I love the new addition to the Plant Database showing vendors who sell the plant! I don't know how long the feature has been up but I'm thinking it must be a very recent addition since I spend a lot of time in the database! I noticed it for the first time today when I searched for Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)

Brand new and still working a couple bugs out (Sooner Plant Farm is showing up double in some entries).

Trish is hard at work getting companies to sign on to this. We're charging $250 per year for the service. This will be a great addition to our database. The visitors find out where to buy plants they are searching for, companies get sales, and we get financial support.

Great idea!

The prominent location is fantastic. Right up there and easy to see. This is a win-win for everyone.

Great idea!

Maybe a plus-value feature could be added to Plant Database search results. A column that would have a "V" or some icon showing that THAT entry has a vendor listing. Or "V3" to indicate three vendors.

Someone searching inside NGA for a vendor might like to see right from the search results which entries include a vendor.

And I would think that vendors would appreciate it / pay for it.

(I thought of that while trying to find any entry WITH a vendor listing, so I could see what they look like.)

Taking it to an extreme, the column might even have "H5 W2 V3" to indicate that five people HAVE it, two people WANT it, and three vendors are listed.

(Plus maybe "C2" to indicate two Comments. If you have list of 30 matches, you might wnat to read the ones with comments first.)

Taking it well PAST extreme, and cross-pollinating it with the Seed Swap tool in a "live" way, how about adding "S1" or "S2" to the new column if it is currently being offered in one or two seed swaps? The database entry would say which seed swap, and when it starts (or if it is running, when the last date to join is).

There would have to be a caution displayed, saying that trade-lists change and the item might be withdrawn before the swap starts, or someone else might get it first. I'd suggest some button that a database browser could click to indicate interest, as feedback and encouragement to people adding packets to their tradelist and trying to guess "what people want".

Maybe these are needless complications. Many of my suggestions are!


Have you considered how to handle plants that a vendor typically runs out of each year? That seems to be a pattern for people selling rare plants. The "good ones" are sold out early. Maybe list only those currently "in stock" (terribly hard to keep current), or list any that the vendor usually sells some of each year? Give vendors the OPTION of removing out-of-stock items "live", if any vendors would remove something that might have generated a "hit" for their site.

Good feedback, Rick, I'll give thought to the ideas you proposed.

As for your question about the in-stock items, I have learned in the past that it is impossible to keep up with that kind of stuff. Vendors do not notify me when they are out of stock (most couldn't even if they were willing to) and it just doesn't work. The list is to be seen as a "this company sells is but it may not be in stock right now".

OK, I'm trying to wrap my head around this... Hundreds of vendors already have a FREE link to their sites via their own photos (in the thousands, I reckon) permitted in the data base.

Granted, their links are not in as plain sight as under the monified program. But it seems like the possibility is there that they could discover that they could have gotten this advertising at no cost to them via permitted photos.

Does approval of free links from data base photos need rethinking?

Just throwing this out there...

Their photos enhance our database and the link back to them is their reward for sharing with us. I've always thought it was a good thing to never ask more of the vendors who let us use their images.

And as you pointed out, they aren't in plain sight, and also the existence of the link does not necessarily indicate to the visitor that they actually sell the plant.

I'm very excited about this - sort of like one stop shopping.

You get all the info in the DB and then click to buy it.

Thank you Dave!

I was thinking just the other day while I was trying to find some daylilies how nice it would be to have this new feature!!!

I see only one problem with this right off, it is that vendors will list lots of plants they actually do not have in stock. I have recently on a hunch just contacted a few venders to see if they actually had items in stock and was not surprised to learn they did not. I recently received a reply, that the vendor was sold out and would probably not have any more the rest of the year! Hey, this is just the 10th of January! I doubt they ever had any in stock.

I was thinking maybe a link to the green pages for the particular vendor but not every vendor is in our green pages ... yet!

I love this addition and hope the seed vendors will also take advantage of it. Would it be possible to provide the capability for the vendor to indicate if they are selling plants, or seeds, or both?

At the moment we're keeping it as simple as possible, and that means we are simply indicating that the vendor sells it. At some point in the future we may extend the information we provide but for now that's it.

Simple is good. I opened a database entry that showed more than one vendor, and was pleased to simply click to get a list of potential vendors and then open links to the exact plant on each vendor's website. Neat and tidy, and takes up very little space on the initial database page.

Don't know how others feel about this, but I'd much rather that when clicking on the vendor link that the page open in a new window or tab rather than opening in the window being used by NGA. When looking at several different vendors I find the constant use of the back-button unneeded.

That's easily done. I'll add that soon.

That's done now.

Wow, that was quick.

Easy this to add.