Plant Library

What's in the library

The library currently contains around 500 plants — a curated mix of popular varieties. More plants are being added regularly; if a plant you love is missing, you can create a custom variety or get in touch to request it.

Searching by name

The search box at the top of the plant library matches against both common and scientific names, and partial matches work too. A few examples:

• "coneflower" or "black-eyed susan" — common names
• "Echinacea" or "Rudbeckia" — genus or scientific name
• "acer" — finds every maple in the library

You can combine search with any filters. The two work together: filters narrow the list, then search narrows it further.

Filtering

Click the Filter button at the top of the library to open the filter panel. There are a lot of options — they're grouped to make them easier to navigate. All filters combine: a plant has to match at least one option in every group you've touched.

This garden

At the top of the panel, a single checkbox lets you show only the plants you've already placed in the current garden. Useful when you want to see your plant list at a glance.

Where it grows

• Hardiness zone — pick a single zone in your system (USDA, Canadian, or RHS, set in your account preferences).
• Sun exposure — Full Sun, Part Sun, Part Shade, Full Shade. Pick any combination.
• Conditions — Drought tolerant, Poor soil tolerant, Wet soil tolerant. Useful for awkward spots.
• Native regions — five regions across Canada (Maritime, Central, Prairie, West Coast, North), five across the US (Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest, Midwest), and the UK. Tick Wild species only to exclude hybrids and cultivars and show only what occurs naturally.

What it looks like

• Plant type — Grass, Herbaceous, Shrub, Tree.
• Life cycle — Annual, Biennial, Perennial. A separate Include annuals toggle (on by default) controls whether the broader list folds in true annuals and tender perennials.
• Foliage — Evergreen (keeps leaves through every season) or Deciduous (loses leaves at least part of the year).

When it shines

• Bloom times — nine periods across early, mid, and late spring/summer/fall. Pick any combination, or tap a season heading to toggle the whole season.
• Flower colours — thirteen swatches, including hard-to-find ones like true blue, apricot, and black. Pick as many as you like.

Size

Height and Width each offer two ways to filter:

• Categorical buckets — from extra-small (under 7" / 18 cm) up through tree-sized — for when you just want "tall" or "low".
• Custom range — type a min and max in inches or centimetres for precise control. Entering custom values clears the categorical selection automatically.

Wildlife and sensory

• Pollinator friendly — supports bees, butterflies, or other pollinators.
• Deer resistant — generally left alone by deer. (Generally. They still might nibble if they're really hungry.)
• Fragrant — flowers, foliage, or both that you can smell.

The Clear Selections button at the top of the panel resets everything and gives you the full library back.

Adding plants to your garden

The plant library page in 2D Design Tools covers this in depth. In short, there are three ways:

• Drag the plant card onto the canvas.
• Click the plus button on the right side of the card.
• Open the plant's info modal (see below) and click Place in garden.

Each of these puts you into add mode, so you can keep clicking to place more of the same plant. Press Escape to leave add mode.

The plant info modal

Clicking the body of a plant card (anywhere except the plus button) opens its info modal. It's designed to give you everything you'd want to know at a glance, without sending you elsewhere:

• Bloom calendar — a visual timeline showing when the plant blooms across the year.
• Size comparison — height and width ranges drawn to scale.
• Hardiness zones — a colour-coded grid showing which zones the plant tolerates.
• Sun and water — icons for sun exposure and moisture needs.
• Special features — badges for pollinator-friendly, fragrant, deer-resistant, and so on (only if true).
• Photos, distribution map, and notes — where available.

Two action buttons live at the bottom of the modal: Place in garden drops the plant straight into the canvas, and Save as new variety opens the custom plant editor (see below).

Custom plants

You can create your own plant varieties — useful when you want a specific cultivar that isn't in the library, or when you want to tweak how an existing plant looks in your 3D scene.

Creating one

Open any plant's info modal and click Save as new variety. The custom plant editor lets you override:

• Cultivar name
• Flower colours (main, petal edge, flower centre, petal centre)
• Foliage colours for spring, summer, and fall
• Height and width ranges
• Bloom times
• Care notes

Where they live

Custom plants belong to your account, not to a single garden — they're available in every garden you design. They show up under a My Plants section in the library, where you can edit or delete them.

Tier limits

• Demo — not available; sign up for a Gardener trial to create custom plants.
• Gardener — effectively unlimited (a fair-use cap of 500 per account).
• Studio — same as Gardener.

Tips

For beginners

• Filter by your hardiness zone first — it's the single biggest constraint.
• Dealing with deer? Try the Deer resistant filter, but accept that no plant is truly deer-proof.
• Pick a spread of bloom times so there's something happening every month.

For experienced gardeners

• Search by scientific name to find cultivars and unusual varieties.
• Stack filters aggressively — purple, drought-tolerant, deer-resistant, native to your region — to find candidates for that one tricky corner.
• Search a genus (like "Echinacea") to compare every coneflower in the library side by side.

Smart planning moves

• Use the bloom calendar inside each plant's info modal to choreograph the year — group by when things bloom, not just by where they grow.
• Balance plant types — shrubs and trees give year-round structure; herbaceous perennials and annuals add the show that moves with the seasons.
• Once you've placed plants, turn on This garden in the filter panel to review just what's in your design.

Troubleshooting

No results found

• Check spelling in the search box.
• Remove a filter or two to broaden the list.
• Use Clear Selections to start fresh, then narrow down again.

Can't find your plant

The library is curated, not exhaustive — a few hundred plants chosen to cover most gardens well. If yours is missing:

• Create a custom variety based on a close relative — most of the time you can match the bloom time, colour, and size and end up with something very close.
• Send me a note with the name. I prioritise adding plants people ask for.

Where to go next

• Creating your first garden — putting plants to work
• Seasonal planning — using bloom times to design a garden that performs all year
• 2D Design Tools — placing, grouping, and arranging plants on the canvas