Database Entries

Lately I've noticed that in lots of PDB entries the plant has been added with no information other than the possibility that it is invasive. All well and good but there are many options in the same category that I'm not able to access because only the person that added the invasive option can change it. Options:

May be invasive under certain conditions
This plant is attractive to bees, butterflies and/or birds
Flowers are fragrant
This plant is suitable for growing indoors
Drought-tolerant; suitable for xeriscaping
Average Water Needs; Water regularly; do not overwater
Requires consistently moist soil; do not let dry out between waterings
Very high moisture needs; suitable for bogs and water gardens
Self-sows freely; deadhead if you do not want volunteer seedlings next season
This plant may be considered a protected species; check before digging or gathering seeds
This plant is monocarpic
This plant is fire-retardent

None of these important options are avialable now. Can we make "May be invasive" it's own category or maybe release it for change?? Thanks!

Not sure if i'm right here Stacey, but i think if you click on 'set all options' you will then be able to fully edit.
Fingers crossed :)

Edited 'cos my wording was wrong - but i checked and it worked for me ;oD

This message was edited Tuesday, Nov 12th 10:57 AM

Thanks Hil, that seems to do it. That's a good thing to know...You're so smart!!

Oh haha! It's just that i was playing yesterday and muttering to myself about the same thing and just tried that and was amazed when it worked LOL
:)

Actually, I have a confession to make. Whenever you come across an entry that has only the invasiveness info checked, it was probably one that I had Dave do a mass upload last summer.

A while back, there was a movement afoot to somehow designate weeds in the PDB. Of course, what IS a weed, exactly? Anyway, the idea was to use the USDA's list of invasive/noxious weeds as the basis for getting these plants listed, so that photos and other information could be added, thus allowing gardeners to try to identify the "weeds" they find in their garden and yard.

But the USDA and the Plants Database don't always agree on common names, or even the spelling of them. So a lot of them didn't flag as duplicates.

Long story shortened, please make sure the near-empty entry isn't already in the PDB, nicely filled out with photos, details and comments :) If you come across any duplicates, PLEASE let us know - use the handy "found an error" button on the duplicate's entry, and I'll zap it.

Regarding using the "set all options" feature for existing entries: please use this feature cautiously and sparingly. It's not working exactly as designed, and you might accidentally overwrite someone else's information. If you disagree with a checked box in an entry, use that "found an error" button to let us know what you disagree with, and we'll take it from there.

Ah, that answers a lot for me, Go_Vols. I usually check for dupes, and I wasn't as clever as Phil about Editing the Other Details! I'll continue to use the error report for that. You learn something new every day around here!

Thanks Terry. When I find what I think is an error I research it first then use that handy button. It's a great feature.

That edit button has opened up a whole new world for those of us who visit the PDB, but it must be a real load for you folks that edit! I figure you can store the reports and change them as you get to them!

Actually, it's made it fairly straight-forward to edit an entry. I can click on the hyperlink and go directly to the entry, and edit it based on the message.

When I'm done, I click on a "reply" button, and send the reporter a "thank you". The messages stay in a queue until we work on them. Right now there are around a dozen messages in there; some of them deal with oversize photos. I'll probably delete those messages since Dave has promised a better-than-hoped-for solution to the problem :)

On the same note as what Floridian is talking about I have found lots of the tree entries have 4-6ft marked as the height when they are trees that get over 40 ft tall. Is it ok to change that or do we need to report it?

IMO we should report them. I personally don't want to step on anyone's toes. I'd also be upset to have my entry just changed without knowing about it but I do alot of research before I enter things in the PDB, especially since I made several errors by not. In each instance GoVols wrote to me and asked me about it and gave me the option to change it or refute it. Thanks Terry!

Ahhhh - you've discovered a very old glitch we had probably more than a year ago, when the tallest height choice was 4-6'.

On that particular checkbox, either way is fine with me: send them to the error queue if you want, or go ahead and change them. It wasn't anyone's intention to stunt the growth of these poor things; it was my "bad" for truncating the choices when I passed them to Dave...

On other entry issues, please do send them in. As Floridian mentioned, I'd prefer to have the option of consulting with the entry's author before I make changes.

Plus, we may be able to analyze your information to find and remedy several entries containing the same error.

There's a couple of weirdo e-mails in there now Terry. I figured I should just leave them alone - maybe Dave will want to check them out. Does that happen a lot?

I just emailed you Sue. Yes, occasionally we get some off-the-wall stuff. I guess people just have too much time on their hands :)

My idea would be to have a new option which would be called "weed",for example cala lilles are invasive but no one would call them a weed. This would avoid confusion. Then make "weed" searchable so people can pull up a list of weeds for weed id.

Ah, back to the old chestnut of one person's weed is another person's..........................and all that LOL

I would define most of the weeds as being annuals, that is not always true, but they make seeds very quickly which results never getting rid of them completely. For example carb grass is a weed, but Chinese Lantern is not. I have a very clear concept, and I would be able to set this up. If there is any question please ask, me and I could make a judgement call.

see, most of my weeds are perennial.

As Philomel points out, what we call a weed is personal to each individual. We have many members who hale from a number of different countries and climates. What Dinu in India might consider a rotten weed, those of us in Nothern Europe may consider a beautiful, desirable exotic. Commelina is a genus that can be invasive in parts of Asia and the USA but not here, so to we Europeans at least, they aren't a weed.

There are also those of us who grow mainly species plants rather than cultivars, I wouldn't say my garden was full of weeds but someone else might.

In the PDB we have negative ratings as well as neutral and positive, if anything this is one of the better ways of finding out if someone in a similar region to you thinks the plant commented on, a weed. As the PDB grows bigger this will become more evident.

If I was doing it I would ask the question is it grown or offered as a seed for oranmental purposes? If the answer to that question is yes, then I would say it not a weed. The definition "weed" would be reserved for plants that no one ever thinks are beautiful or useful in any way.

I would start with the Ortho weed book. Take Nutsedge for example, no one grows this for pleasure or use. The weed definition would not replace invasive but just be another option, that could be selected along with invasive.

I'm not doing down your idea Bug_girl but there are 10s of 1000s of plants that aren't well known in cultivation (and therefore rarely if ever offered for sale) but are potentially garden worthy.

There is a particularly nasty weed here that no one in the UK (or most places) would grow for pleasure (Calystegia sepium) that at least one of our members enjoys in their garden.

I still think that the PDB is the best place to list all plants and the comments added are the most useful to all members.

From a purely technical standpoint, there is no way to classify a plant as a weed. Botanically, horticulturally or via taxonomy, there is no such critter. Plants can be characterized as ornamental (or not), invasive (or not), etc.

Ortho puts out a weed book because it's in the business of selling herbicides to gardeners, and trying to help them ID and target the non-welcome plants in their lawn and garden. When it's not welcome in your garden it's a weed, even though your neighbor might be trying hard to cultivate it.

Classic case in point - I firmly believe Bermuda grass is a weed, and so did most of the folks in my Master Gardener class. I contend it's a weed because it is extremely invasive (the stuff can grow ten feet overnight), puts out roots to China, can grow under deep mulch (plastic, organic, you name it), and smothers everything in its path. What it can't reach via nasty brittle roots and runners, it reaches through seeds, which it sends up weekly, dispersing them far and wide, to further spread its misery. I can't imagine a more wretched plant in my garden. It has zero ornamental value.

But it's a widely purchased and planted lawngrass here in the South. In fact, our good friends at Ortho will sell us chemicals to promote its luxuriant growth (like it needs any help!)

Vols: That's the funniest thing I've read in a long time.

Yes, that was very funny, smiles, you should do stand up for gardeners. Some weeds secret a toxic substances that stunts the growth of other plants, such as dandelions. Therefore anyone cultivating them would be doing so at the expensive of their other plants. A warning might be in order of some sort.

Frankly, when I see a plant that is marked as "Invasive", I take that to mean that the plant is likely to "invade" areas where they aren't wanted. They may do that through a variety of means, including toxic substances, or choking as vols described above.

[...]

Well, I've been blessed to be surrounded by so many experienced gardeners, and I appreciate the discussion. Now that everyone has had their word in, I think that this conversation has reached a conclusion.

Conclusion: The database is sufficient as it is, and no changes will be made to further address invasive plants.

Dave

ok, I am going to search a few weeds from the Ortho book and see if I can get any matches, since you said, you added a huge number of new weeds.

Dave you did great, I found every weed, I looked for.

Not me! :)

OK, I know the weed discussion has run its course, but I would like to address Bloom Time. Since our climates vary all over the world, this is really hard to determine unless we decide in which zone we are basing this. Something can bloom all year in Florida that only blooms for a season or even a week here in Alaska.

Toxicity only addresses ingestion. What about dermatitis? This is a common toxic reaction to plants, though not always universal.

I am wondering about abutilon which blooms all year here, but in other climates, I think it may not. I would like to compare notes with other areas on this matter. Brug can cause contact dermatitis, someone on got some into her eye once and she was in agony.

We can add such information to the comments, but those can get buried among the others. Just some suggestions that might not be too hard to add.

Floridian, is wrong, it is possible to change options if you see an option that is incorrect. When I emailed him or her to politely point out this fact, he or she, stated that one could not changed them on moral grounds, and not because he or she was phyisically encapable of doing so. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Reread my original post Bug_Girl...My intent was not to CHANGE options but merely to ADD to them. I feel that if the entry is not yours you should use the 'report an error' option and not abitrarily change someone else's entry. Call it moral or just plain respect.

Again, I am sorry, I am just learning, and it was not my intention to break the rules, I was just unware of the rules. Maybe there is something wrong with the options, I unchecked one box, and it unchecked which gave me the impression that this activity was allowed. I even found some options boxes on my own entries that I check by mistake, and then went back and changed them and since they changed, I thought we were allowed to change the boxes. If some one went to my entry and saw I had made a mistake, I would want them to change it, but I did not know that was not permitted. Now, that I am aware of this, I will not do this again.

Definition of a weed vs. flower: If you can't get it to grow where you want it, it's a flower. If you can't get rid of it, it's a weed.

AMEN! (You've summed up my gut feelings about weeds, err, unwelcome plants - in a very succinct way :)