Ok here's the deal.. for one of our classes we have to "prototype" something innovative. What we're doing (our group) is a machine that will be able go in your yard, take soil samples and determine the amounts of moisture, etc that's in your soil. It will also determine your zone, amount of exposure, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be realistic.. but we have to find out what minerals, or other things, that our machine should check for.
In the end, the purpose of the machine is to generate a report of plants/trees/flowers that will thrive in your particular yard.
Any help at all would be really appreciated!! Thanks!!
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read through all the replies so I'm sure everything I mention will have been covered, but here are some things I take into consideration when planning my garden:
- soil type (ie..clay, sand, loam, chalk, peat, a mixture, is it well drained, acidity/ph (acidity/alkalinity) levels, etc), remember though PH levels can be adjusted.
- zone (warmth)
- location: north/south/east/west facing (or a combination if it is going to be a large area), is the area protected by structures or other vegetation, is the area a micro climate?
- amount of sunlight
- is water easily accessible (some plants require more than others)
- rainfall
- what will be the purpose of the garden (rock garden, vegetable garden, perrenial garden, flower garden, butterfly garden, water garden, shade garden, formal garden etc)
Hi ...I guess we have some time to wait until this marvelous invention is available, eh? At least you have seen your groundhog. Mine can eat a 6ft sweet potato vine in 15 minutes...this year she has brought her kids with her. My only suggestion is get a cat or use bloodmeal which is a little expensive but will last all season. Make sure it is not mixed with bonemeal as that does not seem to be as effective. It reallly stinks at first and you must reapply after a hard rain. The good news is that it is actually a good fertilizer and you don't need to use that much. Just sprinkle from a small type container (you won't want to touch it!) around whatever you want to protect. After a couple of weeks, the groundhog will be totally disgusted and move to someone else's yard. I like that motion- sensor yard sprinkler I saw in the Lee Valley magazine....I don't know how it can tell between a person and an animal, tho. Now that I am thinking about it, I do have a couple of neighbours I'd like to surprise! Norm
how about having it be able to tell if an animal is living under your garden, or at least detect the presence of tunnels!
(a groundhog has appeared in my garden and is currently eating all my plants. i wish i had known he was hiding or digging way down there!)
I have been finding out myself just how important to know what is lying beneath our "gardens". After tearing down a retaining wall across the front of our house - 25 years ago it had been part of a large steep rock garden which we replaced, leaving the existing evergreens around the house. In April after removing the old wall found that the roots had grown through the wall only to grow larger on the other side. It was apparent to me then, that heavy clay did not retain the moisture needed to support the large Yews and sent it searching for water just to survive. I also remembered even tho I added manure, peat moss, bone meal top soil and fertilized regularly...probably the top 12 " of the soil was good but it didn't do much to improve the soil beyond that point. After rotatilling for 3 days we tried to remove as much as possible. I could pick up solid blue-gray slimy clay the size of shoe box that the machine spit out. very hard to chew up. Many annuals that I would dig up in the fall had a very similar shape to the container they had started in..very odd...so I think clay content is extremely important to gardeners especially when you think of the cost of some of the ornamentals now. I know some can tolerate clay but I would say for your project and the clients you would expect to attract that this type of analysis would ensure a "thriving environment" That is my personal goal as well. I am depending on leaf mold, manure and many large dew worms to speed things up underneath the bags of peat moss and black garden loam I have now added. Hope I can afford some bushes after all this! Hope my story helps. Looking forward to the final invention. Norm
That's perfect, thank you so much! I will add it to my list of things to check for hehe This presentation is Tuesday, but we have a group meeting today to kind of finalize everything.
after our problem with our tree this week...it would be good to know if the ground is carrying any fungal diseases...apparently some of these lurk in the dirt & can kill certain trees.. expensive & disappointing. I know I would love to know if this was present before buying & investing into new trees. Also, in a my search I found that there are trees that are immune to this fungas. If ones is aware of it's presence than you could buy what would survive....hope my amateur ramblings are of some help:D
thanks!! That's pretty much exactly what we were thinking.. something that has some sort of probe that will punch into the ground, take the soil back up into the machine where it will be tested, and the results will be displayed onto the LCD display.
Again, I'm not even sure if this is all possible, but the teacher really likes us to think creatively, so he doesn't want us to get bogged down with how it will work, just think of what it will do!
That would be a good gadget... I'm sure alot of people would use those services.
Wow thanks for all your help! I'm at Mohawk College (I see you're in Hamilton too)... alot of people are doing fun quirky things for this presentation but I think this idea of ours could actually work!! I had thought of it because of my involvement in these forums, and seeing alot of people talking about planting.
It's funny you mention the heat sensor... I just came up with the design of it last night and it's a kind of bubble.. the entire surface is heat sensitive, and the bubble design allows for every direction to be considered. It will record how many hours per day of sun and shade that that particular spot gets.
I think another thing is that it will be placed in different areas of the yard, so that it takes the info for each corner, planting area, etc. and records it somehow, along with a way of knowing what area the data is for.
Should I check for clay content as well?
Well we're still deciding on the "how long" part. But at least a week or so. As for the list of plants.. yes.. once the machine gets picked up from the client's yard.. it gets taken back to "our" computers, where the information is uploaded and it generates a report (the client will be able to log in to a website using a username and password that we give them, and they can see the findings), including all the flowers and plants/trees that would do well in the client's yard. For each plant, you'll be able to click on it and get a full detailed explanation of the lighting conditions, watering, etc with a picture of it.
It's hard to explain
MamboGirl, you mentioned your project to me, but not in detail. I'm just wondering if this (object) that you would put in the yard, for how long would you have to leave it in the client's yard? Would it give you specific names of flowers and trees to use? And would it give you instructions to better you soil and environment?
Could have used something like that a few weeks ago. I think the long cylinder (1-2ft) is a great design and to add to that I would put some kind of heat sensor to identify sun -shade and climate conditions created by large trees, houses, even pollution to project future fertility ie plant decomposition, moisture retention, and planting to ammend certain soils as part of your analysis. Just thinking of this area, a limestone escarpment surrounding this valley poses flooding problems especially because of the clay and bedrock we deal with. Large deciduous trees have prevented errosion and provided fertile soil for many natural plants to thrive. Have I taken this a step too far for your project? or was this to be a landscaping tool? Norm
for one of my geography courses in university, we had to take a "core" sample from the bottom of the lake. It was a huge hand-held machine that when pushed into the slug would remove a "core". (a perfect cylinder) from the soil (about 1 or 2 feet long). I visualize your mashine like that. It would be helpful to know the percent of clay vs. sand. etc. Don't remember enough of the chemical composition to help you out though.
sounds interesting
Yea kind of. It's going to be a machine that you rent, put in your yard, it records all the needed information, then we bring it back to our company's location (imaginary company).. and it generates a report that the user can see online. So they'll see the Ph levels, fertilizer levels, etc.. of their yard.. along with the list of plants that will work for them.
do you mean a robot type thing that is operated by a human.
Sorry I don't think I understand.