Concept Plant Palette

 

Adding Design Groups and Plants

 

The premise behind Concept Plants is to provide a palette of plants that refer to one design group and have one symbol to represent that design group. Thus the palette of plants for a project is quickly developed, and the design represented in a simple but clear fashion.

 

Open the Concept Plant Manager and select one of the three categories for Design Groups, Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Perennials, Shrub Areas, and Ground Covers. Click on New and enter the title for a Design Group.

 

For example, from the Trees category, select New from the Concept Plant Manager dialog box. A dialog box will ask “New Design Group name:”. Enter a name that will represent this design group, such as EVERGREEN STREET TREE. The Design Group will be forced in capital letters, as that reads better in the schedule. After entering the design group name the Plant Symbol dialog box for trees will appear to select a plant symbol for this design group.

 

Plant Symbol

Select a symbol from the Tree Symbol dialog box to represent this design group. Notice in the upper left corner of the dialog box there are different categories of tree symbol types, select the category and symbol that best represents your Design Group. After selecting the symbol you will go back to the Concept Plant Manager.

 

Plant Symbol dialog box with EVERGREEN category selected.

 

Symbol Width

In the Concept Plant Manager, directly below the symbol, is a box for entering the symbol width. This number will be the diameter in feet, with a default value of 20, for a 20’ diameter.

 

Add by Name

Add one or more plants to this design group. Select Add by Name in the Concept Plant Manager dialog box. Adding a plant by name allows the user to type a few letters of the botanical name to make a selection from the genius, species, and varieties that match the entry.

 

Add by Name dialog box before entering any information. Type one or more letters in the “Partial genus name” box and click on “Search”.

In this case “ma” was entered and all genus starting with “ma” are listed. Select “Magnolia” and all of the Magnolia species are listed. Select a species, in this case “grandiflora” and all of the varieties are listed. Select a specific variety, in this case ‘Samuel Sommer’ is selected, and then click on “Add to Project” and that plant is added to the Design Group Plant Palette. When finished select “Exit”.

F Remember:

§	When you add a plant to a Design Group, you must select and highlight the Variety even if there is only one variety available, and then click on Add to Project.

§	You must add at least one plant into each Design Group, or else the entire group will not show up on the schedule.

§	When you change the symbol for a Design Group, all placed plants in the drawing will change to the new symbol and/or width.

 

The Magnolia grandiflora ‘Samuel Sommer’ has been added to the EVERGREEN STREET TREE Design Group.

 

The plant selected is placed into the Design Group Plant Palette.

 

Add other plants to this Design Group as required.

 

Several more plant names are added to the Design Group EVERGREEN STREET TREE

 

Add more design group categories as required and plants to the design groups.

 

Additional Tree design group categories added. Add design groups as required for Shrubs and Ground Covers.

F Remember: You can use the Up and Down buttons at the Plant Design Groups to organize the order that the Design Groups will appear in the Schedule.

 

Add by Project (or Template)

Selecting Add from Project will open a dialog box that lists the current projects, and, at the end of the list, any templates that have been created. Choosing a project or template will make available those plants that were selected for that project. Add by Project may speed the process of selecting plants if you know that the selected project has many of the plants you want.