First there was the Sunset Western Garden Book, which contains just about everything you need to know about gardening in the West including an extensive plant encyclopedia. Then in 1995 Sunset published a plant database on CD. Now it has put the garden book's "top" 2,500 plants on line in a searchable database.

If you're trying to fill a spot or solve a problem in your yard, the plant finder can be really helpful. Start by looking up your Sunset zone, which is different from your USDA zone. In Northern Nevada we're either 1A (north and west of town) or 2B. Then you can search by type of plant and how much sun or water is available,

The advanced search page will let you add height, spread, and flower and foliage colors to your search. A couple more helpful features on the advanced search page are the "special needs" and "problem solver" searches. It's not clear why these are separate categories; for example, "dry areas" is under "special needs" and "windy areas" is under "problem solvers." No matter—these are very helpful ways to search. A few more examples are deer-resistant plants or plants that attract hummingbirds. You can also search for plants that make good screens or do well in containers and so on. You can choose more than one requirement in each category.

I searched for a lawn substitute that would do well in this area in both full sun and dry shade, have purple flowers, and be deer resistant. I found one plant, a Campanula poscharskyana, or Serbian bellflower. Of course, a search with fewer specifications will result in more plants. A few paragraphs about each plant and how to grow it are included in the results. Some of them of have photos.

If you just want to browse through all the plant descriptions, you can do that. You also can choose to save plant descriptions to your own plant list (a cookie is required).

It would be helpful if the plant finder provided a way to print a list of just names to take to the nursery, but it doesn't as far as I can see. And it doesn't have one of the cool things the CD had—a pronunciation guide. How do you say Campanlua poscharskyana? You could hear it pronounced on the CD.

The missing features are minor, and I definitely recommend the plant finder. Have fun with it!