When I first started to grow Carnivorous Plants in the early 2000's, I did not do more then ID my plants in the pots.
As years went by a fellow CP grower made a program in the mid to late 2000's to track more information on the CPs in your collection. It was called CP-GrowList. I do not think this is anywhere to download any more.
This was neat because you were able to keep track of who you got it from, cost, activity, etc.

Some screen shots.




So back in 2017 I finally made room for some cactus and succulents. I now grow very few CP's.
Problem with the tracking program, it was only designed for CPs.

I looked around to see if there was any programs out there to keep track of this, but did not find anything. Maybe with this post someone will point me in a neat program to use... although I have close to half my collection now entered into the pages I made up...

So I made a growlist in Excel (OpenOffice to be exact) to keep track of when / how much / where I got the plant from. Made individual tabs for the different types, such as Carnivorous / Air Plants / Cactus...


I did not have a good way to keep track of activity on plants such as repotting / dividing...
So I ended up making a template that can be used for every plant in my collection and linked it to the growlist. All I need to do is click on the name in the growlist and it opens the page for that individual plant and I can input all the information I want / need to.

Able to get rid of cost / purchase / etc on the growlist and just have the plant names there.


When I click on a plant name, it opens the info screen for that plant.




With a large collection of plants it takes some time to enter in all the info. I guess any program this would happen.

If anyone uses Open Office and interested in the template I can figure out a way to make it available.

I have a google spreadsheet that I use to track all of my plants. The main data base looks like this:

The photos are links to my flickr account.

From this main database, I have several sheets that query the data. I have many gardens that I have named, so if i want to look at plants in that garden, I have a query sheet to do that. Here is a listing of one of my gardens:

I have about 36 named gardens

I can also sort my database on a given species. Here is one showing my Itoh peonies:



Here is a sheet that shows the plants that I purchased by year:




If I wanted to know a specific species planted in all of my gardens, I have this sheet:



This sheet shows me that I have 46 hydrangeas with one waiting to be planted.

I take thousands of photos every year. I use this database to obtain the data that I use as metadata for each photo that I take. I currently have about 1500 live plants in my spreadsheet. I won't post the number of dead ones:)

@frankrichards16

Wow.
Now that's very extensive.
I may just incorporate a few things I see on your list to mine.

I use the plant database here. I add a new plant to my list and there are options to add all the info you may want to record.

I do the same as Sue - use the My List feature here. I track the plant, when I got it, where from, when it emerges, when it blooms, when I cut it back, if it gets fall color, when/how it died, and other random info. If you poke around looking at various folks' use of My List, you may get some good ideas. I'm not big on spreadsheets and find all I need to track is easy enough here. I especially like that one can categorize things multiple ways, and can pull up plants in any given category to work on. The added bonus is when I am working on my plant inventory, I have immediate access to the database here to check for tips/tricks, read comments, etc.

To look at other member's lists, open Tools & Apps, then Plant Lists. Choose someone you know, or someone in your general zone, or just randomly look at lists. I don't utilize the "want" feature, I only track plants I actually have, or ones I have killed. When a plant dies I try to make note if it would be worth trying again or not. Some are just too persnickety, others may have had just tough luck (e.g, the neighbor pup tore it up)

I use a combination of the Plant List feature here, and the oldschool "big ol' hefty notebook".

I mainly use the Plant List to keep track of which plants I have, when I start propagations, and when I have blooms (provided I remember to come update it. I need to stay on that...)
My big notebook is more for research, care information, and any tricks I discover for my own care routines. I have it organized into three sections. One for cactuses/succulents, one for tropicals/other foliage plants, and one for carnivorous plants. Then I keep it alphabetical with a table of contents for each section, so I can easily find the page I wrote up for each plant if I need to remind myself of something regarding their care. It's also a customizable notebook (not a binder), so I can move pages around, add in extra notes when needed, and replace the cover if it ever happens to get damaged. I chose to go the notebook route because I find I retain information best when I hand-write it. So I use it for my initial research to learn about a new plant so I'll retain it better, and then I have a handy resource on hand when I need it.

elgecko said:When I first started to grow Carnivorous Plants in the early 2000's, I did not do more then ID my plants in the pots.
As years went by a fellow CP grower made a program in the mid to late 2000's to track more information on the CPs in your collection. It was called CP-GrowList. I do not think this is anywhere to download any more.
This was neat because you were able to keep track of who you got it from, cost, activity, etc.

Some screen shots.




So back in 2017 I finally made room for some cactus and succulents. I now grow very few CP's.
Problem with the tracking program, it was only designed for CPs.

I looked around to see if there was any programs out there to keep track of this, but did not find anything. Maybe with this post someone will point me in a neat program to use... although I have close to half my collection now entered into the pages I made up...

So I made a growlist in Excel (OpenOffice to be exact) to keep track of when / how much / where I got the plant from. Made individual tabs for the different types, such as Carnivorous / Air Plants / Cactus...


I did not have a good way to keep track of activity on plants such as repotting / dividing...
So I ended up making a template that can be used for every plant in my collection and linked it to the growlist. All I need to do is click on the name in the growlist and it opens the page for that individual plant and I can input all the information I want / need to.

Able to get rid of cost / purchase / etc on the growlist and just have the plant names there.


When I click on a plant name, it opens the info screen for that plant.




With a large collection of plants it takes some time to enter in all the info. I guess any program this would happen.

If anyone uses Open Office and interested in the template I can figure out a way to make it available.

I would be interested please

I keep an inventory in an Excel spread sheet but I also draw maps of the beds. Mostly it's to keep track of which rose is planted where but I place all the the other plants on it too so I know where I have space to plant more stuff, lol!

seilMI said:I keep an inventory in an Excel spread sheet but I also draw maps of the beds. Mostly it's to keep track of which rose is planted where but I place all the the other plants on it too so I know where I have space to plant more stuff, lol!

I tried adding "space" entries in my spreadsheet. It's a work in progress at this point.

when i buy new plants, I add them to the database. at that point i can also add a proposed place to plant them. Not sure how to match that up with my available "spaces"

I have names for each bed, Front bed, Street bed, Triangle Bed, Drive bed and pots. When I add them to the inventory I have a column for placement and put F, S, T, D or P in so I know where the plant is located. I haven't found a way to indicate where in the bed it is yet so that's why I do the maps.

The thing I don't like about using a list on the web or any site, I do not have the information I placed in it.
The site ceases to exist, you have lost all your info.
I did not look, maybe you can export the list you make here?

You can argue anything you make on your personal computer can be lost as well. This is true. I have the one I made saved in my Documents folder and this folder is backup up elsewhere. So losing info from my own computer is unlikely.

I like playing around with a layout / format that suits my likes and needs. I guess I just like doing more work then necessary...

Yes you can print out your list and you can also export it as a CSV file.
(CSV files can be used with most any spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets.)

@antsinmypants

Added writable text area for Native Range.
Added function to calculate time in collection.

Any type of info can just be added to the notes line....




This I think should be the link to download the plant template for Open Office:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vst1...

elgecko said:@antsinmypants

Added writable text area for Native Range.
Added function to calculate time in collection.

Any type of info can just be added to the notes line....




This I think should be the link to download the plant template for Open Office:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vst1...

Thank you so much!

What I'd really like to do is to get a good, hi-res overhead aerial shot of my property and then be able to place pins on it that link back to a MySQL database. Just some JScript and CSS/HTML should suffice for the aerial view.

But... Gardening is how I get away from my tech job. So I am more than passingly reluctant to start some multi-discipline programming project when a large part of gardening is to get me away from computer time.

Top

@antsinmypants

Have you used, modified the template?
Just curious if you made any changes that I may want to incorporate into mine.

Since I'm about to make my pages for my cactus / succulents now, I did add 2 new fields to the template and uploaded the update.

I added Habitat and Growing season, since some of the plants have very specific growing / watering periods.

Maybe the Dinteranthus wilmottianus I have coming will have a better chance to surviving longer this time.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/vst1...

elgecko said:@antsinmypants

Have you used, modified the template?
Just curious if you made any changes that I may want to incorporate into mine.

Since I'm about to make my pages for my cactus / succulents now, I did add 2 new fields to the template and uploaded the update.

I added Habitat and Growing season, since some of the plants have very specific growing / watering periods.

Maybe the Dinteranthus wilmottianus I have coming will have a better chance to surviving longer this time.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/vst1...

I'm sorry I haven't had time to check it out yet. It's about to get cold here & I'm in panic mode trying to figure out where I'm gonna put all these plants I have very little room & virtually no surface area here in this RV