Cool. Former one's have entered the palace!

[Steve in France]

Kurt , financial restrictions need not be a problem, I started my garden three years ago from a stone and sand filled Farmyard.I traded for soil and got to know the people at UKOasis and grew a lot from seed.
UKOasis people really helped out by sending me loads of pants even though at the time I had nothing to send back. There was a learning curve as UkOasis posts are often filled with latin names and or nicknames for plants, so I asked when I did not know what something was or most of the time I did web searches on the latin names after several hundred hours of research and several hundred posts I now know a little about the subjects that interest me.
At one point 50 % of the plants in my garden were plants tthat were given to me, a lot of exotic plants make spares reasonably fast, Bamboos, Cannas , Colocasia and such.
If your doing web searchs for say ' Trachycarpus wagnerianus ' adding UK at the end will give you the UK guys and nurseries , there is a lot of info available. I have a bunch of seedlings and spares here but I cannot send them to the USA , but I'm sure there are guys there who would help out a passionate gardener, that seems to be the key once people realize your a true garden nut like them they will send you stuff to enjoy.

On the seed front , I grew N. Capensis the Blue Fowering South African tropical Water Lily from seed and got a result. I started them in January indoors in a heated tub of water and by August they were in flower. I think i may now have lost this stock but I traded for other Blue Tropicals so i still have my show of tropical Water Lilies come Summer.
I have about six different Palms growing from seed, like Trachycarpus Manipur.

Perhaps you should get a Colocasia Gigantea as they pup like crazy and are good for trades. Bamboo divisions you can trade for other exotics. a lot of guys into Exotic gardening don't know all that much about bamboo so they are glad to communicate and trade with a guy who does know his Bamboos.

I'd order some Trachycarpus seeds as the seedlings and small trees are easy to trade .

Sorry if you know all this stuff already , I do go on about things somewhat

Some limks that may help
George start growing palms from seed and has a good little nursery going
http://www.thepalmhouse.co.uk/frameset.html

Jos's ,Great for a roadtrip
http://kimmei.com/eng.htm

James only sarted his business two years ago from nothing but an interest in palms and knowing a few of the right guys for contacts.
http://www.europalms.be/

Paul Spracklins UKOasis
http://p206.ezboard.com/fukoasisfrm1

UKOasis Members Pic Gallery, with thanks to MarkEE for setting it up, half a million hits so far .
http://www.pbase.com/theukoasis/root

Amazing Brugs from Germany, perhaps the best hybrids in the World and easy to grow and over Winter indoors.
http://kirchner-abel.de/site/home.htm

Good UK nursery
http://www.mulu.co.uk/

Later
Steve

[kstanwick]

Steve....you are correct...I have recieved a few starts of some plants from people in here. they have all been great. i'll look over the links you provided. I should correct myself when i am reffering to financial restrictions, the areas i want to plant/make beds have to be raised by soil/fill.....plants i can get.....it's the 1000.00 for the soil....so i do a little at a time .....I need quite a bit. So far i have gotten about 100 ton of gravel/bankrun so some areas are ok. This year i am hoping to finish grading where i want. probably another 100 ton...of fill then top soil.....

[rfgpitt]

kstanwick,

try to talk to a few large contractors in your area. I know it's a pain, but......
Sometimes if they are doing work (earth moving) in your area, they will be happy to dump fill dirt for little or no cost. Go visit the guys tearing up everything for new neighborhoods.

ground up asphalt (paving companies) works well as a base instead of buying all gravel

then all you would have to do is pay more $$$ to add a few inches of the good stuff on the top.

just a thought,

[boonatick]

[How does everyone feel about having some unofficial topics like ponds or conifers or palms added to the list?]

kstanwick,

Since you ask ,I personaly would like to have the non bamboo topics kept to a minimum,My reason being that I read a lot of posts from a lot of sites trying to learn as much about bamboo as possible,when I come to a bamboo site I dont want to read through a lot of non bamboo subjects,,anyway I wouldnt have said anything unless asked ,,asking where non bamboo info could be found is resonable to me such as links ect ,but I think they should be discussed for the most part elsewhere ,I already caught greif for expressing this thought on the gw but thats how I feel and you asked

[Steve in France]

If we are getting into what I like , I like people who know what they are talking about in terms of plants and have a broad knowledge of there subject . I also like people who know very little asking interesting questions to learn more about how to learn more and to get the ones who do know thinking.
That's what I like.
Later
Steve

[bambooweb]

Kaylen,

Nice to see you here.
I set up a separate topic to talk about other plants and landscape elements. This should keep most of other the topics concentrating on bamboo and allow us to talk about what we have with our bamboo.

Later,
Bill

[boonatick]

Thanx Bill for everything ,Looks like the bambooweb is realy coming along,,that seems like a good idea to have a seperate catagory for other plant disscusions,Ive been away from my computer a few months but am back and hope I can make some contributions here ,rgs

[kstanwick]

Want to hear something that i thought was amazing? this is NJ to a T....Rt. 206, a state highway was being repaved, and there were signs along the road Free millings. All you had to do was pay for the trucking.... a minimal fee....50 bucks.....i know a bunch of people who got them. They used them for filling in their drivways and such, a local tavern got a bunch to improve his gravel parking lot...Now the town has come around and said that the millings have to be covered over with blacktop or else they would be fined because it is considered a hazardous material to the groundwater. If it is paved over, it won't go into the ground water....paved driveway vs a dirt/gravel driveway. now these people have to pave their driveway/lot.....and when you pave a driveway it is taxable....so everyone's taxes will go up because that is how nj works. Personally i have looked into the contruction people moving fill/dirt and they want 100 bucks to truck it over.....I asked them already....but it is not a good drainage soil. What i want is Bankrun....yes i'm picky becuase my water table is high so i want good drainage....so that is why i prefer to buy my fill......I also have to watch out for the town becuase they see any kind of activity going on around the house they slap you with fines for no permits.....I built a wall out of those interlocking blocks and someone told me i should have gotten a permit for that....Officially i am changing my grade and that requires surveyors.....all that good stuff......A neighbor two houses down from me wants to put a driveway next to his house vs in front now because his wife has a hard time going up stairs...the situation now. He had to get surveyors involved and permits because he has to add fill to raise his grade to get the driveway to a specific grade %......I couldn't believe it....but it is what it is....so i do a little at a time.

[iandad]

kstanwick,

I spent several years cleaning up the radium from the Montclair, NJ site in another career.... Unbelievable expensive EPA job.

Nothing against Jersey, I also did this kind of work all across the US. I would have almost any "free" fill tested before bringing it on my property! Even in the rural areas of the country there are problems with pesticides, HERBICIDES, and other carcinogenic materials lurking in soil. Offering for free fill is a common tactic that shady enviro cleanup contractors use to get rid of contaminated soil... They are supposed to provide disposal records, but they fake the initial volumes of soil removed (unless they are getting paid by the tonnage).

Yeah, I saw a lot of bad stuff and maybe I am a little paranoid. But, I also know what is on my property.

[Iowaboo]

paranoia is food for the mind

Glad to see you posting here, iandad.
The great web of info is bamboo.


http://bambooweb.info

[boonatick]

kstanwick,
Wow, ,,, Here in my county in Texas You dont need a permit for anything,

[BooKing]

We have radium present all over here. When the soil starts to glow, that's when I get worried.

[iandad]

I don't think it's all over the place, but radium was used to make "Glowing" paint. It did cost $90 million dollars to clean up. I believe it is the most expensive (non DOE/DOD) cleanup ever done in the US.

http://www.sevenson.com/exp_montclair.php3

The contractors who built Montclair/West Orange/Glen Ridge used contaminated fill in the footers, foundations, sidewalks, and streets. It did not glow, but the radon levels in the homes were way scary... They also used broken glass for fill, a lovely mixture. I bored three hundred holes in a soccer/baseball complex, all really hot.

My point was to make sure you know the source of your fill you use in your yard, wherever you live. Caveat emptor.

[kstanwick]

the free fill thing for me isn't worth it unless I can get it from a reputable source. It totally blew my mind that the state wanted everyone to take the millings but didn't inform anyone that they would require anyone who took them that then they had to pave over it. I'm sure people might have strayed from the free millings and it would fall back onto the state to dispose of it. not push it off on the local guy.

[BooKing]

It is not uncommon here to find a few pieces of broken glass per sq ft of soil here. The key to remember is always wear thick gloves when working with the soil.