There’s an app for everything, including garden and landscape design! Whether you’re planning your first garden or adding plants to your existing landscape, there are lots of high-tech design resources to help you with your project.
Cynthia Bee, a sustainable landscapes expert, shared a few resources that make project planning easier.
Read a full write up here: https://studio5.ksl.com/see-garden-plan-before-plant-online-resources/
These days there’s an app for everything we know that so it’s no surprise that people are using apps and online resources to design their own Gardens and Landscaping at home so whether you’re planning your first Garden or just adding plants to your pre-existing landscape there’s a lot of useful
High-tech design resources to help with your project Cynthia B is a sustainable Landscapes expert and she’s here to share a few resources she says are sure to make project planning easier so I think this is true a lot of people are trying to DIY their yards and things
These days I did and it’s easier me as well okay and so these apps and things they’re not hard to learn are they pretty user friendly so the trick with apps is that you really still need local information and so today we want to talk about stuff that locally applies so just
A general app I don’t know there’s honestly there’s not a lot of good ones okay uh but there’s more coming and there’s some that already apply here in Utah so that’s what I want to chat with because advice from some other climate isn’t going to help you yeah and so get
It’s hard to find that information I have to be honest and you’re such a good resource for that because you help us know what plants how much water they need when if they work in our Zone okay so should we just go right in your first
One is the Old Farmers Almanac they have an app now yeah they have a really great app now that is a national app but they’ve localized things and so you can go right to your local area and actually pinpoint other other Gardens so this is like a vegetable garden planner you can
Pinpoint other Gardens that have been designed around people can put their notes in so you can see how someone maybe a mile or two away from you actually planted their yard and what they did and what they worked with in their Gardens and so I think that you
Know that local applicability the timing so you know when to plant for your area I think it’s just a great you know it’s a great place to start for those that are doing a vegetable garden any limitations you see in this I mean the graphics are cheesy okay they’re cheesy
They’re cheesy Graphics but that’s okay we’ll as long as that the information is functional we can live with some cheese okay and your next one gives some incentives for people wooo you know okay so I’m one of the creators of localscapes so you know I’m biased but um localscapes is a Statewide landscape
Style we created just for Utah and there are some free designs like for Park strips so if you’re just trying to First project and you’re not sure what to do you can go to their website and download those free park strip plans and then if you’re not sure what that’s going to
Look like cuz it’s hard for us to visualize you can actually go to conservation Garden Park and all the plants there showing on that website have been installed at the Garden so you can experience it before you choose it well and I know you’ve pointed this out before that some cities or
Municipalities don’t allow you to have grass in that area so you’re looking to see what can I plant that will yeah so no one the the legislature struck down any HOA requirements or anything that say you have to have lawn they can say what you need to do instead but anyone
In Utah can flip a park strip no matter what your HOA might say about it uh but we still want you to do it in a way that generates a beautiful outcome yes yes I love that any you were part of this but limitations can you admit are there any
To the yeah so the plants that they have that are downloadable or mostly just northern Utah okay um so Southern Utah you’d want to work through your uh the high let’s see red Desert Hills garden and they’ll show you more of the plants for that area okay thank you for telling
Us that so Northern you’re set okay so next up you have something for people planning a full planting bed area yeah so if you got a bigger project than just a park strip plant select is a plant brand that’s coming out of Colorado and they work with Utah State Extension and
They develop plants for our climate nice and so if you look in your Nursery you can buy those plants in any of our local nurseries and it’ll have the plant select tag you definitely you’ll just know that if you see that plant it works in our climate and then they have
Pre-planned Gardens online and not just by anybody by like top designers like I fan girl over Lauren Springer last weekend at a conference and um she’s designed a free plan for you so like the best of the best plans that you can download um and but the downside is you know you
Might have to tweak it a little bit to fit your space but at least you’ll know how to layer those plants together in a way that looks really good and it’s a really good place to start if you’re new so if you’re at the nursery you just
Look for that symbol the plant SEL symbol okay awesome now next you say um if you are wondering about you want to see it before you do it you have a good app for that yes so designers we have jobs because we can mentally picture that um and if everybody could do that
We wouldn’t have jobs so um but now there’s software we probably won’t have jobs because now there’s software that helps you do that so simply Scapes is a Utah based company that is creating photo design software where you can actually just upload a photo of your house and start playing with plants and
See what it would really look like in your own landscape um they’re working with designers to create um some you know predesigned Combos and um and yeah so you can get a pretty accurate picture and the the key is that this software is designed for the homeowner not
Professionals and one of the biggest challenges with any of the landscape design software is it really has a big learning curve and it’s really complex okay this is intended to be simple and a much easier path for most people with all of these apps are you required to
Have subscriptions or they just kind of free what’s the price what are the advantages of this because it’s designed for homeowners is that you just pay by the design so you can try it for free and then if you want to do something more complex you can uh I think it’s
Like 10 bucks and then you can go back in and update so here’s the key if you didn’t end up getting that plan that you saw that you wanted you can go in and change it later and you’ll know how to tweak it or you couldn’t get it and you
Need a substitution um this software is designed to do all of that wow I didn’t know that existed that is really cool and you said that they have a discount for Studio 5 they do oh we like that yes what is it yeah there’ll be a QR code I
Think it’s 20% off your first design or whatever if you just want to try it out and play around with it it’s a lot of fun yes I think it’s less than the cost of one wrong plant choice right yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and finally if you have a larger landscape project
Yeah so getting the plants is the next thing and and that’s a new problem I get to work on is the supply chain of that but one of the companies that’s helping with that is Progressive plants they are actually a wholesale grower out of copperton but they deliver all over the
State and they’ve created a bunch of online tools that will help you select your plants and you don’t go there and Shop but you can order them online you can see if they’re available you can learn more about what works and what doesn’t you can pre-select things and
Then if they don’t have it in stock you can sign up to be notified when they do and that has been a big problem there’s so many people making these landscape changes um that trying to get the plants has become a bit competitive oh interesting um you have given us so much
To work with you’ve given me like excitement getting ready for spring um where can people find out more from you oh my goodness I’m everywhere yeah I’m everywhere you’re everywhere she’s everywhere and we’ll we’ll connect you on our website too thanks CIA thank you