Terms of use

1.Who we are

Miome is run by Alex Mackintosh [trading as Miome, as a sole trader — confirm; or the company name, number and registered office if a company is formed], of [postal address for notices]. You can reach us at [contact email address].

These terms are the agreement between you and us when you use the Miome website and its tools. Our privacy notice explains what we do with your information; it is part of how we keep these terms, but it is not something you sign up to.

Miome is for people using it for their own home and garden. If you are a garden designer or business, talk to us first.

2.Miome is in beta

Miome is in a closed beta around Chippenham, Wiltshire, from January 2027, before a public launch planned for spring 2027. A beta is unfinished on purpose: we are testing it with real gardens so it can be put right.

• Features may change, move or be withdrawn, and some may not work as well as they will later.
• The plant catalogue and the data behind it are still being checked. A page made with test data says so.
• Limits, such as the number of free renders, may change during the beta. We will never take away renders you have already paid for without refunding them (see Renders and credits).
• We would be grateful if you told us when something looks wrong. You do not have to.

3.What Miome does

Miome helps you plan a garden that supports wildlife. You can:

• check whether your postcode is in the area we cover (the check happens on your device; see the privacy notice);
• answer questions about your garden and household, and get a planting plan made by our software, in your own browser;
• see the plan as a scaled garden scene, and edit it;
• in the Garden Studio, add up to 5 photos of your garden, place plants on them, and ask for a render: a picture, made by an AI image service, of how those plants might look in that spot after a few years;
• make a garden vision: printable pages of your plan, which you can save as a PDF or share as a link.

4.Plans are guidance, not a guarantee

A Miome plan is our best reading of published ecological records and plant data for a garden like yours. It is guidance for you to judge, not a promise of a result.

• Wildlife may not come. When we say a plant is known to support a species, that is a recorded association, not a prediction that the species will visit your garden. Whether it does depends on what lives nearby, the weather and much else outside anyone’s control.
• Growth varies. Heights and spreads “after N years” are typical figures. Your soil, light, water, weather and care will make your plants larger or smaller, and some may fail.
• Your answers shape the plan. The plan is only as right as the answers it was made from. If your garden is shadier, wetter or smaller than you told us, the plan will be off by that much.
• Check before you dig. You are responsible for what you plant and where: buried pipes and cables, distances from walls, drains and foundations (trees especially), boundaries and your neighbours, tenancy or lease conditions, and protected trees or conservation-area rules.
• Prices, stock and seed coverage figures come from suppliers or are estimates. Check them with the seller before you buy.

5.Plant safety: children, pets and people

We ask about children and pets so that the plan can leave out plants known to be harmful to them, and we tell you by name when a plant is left out for that reason. That is a help, not a safety guarantee.

• Toxicity information is best-effort. It comes from published sources that are incomplete and sometimes disagree. A plant with no warning is not proven safe; for some plants nothing is known.
• You are responsible for the children and animals who use your garden. Check every plant yourself before you plant it, with a reliable source or a professional, especially where young children, pets, grazing animals or people with allergies are around.
• Never eat a plant, berry, seed or fungus because of anything Miome says. We do not tell you what is safe to eat, and identifying edible plants needs an expert.
• Miome is not a substitute for professional advice: medical, veterinary, arboricultural, legal or otherwise. If someone may have eaten a harmful plant, call NHS 111 (or 999 in an emergency) or your vet straight away.

This section does not limit our responsibility if we are negligent; see Our responsibility to you.

6.Your account

You can plan without an account. To make renders or have a photo read you sign in with your email address and a one-time code we send to it. You must be 18 or over to have an account.

• Use an email address that is yours, and keep access to it secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you.
• One account per person. Please don’t open extra accounts to collect more free renders.
• You can ask us to close your account at any time by emailing [contact email address]. [A self-service “delete my account” is not built yet — confirm it exists before launch]

7.Renders and credits

What counts as a render

A render is one picture made from one of your photos. It is counted when you press Render, confirm on the “are you sure?” screen, and our server accepts the request. Changing your placements and rendering again (“Adjust and re-render”) is a new render. Asking us to read a photo for suggestions about your garden is not a render and costs nothing, but it is limited to [30] photos a day per account.

How many you get

• Free: 1 render each calendar month (UK time). An unused free render does not carry over to the next month.
• The Garden Pack (£39) includes [10] renders [the studio screen says “about ten”; the server grants exactly 10 — make the two agree], as well as the take-home plan. Your free render is used before pack renders.
• Each Garden Studio holds up to 5 photos.
• During the beta, pack renders do not expire. If we ever introduce an expiry it will not apply to renders you have already bought.

If a render fails

If a render fails because of a fault on our side or the image service’s, the credit comes back to you automatically and the screen says so. Please don’t press Render again while one is in progress: a second request is a second render.

A render that works but that you don’t like still counts, because each one costs us to make. If a render is faulty — for example blank, corrupted, or plainly not of your photo — tell us and we will give the credit back or put it right. That is in addition to your legal rights (see Paying, and your right to cancel).

What credits are not

Render credits have no cash value. They cannot be exchanged for money, transferred to someone else or sold. If we close Miome or the Garden Studio for good, we will refund the renders you have paid for and not used, in proportion to what you paid [proposal: confirm].

We may change the free allowance and pack sizes during the beta. A change never reduces renders you have already paid for.

8.Paying, and your right to cancel

[During the closed beta no payments are taken on the website: the checkout is a preview, and beta testers’ packs are given by hand. This section applies once payments open — confirm.]

Price and payment

The price is the one shown at checkout, in pounds sterling. [Miome is not VAT-registered, so no VAT is charged — confirm; if registered, say prices include VAT]. Payments are handled by [payment provider, e.g. Stripe]; we never see or store your card details.

Your legal rights

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives you rights that these terms cannot take away. Digital content we supply, including your plan pack and renders, must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If it is not, you can ask us to repair or replace it, and if we can’t do that within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you, you can have some or all of your money back. Services we provide must be carried out with reasonable care and skill. For advice, contact Citizens Advice (citizensadvice.org.uk, 0808 223 1133).

Your 14-day right to cancel, and when it ends

Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 you normally have 14 days from buying digital content to change your mind. The Garden Pack and its renders are digital content supplied straight away, so the right works differently:

• At checkout we ask you to tick a box to ask us to start supplying straight away, and to confirm you understand that you lose the right to cancel once supply has started. These are two separate statements and neither is ticked for you.
• We then confirm the purchase, and that you gave that consent and acknowledgement, by email.
• Supply starts when your plan pack is made available to you or a pack render is used, whichever comes first. From then on the 14-day right to cancel no longer applies to that purchase.
• If you don’t want to give that consent you can still buy, and the pack will be made available when the 14 days have passed [or: consent is required to buy — solicitor to advise which].
• Your Consumer Rights Act rights above are not affected by losing the right to cancel.

Our own 14-day promise

On top of the law, if the Garden Pack is not what you hoped for, tell us within 14 days of buying it and we will refund it [in full / less the renders used — Alex to decide; the checkout currently promises a refund without conditions]. We refund to the way you paid, within 14 days of agreeing to.

9.Your photos and what you make

Your photos are yours. Adding them to Miome does not give us ownership of them.

When you ask for a render, or ask us to read a photo, you give us permission to copy, resize, store briefly, send to our service providers (including the AI image service) and show back to you the photo and the information about your plants that the request needs. That permission is only for providing the service to you, it is not exclusive, it costs nothing, and it ends when the job is done and the records are deleted as the privacy notice describes. We do not use your photos to train AI models, and our image provider does not either (see the privacy notice).

You confirm that you have the right to use the photos you add: that you took them, or the person who did is happy for you to use them, and that they are of a garden you have permission to plan.

Your renders. We claim no ownership of the renders made for you, and you may use, print and share them as you like for any lawful purpose. [Solicitor: who owns AI output under CDPA 1988 s9(3), and the image provider’s terms, which assign output to Miome as its customer; confirm Miome can pass those rights to you] Your plan, the vision pages and their design, art and data remain ours or our licensors’; you may print and share your own plan and vision for personal use.

10.Sharing your garden vision

You can share your garden vision in two ways. Here is exactly what each one holds.

A shared link

• It holds: the garden’s name you typed; how many years after planting the pages show, and that summer; the species you picked and the plants that feed or house them; the plants in your plan with their quantities; and, if you used the Garden Studio, the beds you drew, as shapes measured in metres that are not tied to any map position.
• It never holds: your postcode, your address, any map position, your answers about your household (such as children, pets, allergies or mobility), your photos or your renders.
• The plan is written into the link itself, after the “#”. Browsers do not send that part to our server, and we keep no copy, so there is nothing on our side for us to delete or switch off. Anyone who has the link can open it and pass it on, and we cannot take it back.
• If you share with the Facebook button, Facebook receives the whole link and handles it under its own terms. WhatsApp, email and text messages carry the link through those services too.

A PDF

• The PDF is made by your own browser, on your device, from the pages on your screen. We do not receive it.
• It holds what the pages show: the garden’s name, your plan, planting plans and schedules. Your photos and renders are in it only if you turn on “Add my photos”, which is off unless you turn it on.
• Before photos go into the pages, Miome redraws them so that hidden details stored by the camera, such as the place where the photo was taken, are left out.
• Once you send a PDF it is out of your hands and ours. Whoever receives it can keep and forward it.

What you are responsible for

You choose what to share, and with whom. Before you share, please check:

• Other people’s privacy. If a photo shows people, especially children, ask them (or their parent) before you share it. Leave out photos that show neighbours’ windows or gardens in a way they would not expect.
• Things that give away where you live: house numbers, street signs, car number plates, or a garden name that includes your address. We warn you if the name looks like part of an address, but we don’t change it.
• That you are happy for anyone the link or PDF reaches to see it, since it can be passed on.

Don’t share anything through Miome that you don’t have the right to share. If someone has shared your photos or your garden without your permission, tell us at [contact email address] and we will help where we can. How we handle the information in shared visions is in the privacy notice.

11.Using your vision in Miome’s marketing

We would love to show real gardens planned with Miome. But sharing your vision with friends never gives us permission to use it ourselves. That is a separate choice:

• It is off unless you turn it on. The switch, “Miome may show this vision in its own posts and adverts”, is in the vision’s Share panel. It is optional, it is not a condition of anything, and sharing never switches it on.
• What it allows: Miome may show your vision pages, and your photos and renders only if you added them to the vision, on our website, in social media posts, emails, printed material and adverts. We will never show your postcode or address, and we will not name you unless you ask us to. We may crop or resize; we will not alter a picture to misrepresent your garden.
• You can change your mind at any time, by turning the switch off or emailing [contact email address]. We will stop using your vision in anything new within [30] days and take it down from our own website and social accounts where we reasonably can. We can’t recall printed material already handed out, or copies other people have made of our posts.
• In the beta, the switch is saved on your device only and is not sent to us, so nothing is used. Before we ever feature a vision we will ask you again in a way that reaches us, and confirm by email.

12.AI-generated pictures are illustrations

Renders, and the painted garden scene, are illustrations made to help you imagine a plan. They are not photographs and not a promise of how your garden will look.

• Renders are made by an AI image service. It can get sizes, colours, numbers and positions wrong, draw plants that are not in your plan, or change parts of the photo that should have been left alone. We guide it carefully, and it still makes mistakes.
• Real plants will look different in different seasons, years and weather, and will grow at their own pace.
• Please don’t present a render as a photograph of a real garden, for example when selling or letting a property. Pictures from the image service may carry a hidden label that says they were made by AI.

13.Using Miome fairly

Please don’t:

• add photos you don’t have the right to use, or that are unlawful, indecent, hateful, or intrude on someone’s privacy;
• add photos of people in order to have them altered, or try to make the image service produce anything other than a garden;
• open extra accounts, share an account, or otherwise get round render limits or rate limits;
• interfere with the service, probe it for weaknesses, overload it, or use automated tools to collect its content. The open data behind Miome may be reused under its own licences; see Data sources;
• use Miome to break the law, or to mislead anyone.

The image service refuses some requests under its own safety rules; a refused render is treated as a failure and the credit comes back.

14.Our responsibility to you

If we break these terms or fail to use reasonable care and skill, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious it will happen, or if both of us knew it might happen when you started using Miome.

• What we never exclude: our responsibility for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, and for anything else the law does not allow us to exclude, including your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
• Domestic use only: Miome is for your own home and garden. We are not responsible for loss of profit, business or opportunity.
• Things in your hands: we are not responsible for loss caused by acting on a plan without the checks set out in Plans are guidance and Plant safety, except where that loss is caused by our own negligence.
• Damage to your device: if digital content we supply damages your device or other content because we did not use reasonable care and skill, we will repair the damage or pay you fair compensation.

15.Suspending or ending the service

You can stop using Miome at any time. We may suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms; we will tell you why, unless the law stops us. We may also stop the beta or a feature. Where that affects renders you have paid for, the refund in Renders and credits applies.

16.Changes to these terms

We will change these terms as Miome changes. The date at the top says when they last changed. If a change matters to you, for example to what you pay or what we do with your photos, we will tell you by email or on screen before it applies, and you can stop using Miome and close your account if you don’t agree. A change never takes away renders you have already paid for.

17.Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring a claim in the courts of England and Wales, or, if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, in the courts there. Please talk to us first: most problems are sorted out quickly by email.

18.Contact

Email [contact email address], or write to Miome, [postal address]. We aim to reply within [5] working days.