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Managing Planting Sites

A Planting Site is a mapped area in Terraware where your Organization plans to plant and track trees. Planting Sites are the foundation of plant monitoring in Terraware — they define the boundaries of your restoration area, organize it into manageable sections, and make it possible to track planting progress and conduct Observations over time. Only Admins can create and edit Planting Sites.

Before you start

When creating a Planting Site, you'll make some decisions that affect how Terraware organizes and monitors your site. Understanding a few key concepts first will help you set things up correctly.

Simple vs. Detailed sites The first step in creating a Planting Site is choosing between a simple or detailed site. A simple site is homogeneous — the entire area has similar growing conditions and will be treated as one unit. A detailed site is stratified — it's divided into areas with different growing conditions, called Strata.

Most projects will only need a simple site or a detailed site with one or two Strata. If you think your site needs four or more Strata, it's likely either very large (10,000+ hectares) or being over-stratified.

Strata A Stratum is an area of a Planting Site where growing conditions are relatively consistent throughout. Factors that might mean your site needs multiple Strata include significant variation in elevation, species distribution, meteorological conditions, soil conditions, or target planting density. Strata don't need to be geographically contiguous.

Substrata Substrata divide a Stratum into smaller, more manageable planting areas. There are no rules about how large a Substratum can be or how many make up a Stratum. For the best use of Terraware's plant monitoring features, each Substratum should ideally be sized so it can be fully planted within a single planting season, though this isn't required. If you don't create any Substrata for a Stratum, Terraware will create one Substratum that covers the entire Stratum.

Create a Planting Site

Terraware guides you through the Planting Site creation process step by step. You can save your progress at any time using Save and Close and return to finish later. Only the creator of a draft Planting Site can edit it. Once a Planting Site is created, any Admin can edit it.

Step 1: Choose simple or detailed
  1. Navigate to Planting Sites in the left navigation.
  2. Click Add Planting Site.
  3. Select Simple if your site is homogeneous, or Detailed if your site needs to be stratified.
  4. Click Next.
Step 2: Add site details
  1. Enter a Name for the Planting Site. This field is required.
  2. Optionally, enter a Description.
  3. Optionally, add Planting Seasons. Planting Seasons are used to determine when the Planting Site is ready for Observations.
  4. Optionally, assign the site to a Project.
  5. Click Next.
Step 3: Draw the site boundary
  1. Using the polygon drawing tool, draw the boundary of your Planting Site on the map.
  2. Use the Undo and Redo buttons to correct any mistakes, or click Delete to start over. Note: Your site boundary must consist of one or more completed polygons before you can proceed.
  3. Click Save and Next when you're satisfied with the boundary.
Step 4: Add exclusion areas (optional)

Exclusion areas are parts of your site boundary that aren't plantable — for example, buildings, access roads, or areas with seasonal flooding or large rock formations. Terraware excludes these areas from site area calculations, plant density calculations, and Observation plot assignments.

  1. If your site has exclusion areas, draw them using the polygon drawing tool.
  2. If your site has no exclusion areas, click Save and Next to continue.
Step 5: Define Strata boundaries (detailed sites only)
  1. Use the slicing tool to divide your site into Strata. Each slice carves out a section of your site to form a Stratum.
  2. Each Stratum is automatically named and given a default target planting density. To edit a Stratum's name or target density, click on it and update the fields in the popup. Note: If you don't create any Strata, Terraware will create one Stratum covering your entire site.
  3. Click Save and Next when you're done.
Step 6: Define Substrata boundaries (optional)
  1. Select the Stratum you want to divide into Substrata.
  2. Use the slicing tool to divide the Stratum into Substrata.
  3. Each Substratum is automatically named. To edit the name, click on it and update the field in the popup.
  4. Repeat for each Stratum as needed. Note: If you don't create any Substrata for a Stratum, Terraware will create one Substratum covering the entire Stratum.
  5. Click Save and Next to complete the Planting Site setup.

Edit a Planting Site

  1. Navigate to Planting Sites and click the name of the Planting Site you want to edit.
  2. Click Edit Planting Site.
  3. Update the details as needed.
  4. Click Save.

Note: Once a Planting Site is created, any Admin in your Organization can edit it.

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