Plant Color Board (Bloom Schedules & Color Legends)

• Plant Color Board Overview
• Schedule Destination
• Sending a Schedule to a Spreadsheet
• Creating a Macro for a Schedule in MS Excel
• Entire Palette & Include Xrefs
• Adding and Editing Data in Plant Color Board and Bloom Schedule
• Adding and Editing Data: Plant Color Board
• Adding and Editing Data: Bloom Schedule
• Editing or Regenerating Existing Schedules
• Applying the Current Schedule Settings as the Default
• Work Areas
• Make the Schedule Narrower, or Change the Column Widths
• Schedule Text in Uppercase (or Upper and Lowercase)
• Related Webinars
• Troubleshooting

You can use our Plant Color Board tool to create a Gantt chart style schedule of all trees, shrubs, Shrub Areas, groundcovers and plant mixes you've placed in a drawing or added to a project, with options to generate either or both of the following schedule types for your planting design based on data from our master plant database:

• A Plant Color Legend displaying bloom color information, including primary and accent colors
• A Bloom Schedule displaying season of bloom

Plant Color Board Overview

Open our Plant Color Board tool:

 

 

 

 

 

The Plant Color Board dialog box will open.

 

 

The Plant Color Board dialog box allows you to customize several settings for your Bloom Legend.

 

 

 

4. Use this menu to control whether each plant will be listed by its botanical or common name, or both, in the schedule.

 

5. Set the Background Color for the schedule.

 

6. Select the Bloom Season option to place a Bloom Schedule, and choose from sub-options to:

• Include inconspicuous flowers
• Include non-blooming plants

 

7. Select the Color Legend option to place a Color Legend, and choose from sub-options to include:

• Flower Colors
• Foliage Colors during:
• Growing Season
• Fall and Winter
• Bark and Stem Colors

 

 

 

Here is an example of a Bloom Schedule generated by selecting the Bloom Season option:

 

Schedule Destination

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

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Adding and Editing Data in Plant Color Board and Bloom Schedule

The Plant Color Board and Bloom Schedule are generated using data listed in each plant's data tags. This data is editable. If anything is missing or incorrect for your project location, you can update it yourself using our plant data tagging system.

 

 

Adding and Editing Data: Color Board

 

 

 

Adding and Editing Data: Bloom Schedule

 

 

 

 

Again, all this data is editable. If you see a color populating in an incorrect range for your location, you can adjust the month range by editing the tags listed in the season of bloom tag field. Remember that Land F/X has users worldwide. The bloom time you consider correct may not be the same for someone in another climate, causing variations in entries.

 

If you see a plant listed without any colors applied, you can easily add a color.

 

As with all of our plant database features, we're constantly adding and vetting new information, including new colors and tags. See our documentation on our plant data tagging system to learn more about plant data tagging.

Editing or Regenerating Existing Schedules

If you open the Plant Color Board tool in a drawing that already includes one or more existing Bloom Schedules or Color Legends, you'll see the Schedule dialog box, which includes the following buttons:

 

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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.

Related Webinars

• Ask Us Anything! Spotlight on Plant Schedules Join us for the first "Ask Us Anything," which focused on Plant Schedules, including the massive 2023 update that overhauled the Plant Schedule dialog box and opened new possibilities for your Plant Schedules. (1 hr 7 min)
• Plant Schedules: Land F/X provides a wide range of options for configuring a Plant Schedule for your landscape design. We’ll show you how to organize your columns and include or omit elements such as plant symbols, codes, cost estimates, spacing, and plants from your Xrefs. Join us to explore these choices and pick up valuable insights for crafting your ideal schedule. (1 hr 5 min)

Troubleshooting

Issue: My schedule is too long. How can I break it up?

 

Issue: Text in the schedule columns is overlapping

Issue: Error: Not all plants in the drawing match the project data

 

Issue: Error: Non-Planar Entity

 

Issue: Schedule title is overlapping the rest of the schedule text (or is too large, too small, or appearing in the wrong location)

 

Issue: You are unable to send your schedule to an Excel spreadsheet

 

Issue: The schedule is not recognizing or calculating objects in an Xref

 

Issue: Work Areas are not recognizing or calculating a Shrub Area or groundcover hatch

 

Issue: The screen flashes several times when you place a schedule in Paper Space

 

Issue: Text boxes are displaying in your drawing where your schedule text should be

 

Issue: Outside Limits error message in the Command line / you are unable to place a schedule / can't see your schedule in Model Space

 

Issue: "Cannot find Work Area title" error message when placing a schedule in a drawing with Work Areas

 

Issue: You tried to create a schedule for a Work Area in your drawing, but the schedule did not appear when you tried to place it

 

Issue: Your schedule is listing plants that are not in your drawing

 

Issue: You saw an "Unable to read plant list" message when trying to run a schedule

 

Issue: Your schedule is taking an excessive amount of time to generate even though you don't have very many plants placed in your drawing

 

Issue: CAD freezes or lags after you place a schedule

 

Issue: You saw an "Automation Error. AcRxClassName is not in the system registry message" when attempting to place a schedule

 

Issue: Your schedule header is showing up in the Arial font (and you don't want it to)

 

Issue: You ran a schedule, and a plant's color(s) are missing – either the species itself is entirely missing from the schedule, or the species is listed in the schedule but there's no color in the columns beside it

 

Issue: Automation Error. Description was not provided message, when attempting to run a schedule