The Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox is your go-to source for curated images of plants and gardens. The images on the Plant Toolbox have Creative Commons licenses, and the CC license allows you to download and use the images in accordance with the CC license.

How to Download a Photo

Downloading photos is easier than ever thanks to the new "Download Image" button that displays below each photo, after the caption, photographers and CC license. Just click the button, and the image will be downloaded with the alt text, caption, photographer and CC license as the file name. The image at right downloads with the following file name: "Large oval leaves with silvery variegation. Goeppertia picturata. Foliage. Rafael Ferro CC BY-NC 4.0.jpeg."

 

Decoding the CC License

Below each photo on the Plant Toolbox is the caption, photographer, and CC license. The license abbreviations are as follows:

• BY – means the byline (photographer’s name) must be included whenever the photo is used.
• NC – indicates that only non-commercial use is allowed.
• ND – means “no derivatives,” i.e., the photo can’t be cropped, edited, mixed or changed in any way.
• SA – means “share alike” and indicates you must allow others to use the photo in the same way you have used it.

More information on the CC licenses can be found on the CC website.

How Can You Use the Photos?

The Plant Toolbox is a great source of photos for presentations, social media posts, garden signs, brochures, etc. Using a search engine to find images will return a mixed bag of results–some of the images will be correctly identified, but others will not. Knowing whether you have permission to use the image and how to give attribution--that's even trickier. Save yourself the time and aggravation by searching for plant images on the Plant Toolbox, your trusted source of plant information.