RESEARCH on THE STATE BOTANICAL GARDENS at UGA Rachael Dier, Shea Hill, Marie Anderson, Tram Nguyen, Megan Gaffney

PHOTO TAKEN FROM THE STATE BOTANICAL GARDEN OF GEORGIA FACEBOOK PAGE

THE GOALFor our capstone project, we will be working with The State Botanical Gardens at The University of Georgia to deliver an interactive walkthrough tour iOS app that visitors can use to enhance their experience at the gardens. The app will feature their Herb and Physic Garden, a small portion of the botanical garden with the most history to tell. We hope for our app to engage the State Botanical Garden’s nearly 230,000 annual visitors with the garden plants as they view them, providing a written narrative to accompany the experience of exploring the garden and its history.

THE CLIENT The State Botanical Gardens of Georgia at UGA Our garden is the official Botanical Garden of the state and resides in Athens, Georgia as a part of the University of Georgia network. Seven gardens, two designated nature areas, and eight hiking trails are housed within the garden’s 313 acres. Receiving 230,000 visitors annually, 50,000 being school children, the garden focuses on education.

The seven gardens within our Botanical Garden are the following: The Alice H. Richards Children’s Garden, the Flower Garden, the Heritage Garden,, the International Garden, the Shade and Native Flora Gardens, the Tropical Conservatory, and the Herb and Physic Garden. The grounds also feature the Horticulture Greenhouses and the Hummingbird Trail, among seven other color-designated hiking trails.

The Herb and Physic Garden The Herb and Physic Garden is one of the State Botanical Garden’s smallest collections, but perhaps contains the most history. As a part of the International Garden, these adjoining gardens present world history through a horticultural lense. The gardens feature herbs “both culturally and economically significant to ancient peoples around the world-- species native to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.” The same herbs present in these gardens were the ones used throughout history as food, medicine,

dyes, fibers, and fragrances. Our societies today can be described by how our ancestors used these herbs.

Many herbs have multiple uses, and the ones with “special medicinal value” reside within the Physic Garden directly connected to the Herb Garden. The layout of this garden surrounds a central knot garden, which is homage to late European Renaissance designs in 16th and 17th century medical schools. These schools “became the predecessors to modern botanical gardens,” as they established physic gardens to study botanical medicinal knowledge. In addition to herbs used in European medicine, the Physic Garden also contains herbs employed in historical Indian medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and ancient Egyptian medicine, as well as New World specimens.

The garden highlights the work of Dr. Lindsay Durham, a doctor that practiced local medicine in the 18th century in the Scull Shoals area just south of Athens, Georgia. Dr. Durham used native species, such as Hamamelis virginiana (Witch Hazel), in his practice healing patients.

Competitors in the Garden Industry While our garden is the official State Botanical Garden of Georgia, we have numerous competitors around the state. Our biggest competitor is the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Beating us in scope, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens offers nineteen different collections throughout the garden, including the Hydrangea Collection, the Dwarf and Rare Conifer Garden, and the Japanese Garden. They host events often that draw a wide variety of visitors, such as Cocktails in the Garden, Science Cafe, and even a country music concert every now and then. They also have a very popular canopy walk and holiday lights in the winter. The Atlanta Botanical Gardens are only 30 acres compared to the 313 that our garden offers, but they have more collections, more events, and attract more visitors. It is estimated that approximately 525,000 people visit the Atlanta Botanical Gardens per year.

Another main competitor to our garden is Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia. The Botanical Garden at Callaway Gardens is just one feature of the park, as they have a resort and spa as well. That gives them an advantage over us, as they offer more amenities. However, for those nature lovers just looking for a garden, we are a viable candidate. Callaway Gardens offers seven miles of nature trails and recreational sports on Robin Lake. The grounds are also home to a number of historical sites, such as the fieldstone quartz Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel and a 19th-century pioneer log cabin.

There are numerous other botanical gardens around the state, but these two competitors are the ones that most closely resemble our size and/or scope. Despite our

competitors’ successes, our competitive advantage continues to be the educational emphasis we apply to all our gardens, and to the Herb and Physic garden in particular.

THE PROJECT Our ProjectWe are working with the State Botanical Garden of Georgia to create an iOS app that has an interactive experience where users can take a tour of their Herb and Physic Gardens. Our vision is to create an interactive walkthrough tour of the gardens accompanied by a flowing narrative providing visitors with ample information about the plants they are viewing and the history of the garden. The app will use geolocation to determine the location of the visitors as they walk through the gardens and pinpoint what plants they are near, prompting the visitor to read more about what they are looking at. This project will lay the pavement for future capstone projects to expand our work and create tours and much more for the rest of what the State Botanical Garden has to offer.

Since the Botanical Gardens are a part of the University of Georgia network, we must adhere to the University of Georgia’s brand guidelines and style kit. Although that limits our design abilities, this allows us to focus on the functionality of the project we are presenting the client. We are going to design a child-friendly version of the tour, featuring more interactive and fun elements, as well as an adult version of the tour with more detailed and scholarly information and history. Both versions will educate visitors beyond the informational signage the garden currently provides. We will also have a

Competing Garden Apps While interactive web maps are popular in the garden industry, few gardens have apps with interactive maps. None of our competitors have apps, and only the Atlanta Botanical Gardens have an interactive web map. We looked into any botanical garden app we could find since we could not reference our competitors, and found almost all of them to be fairly basic and hard to function. We looked at apps for the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, the Quarry Hill Botanical Gardens, and the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens. Quarry Hill’s app was by far the most advanced, with an interactive animated birds eye view map. The map showed various gardens and gave brief information about what each garden contained. For our app, we would like to expand this notion and provide a flowing narrative for a walkthrough tour of the Herb and Physic Gardens, complete with real pictures of the garden taken with a drone and on foot.

The client provided us with the information that they are interested in us looking at a company they were considering hiring to build their app for inspiration, but has yet to send us their information at this time. The company builds apps for gardens and parks around the country, and include interactive walkthrough apps like the one our client is requesting. Once we receive this company’s name from the client, we will research the company’s work and put that into consideration along with our own original ideas.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEED The Purpose Behind Our ProjectBeing UGA students ourselves, the State Botanical Garden at UGA is close to our hearts. The gardens have been a great resource for students to escape to, breathe fresh air, and enjoy nature away from the stress that can accompany college. For this reason, this project is personal for us and inspires us even more to deliver an incredible final product.

Meeting with the Director of Horticulture for the gardens revealed their purpose behind the project too. This idea for an interactive tour app has been mustering for some time now, but being a state-funded garden that has to maintain 313 acres worth of plants and employees, they could not find room in their budget to contract an app developer. Lucky for them (and for us), their community loves them and is happy to combine our skill sets and help them achieve something great.

Working with a real client in our community takes this project to a new level of importance and value. We intend to deliver a product that will change something.

Moving ForwardAt this point in the research process, we have only conducted secondary research on our client, their competitors, the garden industry, and garden apps. While this is an informed start, primary research must be conducted on our consumers and target audience. We are planning to conduct consumer research on current State Botanical Garden visitors, as well as market research to determine how to draw in new visitors through our app offering. We will leverage the new interactive and educational aspects our app offers to appeal to current consumers of the garden’s amenities as well as potential visitors.

SOURCESThe State Botanical Gardens of Georgia at UGAhttp://botgarden.uga.edu

The Herb and Physic Garden http://botgarden.uga.edu/visit-us/gardens-and-collections/tropical-conservatory-herb-physic-garden/

Competitors in the Garden Industry https://www.vacationsmadeeasy.com/TheBLT/Georgias13MostBreathtakingBotanicalGardens.htmlhttps://www.callawaygardens.com/the-gardens/https://atlantabg.org

Competing Garden Apps http://botgarden.uga.edu/visit-us/gardens-and-collections/tropical-conservatory-herb-physic-garden/