Hello from Tina

[TinaW]

Hi everyone. I recently purchased Ideas Genie Pro and am slowly working my way through the users guide. I live in Arlington, Washington (USA) which is north of Seattle. I'm a part time garden designer, usually working with do-it-yourselfers. I also work at a small local nursery during the spring. I'm fortunate to live in an area where I can grow a just about anything as it's fairly mild here. Well, most of the time anyway. Last month we got an unexpected 14 inches of heavy snow that downed trees, damaged several of my favorite shrubs and collapsed the arbor my husband built several years ago! This was definately unusual weather for our area. I've been forced to do some creative pruning on my damaged shrubs and trees. So goes gardening. There are surprises around every season. Keeps it interesting. My main interests are perennials, shrubs and smaller ornamental trees but have been venturing into less hardy tropical type plants lately. I'm always up for a good experiment!

[greenfinger]

Welcome, Tina. Nice to have you with us at the forum. I get the impression you're made of the right gardeners stuff. Experimenting within sound limits and coping with unpredictable weather. I myself have worked mostly with perennials, but since last autumn I've started including in my borders and garden areas "shrubs and smaller ornamental trees", to use your words. From time to time I try to write a bit about them in the forum board "creating a woodedge garden".
I hope you will make us part of your future garden adventures. Have a nice day and Merry Christmas.

[ideasguy]

Hi Tina!
It s great to see here - and you are more than welcome.
After our flurry of emails about the software, its really good to get to talking gardening!
I see lots of interesting discussion points there. In particular:

My main interests are perennials, shrubs and smaller ornamental trees but have been venturing into less hardy tropical type plants lately. I'm always up for a good experiment!

I'd like to echo André's sentiments. I hope you will share your garden adventures!
There are a few others on the forum who are dabbling with tropical plants in the UK. The climate in your region in the US is as close as it gets to UK, so we should be able to gain from each others experiences.
The reviews program (GA032) is perfect for sharing experiences. It has a number of purposes. In this instance, it allows you to create a Review list of plants, with you as the Reviewer, and to associate notes (your review) of each plant.
I have extensions to this in development - a) to allow you to send the list by email, and for the recipient to import it into their IG Pro environment and b) to allow you to create a web page for your review.

Heres one I did, and published on the net, with a very early form of the program:
http://www.ideasforgardens.com/bestplants/top100gk.php
All IG Pro users will be able to do this.
I have a web site reserved for the purpose.  Yet another dream to be realised.
More fun for all!

[JeanV]

Hi Tina
I had an email contact in Arlington I think she was called Kristina but it was ages ago on a ladies christian list I am on. Maybe there are a lot of Arlingtons though! Nice to meet you. !4 inches of snow is the most I ever saw in UK in Stafforshire in about 1965 I think! It drifted as well and we spent the day eatring chips in the school where I taight as the kitchen cooked loads of chips and no kids got into school!
Nice to meet you.

Jean Vann (Mid Wales)

[Gene]

Hi Tina, My name is Gene. I lived in Stanwood for about 20 years. I miss it except for the rain. Now I live in central Texas and would give a lot to see more of it here.  We had over 30 consecutive days of 100 + last summer.  We do propagating and work the local farmers markets, both retired and loving it. Later, Gene

[Kew]

Ah! JeanV...That would be the winter of '63/'64....4" in your part of the world, 4' in my North Yorkshire village. Children walked to school on top of the walls. Now, I wonder what would happen today.....'Sorry, Darling, the car's stuck in the drive, you'll have to stay home'. Or am I being too harsh on today's kids?