Landscape & Ecology
See a landscape through its seasons, its weather and its daily life before a single plant goes in the ground.
A landscape is never one picture. The same bank is a spring meadow, a summer shade, an autumn colour and a winter structure; it floods, it dries, it fills with people and birds. Landscape & Ecology lets you see those states before the planting plan is drawn.
Styles
| Style | What it looks like | Starts from |
|---|---|---|
| Eye-level photo | A photograph of the place as someone standing in it would see it. | Your description, or a reference |
| Aerial view | A drone's-eye view that shows the whole site and how it sits in its surroundings. | Your description, or a reference |
| Habitat close-up | A knee-height close-up inside the planting: flowers, stems, insects and texture. | Your description, or a reference |
| Planting section | A drawn section through the ground and planting, with layers at their true relative heights. | Your description, or a reference |
| Illustrative plan | A top-down rendered plan in colour pencil and marker, best made from your own plan linework. | A capture or image (recommended) |
| Watercolour sketch | A loose hand-drawn perspective with watercolour washes, for ideas that aren't decided yet. | Your description, or a reference |
| Competition collage | A flat, poetic collage of cut-out plants and people on textured paper, in the style of a competition board. | Your description, or a reference |
| Before / after | Green a real site photo while keeping everything else in it, for a before/after pair. | A photo to edit (required) |
Before / after greens a real site photo, changing only the ground and planting and keeping the buildings, the sky and the light. Export both halves together.
Choices
| Choice | Options |
|---|---|
| Planting character | From my description · Temperate woodland edge · Meadow / prairie · Mediterranean dry garden · Tropical · Boreal · Coastal dune · Wetland / rain garden · Arid / xeric · Urban street trees |
| Planting approach | Native & wild · Naturalistic · Formal · Productive · Rewilded |
| Season | Spring bloom · Summer · Autumn colour · Winter structure |
| Light & weather | Soft daylight · Clear morning · Golden hour · Dusk · Rain · Mist · Snow · Storm light · Heat haze · High water · Keep the photo's light (with a reference) |
| People & wildlife | None · Everyday life · Play & sport · Gathering & market · Gardening & care · Wildlife · Grazing |
Naming plants
Describe a plant by how it looks, and add its name in brackets: "soft rush (Juncus effusus), in upright green tufts". The description steers the image more than the name does, and the model can follow about five plants in one description. It may still draw them wrong or swap them for look-alikes.
Performance words like biodiverse, resilient or net gain make images more generic and read as claims. Describe what you'd see instead.
Starting from your model
An eye-level or aerial Rhino view of the site, a plan or section as black linework on white, or a site photo to green.
Try these
- Eye-level photo · Wetland / rain garden · Summer · Everyday life: "a rain garden along a school street with a timber boardwalk and benches, soft rush (Juncus effusus) in upright green tufts"
- Planting section · Meadow / prairie · Autumn colour: "a sloped bank from a terrace down to a pond, a hedge at the top, meadow on the slope, reeds at the water"
- Aerial view · Urban street trees · Spring bloom · Gathering & market with a site capture: "a new square between the station and the market hall, trees in a double row, a water table"
- Before / after with a car-park photo: "replace the tarmac with a meadow and a line of street trees; keep the building, the lamp posts and the kerbs"
Keep in mind
- Plants are illustrative: species, sizes, spacing, maturity and bloom timing are not a planting plan.
- Named species are a hint the model may draw wrong or swap for look-alikes. Nothing checked what was drawn.
- Animals are atmosphere, not a habitat assessment or a biodiversity claim; high water is imagined, not a flood model.
- Light and shadows are imagined. For sun access, run the Sunlight study.