Garden Bed & Border Planner

Border Builder turns your bed size, sun, soil, and style into a complete planting plan: what to plant, where it goes, and how many to buy.

Answer a few quick questions about your bed: its size, which way it faces, your soil, what sits behind it, and the style you're after (cottage, prairie, modern, native, woodland, wildlife, coastal, Mediterranean, xeriscape, and more). Border Builder draws up a complete planting plan from a catalog of more than 1,300 plants suited to your region and climate, then arranges them back to front: structure at the back, perennials through the middle, edging at the front, so your bed has depth and shape from the start.

Already have plants you're keeping? Add them before you plan - pick each one from the catalog or describe it yourself - and Border Builder designs around them: your existing plants appear on the map, and the new planting is chosen and placed to fit what's already there.

A hot, dry bed in Arizona, a cold front yard in Minnesota, and a damp, shady spot shouldn't get the same plants. Border Builder matches every plant to your USDA hardiness zone and growing conditions before it suggests anything, so you grow what will actually thrive. Set your zone from your state in a few taps; your location never leaves your phone.

You're not stuck with the first plan, either:
- Drag any plant (including ones you already grow) to exactly where you want it, not the whole drift.
- Open the Heights view, a side-on line-up of every plant at its mature size, so nothing ends up hidden behind something taller.
- Swap any plant for a suggested alternative that fits the same role and conditions.
- Ask for another take, or pick a month that needs more color and re-plan around it.

Every plan comes with:
- a top-down map of the bed
- the Heights view, showing how tall each plant grows
- a year-round bloom timeline, so you can see what's in flower month by month
- a planting list you can edit, swap, and rearrange
- a shopping list with pot sizes and quantities
- a ground cover or mulch finish, with the amount to buy
- a printable PDF to save, print, or take to the nursery

The map is drawn with full-color illustrations, not a list of Latin names. The catalog spans regional natives, pollinator favorites, shade-lovers, low-maintenance and pet-safe picks, shrubs, grasses, perennials, climbers, ground covers, and water-edge plants. Choose the native style and Border Builder favors plants native to your state or province. Tap any plant to read its details before you keep it.

Choose the wildlife style and your map can include habitat features such as a pond, log pile, or insect hotel.

Save as many beds as you like, then resize, rename, duplicate, or re-plan them as your garden changes.

Border Builder is free to download. Generate a complete planting plan, explore the map, and keep your first border at no cost. A one-time Border Builder Pro unlock adds saving unlimited borders, fine-tuning the planting (moving and swapping individual plants, and re-planning around any month), and exporting your shopping list and a printable PDF.

No accounts, no ads, no tracking, and nothing collected. Border Builder runs entirely on your device.