As a follow up to last month’s feature article on the garden planning software at nativegardenplanner.com, this month includes a link to a new introductory tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2rfkRMByfc) that the software developer Hannah Mahon has developed specifically for you. This short (15 minute) overview of some of the key features will get you started building your first garden design.
The tutorial covers the following:
- See how to use Native Garden Planner to design a simple 10×4 foundation garden with plants native to Illinois.
- Navigating the garden planner interface: sidebar, canvas and top toolbar
- Browsing, filtering and adding plants (drag & drop)
- Adding simple shapes
- Viewing the plants with a front-facing view
- Exporting the plan to a printable PDF
I used the software fairly extensively last winter as I designed 27 different gardens for a project I was hired for. After watching the tutorial this morning, I must say that the software has come a long way in the intervening months. There are loads of new features that I would have loved to have had at my disposal.
Some of these features include advanced filters, an ability to generate a garden shape by selecting from a drop-down menu of options (as opposed to having to draw the shape manually), a simple tool to let you swap out a number of plants for a different species, and much, much more.
The really cool part, though, is the improvement to the final report that can be generated, including a detailed planting layout that provides planting distances. This would have been invaluable to the homeowners who got my garden designs last spring. I feel I need to design another garden just so I can play with some of the new features in the upgraded software.
FYI – Hannah tells me she is currently working on a 45-60 minute advanced tutorial. She is also working on a series of short videos documenting each of the features. I will be sure to let you know when these become available.
Happy native plant gardening – and garden planning.