Best Landscape Design Software (2023)
The best landscape design software lets you sculpt outdoor spaces. Whether you're a professional designer or just trying out new ideas for your home, software for landscape design is built to create accurate visualizations, from mockups and blueprints to photorealistic 3D renders.
Alongside the best interior design software and the best architecture software, specialized garden design apps speed up and automate workflows. This gives you the freedom to focus on crafting sustainable real-world environments - and collaborate on concepts with colleagues, clients, and friends.
With so many programs on the market - from industry-focused tools to free landscape design software for casual users with an eye for the imaginative - it can be a challenge identifying the right tool for your next project. So, we've tested the best landscape design software for professionals, homeowners, and designers.
As part of our review process, we've assessed the interface and usability of each Landscaping and backyard design app, pricing plans, platform compatibility, the skills needed to create exterior spaces and its accuracy when designing for liveable exterior spaces.
The best landscape design software of 2023 (Image credit: Idea Spectrum)Best landscaping software for professionals
Reasons to buy +Good interface
+Responsive performance
+A wealth of flowers, plants and tree to use
Reasons to avoid -Windows only
-No free option
Realtime Landscaping Pro is a Windows-only landscape design software focused on helping outdoor space creation. If you need to design a room, or an entire house, you'll need to look elsewhere.
This doesn't mean you can't create house exteriors. Realtime Landscaping Pro lets you add houses to your design. You just can't venture inside them.
Using the program is a delight. The easy-to-follow interface offers a fluid experience, making it one of the best landscape design software suites.
Landscaping an entire area from scratch can take some time, but the landscape design tool helps speed up the process with the use of Wizards. You have a handful of them, helping you design everything from ponds to decking.
You have the option of fully customizing your chosen template, like building materials and size of individual elements. So, the landscaping program is both a time-saver to help you get started, and a launchpad to further your own creativity.
There's no subscription plans here. Realtime Landscaping Pro offers bags of features to help you create the garden of your dreams. The Pro version, aimed at landscape designers and homeowners, costs $279. The Plus version, which features fewer objects and is best for homeowners, is priced at $149. Existing users can upgrade to any new release at a discount rate.
Read our full Realtime Landscaping Pro review
(Image credit: TurboCAD)Best landscape design software for Mac and Windows
SpecificationsOperating system: Windows, macOS
Reasons to buy +Easy to use
+Friendly interface
+Great time saving features
Reasons to avoid -Hard to navigate in 3D
-Could select all objects in 3D
FloorPlan Home & Landscape Deluxe from TurboCAD is a complete digital interior design and landscaping program.
It's a single package that offers the ability to create and furnish rooms, build custom cabinets, and design outdoor living spaces - the ideal landscaping tool for the full virtual home experience.
The Templates section is especially good. Here, you'll find a vast selection of ready made groups of items, like a table and chairs, say, or a ready-made landscape section. It's all there to help speed up the design process. There's also a host of tools for creating truly accessible areas.
You can create designs in very little time. Fine tuning and customizing is just as easy, and it's only marred by a potentially glitchy 3D interface where objects occasionally aren't selected first time.
The best landscape design software is simple and intuitive to use - whether you're a home user or professional contractor. And for the most part, FloorPlan delivers.
You'll find loads of features designed to make the creation process more efficient. The help menu is only ever a click away, and the interface is friendly and inviting. Experience, then, is no barrier to professional 3D landscape design.
Read our full FloorPlan Home & Landscape Pro review
(Image credit: NCH Software)Best landscape design software for accessibility
SpecificationsOperating system: Windows, macOS
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DreamPlan Home Design Software Home
$35
Reasons to buy +Easy to use and multi-platform
+Work on multiple levels
+Can easily import 3D objects
Reasons to avoid -Can be slow
-Not all objects installed initially
DreamPlan is a landscaping app for Windows and Mac that offers great value for money and an easy user experience. But that's what you'd expect from a program billed as 'home design software for everyone'.
Like FloorPlan 2021, it combines home interior design and landscape design tools. This lets you perfect floor plans and build dream rooms.
On the landscaping side, you'll plant trees, create swimming pools, and reshape terrain just the way you like it. The software comes with a vast library of plants and outdoor furniture that you're free to customize.
You can choose between two versions depending on your use. DreamPlan Plus is for businesses, with unlimited, single-user commercial licensing. DreamPlan Home is for personal users. Both are one-off payments, so you won't get tangled up into a subscription deal.
NCH's offering is an excellent piece of landscape design software, helping you create a building on multiple levels, alter it, and customize it inside and out to your heart's content.
Read our full DreamPlan review
(Image credit: Nova Development)Best landscape design software for homeowners
SpecificationsOperating system: Windows
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Virtual Architect Home & Landscape
$49.99
Reasons to buy +Easy to use
+Useful wizards
+Lots of customisation options
+VR support
Reasons to avoid -Annoying tutor
-Frustrating 3D navigation
Virtual Architect Ultimate with Landscaping and Decks Design is an all-in-one package for creating stunning indoor and outdoor spaces.
It's very flexible when it comes to DIY garden design, letting you work on multiple elevations, create paths, and add lighting effects. There's a large library of plants, arbors, and trellises for your garden. The complete plant encyclopedia boasts more than 7,500 entries and a seasonal plant care calendar. You can also add gazebos, fences, walls, and even sprinklers for ultimate realism.
In use, it's a fairly intuitive landscape design app. But, there are a handful of clunky interface choices that mar an otherwise solid experience. Easing the burden on beginners, the software comes with a number of wizards. This includes one for quickly creating decks, potentially saving you a lot of time.
There's no subscription fees for one of the best landscape design software suites. Just a one-off payment. The garden design app is Windows-only, but it does run on VR headsets HTC Vive and Occulus Rift.
Read our full Virtual Architect Ultimate with Landscaping and Decks Design review
(Image credit: Asynth)Best 3D landscape design software for beginners
SpecificationsOperating system: Browser
Reasons to buy +Works fluidly
+Full customisation available
Reasons to avoid -No free plan
-Cannot edit or customise in 3D
Space Designer 3D is an online service, which means it'll work from a browser and you won't need to install it onto every computer you work on.
The main focus is interior design, but landscaping your garden is possible. There is a generous library of trees, plants, and flowers on offer for you to pepper throughout your terrain. You can't alter the ground's elevation, though, which limits you to perfectly flat gardens.
If you're a beginner or intermediate, that might be enough to get you started in visualizing your outside space. If you're a veteran designer looking for powerful creation tools, then it might not be the best landscape design software for you.
The program features a range of subscriptions to suit, with personal and commercial licensing options. Business is a bespoke subscription with prices depending on your needs.
There's also a Casual plan, which lets you pay per project. But if you want to try before you buy as it were, check out the Demo option to get a feel for what the service offers.
Read our full Space Designer 3D review
Best landscape design software: FAQs How to choose the best landscape design software for youWhy you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
When choosing which landscape design software is best, start by assessing your needs and skill-level. Are you a professional landscape designer or looking to improve your own outdoor space (or even maybe both)? Realtime Landscaping Pro is great for professionals, for instance, but TurboCAD's FloorPlan is easy enough for beginners and home users.
Select which devices you'll use. Certain landscaping design tools are Windows or Mac-only, others are available across platforms - while Space Designer 3D is a wholly browser-based design canvas.
You'll also want to determine if you're using software to design gardens or you need tools for interior design, too. Some of the best landscape design software offer both - although it can feel 'tacked on' in some instances. If you're a pro, it may be best to focus on strict landscaping designers, creating home design interiors in a separate program.
What is landscape design software?If you're on the hunt for the best landscape design software then there's a good chance you're fully versed in the benefits of such a product, but to dispel any doubts, it is software specifically designed for the work of landscape designers, allowing them to visualize their ideas on a variety of devices.
This means that before putting it all into practice, landscape designers are able to map out and plan landscaping projects, and flag up any potential problems or difficulties.
How we test the best landscape design softwareLike all graphic design software, the best landscape design software should be easy to use, and packed with features and assets powerful enough to recreate your creativity on the screen.
Not all landscaping apps are the same, though - professional-grade and consumer-level design software offers different toolkits for different purposes. We believe it's important to assess the individual merits of each one based on its audience.
Ultimately, we expect the very best landscape design software to allow your imagination flow across virtual outdoor spaces. It's on this basis that we test and review the tools.
Round up of today's best deals
DreamPlan Home Design Software Home
Virtual Architect Home & Landscape
Weber County Mulls New Landscaping Guidelines As Part Of Water Conservation Efforts
Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner
The park strip area in front of the home of Washington Terrace Mayor Mark Allen, photographed Tuesday, July 12, 2022. He converted the area from grass to rocks, tapping into the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District's Flip Your Strip program, meant to help reduce the amount of water used for lawn irrigation.OGDEN — Weber County officials are considering new landscaping guidelines for future development, letting homeowners in unincorporated areas take part in programs paying them to remove grass.
The overarching aim of the proposed changes is to curtail water use, and Steven Burton, a planner in the Weber County Planning Division, foresees "pretty significant" savings if the initiatives get the green light. Still, debate continues, with mixed support for the shift so far.
Residents in numerous cities in Weber and Davis counties can already take part in the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District's Flip Your Strip and Landscape Lawn Exchange programs. Now plans are in the works that would let residents in western Weber County and the Ogden Valley take part as well.
The Western Weber Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended approval of new, more rigorous landscaping regulations for new developments, a step forward in the process. But members of the Ogden Valley Planning Commission, though they have yet to make a formal recommendation, have expressed reticence.
"Across the board, they were very much opposed to this," Burton told the Western Weber Planning Commission members at the body's meeting on Tuesday.
Ogden Valley Planning Commission officials like the Flip Your Strip and Landscape Lawn Exchange programs, explained Charlie Ewert, the principal planner in the planning division. They just don't like having to change landscaping regulations per Weber Basin Water Conservancy District dictates before property owners can tap into them.
"They like the incentive programs. They don't like the mandatory requirement," Ewert said. The Ogden Valley Planning Commission is to formally debate the issue on Tuesday, July 18.
The Western Weber Planning Commission oversees planning issues in unincorporated areas of Weber County along the Wasatch Front and areas further west. The Ogden Valley Planning Commission oversees planning issues in unincorporated areas of Weber County along the Wasatch Front and areas further east. However, Weber County commissioners have final say on planning issues, generally speaking, factoring recommendations from the two bodies.
Burton said county commissioners sought consideration of the change needed to tap into the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District programs owing to clamoring from the public. "We want it to be water-wise landscaping," Burton said.
As originally set out, the guidelines for the two planning areas, applicable to just new development, would limit the portion of yards that can contain irrigated turf grass to no more than 35% of the total front and side yard. Moreover, no more than 3,000 square feet of a lot, including the backyard area, could contain grass.
In new commercial, industrial, institutional and multi-family residential developments, no more than 15% of the landscaped area could have grass.
On Tuesday, the Western Weber Planning Commission tweaked the guidelines to read that new home development would either have to meet the 35% or 3,000-square-foot requirement, whichever allowed for more grass. The recommendation passed 4-2.
As new development under the proposed guidelines would already be landscaped to conserve water, only owners of older properties would be able to tap into the Flip Your Strip or Landscape Lawn Exchange programs. The Flip Your Strip program provides participants with $1.25 per square foot of park strip areas that are converted from grass to low-water landscaping. The newer Landscape Lawn Exchange program provides participants with $2.50 per square foot of any part of a grass lawn that is converted.
David Rice, conservation division manager with the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, said it requires locales to implement new landscaping guidelines on future developments to tap into its programs, due to Utah Division of Water Resources guidelines. Part of the incentive funding provided under the Flip Your Strip and Landscape Lawn Exchange programs comes from the state.
"The state said we need these standards," Rice said. What's more, he said it wouldn't make sense to allow new development with no restrictions on turf areas only to provide funding under the entity's programs for the grass to later be removed.
In pushing to reduce grassy areas, Rice noted the quantity of water that typically goes to landscaping, typically 65% of a home's overall water use, most of that for lawns. Only around 35% of water consumption typically goes for indoor uses.
As for water savings, Rice estimates that converting a park strip from grass to rocks or landscaping that requires less water could cut water use by 5% to 10%. Reducing larger lawn areas could cut water use by, perhaps, 30%. Still, it's hard to make precise estimates because of the many variables that figure in water use.
Interest in the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District turf removal programs is holding steady this year compared to last year, Rice said.
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Formal Landscaping With Native Plants? Yes, It's Possible.
The task facing anyone designing a garden: "We're predicting the future — we're seeing what's not there."
That's how Ethan Kauffman, the director (and lead soothsayer) of Stoneleigh, a public garden that opened five years ago on a historic estate in Villanova, Pa., puts it.
The thing is, garden-makers also have to see what is there. In the case of the 42-acre Stoneleigh, that included seven acres of pachysandra, when Mr. Kauffman first saw the property almost seven years ago.
In any context, a sea of what was once a go-to ground cover — which proved to be one of ornamental horticulture's ubiquitous legacy invasives — would be overwhelming. But Mr. Kauffman, the former director of Moore Farms Botanical Garden, in South Carolina, was hired to fulfill a mission that makes it even more challenging.
He is guided by what he calls the "conservation ethos" of Stoneleigh's parent organization, Natural Lands, a nonprofit group that currently cares for more than 23,000 acres in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey — at 42 nature preserves and at Stoneleigh — and has preserved more than 135,000 acres over its history, since the 1950s.
To complicate things further: Each garden feature he conceives must somehow complement the backdrop of a Philadelphia Main Line estate, with its 17,000-square-foot Tudor Revival stone mansion and massive, century-old stone pergola.
Can an ecologically focused landscape of native plants be integrated into such a place? The answer from Natural Lands and the Stoneleigh horticulture team is emphatic: Yes.
First Things FirstWhen Mr. Kauffman arrived, the property hadn't been gardened in more than four years, beyond basics like mowing. Where to begin?
His crew — which has just five full-time members and one seasonal horticulturist — went at some of the pachysandra-infested acres. (The current score: two down, five to go.) They knew it would be easy to fall into that forest-for-the-trees trap, though, getting distracted by the obvious when the less-so is more urgent. So they emphasized higher-value tasks. Their priority list would make a good road map for beginning or revamping a garden of any scale or purpose.
First, they identified a couple of key areas to focus on in the initial phase, to establish their larger intention — an early statement previewing longer-term goals.
Also critical, in self-defense: Any bare ground is an invitation to weeds, and will require many hours of maintenance if left vacant. So they planted empty spots as soon as they could.
Third, where trees and shrubs were part of the eventual plan, they knew they had to get them into the ground. This was especially urgent with the natives Mr. Kauffman had specified for the renewed landscape, many of them new or uncommon in the nursery trade and only available in small sizes. The time spent waiting for the payoff would be extra-long.
Identifying key areas for maximum impact was easy: The parking lot would make the first impression on all visitors — currently about 40,000 a year, admitted free Tuesday through Sunday, except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
But about an acre of pachysandra lived there. Ten dump-truck loads were evicted in favor of combinations like pink flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida Cherokee Brave) underplanted with golden ragwort (Packera aurea). The ragwort's yellow flowers coincide with the trees' spring bloom, creating a friendlier welcome mat.
The main house, formerly home to the Haas family, was another key destination. It needed some botanical brightening, as did the majestic, 220-foot-long pergola. Beneath the pergola grew turf, not the beds of perennials that Mr. Kauffman envisioned. It begged for vines to clamber up and over it, too.
"The pergola is really charismatic," he said. "We thought this was something that if we could do one small section — and hopefully do a good job with it — it would give visitors an idea of what was to come."
Also, he added, it was "an opportunity to showcase a lot of native vines that people may not be using."
Today, 24 types of native vines climb the pergola, including the lesser-grown yellow passionflower (Passiflora lutea) and a domestic subspecies of hops (Humulus lupulus ssp. Americanus), its female flowers clustered in little green, pine-cone-like structures. Small-flowered Clematis share the real estate, along with a Victorian favorite loved for its giant leaves and the curious, hidden flowers that inspired its common name, Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla).
On another pergola upright, prairie rose (Rosa setigera) has already reached 20 feet. It is also being trained to transform lampposts on the grounds into flowering pillars.
Select varieties of the more familiar trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) and trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans) are making a big splash as well, along with American wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) — not the invasive Chinese species.
A design trick with the honeysuckles and trumpet creepers: "We plant them in clusters of three," Mr. Kauffman said, "with a red, yellow and orange variety all in the same hole, to create these colorful bursts."
Some home gardens have no such vertical structure, but that needn't mean no vines.
"People say, 'I love wisteria, but I can't fit it in my yard,'" Mr. Kauffman said. "And I'm like, 'Well, yeah, you can. You can treat it as a shrub.'"
Once in the ground, the young one-gallon plants are staked up and then pruned immediately after flowering, and again later each year, as needed.
The woodvamp (Decumaria barbara) is treated similarly — and could double as a ground cover.
"I just look at plants and I think, 'What are the possibilities?'" Mr. Kauffman said. "And we experiment with them. That's what we do as gardeners, right? We're just having fun."
Trees With a Difference, Hedges With IntentionMr. Kauffman is exploring versatility — and not just with vines. The pergola plantings include trees like weeping yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea White Rain) that are pruned to train up it.
The skeletons of two venerable dead trees — an English yew (Taxus baccata) and a London plane tree (Platanus x acerifolia) — were not erased, but turned into prominent sculptures. Others left standing as snags, or wildlife trees, host bird and mammal families, and support more native vines.
On the stone walls of the mansion, Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) and box elder (Acer negundo) are espaliered, anchored by eye hooks screwed into the mortar, as are more vines, and shrubs.
Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), specifically showy Lemon Lime, inhabits one wall. "It's this crazy, variegated green-and-yellow selection that looks like something out of 'The Matrix,' but it's pretty striking," Mr. Kauffman said.
On the big, covered stone gates, or lychgates, the white-flowered weeping Eastern redbud Vanilla Twist is trained, vine-like, around the posts. "We cut all the lateral branches off," he said, "and just let it sort of do its thing."
When he arrived at Stoneleigh, there weren't really any hedges. "Most of the experience was just this open sort of journey," he said. "You didn't really have anything dividing it, or creating visual barriers, and we knew that would be important later on."
One beautiful example is a line of dwarf Teddy Bear Southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora). White pine (Pinus strobus) teams with American arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis Smaragd) in another hedge, with a lone, gold-foliage arborvitae Yellow Ribbon in the row, screaming for attention.
Shrubs-into-hedges include groundsel bush (Baccharis halimifolia), hearts-a-bustin' (Euonymus americanus) and an obscure native, upland swamp privet (Forestiera ligustrina), "a great replacement for our nonnative privet," Mr. Kauffman said, referring to another serious invasive.
"And we have this crazy wildlife hedge that has 70 different varieties of native woody plants, in a double row," he said. "It's 200 feet long, about eight feet tall. We have vines in there, and perennials — it's kind of a dynamic thing."
Covering Some GroundThe hedges are just one "cue for care," Mr. Kauffman said, a sign that this is a garden — although a less conventional one than its predecessor.
The team's approach to what was once 14 acres of mowed turf is another hint.
"We've let at least half of it go into no-mow, and it looks so beautiful," Mr. Kauffman said. "We mow the edges — the first six feet — so you can tell that we're caring for it, but the rest we just let grow long."
Fewer weeds are another sign of human intervention. Living "green mulch," in the form of ground cover, is the main tool in Stoneleigh's campaign against them.
Golden ragwort gives good coverage against unwanted species, as does barren strawberry (Geum fragarioides, formerly Waldsteinia). Sedges (Carex), Canada ginger (Asarum canadense) and creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) are other powerful partners in this no-bare-ground effort against weeds.
"As a small staff, you just have to find a way," Mr. Kauffman said. "And we experiment: With bare, weedy areas we're sick of pulling, we'll plant just Parthenocissus. And in a year, we don't have to deal with it."
That may surprise gardeners who too often pull up Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) or thicket creeper (P. Inserta), native vines that are often misunderstood, despite their high wildlife value and brilliant fall color.
Could we shift our thinking and start to figure them into our garden plans? That depends on our mode of seeing — on how we visualize the way forward.
Margaret Roach is the creator of the website and podcast A Way to Garden, and a book of the same name.
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