_______ __ _______ | |
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----. | |
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --| | |
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____| | |
on Gopher (inofficial) | |
Visit Hacker News on the Web | |
COMMENT PAGE FOR: | |
Show HN: A free site to explore and discover 6k plants | |
coldtrait wrote 11 hours 33 min ago: | |
Can I add missing plants? | |
ryebread777 wrote 4 hours 34 min ago: | |
There isnât a way for users to add plants at the moment. Curious | |
what plants you were looking for though. I can try to identify stores | |
to partner with that have them. | |
8mobile wrote 13 hours 10 min ago: | |
hi, I like the idea but the quality and diversity of the photos is not | |
much. I would also like to know the characteristics of the plant, | |
whether it resists the cold or whether it needs to be watered often. | |
chris_armstrong wrote 13 hours 39 min ago: | |
I'd love to do something like this for Australian native plants. It | |
seems like quite a lot of work though! | |
contingencies wrote 11 hours 11 min ago: | |
I'm Aussie and a native plant society person. Will come along to your | |
meeting next week and we can chat about it. | |
komali2 wrote 15 hours 54 min ago: | |
This is really cool! I love the clean design. | |
I'm a little confused though, the prices are showing in USD and not | |
NTD, and for some reason all the stores are in some country called "The | |
United States?" I don't live there. | |
;) | |
rlhf wrote 16 hours 25 min ago: | |
It's really good to get this when you have pets at home. btw, I love | |
the web design. | |
stephenitis wrote 16 hours 51 min ago: | |
A cool feature would to be to show youtube search results and care | |
guides that reference the plant in question. | |
Every page I open I've been going to youtube to check on videos of the | |
plants | |
stephenitis wrote 16 hours 53 min ago: | |
one of the hottest trending plants, the monstera thai constellation is | |
missing | |
ryebread777 wrote 15 hours 30 min ago: | |
actually it is on there - I think the real problem is that the search | |
functionality is really bad at the moment | |
[1]: https://www.getanyplant.com/plant/c6fb4f16ea74675f84d6085e02... | |
hanniabu wrote 13 hours 57 min ago: | |
How'd you go about getting the list of all the places you can buy | |
the plant? | |
stephenitis wrote 15 hours 23 min ago: | |
what are you using to power your search if i may ask? | |
ryebread777 wrote 4 hours 33 min ago: | |
Right now itâs just a db query on display_name with ilike | |
:skull: | |
stephenitis wrote 1 hour 40 min ago: | |
What kind of database are you using? Postgres has a pretty | |
search built in, I'm sure you can get an easy win here | |
gerdesj wrote 18 hours 51 min ago: | |
Great job. What about a dichotomous key (DK) for search as well as | |
filters? Let's say you know quite a few attributes but not the name, | |
you should be able to use a DK to home in on the plant. I note you are | |
a data scientist so you'll know how best to mine the data to make that | |
work. You will need quite a lot more attributes but those might be | |
bought in from elsewhere. | |
ryebread777 wrote 18 hours 3 min ago: | |
Thank you! Cool idea, I was not familiar with this concept. I will | |
look into what data exists for these. | |
contingencies wrote 18 hours 53 min ago: | |
Hey, also a plant lover here. I also have experienced great frustration | |
sourcing plants and pondered a similar platform. Haven't acted on it as | |
too busy with existing projects. Issues not dealt with in your | |
platform: plants with no known source should be hidden by default, | |
shipping issues such as international and interstate restrictions on | |
mailing plant material should be recognised, time and cost should be | |
respected including currency exchange rates, and the options of growing | |
from seed or spore should be in-scope. | |
If you want to grow it, my suggestion would be to use a social model, | |
so allow people to store information about their own garden and then | |
share a feed of events like "I planted this!" or "This flowered!" or | |
"This reproduced!" or "I collected seeds!" to draw people to your | |
platform. Sharing material and the use of endemic plants should be | |
encouraged where possible, not just outright commercialism. | |
The gold standard today for accessible all-species info at the global | |
level is iNaturalist (pulls in nice maps plus taxonomy plus Wikipedia, | |
though unfortunately does not really delineate in the map between | |
nominal natural range and current range). Not sure how you do it now | |
but frankly it would be somewhat superfluous to attempt to reproduce | |
such information independently, for example by maintaining your own | |
image database. | |
Other things that can draw people to a site would include seasonally | |
appropriate gardening tips (plant or fertilise or prune X now before Y | |
season, check Z for A/B/C pest situation, clone P now, etc.), a | |
relevant local events feed (which opens up potential travel revenue | |
streams such as hotels, flights, group tours, etc.), and academic and | |
publishing news in related areas. | |
Many of the nurseries have problems maintaining up to date stock lists. | |
To commercialise, it may be useful to help them do so. To motivate them | |
to get on the platform, you could for example allow parties to sign up | |
for future purchases of crops not yet matured but with an estimate | |
readiness date, thereby assisting the grower with cashflow and sales | |
pipelining. | |
ryebread777 wrote 17 hours 30 min ago: | |
Thank you for your thoughtful response! I love your ideas. I will | |
have to come back a few times to process everything but will add a | |
few thoughts now. | |
Many science-oriented resources, such as iNaturalist, license content | |
with creative commons licenses, but don't permit commercial | |
applications. That prevents me from making use of many of them as | |
part of my site. But in general my aim is also much different, so | |
certainly don't see myself as competing. I want to help people | |
actually obtain and enjoy the plants rather than just study them. | |
I think your tip about leveraging social media is excellent! I will | |
brainstorm content that users can share out, like you describe. | |
Probably a good starting point is a way to share your wishlist (or | |
current collection). | |
Your idea about maintaining stock lists and allowing pre-purchasing | |
of plants is really brilliant. I don't know much about the nursery | |
space, but I will try to learn more and think about your idea and | |
other options in the space. What you describe makes a lot of sense. I | |
really appreciate your ideas. | |
fjsooner wrote 19 hours 32 min ago: | |
I think itâs funny, though clearly reasonable, but searching for | |
either âpoison ivyâ or âpoison oakâ both return 0 results. | |
captainkrtek wrote 19 hours 53 min ago: | |
This is really nice! Thanks for making this and sharing! | |
OwenFM wrote 20 hours 13 min ago: | |
I couldn't see any way for me to specify my location, to ensure I could | |
actually buy the plants. | |
Upon clicking one of the plants, I see it was only American sites. | |
I get that this is just a hobby for the moment, but even if there was | |
just a note somewhere, "USA only", that would have been appreciated. | |
It still irks me how Americans tend to treat the other 96% of the world | |
as though we don't even exist on the same planet; that we're some sort | |
of exotic tourist destination, or a spawn point for immigrants. | |
gerdesj wrote 18 hours 59 min ago: | |
To be fair to OP, this is a work in progress and it seems reasonable | |
that they have not yet internationalized it. The plants are listed | |
with their binomial names front and centre rather than localized | |
names, but the prices are in $, there is no flag or currency symbol | |
at top right and its a .com domain. | |
Parochialism isn't the preserve of the US although I still chuckle at | |
being congratulated on my command of English by a shop assistant in | |
Naples (Florida). I just thanked them rather than pointing out that | |
I am ... actually ... English! | |
readyman wrote 14 hours 32 min ago: | |
>I still chuckle at being congratulated on my command of English by | |
a shop assistant in Naples (Florida). I just thanked them rather | |
than pointing out that I am ... actually ... English! | |
Naples in a nutshell. This story made my day. | |
ryebread777 wrote 19 hours 54 min ago: | |
Thanks for the feedback - sharing this project has really opened my | |
eyes to my own bias there. Still thinking through how to best expand | |
the site to other countries but in the meantime I'll make sure to | |
mention that the site is US-centric when I share it going forward. | |
eclipticplane wrote 20 hours 37 min ago: | |
Oh. Oh no. This is an extremely dangerous site for me to know about. | |
Exuma wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
nice... ive had this on my todo list to build for quite a long time, | |
but you beat me to it. | |
ryebread777 wrote 19 hours 51 min ago: | |
Would love to hear how you envisioned it differently if you're down | |
to share. | |
rishikeshs wrote 21 hours 59 min ago: | |
Why did you move away from django? | |
ryebread777 wrote 21 hours 54 min ago: | |
Still using Django, but now Iâm using react for front end. This | |
made it a lot easier for me to create a clean modern looking UI. | |
noashavit wrote 22 hours 1 min ago: | |
This is great, thanks for feeding my addiction :-) | |
JohnHaugeland wrote 22 hours 40 min ago: | |
> I would greatly appreciate any feedback on the site as well as any | |
advice on how to grow it. | |
This is very cool | |
Things I would want: | |
1. Appropriate growing zone (ideally USDA hardiness zone low and high | |
limit for Americans; others for other countries) | |
2. Filter by produces food | |
3. Needs pollinating partner; if so, what's appropriate (eg if you're | |
looking at a Bing cherry it should tell you required and to get a | |
Stella Ann, a Van, or a Black Tartarian; if you're looking at a Bavay's | |
Green Gage it should tell you not required, but providing will double | |
yield, and to get an Italian Blue Plum.) | |
4. Producing time-of-year | |
5. Water requirements (people in Arizona shouldn't grow rice) | |
6. Importation issues (many of these will be unavailable to a Floridian | |
or a Californian by mail) | |
7. Sunlight requirements | |
8. Indoor appropriate | |
9. Container size if any | |
10. Soil acidity requirements | |
11. Filter by live plant vs seed vs whatever | |
12. Planting time of year | |
ryebread777 wrote 22 hours 28 min ago: | |
This is an awesome list with many things Iâd never thought of! | |
Thanks for taking the time to write it out. Seems like requirements | |
for the gardening user and the houseplant user vary pretty | |
substantially! | |
ttyprintk wrote 18 hours 3 min ago: | |
Aquatic might be its own section, really a freshwater fish tank | |
section. | |
ryebread777 wrote 18 hours 1 min ago: | |
Ah yes, there is already a category for aquatic, but you're right | |
that they should really have their own set of filters and | |
everything else too. (foreground / background plant, needs CO2, | |
water PH, etc.). Im wondering if there is a way to provide a | |
tailored user experience based on what the user is interested in, | |
but I feel that will explode in complexity. | |
wly_cdgr wrote 22 hours 41 min ago: | |
Very cool, thank you. | |
majkinetor wrote 23 hours 18 min ago: | |
It would be cool to add a sort of public plant wikipedia with info on | |
care about a plant. I love to keep plants, but some are just hard to | |
maintain right. | |
cactusplant7374 wrote 23 hours 18 min ago: | |
Carnivorous plants: | |
[1]: https://www.getanyplant.com/plants?query=carnivorous | |
lovegrenoble wrote 23 hours 23 min ago: | |
This one is my favorite: | |
[1]: https://www.getanyplant.com/plant/2500f2a3a54f3eb7b6163879ec1c... | |
fareesh wrote 1 day ago: | |
How does one map 6000 plants to 6000 products across other websites? | |
Is it done via some loose matching of keywords which is not verified by | |
hand, or is there some kind of global identification system that is | |
used by each of the sites? | |
Or is it done in collaboration with the sites? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
The process is a combination of things. right now most of the work is | |
done by a massive regex. I also do some manual labeling. Exploring | |
some other solutions too. But accurate mappings are a high priority | |
for the site! | |
pfdietz wrote 1 day ago: | |
Does it classify by where they are native? Some of us like to plant | |
only plants that are native to where we are living. For others, at | |
least classify by their potential for invasiveness. | |
Other attributes: toxicity (when eaten or even touched), deer | |
resistance, allelopathic potential, pollinator friendliness. | |
julianeon wrote 23 hours 46 min ago: | |
I used to be into native plants and that's a big ask. | |
Assuming a USA buyer, you'd have to ask for their zip code, then | |
match that to the plants, many of which would probably have to be | |
individually coded & entered (the zip codes they are native to), a | |
map blur across the US which would vary for each species. | |
The binary qualities (toxic/nontoxic) on the other hand seem easy to | |
add. | |
For invasiveness: that may be a reason why not too many "Amazon for | |
plants" websites exist. But a simple binary "flagged as invasive", | |
like a red dot on its product page, would be a terrific addition. | |
PeterisP wrote 20 hours 36 min ago: | |
"Flagged as invasive" where? Every invasive species has a place | |
where they're a perfectly nice local native. | |
ethbr1 wrote 21 hours 13 min ago: | |
> But a simple binary "flagged as invasive", like a red dot on its | |
product page, would be a terrific addition. | |
Agreed! | |
In terms of difficulty:benefit, a binary invasive flag would get | |
most of the way there. E.g. English Ivy, Bradford Pears, Mexican | |
Petunia, creeping bamboo. | |
Buuuuut... this looks like it's mostly for house plants, for which | |
invasiveness is less of a concern. | |
However, I think it should mostly generalize to outdoor plants as | |
well. | |
At least in the US, you could simply add USDA hardiness zone [0], | |
which roughly indicates the boundaries a cultivar can survive | |
winter (freezing) and summer (heat), and is almost always listed. | |
I'd be shocked if there wasn't a zipcode-to-USDAH converter out | |
there. | |
[0] | |
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiness_zone#United_Stat... | |
ryebread777 wrote 4 hours 38 min ago: | |
It is more targeted at houseplants now but only because thatâs | |
what I know more about. Definitely love these ideas and want to | |
make it better suited for outdoor plants. It could also be a good | |
motivator to encourage people to create an account, so that they | |
can get personalized results based on their location! I think | |
hardiness zone and invasive status are good first steps. | |
ethbr1 wrote 1 hour 15 min ago: | |
It's an awesome site and kudos on the design! | |
I like the focus on what your target user actually wants (that | |
isn't addressed by existing solutions). | |
zamadatix wrote 1 day ago: | |
Another attribute/attribute extension that would be helpful is | |
toxicity for pets in particular. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
There is a filter on the plant list for pet-safe! Look for the paw | |
icon. Havenât pulled this info onto the plant detail page yet | |
though. | |
zamadatix wrote 20 hours 46 min ago: | |
I was so focused on the filter drop downs I didn't even think to | |
look for it as a plant category! Thanks | |
jilles wrote 1 day ago: | |
This is incredible! I can remove this app idea of my "app ideas"-list. | |
danielvaughn wrote 1 day ago: | |
I really love the custom icons, it makes me wish the thumbnails were | |
botanist illustrations. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
That would be so cool! I'd love to explore generating images like | |
that with AI. | |
wizzwizz4 wrote 19 hours 5 min ago: | |
I'd consider that deceptive. Botanist drawings are technical, so I | |
tend to treat illustrations in that style as factual in some sense, | |
but AI can ape the style quite nicely while getting all the details | |
wrong. You wouldn't want AI-generated technical documentation, | |
would you? It's the same here. | |
Can't you just find images, the same as you find plants? Or | |
manually add them, or something. Maybe commission some, if you | |
can't find anything for a certain plant. | |
danielvaughn wrote 22 hours 46 min ago: | |
I bet LLMs would be pretty good at that since there's likely a | |
large repository of public domain botany drawings from the past few | |
hundred years. | |
jones58 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Any chance of a UK version? Based in London and love the UI of this :) | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Thanks! I mentioned in another comment but definitely hoping to | |
expand once I've nailed the fundamentals! | |
netrap wrote 1 day ago: | |
Many pictures missing. Search is not great, especially for non | |
scientific names of plants. Like "frogfruit" doesn't find anything. | |
Other than that it's great!! | |
rubslopes wrote 1 day ago: | |
A bit off topic, but there's a game called Strange Horticulture that | |
I'm playing and loving it. It's a phantasy investigation game. The | |
plants are not real and they have magic properties, but still, I think | |
whoever loves plants will have a lot of fun with it. | |
contingencies wrote 8 hours 36 min ago: | |
Oh yeah that game rocks. I'd recommend it to anyone with kids | |
(especially those with an interest in plants) around 5-9 range. | |
[1]: https://www.strangehorticulture.com/ | |
rubslopes wrote 4 hours 14 min ago: | |
I have a lot of difficulty finding a game that my wife will also | |
enjoy, and she loved this one. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I'll check it out! Sounds kinda similar to a game I'm playing rn on | |
switch called dredge, though that focuses on fish. | |
rubslopes wrote 23 hours 23 min ago: | |
I know Dredge, and yes, that's a good comparison! Both games have | |
an eerie atmosphere that I find comforting. | |
voisin wrote 1 day ago: | |
Iâd love if this included outdoor plants, shrubs, trees, and had a | |
filter for hardiness zone. | |
berkes wrote 1 day ago: | |
Pl@ntnet does that. | |
What's even cooler, is that they release all their data as open | |
data¹. So you could create highly specialized listings if you want. | |
¹ | |
[1]: https://www.gbif.org/publisher/da86174a-a605-43a4-a5e8-53d48... | |
pwenzel wrote 1 day ago: | |
The first thing I looked for was hardiness zone. I live in Minnesota | |
and our weather is...particular. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Iâm on it! What sorts of things do you care about when youâre | |
looking for outdoor plants? Anything besides hardiness zone? Maybe | |
categories for trees, shrubs, etc? | |
ccorcos wrote 1 day ago: | |
Iâve been building a permaculture garden and I want to know | |
- usda hardiness zone | |
- sun/shade tolerance | |
- geographic origin | |
- is it a nitrogen fixer | |
- soil pH preference | |
- wet/dry soil preference | |
- when does it fruit? | |
This is a decent resource: | |
[1]: https://permacultureplantdata.com/ | |
voisin wrote 1 day ago: | |
Maybe to add on: whether it is pollinator friendly, when it | |
blooms (not sure if this differs from fruiting, but I think so?), | |
whether it is edible, part of a guild (if so, show other guild | |
members) | |
lordswork wrote 1 day ago: | |
The regions where the plant is considered native, how aggressive it | |
spreads (there is some metric that captures this IIRC), and regions | |
where it is labeled as invasive. The PictureThis app shows this | |
info, and it's incredibly useful. | |
pwenzel wrote 1 day ago: | |
For outdoor plants, I would really want to know what plants are | |
drought tolerant. Climate change is drastically altering summers in | |
Minnesota (wildfire smoke, drought, high AQI, high temps, extreme | |
downpours). | |
It would also be really great to search for pollinator friendly | |
plants ( [1] is an excellent reference) | |
[1]: https://bluethumb.org | |
phoxtricks wrote 1 day ago: | |
The number one thing to know for outdoor plants is if they are | |
invasive or not. | |
(So tired of managing Garlic Mustard, Japanese Knotweed, | |
Bittersweet and Buckthorn) | |
zdrummond wrote 1 day ago: | |
This might be a stretch, but I would love to know what outdoor | |
plants are native to my area. | |
jefb wrote 1 day ago: | |
This would be an awesome feature. It would be a good resource for | |
plant identification and I won't inadvertently introduce an | |
invasive species into my local environment. | |
01100011 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Water usage, edible or not, color changing leaves, shade tolerance, | |
soil compatibility, flowers or not, color of flowers. | |
Not sure if there's a way to say 'messiness factor'... some trees | |
drop a lot of crap besides leaves. | |
It would be great to find native plants for your area. | |
newrotik wrote 1 day ago: | |
I have very recently published a mobile plant identification app ( [1] | |
). | |
It's the first mobile app I have ever written and I enjoyed the process | |
quite a bit! | |
My main goal was to deliver better identification accuracy than similar | |
apps. | |
However I also wanted to provide useful plant information along with | |
the identification and naively thought that this would have had to be a | |
solved problem - surely there would be some online DB with all plants | |
data neatly organized (I'd be even happy to pay for it!), in particular | |
plant care information - but alas! | |
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hiddengarden... | |
ajnin wrote 1 day ago: | |
That begs the question ... How did you come up with that plant | |
database ? | |
the__alchemist wrote 1 day ago: | |
This is great! | |
Btw, something I learned recently about house plants: In an analogous | |
way to sneakers, there is a large subculture built around certain | |
varieties of them. They get to be expensive, there is a network of | |
trading, there are ones associated with high status, there are | |
knockoffs (not joking) etc. Very interesting! This site does not appear | |
to be about that subculture. | |
nom wrote 1 day ago: | |
An interesting niche I came across is Carnivorous plants, where the | |
seeds of a successful new cross can fetch 1k USD in auction. For a | |
plant that no one knows how it will look yet. | |
Like this one [1] People also hike through the remotest areas to find | |
new wild species. Very cool. | |
[1]: https://www.carnivero.com/collections/auction-items/products... | |
steve_adams_86 wrote 1 day ago: | |
There are also varieties with temporary genetic expressions (often | |
used as knockoffs), so itâs like buying a white sneaker that | |
gradually turns green, haha. Some of these plants are $100-$500 for a | |
3â pot with a single leaf of growth. | |
As the new growth appears, the genetic expression is no longer the | |
desired type. Itâs a real racket. | |
ChainOfFools wrote 1 day ago: | |
Some of them, like clivia, have a non-trivial lottery component to | |
their hybridization and breeding that makes buying and crossing even | |
a couple of relatively er, garden variety examples a potential ticket | |
to fame, fortune and startdom in the clivia-verse. | |
soared wrote 1 day ago: | |
Great idea to avoid the viral varietals as they tend to be more | |
difficult to keep alive since everyone tries to produce them. Also | |
very nice to shop at local stores to avoid the tik tok midnight | |
variegated monstera nonsense! | |
(Not sure if always but variegated->less green->less | |
chlorophyll->harder to keep alive) | |
steve_adams_86 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I think your last point is always true, yes. Iâve never seen it | |
not be true across a wide range of plants, whether terrestrial or | |
aquatic. | |
vidyesh wrote 1 day ago: | |
Congrats on the tech upgrade! | |
Since this is not an open source project, before I bombard you with | |
technical questions I have to ask, are you open to discuss the | |
structure of your app? Like about your sources, images, etc? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Sure! Happy to answer most things as Iâm looking to share but also | |
to get feedback and new ideas on those topics. | |
vidyesh wrote 1 day ago: | |
Awesome! Feel free some or all. | |
Few of my queries you mostly answered elsewhere in your replies | |
about images and how you get the data. | |
How did you determine which plants to list? Is it just a database | |
of all the unique plants from all sources or just a general plant | |
database? | |
I see each plant shows price + x stores, does that mean you are | |
archiving the prices and not scraping real time? How are you | |
determining the time interval for that? | |
How are you handling wrongly or typo listed plants from your | |
sources? | |
Since you mentioned this is using next and django, what are you | |
using shopify for? | |
Are you an affiliate for most of them or nothing like that so far? | |
Sorry I don't really have any valuable feedback apart from what | |
everyone mentioned, Search is really slow. | |
And some or most external links have an extra / in their hyperlink, | |
so at | |
https://www.getanyplant.com/plant/4f5952a72087bce5e5c28a72c76c7563 | |
https://planetdesert.com//products | |
Thank you. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I just list all of the plants sold at any of the stores I | |
currently integrate with. I use a scientific taxonomic name | |
database to make sure that the binomial names (genus, species) | |
are legit and not miss-spelled and all of my liastings are | |
anchored to that. I match products to binomial names through a | |
process thats that uses a really complex regex, plus some manual | |
labeling. Experimenting with using more ML here. | |
Price/availability data is updated on a nightly basis. Probably | |
want to increase that frequency, though no one has complained | |
about stale data yet, so not high priority. | |
Getting some affiliate relationships set up right now! Already | |
have two added in the past week. | |
That extra / is mysterious... I will dive into that after work. | |
vidyesh wrote 1 day ago: | |
Thank you so much! I am not that experienced building large | |
scale projects so really appreciate your replies in thing post. | |
I am quite surprised that shopify doesn't have hotlink | |
protection for images! | |
>I match products to binomial names through a process thats | |
that uses a really complex regex, plus some manual labeling. | |
Experimenting with using more ML here. | |
Thats what I wondering. I am building something similar, region | |
specific for books and sometimes the names are just a little | |
off or partial or alternate names. I am currently doing a | |
string comparison to match at least 80-90% of the words in the | |
title, which works okay for now. So thank you for the ideas. | |
Your product update frequency is very interesting, I always | |
thought scraping for price aggregation meant one has to make | |
sure its very frequently updated. | |
My approach is a bit different, it only scrapes on search, so | |
not really scraping all the sites. | |
Not the best approach, but its scary to me to scrape complete | |
websites and that much data lol | |
I currently am not using a db either but scraping and caching | |
for 30mins, that specific item which now I think about is a bad | |
idea if I want to make this a scalable project. I should start | |
using a database indeed. | |
Some feedback on the UI/UX, instead of having 'All plants' | |
selected on the homepage, it would be nice to instead have a | |
smaller grid of plants from each type/tag on the home page | |
itself. Selecting any of the tag would work the same as now but | |
homepage will have more to explore because currently its just | |
overwhelming to do anything on the homepage. I am just looking | |
in specific tags or just searching. | |
Edit: This is a great resource for adding more info about pet | |
friendly plants to the listed plants. | |
[1]: https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/t... | |
ryebread777 wrote 23 hours 56 min ago: | |
Thanks for the advice! I too am surprised by that. The Django | |
version of my site had something similar! The home page | |
showed plants grouped into categories kind of like Netflix. | |
But when I transitioned to react I limited the scope. But I | |
might go back to that! | |
One other tip - many sites have APIs that will give you their | |
product data. You may need to contact them about getting | |
access. Or it may be publicly available. But that is better | |
than scraping if it is possible. | |
pastor_bob wrote 1 day ago: | |
>Since you mentioned this is using next and django, what are you | |
using shopify for? | |
Looks like they're just pointing to images hosted by others, most | |
of which are Shopify sellers. One weird trick to save on | |
bandwidth costs...but obviously problematic in the long term. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Currently evaluating alternatives for hosting images rn. Open | |
to any suggestions! | |
smusamashah wrote 1 day ago: | |
Nice to see it includes Airplants as well. | |
chelmzy wrote 1 day ago: | |
Would it be possible to add a location filter for native ranges of the | |
plants? | |
soared wrote 1 day ago: | |
For indoor plants, depending on where you live you may have near-zero | |
native plants commonly sold. Native plants tend to make more sense | |
for outdoors, as the indoor climate as closer to tropical-always | |
rather then your real weather. | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Ooh, Iâve actually been looking into this. It hasnât been too | |
heavily requested but to me it is a cool feature. Iâm curious what | |
you envision by location? Would it be by country? Or something more | |
specific or broad? | |
johncole wrote 1 day ago: | |
How long did it take you to move from v1 to v2 to v3? | |
Cool site! | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Hereâs a rough estimate. Though of course this was a side project | |
(~10hrs / week) and much of the time was spent learning. | |
V1 - Wordpress and jupyter notebooks (2 months) | |
V2 - Django (7 months) | |
V3 - Django + React (3 months) | |
spooky_action wrote 1 day ago: | |
What were the jupyter notebooks for? Did you run your backend in | |
notebooks? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Wordpress version was basically just static plant pages. And I | |
used jupyter notebooks to update them with new data (like product | |
price and availability). Pretty funny to think about now | |
jihadjihad wrote 1 day ago: | |
This is really cool, congrats on shipping. I've had a hard time finding | |
reliable plant information as well, especially since many sites focus | |
only on indoor plants while others focus only on those you grow outside | |
in a garden, etc. It's nice to be able to search for plants I have | |
inside as well as outside. | |
Having a filter for the genus is a great idea too! | |
The search feels a little slow, and it's somewhat finicky: if I type in | |
"ficus ginseng" I don't see a result, apparently because the title is | |
"Ficus 'Ginseng'" so the single quotes are needed. | |
But I can see myself using this site! Nice work! | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Ah, yes you are right about that. The search sucks right now. An even | |
bigger issue is that search only matches in the scientific name but | |
most people are entering common names. Yours is the first user | |
feedback to mention it though so thank you for sharing! I will make | |
it a higher priority to fix. | |
mft_ wrote 1 day ago: | |
As someone that has struggled trying to find plants to suit a | |
particular garden in the past, I love your site! | |
(And I just spotted the pet safe tab - even better!) | |
Edit: could you include temperature suitability? Including plants that | |
can or can't cope with snow, for example? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Good idea!! Iâll admit I came at this having much more experience | |
with Houseplants than gardening, but I definitely want it to serve | |
many communities. Thanks for the suggestion! Is that basically the | |
same thing as âzone?â I think that should be doable - I will look | |
into it! Would love to know any other features that would be valuable | |
from the gardening perspective. | |
sp332 wrote 1 day ago: | |
If you have a USDA zone map, make sure you're using the 2023 | |
version. They hadn't updated the map in... ever, I think? | |
mtgentry wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yeah Iâd love this too. I live in SoCal and Iâm doing my yard | |
with native plants. Some things Iâm having trouble finding: 1) | |
plants that bloom in seasons other than spring 2) plants that | |
arenât native but can work in my climate 3) plants that will do | |
ok in clay soil 4) plants with a small footprint for a small yard. | |
AI has helped a lot but it would still be helpful to have filters | |
like these. | |
mft_ wrote 1 day ago: | |
Temperature range = hardiness zone, I think? | |
Also... soil pH, maybe? | |
mtgentry wrote 1 day ago: | |
Would be cool to sort by âcommunityâ too. If you get really | |
deep into native planting, folks recommend you get plants native | |
to your geographic area. California has lots of these communities | |
for example: | |
[1]: https://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/communit... | |
ivolimmen wrote 1 day ago: | |
I am a bit disappointed; I was expecting plants that cost a minimum of | |
6K... | |
But: I do like the site! | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Donât worry, If you are interested in buying $6k plants I will | |
create a new site just for you lol | |
pvg wrote 20 hours 45 min ago: | |
For that high-end market segment, I'd be thinking recurring revenue | |
- plant subscriptions, plant timeshares, plant concierge service, | |
etc. | |
ttyprintk wrote 17 hours 58 min ago: | |
Very true for saltwater aquariums. Plants can be moved in and | |
out, but if your airbnb has a saltwater aquarium, you need the | |
number someone who does house calls. | |
voidUpdate wrote 1 day ago: | |
I was expecting a lot of photos of plants in very high resolution | |
z3t4 wrote 1 day ago: | |
How did you find the images? How did you solve the copyright issue? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Right now either they are from Wikipedia, or they are from one of the | |
stores selling plants. I have been reaching out to many stores to | |
request permission to use their images in this way and luckily a few | |
have been kind enough to grant it. Those are the images I use. If you | |
scroll down far enough though you will see there is still a need for | |
many more. | |
berkes wrote 1 day ago: | |
Pl@ntnet has a dataset of 300k images of plants released under | |
Creative Commons | |
[1]: https://zenodo.org/records/5645731#.YeGDOdvjKWh | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Awesome!! Surprised I didnât know that as Iâve explored | |
plantnet in the past. Iâll add those in! | |
giarc wrote 1 day ago: | |
Could you use AI to generate images for those you don't have a real | |
photo of yet? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I experimented with that few months ago and it was very bad | |
unfortunately. Though it may have improved. Probably for common | |
plants it would work excellent (bell pepper, monstera) but most | |
of the plants on the site are fairly obscure, especially the ones | |
without images. I wouldnât want to create a misleading image. | |
Another AI approach might be to create simple illustrations of | |
plants I donât have images for, using other images as | |
reference. I havenât explored that yet! | |
marban wrote 1 day ago: | |
How do you pull in the commercial offers? | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Web scraping or using site APIs! | |
pyuser314 wrote 1 day ago: | |
ha, thanks, that too! Nice site. | |
pyuser314 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Guess: this person is associated with one of the shops to buy. | |
piva00 wrote 1 day ago: | |
What a great idea! I'm also quite in love with keeping plants and have | |
found similar issues on conflicting names, etc. | |
Don't have much feedback since I'm not in the USA, eagerly waiting for | |
an international expansion to Europe :)) Good luck! | |
ryebread777 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Sorry! I forgot to include a disclaimer that most of the stores are | |
US based right now. I am excited to expand to different countries | |
but there are a few difficult questions to figure out in terms of | |
user experience. Iâm hoping to nail the core functionality and then | |
focus on expanding to other countries. Thanks for the comment! | |
<- back to front page |