Download Garden Planner for Mac

In the edit

You have a patch of ground you want to turn into something that works year-round — paths, borders, a place to sit. Garden Planner on the Mac lets you sketch it out, move things around, and see how it looks before you break ground. Version 3.8.86 is the current release, and it brings a few welcome additions without messing with the workflow that regulars already know.

The built-in library holds more than 1,200 plants and objects, so you can drop in everything from apple trees to garden sheds and scale, rotate or duplicate them as needed. A 3D view lets you walk through the finished plan, which helps when you are trying to picture sightlines or shade patterns. The object report can be printed or exported as CSV or TXT — handy when you need a shopping list for the nursery.

Version 3.8 added new path styles and a collection of smaller improvements and bug fixes. The rest of the tool stays as it was: high-quality printing, preview screen, and straightforward English-language controls. If you have used an earlier version, you will find the same layout and the same way of working, just with a few more options for paths.

Fixing the quirks that catch new users in the first few days

No piece of software is immune to the occasional head-scratcher, and Garden Planner has a few quirks that catch people out in the first few days. Here are the ones I hear about most and the fixes that usually do the trick.

Plants or objects not showing up in the 3D view

This is the one that trips up almost everyone at some point. You place a row of hedges in the 2D plan, switch to the 3D view, and nothing appears. The fix is straightforward: make sure you have selected the objects in the 2D view before switching. The 3D view only renders items that are currently selected. If you want to see the whole garden in 3D, select everything — or use the select-all shortcut your Mac provides — and then switch views.

Path and paving segments not connecting cleanly

When you are laying out a path that turns a corner, the segments sometimes leave a gap or overlap in a way that looks messy on the printout. The trick is to use the snap-to-grid setting if it is available, or to zoom right in and nudge the endpoints into place. Duplicating a path segment and rotating it into position is often quicker than drawing each piece from scratch.

Object report seems to miss items

The report generator is a useful feature, but it only includes objects that are placed on the plan. If you have objects sitting in the library panel that you have not dragged onto the design area, they will not appear in the CSV or TXT export. Also, check that you have not accidentally hidden a layer — Garden Planner does not use layers in the same way as a CAD app, but grouping and hiding objects can affect what the report picks up.

Print preview looks different from the screen

This is usually a page setup issue rather than a bug. Make sure the paper size and orientation in the print dialog match what you set in the preview screen. The app scales the design to fit the page, so if your plan is wider than it is tall, switch to landscape orientation before printing.

How Garden Planner fits with other apps and macOS features

Garden Planner does not try to replace every tool in your workflow, but it connects well enough to sit alongside the apps you already use.

Exporting to photo editors and presentation tools

The JPEG and PNG exports are your bridge to other software. Drop a PNG of your finished plan into a presentation for a client meeting, or bring a JPEG into a photo editor to add annotations or overlay photos of actual plants. The exports keep the resolution high enough that you can zoom in on details without losing clarity.

Using the CSV report in spreadsheets

This is the pairing that saves the most time. Export the object report as CSV and open it in Numbers or Excel. You can then sort by plant type, add cost columns, or calculate totals for a planting budget. If you are working with a landscaper, send them the CSV and they can import it into their own planning tools without retyping everything.

macOS features that make the workflow smoother

The app works with standard macOS gestures and services. Two-finger scroll on a trackpad pans the plan area, and pinch-to-zoom works in both 2D and 3D views. You can also use Quick Look on exported files to check a preview without opening Garden Planner again. If you use multiple desktops, keep the 2D plan on one space and the 3D view on another for quick switching.

Sarah's narrow London garden gets a complete redesign

Sarah is a home gardener in south London who took on a complete redesign of her back garden last spring. The space was a narrow rectangle with a shed at the far end, a patchy lawn, and no clear path from the house to the shed. She used Garden Planner to work through the layout over a couple of evenings.

She started by drawing the property boundary and the house outline, then dropped in the existing shed from the library. The built-in path tools let her sketch a winding gravel path from the back door to the shed, and she used the new path styles from version 3.8 to pick a finish that matched the brickwork. Once the hard landscaping was down on the plan, she filled the borders with a mix of shrubs and perennials from the library — around 40 plants in total.

The 3D view was what convinced her to move a planned seating area from the far end to a spot halfway along the path, where it caught the afternoon sun. The whole design phase took about four hours spread over three evenings, and the actual digging started the following weekend.

Getting comfortable fast by starting with the sample plan

If you have just installed Garden Planner, these pointers will help you get comfortable with it faster.

• Start with the built-in sample plan. Open the example file that comes with the app and explore it in both 2D and 3D views before you start your own design. You will see how objects are grouped, how paths are laid out, and how the report looks when it is properly filled out.
• Use the duplicate and rotate tools early. Instead of placing each plant individually, place one, duplicate it, and rotate it to vary the angle. This keeps the design looking natural and saves a lot of clicking.
• Export a test print on plain paper. Before you print on good stock, run a test page to check that the scale and layout are right. Adjust the page setup if needed, then print the final version.
• Keep the CSV report open while you design. Export a report after every major change and glance at it. You will catch missing plants or duplicate entries before they become a problem at the nursery.
• Try the new path styles on a small section first. Version 3.8.86 added these, so lay down a short test path to see how the style looks at different widths before you commit to a full garden path.
• Save versions as you go. Before you make a big change — like moving the pond or swapping a tree species — duplicate the file and save it with a date. You can always go back if the new arrangement does not work in 3D.

New this release

Mac it needs

• macOS OS X 10.7 or later
• Intel or Apple Silicon Mac