Seventy lines of Latin, typed twice
The planting plan for the new garden has seventy lines: species and cultivar, pot size, quantity, sometimes a note about multi-stem or specimen size. The designer produced it in a design package. Someone now types it into an email for the wholesale nursery, then again for the specialist grower who has the Japanese maples, then again when the first nursery replies that eight lines are unavailable.
Substitutions are agreed on the phone. On planting day, the crew have a plan showing one thing and trolleys holding another, and nobody updated the plan. Six months later the client asks what the plant by the bench is, and nobody knows.
Why the order and the plan diverge
Plant ordering has lots of small complications that are simple individually: botanical names spelled differently between catalogues, pot sizes in litres or by other conventions, availability that changes weekly, and specimen plants that come from a different supplier. Handling them by retyping and phone calls means the plan and reality separate.
- Planting schedules are retyped for each supplier.
- Botanical names and sizes do not match between the plan and the nursery's list.
- Availability replies come by email in different formats.
- Substitutions are agreed verbally and not recorded on the plan.
- Nobody keeps an as-planted list for aftercare or replacements.
What the retyping costs
Retyping takes time and invites mistakes, like the wrong cultivar or the wrong pot size, which are expensive when they arrive on a lorry. Unrecorded substitutions cause problems later: plants in the wrong place, aftercare advice that does not match what is in the ground, and replacements ordered for the wrong plant. Clients who paid for a designed garden notice when the result does not match the design.
The plant schedule tool we build
- The planting schedule is imported from your design software's export or a spreadsheet, and each line is matched against a plant list with standardised names and sizes.
- Lines are split into orders by supplier using your preferred nurseries for each type of plant, and each order is produced in the format that supplier wants.
- Availability replies, whether emailed spreadsheets or PDFs, are read and matched back to the order lines, so shortages show up straight away.
- For each shortage, the designer picks a substitute, and the swap is recorded on the plan with the reason.
- Delivery is scheduled against the planting date on the job, and the crew see the final list, including substitutions, on their phones.
- After planting, the as-planted schedule is saved on the job and can be sent to the client with aftercare notes.
| Stage | Now | With the tool |
|---|---|---|
| Order | Retyped per nursery | Split from the schedule automatically |
| Availability | Read through emails | Matched back to the order lines |
| Substitutions | Phone calls | Recorded on the plan with a reason |
| Planting day | Plan and trolleys disagree | Crew list includes the swaps |
| Afterwards | Nothing kept | As-planted list on the job |
The planting side, sorted
The designer produces the planting plan once, and ordering follows from it. Shortages show up early enough to find alternatives. The crew plant what the plan says, because the plan now says what is on the trolleys. And when a client asks what a plant is, or a plant fails and needs replacing, the answer is on file.
Signs your plant ordering needs help
- Planting schedules are retyped into emails.
- Wrong cultivars or pot sizes have arrived.
- Substitutions are agreed by phone and not written down.
- Crews have found the plants did not match the plan on the day.
- You could not say exactly what was planted on a job last year.