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Garden design software recommendations

#1 · 18th September 2022, 11:52 pm

I recently started a garden design and construction business. Currently i'm using Sketchup and some hand drawings. However, finding Sketchup a bit costly. Can anyone recommend any other easy to learn/use software for garden designing that is more cost effective?

#2 · 19th September 2022, 9:21 am

Hi Brian,

Good to hear from you and welcome to the world of landscaping and design.

The tools you use to visualise or quantify your designs can be quite tricky to get to use and fund when you start out.

I've used sketch up for years for quantities and surveying detail but always hand draw my own work to scale as part of the final presentation to clients and landscapers. As its part of my creative process but is time-consuming!

Sketchup is in my opinion the best piece of design software for landscaping. The cost can be prohibitive at first but there is a free online-only version you can use when you get started.

There is also Gardena as a free tool but is limited for more large-scale designs or presentations to clients.

If I were you and for building experience hand drawn scaled plans will help you learn far more about proportion and considering layouts than a drag and drop tool. That's my experience.

I'll open up this question to other garden designers to recommend their favourite free or paid for landscape or garden design software!

Lee

#3 · 22nd January 2024, 8:52 am

A useful new tool that I've found is https://rescapeai.com It's an AI generator that takes in a photo of your garden and generates in one of many styles a design unique to your garden.

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