Areas, plants and presets

Areas group your zones by the part of the garden they are in. Plants give each bed a name and a history. Presets let you start a new bed from one that already works.

Areas

An area is a part of your garden, for example Backyard or Front yard. It holds the sensors its zones have in common:

the rain gauge (and the size of one tip),
the outdoor temperature sensor,
the weather entity for the forecast,
the phone that gets the messages.

Set them once on the area, and every zone in it uses them. A zone that has a sensor of its own keeps using that one, and its card says so ("Uses its own rain gauge, not Backyard's").

Make an area: Settings → Devices & services → ZoneFlow → Add entry → Add an area. Or open a zone's Configure → Where is this? and choose New area, which makes the area from that zone's own sensors and puts the zone in it. The zone card has a Where is this? dropdown with New area… too.

Move a zone to another area, to a greenhouse (as a crop) or to nowhere with the same dropdown. A sensor the zone has that is the same as the area's is dropped (the area's is used). A different one stays as the zone's own, unless you choose to use the area's.

Pause and Snooze for the whole area. Each area has its own Pause switch and Snooze Today button. Pausing an area pauses all its zones. A zone's own Pause is separate and stays as it was when the area resumes. An area also adds up the litres its zones used.

The overview card and the ready-made dashboard group the zones by area, and a greenhouse with its crops is a group of its own, with the same Pause and Snooze Today. Zones that are in no area work as they always did.

Plants

A zone is a place: valve, soil, slope, flow. The plant in it is the living thing, with a name, a type, a planting date, its watering targets and care settings, and a history: planted, fertilized, a setting changed, moved, removed, notes.

The plant's settings stay on the zone's own sliders and selects, so dashboards and automations keep working. Each zone with a valve has one main plant, and it is the one that decides the watering. Other plants in the same zone are records only: history and notes, no effect on the watering.

Open a zone card's Plants button to:

see the plants and each one's History (settings changed, notes, moves),
add a plant, either a record only or one that takes over the zone,
move a plant to another zone, with its history. If that zone already has a main plant, you choose what becomes of it: it stays as a record, it is archived, it swaps places with the moved plant, or the moved plant joins as a record only. The bed keeps the way it is watered. The plant brings its own planting date, health and fertilizing. Tick Also use this plant's watering settings to bring those across too,
rename a plant,
make a record the main plant, remove a plant (it stays on record, archived), and write a note.

Copy settings and presets

Starting a new bed from an existing one is quick:

Copy settings gives a zone another zone's watering settings: targets, thresholds, pulses, soak times, deep soak, schedule times, soil, method and so on. It never copies the valve, sensors, flow rate, rain gauge tip size, planting date or notes.
Presets are such a set of settings saved under a name. Use one on any zone later with Use preset.
When you add a new zone, the first screen has Start from: a copy of another zone or a saved preset, instead of the plant type's usual settings.

The same things are available as services, for automations and scripts.

Handy buttons on the zone card

Check my setup: a plain checklist. Is the valve answering, do the sensors report, is the flow rate set, when did it last water. Problems come first and say what to do.
Calibrate the flow rate: run the valve for 15 minutes, catch the water, enter how much came out and the area, and the flow rate is set. See Calibration.
Water now: a stepper that waters for the minutes you choose. It is safe: not while paused, never longer than the zone's runtime cap, inside the day's cap. It counts in the water record but does not move the routine or deep soak schedule.
Why? shows the numbers behind the next watering: method, temperature, weekly target, rain credit, what it would water now, forecast skips and soil moisture.
Simple view: a card option, on for new cards. It shows the status, Water now, Snooze and Pause, and keeps everything else behind Advanced settings.

Easier setup

When you add a zone, the form lists the rain gauges, thermometers, weather entities, phones and valves it finds in Home Assistant, with their names and current values, and fills in a clear single match. A "Step 2 of 4" counter shows where you are. See Getting started.