[Freegis-list] Arboretum Project

[Poor, Robert W Dr. RDECOM]

I am a new to GIS/CAD and am looking for a suggestion for software to use
for the following project.  I have an 18 acre site which is being developed
into an arboretum/display garden.  The site has been surveyed and
approximately 150 monuments have been set such that all landscape features
and all trees, shrubs, and so forth can be located to within a couple of
centimeter or so by simply using a tape and measuring their location from
any two of the monuments.  I assume at some point use of a differential GPS
instrument could also serve this purpose...but horticulturalists and
gardeners are more traditional folks and like tape measures.  The data is
entered into an Excel spread sheet and the coordinates are calculated in the
State plane coordinates.  Other data is also entered concerning the
particular object such as a name, size, color, and so forth.
 
The goal is to import the Excel data (plant or landscape feature name,
number, bloom time, and so forth) into a mapping program that can display on
a monitor or in a print out the data.  The desire would be to have the
different data types in layers so the print out can emphasize all or various
features laid over the basic survey location of the objects.  The out put
also needs to be available in scales from a full 18 acres to areas as small
as 0.005 acre.  The print out would have a symbol for the object with
printed number or name if the zoomed view and size of the print out
permitted.  Obviously at larger scales the data points would become gray
shading.
 
I certainly will appreciate some suggestion on both freeware and not so
freeware that will work for these purposes.  If the program will handle all
data entry directly and eliminate the need to use the Excel spreadsheet that
would be great.  The software should be usable on a PC with Windows or
Linux.  Most things I am seeing under a GIS heading do not appear in their
simple descriptions to have one initially creating the 'four corner's of
one's own map and then working with it.
 
Bob
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