Jul 29 2008
Plan-a-Garden
Planning your garden can be a lot of work and for anyone who is unfamiliar with mapping things out, it can be a complete headache. It is almost impossible to see how a square will look within another square on a piece of paper. It might look perfect in a spot of a graph sheet but when you place your square patio set into the same spot on your patio, it might look completely off and suddenly you realize that you will need to fix flower beds, move stones and try to get everything in the way that you want it.
Now, I can’t really help with that but I can help with the difficulty of drawing in all those different geometric shapes onto a piece of graph paper. Whenever I try to sketch something out, I try to remember every little detail my teacher taught me in grade 10 drafting. Needless to say, my shapes are a little wonky, my dimensions are usually inaccurate and I just shake my head in dismay that I can’t fit everything in.
Landscaping programs are perfect for alleviating this problem. It is very easy to punch in dimensions of your yard, and get to planning from there. There are many landscaping programs that you can purchase and all of them have good points and bad. One of the biggest detractors to landscaping programs is the cost but there is a free online landscaping program that you can use to plan your landscaping.
This program is offered by Better Homes and Gardens and it is called “Plan-a-Garden.” The program itself is very basic. There are 3 plans to choose from and one blank plan where you can create your own shape. For all of the plans, all you need to do is click and drag to change the actual measurements.
After you have your general shape and dimension of your space, you can start adding to the space. The program offers you plants, flowers, trees, shrubs, accents, structures and garden beds for the graph. All of the items can be changed in size to reflect the plant or accent that you are thinking of putting in.
This is a great program since it is free and it can help you with a rough idea of what you would like to see in your space. It is very easy to use and all you need to know is how to click and drag your mouse. Another bonus is the ability to save plans to open later. This saves a lot of time if you decide to change something last minute and want to incorporate it onto your plan. Simply open up a saved garden and you are ready to fix it.
One negative to this program is that you need to register to use it. This leaves you open for excess mail to your email account such as the latest news and promotions that is happening at Better Homes and Garden. The other detractor is the limited shapes of items. A patio is square, a walkway is straight and a pool is kidney shaped. If you are going for a circular patio made with a mosaic of flagstones or a winding walkway through a maze like garden, well, it is better for you to pull out the graph paper and get sketching.
Still, for a free program with little fuss, this is an excellent online landscaping tool that I would recommend.
Sirena Van Schaik
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