2026 - Plant Style Management

[JuanP]

Instantly build, manage, and customize your Plant Style library with batch editing, seamless web data import from nursery partners, spreadsheet import, flexible plant placement and editing tools, and a streamlined content structure. This unified system saves you hours, keeps your plant data accurate and project-ready, and lets you focus on creative planting design.

 

 

 

[Sbd]

1 hour ago, JuanP said:

Instantly build, manage, and customize your Plant Style library with batch editing, seamless web data import from nursery partners, spreadsheet import, flexible plant placement and editing tools, and a streamlined content structure. This unified system saves you hours, keeps your plant data accurate and project-ready, and lets you focus on creative planting design.

 

 

 

This is pretty awesome for landscaping. Any way to make this possible for symbol libraries? Ie light fixtures, components, symbols....autopopulating information from spreadsheets and databases would be an insane productivity boost!!!!

Edited August 26, 2025 by Sbd

[Kevin Allen]

53 minutes ago, Sbd said:

This is pretty awesome for landscaping. Any way to make this possible for symbol libraries? Ie light fixtures, components, symbols....autopopulating information from spreadsheets and databases would be an insane productivity boost!!!!

well, the landscape tools are built on the original Theatrical Lighting tool kit, so It should be possible.

[Sbd]

Thanks @Kevin Allen That's great to know!!! I've been wishing for something like this for a while..have been jerry rigging it as best as i could to keep an updated database of information for components and materials. Passing the barrier of styles, symbols, components is pretty tedious, even with the resource manager.

[Kevin Allen]

It would seem straightforward enough to add various prices to objects. To link material costs to the lumber yard or metal supplier, etc.

[Jeff Prince]

@JuanP this looks like a major improvement in several areas.  The batch editing seems very slick.

 

Is there a method to export a plant style to an outside database like Access or File Maker?

It would be nice if you could assign symbols during the import based on form... like all the trees get a tree symbol, shrubs to shrubs, etc...  I see you can change it after the fact pretty quick, but it would be nice to have it as an import setting that could be replicated... this would save a lot of time with each project.  I'm also curious to see how the transition from a conceptual planting plan with generic plants can be converted to a detailed design rapidly.

 

Looking forward to trying it out, disappointed there was no discussion on how it should be done.

[Katarina Ollikainen]

Hi, this is a feature specifically for the plant tool. However, this doesn't mean we can't expand this to other objects as well - please file a wish for this so it's given attention.

 

The Plant Style Manager has no expanded connection to any databases for import or export - it's created to support the workflow of working directly with styles and sidestep separate catalogs/databases.

We decided to keep it at one single 2D symbol for import for now. The workaround, if you prefer to have separate symbols, is to select a group of plants, e.g., evergreen shrubs, and import them with a specific symbol, then go on to the next group.

As you're not setting import options for each species, there is no smooth way to steer what symbol each import should receive. 

We could add markers for something like category and expand the settings to set different 2D symbols for each category, but we've left that to the manager for now.

 

The replace functionality is there, as before, which is probably the quickest way to go from a concept plant to 'full detail', but you can also go the route of adding external data to each concept plant. 

 

 

[Sbd]

@Katarina Ollikainen Thank you for the reply and suggestion! I will get on it. 

The specific thing that is great about this tool is that you can import and assign database information columns from a spreadsheet. Doing so will allow staff members to create separate catalogs so to speak that can be imported based on matching the assigned columns to each other like in the plant catalogue (as far as i see here). Doing so for materials and for symbols in a similar fashion would allow to import that databases in the excel spreadsheets that would be 'open' and simply assign generic 2d / 3d symbols to the list thus making the assignment of information for symbols a much more streamlined process. The materials databases are especially crutial as clicking though the dialogues to fill out weight, u / r values, cost, manufacturer info and masterspec categories is a headache. Having something like this that can mass assign textures, hatches and line types in a list format would be an incredible addition to vectorworks in my honest opinion.

 

again, thank you vectorworks team for paying attention to us users!!

Edited August 28, 2025 by Sbd

[Wai Kin T.]

The plant style manager is fantastic, and we appreciate the option to import our species list as an Excel spreadsheet to keep our database separate. We will be using this function a lot. I have 3 suggestions and 1 question.

 

Three improvement suggestions within the plant style manager:

1. Have the ability to delete a plant style, or the entire list to tidy things up

2. Currently, clicking on a species within the Manager is behaving like a command + click, it adds a species to the selection. Could we change that so every click would select a new species and let us command+Click to select more than one species?

3. Make the select all, or more specifically, the deselect all button more explicit, currently clicking the - symbol on the top left corner of the table toggles that. Extra important if the behaviour on point no.2 above is staying.

 

My question is, once I have edited our plant styles, imported or scraped images from an external website into our plant style manager, how do we use the latest data for another project? What are the export options?

 

Much appreciated, this will be very useful once we can carry data from project to project.

 

[Katarina Ollikainen]

Hi @Wai Kin T., thank you for your input. I'll discuss what's possible with the engineers.

Currently, we're not looking at implementing the deletion of a style via the PSM, as it carries with it some complications, but it is on our wish list.

 

The plant style manager supports the workflow of using the library as your source. As you must have styles created to place the plants in a document, we're sidestepping the need for a separate catalog database. Once you've edited your plants, save them in your user or workgroup library. Even if you have the same style name already in the library, you can update it by dragging it back into the library. Note that if you've changed the style name, it will be added as a new plant style.

You can still update a catalog - the function is still there, and if you have automated update turned on, this will also work via the style manager. 

The one thing that won't update the catalog automatically is importing plants from a list. Here, you have to check the option that you want them added to the catalog as well when you do the import, and make the mapping in the list browser.

 

[Wai Kin T.]

Thanks @Katarina Ollikainen. So the edits are saved in the symbols, got it. And I could delete a style by deleting the symbol in the resource browser, that's good. This should work!

[Amanda McDermott]

I haven't got round to playing with it yet - but is it easy to export back to excel, and edits made within vwx will be reflected in the excel? 

[hollister design Studio]

I'm glad we can now adjust the polyline—I've wanted this since I started using VW - going to be very useful!

[Katarina Ollikainen]

@Amanda McDermott, there is no direct connection to export to Excel from the plant style manager, but you can pull a worksheet of all your plants with their data and export that. And the styles would contain the changes you've made to the plants in the PSM.

As I said, the plant style manager is there for you not to need to keep separate sources of plant data, but to more effectively work directly with plant styles.

This doesn't mean that we're trying to make it hard to extract the data; we're only streamlining the workflow inside Vectorworks, and it doesn't make sense to maintain both a catalog and a style library.

[jsundine]

On 9/14/2025 at 8:14 PM, Wai Kin T. said:

The plant style manager is fantastic, and we appreciate the option to import our species list as an Excel spreadsheet to keep our database separate. We will be using this function a lot. I have 3 suggestions and 1 question.

 

Three improvement suggestions within the plant style manager:

1. Have the ability to delete a plant style, or the entire list to tidy things up

2. Currently, clicking on a species within the Manager is behaving like a command + click, it adds a species to the selection. Could we change that so every click would select a new species and let us command+Click to select more than one species?

3. Make the select all, or more specifically, the deselect all button more explicit, currently clicking the - symbol on the top left corner of the table toggles that. Extra important if the behaviour on point no.2 above is staying.

 

My question is, once I have edited our plant styles, imported or scraped images from an external website into our plant style manager, how do we use the latest data for another project? What are the export options?

 

Much appreciated, this will be very useful once we can carry data from project to project.

 

I found that if you delete plants from the resource manager it removes them from the Plant Style Manager as well. 
I would agree that the clicking behavior is not consistent with a worksheet/spreadsheet setup. 

[Katarina Ollikainen]

@jsundine, yes, that's correct. The Plant Style Manager displays all resources in the active document. If you remove a plant from the document via the resource manager, it will be removed from the PSM as well.

We're looking into the clicking behaviour to see what we can do.

[hollister design Studio]

@Katarina Ollikainen

this is a really nice addition to the landscape design workflow!

 

One more suggestion, the ability to 'wrap' text.

 

We use 'comment 1' as a description of the plant and these can get pretty long.

It would be nice to be able wrap the text so you could see the whole comment.

 

...especially since you have to scroll over to the right edge of the column to access the edit button...

 

[Katarina Ollikainen]

@hollister design Studio, that's a good idea. I'll bring it up with the engineers and see if we can implement it.

[Wald]

On 9/19/2025 at 1:50 PM, Katarina Ollikainen said:

there is no direct connection to export to Excel from the plant style manager, but you can pull a worksheet of all your plants with their data and export that. And the styles would contain the changes you've made to the plants in the PSM.

As I said, the plant style manager is there for you not to need to keep separate sources of plant data, but to more effectively work directly with plant styles.

This doesn't mean that we're trying to make it hard to extract the data; we're only streamlining the workflow inside Vectorworks, and it doesn't make sense to maintain both a catalog and a style library.

Hello @Katarina Ollikainen what is tour best advice for collaborative workflow with the PSM ? At the moment we try to add as many inputs directly in plant styles (price, size, specs, etc.), but we do have many other plant data elements on excel sheets as well. Should we try to customize shared plant styles (located on a shared library) or build up a shared catalog (if possible) ?

Edited November 10, 2025 by Wald

[Katarina Ollikainen]

Hi @Wald, I would definitely recommend building a workgroup library with plant styles instead of maintaining a separate data catalogue.

The reason is not to make it harder to switch to a different software, as some have suggested elsewhere, but to avoid duplicate work. You need the plants as styles to use them in Vectorworks, so this will be the most efficient workflow. You can always export plant data in Excel format if you need the data outside of Vectorworks.

Create the plants with as much data as you deem necessary, but avoid overcomplicating the process. I suggest adding only the data you need for your work - this can differ enormously depending on what you produce for your clients. A good idea is to consider how you would use the data for data visualisations: if you can effectively illustrate the data in a data visualisation and this creates a helpful image, then it's probably worth incorporating.

Prize is a good example of things I would avoid; this will always change, so here, I would recommend keeping an average price in the plant style (based on size, so perennials p9/1L/2L, grasses, ferns, climbers, shrubs - trees, I would be more exact with). This is particularly useful for cost estimation early on, and you can then adjust it as you begin the sourcing process.

Keeping pricing and availability up to date is a full-time job. There are apps available that can do a great job of that. In the UK, we have PlantPartner, which excels in this area.

 

Now, with all that said, there are definitely other workflows as well - if you don't really care what the plants look like in your plans (think Landscape areas), then you could keep all the data in an Excel sheet, make a plant list for each project and create the plants via the 'Create Plant Styles from List' command for that specific project. Then you could edit the graphics as needed in the Plant Style Manager. However, personally, I would find that frustrating, as I always incorporate more plants as I go along, which would be cumbersome if I had to create new plants every time. Whatever you decide, I think an either-or approach is probably the best - keeping two sources of truth is always tiresome.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

48 minutes ago, Katarina Ollikainen said:

keeping two sources of truth is always tiresome.

…and that is the problem with how plants have been changed in VWX.  The company wants to force you into curating data in a nondatabase friendly, object based workflow instead of the way we and the nursery industry has worked for a very long time… bidirectional databases.  Sure, if you work at VWX, it’s easier and self serving to recommend an process exclusive to VWX, but that ignores the realities of LA practice where we have to generate non-VWX documents such as plant books and specs.  It also ignores the need to collect plant data in the field.  The FileMaker workflow was superb in this respect and ran on an iPad too field work.  I “sold” many copies of the software for VWX based on my FileMaker/Ipad plant database integration.  Now it’s ruined and we are forced to keep two sources of truth (unless you decide to put in the extra work to make it all work).

 

I will be amazed if my post is actually passes moderation and gets approved.  I’ve been beating this drum for years only for it to fall on deaf ears.

Edited November 10, 2025 by Jeff Prince
Spelling

[Katarina Ollikainen]

Through the years, we have had several iterations of workflows for plant data management. The FileMaker database and the Catalogue were only integrated into the planting plan workflow by a small group of users. We follow which features are widely adopted and which are not, and a vast majority of our users never warmed up to them. Yes, when creating the plant styles, there is a front-loading of work, but that is usually what pays off. It's the same with all our styles. You create styles in a library so you can easily use them repeatedly, without any extra work. 

We believe we have found a suitable approach to working with plants, and the Plant Style Manager offers the worksheet-style management of plant styles that we previously lacked. The benefit is also that you can control the graphics here, so everything is in one place. Plant descriptions and maintenance notes can be included and used to create maintenance plans and plant calendars.

The concept will hopefully be extended to other styles as well, both within Landmark and the other industries; Spotlight, for example, would benefit from it for its lighting equipment.

With the list import, you can also start your library in a much easier way than previously, and you can easily update the plants with info from some of the best nurseries on the market. And since plants don't really change their characteristics from year to year, the info in them is fairly evergreen (yes, sometimes they change their botanical names, and their 'preferability status' might fluctuate, but that would have to be adjusted in a database as well). Planting plans require research for every project, and every project is approached with different parameters - and this is what makes it so much fun. It's not a cookie-cutter process, but you can reduce the tedious work around it as much as possible. 

We will never find a solution that everyone is completely satisfied with, but we also collaborate with other platforms to support alternative workflows. Plant Master, for example, is offering a two-way connection to its plant database.

I'm happy to discuss this further if you want to send me a personal message, and we can meet up on Zoom. It's easier to talk 'face-to-face' instead of hammering away on a keyboard.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

@Katarina OllikainenHow do you easily and quickly print a book of plants used in a design, with photos?  How do you quickly create cut sheets of plants?

I guess if your clients don’t do specs and project manuals, they wouldn’t know what they are missing.  Please consider this before developing architectural tools based on plant objects, you guys could be heading down a path that will paint you into a corner.

[Katarina Ollikainen]

These are also things we're considering, and there are several approaches to take. And don't worry - I don't think high-res plant images belong in the plant style itself, as that would unnecessarily increase the size of your vwx file. The work on the plant tool is ongoing, and we're spreading it across several versions. We will address what you're talking about as well, but this time, we focused on the planting plan and how to enhance the drawing experience. The Plant Style Manager has not changed how the plant object is built up - it's an aid for managing the styles you have. 

[Rebecca R]

I think the direction plants are going in is excellent.

However, I think I'm right in thinking we cannot add custom columns/fields (i.e. fields that do not easily map on to the default Vectorworks fields) when creating styles from lists?  This means the plant manager still cannot easily perform all the functions my excel spreadsheet currently does unfortunately.  It would therefore be extremely helpful to be able to update the plant style data from the original list the plant was created from.

I'm also finding the plant manger to be quite slow when dealing with large numbers of plant styles (my imported list).  Hopefully it will speed up when I'm working with just a few styles for a working project.