Planting Condition Record Checklist

Give each part of the garden a plain name you will keep using, such as the bed behind the shed, so notes taken at different points refer to the same place.

Records made over several visits are only comparable if the naming holds, and improvised names drift within a few entries.

Sketch the plot roughly and mark the named areas on it, since a description without a position means very little to anyone who was not standing there.

A professional reads the sketch first and the words second, and a mislabelled position undoes an otherwise careful record.

Note where one area stops behaving like the next, such as the point along a border where the ground turns wetter or the shade begins.

The boundaries between conditions are more useful than the conditions themselves, because they are where planting decisions actually change.

Photograph each area from the same standing position whenever you add to the record, rather than from wherever you happen to be.

Photographs taken from a fixed point become comparable evidence, while photographs taken at random remain impressions.

Record which areas you look at every day and which you rarely walk to, and be honest that the second group is the one you cannot describe reliably.

Owners overstate their knowledge of the far end of a plot, and marking those areas as thinly observed is more useful than filling them in.

Keep the record somewhere you will genuinely add to it, since the conditions most worth writing down appear during weather nobody plans to be outside in.

Heavy rain, hard frost and the hottest afternoons are the moments that produce the useful entries, and they are all inconvenient.

Note for each area whether the sun reaches it in the morning, in the middle of the day, in the late afternoon, or hardly at all.

The part of the day matters as much as the amount, because early sun and late sun behave quite differently on the same bed.

Write down what casts the shade over each area, and whether that thing is permanent, such as a wall, or seasonal, such as a canopy that comes and goes.

Shade from a building is a fixed condition, while shade from a canopy may change or disappear entirely, and the two lead to different advice.

Distinguish shade under a canopy, where the ground is usually also dry, from shade behind a wall, where the ground may stay damp for long stretches.

These two situations get lumped together as shade and are among the most common reasons a bed disappoints in a position that looked workable.

Record which areas take the strongest afternoon sun against a wall or paving, and whether heat is still noticeable there once the sun has moved off.

Stored heat makes a position harsher than its light alone suggests, and it is something only somebody standing there in summer would know.

Note whether glass, pale render, water or a light-coloured surface throws reflected light or heat onto any bed at some point in the day.

Reflected heat concentrates in small areas and explains scorched patches that make no sense from the shade pattern alone.

Check your light notes against the darkest part of the seasons as well as the brightest, since a bed that looks open in summer can sit in shadow the rest of the time.

A record made in one season describes one season, and the low sun changes the pattern more than most owners expect.

Walk the garden during heavy rain and note where water collects, where it runs across the surface, and which direction it heads once it moves.

Very little about surface water can be worked out once the ground has dried, and a single walk in bad weather is worth a great deal of later guesswork.

Record how long each puddle takes to clear, described plainly, such as gone by evening or still sitting there the following morning.

A plain description of persistence is exactly what a professional needs, and it avoids the owner having to guess at drainage terms.

Note the dry strip along walls and fences where rain rarely lands, and mark roughly how far out from the wall the ground stays dry.

The rain shadow beside a building catches out a great deal of new planting, and it is invisible on a plan and easy to miss on a dry day.

Mark where downpipes, overflows and gullies discharge, and whether the ground beside them is scoured, mossy or permanently damp.

Discharge points create small extreme conditions that no planting decision should be made around without asking about them first.

Where rainwater discharges, and whether it is doing any harm, is a matter for a qualified drainage professional rather than something to plant around.

Note anywhere the ground stays soft underfoot long after the rest has dried, and describe what walking on it feels like.

Persistent softness rarely improves on its own and usually points at something below the surface rather than at the planting above it.

Ground that stays waterlogged needs a qualified professional to look at what lies beneath it, and is not solved by changing the planting.

Record where the outside tap is, how far a hose reaches from it, and which parts of the garden are currently watered by carrying a can.

Distance from water quietly decides which parts of a garden establish, and it is a condition of the site as much as light or soil is.

Note which direction the wind usually arrives from as you have felt it standing in the garden, and which areas are sheltered when it does.

Felt wind at ground level differs from the general picture, because buildings and boundaries redirect it long before it reaches a bed.

Record where frost lingers longest in the morning and where it clears first, since those two patterns often sit within a few paces of each other.

Frost persistence is a straightforward observation and tells a professional more about a corner than any general description of the area.

Mark any dip or enclosed corner where cold seems to settle, particularly at the foot of a slope or behind a solid boundary that blocks air moving away.

Cold collects at low points and behind barriers, and a pocket like this behaves quite unlike the open garden a short distance away.

Note where wind funnels between buildings or through a gap in a boundary, since that channel is often far harsher than the open part of the plot.

Funnelled wind damages planting that would be perfectly settled elsewhere, and owners usually attribute the damage to the plant instead.

Record whether any part of the garden takes salt-laden wind, road spray, grit or run-off thrown from a nearby road, path or drive.

Exposure of this kind is highly localised, and a professional cannot see it on a still day in good weather.

Write down which corner is warmest and most sheltered in your own experience, including where you actually choose to sit on a cold bright day.

Where people instinctively sit is a reliable reading of shelter, and it usually identifies the most forgiving planting position on the plot.

Push a spade in at several points where planting is intended and note where it goes in easily and where it stops, along with what stopped it.

Resistance and its position are real information, and they often differ across a single bed in a way no drawing would suggest.

A spade test is an owner observation only; assessing soil, made ground or contamination is work for a qualified professional.

Record what comes up with the spade, such as rubble, mortar, ash, plastic or old surfacing, and note exactly where each appeared.

Buried material explains a great deal about how ground behaves, and the position matters as much as the material itself.

Note how far the darker topsoil seems to go before the colour changes, described as what you can see rather than as a measurement.

A change of colour is easy to observe and easy to describe, and it gives a professional something concrete to check against.

Mark any spot where a shed, path, greenhouse, bonfire or spoil heap once stood, since the ground there rarely behaves like its surroundings.

Old footprints persist underground long after the surface has been made good, and they are the classic explanation for one failing patch.

Note whether any ground has been driven over, stored on or levelled during recent work, and which areas that affected.

Compaction is invisible from the surface and is one of the most common reasons new planting sulks in an otherwise promising position.

Whether compacted or imported ground needs work before planting is a judgement for a qualified professional standing on the site.

Note whether water seeps into any hole you have opened, and how quickly it drains away while you stand and watch it.

What happens in an open hole is a plain observation an owner can make, and it is often the first sign that the water table or a layer below matters here.

Note which beds sit within the spread of an established tree or large shrub, including anything growing on a neighbouring plot.

The influence of a large plant reaches well beyond the shade it casts, and a neighbouring tree affects your beds exactly as your own would.

Planting, digging or changing levels within the root zone of a tree is a matter for a qualified arborist, who should be asked before any bed there is designed.

Record where the ground under a canopy is noticeably drier, harder or bare, and how far out from the trunk that condition seems to extend.

This is one of the clearest owner-visible signs of root competition, and it marks the area where planting has to be discussed rather than assumed.

Mark where a hedge runs alongside a border, and note whether the strip nearest it behaves differently from the rest of the bed.

A hedge takes water and light from the ground beside it continuously, and the affected strip is usually wider than owners expect.

Note any vigorous spreading growth already present, where it appears to come in from, and how far across the garden it has advanced.

Knowing the direction of travel matters more than the name, because it shows whether the source is on your plot at all.

Persistent or spreading growth needs a qualified horticultural professional to look at it; never act on a guess about what it is.

Record which parts of the garden things seed themselves into readily, since that tells you something honest about the conditions there.

Self-seeding is unforced evidence, and it points to positions where establishment is easy without anyone having tried.

Note where roots have appeared at the surface, lifted paving or filled a bed, and mark it rather than digging around to investigate.

Surface rooting is a condition to report rather than explore, and disturbing it can cause harm you cannot see the extent of.

List what has failed in each area and roughly when in the seasons it went, since the pattern of loss says more than the name of the plant that died.

Losses in a hard winter, a dry spell or immediately after planting each point at very different causes.

Record what has survived in each area with no attention at all, because that is the most reliable evidence you have about the conditions.

Untended survivors have been tested against the real site over several seasons, which is more than any site visit can offer.

Note where pets run, dig or lie, and which beds take that traffic every day rather than occasionally.

Animals keep their habits after replanting, so an existing route is a condition of the site rather than a behaviour to be corrected.

Record which animals visit the garden and what damage you have actually seen, without assuming which visitor was responsible for it.

Owners commonly attribute damage to the animal they have seen rather than the one that did it, and a plain description avoids that trap.

Note whether any bed or corner is walked across as a shortcut, and by whom, since foot traffic explains bare ground that usually gets blamed on the soil.

A worn line through planting is a use pattern, and it is far easier to design around than to argue with.

Write down anything a previous owner or a neighbour has told you about the plot, and mark it clearly as something you were told rather than something you saw.

Beliefs handed on with a property get repeated without ever being tested, and labelling them lets a professional weigh them properly.