And I've made an intentional decision to ignore variety and subspecies. This isn't the NYBG or anything! I will leave a space for unstructured comments.

Which software?

MS Access

So I took a stab at it. I am going on the assumption that I will not need anything about genus without also including species so I have not separated them. I also went forward with the assumption that the cultural information would be equivalent for all cultivars of a species. Any exceptions can be noted on the specific table.

So I ended up with a "generic" (genus&species) table:

And a specific cultivar-location table that represents an exact plant in a particular location in the garden. That way I can easily represent the same plant in multiple locations without having to repeat information (introduces errors). The specific table draws from the generic table.

That subject may not be too interesting in this forum. Thecombination of plant-geek and software-geek may not be too common - LOL!

Anyhow, above is a small (but critical) start. Many more attributes and columns to incorporate...

More recent version than I have seen. Never figured out how to create viable relationships and related tables.

Do you mean based on taxonomy and gardening? or the software got in the way?

Indeed the taxonomy of plants and the reality of gardening don't fit so neatly into "square boxes" (tables and relationships).

fwiw, I did decide to break out "LatinName" to Genus and SpecificEpithet in two separate tables after all. At first I did it just in case, but as I got going, I saw that the CommonName column most definitely varies based on SpecificEpithet. And even though I couldn't think of any, I can see that there may be cases where culture requirements may vary across species of the same genus.

Here's a conversation I started in an Access forum on the subject:

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=187900

How to use the software. It looks like you might have started with a Plant Collection template (or whatever pre-made files are called in Access) like they had when I was dinking with it.

Some generally applicable basic categories are

Genus
Species
Author*
Synonym
CommonName
Form
Bark**
Leaves
Flowers
Fruits
Culture
Uses
Region
Note
Reference

*As soon as you have a record for a species that has been confused with another species you will need this field to specify which one you are talking about

**Trees and shrubs

How ironic that you mentioned templates. I am this very moment taking an Access online tutorial and they are showing a Home Inventory sample database from a template. It had "acquired date", "location" and a few other things that reminded me of my plant inventory. Maybe I will take their Home Inventory and adapt it to Plants! Well, maybe I should finish the tutorial first. No, there is no Plant Collection template.

Good list of items. Hadn't thought of some of them. I hope to also include:

- photos - thumbnails and a few representative larger pictures.
- date acquired, price, size, vendor,etc.
- height and width, I guess thats Form. Still deciding if I should call rosebushes shrubs. and do I separate out sub-shrubs as its own category? might get lost during searches.
- I want to work in something about bloom timing. That will be challenging. I have some excel data on that.
- Maybe some links to some articles or something...

of course, culture breaks down into many sub-components...light, moisture, nutrients

- And I would like to be able to search this database when designing gardens or looking for suggestions for plantings...based on other attributes... hummingbird attractor, deer resistant (ya,right!) There are so many databases and websites out there that do that already, I probably shouldn't reinvent the wheel here.

-a task list and due date would be great to stay focused

If you come up with any other ideas for it, keep em coming.

How ironic that you mentioned templates. I am this very moment taking an Access online tutorial and they are showing a Home Inventory sample database from a template. It had "acquired date", "location" and a few other things that reminded me of my plant inventory. Maybe I will take their Home Inventory and adapt it to Plants! Well, maybe I should finish the tutorial first. No, there is no Plant Collection template.

Good list of items. Hadn't thought of some of them. I hope to also include:

- photos - thumbnails and a few representative larger pictures.
- date acquired, price, size, vendor,etc.
- height and width, I guess thats Form. Still deciding if I should call rosebushes shrubs. and do I separate out sub-shrubs as its own category? might get lost during searches.
- I want to work in something about bloom timing. That will be challenging. I have some excel data on that.
- Maybe some links to some articles or something...

of course, culture breaks down into many sub-components...light, moisture, nutrients

- And I would like to be able to search this database when designing gardens or looking for suggestions for plantings...based on other attributes... hummingbird attractor, deer resistant (ya,right!) There are so many databases and websites out there that do that already, I probably shouldn't reinvent the wheel here.

-a task list and due date would be great to stay focused

If you come up with any other ideas for it, keep em coming.

Try to get a look at a copy of Hightshoe/Groe, North American Plantfile. College libraries near me have it.

Combination plant geek and software geek - well you have found another one! Too funny.
I have been working on exactly the same thing but I was trying use a free database software MonoBase but I am not getting very far. It has been too difficult to import my data from my Excel tables.
How did your database in Access turn out? I really want to add pictures, too.

Paula, afraid this project is still on the back burner. I've wanted to get back to it, but have not had the time. I was at the point of simplifying things by sticking to the basics and making it extensible for later add-ons.

And perhaps not the motivation either. I do like my index card file system

I use Access for my plant database and think it turned out pretty good (she said modestly, LOL!). I had to learn a lot about Access, though, to get it to do what I wanted and had to go through at 3 redesigns before I was satisfied.

Paula, just an FYI, if you try to use Access, don't count on adding photos. You can do it but the photos slow the whole system down to the point it gets unwieldy.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Stubborn Gardener

Wendy or others; I just found this thread - is anyone still watching it? I'm trying to learn LibreOffice Base and create a (veggie) garden database at the same time, but although I'm an old geezer I'm a total newbie and my head's going round in circles. Learning how LObase works is tough besides which I'm having huge problems visualising the structure & relationships I'll need to create. It's been one step forward and 3 back so far.

Any advice/help on either score would be very welcome (the simpler the better!)

Another database/flower person. Vanisle - I suggest that you start out with a simple database with a limited number of things that you want to track. If you use Access - not sure of Libre - you can always add later. Most people get discouraged by making it too complicated. I found that starting out with graph paper and old fashioned pencil or a white board is the best way. Easy to make corrections and move stuff. play with it for a while - sleep on it and then start to build the database. the big advantage to a relational database is that you can build an entry form, and then connect the fields after. My advise after designing and using Access for many years is START SIMPLE! What are you trying to accomplish with the database? Use an outline for your brainstorming. If you are really comfortable with Excel, you can start there and just import from Excel into a blank Access and you have your start.

Vanisle Are you still interested in a discussion of a database for your garden? I have some ideas if you are - but need to know that you are also.

opheonix; Don't know how to answer. I was getting fatigued trying to think about various aspects.
Thought about just using one big spreadsheet but that seems so clumsy & got shelved.
Meantime other "life" interfered in the form of garden equipment breakdowns that I still haven't
solved, so thoughts of DataBases were ignored. I was on the point of just forgetting the whole
thing anyway! If I'm ever going to learn LO Base, (remember I'm not using Excel) it looks like it
will have to be in baby steps with a simple example-subject. In theory I'm still interested so I'd
appreciate hearing your ideas and we can see where it goes, but my responses could be slow
in coming. I guess I just have too much else on my plate (like gardening!)

If the formatting of this message seems odd that's because for some reason GardenWeb is not
doing word wrap any more so I have to do a "carriage return" at line-end, to keep the message
on my screen. Are you having a similar problem? It's new to me here.

I will use Libre and set up an example of a really simple way to gather all the information that you might want without a lot of time spent entering data and learning all the necessary database stuff. I will do the first draft - then you can comment - and then will make the changes. We can share it with others - don't think that there is anything like it and to a nerd like myself - sort of fun! lol Don't worry about responding immediately. I have a large collection of plants in my garden and have been thinking about this for some time. Ordinarily I would also be in the garden but have hurt my back and so am spending lots of time sitting - with heat - at my computer. Let's start a new thread - and see if there are others interested.

I like your idea - please do start the thread.

Still having problems with GardenBase not word-wrapping properly on my monitor
Here's what it looks like when I write or read:

I have to select all and copy-paste into a text app to see the
whole message. I'm using Firefox in Linux Mint but that shouldn't be a problem:
everything worked normally till the last couple of days. Any ideas? (You said you
were Nerdy :) There also is no button for the option to submit my response.

Can't remember how I managed to submit it last time; once I recall I'll send this. - AHA! Went to your profile page and posted from there. The above was copy-pasted from the main web page, sorry for how it looks. On here, (your profile page) word-warp works properly. "Warp" was a typo but I left it in as it seemed appropriate. - Thanks Mr Freud.

I think you can email me, I'll check my settings; can I recip?

Seems like we can't email on here. Could message each other but I'm D****d if I can see how to do that.
Finding this Houzz thing v. clumsy & difficult to navigate. Don't recall "legacy" GW being so awkward - I'd have given up on it.

(Edited/added):

I'm getting VERY frustrated & angry with this website. Are you up
for seeking one that's more user friendly? Please email me. I'm edzell
and you can find me at shaw.ca.

P.S. I'm looking at helpfulgardener.com; seems pretty good.

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I'm getting VERY frustrated & angry with this website. Are you up for seeking one that's more user friendly? Please email me. I'm edzell and you can find me at shaw.ca.

I don't believe it - just came across this today and yet the messages are 10 years ago !!!

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Hi HU-789699205

Can you please start a new thread for the plant database. This is so old and has lots of stuff to get through to post a new reply. I will be happy to share my experience and thoughts with you when you post. You can send a private email using the Houzz email.

I just started to use inaturalist.com. Taking pictures of each plant with my phone and uploading to the site. After identifying each plant in the collection I would do a screen shot of the plant with the map location to the right. You can download the csv file of the collection using the export function under edit observation at the bottom of the page. I would click off most of the data that I didn't need but keeping the url address data, lat, long, id, description, observed date, etc. In excel after importing the csv file you can create a hyperlink (rt click) of the url and clicking on it will connect you to the inaturalist site. I also edit each plant and in the notes I'll indicate a garden location (front, back etc). When you import into excel you can filter on the garden location and show all your plants listed in that specific garden. Hope that helps