2015 Plants Map Year End Wishes
As the year comes to a close, we’d like to wish you all the best during the holidays.
Our focus this year was on the development of the core website. We’ve made tremendous progress. The feedback on each development sprint from our users has been invaluable and was greatly appreciated. Each plant and plant story added has made the site more fun and useful for everyone.
Our planning for 2016 focuses on growth. Since our launch in 2014, we seem to be tracking nicely with the words of the old plant saying: Year 1: plants SLEEP. Year 2: plants CREEP. Year 3: they LEAP.
2016 is truly going to be our Leap Year!
FEATURED PROFILES
At the outer fringe of the Philadelphia suburbs, a 160-acre park manages to be a natural oasis, hands-on learning lab and preserver of early American ways of life, all under one umbrella. “It looks like your standard pretty ornamental garden” Shahan said, “but people look closer and discover plants they’ve never seen before.”
The Gardens at Heather Farm attracts visitors with their online plant collections
In a small triangular garden at the Gardens at Heather Farm is a Japanese Black Pine that was propagated in 1942, decades before it was installed in the garden in 1989. “It’s a real treasure,” said Garden Manager Brian Larsen, and it’s now one of many unique plants that could introduce plant enthusiasts from all over to this nonprofit garden in Walnut Creek, Calif., through an online presence on Plants Map.
Did you miss one of our weekly featured profiles? Read all 12 stories here.
SITE UPDATES
- Our final software release this year will go live tomorrow morning. Among the many changes going live is one thing many of you have asked for… Larger photos!!
- We are working on a page of tools for organizations where you will be able to download files that you can use on your website, social media, newsletters, emails and presentations to help you communicate about your Plants Map profile to your members, users, visitors and supporters.
- In January we are launching several resources for businesses. Specifically we are working on a model for landscape designers to use Plants Map to educate their customers about their new plants. We are also launching resources for horticultural services and for businesses that sell plants and planting products. We have about 35 businesses at the moment who have said they would like to be involved in this new resources section but we’d like about 10 more businesses in our beta tests. If you are interested, please visit our resource landing page and let us know who you are and what you do. We’ll call you the first week of January with more information.
Along these lines, if you are a business, please check out our Pinterest board: “Growing Millennials” at https://www.pinterest.com/
Our New Year’s Resolution
We’re resolved and committed to helping you grow your fans, followers and customers using the tools we’ve build into Plants Map. Just ask and we can help you create an online plant catalog or library.
