Garden: planting

Terrafold has a built-in plant library of 68 species common in north-western European gardens: trees, shrubs, hedges, perennials, grasses and groundcovers. Plants are light, simple 3D shapes that grow over the years, change colour with the seasons, lose their leaves in winter and flower in their flowering months. You see the effect in the viewport and in renders.

You find the planting tools on the Garden ribbon tab, in Draw ▸ Garden ▸ Plant, and in the Plants panel.

The Plants panel

Open it with Window ▸ Default Tray ▸ Plants. From top to bottom it has:

Garden time: the Years after planting and the Month, with the season shown next to them. See Garden time and seasons.
3D plants and Plan symbols: which representation of the plants is visible.
Schedule…: exports the plant schedule. See Export the plant schedule.
The plant library.

Find a plant

Type in Search plants to search by common or botanical name. Narrow the list with the filters:

type: All types, or trees, shrubs, hedges, perennials, grasses or groundcovers
light: Any light, full sun, partial shade or shade
mature height: Any height, Under 0.5 m, 0.5 – 2 m, 2 – 10 m or Over 10 m

Each entry shows a thumbnail in this month's colours, the botanical name, the type and the mature size. Hover an entry for its foliage, growth habit, years to maturity, planting distance, light, hardiness zone and flowering months.

Click a plant to choose it and start the Plant tool.

Place plants

Draw ▸ Garden ▸ Plant starts the Plant tool with the plant you chose in the Plants panel. It has three modes. Press Alt to switch from one to the next, or pick the Mode on the Plant options ribbon tab.

Mode	How to use it
Single	click to place one plant; type `[x,y,z]` to place it at an exact point
Row	click the start and the end of a row; plants go in at even spacing along it, and hedges turn to follow the row
Area	click the corners of an area, then click the first corner again, double-click or press Enter; the area fills with plants on a staggered grid with a little natural variation

The spacing starts at the species' recommended planting distance. Type a length, such as 50cm, to change it. If you type it right after placing a row or an area, Terrafold replants it at the new spacing.

Click on the terrain to place plants on it. When you fill an area, plants are placed on the area's plane and do not follow uneven terrain; on a slope, plant single plants or fill a face of the terrain.

Edit a plant

Select a plant to see its details in Entity Info and on the Plant context tab:

Species: change it to swap the plant for another species.
Planted: the year after the start of the garden in which it was planted. You can change it.
Size: the height and spread now, and at maturity.
The plant's age, its season state (in leaf, in flower or bare), planting distance, light and hardiness zone.

Plants of the same species and planting year share one definition. Their shape is regenerated from the species whenever the garden time changes, so changes you make inside a plant are not kept.

Garden time and seasons

The model has a garden time: the number of years since planting and the month. Set it in the Plants panel, or with the Year and Month controls on the Garden ribbon tab. The garden time is saved with the model.

Growth

Each plant starts at a typical nursery size, such as a 2 m standard tree, a 40 cm container shrub or a 15 cm potted perennial. It grows quickly at first and slows down as it approaches its mature size, which it reaches after the species' years to maturity. Halfway through that time, a plant has done three quarters of its growing.

A plant's age is the garden time minus its planting year. Before its planting year, a plant shows only its plan symbol.

Seasons

Season	Months
Spring	April and May
Summer	June to August
Autumn	September to November
Winter	December to March

Foliage takes the colour of the season.
In winter, deciduous trees and shrubs show their bare trunk and branches. Perennials, grasses and groundcovers die back to a low clump and grow again in spring.
Beech and hornbeam hedges keep their dry leaves, and some grasses turn straw-coloured.
In the flowering months, part of the crown takes the flower colour. Plants that flower on bare wood, such as magnolia, witch hazel and forsythia, show their flowers on the bare branches.

If the model's location is south of the equator (see File ▸ Geo-location ▸ Add Location…), the seasons shift by six months.

Plan view

Each plant also has a plan symbol: a disc the size of its current spread, in its foliage colour, with a pattern by type. Deciduous trees have spokes, evergreens a star, shrubs a scalloped ring, grasses a burst, groundcovers hatching and hedges nested squares.

Plan symbols are on the tag Plant symbols and are hidden at first. 3D plants are on the tag Plants. To make a planting plan, tick Plan symbols and clear 3D plants in the Plants panel, then use Camera ▸ Standard Views ▸ Top and Camera ▸ Parallel Projection.

Export the plant schedule

File ▸ Export ▸ Plant Schedule… (or Schedule… in the Plants panel) saves a CSV file with one row per species, ready to open in a spreadsheet. Sizes are in metres.

Column	Contents
`botanical_name`, `common_name`	the plant's names
`type`	tree, shrub, hedge, perennial, grass or groundcover
`count`	how many are in the model, including those inside groups and components
`spacing_m`	the planting distance
`planting_height_m`, `planting_spread_m`	the size at planting
`mature_height_m`, `mature_spread_m`	the mature size
`years_to_maturity`	how long it takes to reach mature size
`foliage`	deciduous, evergreen or semi-evergreen
`flowering_months`	the months it flowers
`planted_years`	the planting years used in the model

The command is available when the model contains at least one plant.

Limits

Plants scattered over an area do not follow the terrain's height.
There are no checks of shade tolerance or hardiness against the model's location yet.
Plants of one species all grow to the same size. There are no climbers or water plants yet.