Gardening on the Web
by Rebecca Brumley -- Library Journal, 05/01/2000
Beginner and veteran gardeners alike will find abundant information on the Internet. General garden guides and online magazines give plant-specific information in the form of dictionaries, glossaries, disease and pest identifiers, plant name finders, soil requirements, and planting guides. Other sites aim at particular regional needs.
Gardeners will find online gardening courses, projects for kids, plant societies and associations, and what insecticides and herbicides to use. Several sites reviewed allow gardeners to e-mail their questions. More technical and academic help is available from university horticulture sites. For those with an incurable brown thumb, virtual tours are available at botanic gardens.
The Garden Helper
http://thegardenhelper.com
Date Visited: 4/3/00
Developer/Provider: Bill Beaurain, landscaper and former nursery owner
Aimed at the "less experienced gardener," this encyclopedia contains clearly written, highly accessible articles, long enough to be substantial but hardly intimidating. Find 400-plus Garden Guides, in 13 sections, by clicking Gardening Guides or the Index on the top half of the homepage. Keep in mind that the Garden Guides page, not the homepage, connects to most information.
The Basic Gardening subheading concerns creating and caring for all types of plants. The Annual and Perennial Guide links to site preparation, planting holes, and more. Gardening Terms gives a brief but solid definition of common terms. These guides provide generic information, while university and regional sites (below) offer more specific advice.
Gardeners may also search under the How-to Gardening Guides link at the bottom of each page. These guides offer smaller sets of information, with detailed, step-by-step assistance. Helpful articles include starting plants from seed and cuttings and creating and maintaining flowerbeds with annuals, perennials, and bulbs. General instructions are provided for vegetable gardens and theme gardens. Some Troubleshooting articles, under Plant Pests and Problems, include more natural means of prevention and treatment for common garden pests and diseases, in contrast to the Ortho site (below), which only offers chemical treatments.
This site, as well as the Michigan State University and Texas A&M sites (below), helps visitors with all aspects of proper growing conditions, plant selection, and diagnosing pest and disease problems; use the excellent search engine located at the bottom of the homepage. A biweekly newsletter keeps visitors up-to-date. Gardeners may submit questions, but timely answers are not guaranteed.
The Bottom Line: This well-designed layperson's guide provides a wide range of basic gardening advice. For more specialized information, go to the university sites.
National Gardening Association Online Magazine
http://www.garden.org
Date Visited: 4/2/00
Developer/Provider: National Gardening Association
National Gardening Association (NGA) was founded in 1972 to spearhead the community garden movement. Its site provides selected articles from its magazine, plus a good range of other background materials aimed at both the novice and seasoned gardener -- though searching isn't always simple. Current FAQ and Tips of the Week, located in a box in the middle of the page, answer seasonal questions.
The Q&A Library, in the link list at left, contains more than 35,000 items, related to all aspects of gardening. However, the Q&A search works better on general rather than specific questions. The 15,000-entry dictionary also links to a common and scientific name finder. Regional information, in the form of weekly tips and biweekly reports, is located in a box near the bottom of the homepage.
The general search function, found at the bottom of each page under Search NGA Library, works best for general plant types (tomato) but not particular varieties. On the Q&A page, gardeners may submit e-mail questions to NGA horticulturists, with a 48-hour turnaround. A drop-down menu can be found underneath the NGA banner in the middle of the homepage, but it's confusing, as the descriptions differ from those of the major subheadings.
The Bottom Line: NGA offers in-depth material for all levels of gardeners. While more sophisticated than The Garden Helper, the latter's topical format may be easier to use.
Ohio State University WebGarden
http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/webgarden.html
Date Visited: 4/2/00
Developer/Producer: Ohio State University Department of Horticulture and Crop Science
Home gardeners, master gardeners, and professional growers will find Ohio State University's WebGarden an excellent reference tool. More educational than most rival sites, its searchable database contains over 4000 fact sheets and 20,000 pages of garden and horticulture information.
The Plant Dictionary and Factsheet Database (known as PlantFacts) are the heart of the site. To link to them, use the icon or text heading in the middle of the page. The latter, searchable by region, compiles information from 46 universities and government agencies in the United States and Canada and returns lists of relevant articles. The Plant Dictionary information sheets include detailed descriptions as well as images. Users may search by name, scientific name, category (annuals), or even feature (trunk, flowers, etc.). For information on Pests and Disease, click on the ribbon-like icon from the Plant Dictionary page.
Under Plant Dictionary, the ribbon-like icon Plants leads to the OSU Interactive Plant List, which provides more general information suited for the home gardener. Under each of nine categories, a list of plants is displayed with inward links to Plant Finder and Plant Dictionary.
The Bottom Line: Serious gardeners should find this site's Plant Dictionary and Plant Facts quite useful, while the Interactive Plant List should help a more general audience.
Ortho Home
http://www.ortho.com
Date Visited: 4/2/00
Developer/Provider: Ortho, Inc.
The book Ortho Problem Solver, from this major chemical producer, is a must-have in libraries, but Ortho Home, the online version, offers only a limited approximation of the book. The heart of the site is the FAQ section, under Our Products, where problems are categorized (Outdoor Bug Control, Rose Care, etc.) and questions answered regarding the relevant Ortho insecticides and herbicides. The site assumes a fairly sophisticated knowledge of insects and diseases, as the gardener would have to know the problem before searching for the proper chemical, and it lacks relevant graphics.
A Monthly Tips section, at left on the homepage, and the Vegetable Garden link from the homepage both offer general information, less useful than at sites like The Garden Helper. The Ortho Books link offers an extensive selection of the company's books on home and garden projects.
Because chemicals can be dangerous, Ortho provides a way to call or e-mail questions on application and use. Garden Links, located on the Monthly Tips page, are mainly commercial web sites.
The Bottom Line: Ortho Home promotes the company's products, but the site falls short when compared to the print Ortho Problem Solver, because it lacks graphics to illustrate problems and lacks a way to diagnose problems. The Garden Helper is better at natural pest control.
Alternate Sites
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens
http://www.bbg.org
Singapore Botanic Gardens Online
http://www.oub.com.sg/tourpark.htm
University of Durham, UK http://www.dur.ac.uk/~deb0www/dubg/bghomep.htm
Virtual tours display portions of famed botanic gardens and highlight scientific, educational, and conservation research. Brooklyn Botanic Gardens in New York City emphasizes vanishing plants, local flora, and seasonal blooming plants. Click under Visiting to take the virtual tour. Click on the map of the Singapore Botanic Gardens Online to see plants from this equatorial region. The Plant and Animal Archive provide more in-depth regional information. The Botanic Gardens of the University of Durham in the UK offers virtual tours of several segments, including the Tropical House, Woodland Garden, and the Butterfly Conservatory. Also check the extensive Virtual Plant Index.
Garden Gate
http://garden-gate.prairienet.org
WWW Virtual Gardening Links
http://www.gardenweb.com/vl
While both these gateways list many of the same associations, societies, and gardening sites, Garden Gate has annotations. That site's Teaching Garden includes a very helpful guide to finding gardening answers on the Internet, plus links to numerous databases, encyclopedias, state cooperative extension agencies, and plant-specific societies and associations. Gardener's Reading Room links to magazines, books, and catalogs. Use the site index near the top of the page. WWW Virtual Library Gardening Links has a more intuitive organization, including state and regional sites, international sites, and a national calendar of events.
Garden.com
http://garden.com
This one-stop online retail shopping site offers over 20,000 gardening products (tools, supplies, furniture), plants, and seeds. For purchases, click on Shop underneath the Garden.com banner on the homepage. This slickly designed site also aims to be a gateway. Click the about Garden.com button at lower left to reach the Garden Doctor with questions, obtain free garden planning software, and read articles from the site's extensive magazine. On the lower left side of the page is a search engine for products, articles or both, as well as a plant finder and a browsing option.
Garden California
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1079
Northern Gardening
http://www.win.bright.net/~tlyockey
Southern Gardening
http://www.southerngardening.com
Regional gardening sites address relevant growing conditions and plants. Garden California provides a monthly calendar and database of plants used in California landscapes. Focusing on the Southern coastal regions from Texas to South Carolina, Southern Gardening offers weekly tips, under Your Lawn & Garden. Under Tips & Help, find a useful guide to University of Florida horticulture publications. At Northern Gardening, browse the articles link or use the search engine. A box in the middle of the page links to useful FAQs and a lively Forum. All these sites contain some outdated information.
Michigan State University Extension's Home Horticulture
http://www.msue.msu.edu/imp/mod03/master03.html
Texas A&M University's PLANTanswers
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/web.html
Like the Ohio State site (above), these university sites provide in-depth, reliable horticultural information, focused on a particular geographical region but with more of a home garden orientation. Michigan State University Extension's Home Horticulture (MSU) contains a database on hundreds of plants, pests, and diseases for colder zones. Choose a keyword search or browse alphabetically. To view an image, such as in Diseases and Insects on Roses, click on the link labeled "List files and visuals associated with this text" or click on Visual Title in a box at the bottom of the page. Texas A&M's Plantanswers consists of a database of articles and a question/answer format. From the homepage select Answers to visit the article and Q&A archives.
