Am I the only one? Plant file rant

Let me start by saying that I know the Plant Files are a labour of love for many of the folks on Dave's Garden. The pictures and the comments are invaluable. And it's basically how I found DG - in looking for information on the web for plants, you invariably find it here.

What I have a tough time with is the search function and the way the information is set up. I often times cannot find a plant through the Plant Files - which is frustrating because I had to click through so many pages to even get to it in the first place, one of the changes I'm not happy with - only to 'google' it, and find it on DG anyway - so it's available, just not easily.

The zone thing ... I think I know how that came about, but it would be a lot more helpful to know either tenderness range or just plain 'zones 3-8'. The pre-fab answers (propagation, etc.) don't give you variations or room for peoples experiences, so you either get a pre-fab answer or skip that part and read throught the comments, hoping that someone also put their experience.

So, there are parts that are great, and parts that aren't. I'd love to see it improved, I think it's a great resource and can be better.

My .02 cents worth!

Sheryl

I have a hard time searching it oo, mostly because I never know if the name of a plant I have is the common, genus, or whatever. I always lately just google it cause that leads me to where I want to be on DG quicker.....lol

Sheryl, do you have any specific ideas of ways that we can improve PlantFiles?

Don't forget to try the generalized search

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php

I wish there were a checkbox for something in between drought tolerant and xeriscaping. And I'm not real keen to see propagating advice for some plants, like Kudzu, etc. But I love Plantfiles! It's constantly improving. Bug Files, too.

What I always wish we had was a hybrid of the searches we currently have available. I often want to perform a search something like the following hypothetical example:

"Show me all plants that flower in any shade of yellow including gold, will grow in zone 6a or below, in full sun, part shade or light shade, tolerates damp soil, blooms any time in the spring, and has 'sun' in any part of their common or latin names or synonyms."

I think the ability to select a range of/multiple values in each search parameter area in the Advanced Search (show me all with the characteristics) plus an additional partial name search is what I'm describing.

--Ginny

Have you ever seen this one?:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/advanced.php

You can do the kind of search that you described above.

I thought that too, but then I re-read her request. I think she's asking to do a combination of name and criteria search.

So for example, it would be nice to limit your search to all plants with the word "Sun" in the cultivar name AND that are [x] height, hardy to [x] zone and are shade-tolerant.

That's an interesting idea...but I have no knowledge of how difficult it would be to marry the field search to the criteria search.

Yes, you have most of it Terry - I only want the world, right :-)

I think if I had to use the functions currently available to design a new one, I would see if one of them could be slightly modified to allow it to act on the subset of data returned by the first. Example - maybe the name search could allow a "refine my search" option that would operate on the data set returned by the criteria search.

Of course the chances of being able to do something like that are usually pretty small in my personal experience. It's usually more time and cost effective to design new procedures from scratch to do precisely what you need them to do.

--Ginny

There are two other things I would love to have in the advanced search...one would be the ability to include multiple selections in each field. In other words, I'd love to be able to search for things that had red or pink flowers at the same time, instead of having to do a search for red flowers and then come back and do pink ones. I'd also love for the search not to be limited to 100 results--a lot of times I'll do a fairly broad search just looking for ideas, but a ton of the first 100 results are all in the same genus that I'm not interested in, and then I never get to see what else was there.

Oh yes, for sure - losing the 100 result limit would be wonderful.

And just in case it gets lost in the shuffle here, my first post outlined a desire for multiple selections (e.g. everything that blooms in any shade of yellow, including gold - meaning that I don't want to have to perform 3 different almost identical searches to get all the various shades I'm looking for) in just about every search category.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong, Ginny!) that Ginny is looking for something that we're seeing a lot of in catalogs, like:
http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/find/
or
http://www.mswn.com/plantis1/index.asp (which wasn't working too good before, I don't know if it is now)

Not being a programmer, it's really not easy for me to make specific suggestions about the search engine and how to improve it; I do know that I'll oftentimes have a name but not know if it's a common name, a cultivar or whatever - and I don't get an answer from Plant Files until I Google it. Here's what I can say...

I miss a tab or button to Plant files - now it takes me several pages of text that I generally ignore, because I'm looking for a plant.

I've had a tough time with generalised search as well(Clay's suggestion); assuming that it is the same search that you're given on the forums, it will search the entire site instead of limiting the search to wherever you are. It takes quite a while and gives you reams of returns, which isn't helpful. Honestly, I didn't even notice that it was on the Plant Files, but for the above stated reason....

I really like the comments section, it's really the only thing I look at after I see the pics. The other facts are a little boggling:

Zone 7b-11 gets turned into:

USDA Zone 7b: to -14.9 °C (5 °F)
USDA Zone 8a: to -12.2 °C (10 °F)
USDA Zone 8b: to -9.4 °C (15 °F)
USDA Zone 9a: to -6.6 °C (20 °F)
USDA Zone 9b: to -3.8 °C (25 °F)
USDA Zone 10a: to -1.1 °C (30 °F)
USDA Zone 10b: to 1.7 °C (35 °F)
USDA Zone 11: above 4.5 °C (40 °F)

... and unless you happen to catch a comment from one of the folks below, you'll never know the exceptions, ie - 7b, yes, but not in the south east where this plant will rot with the heavy rainfall, only in the desert west.

Height:
6-12 in. (15-30 cm)
12-18 in. (30-45 cm)
18-24 in. (45-60 cm)

This doesn't tell you that the aloe itself only gets about 8" tall, but that the blooms will reach several feet. The pre-fab answers aren't really a one-size-fits-all and kind of lose their meaningfulness with

What if instead, those making comments were given a loose guideline to follow - "If you have the following information, would you add it in your comments? Approximate height, ___coloration of leaves,____ lowest temp survives at, _____ how you have propagated it, ____etc.etc.etc. - and comments, here: ." with none of that info being required if the person doesn't have it.

Does that help at all?

The older I get, the Lazier I get and since the changes have been made, I find it easier to Google the plant name I am looking for (it always brings up the DG link to Plant Files) instead of having to go through so many steps to get there from here! :) I know, I know ... it's not that many steps, only two or three LOL .... but I admit, I am lazy and will take any shortcut available!

Well, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one!

Sheryl you've hit the nail right on the head! The mswn site has everything I'm talking about, but you're right - it's not working very well right now :-)

i use google instead of the search thing here too. I always wind up at DG, but I start with Google.

Perhaps there's a google search bar they could put in? It's really no more difficult though to just use Google.

You tab to Guides and Info to
Plant Files to
Search for plants to
common name and
comes up not there.
You google and find in on Dave's garden.
So now I google search site now instead.

Dave wrote:
"Sheryl, do you have any specific ideas of ways that we can improve PlantFiles?"

I can understand that you and other moderators haven't the time, knowledge, etc. to correct entries that are obviously wrong, to those that know, in the plantfiles. I have written before, and supplied links to back-up my assertions that a particular entry was incorrect, and was advised to contact the poster myself.

Since I have no authority myself, save what (spurious) reputation I might have on DG, I felt like I was burdened with what I would hope would be an "official" DG responsibility.

I would think that there might be a "last word" authority who could clean up all the mis-identified plants in the plantfiles, but without one, we are asked to do ir ourselves, as a community. That works up to a point.

I do not care to do that myself and I leave the Plantfiles as they are and would include a large "caveat emptor" warning as to their veracity for those who do not check things out for themselves.

It nice for those involved with DG as employees etc. to leave it up to the community to police the plantfiles ourselves, but nevertheless, many people surf in etc., and will soon see that the plantfiles aren't a good source of plant ID due to the many incorrect listings.

I love DG, but feel that DG as an entity, shirks its responsibility to its members and subscribers, by saying--in effect, that "these files are participant produced, and we don't vouch for them in the least."

I understand that you (DG admins etc.) don't have the time to do this. But who does?

My 2 cents.

R.

"What if instead, those making comments were given a loose guideline to follow - "If you have the following information, would you add it in your comments? Approximate height, ___coloration of leaves,____ lowest temp survives at, _____ how you have propagated it, ____etc.etc.etc. - and comments, here: ." with none of that info being required if the person doesn't have it."

I really like that idea. How about adding something like that to the zipcode reports? I usually don't add comments, but when I add my zip, would be willing to click a few buttons to give a clearer picture of where/how I'm growing it. You'd get much more feedback about a plant that way.

Raydio, we have a team of PlantFiles admins (volunteers) whose job is to edit PlantFiles entries. As editors, we are familiar with the general rules of nomenclature (plant names); we have access to resources to help us determine the correct name and synonyms of all the entries in PlantFiles, and we have a broad working knowledge of plants in general. We also have expertise in how the database itself works. But as editors, we are not necessarily specialists within the genus for which you are raising a specific question or asserting an alternate identity for a photo.

The reason we ask you to contact the member whose image you believe is misidentified is because you most likely have specific knowledge and reasons for believing it to be in error.

In the balance, the contributor of the image may have valid reasons for having placed the image in the entry they did.

Over the years, we've found it's more effective for the two members to communicate directly with one another, rather than us attempting to be the go-between. Once a firm identity is established, we are more than happy to help get the image and/or comment moved to the appropriate entry.

I understand.
R.

I've started to just Google first too....

Do the zip code reports refer to the plant being grown outdoors in the ground *year-round* and not to plants grown indoors and in greenhouses?

I agree with all of the above!

I'm in agreement with the Plant Files being cumbersome to use.

I would be grateful if the search tools weren't buried beneath so many layers. Also, I would do cartwheels if the Generalized Search function was moved to a very prominent location, both in PF and on my Home Page. If I use PF at all, I only use the Generalized Search function because that is the only method that consistently returns good results for me. It is frustrating to me that I have to click so many buttons just to get to that function.

Thanks for the opportunity to chime in.

What confuses me is common name. For example if I wanted to look up Henry Hudson rose, I would type in henry hudson or henry hudson rose in common name box and get basically nothing for results. When I type henry hudson under cultivar i get what i was looking for. I get family,genus, and species all mixed up as to which one is which and that is if i even know one of them. Sometimes I have a latin name to look up. It would be nice to look up a latin name unless that is under family, genus, and species.
I'm sure it is probably proper to divide the family,genus, and species, but it would just be more intuitive for me if i had as the top two choices, common name and latin name.
Maybe the cultivar button should be re-named common name? Or by the way what is common name? I'm not sure that button is really useful for example if i type in rose it takes along time and i get almost 5000 entries. I'm not sure if that is what anyone is experiencing or not. But i agree, i have found the dave's garden website on google then can't find it if i go through dave's garden.

I think all all the points above are good. I agree the general search is the pits we get reports on it daily. However I realize it is better than no general search at all. The field by field search is so much better once you get the hang of it. I know it's hard to figure out which spot to put your request in and trust me I have been there. I just keep trying in all the fields until I find what I want. Len just a tip if it's got a name then it would be a cultivar the name wouldn't be listed in the common name.

As for the photos I think Terry explained that wonderful but I will say that we will post to a photo and dmail them if you don't feel comfortable doing so. All you have to do is give us the information. As she pointed out we are not experts on plant identification and if you think a photo is wrong then you have your reasons so you are the best person to represent your point. We want to get all the people involved. I know If it was my photo I wouldn't like it moved because somebody said it was wrong without having a chance to defend my photo and I'm sure we all feel the same way.

Ya'll have some great suggestions here. I know one way to make it easier to get to PF's if you haven't already done it is to customize your home page and add PF and any other features you use allot. I had the same problem as allot of you getting where I wanted to go and that solved lots of my problems.

I wholeheartedly AGREE with the suggestion of having the generalized search option appear prominently or at least sooner! We have to click "guides" then click "Plantfiles" and then maybe "search plants" before we get to what I'm really looking for, which is not so much information about what I have, but about stuff I'm curious about. Like persimmons, for instance. PF was how I found DG, too.

xx, Carrie

mystic, I read your post several times, then I tried to do it. How do I customize my home page? It's not "preferences".

x, C

Carrielamont you do go to preferences then on the menu down the side go to Custom Menu there you can set several things that will show up on the side of your homepage. It helped me allot.

I just figured it out, mystic, but it's still not perfect. mine, I mean. :>) I have faith that I'll get it sooner or later....

x, Carrie

Mystic, to be clear, I do not think that the generalized search is the pits at all. In fact, it is the only PF search function that I will use. Period. The problem that I have with the Generalized Search is that it is buried under far too many layers to make it a pleasant and convenient function for me. I'll try dinking around with my preferences to see if that resolves the location issue. Still, it seems like a bit more work than the average DG user would like to perform, no? More importantly, perhaps, making the generalized search super easy to find for those trying out DG prior to subscribing could be financially beneficial for the company.

Deep thoughts by Wrightie....

wrightie good point so what everybody really wants is for it to be easier to find the search?

mmmmm ... sounded like others had other issues with the search fields, no?

If you use Firefox, you can always have a handy link. Go to the search page you want, whether it be the general one or advanced one, and then drag the link down into the first toolbar.

In my example, I would put my mouse on the pink flower in the url line press and hold the left mouse button and drag it down in front of the GRIN (blue box) right underneath the url line. Once I have it down there, let go of the mouse button to drop it.

As you can see I already have my PlantFiles search link housed there so it's just one click away.

JoanJ, that's a great "workaround" as we say in the testing business. I would still recommend s/w changes though -- just my opinion, so please don't be upset.

I just hate having to click on: Guides and Information, then get another screen and have to click on Plant Files, then get another screen and have to click on: click here to search for plants .... then type in either the common name or genus to find what you are looking for. As I said, I am lazy!

It sure would be nice if we could do one click, from any page on DG, and be right at the screen that says: click here to search for plants!

"It sure would be nice if we could do one click, from any page on DG, and be right at the screen that says: click here to search for plants!"

I totally agree!!

Nah, I don't get upset that easy. :) I don't understand what you mean my s/w changes though.

its more than that though...it is us amateurs not knowing the difference between a genus and a species....I tried to show Mom a pic of some stapelia seedlings I submitted...I could not for the life of me find them in the search....had to google it to get to DG.....and there were my pic's.