The creation of the software took hours of research as well as technical programming. It is my hope here that this article will give you some insight into the creation of a truly fascinating software program that every gardener should have on their computer.

The three main people behind this program are Sandra Norell, the designer; Susan Fraser, a librarian at the New York Botanical Garden; and David Lee, the technical developer. Sheri Ann Richerson, garden writer, interviewed them recently by phone and email.

How did the idea for the software come about?

Sandra: My husband Will wanted to grow some native grasses from seed and couldn't find anything locally, so he tried sending for several garden catalogs. But, after waiting for them to arrive, it turned out they didn't carry what he wanted. I thought, wouldn't it be great if he could find out more about the catalogs first, so he wouldn't waste time requesting catalogs he couldn't use and could just focus on the ones he really wanted? And what if he could actually compare catalogs?

Then I began to wonder if other folks ever had the same need. I like to gather data and present it to people in a useful way, and I thought this might be a good way to use my software skills.

The next thing I knew, I was developing the software. Actually, my first version was terrible, so David writes it now.

What would a nursery need to do to be listed?

Sandra: Well, what the nursery doesn't need to do is pay a fee. We never charge the nursery to be listed. Our directory is an unbiased reference work, and contains no advertising.

We do ask the nursery to fill out a survey. This is their opportunity to tell gardeners about the nursery, describe the catalog, their ordering and shipping policies, their specialties, and so on. We're especially proud that we allow each nursery to add a little message - just whatever they want to say to gardeners.

We have two versions of the survey - a short one that the nursery can fill out in a matter of minutes, and a very comprehensive one. Susan did the indexes for both. These are available on our web site or by regular mail upon request. Naturally we like as much information as possible, because we want gardeners to be able to make an informed choice.

So far we've focused on retail and wholesale mail-order nurseries in the U.S. Also, we list other garden-related companies that offer tools, gifts, statuary, structures, clothing, or anything else for gardeners. In future editions, we want to list more nurseries and garden-related companies, even if they don't sell by mail-order. And we plan to make a concerted effort to list Canadian nurseries, especially if they ship to the U.S.

Which was created first - the index or the software?

Sandra: That's kind of like the chicken-and-egg question. Let's just say it was "iterative". It took a lot of going back-and-forth between Susan (the indexer) and David (the programmer) before we got it right. And this was almost all by email, because we all live in different parts of the country.

But it was worth it. We felt we owed it to the nurseries to have a balanced index that represented the various plant groups.

What is the importance of the index in relationship to the software?

Sandra: Well, the index is really the heart of the software. Let's say that you want to find nurseries that carry heirloom tomatoes that grow in your region. That's a complex search that would require a lot of looking, if you had to do it manually by looking through books or articles, or even on the Web. But, with a well-indexed database, you can have that list of nurseries in a moment.

And I know, when I try to compare items in a reference book, I end up using my fingers as bookmarks and have little pieces of paper sticking out all over, and I'm scratching my head trying to remember what the little rain drop icon stands for. But our index lets you pull up a list of all the nurseries you want at once, so you can compare them. And, you don't need to remember what the icons mean, because the results will be the full text.

Susan, tell me a bit about your background in general, as a librarian. Have you specifically created indexes before?

Susan: I have an MLS from Columbia University and I am a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists. I've worked here at the New York Botanical Garden for almost 18 years.

I've never specifically created an index like the one that was put together for the Garden Catalog PROFILES, but librarians are always creating indexes, filing systems, databases, etc as a way of organizing library collections, like clippings files and photographs, and for keeping statistics.

What made you choose to be a librarian at a horticultural garden, and how did that work experience as a librarian help to influence the index?

Sandra: Susan fields questions all day, so she has a sense of what kinds of plants, tools, garden structures and art, etc. people were interested in.

Susan: Luck made me a librarian at a horticultural garden. My undergraduate degree is in art history but I love library work and research. At the NYBG I'm the Garden's Archivist, responsible for the historic records (of important botanists and horticulturists), architectural plans (of greenhouses, conservatories, and garden designs), historic photographs, etc.

I also supervise the Reference and Plant Information offices and handle my share of reference inquiries, so I'm familiar with the plant questions people are asking as well as some of the trends. When I was compiling the index I knew there was an interest in drought tolerant plants and certainly in native plants ...so we needed to include plants native to all areas of the country. And there is an overwhelming interest in "clean air plants" for the indoor gardener, especially in New York.

Did the fact that you are a gardener help influence any part of the work?

Susan: The fact that I am a gardener did influence some part of the work, because I have had my frustrations trying to grow plants that were not suitable in the soil or the environment so I wanted it to be clear that you have to chose your plants carefully and just because they are on the list doesn't mean they can be grown in any climate. Of course most gardeners know that but it was what made it difficult to keep the short list short and the long list from becoming unmanageable.

Please tell us about your personal garden ...

Susan: My garden is lovely. I have a lot of lilies - Asiatic, daylilies - and yucca, which make for a beautiful summer garden. But, the staples are the woody plants: the rhododendrons, azaleas, and the conifers.

Many programs today offer an automatic mail program to request additional information. Was there a specific reason this was not included in the program?

David: There was no specific reason to not include an automatic mail program. As feedback comes in, if it becomes a priority to add to Garden Catalog PROFILES, then we will.

What are some of the technical considerations that went into the creation of the search engine?

David: Garden Catalog PROFILES is a tool that is supposed to aid people interested in plants in getting together with people who can supply them with plants. This means that the more ways a person can search our database, the better luck they will have in finding a nursery that can fill their needs.

The most important to us was searching for a specific type of plant that a person is looking for. More than that, we wanted to allow a person to search for a variety of plants at the same time. This would allow them to hopefully find nurseries that could fill all of their planting needs. If the person gets too many listings to easily look through, we have geographical searches that can be added on top of the specialties to narrow the findings.

What are some of the technical considerations that went into the creation of the database of specialties?

David: The large and open-ended scope of the data was the real consideration when designing the database of specialties. We wanted to allow the nurseries to feel free to include everything that they felt they specialized in.

This meant that we couldn't just set a specialty list of 100 or 200 or even 300 specialties that the nursery owners could choose from. We had to allow them to write in any specialties into the survey, along with checking specialties that were standard enough for us to list in our survey.

This made for a database that was very large and variable. It also meant we had to deal with differing spellings, pluralizations and scientific and common names. But it also meant that the specialties were determined by people actually working in the nursery industry with no outside bias. In the end we wound up getting submissions that took our specialty list to well over 1,000 specialties.

When it came to the survey, what was the most difficult part of putting it together? What was the most challenging part?

Sandra: My guess is that Susan found it harder to do the short survey, because she had to make the short survey representative - but how do you fairly represent all categories of plants on a short list!

Susan: Either that, or having to work by email! Sandy was right! Limiting the number of plants listed and still make the index a useful tool for both the serious and amateur gardeners was probably the biggest challenge. It is easy to find many of the common plants found in gardens...those are often available at the supermarket, but choosing uncommon plants that can often only be found at specialty nurseries...that was tough...because I think we wanted to make the index useful for a national audience and we had to consider that not all plants available on the market will be successfully grown in any garden. The USDA growing zones had to be taken into account.

Will there be an automatic "update" site on the internet for program owners to use?

Sandra: Actually, we're working on that now. Both new and existing customers will be able to get the latest version of our software by downloading it from our site.

We're working hard to make the download easy and fast - not like the downloads in the early days of the internet that took forever and required an engineering degree to understand.

Finally, how much time and effort will this program save the home gardener?

Sandra: I think it will save gardeners a lot of time and effort. My guess is that most gardeners don't really get a chance to select which catalogs they want. Some catalogs are advertised, without much factual description, or a catalog arrives in the mail because you're on a list somewhere. But if you want something in particular, or if you want to compare a number of catalogs, that can take a lot of hunting - and who has time for that?

By Sheri Ann Richerson
Copyright (C) 2003 by Norell Software, Inc.
Article brought to you by Norell Software, Inc.

Feel free to use this article, in whole or in part. There is no fee, but we ask that you credit the author Sheri Ann Richerson and copyright holder Norell Software Inc., publisher of Garden Catalog PROFILES.