Plant Schedules: Getting Started

Quick video

Power Tip: Planting Schedule Variations

Plant Schedule Overview
Schedule Destination

Sending a Schedule to a Spreadsheet

Creating a Macro for a Schedule in MS Excel

Entire Palette & Include Xrefs
Schedule Options
Plant Categories
Plant Data
Plant Code Styles
Applying the Current Schedule Settings as the Default
Work Areas
Plant Outlines
Flats and Six-Packs
Change Plant Schedule Column Widths
Schedule Text in Uppercase (or Upper and Lowercase)
Create a Background Fill or Mask for Your Schedules
Rearranging the Column Order in Your Schedule
Schedule Integration: Send Plant Schedules Directly to Another Provider
Related Webinars
Troubleshooting

You can place a Plant Schedule in Model Space or Paper Space. If you place it in Model Space with the rest of the site drawing, it will be scaled automatically for the scale you are using for your planting design. If you place the schedule in Paper Space on a sheet layout, it will automatically be at 1:1 scale, or no scale.

To view several different styles of Plant Schedule, based on the options described on this page, see our Plant Schedules: Examples page.

You can create a Plant Schedule that is limited to plants in a specific area of your drawing such as:

A specific portion or phase of the project
Off-site and on-site improvement
Scope-of-work requirements (for example, certain areas designated as containing tenant improvements, other areas under a general contract, etc.)

To limit your schedule in this way, you can simply create separate Work Areas in your drawing. For more information, see our Limiting the Plant Schedule Using Work Areas documentation page.

Once you've configured the settings for your Plant Schedule, you can apply those settings as the default in the active Preference Set using the Planting Preferences. You can also create additional Preference Sets and apply new default settings to each one. Find out how >

Plant Schedule Overview

Open our Plant Schedule tool:

F/X Planting ribbon, Plant Schedule flyout

F/X Planting menu, Plant Schedule option

Planting toolbar

Plant Manager toolbar

typing FX_PlantScheduleProduction in the Command line

When you select one of these options, the Plant Schedule dialog box will open.

The Plant Schedule dialog box allows you to customize several settings for your Plant Schedule.

1. Destination: Select where to place the Plant Schedule – in the Drawing, in the drawing as a Table, or in a Spreadsheet.

2. Options to:

• Include the Entire Palette in the schedule

• Include plants from the Xrefs in the schedule

3. Schedule Options: Customize several details about the schedule's appearance.

4. Select or deselect the plant categories to include in the schedule.

5. Pull-down menus and checkboxes to customize the contents of the plant categories in the schedule.

6. Local Common Name: Select the language in which the common name of the plants will appear in the schedule.

7. Plant Data: Opens a dialog box where you can select several plant data categories to appear in the schedule.

Schedule Destination

The options in the Destination area determine the location where you want to place your Plant Schedule.

Drawing: Insert the plant schedule into the drawing with the proper font type and titles.

Table: Insert the plant schedule into the drawing as an AutoCAD Table Object.

Want a Table-style schedule that looks like a Drawing-style schedule? (That is, a schedule with no lines, like the Drawing style, but with the freedom to adjust the column widths as offered by the Table style.) Instructions >

Spreadsheet File: Send the plant schedule to a spreadsheet for additional editing, cost estimation, separate faxing/printing, or other uses.

Sending a Schedule to a Spreadsheet

Exporting a schedule to a spreadsheet using a program such as MS Excel gives you an infinite number of options in formatting and enhancing that schedule. In a spreadsheet, you can easily make edits, add specific calculations, create new information columns, and make the schedule available to a client or contractor who doesn't have AutoCAD.

Quick video

Power Tip: Creating An Excel Macro

Creating a Macro for a Schedule in MS Excel

A macro is a recorded set of actions that can be applied automatically to a spreadsheet with the click of a button. You can create your own macro in Excel to include custom columns, carry out automatic calculations on preset columns, and much more. For example, you might need to calculate the percentage of the plant total occupied by each plant in a project. With a macro, you can carry out these calculations instantly. See our article on creating a macro in MS Excel for a schedule.

Entire Palette & Include Xrefs

Entire Palette: Check this box to include the entire palette of plants you have selected for the project in the plant schedule, whether you have used the plants or not. Use this option to review the plant palette early in a project, which will help you determine what you need to add or delete.

Include Xrefs: If your drawing has an external reference (Xref) attachment that includes plants, check this box to include those plants in the schedule.

Make sure the units and scale in your main drawing match the units and scale of the Xrefs. If not, your groundcover quantities will be incorrect in the Plant Schedule.

Keep in mind that the Include Xrefs feature will only recognize plants or Xrefs that have been placed in drawing files that have been directly Xrefed into the main drawing. It won't recognize objects that are in an Xref within an Xref (known as a "nested Xref"). If you notice that your schedule is not counting some of the objects within your Xrefs, the problematic objects are likely within a nested Xref. If so, please follow our instructions to correct this issue.

Schedule Options

1. Remarks: Check this box to include remarks, or notes, in the schedule. If you include remarks, you have two options:

Below Name: If you select this option, any remarks will appear below the plant name. This option will result in a narrower schedule.
Column: If you select this option, any remarks will appear in a separate column of the schedule. This option will result in a wider schedule.

2. Include Cost: Check this box to include the costs assigned to the plant.

Note that the Names in Separate Columns option is no longer available in this area of the dialog box. Instead, this feature is now built into the Name Order Options menus.

The option to Include Cost will not function correctly if you select the Quantity Before Name option. (It's an unfortunate quirk of the engineering of calculations for the Plant Schedule.) If you need to include Quantity Before Name in your Plant Schedule, you will need to leave Include Cost unchecked.

3. Space between Plants: Check this box to insert empty spaces between plant rows in the plant schedule.

4. Quantity before Name: If you check this box, the quantity of each plant placed in your drawing will appear just after the code and/or symbol, but before the plant's name. If you do not check this box, the quantity will appear after the container size.

Note: The Quantity before Name option is not intended for use in drawings with multiple work areas. If you check this option in a drawing with more than one work area, the plant schedule will often include several columns of quantities before each plant name – a recipe for a messy, hard-to-read plant schedule.

5. Symbols at Plan Size: If you want your schedule to show the symbols for trees or shrubs, the default is to include them at a relatively small size for ease of appearance. If you check this box, the symbols for either trees or shrubs will appear in the schedule at the same size as on the plan.

Are your plant symbols overlapping in the schedule, and you don't want them to overlap? To find out why, and see your options, see our Plant Symbols Overlapping in Plant Schedule article.

6. Include Concept Plants: Check this option to list your Concept Plants in your Plant Schedule.

You can choose to include your Concept Plants by group or by plant.

7. Sort By: Use this pull-down menu to select whether to sort the schedule by Botanical name, Common name, or Plant Code.

Plant Categories

In this area, you can customize information about each of our plant categories (Trees, Shrubs, Shrub Areas, and Ground Covers) that will appear in the schedule.

Plant Category Checkboxes

Each plant category has its own checkbox. If you check the box for a category, that category will appear in the schedule.

Symbol/Code

These pull-down menus control how plants in each category will be referenced to the drawing from the schedule – by symbol, plant code, both symbol and code, or neither.

Name Order Options

These pull-down menus control the order of the plant naming in the schedule, based on each plant's common and botanical name.

Display Options:

Botanical / Common: Botanical name followed by common name
Common / Botanical: Common name followed by botanical name
Botanical | Common: Botanical name followed by common name, in separate columns
Common | Botanical: Common name followed by botanical name, in separate columns
Botanical over Common: Botanical name directly above common name
Common over Botanical: Common name directly above botanical name
Botanical: Only include botanical name
Common: Only include common name

For examples of the schedule that will result from selecting each of these options, see our Plant Schedule Examples: Name Order Options page.

Container Size, Spacing, and Density

Check these boxes to include some, all, or none of the following items in the schedule:

Size (all four categories)
Spacing (Shrubs, Shrub Areas, and Groundcovers)
Density (Shrub Areas and Groundcovers)

Quantity/Area

Check these boxes to display plant count Quantity (all four categories) and/or Area (Shrub Areas and groundcovers) in the schedule.

Quantity will express a quantity based on the spacing, and Area will express the square feet or square meters of what was drawn. You can choose either of these options for Shrub Areas and Groundcovers according to your preference.

Some designers argue that Quantity is not entirely accurate because trees and shrubs can be mixed into a flatted groundcover area, and thus no plants are placed at those locations, resulting in too high a quantity.

Another argument against Quantity holds that sloped conditions on the site may require more plants for a given 2D area, resulting in too low a quantity.

Yet another argument is to show the area that was drawn with the groundcover, and let the contractor review the plans and other conditions and ultimately responsibility for a quantity bid based on the document information.

Detail

Check this box for each plant category if you want the detail associated with that category to appear in the schedule.

Plant Code Styles

Each plant you add to a Land F/X project will have its own unique plant code that will identify that plant by abbreviations of its genus and species in both your labels and Plant Schedules. You can choose to give this code three possible styles:

GEN SPE (three capital letters for the genus and three capital letters for the species)
Gen Spe (three letters for the genus and species, with initial caps and internal lowercase letters)
GS (one capital letter for the genus and one for the species)

For instructions on how to customize this code style, see the Plant Code section of our Planting Preferences page.

Plant Data

Local Common Name: To use a language other than English, select a language for your common plant names.

Plant Data: Click Select Fields to open a dialog box listing data compiled for each plant.

Check the box for each of these fields you want to include for each plant in the schedule.

You can configure these fields for each plant using our Plant Data feature, offered in the Plant Info dialog box. More information >

Applying the Current Schedule Settings as the Default

Once you've configured your Irrigation Schedule the way you want it, you can apply those settings as the defaults under the active Preference Set in the Planting Preferences. You can also create different defaults for different Preference Sets.

For specific instructions, see the Schedule Defaults section on our Planting Preferences documentation page.

If you open the Preferences and notice that the buttons and options are grayed out and you can't make changes, the current Preference Set may be restricted. More information >

Work Areas

For in-depth information on Work Areas, see our Work Areas documentation page.

If you have used work areas in your drawing, the plant schedule can reflect only the contents of one work area, or it can define the contents of multiple, or all, work areas.

For more information, see our Limiting the Plant Schedule Using Work Areas documentation page.

Plant Outlines

Plant Schedules will reflect the current status of our Plant Outlines tool. If you place a Plant Schedule with outlines turned on, the plant symbols in the schedule will include outlines. Similarly, if you place a schedule with outlines turned off, the plant symbols in the schedule will not have outlines.

If you have an existing schedule when you turn Plant Outlines on, the symbols will fade but will not automatically get outlines. Regenerate the schedule to apply outlines.

Flats and Six-Packs

When planting in flats or six-packs, you may want to count each flat or six-pack instead of counting each plant individually. For more information see our Flats, Six-Packs, Sods, and Seeds page.

Note: When placing flats containing any number of plants (6, 8, 12, etc.), you might want to think of those plants in terms of area – that is, square feet or meters – rather than individual units.

Change Plant Schedule Column Widths

You can easily change the widths of your Plant Schedule columns using the AutoCAD Block Editor. However, you can only adjust the column widths of a schedule you've placed as a table.

Want the freedom to adjust your schedule column widths manually, but don't want visible table borders in your schedule? Follow our steps to create a table-style schedule without lines.

Schedule Text in Uppercase (or Upper and Lowercase)

You can control whether the text in any of your schedules appears in all uppercase, or in upper and lowercase, from the General Preferences. For instructions, see our Schedule Text in Uppercase Knowledge Base article.

This setting will apply to all schedules you place in your drawings, including:

Plant Schedule
Irrigation Schedule
Details Schedule
Site schedules such as:
- Reference Notes (RefNotes) Schedule
- Lighting Schedule
- Concept Schedule
- Zoning Schedule
- Site Development Schedule
- Grading Schedule

Create a Background Fill or Mask for your Schedules

Some designers want to give their schedules a background fill to allow it to pop from the rest of the drawing. You can create a background fill for your schedule using the Table Style Manager. Find out how. >

Rearranging the Column Order in Your Schedule

In the interest of keeping our software easy to use – and limited by some restrictions from the CAD platform – we’ve decided to limit the built-in arrangement options to more widely accepted arrangements. However, you can easily rearrange your schedule columns at will while also keeping the ability to regenerate the schedule.

Schedule Integration: Send Plant Schedules Directly to Another Provider

Our Schedule Integration tool allows you to send your Plant Schedules directly to another service provider – for instance, your company’s estimating and invoicing system. See our Schedule Integration documentation for more information.

Related Webinars

Using Work Areas: Whether you need to separate out phases in your schedules or show an area at a different scale and viewing angle, you need to know how to manipulate a Work Area. (1 hr 2 min)
Excel With The Right Tools: No matter how much you can accomplish in AutoCAD, sometimes MS Excel can do the job better. We’ll give you some examples of how Excel can improve your design process by adding everything from shade analysis reports to MAWA calculations and in-depth watering schedules. (1 hr 5 min)
Excel With The Right Tools Part 2: Now that we've gone over the basics of what MS Excel can do for you, join us for a more detailed look into the capabilities of this powerful application, including named ranges, templates and reusable macros, and more. (1 hr 5 min)
Getting Started with Planting F/X: We'll give you a full tour of our F/X Planting ribbon, covering everything from adding, placing, and labeling plants to error checking, scheduling, and turning on our quick render tools. (1 hr)