For garden designers, landscape designers and students
Draw the site to scale, plant it from 2,576 plants that carry their real bloom months and mature sizes, and walk the finished garden in 3D on any day of the year. Hand the client the 3D link and the contractor the keyed sheet. Free to try in any browser, no account to start.
Premium $24.99 a month, Pro $29.99 a month, both cancel anytime. Runs on a Mac, a PC, an iPad or a phone. Nothing to install.
Pick any day and the planting shows what is in flower, what is in leaf and what has gone to seed. A border that reads full in July can be bare in April, and the only way to catch that before anyone digs is to look at it month by month.
JanuaryBare stems, the conifers and the grasses holding the shape.
AprilFresh leaf and the first flowers, white and blue, low along the path.JulyFull growth, the border at its peak.
OctoberFall color on the trees, seedheads on the grasses.Planting-led landscape design software: the drawing conventions a plan needs, the structures a real yard has, and a plant library that knows when everything blooms.
The drawing conventions of a landscape design: beds, paths and lawn in feet or meters, with every plant drawn as a landscape plan symbol at its mature spread: tree, weeping tree, evergreen conifer, shrub, perennial, flower spikes, flat-topped flowers, leafy clump, grass, ground cover, bulbs and climber, each kind its own figure, evergreens with a spiked edge, a tree's canopy as a dashed ring you can plant under. One chip swaps the symbols for plain circles.
A house with a gable, hip, flat or shed roof and one to three stories; a garage, shed, greenhouse, gazebo, pergola, covered patio or deck; fences from picket to chain link to a stone wall, with gates; clipped, loose or conifer hedges; existing trees. Ponds with a depth and an edge, raised beds with timber, sleeper, stone, brick, block or corten walls, mounds and basins for a rain garden.
Paving and ground drawn as the material itself, the way a landscape drawing does, with a brick the size of a brick: herringbone brick, running bond brick, basketweave brick, flagstone, crazy paving, setts, concrete, exposed aggregate, stamped concrete and deck boards; pea gravel, crushed stone, decomposed granite and river rock; bark and wood chips; lawn, meadow and artificial turf. Zoomed out they settle into a plain tone; both exports print them.
Every building, fence, hedge and tree throws its midsummer shade on the plan and a real shadow in 3D. Glass and pergola slats let light through, a loose hedge lets a little, and the sun check reads those same shadows when it flags a plant standing in the wrong light. Set the time of day in 3D and watch the shade move.
2,576 ornamental plants, each with bloom months, mature height and spread, sun and water needs and USDA hardiness zones, checked in the open against the published botanical authorities: 2,102 source-checked so far, plus 147 vegetables and 59 fruit with planting and harvest dates on their own shelves. Add your own plants, up to 100 per account, free.
Enter a ZIP, or use your location in the United States or Canada, and Garden Check lists the library's plants that grow wild in that state or province, wild species first, read from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS. The same records are on this site, state by state, and on the 441 plants native to North America.
Spacing against mature spread, light against the shade model, hardiness against the zone, who the planting feeds (bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, beneficial insects, host plants and birds) and the months with bloom but nothing for pollinators, then a month-by-month care calendar for the plants you placed. Free for everyone.
A poster with the plant schedule: every species with its count, mature spread and bloom window. And the dimension-true sheet: A3 at 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 or 1:500, or Tabloid at a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth or a thirty-second of an inch to the foot, with a title block, a scale bar, a north mark and every plant keyed to its botanical name. An SVG in physical millimeters, so it opens in Illustrator, Affinity, Inkscape or a CAD program at its printed size. Free for every tier.
Trace a site plan, a survey, a sketch or a PDF's first page under the grid and set its scale from two points you know. Start from your yard: the home on an aerial photo, the garden at real size facing true north, with the real shape of the ground from a USGS lidar scan (United States, with a free account). Or read a photo or sketch of a planting design into a plan, or open any guide on this site as a ready-made border.
The same file read two ways. On screen, the plan with its symbols, every plant at the size it will grow to. On paper, the sheet at a stated scale with every plant keyed to its botanical name, the drawing a contractor takes to the nursery.
A paver, gravel, mulch or grass bed wears its material on the plan: a brick is a brick's size, a flagstone a flagstone's, and the pattern turns with the bed. Pick the tone and, for bricks and boards, the direction. Zoomed out the pattern settles into a plain tone so a big plan stays readable, and both exports print it.
The structures beside it are real objects with real shadows: a house that can wear a roof, a fence with a gate you slide along its run, a hedge with an opening to walk through, a pond with a depth and a rim.
Landscape design software in a browser tab: drawing tools on the left, the plan in the middle, the selected thing's card on the right: name, surface, material, ground shape, size. Undo and redo across every edit, autosave, multi-select with Shift, snapping, a trace image under the grid, and the Shade switch that shows every structure's midsummer pool. Garden Check sits in the same panel when nothing is selected.
Everything is one file across the plan, the 3D view and the exports, so a plant moved on the plan is in the right place on the sheet and in the 3D a second later. A read-only link opens the 3D on a phone for a client who will never open the editor.
Start free. Most garden designers run on Premium; Pro adds the client-facing paperwork, a small step up, not a different product.
Everything in Free, and:
Everything in Premium, whole, and:
In the works for Pro: the designer directory, your studio listed on this site with a portfolio of your shared gardens. Read about Pro in the Studio.
Read from each vendor's own page on October 30, 2026. A cell says "not stated" when the page did not say; nothing here is a judgement of another tool, only what each one publishes about itself. If a figure is out of date, tell us and it moves.
| Software | Price, as published | Runs on | Plant library, as stated | 3D | Bloom by month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BloomsEye Studio | Free to start; Premium $24.99 a month or $124.99 a year; Pro $29.99 a month or $179.99 a year | Any browser: Mac, PC, iPad, phone; nothing to install | 2,576 ornamental plants with bloom months, mature sizes, sun, water and hardiness zones; 147 vegetables and 59 fruit | Yes, the same file as the plan | Yes: any day of the year, and growth over the years |
| iScape (opens in a new tab) | Free (limited); Pro $29.99 a month or $299.99 a year, per user | iOS and Android apps; 2D and 3D design on iOS only | “Thousands of plants, hardscapes & products” | Yes, on iOS | Not stated |
| Garden Planner (SmallBluePrinter) (opens in a new tab) | $48, one time | Windows and Mac | “Over 2100 plant and object symbols” | “New 3D view” | Not stated |
| Realtime Landscaping (opens in a new tab) | $149 Plus, $279 Pro, $599 Architect, one time | Not stated | Not stated | Yes | Not stated |
| VizTerra (Structure Studios) (opens in a new tab) | $97 per user a month; $84 on an annual plan | Windows PCs only | “More than 1,700 trees and plants”; 1,922 3D objects | Yes | Not stated; a time-of-day setting |
| Vectorworks Landmark (opens in a new tab) | $1,530 a year | Mac and Windows | Not stated | Yes | Not stated |
Prices are in US dollars as each vendor published them on ; a quoted phrase is the vendor's own. Our row derives from the same catalog the rest of this site reads.
There is nothing to install and nothing to update. Draw on a Mac or a PC at the desk, check a bed from a tablet in the yard, and send a client a link that opens the garden in 3D on their phone with the year scrubber under it. Sign in and a garden started on one device is waiting on the next.
Students and teachers: a lab computer with a browser is enough, and the exports leave with you as files.
Yes, this one. BloomsEye Studio opens in any browser on a Mac, a PC, an iPad or a phone, with nothing to install and no account needed to start. Every drawing tool, the 3D view, Garden Check and both exports are free; a free garden holds up to 5 plants placed by hand, and a free account adds cloud saving, sharing and as many gardens as you like. Premium lifts the plant limit; Pro adds the client-facing paperwork.
Yes. Beds, paths, lawn, buildings, fences and hedges are drawn to scale in feet or meters, every plant as a landscape plan symbol at its mature spread, and paving as its material at true size. The sheet export is dimension-true: A3 at 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 or 1:500, or Tabloid at a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth or a thirty-second of an inch to the foot, with a title block, a scale bar, a north mark and every plant keyed to its botanical name. It is an SVG in physical millimeters, so it opens in Illustrator, Affinity, Inkscape or a CAD program at its printed size.
Yes. The plan and the 3D are one file. Pick any day of the year and the planting shows what is in flower, in leaf or bare that day; switch between fully grown and as it grows to see the first years fill in; set the time of day and watch the shadows move; or play the year. A read-only link opens the same 3D on any phone.
Yes. Every tier exports a poster with the plant schedule: each species with its count, mature spread and bloom window. Pro adds the client-facing version: a plant list with botanical names, quantities, sizes, spacing, sun and water that prints or downloads as a CSV, a Clients tab that keeps each client's gardens together, and client links that open in 3D signed with your studio's name and a link to your site.
Yes, to a point, and it is worth being exact. A bed can be gravel, pavers, grass or water, and a paver, gravel, mulch or grass bed can wear one of 19 materials drawn at true size, from herringbone brick to flagstone, decomposed granite, bark and lawn. You place a house with a gable, hip, flat or shed roof, a garage, shed, greenhouse, gazebo, pergola, covered patio or deck, fences from picket to iron to a stone wall with gates, clipped or loose hedges, existing trees, ponds with a depth and an edge, raised beds with timber, stone, brick, block or corten walls, and garden furniture, pots and boulders at real size. It is planting-led software, not a construction tool: it does not detail how a deck is built, design irrigation or lighting, or price the hardscape.
Yes, three ways. Trace: lay an image or a PDF's first page under the grid, set its scale from two points you know the distance between (or pick the scale it was drawn at) and draw your real garden over it, no account needed; the tracing is an aid and is never saved or exported. From my yard: find the home on an aerial photo and the garden opens at its real size, facing true north, with the real shape of the ground from a USGS lidar scan (United States only, with a free account). From a design: a photo or sketch of a planting plan is read into beds and plants you then correct, with a free account. There is no DWG, DXF or SketchUp import, by design; the dimension-true SVG is the way out to those programs.
Yes, and on a phone: it runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install and nothing to update, and a garden you start on one device is waiting on the next once you sign in. The sheet, the poster and the plant list download as files you can open anywhere.
The library holds 2,576 ornamental plants: perennials, annuals, shrubs, roses, bulbs, trees, climbers, conifers, grasses, ferns and culinary herbs, each with bloom months, mature height and spread, sun and water needs and USDA hardiness zones, plus 147 vegetables and 59 fruit with planting and harvest dates on their own shelves. The facts are checked in the open against the published botanical authorities, plant by plant, and you can see exactly how far that has got on the verified plants page. Every plant also carries its native range by US state and Canadian province, read from Kew and USDA PLANTS, and what named authorities list for dogs and cats. You can add your own plants too, up to 100 per account, free.
There is no separate student price, and most student work does not need one: every drawing tool, the 3D, the exports and the whole library are free, and a free account saves the work. Premium is $24.99 a month with no contract, so a semester project can run on a month or two and cancel from the plan card. If you teach with it, tell us on the support page.
Premium ($24.99 a month or $124.99 a year) lifts the plant limit, identifies every plant in the Bloom Calendar and shows every companion match with its reason; it is what most designers run on. Pro ($29.99 a month or $179.99 a year) includes Premium whole and adds the client-facing paperwork: client links signed with your studio's name, the Clients tab, and the plant list you hand over, printed or as a CSV. If you design for other people, Pro saves you retyping the schedule; if you design for yourself, Premium is enough. Both cancel anytime from your plan card and you keep the time you paid for.
It does not import DWG, DXF or SketchUp files, by design: the way a drawing comes in is tracing or a photo. It does export out: the dimension-true sheet is an SVG in physical millimeters at a stated scale, which a CAD program imports at its true printed size, and the poster is an SVG or PNG. The plant list is a CSV.
The planner runs anywhere, in feet or meters, and a garden below the equator shows its calendar in Southern Hemisphere seasons. Hardiness is stated in USDA zones, the bloom months are typical for a temperate garden, and two features are regional: the native plant lists cover US states and Canadian provinces, and the From my yard import, which reads USGS lidar, works in the United States only. Everywhere else you draw the yard yourself or trace a plan of it.
Open the planner, trace your plan or draw a bed, and drop in a few plants. Nothing to install and nothing to pay.
