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THE SEARCH ENGINE ON PLANT CHARACTERISTICS

Welcome to the new tool on our site, the search engine that helps you to find the right plant for you. You know what you want from a plant but don't know which plant fulfills your demands? Enter the characteristics of the plant you envisage below and this tool will find the best match for you. How does it actually function? This help-page will guide you through the process.

First of all it is necessary that you decide exactly what you want from a plant in your garden. For instance, how large may it become? What colour is important? Do you want the plant to be evrgreen or should it have good autumn colours? Also, what kind of conditions do you have in your garden?

If you have figured all these variables out, you can enter them in this search engine. The search engine searches through more than 10.000 garden plants to find the best matches. The selection made is presented with a short description and very often a picture of the plants found. The order in which the plants are presented is clear: at the top is the best match, the further down you go the matches are less perfect. There are 20 characteristics you can use. Try to be as precise as possible with your inputs, but it is not necessary at all that you use all 20. But the more getting a value from you as the user, the better the result will be.
But it will also be true that the more characteristics get a value the less chance there is that the best result found will match ALL chosen characteristics. The search engine chosses those plants that match the best, not just the perfect matches.

If a given characteristic is extra important for you you can make that extra important for the search too. Plants that match that special characteristic will score extra high that way. Don't do that for all characteristics, that kills the effect of course. Just click on the little square in front of the characteristic that you want you make extra important.

First of all you can choose how many results you want to see. You can choose to see the best 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100. Of course the last result will not be the best!

You can choose here in which main group of plants you want to search. The possible choices are:
Shrub
Tree
Climber
Conifer
Perennial
Ornamental grass
Bamboo
Fern

You can choose all of them of also (by not making a choice actually). This will increase the response time somewhat.

Limit to 1 genus. This is used when you already know which genus of plant you want. If you want for instance a Rhododendron but don't know which one, you can limit the search to just Rhododendron here.

Soil. This is obviously an important characteristic. Many plants demand specific soil conditions and when planted in the wrong type of soil these plants will not do well. So, if you have a peaty, acicic soil, you should select that. Plants that will not do well on this soill wil not score high then and probably will not appear in the best results. You can make this extra important to avoid any plant that won't do well on your soil.

Place. The place a plant is put is for many plants important. Is the pace for your plant very sunny or very shady? Different places need different plants!

Shape: What kind of shape do you prefer? A columnar plant or a ground cover? Choose the shape you prefer here out of the 9 possibilities given.

Height: how high may the plant become? just 30 cm or may it become a very large tree? There are 17 choices here, varying from under 10 cm to over 20 meter. Of course this is not at all an exact science, time is a major factor here. This tool uses an estimated height after about 10 years. But many plants don't stop growing then, although often growth does slow down.

Width: here the same as height, the same 17 choices are there. But a plant growing more than 10 meters wide in 10 years will not be found.

Flowering colour: Choose here your favourite flowering colour. In many plant groups this is important, but not all: you won't find red-flowering ferns! If the flowering colour is not too important: just leave it unchecked.

Flowering period: Enter here the period of the year when your plant should be in flower. Should it flower all summer? Choose then in the first of the 2 fields the month of June and in the second August. If a given plants even longer than you selection then it will score just as high as aplant that matches your flowering period exactly. If it has a flowering period shorter but within your period it will score too, but not as high. Also plants that flower just partly within your chosen period will score, but lower. If you want the flowering period exactly as entered: make it important!

Leaf colour: The same set of colours as for the flower colours are available. But obviously the great majority of the leaves are green. This characteristic is really only useful if you want something different than green.

Leaf shape: You can choose from 11 different main leaf shapes varying from needles to egg-shape. Only in special cases this characteristic should be made extra important, for instance if you want needles.

Leaf size: Should the leaves be very small or extra large? Choose here the desired leaf size. Leaf sizes close to the desired selection do score, but lower.

Evergreen or decidous?: This is the pace to choose whether or not you want an evergreen plant. Some plants are in fact neither, these are referred to as semi-evergreen as they shed their leaves slowly as winter progresses. This is typically a characeristic that should be made important.

Fruit/seed colour: Here you have the same choices as with the flower colour and the leaf colour.

Fruit/seed period: Here you have the same choice as the flowering period and works exactly the same way.

Scent: For many people this is very important. Many plants have scented flowers, others scented leaves or fruit. Is this important for you too? Make it important! Is this not important at all for you: leave it unchecked.

Edible or not: Just as the previous characteristic for some this is a very important thing. Choose what you want: edible fruits, flowers, roots or leaves. Here is something importantL if a plant is not edible it does not mean it is poisonous! That is something quite different.

Water needs: Especially when you have special water conditions in your garden such as extra dry or extra wet this characteristic is important. This way you can avoid plants that won't do well in your garden.

Wind conditions: For many plants this is not too important, but there are plants that do not tolerate much wind. If you are on a very windy place, this is the way to avoid plants that suffer in these kind of conditions and also this is the way to choose plants that are extra tolerant to severe wind conditions.

Hardiness: In this era of global warming this may not seem to be so terribly important anymore, but severe winters still do occur. If you want to avoid risks, choose the hardiness needed here.

Special characteristics: Here are a number of characteristics that are not covered above but make a plant special. Good autumn colours, special branches, winter colour, special fruit, spiny leaves or branches are your choices. With these special characteristics you can make the tool search for that special plant for that special place.

Now that you have enetered all your wishes: click on FIND and in a few seconds you will get your list of best matches. It may be that this result list is still not exact as desired: click on refine search and change some of the desired characteristics, make some more important or rather not and try again.

We wish you as the user lots of success in finding that special plant!