Mapping the Origins of My Mother's Plants

GIS is used for many reasons, including analyzing data and helping solve problems and in almost any field imaginable. GIS is used here to design an interactive map which allows my mother to look up any of the plants from her yard and make appropriate labels for them. Plant data was gathered and organized by myself with help from my mother. Maps were created to show my mom where all of the plants in her back yard originate from. These maps also allow her to click on a country and have a database table pop up showing information about all of the plants from that particular country. These database tables also provide a link to a picture of each of these plants for her reference. The results are actually two maps, both originating in ArcGIS as MXD files and both being interactive, but one, the main one, was exported to PDF and was sent to my Mother in San Diego, California.

After many years of hearing my mom speak of wanting to categorize and label plants in her backyard, I have decided to use GIS to help. My plan was to start by compiling a list of plants in her yard by species, plant type (shrub, tree, annual, perennial, etc.) and finally map them by geographical origin. Using Microsoft Excel, I created a database and imported it into ArcMAP where my mom can look up her plants’ information. My goal is to also allow her to print out a plant’s label for her yard using the database I have created for her.

My Mom’s backyard is located in the Southern California city Chula Vista. Due to its fairly mild and stable weather year round, Chula Vista is a great location for many varieties of plants, allowing my Mom to acquire an eclectic collection in her yard. This variety of plants has always sparked an interest for my Mom to label and somehow categorize her plants. In the past few years I have learned about and become more proficient in using GIS which made me realize that this would be a good start at allowing my Mom to find out and visualize where her plants originally came from as well as a way to create labels to place in her yard.

In order to acquire meaningful and accurate data I had to narrow down the amount of information I would gather about each plant. Unfortunately I was unable to go to the site where my data would be gathered (my mom’s yard) so my mom sent me lists of plants as she had time to gather them and look up their information. As plant information was sent to me I would look up their background information and photos on various websites as well as using a well known plant encyclopedia called Tropica (Graf, 1986). Upon completion of the plant database using Microsoft Excel, I then created a map of the world using ArcGIS 9.3.1.

The image shown below is a snapshot of my original main datasheet created in Microsoft Excel of all of my Mom’s plants. I have sent this list to my Mom so she can use this to print labels for each of her plants.

Using the hyperlink feature in ArcGIS, I linked a database table to each country from which my mom had a plant originate. I found out after completing my main database that I would have to separate the database into one for each country. Several plants had origins in several different countries so in many cases the same plant species is in different database tables. As the user clicks the hyperlink tool, the countries with plants in them will be highlighted in red and can be scrolled over and clicked on, thereby bringing up the Excel table. From here, the user can view all of the information on the plant as well as click on a link that will show a picture of the plant.

Shown below is an example of one of the Excel sheets used as a hyperlink in ArcMap.

The user is able to view all of the plants from the country for which the table represents and also click on the image link for the plant they are interested in. Then, they are taken to that location automatically, as shown below.

Satisfied with my completed, working interactive map I realized that my mom would not be able to access this because she lives in San Diego and she does not have ArcGIS. I decided to export the map to a PDF document and add hyperlinks with Adobe Acrobat. I also decided to export all of my Excel sheets for each country into PDF documents. Using Adobe Acrobat, I successfully added links using markers for each country with plants, and embedded these separate documents into one document. In this format, I can send the document to my mom via email and she will be able to use my map wherever she wants.

The example shown below is one of the tables that were exported to PDF format from Excel and embedded into the PDF version of the map.

Also as in the Excel table the user can click a link for any plant and will be taken to the web page with that specific plant's picture. An image of the last plant from the table (Happy Wanderer Hardenbergia) is shown below.

The final results of the project are actually two working interactive maps. These two maps are almost identical and do exactly the same thing except that one is in PDF format which can be transferred to different computers and still be viewed whereas the other map in MXD format can only be viewed/used if the user has a program that works with this format (ie ArcGIS).

Map 1, shown below is the MXD format of the map which was created using ArcGIS 9.3.1.

Map 2, shown below is the PDF version of the map zoomed to a certain location. Notice the pins on the map as they are hyperlinks to the tables for each country.

Upon completion of my map I found that the final result worked as well as I could have hoped, even though I did not have previous knowledge using hyperlinks. I also did not know how my project would be able to be viewed by my target audience (my Mom) especially with her being over 500 hundred miles away.

The main difficulties I came across were in exporting my MXD file to Adobe and trying to keep the hyperlinks embedded in my MXD file working in the PDF file. After much research and not finding an answer I decided to export the MXD to a PDF format and add the hyperlinks and database tables for each country in Adobe Acrobat. Doing this solved all of my problems because now I had a format that I could send my Mom and my tables with picture links could now work on any computer.

Although a working interactive map that my Mom can utilize has been created, there are still many issues that arise from the final format. For example, every time I update the database and map with new plants I also have to completely redo the map in Adobe Acrobat because hyperlinks have to be added prior to exporting to PDF format. In the future I would like to find a way to update the plant database with ease and also maintain a format that is easily accessible by my Mom.

Graf, A.B., 1986. Tropica: Color Cyclopedia of Exotic Plants and Trees (3rd Ed). Roehrs Company; East Rutherford, NJ

www.anniesannuals.com Annie's Annuals & Perennials

www.californiagardens.com California Gardens website

www.calflora.net Michael Charter's California Plant Names website

www.floridata.com Floridata website

www.hear.org Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project (HEAR)

www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/default.html New Crop Resource Online Program website, Purdue University

www.ipm.ucdavis.edu UC Davis Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program Online website

www.plantsafari.com Plant Safari website

www.PlantZAfrica.com PlantZAfrica website

www.sanmarcosgrowers.com San Marcos Growers website

www.westernhort.org Western Horticultural Society website

www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia web site