Surely Danielle and I are the only gardeners who think that creating a spreadsheet to keep track of our plants is fun. We're definitely both collectors and organizers, and that seems to be how we garden too.
I fear I may have started it. When Danielle was coming to visit in July, she sent me a list of all the dahlia tubers she was bringing to me along with the link to Sids Dahlia (sidsdahlias.com). Now Sid has a great listing on his website and I copied and pasted it into a spreadsheet - complete with tiny thumbnails. It seemed the easiest way to figure out where I was going to plant my new 27 tubers.
While Danielle was here visiting, we started a list of all the plant divisions she was going to take back home with her. Since she also needed a lot of info so that she could plan her planting, a spreadsheet seemed in order. We meticulously updated it every evening with details about zone and size and sun requirements. It was a bonus for me because, with over a hundred perennials listed, it's a good start on my complete list - a winter project.
Since returning home, Danielle has been updating her spreadsheet with all her plants and also cataloguing her plants by picture files on Flickr. Sounds like a great idea and I've been waiting for her to get hers done and work out the kinks before I start mine. It'll be fun to bring my garden alive in the winter while sorting through all the pictures - but maybe it won't wait till winter.
I really like the flickr catalogues we are doing. It is a super handy reference. Judy was here today and I was able to go to your catalogue and show her the Iris you guys sent for her. If you have a picture of Carrie's Yellow, please put it up for her.
ReplyDeleteI like it too but it's tedious work. (Carrie's yellow iris is the same as Alison's yellow... at least as far as I can tell.)
ReplyDeleteOh ! That's good to know. I can show her that. You are right about tedious work, especially when you find out that you don't have photos you like of every plant. I see from your post that we both had that problem. Some things I won't get blooming now until next year. Should have started sooner I guess... story of my gardening life this year. Late, late, late.
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