Palette in Practice: Guide 01
How to choose climate-suitable trees for a planting site using Palette.
Making a choice about which trees to plant for any project should involve consideration beyond our knowledge of what species grow well today. Trees planted now may need to cope with very different climate conditions during their lifetimes, so understanding how a site’s climate is expected to change is increasingly critical.
Palette has been specifically designed for this purpose and to help anyone to explore the suitability of tree species for a specific location.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up a project, assess a site, interpret the results and start building a shortlist of species to consider for your planting scheme.
If you’re logging in for the first time, Palette will guide you through setting up a project and adding a site with its introductory product tour. This guide follows the same basic journey, with additional explanation of what each step does, why it matters and how to use the results
By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to:
Create a project and add a planting site.
Understand how to interpret the climate setting in your assessment
Interpret Palette’s species suitability ratings.
Explore and filter tree species.
Start building a planting palette for your project.
Start with a project
A project provides a place to organise your work. You might create one for a particular development, planting scheme, client or group of sites.
How to do it
Select Create your first project.
Give your project a clear, recognisable name.
Select Create.
Find your new project under Projects and open it.
Why this matters: Organising your work into projects makes it easier to keep site assessments and planting palettes organised and easy to locate, especially if you are likely to have multiple planting schemes.
Add and locate your site
From your project, select + Add site. Search for a postcode or address, or enter specific coordinates if you have them, then select Add site. Once the site appears in your project, you can open it to view the climate assessment.
Why this matters: The site location determines the geographical context for the subsequent species suitability ratings. The impacts of a changing climate will vary according to geographic area, so this site-specific assessment really underpins the platform and the objective, which is to create more resilient planting palettes.
Understand your site's climate settings
These are the results you will see and what they mean:
Annual or growing-season climate: whether the assessment considers conditions across the full year at the site or focuses specifically on the climate during the growing season, which is the crucial time of year that most tree species are active.
Urban heat adjustment: the assessment will indicate if there is any adjustment required for further temperature rises due to warmer urban temperatures.
Climate Scenario: this is the climate period against which species suitability is assessed. You can toggle between Baseline, Near-term and End-Century and compare the Temperature, Moisture Index, Precipitation and Aridity levels below.
The assessment defaults to an end-of-century period this is to account for the longer-term conditions a tree may experience over its lifetime. Check these settings to ensure you understand them and that the parameters are best suited to your project.
Why this matters: A species rating is meaningful only in relation to the climate conditions and the time period being assessed.
Understand the species suitability ratings
Once a site has been assessed, the Free Tier version of Palette provides 50 species spanning a range of suitability for your specific site. (Over 300 are available for paid subscription accounts).
Each species will have a suitability rating applied. Species will fall within one of four suitability categories: High, Moderate, Low and Vulnerable.
They indicate how well the climate conditions being assessed align with the climate conditions in which a species is most likely to thrive. You can hover over a rating in Palette to see more information about the result.
It is important to note that ratings are a guide to climate suitability, not a guarantee of successful establishment or long-term survival. Other factors will also play a role.
Why this matters: Understanding these ratings enables you to make more informed choices about a range of species for your planting palette.
Want to understand the science in more detail? Read a more detailed methodology of the platform and the science behind it here.
Explore and filter the species list
Alongside your assessment and above your species recommendations are a selection of Basic Filters. These allow you to refine your set on the basis of species traits and any ecosystem services that you would like your planting palette to provide.
Filters include:
UK Native Status: There may be a requirement for native species in particular, or you might like to better understand which from your recommended list fall under the categories of Native, Naturalised or Non-native.
Invasive Status: You can also explore whether any species are considered potentially invasive or stipulate non-invasive as a requirement.
Leaf Type: Your recommendations will include both deciduous and evergreen by default, but you can filter out as required.
Mycorrhizal Type: Filter trees by their root-associated fungal relationships. Use this filter to inform species selection for soil health, nutrient cycling, biodiversity and ecologically compatible planting designs. The specific filters here are:
AM – Arbuscular Mycorrhiza. Trees that associate with fungi that penetrate root cells to exchange nutrients, particularly phosphorus, for sugars from the tree.
ECM – Ectomycorrhizal: Trees that associate with fungi that form a sheath around fine roots and extend into the surrounding soil, helping with nutrients and water uptake.
Dual – Trees capable of associating with both AM and ECM.
All – The default displays all trees regardless of mycorrhizal type.
Nitrogen Fixing: Nitrogen-fixing trees can contribute to soil fertility, nutrient cycling and ecosystem development by introducing biologically available nitrogen into a system. This filter will help you identify species that may support soil improvement, woodland establishment, agroforestry and ecological restoration.
Ecosystem Services: There are 11 specific services you might choose from to align your species selection with the objectives of your planting project.
Allergen Rating: This is clearly labelled on each of the species in your list, but you can filter here as required.
Why this matters: Every planting project will have specific objectives in mind beyond climate resilience and these comprehensive filters enable you to tailor your list of species to your requirements.
Build your planting palette
When you find a species that is suitable and meets your requirements, select the + button to the right of the species to add it to your planting palette. Repeat this for other species to begin building a list for your site. The planting palette appears alongside the species list, allowing you to work between the recommendations and your selections.
A mix of species can help avoid over-reliance on a single tree species, although the appropriate mix depends on the project, site conditions and other objectives.
Why this matters: The planting palette brings your candidate trees together in one place, ready for further review and refinement. Species can simply be added and removed as required.
Conclusion: From climate assessment to informed tree selection
Everything in this guide can be achieved with a free Palette account: assessing a site, exploring tree sites suitability under future climate conditions and using those results to filter against specific requirements and characteristics, and build a planting palette. It is a practical way to bring climate science into anyone’s tree selection process.
There is more available if you upgrade to a paid subscription. A higher tier account unlocks additional features to support larger and more collaborative projects, including unlimited projects and sites, tree population audits, exporting planting palettes and sharing with colleagues and clients. Find out more about our subscrip
Ready to get started? Log in to Palette and create your first project.
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