How to Buy Landscape Garden Design Software for Home Use

A landscape garden design software for the home or do-it-yourself designer will produce designs only as good as the person creating them. But there are also many programs for sale that are no more useful than the basic programs that come with any computer or are inflexible or difficult to use. Here are some suggestions for the best home landscape garden design programs that have been recommended by experts. If you do want to design your own garden, these should be good choices.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Custom LandDesigner 3D Design 7.0 by Sierra, now sold under the name of Your Complete Landscape and Garden Designer (DVD-Rom) is one of the better programs on the market for home use. There is a bit of a leaning curve, but is is one of the easier to use with built-in flexibility and a lot of good features.

2. Punch Super Home Suite 3 rates highly and offers a lot of versatility. It is a bit more complicated than some other programs and has a somewhat limited plant choice, but you can get a nice general design out of it. In Rick Basset's reviews, he considers any of the Punch! Home Design programs to be the most professional looking landscape garden software programs. This company's software has features that let you grow your skills as your designing experience increases.

3. Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer is probably the closest software program you will find to a professional landscape or garden design software. This one has good 3D walk-around, design tools and you can actually import your own plant images. Rick Basset also highly recommends the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0 for pretty much the same reasons.

4. Most of these programs retail at an estimated cost of between $50 - $100.

5. There are many landscape garden design software packages on the market. Unfortunately, most of them are very limited is scope and capabilities. Do your research before buying one. The above programs are not the only good ones out there, but they rate highly with many reviewers. For more information on how to buy landscape garden home software, please check the links below under the Additional Resources.

Resources

• More ratings by the Landscape Design Site
• Ratings by Rick Basset
• General landscape and garden information
• Software downloads

[ReuseItAll]

on 1/19/2009 We did this years ago and it is so much fun to use!! Its a great way to plan out a garden space!! Fantastic resources to check out too! Thanks!

[Upon-Request]

on 1/17/2009 Thanks for the landscape software recommendations!