Editor's Ramblings

Judging by the emails we receive and comments posted on various forums, HelpMeFind is very popular and very much appreciated. Well... emails and postings are nice but what we really need is for more of you to contribute your insights and experiences to HMF. HelpMeFind is all about pooling the resources of the rose and gardening community by each of us sharing our experience and knowledge. You don't have to be an expert to offer useful insight, observations, or suggestions.

We have provided many tools to do this. Every rose page includes a "Q&C" tab. This for both your questions - which hopefully someone else of sufficient expertise can answer - and for your comments about this particular rose. Comments like "this is my favorite rose, I particularly enjoy its fragrance", "I find this rose prone to black spot", or "blooms all summer" are very informative.

If you have the time, please consider listing your garden on HMF. Garden listings allow others to search for gardens in their area or similar climates to see what other people are growing and what works and what doesn't. A garden listing allows you to identify the roses you are growing, upload photos of your garden, review the questions or comments from others about your garden or post your own, list any events you have planned (i.e. garden tour open house), and keep a running journal of your progress including problems, solutions, etc..

The LINKS tab lists links to interesting and useful web sites but we know it's hardly complete and new sites are added to the internet everyday. If you have a favorite site not listed, please tell us about it using the links submission form. The same is true for the TIPS tab. This tab is intended to collect those useful suggestions, ideas, and techniques we learn about and think "what a great solution!".

Another area we can always use your input is right here. The monthly Ezine is for articles, old and new, about most any aspect of roses. If you have written articles in the past or are contemplating one, please consider submitting it to HelpMefind for publication. While we do maintain a standard for submissions, we are interested in varied material from people of varying levels of expertise. Please do not be intimidated by the caliber of submissions from some of the rose communities leading authorities. We always give full credit so it's a great way to gain exposure while you share with the rose community.



What's New

We've been busy this month as the site changes attest. For starters you'll find some new tabs.

A new My HMF tab
Click on this tab to view information about your HMF registration and to review your contributions to HMF. Included are tabs to list all your photos, your questions and comments, and roses you have added to your Waiting list. The Waiting list itself is a new feature. On any rose, click the AVAILABLE AT tab to view a list of nurseries and suppliers selling this rose. If there are no suppliers listed or they are all out of stock or unable to ship to you (different country), you can click the "Waiting List" button to alert us that you would like to be notified if and when this rose becomes available. On the other hand, if a rose has a waiting list a message will be displayed and we ask site guests to contact us if they know of a current source. HelpMefind is all about helping each other by sharing knowledge and experience.

A new PUBLICATIONS tab
Click on this tab to view rose and gardening related publications. You can list all publications alphabetically or you can search by name, type (book, magazine, web article, etc.), author, or publisher. I'm sure we have left out some of your favorites so please tell us about them and we'll add them.

A new SHOWS tab
Click on this tab to view rose show and exhibition results from around the world. You can list all shows alphabetically or you can search by name or location. Our database currently includes years of historical show results and we welcome rose societies and organizations to contact us about including recent results. We would like to get all our show results up to date with your help.

The TIPS and LINKS tabs are now completed
Both these tabs have been in place a while but we needed to enhance the site to allow site guests (YOU) to send rose and gardening tips as well as suggest links to other sites you have found useful or interesting.