Home   Ideas Genie - Software for Plant Lovers - Demonstration of primary features
Adding a plant (Method A) p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 ~ Adding a plant (Method B) p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 ~ Adding a Specimen p1 p2 p3 p4 p5
Editing a specimen p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 Specimen Events p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 Google Search p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 RHS Search p1 p2 p3 p4 p5

                   RHS website Search This is Page 1 ~  Next

The RHS button in Ideas Genie allows the user to do a very quick search on a plant name on the RHS Plant Finder website.
I use it extensively to arrive at acceptable names for the plants listed in the Master Database.
You may wish to use it to resolve ambiguity in the spelling or composition of a plant name in your database. The RHS Plant Finder is a HUGE resource, possibly the best on the internet.
I’d be very interested to hear of anything similar.
The key features of the RHS button :

• You dont have to type the plant name.
  Ideas Genie uses the name of the plant you have selected and generates a search using that name
• you can amend your search if you dont get a “hit” on the RHS website
  Be aware that the RHS Plant Finder web site is very fussy and unforgiving - one character wrong and you get the message:
  There are no matches with your search selection. Please enter an alternative plant name
  The ability to modify your search means you can try again.
  As a last resort, widen your search to one word - the Genus name
  Provided the genus name is spelt correctly, and it is not an extremely rare genus, you should get a list of all plants in the genus.
  You then use the standard navigation buttons on the RHS website. It presents the listings in pages alphabetically. You can wade through them all, but if its a large genus its easier to make an educated guess and click into the middle of the pages at the most likely page.

You can pick up very valuable information on the RHS website

• hardiness (in the UK)
• plants with the prestigious RHS Award of Garden Merit are indicated
  (record this using the AGM checkbox in Ideas Genie)
  Since you are a plant lover you will find numerous AGM plants recommended by the RHS and well worth a try in your garden
• classification
  See Classification of Genera on the RHS website for an explanation
  In Ideas Genie, click the Files tab and use the program Genera with Divisions/Categories - GA019 to record the Classifications of your Genera of interest.
  Then use the program GA004 to link plants to their classifications.
  When you have defined classifications for a Genus in GA019, a button with the caption
  ww Divisions becomes visible and enabled when you select then click the Plants in Selected Genus tag
  e.g. For alpine/rock garden enthusiasts, the genera Dianthus, Saxifraga, Iris, Hepatica, Primula etc have classifications.

This demonstration has been created to show how a user might resolve the problem of variations in the name of a plant.
In this case I checked up on a plant which was supplied in the plants list as:
Androsace muscoidea ‘Schacht's Form’
As a result of my search, I changed the name in Ideas Genie to:
Androsace muscoidea Schacht's form
After reviewing the pages in this part of the demo, do you agree that this is correct?
 

You need to have Ideas Genie, Ideas Genie Pro or Bonsai Genie installed on your computer to follow these lessons. If you don’t have a copy then click one of the the links below:
Ideas Genie-Software for Plant Lovers ~ Ideas Genie Pro-Software for Plants & Gardens ~ Bonsai Genie