olivierlacan
Joined 12 years ago
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891
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175
Member since
Mar 4
Recent submissions
Comment · 10 days ago
FYI I’m not convinced this is easier than just letting folks find their region via GPS, postal code or city name but it’s now implemented at https://indigene.app/map for folks who prefer visually pickings a region or looking at worldwide coverage.
Comment · 14 days ago
I don't think we disagree but none of what you describe is what Indigene does: it's not doing art with AI. You're mixing the development tools with the actual mechanism of the system, which in no way uses LLM output for suggestions presented to users. Indigene doesn't design gardens and I'm not sure I ever want it to. It's a spot and condition-specific tool that lets unfamiliar people discover the most ecosystem-positive specimens they could plant. Sure, it helps focus your efforts, but it's not a whole garden design tool. Far from it.
Landscape designers who are familiar with natives don't cost "a few bucks". I've hired one and not even in a particularly expensive area (Central Florida) just a year ago. So I think we have a different target audience in mind. If you're ready to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on native landscape design assistance, Indigene is unlikely to be the thing that pushes you to action. You've already been convinced.
On the other hand, encouraging people to iteratively rewild home gardens with natives with the the Doug Tallamy "Homegrownt National Park" (see https://indigene.app/homegrown) frame of mind isn't something that's hinged on whether a garden would earn landscape design trophies. A few native plants can already have an outsized impact on the native wildlife ecosystem in a given area.
I'd second your pitch for befriending folks that are also into native plants (or any plants) however. That can start with planting a handful yourself and offering seeds or cuttings to neighbors too.
Comment · 14 days ago
It's in as of 1.1 yesterday, really good suggestion thanks! https://indigene.app/release-notes/1.1/
Comment · 14 days ago
Curious what (broad) region you're in if you don't mind sharing. Just added Scottish Lowlands yesterday via 1.1 (https://indigene.app/release-notes/1.1/), but I need to tackle some Asian or African regions at some point as well. There's obviously a lot of North & South America to tackle as well...
Comment · 15 days ago
Thank you for the feedback, I'd love to see your thing and what angle you're focusing on. I see what you mean, but I've never trusted Claude to do analysis. And I'm still only trusting it to help me build acceptance criteria that I can validate against a multitude of region-specific sources for different data points:
- host plants (e.g. European caterpillar counts via Gaytán et al: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.73004)
- food sources
- pollen interactions
- broadly documented wildlife & plant dependencies
- etc
What is your skepticism based on? If you've identified a gap I'd be very obviously interested to close it. But if you think I'm allowing Claude to editorialize without verification, then I can assure you I'm not. I've definitely caught it trying to skip steps and "leave out" verification steps, especially for new region coverage where we have insufficient data for a clear cut boolean answer.
And like everything, I keep expanding the rings of what I cross-reference for each region. Hopefully the more keen eyes on this project will mean folks can spot fallacies and holes. But to be frank, I'm in this for the long run so I very mulch welcome it :-)
PS: https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/blob/main/DATA_SOUR... might be a good one to focus on if you hadn't picked it up yet
Comment · 15 days ago
Should be addressed soon: https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/pull/262
Comment · 15 days ago
Although the entire point of the landing page spot finder flow is not to have to browse anything, regions are there for you to explore everything, not just where you are.
Was that not clear when you landed on the homepage? You can use your device location, zip code or town name to find natives specific to your location that way. It should find the region without you have to parse anything.
Comment · 16 days ago
I'm so glad! Anything you found to be missing? Or that could help you with the new plants you haven't tried?
Comment · 16 days ago
Your end goal focus is fine and I'm glad it improves your quality of life. Same here whether I focus on edibles or natives in my own garden. But I'd caution you about the "throw random seeds" approach, unless you've sourced those seeds and aren't using retail seed package "for pollinators". Those are notorious for frequently including invasive species.
A few examples among many similar studies:
https://neobiota.pensoft.net/article_preview.php?id=118480
https://www.washington.edu/news/2002/04/18/wildflower-seed-m...
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2016/...
https://wssa.net/2017/08/make-sure-your-seed-mix-is-tested-f...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8176916/
"See what sticks" is inherently biased toward fast spreaders that will outcompete and outspread other plants regardless of their ecosystem services. Even if they're natives.
But like the parent comment, I can't tell you that your own enjoyment isn't warranted in your own garden. The whole point of Indigene is to try and contribute to tilting the balance a bit more into being more aware and focused on the ecosystem benefits of what you plant or don't plant.
Comment · 16 days ago
You might have missed filters on the result page that specifically let you exclude plants that spread (width or height), thorns, and even stingers. Those can help you avoid what you describe, but they may not be obvious. Maybe I need to make those more obvious? Or default to them?
I think it's fine to have a human-centered mindset although the point of Indigene is to challenge that a bit and re-center the focus on the ecosystem services these plant provide. Ornamental and recreational qualities of a plant don't have zero value, but they definitely don't have 10 times the value of its ecosystem services.
But like everything, since the site is for humans, I do need to find a balance there. So point taken.
PS: swiftcoder and pavel_lishin had similar feedback about garden goals although with a different focus
Comment · 16 days ago
Sure. But this same argument goes for every open source project ever built. At some point some convergence is in our best interest one some things, or we all burn tokens recreating the same thing until the planet is mostly data centers.
You'll note I'm not reinventing things, most of this project is connecting dots between open science and already amazing projects like iNaturalist. But if you're familiar with it, you might also be frustrated with its extremely simplistic approach to identifying natives.
The reason I suspect is why your last point exists, except I've spent an inordinate amount of time and effort ensuring that Indigene doesn't claim a plant is native to a region (vs. a whole continent) when it's not. That makes it less comprehensive than other resources, but unless you can point to specific issues it doesn't make it less reliable.
I can't make you care, but if you might this is where I'd look if I were skeptical:
https://indigene.app/confidence
https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/blob/main/DATA_SOUR...
https://indigene.app/plants/penstemon-digitalis (example of a status conflict)
https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/blob/main/app/scrip... (which is what does this status checek)
And if you care to call me out on any GIS mistakes (given my own lack of expertise in that area) this where you're likely to find mistakes: https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/blob/main/app/scrip...
Comment · 16 days ago
Thank you for that! Curious what feedback you get from her.
Comment · 16 days ago
Yeah, that's not great. You missed "Don't want to use your location? Search by town or pick a region instead." because it's lower on the page (see edit below for fix).
I specifically limited map levels to reduce the app's size and that's a big downside.
I don't get your location, your browser does since everything is client-side by the reverse geocoding API definitely does for the map (and you can't take my word for it) so let me see if I can make this less annoying.
No point of trying to be privacy-conscious if the alternative is a pain in the ass, no argument there.
Edit: should be resolved via https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/pull/253
Comment · 16 days ago
Recently had to fix a similar issue where a zipcode from Florida landed in Spain (https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/issues/219).
That's what I get for trying to limit myself to client-side APIs but I'll take your repro and try to address it. Here's the tracking issue if you're interested: https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/issues/251
Edit: should be addressed by this change if you'd like to give another try: https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/pull/252
Comment · 16 days ago
Welp you're in luck because my friend Rikki Ocampos who's been helping with Indigene told me yesterday about CISMAs:
> CISMAs are organizations for different management areas, they’re part of the Florida Invasive Species Council.
https://www.floridainvasives.org/for-homeowners/
I told her guidance on "unplanting" invasives is definitely something I want to tackle but it can be tricky to navigate so the first update is this PR (https://github.com/olivierlacan/indigene/pull/247) providing better guidance on whether, when, how to "unplant" invasives and whose permission you might need.
Definitely curious about any and all invasive management resources so thanks fo the https://woodyinvasives.org link, I don't think I was aware of that one yet!
Maintained Code School 2012-2018.
Created https://shields.io
Maintainer of https://keepachangelog.com
Tending to https://indigene.app