From Idea to Infrastructure
After establishing the project foundations, I’m excited to share more technical details about what we’ve built so far. While my LinkedIn updates have focused on the broader vision, this blog is where I’ll dive deeper into the technical journey.
Current Infrastructure
We’ve set up a robust foundation using modern cloud infrastructure:
Documentation and Development Blog
- Static site built with Jekyll
- Hosted on AWS S3 for reliable storage
- Distributed globally via CloudFront CDN
- Custom domain setup with SSL security
- Basic SEO implementation with Google Search Console
Main Application Architecture
- Django backend for robust API development
- React frontend with Material-UI for a modern interface
- AWS infrastructure prepared for scalability
- Documentation automation for maintaining project clarity
Why These Choices?
Beyond Just Another Garden Blog
While there are many excellent native plant blogs and static websites, Wildscape Muse aims to be fundamentally different - an interactive tool that helps people plan, design, and maintain native plant gardens. This requires:
- Dynamic, personalized user experiences
- Complex data relationships between plants, conditions, and garden designs
- Interactive garden planning tools
- Real-time recommendations based on user input
- Secure user data storage
A static website simply couldn’t deliver these features. We needed a robust, scalable application infrastructure.
Application Infrastructure Deep Dive
Backend (Django + PostgreSQL)
We chose Django for several critical reasons:
- Powerful ORM for complex plant relationship modeling
- Built-in admin interface for managing plant data
- REST framework for API development
- Robust authentication and permissions
- Excellent PostgreSQL integration for complex queries
Our plant database needs to handle:
- Intricate plant relationships (companions, competitors)
- Growing condition requirements
- Seasonal changes
- Geographic variations
- User garden data
Frontend (React + AWS Amplify)
We’re using React with AWS Amplify because:
- Amplify provides a complete frontend hosting solution
- Built-in CI/CD pipeline for smooth deployments
- Easy integration with other AWS services
- Excellent support for single-page applications
- Robust authentication and user management
The frontend will feature:
- Interactive garden design tools
- Real-time plant compatibility checking
- Dynamic filtering and search
- Personalized dashboards
- Responsive design for all devices
AWS Infrastructure
Our AWS setup goes beyond simple hosting:
- Amplify: Hosts our React application with automatic builds and deployments
- RDS: Manages our PostgreSQL database for plant and user data
- S3: Stores plant images and user uploads
- CloudFront: Delivers content globally
- Lambda: Will handle serverless functions for specific features
- API Gateway: Manages API access and throttling
- Cognito: Handles user authentication and management
This infrastructure allows us to:
- Scale automatically with user growth
- Maintain fast performance regardless of location
- Handle complex data relationships efficiently
- Secure user data properly
- Deploy updates seamlessly
How This Supports Our Goals
- Personalization
- User profiles store specific garden conditions
- Recommendations adapt to user location and preferences
- Garden designs save and evolve over time
- Complex Plant Relationships
- Database structure handles intricate plant interactions
- Real-time compatibility checking during garden planning
- Seasonal timing considerations
- Interactive Planning
- React components enable drag-and-drop garden design
- Real-time updates and validation
- Immediate feedback on plant choices
- Scalability
- Infrastructure grows with user base
- Handles increasing plant database complexity
- Supports future feature additions
- Data Security
- Secure user authentication
- Protected garden design storage
- Private user information handling
This infrastructure choice sets us apart from static plant websites by enabling:
- Dynamic, personalized experiences
- Interactive garden planning
- Complex plant relationship modeling
- Real-time recommendations
- User community features (future)
Current Status
Completed
- Project structure and architecture design
- Development environment setup
- Documentation system with automated maintenance
- This development blog
- Basic SEO implementation
In Progress
- Plant database schema design
- API endpoint planning
- Frontend component library setup
- Infrastructure as Code templates
Looking Forward
The next phase focuses on:
- Building the core plant database
- Developing initial API endpoints
- Creating the basic frontend interface
- Implementing user authentication
Join the Journey
While I’m keeping some aspects under wraps until launch, I’ll be sharing regular technical updates here. Whether you’re a developer interested in the technical details or a garden enthusiast curious about the process, I invite you to follow along or use the contact form for suggestions and inquiries.
You can:
- Check back on the blog for detailed technical updates
- Follow on LinkedIn for high-level progress
- Join me on Bluesky for insights and general content