UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 4, Page 1
September 21, 1995
Botanic Gardens web site is 'impressive,' among the best

     The University of Delaware Botanical Gardens offers year-round
tours of the garden complex via an award-winning World Wide Web site
on the Internet. Last month, the garden's on-line site (located at
http://bluehen.ags.udel. edu/udgarden.html) was rated among the top 5
percent of all science sites on the World Wide Web by Point
Communications, a private rating company. Reviewers evaluated the site
on the basis of content, presentation and overall experience,
including whether the site is fun and easy to use.
     "Survey respondents were impressed by the graphic presentation of
relatively technical material and probably by our depth of coverage,"
according to Betsy Mackenzie, coordinator of the College of
Agricultural Sciences' microcomputer laboratory, who has been
assisting John Frett, professor of plant and soil sciences, in
developing the on-line site.
     When entering, virtual visitors are greeted by the pale yellow
buds of a magnolia tree that grace the botanical garden's home page.
They can enter one of eight gardens immediately, where they will find
a list of plants in each garden. A click on a specific plant will
provide a long list of plant characteristics including the common
name, correct pronunciation of the scientific name and photographs of
foliage, flowers, bark or landscape use.
     "Each plant is described thoroughly, in text and in picture,"
Mackenzie said. Ultimately, more than 2,000 images will be available
at the site, for use by students and horticulture faculty, the
planting public and web surfers.
     Alternatively, the site allows visitors to search for specific
plants under general categories as "broadleaf evergreens" or
"perennials," or use a photo collage to identify pines from their
cones, magnolias from their flowers, or oaks from their leaves and
acorns.
     Frett said an identification key for woody plants, trees and
shrubs is under construction. This will allow plants to be identified
by such features as whether the tree is deciduous or evergreen,
whether it has needles or broad leaves, whether the needle bunches are
in groups of three or five and so on.
     Mackenzie said she plans to provide links to information from
University Cooperative Extension on such general topics as home
horticulture and pest and disease management. "For example, is this
plant one that will attract birds? Is it particularly suited for use
in a 'fall color' garden?" She said the next big effort will be to
develop on-line identification keys for perennials and annuals.
     A garden complex that was formally recognized in 1993 with a new
name, the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens consists of several
groups of plantings. The original garden in front of Townsend Hall was
established with a donation from Emily Clark Diffenback in the mid-
1960s. The Clark Garden, which contains the oldest specimens, has been
invaluable in teaching numerous courses-from woody and herbaceous
plants to garden design and construction.
     The Worrilow Hall Garden includes holly, rhododendrons and
various types of viburnum. Ornamental grasses, annuals and perennials
are found in the herbaceous garden behind the Fischer Greenhouse
Laboratory.
     The Fischer Greenhouse Garden, which features spruce, pine,
hemlock, holly viburnum and birch, also includes a meadow garden with
colorful floral alternatives to turf grass.
     A Magnolia Society test garden is found south of Townsend Hall,
and a native garden behind the southern greenhouse features East Coast
plants including the horse chestnut, fragrant sumac and summersweet
clethra. In front of this older greenhouse are conifers, broadleaf
evergreens and such popular shrubs as forsythia and abelia.
     The Botanic Gardens is used in the college's botanical,
production and management courses as well as in landscape maintenance.
Agricultural engineering classes also use it for surveying and
entomology classes for collecting insect samples.
     A friends group has been established for the garden, and Master
Gardeners from Cooperative Extension lead more traditional walking
tours.
     "An advantage is that the on-line garden has a wider audience
than just students," Frett said. "We're happy to have other people
accessing the information. Eventually we'd like to have a computer set
up in Townsend Hall lobby for people who want to research information
on a plant either before or after a self-guided tour of the Botanic
Gardens."
                                                        -Cornelia Weil