How to Make a "Plant Guide" That Makes Walking Fun

"Oh, so this flower is called a Saxifraga stolonifera!"

Whenever I found a flower I didn't know on the side of the road, I would go home and pore over a field guide. That was my daily routine.
The moment I find out its name, I feel so happy. When I learn information related to that flower, I get excited every time I see it. In this way, the wild flower that is no longer "just a weed" turns into a special bloom for me.

Since coming to Tokyo, I see flowers I don't know every time I walk. So, to learn the flowers one by one with my daughter, I tried making a "Wild Flower Guide".

＼This is the Wild Flower Guide!／

In this article, I will introduce my own way of making a "Wild Flower Guide".
Also, not limited to making a plant guide, I am proposing the launch of a "Wild Flower Group" as a "group to admire wild flowers." It's just posting on Twitter using a tag, so please feel free to join if you'd like.

＊Table of Contents＊

What is a Wild Flower Guide
Things to prepare
How to make a Wild Flower Guide
Summary
Three selected "Tote-Kaji" (daily chores) from everyone

What is a Wild Flower Guide

"Wild Flower Guide" is an original plant guide that I am making for myself and my child. I look up the flowers I find on the roadside myself and summarize them in a notebook.

Things to prepare

What I use when I make it is,

1. Notebook
2. Light purple thin paper
3. Ballpoint pen (Uni-ball Signo / Black / 0.38mm)
4. Colored pencils

are the items.

In this article, I will introduce my way of making it, but if you are not good at illustrations, of course, photos or just text are also fine.

How to make a Wild Flower Guide

Here is an illustration of the notebook's structure.

As for the specific steps for making it,

1. Take photos of the flowers you want to include in your encyclopedia
2. Look up the names of those flowers
3. Gather information from books and the web
4. Draw illustrations
5. Add plenty of comments to your illustrations

That is all.

From here on, I will introduce what I have actually made.

The process of making this notebook itself is very fun.

And the sense of accomplishment when it is finished is also great.
Above all, it is interesting how the world you see during your daily outings changes completely from before.

'Wildflower Group', participants wanted

Making a wildflower encyclopedia was so fun that I lost track of time.
So, I would like to recruit people who would enjoy 'time to appreciate wildflowers' together with me.

Rather than formally establishing it as a group, I decided to make it 'just post on Twitter with a tag' so that anyone can participate at any time, at their own pace, and choose the level of interaction they are comfortable with.

In my case, the theme is 'making a plant encyclopedia', but to make it easier for people to participate, I thought of these 'recruitment requirements'.

Activity location:Twitter. Just post using the tag.
Activity frequency:Free. Please participate at your own pace whenever you like. There are no reporting obligations at all.
Activity content:Please feel free to set your own themes that you can enjoy, referring to the examples below.
For example...
◎ Post photos of flowers found on the roadside
◎ Look at photos posted by other members and look up the names of the flowers together
◎ Research how to take photos of flowers
◎ Look up the flower language of the flowers you find
◎ Make and post a wildflower encyclopedia
I will be creating a wildflower encyclopedia and posting the encyclopedia pages.
Recommended for:
◎ People who like flowers
◎ People who like photography
◎ People who like walking
◎ People who want to walk for diet purposes but lack motivation without a goal
◎ People who want to teach their children the names of flowers
◎ People who want to do something together with their children
◎ People who want casual friends with similar hobbies
◎ People who are doing creative work (I recommend it because you gain knowledge of words and flower language, as well as trivia, during the research process)
★ To make it easy for participants to talk to each other, I would be happy if you could write a self-introduction only when you post for the first time.

To summarize,
'When you post about flowers on Twitter, please add the hashtag [#WildflowerGroup]. By doing so, you can interact with someone, get information you want to know, or increase the things you want to do.'
That is what this is about.

▼ Someone has already used the tag!