in 2013 i traveled to the azores first time. my wife and i stayed in a house where a book was lying on the top floor table: → isabel albergaria‘s scientific exploration of the botanical garden history on the islands. isabel was the owner of the house.

we spent much time on the main island of sao miguel and had problems

• to find the gardens,
• to find special plants in the gardens,
• the opening times were complex,
• the amazing tree in front of us had no name and history etc.

in the summer of 2014 i developed the idea and the concept for an app about the botanical gardens on the azorean islands. an app for tourists as well as biologists.

we met isabel for a coffee and talked about it. she, as a scientist, new everything about the gardens. however, she was not an expert in app usage. yet another year later isabel became professor at the university of the azores in ponta delgada and started a EU and azores funded project which involved creating an up to date database and maps of all significant botanical gardens. in 2016 isabel and i visited the first potential app developement team in lagoa where i presented a basic layout.

the development of the app was delayed and eventually done by a team in ponta delgada. in september 2018 we all met in the small, but extremely vivid borges garden in the centre of the city. it was the first time for me to see the app in a working prototype stage. it was in portuguese and showed all the elements i had developed in the first phase, for example showing the user where she/he currently is located, which garden is open and close by, and once in that garden, the app tells you exactly why the red lily flowers are currently not blooming, but when turning to left you can walk through the bamboo garden and hear their amazing soundscape. the app came with an underlying database about history and botanology – exactly what i had in mind years earlier: an app for tourists and for scientists.

the app was officially released in portuguese language in 2019. you find it → here, for android smartphones. and english version will follow.