Plant Tips

Most planting comes in from CAD blocks, so the quickest change is usually to the block rather than the tree. Plants from CAD and Swapping a Placed Symbol have every detail.

Pick the Tool by How Far It Should Reach

Swap Instead of Placing Again

• Change a species in one step. Swap All Matching on Layer... turns every cedar elm on the planting layer into a Shumard oak. It takes symbols of the same block, size, season and color, so a tree at another size needs its own swap.
• Everything else stays. Each symbol keeps its place, layer, rotation, mirror, draw order and style overrides.
• Set the size in the same step. The Tree size, Season and Colour boxes under the tiles start at As it is. Pick from them to set all the swapped symbols alike.
• Find a symbol by typing. In Plant Symbols, click Replace with and type part of the name: holly lists the four hollies.
• An Update keeps a swap, as long as the insert stays on that block. If the drafter puts it on another block in CAD, CAD wins.

Get the Sizes Right

• Set your default once. Show trees as and Season, in the Symbols from CAD box after an import, are remembered for the next drawing.
• A small tree at Medium: choose Medium (mature art) for one that is near full size by then.
• A tree draws larger than you chose. That plant is not provided at that size. Give it a size in feet in its block rule or in Quick Properties.
• An office that draws canopies to size: set the block's size to as drawn in CAD, in Plant Symbols.
• A plant the library does not have. Pick the nearest symbol in Replace with, type its Plant name, and click Sizes for its own spread and height. It is saved with your rules and travels in a recipe.
• Install size is separate. It is what the schedule prints and never changes the size a symbol draws at. One plant at two install sizes is two plants, each with its own name.

Before the Schedule Goes Out

• Name the plants. A symbol from a CAD block is listed by its block name ("NRS") until you name it in Plant Symbols.
• Read the note in its window. Double-click the schedule. Under the list it says what the sheet shows and the schedule leaves out, such as plants still drawn as CAD linework.
• Leave a plant off by unticking it, not by hiding its layer. Hiding a layer also takes the plants off the sheet.
• Mind sheets split by match lines. Each sheet needs its own schedule, and where viewports on two sheets overlap, their sum is more than the project's total.
• Compare with your plant list. A difference often means a plant is still linework, or a block was placed twice on one point.