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How we check plant information

Wrong growing advice kills plants and destroys trust. So every plant-to-region match on WattleGrow is tied to a source you can see, and where a claim cannot be sourced, it is not published.

White correa (Correa alba) in flower. Photo: JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Three places a match comes from

  1. Reference data. National bioregion and vegetation mapping, with Victoria's own vegetation classes and flora added as a state layer. The datasets are listed below.

  2. Member reports. Gardeners report where a plant is growing well for them, and how it fared.

  3. Horticulturist review. A match is markedVerified only when a horticulturist has confirmed it or several independent reports agree. Until then it shows asMember reported, with no guarantee of success.

The reference datasets

IBRAAustralian Government, DCCEEW
Divides the continent into 89 bioregions and 419 subregions by climate, geology, landform and vegetation. The Peninsula sits in the Gippsland Plain bioregion.Licence: CC BY 3.0 AU
NVISAustralian Government, DCCEEW
National mapping of present-day native vegetation types, compiled with the states.Licence: CC BY 4.0
EVCsVictorian Government, DEECA
Victoria's classification of vegetation types, with benchmarks describing each one before European settlement. The Shire's survey found 45 on the Peninsula.Licence: CC BY 4.0
VicFloraRoyal Botanic Gardens Victoria
Species profiles, descriptions and identification keys for every plant in Victoria.Licence: CC BY 4.0 (text)
ALACSIRO and partners
Occurrence records from museums, herbaria, agencies and community observers. Licence varies by contributing dataset.Licence: Varies
Declared noxious weedsAgriculture Victoria
The species Victoria has declared as noxious, by category, so a weed is flagged before anyone buys it.Licence: Not stated

The provenance and licensing of every significant data source is being reviewed by a lawyer before launch.

Native, indigenous, and weed

WattleGrow separates Australian natives from plants locally indigenous to your area, because a plant labelled "native" may come from the other side of the country and behave like a weed here. Declared weeds and other cautions are flagged on the plant, and theexotic swaps list suggests alternatives.

Aboriginal plant names

Aboriginal and language-group plant names appear only where they are shared with the permission of knowledge holders and attributed to the right language group.

Nurseries and cultivars

Nurseries are verified before their listings go live.

Cultivars added by a nursery show only on that nursery's listing until we verify them.

Sources