bonsai tracking

i am posting this mainly for vance, but it may help others too

vance, in your hinoki thread you sort of mentioned having a hard time keeping track of your trees...
(unless i misinterpreted what you wrote)

what i have done since i got into this is take pictures...
always and at most every major move...

this is how i handle all those pictures and also keep track of what i have done with trees and when:

when i first get a tree, i photograph it and also photo any literature or tags that came with it... i then create a folder on my computer for that tree which also has a simple spreadsheet i created with basic info (plant name, price, special care notes etc)

then throughout the year as i work on various trees and take pictures, i create a folder every month titled "may 2016" as an example and every picture from that month gets dumped into that folder...

after the month has ended, i go into that folder, highlight every picture and rename it "may 2016" for example (that way every picture bears the month and year as part of its name to avoid having to open "properties" at a later date to find when it was taken).

then at the end of the year, and during w-w-winter, i go through each month and drag the pictures of whatever tree into its own folder.

that last part could be done during the year or as-you-go, but with a full time job i find precious little screen time when i could be outside... so i just dump 'em into the folder and walk away... plus its kind of nice re-visiting the past growing season while the winter gales are blowing...

its a pretty simple system and its just a matter of folder diligence to avoid future head-scratching.

i'm sure others have good systems too and maybe this would be a good thread to share 'em... ?

Kevin,

If you have an iPhone, you might check out "Bonsai Album" I have been using it for awhile now and find it quite helpful in tracking the work and progression on my trees.

Kevin, good system, and I might follow suit.

So far, I have just been using the lightroom software by Adobe. My trees get a code once I decide they are there to stay. And every tree foto gets labelled with tge code, and the word bonsai. (Actually, everything bonsai related gets the label bonsai). This way you can have loads of shots of one tree, without clutting the folders too much.

I run in the problem though that my harddisk fills up way too fast, so I have most images on external drives, making locating them harder. Exporting each to a folder for that tree might help.

Flickr is a really great photo site bt with the notes etc it is ideal for a bonsai collction. I sort of use it for mine:

Not sure if this link works:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81136818@N06/albums

I use real photos in a photo album.
Laters.
Khaimraj

I use my own domain name on a distant server, and back it up regularly. It costs me about €35 a year ($37.435, £ 29.841) and I'm free of ads and the like.

http://krizic.eu/bonsai/photos/

I'm also a fan of "Wiki" various forks, like:

http://krizic.eu/bw/wakka.php?wiki=AceR0

Great ideas Alain. I wish that I had the time!

Kev Bailey wrote: I wish that I had the time!

It takes about 5 minutes to set up, organising it and maintening it is another matter...

I have started working with  Access since last year  to keep written track of all major activities completed or planned on my trees.  From the Access there are links to the other files to keep related photos of each tree and its development, genus/species characteristics or items of interest ( articles on  airlayer, grafts etc. )

You need some time to develop it. But the regular maintenance should not be a major task.  Anyway if I spend +3hours  styling a tree then spending another 10 min on the PC to keep on a track should not kill me.
At least I am still alive...

I use my memory.
I hardly take pictures.
I know every tree I own.
I know what was done to it and when.
I have lots of trees and all of that remembering tends to keep my mind sharp.

mike... not to open a festering wound, but after a couple winters ago, didnt that get much much easier for you ?

I tried an Excell like data page ( Open Office) but had trouble inserting photos in a way that worked well now I use One Note Online part of Microsoft cloud OneDrive. With a page per tree which just scrolls on as you add to it and an index at the side  I am quite pleased with it. Easy to size photos, edit previous work and add as much notes and text as you want, it's free and takes up no hard drive space.

Page sample

i use an excel page for each tree too, for all the basic info... i just keep the file in the same folder as the tree pics...

Just a word of caution -

I have an e-mail company of quite a few years, that I paid for a one time registration, and now
they are are attempting to change their policy on me ----------- going to yearly rates.

Beware if this is the ultimate policy of companies on-line.

All the freeness to make you dependent on the service and then hit you with charges.

This is why I still take handwritten notes and use basic photographs.
Laters.
Khaimraj

yep... thats how they getcha

i trust very little that is "free"

kevin stoeveken wrote:mike... not to open a festering wound, but after a couple winters ago, didnt that get much much easier for you ?

Yes it did.
But the collection is fattening back up with better material.
Honestly. I don't write anything down and I suppose I should take more pictures.

M. Frary wrote: more pictures.

If for nothing else, you'll have a date for when you did something.
I don't do more than that.

Vlad wrote:I have started working with  Access since last year  to keep written track of all major activities completed or planned on my trees.  From the Access there are links to the other files to keep related photos of each tree and its development, genus/species characteristics or items of interest ( articles on  airlayer, grafts etc. )

You need some time to develop it. But the regular maintenance should not be a major task.  Anyway if I spend +3hours  styling a tree then spending another 10 min on the PC to keep on a track should not kill me.
At least I am still alive...

I'm using Access as well, with SQL Server as a back-end for better security.