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Comment by ryebread777 | Hacker News Reader

I’m on it! What sorts of things do you care about when you’re looking for outdoor plants? Anything besides hardiness zone? Maybe categories for trees, shrubs, etc?

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The regions where the plant is considered native, how aggressive it spreads (there is some metric that captures this IIRC), and regions where it is labeled as invasive. The PictureThis app shows this info, and it's incredibly useful.

For outdoor plants, I would really want to know what plants are drought tolerant. Climate change is drastically altering summers in Minnesota (wildfire smoke, drought, high AQI, high temps, extreme downpours).

It would also be really great to search for pollinator friendly plants (https://bluethumb.org is an excellent reference)

I’ve been building a permaculture garden and I want to know

- usda hardiness zone - sun/shade tolerance - geographic origin - is it a nitrogen fixer - soil pH preference - wet/dry soil preference - when does it fruit?

This is a decent resource: https://permacultureplantdata.com/

Maybe to add on: whether it is pollinator friendly, when it blooms (not sure if this differs from fruiting, but I think so?), whether it is edible, part of a guild (if so, show other guild members)

Water usage, edible or not, color changing leaves, shade tolerance, soil compatibility, flowers or not, color of flowers.

Not sure if there's a way to say 'messiness factor'... some trees drop a lot of crap besides leaves.

It would be great to find native plants for your area.

This might be a stretch, but I would love to know what outdoor plants are native to my area.

This would be an awesome feature. It would be a good resource for plant identification and I won't inadvertently introduce an invasive species into my local environment.

The number one thing to know for outdoor plants is if they are invasive or not.

(So tired of managing Garlic Mustard, Japanese Knotweed, Bittersweet and Buckthorn)

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