certainly have no intention to stir the pot and rehash past unpleasantness but ya know, human nature and all that.....
Seil, obviously (or perhaps not) I don't mean what I posted in any serious sense.
Little hints and mentions of 'someone who is unmentionable' just makes me BURN to mention them. Immature, juvenile...sigh, yeah, I know, but never spiteful.

but I honestly am missing what or who sandydrycamels could possibly be????? I am rubbish at cryptic crosswords too.
Never mind, probably best for all if it remains a mystery.

Camp, I'm totally lost, too...

I can't figure it out either Camp!

I know there is competition between websites, I use that other D word one regularly too.

Forums can be a lot of work to run, guessing this one has a staff that needs their salaries paid too so I can understand not wanting to promote others...but still banning and name calling is not a great way to go.

I have a few different forums I enjoy, one had a supreme ruler, he would some times allow discussion he did not agree with, but you never would know when he would agree in an email and then throw you under the bus to impress others. He makes some $$ off the Amazon links.

The other has a panel of moderators and keeps nastiness to a minimum. They even change some words if you try and use them...makes it interesting if some one is discussing their female dog in heat...lol But, I like the way that forum works, and the people that run it make money not only with ads, but selling "titles" and their "Dummy" book and other things as well.

interesting how forums can work

Here's a picture of the driest camel I've ever seen.;) Sorry no sand in the photo, but it was in Dubai where there is plenty. But this was taken at the camel hospital. I guess this is what they show camels that don't want to swallow their medicine. See this could be you!

That is me in the middle, flanked by my friends the Gazders of the UK.

I sure hope somebody in the know gives a more precise id for the sandy dry camel site. I like camels and might care to visit!

Melissa

LOL. Without question, the most abstruse AND the most peculiar thread to appear here in a long time . . . and becoming more of both with each post.

So we have watchdogs chasing dromedaries in the desert? Would those be Salukis? I'm wild about Salukis.

Melissa, that is one dry camel!!!

ROFL :D

Anyone who attended Southern IL University knows Salukis. They are graceful & lovely.

I think all this other stuff about arid-dromedary-whateverness is a red herring.

Anyway, this one time, at band camp.....

graceful and lovely THIEVES. Had one for a dozen years and I was on first name terms with dogwardens from 3 counties. He was frequently spotted, flitting, ghostlike, through college quads looking for gullible students and, to his great joy (and my utter despair)he also discovered the hospital kitchens.He could slide through a keyhole and leap a 3m wall and trellis (especially if a harem of german shepherds were in season - the loss of his knackers slowed him down not one whit!
I have obedient collies these days.

D is for desert.
Was there too, but never abandoned GW:)
Olga

Oh Companula . . . Ghostlike and sliding thru keyholes? Now I'm REALLY wild about them!

That's a great description. Regal, at times aloof, and quiet as a thief in the night. Ghostlike....yes, wow.

Our current dog is nearing the end of her wordly existence and I may check into a Saluki for our next. I wonder if they are diggers?

Diggers! You jest, surely. That is far too strenuous for a saluki who simply would not consider soiling nose or paws with....dirt.
In truth, FlauraB, especially if you are at work all day, a saluki is a brilliant pet since they will sleep for 23 hours out of 24 (although what they get up to in the 24th hour!!!) They don't bark apart from a sort of whooooing sound, don't shed (much) and don't smell. They are gentle and loving with children and anyone in their own household BUT they are a liability with other smaller furry dogs, cats, guinea pigs (Oh yes, I have been there) and will attempt a freedom run at any opportunity. Over the years of living with a saluki, I was arrested twice, sued, and in one amusing session -after demanding the dog warden take him away forever- the police wondered if he was a 'tug of love' dog. Oh yes, they don't bark but they howl - the normal practice after a dog catcher had taken a dog to the pound, was to fine the owners a large (to us) sum of money. After being unable to pay, we had to leave him there overnight - the next day, they phoned us and begged us to collect him - no fee. We could hear him howling before we got out of the truck. I used to work as an artist's model and took Yoshi to class with me - he was booked on the spot and for a couple of terms, he earned me a fair whack of money since he was more than happy to lie down, being adored, with a couple of heat lamps on him. He also had a good line in public snivelling - it was not uncommon to be called to the service counter after leaving him to wait for me outside a shop - he would feign shivering and starving - it ALWAYS worked, even when he was wearing his fleecy coat.

Oh my! Our current dog is a notorious digger. I have a photo snapped just a couple of weeks ago of one of her Milk Bones left unburied in the rose garden. At some point she made it out of the house proper with the treat in her mouth. I'm blaming that one on one of the kids.

She was also an escape artist in her younger days, and we've had to reinforce & shore up all of the perimeter fence and 3 gates. She used to escape at least twice daily. Now she prefers to snivel at all manner of rodents that come to terrorize the garden. I'd be just fine with a dog that will snatch vermin for us. I consider the cats that sneak in and defecate in the shade garden to be a special kind of vermin lately.

I'm familiar with that howl. At Saturday football games, there were always a pair of Salukis on the sideline who were remarkably reserved and quiet....until the goal-horn went off and then the howls would erupt. When I was there the team was quite terrible, so the eruptions were few & far between.

No other oldies have posted on this, so I'll give it a try as to what I think you're referring to. Note that this was years ago and my memory is a bit vague.

Long long ago, before this site was owned by iVillage, GardenWeb's Roses Forum was run by a king named Spike. Spike was a benevolent ruler, but was slow to forgive if you crossed him. If you violated his rules, he would give you a warning. If that warning was ignored, he would ban you from his kingdom and send you to Disneyland. Literally, if you tried to go to the Roses Forum, you would end up at disneyland.com. One of the main rules was that if you were a vendor, you couldn't post anything that could be perceived as an advertisement for your products. There was one individual vendor who kept posting about his roses in a way that could be perceived as promoting them. The strong arm of Spike finally sent him to Disneyland forever. There was an outcry among the people and one by one, they too were exiled to Disneyland. Finally, the protests grew so numerous that Spike decided that to end the rebellion once and for all, no one could post the name of the original vendor or the word "Disneyland." If you did, you would find yourself automatically forwarded to disneyland.com. Hence, if you wanted to discuss the matter, you had to refer to the "D" site, referring to "Disneyland."

The band of banned rosarians moved to a different site to discuss their rose issues. The original small time vendor's business closed many years ago, like so many other rose sellers. Spike sold his kingdom to iVillage and moved on. And so, this story was lost to the sands of time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rare Roses.com Blog

This link will take you back to about 2004.

Here is a link that might be useful: old messages

Campanula -- I have lived with Afghan Hounds, so I can attest to the accuracy of your Saluki description. :-)

Jeri

This is one of the old posts in another forum. Probably has to be viewed with Google chrome not Explorer

Here is a link that might be useful: found link

If you are interested in browsing the old messages in the other forum, see the link below:

(Probably has to be viewed with Google chrome not Explorer)

Here is a link that might be useful: link for browsing

Ah, I see now. Thank you Henry. I feel less mushroomy.

I also understand the wariness regarding the advertising suggestion I proposed on that other thread. Makes sense.

nearly all forums I have contributed to have mods (and I have also been banned a couple of times) but so far, the general civility of gardenweb is truly astounding - you should take a gander at Urban75 for example where the bad language (mine included) is truly eye-watering. In fact, almost anything except overt discrimination is acceptable. Some mods are more, ahem, keen than others (and I generally wander off - I found posts on the Beales site had been deleted and have barely been back since especially since the offending posts were a comment on the state of horticultural education and certainly not dissing either Beales or any forum users). Being opinionated, this sort of thing does happen. In general, I am utterly opposed to censorship since I believe we live in a fairly self-regulating world on balance.
However, I find the advertising thing to be rather tenuous since we have had people setting up nurseries and detailing all the efforts involved, including an inventory - although, for example, Connie did not overtly advertise her products (Hartwood) we all knew they were there. Frankly, I am not opposed to that sort of practice but I really got sick of ads popping up all over the place every time I carelessly moved the cursor to the edge of the screen.
Anyhow, how does this work now - do we have invisible moderators? I do know that certain words (and how I delight in using these, especially the very English ones such as arse, buggeration, bollocks and knackers) get a reject message - good job the language is so versatile.
henry, for sure I had a peek at the past arguments but honestly, they seemed rather tame and inconsequential to really get fussed over. However, I always tend to champion the underdog and enjoy a good David and Goliath scenario where the big guns get shafted.

I agree. I wonder sometimes if this is the only forum of participation for some as I think it's extremely mild here and I constantly get surprised that a disagreement of fact can cause so much butthurt.

I also giggle that sometimes credibility is afforded to a post for its lengthiness or for mentioning someone else's name. I think we should start calling it the "Ed McMahon Method of Truthery."

I honestly don't know who the mods are or how involved they are. It seems that pretty much anything flies unless someone files a complaint on a post. I did/do enjoy seeing the vendors here as forum posters, because I'd rather buy from someone who participated with us as a discussion partner and not some voiceless, faceless person with whom I'd never interacted (except for sales transactions).

Exactly, FlauraB - I love it that we get to have a dialogue with professionals - breeders, nursery people, growers, designers - anyone actually working in the horticultural industry. Since they are primarily participating in the forum as equals, offering expertise and advice, they can puff their product as much as they like.

campanula, I fear you might gaining an eroneous impression that us American gardeners are a peaceable and polite lot. The rose arguements weren't nothing to write home about, compared to... The Tomato Wars! Some of which took place on gardenweb, and no holds were barred, no insult went unanswered by worse, the maters flew, people got banned, started their own fora, got banned again.

Disparage my albas, I will politely thank you for your contribution; but say that your Cherokee Purple tastes better than my Brandywine, of which I have the One and Only Original Strain, why, where I come from thems fightin' words.

Nastarana, who does know that our iconic Brandywine tomato was actually selected in England, for growing on south-facing walls like the ones in BBC's Victorian Gardens, but realizes it would never do to say so at any of the tomato_____ fora. It also occurs to Nastarana that if you trellis Brandywine's 15+ ft. vines on a wall you might even get some tomatoes throughout the entire season instead of just one in time for Thanksgiving.

Nastarana, My Cherokee Purples tasted way better than my Brandywines.....lol But nothing beat the Celebrities for production pounds

Kippy-the-Hippy,

Of course your Cherokee Purples tasted better than the pathetic excuses for Brandywines which are available in commerce at present. I have the One, True, Original Brandywine Strain, preserved for 50 years in a freezer on an island in the Irish Sea, and shared with me by my dear friend Mme. Tomatonose. I can send you a pair of seeds, once I determine your worthiness to receive them. If interested, please PM me with details of parentage and curriculum vitae so I can check Who's Who and the Almanach de Gotha for pedigree.

Needless to say, I have nothing to do with those vulgar Celebrities, (shudder) and neither will you once you have been admitted to the halls of vegetable snobbery.

Nastarana, who knows that rose snobs have nothing on vegetable snobs, and that the most exclusive club in all gardendom is, no, not orchid fanciers, but....tomato snobs!

Nastarana,
You owe me a new computer screen. I just chuckle-snorted my coffee all over mine.

Ho yes indeedy....and not just tomato wars - where you are consigned to the 7th level of purgatory for growing a non-heirloom tomato - but the murderous activities of the giant leek growers have no boundaries. Sabotage and spying are regular humdrum goings on so night patrols of the plot and sleepovers in the greenhouse are common (often accompanied with a rounders bat (a considerably smaller version of a baseball bat)and hot water bottles. A garden resolution for next year - no more unreliable heirlooms but F1 Ferline, Fantasio and Sungold......gets coat, slinks off.

Sniff Sniff....I feel so unworthy....guess I will go back to canning that few hundred pounds my Home Depot 6 pack of Celebrities produced.

LOL

I do enjoy some of the other forums, clearly I need to go visit the tomato people!

I do feel bad for those people posting in the citrus forum about their indoor back east or other cold location folk who try and grow oranges in doors. I might have to go take some pictures of my semi-dwarf meyer than has been in the ground less than a year and set half a dozen nice looking fruit.... meanie that I am!

Kippy - Stop that immediately.

Lol, I think you're all crackers! I'll take my Fourth of July tomatoes any day! While you all are waiting around for your plants to flower I'm already enjoying tasty BLTs by the first week of July! They may be smaller but they are YUMMY and early!

Yep, I grow Matina - expect to be picking first week in July but this year was a tomato washout. Heaps and heaps of fat GREEN tomatoes right now (and I hate green tomato chutney - the only thing I know to do with them)

Well, this thread has morphed from Disney to mushrooms to Salukis sliding through keyholes to Mme. Tomatonose--too funny, Seil. You might know Camp would be involved.

Lol, yep, this one has certainly morphed a lot!

Campanula, you have to try making fried green tomatoes with a nifty sauce (I like a remoulade like the Cajuns make). You simply must :)

Now don't ask me the best way to make them, as that's another flame war waiting to happen :D

This is my first yr of doing (decent) tomatoes. My best ones have been GREEN ZEBRA (yummy and lots of them), BLACK KRIM (super yummy and fairly plentiful), BRANDYWINE (really yummy, but stingy), and a handful of BULL'S HEARTS that got blossom-end rot but were delicious! The others are sparse and not so tasty. Still waiting on the GREAT WHITE. Next yr we're going to build big raised beds.

BTW, I remember being sent to Disneyland a few times many yrs ago....

Camp, need some bell peppers? I got heirlooms....lol oh am I rubbing it in....lol

Beth, try the Cherokee Purple, they are good too.

For sure I have to do something with them. I planned on 60 plants but because a lot of the cotyledons rotted off (they just sat....and sat, for months), I ended up with 33. To my shame, I (whispering) bought in another 7 plants. So, given our hideous summer, 20 less tomato plants was a small mercy. I am planting sweet peas next year so I am just going to leave the old canes in place on my (to my mind) hugely superior support system - another plus (you have to look hard, sometimes).
Fried Green Yomatoes....well we all saw the film. As one of the world's most rubbish cooks (toast is considered a hot cooked meal in my house) I am going to rise to the challenge and report back.

this thread keeps popping up and is waaaaay to convoluted to actually read, but are you looking for
Dave's Garden ????

Heck you have to pay to post there....
Definitely not worth it....
Nobody there knows jack about roses....

Camp, my friends got me a pretty red glass tomato sculpture for Christmas one year to put on my window sill because every fall, once we get a frost and the plants start to die, I line every window sill in the house with the green tomatoes off the plants and wait for them to ripen. Not all of them do but you'd be surprised how many of them I can eek out that way!

Landlady, thanks. I was a coward, but I think it was Spike ages ago that did not allow our mentioning names. I paid once on the other, and was terribly disappointed. It may be better for ful gardens, but for roses, it was a disappointment ---- and it was started for roses.
Sammy

I know, landlady - paying to post! Soon as money gets in the loop, there tends to be a different agenda from the simple joy of talking about plants we love (or not).

seil, you can always put your green tomatoes in a paper bag to ripen, or even better, with an apple in the bag. The apple gives off ethylene gas which speeds up the ripening. Diane

Here is a story that should make all of us be just a little guarded and circumspect when posting.

No names, town, or country shall be mentioned in the story below.

It's to do with orchids. When it comes to the extremes of orchid collections, there are simply no boundaries. But once a collection is garnered, the next thing would be to let the world know about it. How else would one justify the cost of the hobby.

In any case, one avid collector found the latter to be a costly proposition. He was so enthused about his collection that he started to seriously take photoslides of his plants and was going around the different clubs showing them off (ok, this was before the days of the internet and when the Kodachrome and the slide carousel ruled supreme). He woke up after one frosty winter's night to find that someone had sneaked into his into his backyard greenhouse, and made off with $20,000 worth of his priced orchid (I suppose that will be about $40,000 in today's money). It was obvious that someone who had expert orchid knowledge, and had really paid attention to his slide shows, saw the golden opportunity. The thief had meticulously picked the rarest, most expensive and the most coveted of his specimens.

To this day, the mystery of the disappearing exotic orchids remains unsolved.

They have word in their circles for these extremes of fanatic collection and obsession - Orchidelirium; which apparently, is one level of intensity above orchidmania.

I doubt us rose gardeners suffer the same security night mares as orchid collectors. That said, I woke up one morning about ten years ago, to find all the emerging rose buds (and other flower buds), cleanly pruned off, and left in piles in my front yard.

Once I posted a complete description of my complex watering system for my 1000 roses. Within a week or two it disappeared.

At one of the National meetings, a famous exhibitor who lived in the city that was hosting the meeting had his garden vandalized shortly before the meeting.

I get roses stolen all the time. I know because of where the cut happens. I never cut long stems. Sometimes they just try to pull the flower off and I see the bent stem where it didn't break. Someone tried to steal my friend's large potted ballerina hyb. musk in a huge urn. He had it chained to the fence post and ferns hid the chain. We moved it to the back. The realtor who was selling the home across the street stole my two sweet pea teepees from the yard. ( they had a natural look being made with mulberry branches )someone always picks ranunculus and daffodils if I plant them out front. Our Samoan neighbor picked all the figs she could reach from our driveway tree.

One year I planted all kinds of veggies out by the street. Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, peppers. Nobody took any. The most asked for thing is some rosemary from my hedge. Everybody likes to pet that hedge as they walk by.