This is just not going to work

I was adding some plants to the PlantFiles, and when I added it to that long bar, (google search) under generalized search, it brought up adds for musical instruments. How do we stop that from coming up? I just want to do a generalized search and then add my plant to the PlantFiles. I do not want to look at adds about musical instruments. I thought we did not have to be bothered with the adds if we did not want them and I made sure that mine were turned off. How do I stop the adds from coming up when I do my search?

When adding plants to the PlantFiles, I need for it to come up and say that the item I was looking up was or was not found, not a bunch of stuff that has the word in it. This is going to make adding plants to the PlantFiles a lot more time consuming and a lot harder. This is just not going to work for me. Is there some how that I can turn off this new google search engine and just give me results that are in the Dave's Garden PlantFiles?

Edited to add that I did a search on a plant to add it to the PlantFiles and the google search did not show it existed even though it already did exist in the PlantFiles and vice versa. One that I looked up did not exist but was already in the PlantFiles. The only way to find out for sure whether it is in the PlantFiles is to look it up under Cultivar and that takes me a lot longer. I hope that we can go back to having a generalized search without the googe search engine added to it. Maybe we could have two boxes, one without google like we already had, and one with the google search engine. It is just really hard to look things up now that I want to add to the PlantFiles.

Thanks,
Jesse

This message was edited May 6, 2007 5:32 AM

Jesse,

The Google Search adds ads and that's completely outside of my or anybody else's control. I don't get any kickback from them - it's their compensation for offering the searching service.

Any search engines we have in PlantFiles that are NOT based on Google won't have ads.

dave

If you're adding stuff to Plant Files I'm assuming you know the genus/species or genus/cultivar names, if you plug those into the specific search rather than the general one it won't use the Google search and will let you know quickly whether your plant is already in there or not. So instead of typing everything in one box now you type it separately into two, but honestly that only takes an extra 2 seconds or so. The old general search wasn't very good anyway, half the time if I would search for something that way it would tell me it wasn't there, but if I used the specific search for the same plant then it would find it so I really think you're better off using the specific search anyway.

I think a lot of folks think they have to enter EVERY field in the field-by-field search to make it work.

Not so. Enter what you know and usually "less is more" - just entering the cultivar name, or maybe genus + cultivar name is sufficient.

This ("less is more") seems to be common to a lot of search engines. I run across this often when searching genealogy databases. The trick is to learn the minimum you need to find what you want. I'm not that savvy about plant names (but I'm learning!) so I use the method Terry advises, often starting with the cultivar name if I know it.

That PlantFiles/Google search thing really has me upset - I looked up a plant (I thought in PlantFiles) and I got referred to a merchant. I got all excited, then I looked him up in the Watchdog, and he turns out to be one of those mediocre to awful companies. So it's as if DG is recommending companies it/we/you doesn't recommend! Which doesn't make sense and makes us look pretty ridiculous, to me at least! I'm sure I don't quite understand it, and I sure hope I will someday. I can put the name of a plant in Google all by myself.

xxx, Carrie

Carrie, you must have accidentally clicked on one of the "sponsored links" aka ads that Google puts there at the end of the search. All the search results that come up are from Plant Files, so if you stick to clicking on those you should be perfectly safe.

But, if there are NO results in PlantFiles... And the very idea that Dave is both sponsoring and discouraging use of these companies confuses me. I'd better check what's checked in my preferences.

xxx, Carrie

If you don't want to use the Google search (which comes with ads that cannot be turned off) you'll need to use the field-by-field search.

The old general search didn't work so personally I prefer the new one even though it comes with the ads that you can't turn off (they're really pretty easy to ignore once you know they're there!)

WAIL! Most of the time I don't know which word goes in each field. I'll figure out something.

xxx, carrie

If you want to keep using the general search, all you need to do is ignore anything that says "sponsored links", just look at the search results themselves and you'll be just fine. I can see that it would be annoying the first time you used the search when you didn't realize there were ads, but now that you know they're there I don't understand what the problem is? All the search results are clearly marked, they'll say Plant Files at the beginning of them. And if you want to use the specific search instead, you don't need to put a word in every field, as long as you know something to put in one field then you can use the search.

Carrie,

If you don't know what to put in the fields (I don't either) try this. If you're looking for a clematis, say, put clematis in the common name field. You'll get a HUGE list! Look at one of them and see what goes in the fields. Now, you know to put clematis in the "genus" field. In the "cultivar" field, put the pretty name they give to the one you're looking for - like, Niobe for a clematis. Bob's your uncle, there's your plant.

Play with the different plants you know and you'll learn what goes in the different fields. Usually, you can get away with Genus and Cultivar - but remember to try the Common Name field when you're stuck. Also, less often works better - if you just fill in Genus, you can browse the results and learn a lot about the plant group. If you fill in too much and it doesn't match something in the database, you might get a false negative. Remove one of your terms and try again.

Hope this helps.

With a little practice, it's easy!!! Here's Terry's plantfiles tutorial for anyone who hasn't seen it:

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/608659/

Thanks claypa! When will I learn to search for tutorials when I want to know the ins and outs? I keep forgetting they are there!

I usually only fill in the cultivar field if I'm searching for a particular one.

If I'm searching for a particular genus, I put that in the genus field (although without a species, sometimes the list you get is going to be very long if you don't also have the cultivar in there.)

If I'm searching for something that I'm not sure of the genus and species, and not looking for a particular cultivar, I'll put something in the common name field like Morning Glory or Sedum, and start trying to find what I'm looking for by process of elimination. That's the only way I know to find something when I really don't know what it is I'm trying to find. :)

Like Terry said, "Less is More." I try to start with just cultivar and if that list is too long, I'll put in the genus to narrow it down some more. The only time the list will be long from a cultivar search is if it could also be part of another cultivar name, like "Bob" or "Fancy" If the cultivar you are looking for is "Bob", you will also get all the Bobwhites, Bobby somethings, etc.

By starting with just the cultivar, it's also interesting to see what other plants come up that have the same name. :) I've learned a lot from just browsing through the search results.

Edited because I can't spell very good today, and I thought of something to add. :)

This message was edited May 13, 2007 11:55 AM

Yes, Joan, it is fascinating how many different plants can use the same name. Also, I like looking at the plant files record and see the synonyms for plants, and the various common names - different areas of the country often use different names. Then there are the cases where the plants have been recategorized by the powers that be - and are now in a different group altogether. Lots of stuff to keep our brain cells working!

Thanks, everyone! I thought you had to know than just one thing for the specific search. Because if you put, I dunno, "Bob" in, you'll get dayliles named after BobbyKennedy and irises named after Bob'syouruncle and bobbykennedy and impatiens named after Bob'syouruncle, bobbykennedy, bobwhites and mygalbob and who knows what else. AND, I only just learned that Iridae or iridiae or Iris-like is the genus for all those daffodils and snow drops and tulips. Except as you can tell, I don't really know what the heck I'm talking about.

xxxx, Carrie

Actually Iridaceae is the family. That's not something you need to know for most searches.

If you just put Iris in the genus field, and Bob in the cultivar field, you will only get irises with Bob in the cultivar name. If you put Narcissus in the genus field and Bob in the cultivar field, you will only get the daffodils with Bob in the cultivar name. If you put Hemerocallis in the genus field and Bob in the cultivar field, you will only get the daylilies with Bob in the cultivar name, etc.

If you are unsure of the genus, just put Iris in the common name field and look to see what the genus is on one of the entries. Or put Daffodil in the common name field and look to see what the genus is, etc.

Example: http://davesgarden.com/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=Hemerocallis&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=Bob&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

Another example using the common name field. http://davesgarden.com/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=Daylily&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=Bob&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

I can't believe there are 82 cultivars of daylilies with "Bob" in the name! Those are the same two examples (I think), but I sort of think I get it. (By George, I think she's got it!) How many cultivars with George in the name? No, no, please don't answer, that was a rhetorical question.

It was just this one time I knew the genus and species and cultivar and PF didn't have it but Not-a-Good Company did so they were the first item in the list.

Thank you, Joan, for helping shed a little light into my brain, which is totally pot-bound. I've already started forgetting things to make room for all the things I've learned here. For instance, at dinner tonight, since it's Mother's Day, we were having steak, and my daughter's shaking salt on hers, and she stops and looks at me and says "Mom, is this salt in here?" and it wasn't. It was salt mixed with lobelia seeds (unimaginably tiny)!!!! Whoops!!!! I'll have to go figure out which forum I learned that on!!! LOL!

xxx, Carrie

They aren't the same examples. In the first one I put Hemerocallis in the genus field and Bob in the cultivar field.

In the second one I put Daylily in the common name field and Bob in the cultivar field.

It appears that searching both ways brought up the same results.

Yes. I couldn't tell the difference. I guess once it's searched, nobody knows how it came up with what it did.

xx, Carrie