The Garden Gate: The Gardener's Guide to Finding Answers on the Web

The Gardener's Guide to Finding Answers on the Web

The Web offers access to an ever-growing collection of high-quality horticulture information. The Web is great for surfing but when it comes to finding a specific piece of information, it can still be hard paddling. Although we have directories and search engines galore, finding specific gardening information can still sometimes seem like trying to find a needle in a needlestack. Here are some useful guidelines and tools which will help you find answers to your questions more quickly and efficiently.
Learning your way around the Web equips you with the skills to take advantage of a wealth of opportunities for education, research, and just plain good green fun.
For a more comprehensive version of this article suitable for self-study, see Surfing The Green Wave: The Master Gardener's Guide to the Web. Updated April 2008.

Broad Topics

For broad topics - e.g., daylilies, herbs, rhododendrons, strawberries - check one of the following collections. With luck you will turn up a hobbyist's or association's homepage with original content and a good collection of further links.
The following collections are organized by topic:

The Teaching Garden

Here at The Garden Gate. Offers databases, glossaries, FAQs, special topic WWW pages, collections, and plant lists.

Gardening at About.com
Annotated gardening links organized by topic.
Open Directory
Another organized directory maintained by knowledgeable volunteers.
World Wide Web Virtual Library: Gardening

Part of the WWW Virtual Library,

If your topic is more specialized, you will want to make use of Web search engines and catalogs. Search syntax and additional search capabilities vary widely from site to site. Your best bet over the long run is to settle on a few search engines that you use regularly and become fully acquainted with their more advanced features.

Google.

Google ranks search results not only by relevance but by popularity. It will even catch your spelling mistakes and suggest corrections. This is my personal favorite by far.
Yahoo WWW Guide

Was one of the first, and still a very useful directory-style catalog of sites.

For your convenience, The Garden Gate's Quick Search page offers one-stop access to the most popular search engines.

Specific Questions

If you are looking for more specific information, for instance, the answer to a particular gardening question - 'Is it too late to plant my bulbs?', 'When should I divide my irises?', 'Why is my spathiphyllum looking so puny?' - you best off searching the wealth of information made available by Universities and Cooperative Extensions around the country.

Factsheet Database (Ohio State).

A specialized search engine that lets you search thousands of factsheets from Universities and Cooperative Extensions in the US and Canada. Factsheets can be printed and provided to clients.

Horticulture Solutions (Illinois Cooperative Extension)

Hundreds of concise solutions to common gardening problems. Organized by topic.

Virginia Cooperative Extension Consumer Horticulture

An excellent collection of detailed, easy-to-read factsheets, particularly for Fruits and Vegetables and Indoor gardening - potted plants.

Problem Solvers and Plant ID

A growing collection of tools is available online to assist in problem-solving and ID. Some notable examples:

Woody Plants
An excellent tool to help brush up your identification skills. From UIUC's own Gary Kling.
Weed Images and Descriptions
Rutgers University.
Weed Identification Index
Well-illustrated index from Virginia Tech. Grass Weed Identification Key can help you narrow down grassy weeds.
Tomato Disorders
Texas A&M.
Cucurbit Disorders
Texas A&M.

Plant Selection and Care

Plants selection is by turns enjoyable and frustrating. Even the best books can offer no more than lists meeting one or two criteria. These online databases let you choose plants by multiple criteria.

Illinois' Best Plants
Select from plants that will grow well in Illinois. An excellent searchable database from the Chicago Botanic Garden.
My Garden Guide Plant Encylopedia
Search this database of over 40,000 plants by family, botanical or common name or search by soil, light, water requirements and blooming time to find for your particular growing conditions. Detailed, illustrated plant caresheets include information on common pests and diseases.

This collection of plant lists may help you find plants to solve a particular garden problem.

In Conclusion

The Web is a tremendous information resource for gardeners, to be sure. But although it is growing daily, it is still only a tiny part of the sum total. For many people, the Web seems to carry a label saying "Enquire Within Upon Everything". They are convinced that the answer to their question is out there, if only they can find it. They have become so focussed on the Web as an information resource that they lose sight of the older information technologies, like books. Or simply asking Aunt Mary or Mom or someone else who knows the answer. They will spend hours online hunting for information when a phone call to their county Extension office could have answered their question. Or a quick trip to their local public library would not only have answered their question but gotten them out of the house, to boot.
Karen Fletcher

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