@Dave,
I've been tracking the times my plants bloom for a while but never did develop a good flexible system of doing so. Someone posted a link here to a Missouri Botanical Garden chart which looked very workable, if limited (see below). Since I'm trying to get all my plants inventoried in my Plant List, it would be easiest to do both things here at ATP.

Ideally it would allow a member to track their bloom times in their garden on a weekly basis. Many plants have a bloom period of only a week or two. If I could view another members bloom time chart, that could give me clues to selecting companion bloomers.

While this chart of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s tracks blooming by week, a significant limitation is that plants are listed by genus or at best by species. I track by species and cultivar. The same as my Plant List.

A base calendar layout similar to the Mobot Chart, where I can have any (all) plants in my list, would do most of what I want.

A little more complexity. Bloom weeks vary from year to year. This year for instance, many of my spring flowering bulbs were 1-2 weeks later than normal. I'm assuming many other bloom times will be delayed as well. Plants which bloom for the first time this year need to be compared to other plants blooming this year, not last. I have bloom time charts for each year starting from 2009. A way to save (or download) bloom time charts from previous years is important.

Summary:
-A chart with similar layout/information to: Missouri Botanical Garden’s.
-Provide the ability to include any plant on my Plant List.
(it would be nice to be able to also include NoID plants for which I don’t have a positive ID beyond genus, species or classification. Not critical though).
-Track plant bloom times by week
(The ability to track peak vs. non-peak bloom would be nice. MoBOT uses red and yellow respectively)
-The ability to save and/or download old charts.
(ex. My 2014 chart can be saved. I can then start a new 2015 chart using the one from 2014 as a template.)


What other capabilities do we think a Goody like this should have?

Oh my, Evan - you're really pushing the edge. I like it. What say you @DAVE Edited to add: I have also been trackiig bloom time and could contribute

I have just been doing this for my iris, writing the first bloom open for the year in the comment section of my inventory list. Did it last year and my blooms this year were about 2 weeks earlier than last year. Would be nice to have something where it's quick and easy to select a date.

Maybe something like a calender that could be written on. And searchable.
That way folks could track almost everything. I like to track weather as well and a calender would be perfect for that as well.

I use google calendar now but having something here would be lovely.

ie. click on a date, type whatever you want genus, species, weather for the day, even upload a little thumbnail pic.

I think we can do something like this. Let me think on it a bit over the rest of the weekend and maybe this coming week I can put a start together. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves your other wish list of features that you might want.

And to confirm: simply tracking by week is enough. There won't be a need to track this one a daily level?

I do like to put in a beginning bloom date, that's what helped me actually see that the bloom times were a couple of weeks different from the previous year. But others may have a looser range in mind.

dave said:
And to confirm: simply tracking by week is enough. There won't be a need to track this one a daily level?

How about a blank "comments" section for each entry so we can make notes & that would effectively serve for those who want to track on a daily basis?


As an aside, I have been noting on my plant list what I got from where, planted when & bloom time, but I will eventually run out of space so I love the idea of this.

It could also be useful for notating when you harvested your garlic or asparagus, and when your tomatoes and peppers ripened.

I'd like it daily if it's doable...then I could keep track of my weather, etc.

My first thought that if it were possible to include a zone or location which could be searchable to find out where the plant blooms in my area would be useful.

Great ideas!

Like CDsSister, I think it would be really useful to be able to see the data posted by other members about bloom/harvest dates. If we could search for the data collected nearest to our ZIP code through a link on the specific plant's Plantfiles page that would be wonderful. It might take a while to collect enough data for it to be very useful but eventually it could be a wonderful tool for planing a new garden, particularly when using plants that you haven't grown before.