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Plant List
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Posted by
steve1young 7a Long Island (
My Page) on
Tue, May 22, 12 at 12:30
| I've been working on a Plant List for my gardens. It's almost complete and up-to-date. I've been including fields in the spreadsheet like Latin Name, Common Name, Flower Color, Distinguishing Characteristics, Which Garden Location, Plant Type (Perennial, Shrub, Small Tree, etc), Approx Bloom Time, etc. It's in Excel so it's easy to sort and search.
So far, I have more than 270 types of plants and nearly 500 actual plants. How is this even possible? My lot is only about 60 x 120 feet! It's so small. I can't imagine what kinds of numbers other people on here could/would come up with! Your gardens sound so much bigger.
Does anyone else create a plant list for their gardens? I find this equally exciting/frightening. :) |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Plant List
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RE: Plant List
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| I keep an Excel Spreadsheet of a Plant Inventory, much like what you describe. I love that it is sortable and searchable. I use it all the time and have been very happy not to have to keep track by hand. I list each variety, whether perennial, tree, shrub, vegetable, annual or houseplant. I had never counted them, but I just counted the 'A's' and I had 79 minus 14 that were either duplicates or plants I no longer have. I guess they add up. I have a small 1/4 acre property that is about 1/3 lawn. |
RE: Plant List
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| I keep it in my head. Paul |
RE: Plant List
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| I use a spreadsheet, too. For the bloom times, you can make a column for each month and put an X for each plant blooming that month, and/or fill the cell with the color of the flowers. Instead of a column for plant type, I use different colors for the plant names to indicate a bulb, vine, or shrub, anything not an herbaceous perennial. A column to indicate fragrance is fun, too. |
RE: Plant List
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| I started the columns for bloom time, but just haven't found the time to keep it up. |
RE: Plant List
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| Yes, I do the same thing too. (Nice to find kindred spirits here who are similarly anal! :) I save a new version of the spreadsheet for each gardening year, so as I add or remove plants in a given year I don't lose track of what the originals were. I also have a comments field where I report how the plants did that year. Although I don't fill that out for every plant because my list is nearly 500 entries long. For blooming times, I also find it hard to keep up. So I used Excel to make a blank grid with months across the bottom and blank spaces to write plant names along the side. I print this out and fill it in by hand, which makes it easier to keep up to date. I use a dashed line when the plant is blooming sporadically, a solid line for full bloom and an exclamation point for spectacular performances! It's always interesting to compare year to year. |
RE: Plant List
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| Well, I haven't done it for 2 years now, but I had a list of everything for about 10 years. Each year I put in a new column headed by the year, and would fill in the first bloom date (or that the plant was added that year, or didn't return). It was amazing how some plants always, no matter the weather, bloomed at the same time (give or take 2 days) every year. |
RE: Plant List
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| I have another Excel document that I start annually, and I label it with the year and SPRING. It should really be called Garden Journal, but for some odd reason I started it off with that title and have kept it that way. I just checked and I apparently started it in 2005. That is my most used document. I start it on the first day that I do anything for the next gardening season. For instance, if I make an order for seed in January that is when I start the garden journal for the year and end the previous year. I keep it very simple and use one column for one day and write down any information garden related. I like this format, because it keeps all my information in one place. Orders I make, items in a catalog I am thinking of buying along with photos, what is blooming, any ideas or plans I have, telephone numbers of local nurseries, where I bought mulch that year, to do lists, and on and on. I review the garden at the end of every growing season here. I always record full names, prices and where I purchased plants here first and later it gets added to the Inventory document. So I have a back up of that information. What I like about it again, is that it is searchable and there is one for every growing season. |
RE: Plant List
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I keep a master list of everything on my property.
If I am shopping for daylilies I might not want to duplicate cultivars and having a list of what I have handy is the only way I know to keep up as I am OLD and cannot remember anything any more. I also keep rough sketches (very rough) of every section of the yard with plant names written in as I easily forget which orange is which, etc. and I am a bit OCD about knowing the complete name of everything. I would love to get a spreadsheet together but for me that is one of those projects you save for when you break your leg.
aka I haven't the time! |
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