Garden Planner 3.8.86 — macOS

Garden Planner, the Mac app from smallblueprinter, sits alongside the more familiar room planners but goes further when you need to design outdoor space with precision. Version 3.8.86 is current, and it runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Tools for the experienced user

Drawing tools for hardscape — Paths, paving, walkways, walls, fences, pools, and ponds all have dedicated tools, so you are not fighting a generic line tool to lay out a patio or a water feature.

Object reports — Print the report or save it as CSV or TXT. That is useful when you need a plant list or a materials count for a client or your own records.

2D and 3D views — Switch between a clean 2D plan and a 3D view to check proportions and sight lines before anything goes in the ground.

User-defined settings — Apply your own defaults to library elements, which saves time when you have a standard way of drawing beds, edging, or structures.

Drag-and-drop library — Plants, trees, buildings, and objects come from a library; arrange them directly on the plan.

Printing and preview — High-quality printing with a preview screen means the paper version matches what you designed.

Landscape designer uses Garden Planner for complete backyard plans

A landscape designer I know works mostly with residential clients who want a complete backyard plan — patio, raised beds, a small pond, and a mix of perennials and shrubs. Before Garden Planner, she was piecing together sketches on graph paper and then trying to recreate them in a generic drawing app. The disconnect between the rough sketch and the final plan meant extra revisions.

With Garden Planner, she starts a new project in the 2D view and drops in the house outline first, using the drawing tools for the basic shape. Then she lays out the patio and walkway with the paving and path tools. The built-in library handles the plant placement — she pulls in a Japanese maple, a row of boxwoods, and a cluster of ornamental grasses, rotating and scaling each one until the arrangement looks right. The object report gives her a plant count she can hand to the nursery. The 3D view lets the client walk through the design before a single shovel hits the dirt. For her, the app replaces two separate workflows with one.

First days with Garden Planner

If you have just installed version 3.8.86 on your Mac, here are a few practical tips to get oriented without wasting time.

Create a small backyard or front garden with drag-and-drop tools

Open the app and create a small, familiar space — your own backyard or a neighbor's front garden. Use the drag-and-drop library to place a few trees and a flower bed. Practice rotating and scaling objects. Get comfortable with switching between the 2D and 3D views early; that habit pays off when you start complex layouts.

Set up your defaults

Before you begin a serious project, adjust the user-defined settings for the elements you use most often. If you always draw paths at a certain width or fences at a standard height, set those once. It saves clicking through properties on every new object.

Use the object report as a checklist

After you finish your first test project, generate the object report and save it as CSV. Open it in a spreadsheet. You will see exactly what the app tracks — plant names, quantities, hardscape dimensions. That report is a good way to confirm your design is complete before you print or export.

Export a JPEG for quick feedback

The JPEG export is fast and works for emailing a draft to a client or a friend. Save the PNG export for anything you want to keep at full quality. Both formats are available from the same export menu.

Version 3.8 adds path styles for walkways and driveways

The 3.8 update added new path styles. That matters more than it sounds like. If you design walkways, driveways, or garden paths regularly, the extra styles mean you are not stuck with one or two options. You can match the path style to the overall look of the garden — flagstone, brick, gravel, or a more formal pattern — without drawing each stone by hand.

The update also included general improvements and bug fixes. In practice, that means the app behaves more predictably when you are working with larger projects that have many objects. Nothing flashy, but the kind of stability that keeps you from losing work.

Garden Planner fills a specific spot between Planner 5D and other Mac tools

Garden Planner is not the only option for outdoor design on a Mac, but it fills a specific spot.

Compared to Planner 5D — Planner 5D is better known for interior design, and its outdoor tools are present but not as deep. Garden Planner has a larger built-in library of plants and dedicated hardscape tools for paths, fences, and ponds that Planner 5D handles more indirectly. If your project is mostly indoor with a small garden, Planner 5D might be enough. If the garden is the main event, Garden Planner gives you more control without switching contexts.

Compared to Home Designer Suite — Home Designer Suite is a heavier program with a steeper learning curve. It can do gardens, but it is built around whole-house design. Garden Planner is focused and faster to learn for someone who only needs outdoor space. The drag-and-drop approach and the object report are features that Home Designer Suite does not offer in the same straightforward way.

Compared to SketchUp — SketchUp is a general 3D modeling tool, not a garden app. You can build anything in it, but you have to model each plant and each paver from scratch or find third-party models. Garden Planner's library and dedicated tools save hours on routine garden layouts. SketchUp wins for custom, non-garden work, but for a planting plan or a landscape design, Garden Planner is more efficient.

• New path styles added.
• General improvements and bug fixes.

• macOS OS X 10.7 or later
• Architecture: Apple Silicon (ARM) and Intel (x86 64-bit)
• Interface language: English