Fair enough. In ten years of calling round, I’ve never found a plant wanted at the stockist listed on the RHS website. The stockists get quite irritated saying they had it six years ago for one season and people keep calling.
In web design it’s important to have systems where the info is either static and accurate or you have built in systems to update changing info (like addresses, emails etc). If nobody is checking web page links, contact details or granular details, the content goes out if date v fast and is either misleading or a grand waste of time. Broken links are a pet peeve.
For the Plant Finder, I'm not surprised that the RHS can't keep it up-to-date in terms of who stocks what. They should make it so that the nurseries themselves can update the list of what they stock, if they don't want to be bothered by people looking for plants that they don't have any more. Or they could ask to be removed altogether. There's no need for it if they maintain their own website.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
As I understand it the Plant Finder comes in book form and is regularly updated but relies on the nurseries to tell the RHS what they stock and, presumably, no longer stock because plants go in and out of fashion and also in and out of supply and availability depending on international trading conditions, political events, pandemics and the arrival of pests and diseases.
That means there needs to be a decent mechanism for nurseries to update their listings in the plant finder as well as communication between the compliers of the book and the webmaster's team of info gatherers and compilers who use the same info for the RHS website.
I suspect the website has not been a main priority of the RHS and could do with more staff and better design and info compilation systems. Sometimes when I look up a plant I get the RHS sales description of it and its care, other times I get proper cultivation info as well as when, where and how it flowers/grows/performs. Sometimes I get "not found" but mostly I get what I need.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
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That means there needs to be a decent mechanism for nurseries to update their listings in the plant finder as well as communication between the compliers of the book and the webmaster's team of info gatherers and compilers who use the same info for the RHS website.
I suspect the website has not been a main priority of the RHS and could do with more staff and better design and info compilation systems. Sometimes when I look up a plant I get the RHS sales description of it and its care, other times I get proper cultivation info as well as when, where and how it flowers/grows/performs. Sometimes I get "not found" but mostly I get what I need.