tomorrow.garden fills in the same fixed record for every plant, and treats a fact as confirmed only when at least two independent sources agree on it. Where sources disagree or there is only one, we mark the value as uncertain and do not filter on it.
We work from horticultural sources, not from forums.
A fact is confirmed when two different sources agree on it. Numbers rarely match exactly: when sources give plausible but different figures we record one value, the larger for sizes and the longer period for flowering.
We mark a value as uncertain when we found a single source, when sources contradict each other, or when the numbers are far apart (more than double for sizes, more than 10 °C for hardiness).
What we could not establish at all is left empty. We never fill a gap with a guess; the page then says "no data".
An uncertain value is not necessarily wrong; it just lacks two agreeing sources. So we handle it with care:
We accept toxicity to dogs and cats only when one of the sources is the ASPCA. The ASPCA does not cover people, so the value for children needs two sources on human toxicity.
We rate a plant "non-toxic" only when a source says so explicitly. A plant that nobody mentions as toxic is not thereby non-toxic. That is why our lists of plants non-toxic to dogs, cats and children are short.
Toxicity data is for guidance only. If your pet or child has eaten a plant, contact a vet or a doctor.
Heat and drought tolerance, native status, invasive status, known problems and planting time are judged for the Carpathian Basin and the neighbouring countries: a continental climate, hot dry summers, winter lows between −15 and −25 °C, and often alkaline soil. So we do not take over a British or North American "drought tolerant" rating unchanged.
Hardiness is the lowest winter temperature the plant reliably survives. We derive it from USDA hardiness zones (zone 5 is −29 °C, zone 6 is −23 °C, zone 7 is −18 °C). When sources differ by one zone we take the warmer one, which is the more cautious value.
We keep two sizes. The ultimate size is that of a mature, unpruned plant. The ten-year size is roughly what the plant reaches in a garden ten years after planting: garden plans are built on it, so it is what the lists and cards show. For hedge plants we also record the height they are normally kept at when clipped, and how many centimetres they grow a year.
No source publishes a safe distance from buildings and paving plant by plant, so we work it out with our own rule of thumb for woody plants: half the mature spread plus half a metre from a wall, and one and a half to two times that for plants with more vigorous roots. We give no such distance for herbaceous plants and climbers.
The design picture shows the first, third and fifth summer after planting, which needs a separate estimate. A woody plant starts at the size you buy it in and adds its own yearly growth, so a shrub is still small after three summers. A plant that dies back and regrows every year reaches about half its height in the summer it is planted and all of it by the third. These are estimates for the picture, not promises.
We do not recommend a plant that is on the European Union list of invasive alien species (Regulation 1143/2014) or on the official Hungarian invasive list. If a plant is listed only in a neighbouring Central European country, the plant page says so.
We also do not recommend a plant when a pest or disease common today makes it a poor choice for most gardens. These plants are on the site, but the plant finder and the lists do not offer them.
Some fields are horticultural judgement, not measurable fact: what the plant is used for (hedging, screening, ground cover), which garden style it suits, how far apart to plant it and how many plants a metre of hedge takes, and how much maintenance it needs. We do not require two sources for these.
We write the plant descriptions in our own words and do not copy sentences from sources.
Prices are rounded, indicative values by size, in the local currency, based on the public ranges of web shops in the country of the garden (Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Czechia or Poland). They are not offers: they show roughly what a plant costs as a small pot and as a larger specimen, and let us estimate the cost of a garden plan.
Only offers you can actually buy count: a sold-out product is left out, unless the plant is out of stock everywhere in the country.
A garden plan is made from the same database, and hard rules filter the plants first. A plant is only considered if its light and soil needs suit the spot, it survives the winter minimum of the garden's region with a 2-degree margin (-17 °C where winters are mild, -20 °C on average, -23 °C where they are cool and -26 °C where they are cold), it copes without watering if you do not water, and it is sold in the garden's country. Next to a dog, cat or child only plants confirmed as non-toxic are used, and next to a child nothing thorny. No hard rule rests on uncertain data: a plant with uncertain hardiness, for example, never goes into a garden plan.
The layout follows professional design principles: German mixed perennial plantings (Staudenmischpflanzung), the methods of Piet Oudolf and of Thomas Rainer and Claudia West, and the advice of the Royal Horticultural Society. A plan usually has a framework (a tree or a structural shrub), larger repeated groups, a continuous low ground cover filling the rest of the space with a few airy plants scattered through it, and spring bulbs underneath. The number of plants follows from their planting distance, the estimated cost from the prices above. In a balanced plan the plants stand at about 0.85 times their width in the third summer, so the mulch still shows between them in the third summer and has to be kept free of weeds; a lush plan closes up by the third summer, an airy one is sparser. A tree with a crown stands at least 2 metres from the back fence (a small tree that stays under 3 m, 1.2 metres) and at least half its crown width after ten years; where the bed is too shallow for that, a columnar tree or a large shrub takes its place. A hedge stands 80 cm from the fence, trimmed 150 cm high and 60 cm wide.
A program checks the finished plan: whether every plant suits the light, the soil and the winter, whether the bed still shows something in winter, and whether something flowers in every month from April to September. If something is missing, the plan page says so.
The hedge planner works from the same database and filters with the same hard rules: the plant must take the winter of the garden's region, the light and the soil, live without watering if you do not water, and be sold in shops in the garden's country. Next to a dog, a cat or a child only a plant confirmed as non-toxic is used, and a thorny one only if you do not rule thorns out. We only suggest clipped hedges that reach the height asked for and can be kept clipped at it. If the hedge must screen in winter too, only evergreens or plants that hold their dry leaves over winter qualify, such as hornbeam and beech.
For every size of every plant on sale we work out what a metre and the whole hedge cost, and in which summer it reaches the height asked for. The price of a metre is the number of plants a metre takes times the cheapest price of that size in the garden's country. The height is worked out from the size at planting and the yearly growth, with less growth in the first two years while the plant takes root; varieties cut back hard at planting (privet, hawthorn, hornbeam and beech, for example) also lose height at first. No source gives these proportions as figures, so we estimate them from what horticultural sources agree on in words: the summer a hedge screens is an estimate, not a promise. Where the yearly growth is not backed by two sources, the planner marks it as estimated.
When and how often to clip, and whether an overgrown hedge can be cut back into old wood, is given by genus, following the Royal Horticultural Society's guides. The risks (thuja browning in drought, box tree moth, fire blight, for example) are also listed by genus, from horticultural and plant protection sources, among them the Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture (LWG), the Austrian AGES and the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO). Only what often ruins a hedge or regularly does it serious harm is listed.
Artificial intelligence helps find the sources and fill in the records, following the rules above. A program checks the rules on every value: it counts the independent sources, drops numbers outside a plausible range, and marks as uncertain whatever lacks enough sources.
In the plant finder, the language model does not make plants up. If you describe what you are looking for in your own words, a model turns that into the finder's conditions; rules then pick the matching plants from the database. After that, a model only orders the matches and words the explanation. It cannot recommend a plant that is not in the database.
The plants and the layout of a garden plan also come from rules; a language model only writes the short description of the plan. If you write a request about the bed in your own words, a model sorts it into the planner's conditions, but what goes into the bed is still decided by the rules. Where none of our proven combinations suits the spot, a model may choose from plants the rules have already filtered, but its plan is measured by the same checks and is not used if it is worse than the plan made from rules alone.
If you upload a photo, a model reads where there is plantable ground, where a wall or fence stands, and what must be left free (in front of a heat pump, for example). This gives the suggested bed, which you can redraw on the photo. For a hedge plan, the model reads the line the hedge would run along and where a gate or path must be left open; you can redraw this too.
An image model paints the design picture onto your photo from the scale drawing of the plan, with its plants and numbers. Another model checks that the picture shows the plan and that nothing permanent has disappeared; if it finds a fault, the picture is made again. The picture is an illustration: it shows the garden at its best (lush, mown lawn, without movable objects) and the plants at their estimated size. What is exact is the plant list, the number of plants and the planting layout. The pictures of a hedge plan are made the same way, summer by summer until the hedge reaches the height asked for, and of that year's winter; in each picture the hedge is as closed as the estimate says it is that year.
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