Plan your perennial bed
Choose a style, say where the bed is, then draw its shape. The planner chooses plants that suit it and arranges them to scale, from 1400 plants you can read about.
Question 1 of 5
Garden style
Question 2 of 5
Hardiness zone (USDA)
Question 3 of 5
Sun on the bed
Question 4 of 5
Size of the area
Question 5 of 5
Draw the bed
Planting plan
Shuffle tries another arrangement: other plants from the ones that suit, in other places. Each has a number, and the same number always gives the same plan. How much is left to chance goes with the garden style, in the box beside Shuffle (the same choice as on the first screen). A cottage garden leaves a lot to chance; a formal bed leaves very little, and stays mirrored whatever comes up.
Foliage is how much of the bed goes to plants grown for their leaves and not their flowers: hostas, ferns, grasses, clipped evergreens. At A little the bed is nearly all flower. At Half, about half of the planted ground is leaf. At All there are no plants grown for flower and no bulbs. The Foliage line of the Design check says how close the plan came.
Kinds is how many different plants go into the mix. Recommended is the number that suits a bed this size in the garden style you chose. Fewer kinds, each repeated more often, make a calmer bed that is simpler to buy for. More kinds give more variety and a longer run of flower, but past a point the bed reads as a collection and not a design. The Restraint line of the Design check says where the plan stands. The planner never goes below three kinds, so in a small bed the lowest settings can give the same plan.
Spacing. Tight planting covers the ground sooner and shades out weeds. Open planting gives each group a clearer outline, lets air move, and costs less to plant.
More controls, under these, gives a closer hand: grasses, bulbs, winter structure, shrubs, the layout, group sizes, the tallest plant, and which plants may be chosen. Each starts at your style's own setting.
More controls
Which plants count as native where you garden, and which your province or state lists as invasive.
Plants you keep or place yourself go in whatever these say. The Design check says what each change costs.
Plant list
Design check
Design check
Bloom and foliage calendar
Choose your plants
Every plant that suits the bed starts included, and the planner picks its mix from them. Uncheck any you don't want and the plan redraws. To build the bed yourself, press Empty the bed, then Add to bed on each plant you want.
Filters