Espalier, a pruning technique that creates two-dimensional trees, is a great way to utilize fences and other tight vertical elements in smaller yards to grow fruit trees
LANDSCAPE PLANT SEARCH
Here are some helpful hints to improve your search results.
To search - All searching is done using the single "Search" button at the bottom of the page. You can enter only keywords in the search, or you can only use the parametric search below, or you can use a combination of both. Type in your keywords and/or enter the parametric values, and then simply click the "Search" button. The corresponding results will be shown on a separate "Search Results" page.
On the results page, you can scroll through the list of results to find one you would like to look further into. Simply click on that result to go to the corresponding "Plant Data" page. Results are presented in groups of 10 per page, with a maximum limit of 5 results pages (50 total results). If you can't find the plant you are looking for in the 50 results, try the search again with different or more specific parameters or keywords.
To reset - Simply click the "Reset" button at the bottom of the search page. This will set all the values in the parametric search page to default and clear the keyword search.
To refine your keyword search;
Include - To require that a particular word must be found in every result of a search, put a "+" sign immediately in front of the word. This is useful if you have a large number of keywords to search, but are particularly interested in one or two of them as a priority.
e.g. +weeping will require that the word "weeping" is found somewhere in every record in the results page.
Exclude - To specifically exclude a word from any result of a search, put a "-" sign immediately in front of the word. This is very handy if you are looking for a particular type of plant in a search, but for whatever reason, another plant which you are not interested in with many cultivars or records gets scored higher and dominates the results.
e.g. -rose will exclude all results containing the word "rose" anywhere in the record.
Phrase - To search for a specific phrase consisting of two or more words in a specific order, put the phrase in quotation marks (" "). This will require that everything inside of the quotation marks must be found in each result exactly as stated in the quotation marks. This can be used to help refine a search if a specific phrase occurs far less frequently than the individual words. For example, the word "silver" occurs very frequently in the database; however, the phrase "silver maple" is far more specific and will give better search results if this is what you're looking for. Note as well that phrases can be combined with the "+" and "-" search limiters to either require a phrase or specifically exclude a phrase from the results.
e.g. "red maple" will only identify entries containing both words "red" and "maple" in that specific order, with a single space in between. It will not, however, select entries with only the word "red" or the word "maple".
To use the new ‘Hot Button’ feature;
The ‘Hot Button’ is a little red checkbox to the left of every parameter in the Parametric Search. It's a powerful new tool that will help you refine your search even further. Think of it as a way of telling the search tool "This particular parameter is really important to me!"
Here's how you use it. You can use it to narrow in on a very important criteria of your search. If you select a ‘Plant Type’ of ‘Perennial’, the search tool will score perennials higher than other plants, but won't exclude the other plants. However, if you click the ‘Hot Button’ next to ‘Plant Type’, the search results will completely exclude any plant other than perennials.
It's most important use, though, is to help you tell the search engine that certain parameters are more important to you than others. For example, if you were to search for a 40 foot tall perennial (which doens't exist), how would the search engine know whether you're more interested in perennials or 40 foot trees? By clicking the ‘Hot Button’ next to ‘Height’, you are telling the search engine to first and foremost give priority to results that are in this range of height, even if they aren't perennials.
You can see how this will be useful for refining searches with multiple parameters. If you want a 35 foot tall tree with pink flowers, scarlet fall color and white variegation, which is suitable for acid soils and is going to be planted in full shade, no one plant fits all these criteria. But if above all, you really want the pink flowers, just click the ‘Hot Button’ next to ‘Flower Color’ to tell the search engine to give priority to this criteria over the others. This kind of refined search is more likely to return what you're really looking for.
So if you do a search on multuple criteria and get search results that seem "all over the map", try using one or two ‘Hot Buttons’ to really get to what's important!
If you get an error message, try this...
- An error message can mean that your search produced results with only zero scores. This means that either your search was too generic and didn't contain enough information to differentiate between the thousands of records in the database, or that no records were found containing your search criteria. If your search was too broad, try adding a couple of parameters to the search to help differentiate between the plants. If your search was too specific so that nothing matched it, try reducing the number of search criteria.
- An error message can mean that your search produced too many results with the same score. It is very unlikely that dozens of results with the same score will be of any use to you, as there will be little to differentiate between the plants. In this case, add some search criteria or parameters to help narrow down your selection. Alternatively, try excluding a specific plant type with numerous cultivars that may be dominating the results.
If technical problems persist...
Click
here to contact our webmaster. Note that we can only respond to technical questions regarding the functioning of the database and search, not specific questions regarding plants.
