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This upcoming beta is called Grove. It is a map containing some of the cool trees I’ve found in my area. It is a map you can add to as well! It is a crowdsource map project. Anyone can add pins to this map of where they know where cool trees are. They can add information about the tree too, like photos, species, why it is an interesting tree, etc.. Here’s an excerpt from the yet-to-be-published website about the origin of the idea: This idea came about sort of on accident. I’ve come across many trees throughout my time working with trees as an arborist. As I’d come across notable ones, I would place a pin in my Google Maps app with a brief description of the tree I had found. After a certain point, it became gratifying to fill my map up with pinned locations of notable trees. I was photographing the trees I appreciated, which produced an impressive heat map within my Google Photos app too. Trees are infamously difficult to photograph in a way that portrays their size and beauty accurately. This is not a photography project—though I do want to take good photos of trees—this is a mapping project. I spend a lot of time in both natural forests and urban forests. And I know where many cool trees are. And I got to thinking: I bet there are plenty of people who know where some cool trees are. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could see that on my map? Wouldn’t it be cool if they could see the trees that I’ve found on their map? And I think you might enjoy that too.
One big shared map showing the locations of cool and interesting trees. If you think this idea is interesting, let me know. I’d love for you to join in. I’ll announce this beta-test on the various Tree First channels; this newsletter, the Facebook, Instagram, maybe the YouTube channel too. I have a final meeting tomorrow morning to finalize some things.
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