The Calendar's

Native son

Native son

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16/11/12
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I posted this just to hype the need to get the calendars added to the online history of the work done during the haydays of our society. This is a picture of John Bender's back yard, some of his fern's in evidence also a corner of the Fern shade house. As an example of one man's work it was beyond incredible.
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We are working on it. It is not as easy since we don't have the digital files - only scans. And the scans will need to be done, resized, and converted to JPGs before we can view them as photos in the wiki. So please be patient.

And just an idea --- perhaps Ana would like to start a wiki page for Croton Garden Photos. Presently the only place for photos of a "croton garden," or garden shots particularly rich in crotons, is the Forum. And while nice, forum posts get lost in the shuffle over time. But if the best ones were saved and placed in one Gallery - it might give people one place to get an idea of how crotons can be used in the landscape. Just an idea.
 
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Love the calendars Lamar. I joined the Croton Society during the last few years and only have 4 of the calendars but treasure them. This will be a real bonus to have the older ones on the site. Thanks. Marnie
 
Dypsisdean said:
We are working on it. It is not as easy since we don't have the digital files - only scans. And the scans will need to be done, resized, and converted to JPGs before we can view them as photos in the wiki. So please be patient.

And just an idea --- perhaps Ana would like to start a wiki page for Croton Garden Photos. Presently the only place for photos of a "croton garden," or garden shots particularly rich in crotons, is the Forum. And while nice, forum posts get lost in the shuffle over time. But if the best ones were saved and placed in one Gallery - it might give people one place to get an idea of how crotons can be used in the landscape. Just an idea.
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Dean, I've mentioned that several times before- that I'd love to have a gallery of sorts for landscape shots of multiple crotons together. There have been beautiful shots on the forum in the past and I couldn't use them in the wiki. Would love to see that. I will be gone a couple of days. See you later. Ana
 
Ana - If you like I will set up a page entitled "Gardens with Crotons," "Landscaping Ideas With Crotons," or something along those lines. Let me know what you would like. I can place it on the Main Croton Page where the links to the CrotonPedia are. I can then place a link to the Codiaeum Connection there as well and make it the entry page for the entire Croton Experience with a more noticeable link to the Forum as well.

Something I've been meaning to mention ----- now that I have been doing a lot of research and code manipulation to optimize our Search Engine results, I noticed our Category Pages (Narrow Leaf, Alphabetical, etc.) only have the word Croton once - and the pages of the Crotons (like Magnificant, Alley Cat, Daisy, etc.) don't even have the word Croton or Codiaeum on them at all. This means that the Search Engines have no idea what they are a page of. So we are missing out, and need to do a better job of getting the words "Croton" and 'Codiaeum" on those (and all) pages as much and as often as possible. The first sentence on each page is especially important for search engines when determining the content of the page and to rank it in their results.

For example, for our palm pages I am converting every first sentence to say something like - "Dypsis decipiens is a large cold and drought tolerant palm from the high plateau of Madagascar." Then the search engine has some pertinent information to work with. If someone searches for "drought tolerant palm," "Madagascar palms," "cold tolerant palm," "Dypsis," etc. then this page will be recommended, based on that important first sentence. Just something to think about, as I know you mentioned our rankings before.
 
Bender's collection was incredible. Dr. Brown called it "the best collection of quality crotons anywhere." His shade house still had a lot of ferns, the last time I saw his yard. He had a prior interest in ferns before he got croton fever. Dean has created a site for the calendars, and after some experimentation, we figured out the right size & format for scanning pages. The site is http://www.palmpedia.net/wiki/Ana's_Uploads. Phil has an awesome calendar collection, from 2000 to 1012. I have several, including the 2005 (featuring the Ralph Davis crotons), 2006 (unusual crotons) 2008 (calendar of color) and the 2012 (celebrating the 12 years of the Society, 1999-2011.) What I don't have, I'll get from Phil to scan. It's a great idea, to post the calendars, and I'm excited about the project. Pages which feature individual crotons can also be used on the Croton encyclopedia, to boot. At least one calendar included lansdscapes (groups of crotons) , so that can be used for croton gardens photos. As you know, many members have awesome collections, so hopefully they will take photos and contribute them as well. So you don't need to do anything further, we've got it covered. Also, Lee is sending me a DVD of all of the missing newsletters as well. So you are off the hook, as far as having to scan your copies. We appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to help.
 
Let me get this straight. My job is to put the calendar photos in the wiki, right? You will put them in Ana's uploads page. Dean, you mean to put the word croton or codiaeum in the first sentence of each croton entry after you click on the name, right? Dean, you're going to make a "Croton Gardens and Croton Group Photos" page where I can put great group photos from our forum members' gardens. Will it be where it says "extra features"?
 
The calandar image I experimented with was scanned, cropped to eliminate the white border, and made 50% smaller. But if we go forward with this, I have a question: for historical purposes, is it important to show the year on the 12 pages of a given calendar? If so, I can easily add that date to the JPEG image. Anna, we are not overloading you with this prioject, are we?
 
Perry, I have a lot on my plate right now needing to catch up on my 'real' jobs, so this will go very slowly. I will try to work on something for a little while every day, but I cannot promise it will be done quickly. The 50% images are perfect! The compressed won't work well. So, if you could put the dates as you wish, I will try to slowly enter them in the wiki. Just be patient with me. Thanks! PS- I don't see anything in my upload page?
 
annafl said:
Perry, I have a lot on my plate right now needing to catch up on my 'real' jobs, so this will go very slowly. I will try to work on something for a little while every day, but I cannot promise it will be done quickly. The 50% images are perfect! The compressed won't work well. So, if you could put the dates as you wish, I will try to slowly enter them in the wiki. Just be patient with me. Thanks! PS- I don't see anything in my upload page?
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I'll add the year to the Rudy photo & send it to your upload page. All of the others will have the year on them when I send them to you. I understand that this is an additional burden, but there's no time issue at all. It will take me quite some time to scan & send all 156 images to you. So, they will just trickle in. You are doing a super job and it's great to have someone with your enthusiasm and talent on board for this project!
 
annafl said:
Let me get this straight. My job is to put the calendar photos in the wiki, right? You will put them in Ana's uploads page. Dean, you mean to put the word croton or codiaeum in the first sentence of each croton entry after you click on the name, right? Dean, you're going to make a "Croton Gardens and Croton Group Photos" page where I can put great group photos from our forum members' gardens. Will it be where it says "extra features"?
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Ana - I'm still contemplating this.

But my thought at this moment is to have something like a croton "entry/introductory page" - maybe name it 'The Croton Experience.' And from there everything Croton would begin - an introductory welcome, and everything Croton would have a link on that page - the Garden Shots, the CrotonPedia, the Codiaeum Connection, the Forum, the Articles, and any future features like perhaps a resurrection of the Croton Society.

And then there would be a prominent link on the Forum to The Croton Experience - not just the CrotonPedia. What do you think?
 
annafl said:
Sounds good, Dean.
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We finally, after many false starts, have found a way to display the calendars with good reproduction. Ana has posted a cover on the wiki for you to see. Additional pages and calendars will follow.
 
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