05 Nov 10 Plant Palette Ideas
10 Ideas for Creating Plant Palettes
Find some new ways to organize your plants
PlantMaster user, Damien McAnany – Design Director, Permaculture Artisans, sent us this note regarding Plant Palettes:
“Besides loving PlantMaster in general, I LOVE the Plant Palette tool. I currently have twenty palettes, although I may use it in different ways than other users. I generally use it for two things: categories that PlantMaster doesn’t have and categories that PlantMaster may have, but that I may have some disagreements with their categorizations.
For example, I am a Permaculture designer, so I need to have plant list for nitrogen-fixing plants. The palettes make it easy to add or remove plants from that large category. Deer resistance is a category that PlantMaster has, however, there is a lot of regional variation in this category. It’s a lot easier for me to make my own list than to try to edit all of the plants that I think are resistant or not in custom plants that I make.
In short, Plant Palettes save me lots of time and keeps me organized.”
Inspired by Damien’s creativity, here are 10 ideas you can use to create your own custom plant palettes – hopefully this will spark a few ideas of your own!
- Unusual Features – Create a palette of all the plants with variegated leaves.
- Tolerances – To utilize Damien’s ideas, group all the plants that are deer resistant. You can use the PlantMaster filters to start your list and refine from there.
- Regions – create palettes based on USDA or Sunset Zones.
- Favorites – why not create a master palette with all your favorite go-to plants!
- Characteristics – Full sun, low water use trees, 15ft tall, with red flowers = done!
- Permaculture – Make a palette with nitrogen fixing plants (Courtesy of Damien)
- Nurseries – Make a complete list of the plants that your favorite Nurseries are sure to have in stock.
- Seasonal Interest – How about a palette of shrubs that bloom in the Winter?
- Soil Type – Make a palette of plants that grow well in clay soils.
- Wildlife – Create a plant a palette with all the plants that attract hummingbirds or bees.
PRO TIP:
Use the PlantMaster plant search to give yourself a head start, then refine or add any plants from there. Remember you can combine your projects together to create palettes!
Need a refresher on how to create and manage Plant Palettes?
Training - Plant Palettes