Description
The project was conceived together with Slovenian, Norwegian and Spanish partners - Biotechnical Centre Naklo, Vea - State School for gardeners and florists and CEAD Santa Cruz De Tenerife Mercedes Pinto, in the field of landscaping. The aim is to create an online catalogue of decorative woody plants. It can be used in education as a tool for e-learning and understanding the usefulness of plants, which is indispensable in landscape plantings. During the project, a certain number of plants will be listed in the online catalogue. The plants will be presented with photos and descriptions which will be provided in the partner's mother tongue and in English. In the project, we will also engage students who, under the tutelage of their mentors, will photograph and prepare descriptions of the plants in the fields. After completion of the project, the students will continue to enrich the catalogue, which will not only be used in institutions, but also within the local community and beyond, as the intention is that the information on the plants’ collected in the catalogue are available for those who deal with maintaining open spaces.
Summary of project results
In project DONE the most important goal was to create computer platform and upon that online catalogue of ornamental woody plants. Experts in the horticulture must be familiar with a different ornamental plants and their use in landscape plantings. They need to know their botanical characteristics and where to plant them. Information about that were till know only in books, but with creating online catalogue (ePlanting) those information are reachable online. ePlanting will serve as a new e-learning tool for learners in horticulture programs and will be an useful source of information also for others dealing with landscape horticulture. An important goal of the project was to make ePlanting a sustainable product, so even after the project is finished we will supplement it by entering new plants and broaden the collection. Due to good cooperation among partners we will cooperate in the future in other project, but our wish is also to apply for another NFM project that would also financially support developing the catalogue. The online catalogue we created can be seen on
www.eplanting.eu. Inside catalogue you can find descriptions and photos of 87 plants that are commonly used in landscape horticulture of partner countries (Slovenia, Norway and Spain - Tenerife). All descriptions are made in English and also language of all three partners. Other outputs are also: the brochure and final book of the project, presentation of the project in two international conferences and website (
https://sites.google.com/site/donelightroom), guidance and tutorials for making better photos, presentation of the project in the website of BC Naklo, SRS document for programming computer platform, web page design proposal and proposal for graphic design of application. In making the content of the ePlantin we included not only staff but also the learners of horticulture programs who were under mentorship preparing botanical descriptions of plants, taking photos of plants, entering data into the catalogue and helping with the translations. They were also creating logo of the catalogue and have an important role in evaluation of the catalogue. Cooperating in the project they were learning about different plants and developing several competences as communication in foreign language, digital competence, team working skills, innovation skills and others.
Summary of bilateral results
The most important outcome of this partnership was creating ePlaning catalogue of ornamental woody plants as a new e-learning tool. But that wasn't the only result of the partnership. Important outcome was also getting to know one another, partner's countries and culture. We could share our knowledge and experiences, got to know better the school system in partner countries, different approaches to teaching/learning and the most important different approaches to landscape hortiuculture and climatic challenges in very different environments was a reach experience for all of us. We were able to share our professional knowledge, experience and examples of good practice. We have broadened our views ad also find meeting points inside different curriculums and ideas for future projects. As Partners we had a very good cooperation and communication we are considering to apply for another NFM or other project for developing ePlanting and we are also interested in doing other projects together.