Thursday, January 22, 2015

My New, Improved Garden Map

Click for greater detail.

In my last post, I shared a few of my favorite garden maps, and mentioned that I needed to update my own garden map, as I had made some significant changes to my garden areas in the last year.

I've finished the new, updated map, such as it is. It's no great work of art, not a beautiful perspective map with lovely artistic drawings or watercolor paintings of the house and gardens such as those done by real artists in my last post. Mine is only a topographical map, drawn and traced with the aid of Google Earth and colored in with colored pencils. But I believe it's more accurate than my previous map.

Plus, I have included more labels in this map. When I was writing my last post about garden maps, I realized how important the labels are in garden maps: they serve to personalize a garden and communicate information about the purpose and design intentions of the various areas. (Before, I guess I thought that the labels might deface a map and make it harder to view, but I now realize that this isn't the case at all.) Thus I have labelled many more areas in my new map, including important trees. I hope this will tell more about my gardens than my last map:


My old garden map, done in January 2013. I think the numbering of areas made it harder to understand. Labels are better.


The biggest changes in my gardens that can be seen on the maps, are in the areas to the northwest of my house: the new West Island, North Island and Yellow Garden are now depicted (the removal of one of the two ash trees is evident where the Yellow Garden is now -- there's still one ash tree in the North Island, although it's hard to see in the drawing).

Google Earth finally posted an updated aerial view of my property last June, so it was easy for me to make a new map. Here are the steps I used:
  1. I saved a photo of my property from Google Earth,
  2. Then, I made the colors lighter using Photoshop (so the outlines of the structures and areas can be discerned through another piece of paper) and printed it out, so that it fit the whole size of the paper. 
  3. Then I lightly taped another piece of paper on top of the printed photo and, holding it up to my computer screen so that it was backlit, very lightly traced with a pencil over the outlines of the various structures, trees and garden bed outlines. 
  4. Then I colored in the traced areas with colored pencils, adding details to planting beds, etc., and used a straight edge and a regular pencil to make the outlines of buildings more definite. Then I removed the bottom taped photo.
  5. I scanned the image and used Photoshop to adjust the colors on the map, to label the areas and to add a title and a compass image, which I found online. 
  6. Lastly, I saved it as a JPG file so it wouldn't be too large to post.
(Ed.: Thanks to Linda for her suggestion that I include a map scale in the map; I hadn't thought of that before. I guess in most garden maps they're not necessary, except for the very largest estate maps. I don't have a grand estate, but I do live on five acres, although only about three acres of the property is depicted -- there's a two-acre field to the left that I have left out so that I could focus in on the cultivated areas. For scale, it's about 150 yards/140 meters from the top (north) edge of my property to the bottom (south) edge depicted in the map.)

Again, the result is not a great work of art, but it certainly suffices to communicate the plan of my gardens to anyone who might be interested in them.

Now, I'm working on trying to figure out a way to make the areas of my map clickable, perhaps with hover images or at least links to pages about each area. Since I don't know much about HTML, this is going to take some research and fiddling. We'll see if I'm successful....

I'd love to see how other bloggers map out their gardens -- do you include a map on your blog? Thanks for sharing, and for reading! -Beth

16 comments:

  1. Neat, neat, neat! I like the enhanced color. And I like having more labels.

    You can search for "clickable maps online". Lots of stuff available. Apparently kids can do it.

    But before you start take a look at these story maps on ESRI's website.

    http://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/

    It says they are open source; that would be grand.

    Looking forward to your next installment of garden mapping.

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    1. Jane, What a neat site you have discovered! The history maps look fascinating -- I will have to spend some time exploring them. Thanks so much for sharing the link, and for reading! -Beth

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  2. The updated map is good because I'm interested in trees and so it's interesting to see those in relation to everything else. Also I noticed the windbreaks and they must be essential as I think your surrounding land is quite flat. We have such a tiny garden in the UK there's no point in having a map on my blog. We don't do much to develop the land and garden in Italy any more except to maintain what has already been planted over the years. Could you indicate on your map the distance between the different areas near the border of your land in relation to the house? The chicken house and the kitchen garden look quite a long way from the house, but then you do have a herb garden for everyday needs.

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    1. Linda, Yes, a map scale would be helpful -- I hadn't thought of that. I guess most garden maps don't have them, except the very largest estate gardens. I used Google Earth to measure, and it's about 150 yards or 140 meters from the top (north) edge of my property to the bottom (south) edge. It's about 65 yds/60 m from my front door to the Kitchen Garden -- it's a bit far away, but my husband is out there every day taking care of the chickens, so it's not a problem or anything -- not unusual for Iowa farmsteads. I bet your UK garden isn't so tiny that you couldn't draw a plan of it -- patio here, major shrubs and trees labeled, and planting areas defined, maybe even the planting plan of the beds included. You might not need to use Google Earth if it's easy for you to indicate the placement of areas roughly in scale; you could just use markers or pencils to draw it freehand. I'd love to see the layout of your garden in a rough drawing. Thanks for the helpful suggestion; I'll try to add the scale to my map; and thanks for reading! -Beth

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    2. Thanks for the measurements which gives me additional information about how large your property is. To me it does look like a small estate or farmstead home with surrounding land!
      When I look at the photos your land seems vast in my mind, which is wonderful You can do a lot there. When I get around to writing more about our UK garden then I might draw a plan and post it. We used to have an allotment at the bottom of our daughter's last home, but gave that up. That was more interesting to post about, but more my husband's project than mine. We moved on and have not done much in the English garden as our energy goes on trips to Italy. My internet connection has been playing up so sometimes I don't have the internet facility so sorry for the delay in writing a comment on this post. I'm writing quickly in case the connection goes again! Have a lovely rest of the week. x

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    3. Thanks again for the scale suggestion, and I look forward to seeing more about your English gardens when you return, as well as about Italy during this season. Happy traveling! -Beth

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  3. Great job, Beth. You are so talented. I wish Google Earth would update their map of our property. I am going to try to figure something out without using G.E. P. x

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    1. Pam, I know, it's frustrating when GE takes forever to update an area -- we gardeners want to see all our hard work and changes from on high, Right Now! You could use the GE image to make sure the scale of your map is accurate with respect to house, other structures, property outline, and older beds. Then you could add the newer areas by hand, and they would probably be pretty close to accurate scale. (It's not important that everything be exactly perfect -- it's just for other garden bloggers, not for any sort of legal property survey, after all.) Please let me know when you have made your map -- I'd like to see the layout of your gardens. Thanks for reading! -Beth

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  4. I used to have a whole set of maps that I had created, but with all the changes made over the past few years, they soon became outdated... Sarah is after me all the time to map the gardens and name all the plants... seems like an impossible undertaking to me... will have to give some consideration to what you've done here... pretty neat! L

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    1. I'm sure it must be difficult to keep up with the many changes in your gardens, Larry -- it's only been one year since I made my last map; I can only imagine how significant have been the changes in your extensive gardens, especially in the past couple of years. I hope you will consider mapping and naming the plants in your gardens. Gardens are ephemeral by their nature, and photos and written documentation are far more lasting -- something that hits home for me as I do garden history research.... Thanks for reading, Larry! -Beth

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  5. What an interesting thing for you to do. Here is a link to your namesake BETH Chatto, a well known gardener and plants woman here who is now in her 90's. I have postings on it on my blog. Thanks for your visit and comments by the way.http://www.bethchatto.co.uk/

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    1. Thanks for the link, Barbara -- I'd certainly love to visit Beth Chatto's gardens someday, and I'll enjoy reading what you have written about them on your blog. Thanks for reading! -Beth

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  6. Have you ever seen the paintings done by elephants? That's what my map would look like. But I do love yours. :o)

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    1. Hee hee... that's a pretty funny image! I'm sure you're selling yourself short, though. Just about anyone can trace over a picture and color in the lines. Give it a try -- I'd love to see the layout of your garden areas. Thanks for reading. -Beth

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  7. Google Earth hasn't updated our area to include my new Terrace Garden yet, BUT . . . I have a son with a quad-copter and a camera, so in the spring I plan to send him out to fly it over the house and take some pictures for me.

    When I was planning what to put in the Terrace Garden, I took pictures of it from the front and printed them out on regular paper in black and white. It was very helpful in determining how many shrubs I needed.

    I like your new map.--Kimberley

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    1. Kimberley, that's a great idea about using the drone copter and camera! And I've done the same thing when planning garden areas: printing out photos on printer paper and then drawing on the photo with markers to see what my ideas would look like. Great minds think alike.... :-) Thanks for reading! -Beth

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