Help

1.About Easyscape

Easyscape is focused on helping people grow plants that are easy on our planet. And the plants that are the easiest are those that are native to your location! They usually require little or no additional water, usually grow more reliably, and they almost always do the best job of supporting native biodiversity - especially native bird life and pollinators. To help you find the right natives for your garden, we’ve mapped out the estimated native ranges of over 8000 plants across the entire globe. Now anyone on earth can type in their address and see a list of their native plants, and even use our advanced search to select the best ones for your garden.

While we are strong proponents of native plants, we know that most people that plant natives in their gardens plant a mix of true natives, drought tolerant non-natives, and other non-natives that may need additional irrigation to survive.

We provide search tools to help you find the right plants in all three categories, to create your plantlist, and finally to turn your plantlist into a garden design.

2.Find Plants

From either the home page, or the search page, enter your address or city name, and we’ll find …

Your Native Plants. These are the plants that are native to the square mile in which your address is located, and

Your Drought Tolerant Plants. These plants tolerate the minimum and maximum temperatures of your location, and once established, should survive entirely on normal rainfall, and

All Your Landscaping Plants. These plants tolerate the minimum and maximum temperatures of your location, and tolerate the maximum rainfall of your location, but may require additional irrigation to survive.

From the search page, you can also filter each of these categories by detailed plant characteristics (i.e., plant type, size, flower color, flowering season, common use, etc.). Click on Show Results to see all matching plants. Click on the dropdown arrow next to your address filter to see the high temp, cold temp, precipitation and elevation of the address).

Plant results are shown in thumbnail grids of 100 plant thumbnails per page. Use the options in the thumbnail results page to sort by popularity, common name or scientific name.

If you leave the thumbnail results page, click on the Browse button to return to the thumbnail view.

3.Plant Pages

Click on any thumbnail in the results page to go to the detailed plant pages. You can also go directly to the plant pages from the search page, by typing in any scientific or common plant name.

Plant Maps. Each plant page shows a map of the estimated native range of that plant down to the square mile level. The maps are based on GBIF observation shared by hundreds of botanical institutions around the world, as well as by i-naturalist and Plantnet. Easyscape first codes wild observations inside the general geographic area in which the plant is known to be native as “native observations”. Observations outside the general geographic area in which the plant is known to be native are coded as non-native and are not shown in our maps). Sources for information regarding general geographic native range include Wikipedia, BONAP and Kew Gardens.

Once all known plant observations are coded as either native or non-native, we algorithmically include as part of the plant’s native range all square miles that are near a native observation AND are within the high and low temperature ranges, the precipitation range, and the altitude range that the plant is known to grow in that particular area.

In all maps, native observations are shown as blue dots, and estimated native ranges are shown as yellow polygons. Zoomed out, the observations are shown in clusters, but if you zoom in, you can see the individual plant observations.

About Text. The “About” section text in most plant pages includes information from Wikipedia. All text in the About section, including Easyscape additions, is licensed and reusable under Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photos. All plant photos in all plant pages, including all Easyscape Photos, are licensed and reusable under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA license, or are public domain.

4.Create Your Plantlist

Just click on the Add to Plantlist buttons in the thumbnail results or the plant pages to add a plant to your custom plantlist. You can view your plantlist in the plantlist pane on the right side of the Browse and Design Garden page, or in the entire Plant List page.

In the Design Garden page, your plantlist will also act as the key for adding plants into your garden design.

Access the general plantlist options by clicking on the options icon to the right of the plantlist title:

• Clear Plantlist (if you want to start from scratch. Note this will clear any plants that may have been added to your design as well)
• Clear Unused Plants (that have not been placed in a garden design.)
• Clear Plantlist (if you want to start from scratch. Note this will clear any plants that may have been added to your design as well)
• Add Custom Plant (this will allow you to add a plant that is not in our database to your custom plantlist)
• Sort Plantlist (by popularity, scientific name or common name)
• Group / Don’t Group (by plant type – i.e., tree, shrub, perennial, annual)
• Export to Plantlist Library (which will allow save that plantlist for reuse in future designs)
• Import from Plantlist Library (which will allow you reuse the plantlist you had exported earlier)
• Share Plantlist (which will allow you to send your custom plantlist to a friend)

Plant Icon Options. In addition to the main plantlist options, you can click on the three dots next to any plant you have added to your plantlist, and see these options…

• Go to plant page (since clicking on the plant thumbnail in a plantlist just actives it so it can be added to the design)
• Remove plant (which will just remove the plant from that plantlist)
• Edit Plant Icon (which will allow you to change the name of the plant, the icon shape, the icon color, or the icon size). Note that if you change the characteristics of a given plant icon, the changes will be applied to previous and future placements of that plant)

5.Design Garden

The design garden page allows you to create a garden design based on the plants in your plantlist.

• Enter Address. To create a design, first enter your address and zoom into the map of your property, and you will zoom in to a detailed view of that location. Note that the default view shows satellite imagery as the background map. Free users can only place 10 plants in their design before the satellite background disappears and is replaced by a street view map. For continuing access to the satellite background map, upgrade for $20/year.
• Draw Shape. Once you have zoomed in to your address, we recommend outlining your property first and then major hardscaping elements, like your house, patio and pathways. This will make it easier to place the plants where they belong, particularly for free users after they no longer have access to satellite imagery. To do this, click the active “draw shape” icon, and then select either Curved Line, Straight Line, Polygon or Curved Shape in the dropdown. Then click on the locations in the map where you want your line segment or shape vertices to be placed. The lines or curves will be drawn automatically between each vertex. You can drag and drop and vertex to adjust the shapes or lines while you are drawing them. To finish drawing, simply click on the first vertex you added, which will have a dot in the middle of it. If you want to adjust your vertices later, click on any line segment to re-enter “edit” mode, and you be able to drag and drop your vertices again. Click on the vertex with a dot in it to once again exit edit mode.
• Paint. Once you have drawn your shapes, it can be helpful to differentiate them by painting them with different semi-transparent colors. To do so, click on the paint can icon, and then select the color you want to paint with in the color wheel popup. Then click the shape in the design that you want to paint, and it will fill with the selected color. In the case that one shape is entirely inside another shape, only the most recently added shape will be filled.
• Add Text. It can also be helpful to add text over your various hardscape elements, particularly if you want to create a more formal landscape design. To do so, select the text icon to set the cursor state to “text”, and then click on the spot on the map where you want to add the text. It may be helpful to just add simple text descriptions like “House”, “Pool”, or “Shed” for example.
• Add Plant. Of course, the most important feature in the Design Garden page is the ability to add plants to your design. This feature allows you to place accurately sized plants in the spots that you want them in your design.

To Add a Plant to your garden design, first select the Leaf icon to set the cursor state to “Add Plant”. Then click on the plant in your plantlist pane that you want to add. You’ll see a blue box around the plant once it is active. Then click on the map in the desired spot to add it into your garden design.

To make it easy to keep track of which plant is which, each added plant will show the same number and same icon shape and color as the highlighted plant in the plantlist.

All icons are sized according to their estimated width and range from widths of over 100 feet for large trees, down < 1 foot for small annuals. Each icon will be scaled accordingly as you zoom in and out of your design. Note that you can edit the width (or color, shape or size) of any plant icon if you wish by clicking on the three dots next to any plant record in the plantlist.

Click on the number inside the plant icon if you want to remove it from your design.

Drag and drop an icon by grabbing any part of it other than the number to adjust its location in the garden design.

When you want to add a different plant, just click on a different plant in the plantlist pane, and each new cursor click on the map will add that new plant. Note that each time you add a plant to your garden design, the count of the total number of plants in your design, and the count for the plant you’ve just added, will increment by 1. This is an easy way to be able to tell how many plants you will need to buy from your local nursery, in total, and by each species.

Access the general Design Garden options by clicking on the options icon just to the left of the garden design title.

• Enter Garden Address. you can use this option or the option in the main map to select the address you want to use for building your design
• New Design. This will save your current design, and start a new blank design with a new name. It will not clear out the old plantlist though, so you can reuse your previous plantlist if you like. If you wish to clear out the old plantlist, click “Clear Plantlist” from the plantlist options.
• Open Design. This will allow you to open any previously saved designs.
• Save Design As. This will allow you to create a copy of your current design and save using whatever title you wish. Note that all new designs are auto saved, so you never have to use the Save Design As option unless you want to make a copy of the design using a different name.
• Clear Design. This will clear the current design. It will not clear out the old plantlist though, so you can reuse your previous plantlist. It will also not save the design you are clearing.
• Delete Design. This will allow you to delete any previously saved garden designs.
• Share Design. This will allow you to share your design with friends.
• Background Map. Select either satellite, street map or blank backgrounds. Free users will no longer be able to see the satellite background map after adding 10 or more plants to their designs. For continuing access to satellite backgrounds, upgrade to premium for $20/year.

6.My Account

Click on the My Account Icon in the upper right of every page to sign into (or create) your Easyscape account. We recommend signing into your account to save your plantlists and designs. Designs created as anonymous users cannot be saved after you close your browser.

Note that if you create a design as an anonymous user, you can still sign in or sign up to save it to your account, if you do so before closing your browser.

Easyscape keeps all information completely confidential. User information is never shared with third parties, and cookies are solely used to allow the site to function properly.

If you upgrade to a premium account for $20, you’ll have access to satellite photo background imagery for 1 year, as well as all other premium features we add over the period. We will only auto-renew your premium subscription if you expressly choose that option. You’ll have permanent access to your saved plantlists and designs regardless of whether you have a free or premium account.