Overgrown Ideas
Welcome to "Overgrown Ideas," the podcast where we dig into all things landscape architecture, and whatever else comes up. Hosted by Land F/X developer and project manager Forrestt Williams, each episode brings you conversations with guests from across the world of design, landscape architects, software nerds, and more. Whether you're into gardens or software, you enjoy a good public space, or you're wondering how to design with less water, this series is for you. Proudly sponsored and produced by Land F/X – software built to make AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp, and Rhino actually work for landscape architects and irrigation pros.
Overgrown Ideas
The Dirt on Botanical Nomenclature
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This week, host Forrestt sat down in the Land F/X studio with our in-house horticulturist (aka "plant geek"), Molly Vanderlip. Molly broke down her deep love of and interest in plants, forged during childhood, which informs her efforts to manage the Land F/X plant database. She went into her fascination with binomial plant nomenclature and its status as an essential mode of plant-related communication, her love of botanical gardens, and her herculean efforts to capture a vast collection of plant photos for our database by exploring gardens around the country. Finally, Forrestt tested Molly's plant savvy with a rousing game of "Name That Plant!" Come get plant nerdy with our resident plant nerd!
Welcome to Overgrown Ideas, the show where we dig into the world of landscape architecture. From big design concepts to nitty-gritty stuff that actually makes spaces come alive. We're here to just chat about it. I'm your host, Forrest Williams. Uh I'm a developer at LandFX, and every episode we do, we just explore the ideas and interview people in the industry, and hopefully that enlightens us. Today's guest is someone we're lucky to have. She's right here working for LandFX. Her name is Molly Vanderlip. She is our horticultural guru. Although I think she has something to say about that title. So whether you're a seasoned landscape architect or just someone who loves a good plant conversation, stick around. Let's get into it. Welcome. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
SPEAKER_02Yes. My name is Molly. And I'm a horticulturist. So I'm a huge plant geek. A geek, yes. Yep. I work for LandFX. I manage the plant database and help with developing related features. As you know.
SPEAKER_03I do know. I work very closely with you. Yes. I've noticed on our website that your title, your official LandFX title is Horticultural Guru.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03And we recently went through, I had HR go through our system and make sure all of the titles were accurate and she signed off on it. So your official title is Well, I actually wanted it to be changed. Okay, well, we might want to figure that out.
SPEAKER_02I was like, I think maybe, especially when I'm like now working with more people, I would I would like it to be something a little more professional. Horticulturist. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be good.
SPEAKER_03I think that's great. So yeah, we'll get right on that. Um but I am really, really glad that you're here. Thank you for joining us. Um this is fun. Yeah. Because, like I said, we work very closely together in the development of the plant database, which is uh at it at the core of LandFX, I think, and maybe this is because I'm close to it. It's kind of like the the the diamond in the coal of the software is the plant database. It's the core component. It's the first sales point, it's the first most useful feature of the software. It's it's the reason that Land FX is as good as it is because it's not just all of the features that are incredible, but there's also this incredibly vast database of plants with all of this data in it. Again, I'm very close to this. So we're we're both a little biased. Yes. When we work on the plant database, one thing that blows me away when I work with you is your knowledge of plants, but also your ability to adapt to like a new plant entry, and you know, you're able to look up the information, figure it out real quick, parse it in your head, yes, no to data, like this is in inaccurate, um, and organizing of our data, which is incredibly difficult and there's a lot going on. So uh how do you pull this off? Like what that's that's a there's a lot of information floating around. How how do you like think about plant information?
SPEAKER_02I think a lot of it is triage because how it works is I see the entries as they come in from the land effects users, which is just cool because it's like exactly what people are specifying. Um and so it's like that's what becomes then prioritized. But then it's triage beyond that to trying to put in data and photos and stuff for the most used plants because that's gonna bring the most value to the most people. Right. Um, but I I feel it it's nice because we have like breadth or like breadth and depth to it where it's like we have 50,000 plants. Um, we have like weird native stuff from Australia and from like tropical climates, and then we have like the most run-of-the-mill horticultural thing in the US. Um, but yeah, there's there's a lot of entries that have a lot of information, and then some that are like mainly just a name, uh mostly based on the usage, I guess.
SPEAKER_03And I that's just one thing that impresses me about the way you handle all of this data. Yeah. You somehow managed to keep it all in your head. Hey, hey, everybody, this is Forrest. I'm just interrupting real quick to say that if you're enjoying the show, please go ahead and hit subscribe and like uh wherever you're watching this episode. Um I know you're just about to do it before me reminding you, but it's important to us and it just really, really helps. Um do it now. Just tap. It just takes a thumb, takes a mouse click. Uh there, you know, you've got a bunch of digits on your fingers you could use, a little tappity-tappity tap. And if you really want to make our day, you could leave us a review. Uh, even just a s five stars. Comment the word plants. That's even that. It'll probably make us all cry out of pure joy. Um I won't cry. I might. If you leave a comment, I'll cry. How about that? Um, okay, that's it. Back to the good stuff. Here we go. Now, you are a holder horticulturist. That's a uh interesting. Um like when did you discover your love for botany?
SPEAKER_02It's definitely been a theme my entire life, I would say. Um, probably the first thing, so my mom is a biologist and my dad was like an avid gardener too. Is, I should say. Um but so I like definitely from them learned, I was able to like learn plant names from my mom on hikes. Like, what's that? To tell me what stuff was, and then got to like play in the garden a lot, and they were very supportive of my interest in plants. Um, so it started with like pumpkins. I was really into pumpkins as a kid, and growing giant pumpkins. Our neighbor grew giant pumpkins. And so that's cool. Yeah, when I was 10, I grew one and we like went to the way off that's in Half Moon Bay. Um, so yeah. How big was it? 236 pounds. Are you serious? Which is small, which is very small. The ones that win are are thousands of pounds.
SPEAKER_03About how big around was it?
SPEAKER_02It was like this big, maybe.
SPEAKER_03That's pretty massive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it's it was small compared to what was there. But they were like because I was 10, they were like, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very silly.
SPEAKER_03So after the the uh Molly and the great pumpkin, uh w what happened after that?
SPEAKER_02Um then I was really into cacti.
SPEAKER_03Nice.
SPEAKER_02In high school. And I was like, okay, I think this plant thing, I think, I think I'm onto something here. So I was like, I'll go to Cal Poly and study horticulture. Um botany and horticulture. Great department here. Yeah, do the do the plant thing for both botany and horticulture, great great department at Cal Poly here in San Luis Po right.
SPEAKER_03And what's been your career path since then?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, so since then I've worked in a lot of different fields within horticulture. So um mainly nurseries, but also some like public gardens, conservatories, stuff like that. Um yeah, I haven't explored landscape as much. But um, yeah, and then two land effects.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell And that's the overlap where uh the landscape architects need plants and someone we needed somebody knowledgeable of plants. As I recall, um what year did you get hired here?
SPEAKER_02It was 2019.
SPEAKER_032019. And yeah. It it was kind of a temporary thing at first or something. Yeah, it was like an internship. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But then I mean, obviously, it worked out so well. It worked out well. So at LandFX, like we just talked about, you manage the plant database um and you also help guide development of other features. Um so we have a really cool thing when you work with, say, Amanda or Jake, uh, our landscape architects that work here, so that that way there's this really great overlap of your knowledge and their knowledge of the industry. And that helps guide the development and the new features. For instance, the plant seed mix that just launched recently. Uh, you were very instrumental in helping us figure out how to organize that data, how to enter it, what the clients should see, how it should be approached, what it should look like in the schedule. That's that's all so fantastic. But you wanted to talk to us about something more specific than that today.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03Botanical nomenclature. Um that sounds a bit boring and mundane. Tell me why we should care about botanical nomenclature.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I guess for context, a lot of the job that I'm doing is like when a new name comes into the database, it's like, is this the correct name for this plant? Is it formatted correctly, spelled correctly? Is the taxonomy up to date? All this stuff.
SPEAKER_03So And real quick, yeah. Uh you're referring to new plants that clients enter and submit to the database. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Um and like checking existing stuff too, because stuff changes over time. Um but because of that, it is it is like that sounds really tedious, and it's like, why, why is this important, right? And it like has made me think a lot because it's been like six, seven years. Um, it's made me think a lot about like why is this valuable? And I think it goes back to like what is a superpower of humans, and I think our biggest superpower is communication and like specifically written communication. And basically, like plant names allow us to communicate information about an entity that like there's no like if I were to grow a plant, I can learn about it while I'm growing it, right? But if I want to communicate that information to you across like a distance or a time barrier or something, um, like without a photograph, um and or like a very intense description of like all the botanical features, how do I communicate which specific plant that is? Yeah, or just everything that I've learned about this plant. How do I communicate that to somebody else? And so then it comes back to this system that has been developed that allows us to easily communicate about these plants. And so that's why I find like the accuracy of names to be important and like following the rules for how you are supposed to write those names.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell So you're saying um if I'm a client and I enter mulch and and submit it as a new plant, you're saying that's invalid.
SPEAKER_02That's invalid. It's the bane of your existence, I believe. But um Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I think it's just a cool it's it's like a superpower of official the superpower of the human species, communicating ideas.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that is written language.
SPEAKER_03That is very much something the rest of the animal kingdom can't do.
SPEAKER_02It allows us to do things like build plant databases.
SPEAKER_03Boom. I love it. Tying it all together. How do I know if I'm listing up a name correctly? Or like what's the master list of plant names? How do I, you know, how do how do people know, how should they be looking this up?
SPEAKER_02So there are two resources I want to talk about. There is um, and they're both kind of organized by the International Society uh for horticultural science. And the first one is called the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.
SPEAKER_03And that be more syllableistic, that would be nice. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but yeah, that's basically like the rule book for how to write the botanical names of cultivated plants. Um and it's like pretty easy to find online. Um but that's just like if I have a question about formatting for a name, or yeah, it's like deep, deeply nerdy stuff. Yeah. Um, very boring to most, but that is because I'm dealing with plant names and I want stuff to be accurate, I will go there when I have a question of like how do I display this name properly.
SPEAKER_03That's kind of like the main source of truth in nomenclature.
SPEAKER_02It's like the rule book, basically.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then the other thing that I uh go to is called um International Cultivar Registration Authority, which is basically also um chosen by the um International Society for Horticultural Science, like outlined it's a entity that has chosen, like volunteered to be the authority for a specific group of plants. So like a lot of times it's like a botanical garden or a um society that's like dedicated to one type of plant, they'll be like, okay, we're gonna be the registration authority for this group of plants. So like daylilies, I'm not sure who it is exactly. I think it might be the um the daylilies society, right? And so if I'm a if I'm a plant breeder and I'm breeding a new cultivar of daylily, then I'm going to submit it to them and say, here's my cultivar, and they're gonna like check the rule book, make sure, yeah, this name is cool, this is a good um a valid like cultivar and it hasn't been used before. And then they can be like, cool, we're gonna put it in, we're gonna like publish it so that there's there's information about when this plant like came into existence. Um and that's like a valid thing. And then they also do lists, they'll like maintain a list of the all the cultivars within a genus. So there's like the boxwood society has like all the boxwood um cultivars outlined in species, and I use those very often when I'm looking for the correct parentage. So like which species is a variety like correctly listed under, I'll go to those resources because they are the authority and they also have put in the time and effort to like make sure that their list is correct. Um, that's fascinating. Who runs those committees? It's so it's like basically they just volunteer to be the entity that is like the authority on on this thing. So it it's just people that are like involved in societies or botanical gardens. Um yeah, it's all it's all volunteer basis. Interesting. So there's not yeah, and I really don't think there's very much awareness that this even exists to a lot of people. So that's why I'm like, I want to spread the word about that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, that's great.
SPEAKER_02Because it's a great resource and really important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to like add a system in where there's a lot of chaos. Because there's just like new plants coming out all the time.
SPEAKER_03And there's a lot of uh nurseries and plant suppliers that want to create their own specific plant. They want a trademark it, they want uh how does that fit into this society organization?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's interesting because the there's a lot of cultivar names that are like they don't seem like a sensical word. It's like a bunch of letters or something. And those have to do with people mostly like breeders or breeding companies wanting to like protect their intellectual property by because so essentially plant patents are a thing, and that's another resource I look at a lot when I'm doing um, when I'm trying to find like the the parentage for a cultivar. Um so like which which species are involved. I'll go to the patent because I'm like, okay, the breeder probably knows which what the cross was or if it's a hybrid, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell The nonsensical cultivar names. Like you we have one listed here. SMNBSP.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I just made that. I just made that up. But that's like an example of what you see with these plants.
SPEAKER_03And uh have another one. And so that's related to the plant patent?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so plant patents basically um they you can get a patent, but it only lasts 20 years. And so a lot of like plant breeders or um introduction companies have figured out or are trying to like circumvent that and protect their intellectual property by using a trademark instead. So they'll have like the trademark name be something that's like spilled wine, but then the the cultivar is bocros piwi. So it's like something that you wouldn't remember, but you'll remember spilled wine. You're like, oh, that's cool. It's like purple foliage.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so the patent expires after 20 years, there's no ability to renew it, right? But a trademark you can renew every, I think it's every 10 years, and you can just renew that indefinitely. So they're like, if this is really a popular plant and we want to have the rights to it to like make royalties after the patent expires, then we'll do the trademark and then we can just keep keep doing that. Um but the issue is that because people know it by that trademark name, they want to use that as the cultivar. But in the rule book that we talked about, the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants specifically says you can't use a trademark as a cultivar. So it like makes this confusing thing because like in our database, I see it all the time, people entering the trademark name because they that's how they communicate it to people. People aren't gonna remember something unusual, but I have to then go and change and make sure that I put the the uh unusual cultivar name in there as well.
SPEAKER_03And then wouldn't would you uh put the trademark name somewhere else like in the description? In the common in the common name. Common name. There you go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So it it's in there, but uh so they can still find it if they search for it. Totally.
SPEAKER_03Okay. One other thing that you do really well that I was really stoked on is your uh plant photos. You went on a trip a couple of years ago uh to travel around botanical gardens, nurseries, hikes, and took photos that you then organized and uploaded into our system. Huge, like thousands and thousands and thousands of photos. How did that go down?
SPEAKER_02To go back to the botanical nomenclature thing, and another reason why I found it so important is that the reason I was able to do that was botanical gardens. And I like to think of botanical gardens as like the libraries. Um, because a regular landscape is like a library too, but every single book, which is like a plant in this analogy, there's no title on the spine. Right. And so you could read a single book, you could get that information from it if you like were to grow a plant in this analogy, but you couldn't like communicate that. Um yeah. And so for me, like traveling all over the country, I encountered a lot of plants that were unfamiliar, right? So being able to like see see the name, and there's the plant, I can take a photo, see the name, and then I can much more easily and more confidently. Process that photo and upload it directly.
SPEAKER_03Right. The botanical garden. The Dewey Decimal System is the little tag next to the plant that says exactly what it is. Exactly. Yeah. And there's some uh beautiful botanical gardens around. Uh you mentioned Cal Poly earlier. That's a gorgeous one. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Meaning Pine Arboretum. Beautiful. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_03It's a really nice place to relax or study and hang out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not many people know about that. It's kind of tucked away in the back of the camp campus.
SPEAKER_01Totally.
SPEAKER_03And when I've mentioned it to longtime locals, they're like, oh, there's a botanical garden there.
SPEAKER_01What? That's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, so some of the photos that you took in these wonderful botanical gardens. Um that was a that was a long adventure. Where all where all did you go?
SPEAKER_02I started in Slow, California. I did I did actually like two different legs, or maybe three. But I went, I did like a southwest trip in early spring, and then I went out to the Carolinas, like through the the south southeast, and then came back kind of like through the middle of the country. And then I did a Pacific Northwest loop. Nice. So I had a couple different loops. And I think I hit I hit over 50 botanical gardens. That's a lot.
SPEAKER_03Were most of them um academic, uh, you know, botanical gardens on campuses?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it varied a lot. Okay. So there's a lot of like big big gardens, small gardens, little like a public park. There's sometimes those that have have labels on the plants. Um so yeah, it really it really varied, and every garden is different.
SPEAKER_03So the only three that I know about in our direct vicinity is uh the one over at um across the freeway from Cuesta. Uh the Cal Poly one and Lotus Land. Those are the only ones I've been to in this area. Yeah. Are there am I missing some?
SPEAKER_02Um in this area, I'll say honorable mention for the Cal Poly Plant Conservatory. Really cool. Um new, new building since 20 like 2020.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I might not have seen that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really beautiful. It's like up on the hill. Okay. You should you should check that one.
SPEAKER_03We'll do.
SPEAKER_02Um, but yeah, in this area, there's not that many. There's the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Yeah. I also have not been to that one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that one's beautiful. It's very like native focused.
SPEAKER_03Oh, great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Really, really cool one.
SPEAKER_03Uh Molly. You took a bunch of photos, and uh I went through and I chose some of the photos that you have taken. And I wanted to see if you could name what these plants are. In a new segment we're calling Name That Plant. Uh up first we have up first we have this guy.
SPEAKER_02Is it America or Morella?
SPEAKER_03Morella. Ding ding ding.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so this plant, it's it's there's two names that it's it's going by. And I forget which one is the correct right now, but Right, right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But um Bayside, Bonito, Southern Wax Myrtle.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so it's it's not uh there's a there's a West Coast one and an East Coast one. Okay. What's the specific epithet? What's the Morella serif?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Is that what it is? Cerifera, correct.
SPEAKER_02Cool. Yeah. Wax myrtle.
SPEAKER_03Uh for our next slide. Are you ready for this? Okay. Three, two, one, go.
SPEAKER_02Is it a hellebore?
SPEAKER_03It sure is. Okay. Nailed it.
SPEAKER_02Nice. Did I take this photo? You did take this photo. There's so many. I do not remember. It's like I said, it was like photo, photo of the plant, photo of the name. Yep. Boom.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah. And literally thousands of them.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. I think we're up to like 19,000 maybe. Yeah. And a lot of us aren't mine, but but yeah, good. Maybe 15 or mine.
SPEAKER_03Um, do you remember anything else about this plant or like a common name or a location?
SPEAKER_02No. Hellebores.
SPEAKER_03California dreaming.
SPEAKER_02Oh, nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. There's a lot of cultivars of hellabores. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So that that that would have been a stretch if you had remembered that.
SPEAKER_02Like I was saying, like the having the names, like, you know, I can't I can't it's unless you're like a hellebore expert, a breeder, you might be like, yeah, I know. I know this cultivar. But like to the cultivar level, it's like so hard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Maybe if you're on in one of the societies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And that's why we need those resources. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, let's do another one. Are you ready?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Ooh. Is this um Katsura tree?
SPEAKER_03Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_02It is? Let's see. What's the So far you're three for three. Is it Cercidophyll?
SPEAKER_03Yes, it is. Okay, nice. This is so impressive. We're definitely gonna pipe in some uh applause after each one.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I I fell in love with this tree on my travels. I was like, everywhere I saw it, it was just so I mean it's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_03Look at the these colors. The the stem is a different color than the main branch that it's growing out of, and the leaves have this beautiful texture. Yeah. Yeah. It's okay, let's see. We've got two more for you. Okay. Here comes the next one. A big old curveball.
SPEAKER_02Conifer. I don't know this one. Conifers are very difficult, especially if you can't see like the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03Right. I believe this is more of a like a shrub.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Is this oh yeah, I guess you don't have the locations.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Um what is it?
SPEAKER_03Fuja.
SPEAKER_02Fuja, okay. Arborvitae.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Is it oxidantolis? Yes. Nice.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02No, I see.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Nailed it. Nailed it. Well, no. Well, you were very close. As soon as I said Fuja, you filled in the blanks. Nice. Uh again. Impressive, impressive, impressive. Let's go with one final plant. Are you ready for this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Hooker. Hookahra.
SPEAKER_03Nailed it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but this is another one. See, I don't think I took this photo. This might be a um from one of our supplier folks. But because we there's one that is a breeder.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02That um and they release a ton of cultivars every year. And they're they're all super beautiful, but they're yeah, there's just so much.
SPEAKER_03I might have gotten this one mixed up in uh when I was pulling the photos down.
SPEAKER_02Maybe. Just because it's a square. They like all have the square.
SPEAKER_03Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, yeah. Hookers are so so pretty.
SPEAKER_03Um, not only did you basically nail it five out of five, um, but you even reminded me that I messed up and pulled some photos that you didn't actually take.
SPEAKER_02That's okay. I mean, I should be able to know what the plants are, even if I didn't take the photo.
SPEAKER_03That's really impressive. That's a testament to your knowledge, Molly. Thank you. Um, this has been really fun. This has been enlightening, and I hope that some other people find some value in this. I certainly did, because uh working with you, I I'm definitely not a plant expert. I'm working on the programming nature of the side of this project. And some of sometimes you have to remind me like you need to display it a certain way. This is how it goes. Okay, why?
SPEAKER_02So annoying.
SPEAKER_03So thank you for coming by the studio. Um, really appreciate you. And uh, we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03All right.