Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

[Laurel_Hill]

Hi! Welcome to this brand-new community! My name is Laurel Hill. I'm a horticulturist who is adding GIS to my tool bucket so I can better curate living collections at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I'm new(er) to GIS and it's great to know there's a community of other newbies out here. Hopefully, we can teach and inspire each other! I'm kicking off this community introduction post, so I'll share a picture of sunny azaleas and my dog Coco Bean. I'm glad you're here!

 

[AniaWiatr]

Hello, I'm Ania Wiatr and TOTALLY NEW to the GIS world. I have been assigned to create plant data collection at Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Very excited to be here and learn from you all!

[KaylaFlamm]

I'm Kayla, not a newbie, but excited to connect with more people and continue to learn about other gardens and ways of using GIS. I've been "doing GIS" (mainly to support plant records, facilities maintenance, and field work) at the Missouri Botanical Garden for 9 years now. I may have a lot of experience in some things (e.g. drones, Field Maps) but still totally newbie level (e.g. Python scripting) in other things! That's one of the cool parts about GIS... it's so complex that there are always new things to learn. 🙂 That said, it's not an insurmountable hill to get started with it!

[ChristinaVarnava]

Hello everyone! I'm Christina Varnava at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. I have been using GIS for about 5 years now, never got any formal training but I taught myself how to use it well enough to get by in grad school and on the job. So my experience with it is pretty surface level and there are definitely basic things that I am not doing correctly haha. I know GIS is a really powerful tool and I am excited to learn more with you all! To celebrate you creating this great community, I've included a photo of one of my favorite Iris cultivars 'Ojai' 

[DescansoGardens]

Hi everyone!  My name is Autumn and I manage the plant records at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles County.  My background is similar to Christina's, I learned GIS on the job and can get by, but there is definitely room for improvement.  I'm happy to share some of my experience muddling through and finding official tutorials and unofficial work-arounds though.  I'm looking forward to watching this community come together!

[saylwin]

Hello everyone! My name is Sophia Aylwin and I utilize GIS for conservation strategies at the Naples Botanical Garden. I would like to delve more into using it for plant records, especially in relation to IrisBG. I was introduced to GIS during college as a tool for research and I was amazed by the many applications in which it could be used! I definitely still classify myself as a beginner, I have about 2ish years of experience but there is still so much to learn. I just recently started taking a class on python scripting and its opened up a whole new world of opportunity. I am very happy to be here and I am very excited to hear how other gardens are utilizing GIS! 

[BillAllis]

Hi

I read the article in the APGA mag about how Naples is using GIS. I just posted how we are using it. I had intended to reach out to you guys (I was given Esther C's name ) because I am in Naples through the end of February. I've been to NBG two times already since here (we are members). Anyway, if you would be willing to meet at the garden I would love to discuss what you guys are doing and learn more about your workflows.  Bill Allis gardenbower@gmail.com

[NicholasR]

I'm Nick Kreevich and I help manage documentation of our plant collections here at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I obtained a BS in Geography back in 2017 and have about ~9 years using all the different ESRI products, but mostly working with ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, and the online suite of products that ESRI offers. With that said, and like Kayla said, GIS is a massive field and there are many things I don't know(but would like to learn about in the context of public gardens) like writing scripts, best practices for geospatial data management, administration(Enterprise system), and remote sensing(really interested in the application of LiDAR in documentation of tree collections; specifically tree height and canopy size). Looking forward to the future discussions on this new forum!

[BillAllis]

Hi
This sounds great.
About 30 acres of our site is forest. Our drone imagery of the canopy is very revealing related to tree species enumeration and identification.

When we did our initial assessment we blended drone sourced and calculated contours (1ft interval) with lidar topography in tree covered areas we couldnt generate 1 ft contours. This worked well for our purposes.

I am curious about your reference of lidar for canopy studies. How might this apply?

Thanks
Bill

[NicholasR]

Hi Bill,

I'm interested in being able to take measurements of trees using LiDAR. Without knowing the technicalities involved I can't answer your question too well, but here are some interesting videos on Youtube using LiDAR for capturing DBH values and here is a video capturing general tree metrics with LiDAR.