Are you worried about if your front fence is too low and will it get in the way of passing cars? Do you want to get rid of that big traditional pool that’s been sitting in your backyard for the past several years and put in a tidy little koi pond instead? Then these free online garden layout makers could be just what you’re looking.
There are many free garden design tools available to help you design your own garden online. You can also draw garden plans online free with the help of these tools. As professional garden designers, we have found that drawing garden plans free is one of the best ways to stay organized when designing a new backyard garden layout. These are the same tools we use in our own designs for clients.
Better Homes & Gardens’ Plan-a-Garden
If you’re looking to beautify your backyard, Better Homes & Gardens’ Plan-a-Garden is a great way to bring your vision to life. You simply have to sign up for an account, and then you’ll gain access to the drag and drop backyard design tool.
Upon opening the tool, you’ll be presented with a sketch of a home. You can click Change Background to change the image to any of the other sketches listed here, which consist of various styles of homes and yards. If you can’t find one that’s similar to your own home, you can even upload your own picture.
Once you’ve chosen an image, you can sift through the elements on the left side of the screen. In the Plants section, you’ll find trees, bushes, and vegetables that you can drag and drop into your design. The Structures tab houses a variety of lawn decor that you can drop in to your yard, while Textures lets you “paint” in a lawn or patio.
Unfortunately, some of the elements are locked behind a paywall, but there are still plenty of free plants, structures, and textures to choose from.
Gardena’s My Garden
The garden planning web-based app by Gardena is a functional landscape designing tool that is also fun and easy to use. To start off, you can draw the size and shape of the area you want to design, such as your backyard, or you can choose a pre-designed template to work with. You can then select your surface material, for example, lawn, decking, or gravel. From there, you can drag and drop numerous items into your design, such as trees, water features, planters, and outdoor lighting. One of the key features of this software is its ability to help you plan out an irrigation system to keep your plants and lawn happy and healthy. This is a useful tool, as it customizes a suitable system based on the size of your space, but it’s also a handy way for Gardena to encourage you to buy their garden care equipment such as water hoses and sprinklers.
One of the main advantages of this software is how easy it is to use, and should be simple to navigate for anyone who is at ease with basic technology. It has an intuitive interface that is user friendly and requires no training or practise. This program will be ideal for anyone looking to get a rough idea of what they could do with their landscape and an idea of what the finished design will look like. It lacks a great variety of plants and doesn’t come with the care information that many other garden design software comes with.
SketchUp Free
SketchUp provides architects, designers, builders and engineers the tools to draft, model and render their ideas into reality. SketchUp Free is the free, web-based version of SketchUp Pro. With SketchUp Free, users can draw in 3D on any web browser. Additionally, the solution enables the sharing and collaboration of SketchUp free files with CAD project management tool Trimble Connect, a project management and collaboration solution tailored for the construction industry. Landscape designers can leverage SketchUp Free to turn their initial models into a dimension- and context-full design files.
Free option
- SketchUp free is a web-browser based version of the modeling tool.
- SketchUp for Schools is also free, but can only be downloaded via the G Suite for Education platform and its files can only be stored on Google Drive.
Paid option
- SketchUp Pro is the desktop version of the tool; it’s more powerful, customizable and shareable. The non-expiring license costs $695, but there is a free version you can trial.
Features
- 3D modeling
- Rendering
- Editing
- Support for Trimble Connect
- Support for most web browsers and operating systems
VegPlotter
To visualize this season’s crops, register for an account on VegPlotter and design your garden. Start out by dragging and dropping garden plots under the Add Beds tab to mimic your actual (or potential) garden arrangement.
Navigate to the Plant This Month tab to add plants to your garden. VegPlotter automatically filters out any plants that aren’t in season. If you want to plan, you can adjust the season by changing the month at the top of the screen.
VegPlotter allows you to play around with your overall landscape as well. Head to the Add Structures section to place anything from beehives, brick walls, fences, sheds, greenhouses, and pavement to your yard.
Showoff.com the Visualizer
The Visualizer is a free downloadable program offered by Showoff.com, which is suitable for Windows operating systems. This tool allows the user to upload a photo of their current property and make changes to it in order to visualize what their landscape might look like after a redesign. This is a great tool for homeowners to use to try out different looks before they make any real changes to their yards, but it’s also great for real estate agents as they can show prospective buyers what a property might look like if they were to buy it and renovate the exterior and landscape.
The software is easy to use, and in fact this is one of the best elements of the tool. Users love how intuitive it is, and how quickly they can see and understand what possible changes would look like on their very own property. The software has a large library of items you can add to your landscape, such as plants and garden furniture, and it also has a number of pre-designed plans to help you get ideas and inspiration if you are struggling with knowing where to start. Where this program excels compared with similar design software, is its strong online community. Once you have designed your landscape you can upload it to the community forum where other like-minded people can comment or make suggestions on your design. This is great if you are looking for potential ideas or adjustments on your design, or even if you are just wanting some reassurance that your design looks good and is practically feasible before you start making physical changes in your yard.
The only minor problem that some users have found with this tool is that some model renderings don’t look realistic, and it can be hard to actually visualize what the real finish will look like. The main drawback of this program is that it is only compatible with Windows systems, and therefore not available to everyone.
PRO Landscape Home
PRO Landscape design software provides architects with the photo imaging, CAD, 3D rendering, and customer proposal drafting tools that fulfill the requirements for landscape design projects. PRO Landscape Home is the “lite,” non-commercial version of PRO Landscape, designed for homeowners. PRO Landscape Home is a mobile application that can be used on all Apple, Android and Amazon devices. While PRO Landscape Companion App is a free app, it’s only free for those who already purchased the professional landscape design software. PRO Landscape Home, on the other hand, offers almost the same features as the professional version, except the ability to edit hardscapes, create customer proposals and create 3D files.
Free option
- PRO Landscape Home is the free, “lite” version of PRO Landscape.
- The Companion App is free to download for both iOS and Android. However, it’s only free for those who have already downloaded PRO Landscape.
Paid option
- PRO Landscape: $1,496
- Educational pricing is available for PRO Landscape, on a custom-quote basis
Features
- Creation of photo imaging and CAD designs
- Object image library
- Plant database
- “Find a Professional” lookup feature
Conclusion:
So, I’ve shared with you my list of favorite tools for designing any kind of garden, but the one thing I didn’t mention was that most can be used as design-your-own-garden budget builders as well. After all, the reason they have been included here is that they have been considered by me to be some of the best online free online garden designer garden layout makers available.