Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How many basic plant types does Aerulean Plant Search include?

A. We provide 11 basic plant types to search from:

• annual
• aquatic
• biennial
• fern
• grass
• palm
• perennial
• shrub
• cactus
• succulent
• tree
• vine

Q. How many plants are included in Aerulean Plant Search?

A. There are 4,143 unique plant species included in Aerulean Plant Search. We tirelessly add new horticulture data about each plant and add new plants on an ongoing basis.

Q. What regions of the country do you cover?

A. Aerulean Plant Search includes plants that can be grown throughout the United States—all of the plants included are currently in cultivation and more than 85% of them grow in more than one region of the country.

Q. How many growers’ plant lists are included in Aerulean Plant Search?

A. We’ve compiled plant lists from 100 growers—all located in the western United States. Every plant included in Aerulean Plant Search is currently in cultivation by one or more of these growers. We look forward to adding the plant lists of growers from other regions of the country as well.

The beta version of Aerulean Plant Search contains more than 75% of the products grown by the 100 included growers. Some of these growers ship plants to every region of the country.

Q. How does Aerulean Plant Search work?

A. Aerulean Plant Search allows you to select plants with a very broad range of horticultural and or botanical traits that you can filter to your location. Once you know which trait or traits you’d like your plant or garden to have, simply search for them and you will find all the plants that match your search criteria.

Q. How do plant traits help me search?

A. All plants have horticultural and botanical details or “plant traits” that we use as data to drive Aerulean Plant Search. We’ve carefully compiled plant trait data for all 4,143 species included thus far. We eliminated data gaps found in other resources to fully realize a complete data profile of each plant. By using all that data to help you search you can, for example, design your garden to contain plants with a contrasting leaf margin, or opposite leaves, or large leaves, or contrasting new growth or combinations of those traits.

Q. Can I browse through the plants?

A. Yes. Simply dive into the 10,000 professionally collected images by selecting one or more plant traits from the menus to see all the plants with those traits.

Q. Can I search for plants for my garden and identify plants that I already have?

A. Yes. Because Aerulean Plant Search uses horticultural and botanical plant trait data to enable a search, plant selection and plant identification are built right into each search.

For example, if you want to find a plant that matches your particular needs you’d be “selecting” traits that match your criteria. If you had a plant in your garden that you needed to “identify,” you’d simply note the plant’s visual traits and select those traits to search for an identification of your plant. So plant selection and identification are actually achieved using the same search features—the selection of traits.

Q. Do I have to know a lot about plants in order to use Aerulean Plant Search?

A. No. Aerulean Plant Search is largely visually driven allowing even a novice user to simply browse images of plants to make selections based on how a plant looks rather than forcing a user to sift through complex horticultural or botanical data or terms. If you can click an image of a plant or plant trait that looks desirable, you can find plants that meet your needs.

Q. What kind of horticulture information is included?

A. Aerulean Plant Search contains basic information pertaining to USDA hardiness zones, basic plant characteristics and landscape uses, seasonal traits, drainage, water, and exposure needs.

Q. What plant sizes are included?

A. Aerulean Plant Search contains information on the maximum mature height and width of each plant and the maximum leaf size of each plant.

Q. What search information do you include about flowers?

A. We list seven basic flower shapes, three basic arrangements, and 28 colors. There is also a “secondary color present” category used to designate variegated flowers or those clearly contain more than one color.