Can Ipomoea be added to the Plantsdata base favorites?

Is there a way to add Ipomoea to the list that appears on the plants data base queries? It lists several types of plants Iris, Dayliliies etc.. but no morning glories. I know I could use it and it would save me alot of time since I'm a little slow in learning..lol.

That list is the most popular plant searches. You can easily bring up the Morning Glory list by clicking on the green bar 'Click Here To Search For Plants' and then type 'morning glory' in the Common name field for the entire listing (or 'Ipomoea' in the Genus field) You can also add a cultivar name for an individual plant search.

Well, I think that the Ipomoea is quite popular too, that is why I am asking. Would it be that difficult to inlcude? Or are you saying that you don't think it is popular Enough?

Edited to add: What is popular to you, may or may not be to me, so it is a case of "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder"

This message was edited Jan 13, 2008 10:25 AM

Oh, I just noticed that Ipomoea Moonflower is the #1 in the plant search.

Just add the darn thing.

I don't think it's listed in regards as to what was just chosen at random or by Dave as far as what he thought should be listed there but it's reflected by the database itself. If you scroll down, there are several lists that are generated by the database, Top Ten Plants (by the way, Ipomoea alba is #1) Top Ten Thugs, Ten Most Frequently-Grown Plants, etc. So these lists are generated by the amount of member entries and not by personal favorites.

Well, I really would love to see that in there, we use it all the time and I cannot believe it would urk anyone if it was there. Geez, Moonflower has been there on top for years. It would just be nice to have that feature.. I guess it is up to Dave now.

By the way, I look up roses and daylilies all the time, as you can see by my photo and plant entires. I have never used that list. I always use the green search button so I guess it's just what you get used to.

You are right, I dont' know how to use it, that is why I'm asking. my photos are in several of the MG plantsdata base also, but Ron has been putting them in there for me. You are welcome to see hundreds of my photos in the rarer species.

If I understand where you're wanting this added, I think plants are chosen for that based on how many different varieties there are in the database, not how often people are searching for them or how popular they are. I think the thought behind it is that if you have a million different cultivars of something, it would be nice in the advanced search if you could just search that plant group, and narrow down the search results based on flower color, hardiness, all the other categories in the advanced search. Otherwise you'd spend all day digging through results that came up in the normal search. I don't know what the magic number of entries is to be considered for this (it must be quite a lot though since there aren't that many plant groups that have their own listing.)

There is a thread on this forum requesting this feature sometime last year, at that time, it was requested by each plant and by persons interested in those plants, there was no requirement on the number of views.. I'll look for the post after I get back from town.

A.

I don't think there's any need to find the other thread. This is just like anything else here--people request things, then Dave and the other admins go through whatever process they need to figure out whether it's worth doing. Sometimes that means watching a thread to judge interest, but in this case I imagine a big piece of it will be looking at Plant Files and seeing if there are enough MG's in there to justify giving them their own listing. If there are enough of them and people are searching for them frequently, then I imagine they'd get added.

Well, I'll be really sad if they don't. I may just quit taking photos. What I do is click on moonflower, then go to either nils or purps, or others species I'm looking for. It sure would make it alot simpler for everyone that is uploading the MG photos. Here's to hoping...l

A.


edited to add: That is probably WHY I. moonflower is the most lookup up..cuz I click on that everytime I want to get to the mgs..lol.. everyone else may be doing the same thing.

This message was edited Jan 13, 2008 11:41 AM

Yeah, I understand but like I said, I have almost 3000 images submitted and have yet to use that list.

Are you 2, talking about the first page of PlantFiles? The
"Browse the most popular cultivars in PlantFiles"
Where they are listed alphabetically?

I use that all the time, Sue. Especially for roses. I can find them so fast. Regular search just does not work for me. I use it and the plant does not come up then I go make an entry and then it tells me it is already in the data bank. Wasted time. I spend so much of my life already adding to PlantFiles, I do not want to waste any. Geesh, I need some time for cleaning house, LOL!

When I am entering new plants or even going to add a picture and need to find if a plant is already in there, I love that alphabetical listing. I wish we had it for all the groups of plants. I also use Google. Practically always if PF has the plant I am looking for it is on the top of the google list.

Gourd, I am sorry you are so frustrated. Do not give up. We love your pictures!!

So Sue, I am off to find this green button you use. For the life of me I can't remember ever seeing a green button. LOL If it is so easy to use after all this time of struggling, I am going to bop myself in the head. Twice. LOL

Sue is this the page you use and is the green button "SEARCH PLANTS?"
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?Search=Search+plants

Well, I suck at that page. It hates me. LOL You must have the touch!! I wonder if some how AOL screws it up, AOL screws everything up it seems at times. LOL

Nope, I click the Guides tab, the Plantfiles and this page comes up:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/
Then in the Common name I type Rose and the cultivar name. The alphabetical listing takes to long to narrow it down to the right page.
Sometimes though the rose doesn't show up if it was entered wrong, like instead of having the Rose as a common name, it will have something like Hybrid Tea. In those cases, I have admin add the Rose so it now becomes, Rose, Hybrid Tea.

From now on I am going to make you look up all my plants for me. LOL

Sue, can you look up all of mine too?

Kell and Sue, I'm California Dreamin right now!!! All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray......

you guys sure do a great job of inputting all those photos too.

I can add it to the "browse" area, but here's a question for gourd and all the MG folks before I do.

You mentioned you want a list of all Ipomoea - are you sure? That includes sweet potatoes, ornamental sweet potatoes, moonflowers, etc.): http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=ipomoea&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

Or are you thinking we should include only the plants that are connected by the common name "morning glory"? (Convolvulus spp., Calystegia, Ipomoea nil, I. tricolor, I. purpurea, and several other species fall under this heading, along with their assorted cultivars and varieties): http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=morning+glory&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=convolvulaceae&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=genus&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

Doing all the Ipomoea genus is easy. Creating a browse-by list of the "morning glories" is a little more work, but I'm happy to do it once I know what should be included and what should be excluded.

oooh, Terry, I think all the Ipomoea genus would be the way to go, because most of the MG people grow several species to inlcude the ones you've mentioned. But maybe we should ask others too.

Happy Day here..

TKS.
A.

I think we should definitely get a handcount on that before we go any further, since Ipomoea is going to include a lot of non-ornamental plants, and "morning glory" is much broader than Ipomoea ;o)

You're welcome to post a question in the MG forum and we'll see where the discussion leads.

As a vegetable grower, I would prefer that sweet potatoes( Ipomoea batatas) not be included in this category. I have no problems with the other suggestions.

Well, I grow several batatas also and I'm not considered a veggie grower, but Ipomoea is Ipomoea.. here is my batatas this year. I don't think anyone would be bothered if a veggie grower also grew it for other reasons than ornamental.

by at least being in this category, we could find them alot faster, that is about all it means.

i think all should be added. Ipomoea batatas is still part of the catagory even if it is a veggie. though many people grow it just for flowers.

its part of the morning glory faimily as is calaystia and convolusus pardon spelling. all should be added.

Geez - I HATE sweet pottoes, but I may have to grow them for the flower! That's totally hot!

I would love to see that feature!! I also think all ipomoea should be included.

Edited to say that my skills in using PlantFiles were not the best either. Ron solved my problem in getting non-alphabetized results when searching for something like Ipomoea here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?Search=Click+here+to+search+for+plants . After keying in Ipomoea next to where it says Genus, he advised me to scroll down to "Sort by" and click on "Popularity" and choose "Latin name".

As far as I can tell, this feature in PlantFiles gives us a full, all-inclusive search for any Family like Convolvulaceae, or any Genus like Ipomoea, or any Species like Ipomoea nil.

With regard to Gourd's request for an Ipomoea category parallel to roses, etc., I think that's a great idea as long as it is inclusive of all Ipomoea species and cultivars. But the phrase "Morning Glories" seems to be more on a par with "Roses" or "Daylilies" etc, and I wonder how misleading that might be to someone new who is not aware that there is so much more to morning glories beyond the Ipomoea species.

Edited a few times to hopefully make more sense


This message was edited Jan 14, 2008 4:56 AM

If we limit this to Ipomoea, it will exclude the other related genera (Convolvulus, Calystegia, etc.).

With the browse-by-cultivar feature, we have the ability to include an entire family, an entire genus, or pick out just certain species within that genus. We can also add other species (in other genera) to the same "group" for browsing purposes.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to sort alphabetically also? Would make finding a specific plant within a genus so much faster.

Hi again Gourd. Thank you. No brown here, all is so green from our rainy season. Sue and I both seem to have the photo bug. LOL! We so are spoiled living here for sure. Today was a glorious day (i.e. NO RAIN! NO STORMS!!) so I went to San Francisco to the Conservatory and to the Arboretum to celebrate. SPRING is in the air!!

It was glorious today Kell!
And if you do the drop down menu in Sort By and select cultivar, it brings the search up alphabetically.

Terry, I was just scrolling around a couple of pages of Ipomoea alphabetized by latin name, and I noticed a couple of cultivars belonging to Ipomoea nil out of order because they had no epithet for species. Here's the sample webpage I'm talking about - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=Ipomoea&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=genus&images_prefs=both&Search=Search&offset=100 . The cultivars in question are Chidorii and Chocolate Silk. I think there are others.

If I get a list to you of cultivars that should be within Ipomoea nil to you, could administration put the species epithet in their respective PlantFiles pages so that they would be included in a search for cultivars of Ipomoea nil?

You can also sort your PlantFiles search results by cultivar. (It's in the same list as Latin name.) And a browse-by-cultivar-name for these plants will also overcome this concern.

Generally speaking, you can use the red "report an error" button on any entry to let a PlantFiles editor know when you spot an error.

However, I think there's been some discussion about those cultivars in the past, and their parentage is not clear-cut. You'll notice that the cultivars of most ornamental plants (roses, daylilies, hostas, iris, to name a few) rarely have a species because they are hybrids, often crossing two or more species. We'll happily take another look if/when you submit an error report, but I just wanted to prepare you there may be a reason why those don't have a species listed ;o)

So, what are we going to do? Can we list Ipomoea and have all the species come up too? My main objective was to have a button to click on and have it take us to the Ipomoea, then from there we can look up the rest. I may be confused, as usual.

Morning Glories may be the way to go if we want them all to come up and anything related. Also, I don't know what types of problems would be caused with the Batatas, if any, maybe I just don't understand.

Terry, I really appreciate your help here.

I was holding off on taking any actions until more of MG forum participants weigh in, since this is easier to do right the first time, rather than jumping the gun and having to re-do it later ;o)

Here's a quick glimpse at the species under consideration - for starters, here's the list of genera within the family Convolvulaceae: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/tools/names.php?family=Convolvulaceae&z=genus

1) I would suggest we consider these species for inclusion:

1) Calystegia (all species): http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/tools/names.php?family=Convolvulaceae&genus=Calystegia&z=species
2) Convolvulus (all species): http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/tools/names.php?family=Convolvulaceae&genus=Convolvulus&z=species
3) Ipomoea: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/tools/names.php?s=c&z=species&family=Convolvulaceae&genus=Ipomoea

Ipomoea currently has 181 species entered in PlantFiles; I recommend we do one of the following:

a) Include the entire genus (all 181 species); or

b) Limit it to the following four species that have multiple cultivars associated:
I. nil, I. purpurea, I. tricolor and I. x imperialis

While I don't think "sweet potatoes" necessarily belong in this browse-by-list, excluding just I. batatas would entail manually creating a list of the other 180 species, and updating it anytime another Ipomoea species is added to PlantFiles. In good conscience I can't recommend that course of action - it's not feasible to accurately set it up and successfully maintain it going forward.

a. just about covers everything that I use, hopefully others will weigh in here..

Terry, that sounds good to me..

A.

oh, I just got an awful thought... maybe I'm the only one that doesn't know how to use the plantsdatabase..

chuckle...I doubt that's the case ;o)

At any rate, all of us can always stand to improve in how we navigate around in PlantFiles. As an editor, I want to make it as easy-to-use as possible, so suggestions for improvements are always welcome!