Garden Center Listing?

Dave, I posted this in a couple Forums - something I received in a newsletter from Washington Gardener magazine:

Locating Local Garden Centers

"Many area gardeners are only aware of a few garden centers and nurseries in their immediate neighborhood, but there are many more out there for you to explore.

About eight months ago, Mapmuse.com began a project -- the interactive mapping of garden centers and nurseries across the country. They initially researched and populated these maps ourselves, with the idea in mind that the public would subsequently add to, and enhance, the information provided. They mapped each garden center or nursery, and provided space for a written description, photo, and link to a web site.

Since this project was launched, gardening enthusiasts have made 100s of additions and enhancements to our maps. If you know of any garden centers or nurseries in your local community that are new or have closed in the last six months, please make those changes to the maps. Also, please feel free to add any places that are still missing.

The link to the Garden Centers and Nurseries Map is: http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/interest.php?brandID=GARDEN_CENTERS. They also have a searchable map and listing of local public gardens and arborerta to visit that gives a good basic listing for our region."

I added the following: State by State listing: http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/directory.php?brandID=GARDEN_CENTERS

Another DG member suggested that something like this might be a great new feature for DG, similar to Garden Watchdog. I know you have a full plate, but maybe something to consider for the future?

Debbie

Debbie,

We've talked about this in the past and I've always thought it would be an incredibly useful feature. I wish we had it right now as I would use it myself all the time. :)

If there were enough members who thought it was a great idea and were willing to work to add their own local nurseries, I'd be very interested in creating the system. We could have a zipcode lookup like the watchdog and even integrate it into Google Maps.

dave

Chuckle. I wondered how long it would take Dave to nibble on this 'un.

The biggest question I have with creating the feature is whether to add ratings or not.

On the plus side, being able to rate the nurseries would set our feature apart from this one, and make it more valuable to users.

On the downside, with ratings comes more administration time and effort - judgment calls, calming vendor angst, etc.

I sincerely think this would be a great tool to add to DG.
I would be willing to add nurseries in my area that I was aware of. When I looked up the one on the web that Debbie referred to - they didn't have many at all listed for my area compared to what we have.

Dave, that would be a really good compromise - comments (reviews), yes but no "ratings" per se. (I think that would make our lives a lot easier in the long run.)

I noticed on the mapmuse.com site that anyone can remove a company (I removed one in the 'boro that closed a couple years ago.) That's a good way to keep the feature "clean" but as an admin, it's a little scary to think of letting anyone delete stuff without any checks or balances. Maybe there's a way for deletions to go into a review queue, and the person has to add a note explaining why they want it deleted. We can check (via phone number, website, etc.) and make the "final call" on whether a business is truly defunct.

Wow - that was fast! You two are incredible :)) I'm sure everyone would agree with me that we don't want to "force" more administration time and effort in this endeavor - but I'm also sure there would be many members who would be willing to participate and add their favorite local garden centers.

1-10 ratings or something like "good, bad, ugly" would work for me. Comments (limited in length) could be listed on a seperate link if the user cares to look further before visiting a particular nursery.

Having just moved to a new area (only 40 miles from our former location), I've been researching the local garden centers and found a list by a DG member angelap789
that I have found very useful. Straightforward and simple to use.

http://www.sacramentogardening.com/nurseries.html

There have been several excellent threads on the California Forum for nurseries in particular areas of our big state.

I think this is a wonderful idea. Will our international members be able to add their local nurseries as well? I would be more than willing to add entries for my areas in Southern Ontario.

I think this sounds like a great idea! I've been in my new home for a year now and still hardly know where anything is located! I have found three nurseries and one although pricey has become a favorite with new releases, odd plants and a wide variety.

As far as the rating end goes, I'd like to know if there are helpful, friendly, educated employees, a general idea of what they carry and a basic sense of pricing.

ginnylynn, I'd love to see it made "global" but we may run into mapping issues just like we do with all non-US ZIP code addresses currently :-(

Oh well. Thanks for your reply Terry :-) I suspected those danged old mapping issues would be a problem.

Reading this thread was just like having a present taken away at Christmas.

"great idea, useful, wow I could sure use that, I'm in, fantastic !"

then....

"not available in Canada"

double :-((

Sandy

We can create the directory to allow input from any country. The problem arises when you try to set up a map or searching based on postal codes. We can get latitutde/longitude coordinates for free (or very inexpensively) for US ZIP codes. Other countries don't seem to have a similar low-cost/no-cost postal code databases available.

Nobody said it wouldn't be available in Canada. If we limited this feature to those in the U.S., then this would be the first feature we've ever created that excluded our friends outside our country.

We will certainly include any nursery in the world. The only difference is that the mapping might not be as good as in the U.S. (at least in the beginning) but that may improve over time.

The garden watchdog lists companies from 48 different countries and this would be the same.

dave

Sorry Terry, I wrote that without seeing your post. You've said it well, though.

I do expect the mapping situation to be resolved in time and it'll be good to already have the listings in place for when that day comes.

dave

This feature would be pretty easy to create - I can make the basic entry form in a couple hours and you all could begin populating it. If we knew all the fields we wanted, I can get started.

dave

The first question I have is - just how detailed do we want this? Do we want/need categories, à la the Watchdog?

Then there's the matter of hours/months of operation, etc. I won't have much time today to work on this, but I trust some folks have some good ideas they can throw out here for you to consider ;o)

I'd rather avoid categories if possible; I just don't see a big need for them but that might be short-sighted on my part, I don't know. Hours/Months of operation could be in the comments area.

dave

Here are some suggestions, FWIW:

o The obvious (name, address phone number, etc.)
o Web site, email addresses
o Year round, seasonal
o Catalogue available?
o Specialty nursery?
o Selection (good, limited, etc.)
o Knowledgeable staff?

--Ginny

I LOVE this idea!!

I don't think we need all the same categories as the GWD, but I can see where someone might be looking for "the best place to buy [palms, cactus, hostas, roses, etc.]" in a given area.

I think we could probably use most of the specific plant categories from the GWD (list below), and make it clear to users they should be judicious in their use of the specialty categories - maybe allow no more than 1 (or 2) categories can be checked - if a nursery "specializes" in more than that, they're a general nursery.

This is still a pretty long (and intensive) list. I'm all for paring it down, but not for rollling things into more general categories (I deliberately removed "annuals", "perennials" and "ornamental trees/shrubs" since those categories are the mainstays of a general nursery or garden center.)

Plants: African Violets and Gesneriads
Plants: Alpine/Rock Garden
Plants: Bamboo
Plants: Begonias
Plants: Bog, Pond & Wetlands
Plants: Bonsai
Plants: Brugmansias and Daturas
Plants: Cacti and Succulents
Plants: Carnivorous
Plants: Chrysanthemums and Asters
Plants: Clematis
Plants: Coleus
Plants: Dahlias
Plants: Daylilies
Plants: Drought-tolerant
Plants: Epiphyllums
Plants: Evergreens
Plants: Ferns
Plants: Flowering Vines and Groundcovers
Plants: Fruit and Berries
Plants: Fruit-bearing Vines
Plants: Fuchsias
Plants: Geraniums and Pelargoniums
Plants: Hardy Fruit Trees
Plants: Herbs
Plants: Hibiscus
Plants: Hostas
Plants: Houseplants
Plants: Hoyas
Plants: Hydrangeas
Plants: Iris (Historical & Species)
Plants: Iris (Modern)
Plants: Japanese Maples
Plants: Lawn Grass Plugs & Sod
Plants: Lilacs
Plants: Lilies
Plants: Nut Trees
Plants: Orchids
Plants: Ornamental Grasses
Plants: Palms and Cycads
Plants: Peonies
Plants: Plumeria cuttings
Plants: Rhododendrons and Azaleas
Plants: Roses (Antiques & Species)
Plants: Roses (Miniatures)
Plants: Roses (Modern)
Plants: Tropical & Tender Perennials
Plants: Tropical Fruit Trees
Plants: Vegetables
Plants: Wildflowers/Natives

I love the idea and would be more than happy to help out entering info for nurseries in my area! I don't necessarily like the idea of ratings--with mail order places they either send you dead plants or nice ones, and they either are nice about replacing mistakes/dead plants or they're not, so it's easier to rate whether you had a good experience, but with local nurseries I think it could get more controversial to give them ratings. Or if you do ratings, I think something like giving a nursery a certain number of stars based on how well you like them would be better than the positive/negative/neutral that we have in GW. Personally there are a number of nurseries that I go to regularly and I would end up giving them all a positive rating (vs neutral or negative), but I definitely would give some of them 5 stars and others wouldn't get that many. As far as categories, I think they should be included but only for specialty nurseries--maybe you could first have a check box asking if it's general or specialty nursery, then if it's specialty you get an option to check which 1 or 2 things they specialize in.

Wonderful idea! I always research nurseries when I travel and visit as many different places as I can. This would be a godsend to those of us whose vehicles "brake for nurseries".

Hey - I have a car that does that too. My kids hate to drive with me. :-) A garden center listing would be a wonderful addition to DG with or without ratings. After moving to a new town last year I found it quite difficult to locate all the nurseries in my area. The yellow pages is hopeless and if a company does not have a webpage then they are hard to find on the internet. I'd be more than willing to provide information on the nurseries in my area.

I think this a marvelous idea! I'd be very happy to add information. I like the star idea rather than a rating system. I'd like room for comments for strengths/weaknesses/fatures that make that nursery stand out.


Terry- how about a listing/category for butterfly/wildlife attracting plants, pesticide free plants? We have a couple local nurseries that do stock butterfly type plants- but have insecticided them so much that nothing can live on them. When you need to go on a milkweed run, this is problematic.

Thanks,

Maggie

This message was edited Nov 24, 2006 10:10 AM

Super idea! We are taking a Maine to Fl road trip to deliver a car in about a week. We ordered Jane and Michael Stern's Road Food book for the trip. We were given an early Xmas gift of a Tom Tom from a friend to map our eating stops, so now I really need this site to map some of the great nursery sites along the way. Wishful thinking! The only additional request that I have is ,that perhaps, a possible place to list other places of interest that are located near the site such as public gardens and good local food, etc. I don't think we need a big list of categories, just perhaps a short description that could include any specialities (alpines, cactus etc) or note worthy exceptions (no nursery stock etc). I am looking forward to this additional reference service on DG. Patti

I've spent quite a bit of time preparing the backend for this system and much of the work has been finished.

Enough work, even, that we can start entering in entries! So, please go here:

http://davesgarden.com/local/

and check out the few entries that are there, and please do start adding as many entries as you wish! The interface isn't finished but the structure is there and once we get a few more entries added in I can then take the next step and clean up the pages and make it look nice and pretty. :)

dave

I just added one to see how this works and I have one question...will other users be allowed to go in and add missing info to existing entries? The reason I ask is because I have a painfully slow dialup connection, so going through Google Maps to get the latitude and longitude coordinates is not a pleasant experience. I did the coordinates for my one entry just because I wanted to see how it would work, but in the time it took to do the map coordinates with my slow connection, I could have probably entered the address, phone, and website info for 20 more nurseries. So if others can go back and add coordinates later, then I will opt for putting in more entries but leaving that info out hoping that people with fast internet connections will add it in later, but if other people can't edit my entries then I'll enter much fewer nurseries but will put the coordinates in.

Also, to add to the above question. I added a few, but left information out of one and made a mistake on the other, so need to have access to the listing. (I accidentally included the address in the city line of one entry, and forgot to choose from the drop down in another)

I also gave this a shot and found that the three that I entered had no Google satellite maps or easy way to plot them L/L. There is also now a duplicate for the nursery commonly known as Annie's Annuals (although I believe it is Annie's Annuals & Perennials as of a couple of years ago). Is there a way to edit our entries or easily add/subract/correct info?

Yes to all questions. :)

First, if you leave the L/L off, that's okay. I'm planning to make it so that others can set the L/L if they are blank.

Deleting duplicates and editing of entries is on the TODO.

dave

On the entry for Annie's, Hap has the correct name and I don't, although I included the lat/long on it so we could either paste the lat/long from my entry into Hap's, or else fix the name on mine. Either way we don't need two entries for it!

This message was edited Nov 27, 2006 1:27 PM

ecrane3: I copied and pasted per your suggestion and deleted the duplicate. Thanks!

dave

Ummm, errr....okay well I need some editing tools. I left off the lat/long on several and botched a ZIP code on another. sigh......

Will there be a rating system added ?(please) or a comment area (perhaps limit the length of the comments to avoid novellas)
I love the netflix star rating system. It's fast and easy. no need to leave the page your on to leave a rating. just a thought.

this is a very helpful system, no doubt. In fact just before leaving for Monterey, I posted in the California forum for nursery suggestions, this page would have been very helpful.

One other feature might be to add weather the nursery is wholesale or retail only. some that were suggested to me were wholesale only. Perhaps a toggle to notate if they are or not.

Wow...moving fast! I also think this would be a great idea. In the past I have used similar sites to track down brewpups.

When this was first mentioned I immediately though how great it would be to have this over on Dave's site My first though was that it would be integrated into GardenWatchdog. Why would it NOT be integrated into GardenWatchdog? Yea, maybe GardenWatchdogis more mail-order centric but it sure seems like there would be a lot of overlap. I bet that a large percentage of "The Watchdog 30" companies also sell direct. Why should info on Bluestone Perennials be duplicated between the two systems? It sure seems useful to hear comments from other gardeners that have shopped at the local nurseries. This seems like an opportunity to expand GardenWatchdog to be an even more useful tool!

- Brent

Ok, this is great!!! But first things first - I have to thank Brent (Brent_In_NoVA above) with this suggestion :) I had posted the resource (11/21/06) in several forums, one of them Mid Atlantic Gardening, and Brent actually suggested that this would be a wonderful addition to DG and because I wholeheartedly agreed, I then took the next step and proposed this be implemented - it would be a tremendous resource for all of us!

So now we have it and for some reason the link won't take me anywhere - I keep getting this message???

I'm getting the same message. Maybe dave is in there doing something?