Landscape design software you open in a browser

Software that answers to this name does several different jobs: photo redesign returns your own picture planted; plan software draws beds and paths to scale; 3D software builds a model to walk through; CAD produces grading, drainage and construction documents.

Sow is the photo redesign kind, with the plan kind built in for planting: a redesign of your own photo that uses real plants, a Design Studio for placing them by hand, and on the phone a Planting Plans tool that lays out beds on a satellite view with quantities and costs.

Paths, mulch, stone and structures exist as design elements on the photo. There is no CAD, no 3D walkthrough and there are no construction documents.

Our test. The same brick ranch walkway with bare beds on both sides went through Sow on the web with a fresh free account, Style Design, Cottage, 5 credits. The gallery showed it 90 to 150 seconds after submitting: "Romantic Cottage Walkway", five unique plants, house, walkway and pine straw kept, "Made with Sow" mark bottom right.

Yes, because it runs in the browser. There is no Mac build and no Windows installer, and none is needed. "Landscape design software for Mac" is simply usesow.com in Safari, and on an iPad you get the same studio in a browser tab.

The browser is best at Design Studio with a mouse, catalog pages and Help Me Choose. The phone is best at photographing the bed, measuring light with the Sunlight Meter, Planting Plans, Plant Doctor and care. One account, one set of projects.

A free account gets 10 free designs to start, and more free designs for taking part: posting a design earns 25 credits (five designs), a referral 100, and challenges and helpful answers earn credits too.

Pro lifts those limits and adds Planting Plans and the satellite map editor. Web Pro has a 7-day trial or costs $9.99 a month; the App Store subscription is $59.99 a year as an in-app purchase. Pro+ has a 3-day trial, or $29.99 a month, and adds client tools.

The Shopping List PDF gives each species a quantity, a unit price and a line total with an estimated total, using the lowest price listed across the online nurseries Sow tracks (usually the smallest pot), without mature size or spacing; the per-bed schedule with an editable unit price is Review Costs in Planting Plans on the phone.

If your project is mostly built rather than planted: a patio, retaining walls, drainage, a deck, changes of level, or anything a contractor will quote from a drawing. Sow does none of that; desktop and professional packages do, at a higher price and a steeper learning curve. Our roundup of landscape design software covers that field alongside the apps.

You belong in a drafting tool if any of these is true:

Every design, space and saved plant is the same object on the web and in the app: generate at the desk and it is in the gallery on your phone; photograph a bed on the phone and Continue editing on the laptop opens it in Design Studio.

The phone carries the parts that need the map or happen outdoors. Planting Plans finds the beds in a satellite view of your yard on its own, then fills each one with a planting plan you can tweak: area, sun, plant count, four layout styles (Layered, Drifts, Rows and Edged) and a chip per species with its count.

Share, Whole plan, Save PDF opens Review Costs with quantity, unit price and estimated cost per species and a total; our test plan came to 602 plants at $8,919.70 across 17 beds.

It is also where the design stays editable species by species. On mobile, every generated species can be removed, counted up or down, or swapped, and the Plant Editor lets you drag in plants, furniture, lighting and paving by hand, on a generated design or a plain photo; on the web, Design Studio places plants and objects over the render.