You need to collect accurate information about the plant species you specify in your designs. There are many sources of information about individual plant species - books, pamphlets and online resources.
We believe that the best information about plants is that which you collect yourself (and double check with at least two other sources).
There is nothing more embarrassing to a landscape designer than to specify the wrong information about a plant or incorrectly spelling the name of a species in a plan! Especially when the correction comes from the client!
This project assignment involves:
- Listing at least 20 species that grow well in your own or neighbouring gardens. Common names are ok if the botanical names are not known. We want you to note their type (Tall Tree, Medium Shrub, Ground Cover etc.), situation Full Sun, Part Shade) and purpose e. g. Wisteria - deciduous climber, growing on pergola, provides flowers, shade in summer. Use either the word processor or the spreadsheet tool in your Google Docs space to record the information. This list can become a plant list from which you work in your early designs.
- Photographing and collecting accurate information about 6 plant species and putting that in a form ready for inclusion in an online plant database.
We will start by pointing you in the direction of a course which will help you collect accurate information. Here is the link to that site: http://www.gardencad.net/plantsel. There you take the third course - on collecting accurate plant information. This course teaches you how to prepare material for later uploading into an online plant catalogue. You research details of an individual plant species, write two paragraphs about each species, take some photographs (using a digital camera), edit those photographs in an image editor (IrfanView) and submit them to us for checking. Once approved, the data will be entered into our searchable online plant catalogue - http://www.gardencad.net/plants.
For each species that you intend to load into our online database, we want you to record a set of information similar to that shown in the figure below for Acacia iteaphylla.
Here are the steps to take
Step 1: Use your Google Docs word processor to create a file containing as much information as you can about the species you are studying i. e botanical name, common name, height class, soil pH, rainfall needed to survive etc. Please make sure that you add the plant family name - in the case of Acacia iteaphylla it belongs to the family Leguminosae.
Step 2: Using the information that you have collected, write a paragraph description of the plant similar to the example below. Writing a brief such as this is not easy, it takes time to write clearly and succinctly.
Polygala myritfolia 'var grandiflora', a member of the Leguminosae is widely grown in the temperate parts of Australia. It is a small shrub, with dark green rounded leaves about 2 cm long. The flowers are produced in summer and in the grandiflora variety, are quite large (4-5 cm long), the flower colour is white at the base and prominently purple on the long pea like part of the flower. The plant grows to about 1 meter tall, tolerates acid, neutral and calcareous soils and requires about 500 mm annual rainfall to survive without supplementary watering.
Then make a second paragraph which is a list of key words descibing the plant. Separate each key word with a space
Purple white flowers leguminosae 500 mm rain acid neutral calcareous 1 meter tall summer water wise
Both these paragraphs will be used later when your data is entered into the online catalogue. When you have finished preparing the information, make sure that it is saved in your Google Docs space. Later, you will simply copy your description from the file into an online text box to upload the information for us to check. You will use the information again when uploading the image to the catalogue so make sure that you double check everything.
Step 3: Upload your description.
Step 4: Take at least two photographs of each plant that you have chosen for your digital herbarium (in a landscape setting); one a habit photograph and the other a close up of the flower.
Use an image editing program (IrfanView) to put text into the image (the Generic and species name) and also name the image file (Use SaveAs) and also make it the same as the botanical name of the species e. g. Acacia iteaphylla habit.jpg, Acacia iteaphylla closeup.jpg. Please do not make a submission until you have both these images. Photos of a species without the flower will only be accepted if the species does not flower in cultivation.
An example, close up of Kunzea baxteri - adjusted using IrfanView - text not yet applied.
An example of a 'habit' photograph, taken of a species (Ophiopogon spp - Monda Grass) being used in a landscape setting. This time text has been added, but it would have been much better to have used a white colour for the text as the dark text gets somewhat lost. Note that this type of photograph is much more difficult to obtain than the above as you need access to gardens.
Tip: As we have mentioned before, use the Open Garden scheme in your state and take your camera along on visits to collect images such as this. You will incorporate these photos into your portfolio as they are invaluable when you are discussing the style of gardens potential clients respond to.
Resources
Here is a link to a well presented bank of information about coastal gardens in Yorke peninsula, South Australia
