Requirement
3. Eleven plants, and two answers about each
Required Often forgotten
Five shrubs, five trees and one ground cover, differing in shape, size and texture, all able to grow where you live, each with a picture or a cutting, each with a use in a design AND the maintenance that follows. NEEDS TWO ARRANGEMENTS: your counselor or a local nursery to help choose, and a group to bring the results to.
Notes and warnings
Warning. ONE PARAGRAPH, ELEVEN PLANTS, TWENTY TWO ANSWERS. Five shrubs, five trees and one ground cover, and the eleven together must show DIFFERENT shapes, sizes and textures, so eleven similar things is not an answer. Each one needs a picture or a cutting of branch, leaf or flower, and then two things said about it: how you would USE it in a design, and the MAINTENANCE that would follow. Those two are per plant and they are the two that get left out. Use means the job it does: screening a fence, shading a bench, marking an entrance, holding a bank. Maintenance means what it costs every year: pruning, watering, leaf fall, and how big it eventually gets. GO TO A LOCAL NURSERY RATHER THAN A SEARCH ENGINE, because the eleven have to grow where you live and a nursery only stocks what does. Ask them for a spread of shapes and sizes and the hardest condition in the requirement is met by the person helping you.
Note. THE LAST STEP OF THIS REQUIREMENT IS SOMEBODY ELSE'S AGENDA. The pictures or cuttings have to be brought to a group such as your troop or a class at school, so ask for the slot at the same time as you ask for everything else on this badge. A patrol or a class is easier to arrange than a full troop meeting and satisfies it equally. DO THIS REQUIREMENT BEFORE REQUIREMENT 4(c) IF YOU CAN. 4(c) invites space-defining plantings of trees and shrubs in your redesign, and you will by then have eleven plants identified, checked for your area, and costed for maintenance. Naming them there, and saying why each one, turns the weakest kind of answer into the strongest. The badge states no dependency between the two and none is drawn, but the numbering already puts this first and there is every reason to keep it that way.
Where this step comes from
- Landscape Architecture Merit Badge Requirements (Merit Badge Hub, last modified 2025-09-19), Requirement 3 · The requirement asks for five shrubs, five trees, and one ground cover of different shapes, sizes and textures, chosen with the help of your counselor or a local nursery, and brought to a group such as your troop or class at school.