Projects & experiments

Cool things I’ve made with AI.

Not demos for demo’s sake. These are practical tools built around real questions, real decisions, and the belief that AI works best when a person stays firmly in the loop.

Made for actual use

Each project starts with a specific need, then becomes a chance to explore what thoughtful collaboration with AI can produce.

Bee balm flowering in a garden Ready to explore
Featured project · Garden planning

Hillside Plant Selector

A visual decision tool for choosing deer-resistant plants for a sunny, clay-influenced hillside in Central Pennsylvania.

Compare flowers, shrubs, evergreens, grasses, sedges, and groundcovers by photo or name. Filter for sunlight, water, bloom season, mature size, and how well each plant fits the site’s clay soil and rockier drainage pockets.

  • 35plant options
  • 4landscape categories
  • 1shared shortlist
Try the plant selector Built through a real planning conversation with AI.
The project story

Why and how I made this.

It began as a personal landscaping question and became a useful example of what can happen when a real person, good context, and AI work through a detailed project together.

01

A real need

Fran and I needed to choose plants for a sunny hillside with deer pressure, clay-influenced soil, rockier pockets, and several different landscape jobs to fill.

02

Better context

I shared photographs, sunlight patterns, soil conditions, design preferences, and questions as they came up. Each detail made the recommendations more relevant.

03

Research into structure

AI helped research suitable plants, organize their requirements, compare tradeoffs, and turn a growing collection of information into something we could actually navigate.

04

A tool we could use

Instead of stopping with a list, we built a visual selector for comparing options, recording decisions, creating a shortlist, and saving or sharing the result.

The part that matters: AI did not make the landscaping decision for us. It helped us research, sort, question, organize, and build—while we supplied the situation, preferences, corrections, and final judgment.

Have an idea?

Want to make something useful?

Tell me what you’re trying to understand, organize, or build. We can talk through where AI might help—and where your judgment matters most.

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