Gardeners Get Help from Planttalk Site

September 19, 2003

Planttalk Colorado, a database of information for Colorado gardeners, has received more than 2.3 million hits to its Web site since 1999 and is averaging more than 80,000 hits a month in 2003. Planttalk is a venture of Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Denver Botanic Gardens and members of the Green Industries of Colorado.

Planttalk began in February 1998 as a toll-free telephone call-in service with recorded information on some 200 plant-related topics. Today on the Web site - www.planttalk.org 440 topics are covered in areas including Xeriscape, annuals and perennials, lawns, houseplants and design.

"This partnership is really effective in bringing together the resources and expertise of each organization to make Planttalk a valuable resource for Colorado gardeners," said Jim Klett, Colorado State professor, Cooperative Extension horticulture specialist and Planttalk team leader.

While call-in gardening tip lines exist in other states, Colorado was the first to bring together three, sometimes competing, organizations, Klett said. Besides pooling resources, the Planttalk team also solved the problem of conflicting gardening advice by assigning a three-person editing team (a person from each group) to review the scripts.

The research-based gardening information provides gardeners with reliable, timely information on a variety of horticultural topics. The Web site has text versions, some with photos, of all the Planttalk Colorado scripts.