The Sow library

Everything worth knowing about what you grow

16,463 outdoor plants, each with its zones, mature size, bloom window, care calendar and current price — plus the guides, calendars and companion pairings that turn a catalog into a garden.

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Written by our team

Guides and growing advice

The long-form stuff: how to grow it, how to design with it, and how to fix it when it sulks.

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Plant care library

34 guides

In-depth growing guides, genus by genus — light, soil, water, pruning, propagation, and the mistakes to avoid.

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Garden & design guides

65 guides

Borders, groupings, colour and structure — how to make a planting look deliberate rather than accidental.

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Start here

Find the right plant

Narrow the catalog to what will actually survive, and actually suit the site.

Illustration of a garden border shifting across a cool-to-warm climate gradient

Browse by hardiness zone

Zones 4–10

The first filter that matters: what survives your winter. Each zone hub ranks its plants by how many gardeners actually grow them.

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Hand-painted map of a town with locally native wildflowers and grasses growing through the streets

Locally native plants by city

833 cities

A zone tells you what survives. This shows trees, shrubs, and grasses documented as locally native around each covered city.

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Herbarium-style illustration of many botanical specimens laid out in rows

The genus index, A–Z

2,089 genera

Every genus we track, from Acer to Zinnia — each with all of its varieties ranked, and a growing guide built from their real care data.

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Search the full catalog

16,463 plants

Filter by zone, sun, soil, size and style — or just look something up by name.

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16 popularity lists + habitat guides

Plants for a particular job

Deer eating everything? A shady corner that defeats you? Browse what Sow gardeners save most, or use the regional guides to plan habitat across the seasons.

Botanical illustration of flowers, a host plant, berries, layered cover and winter seed heads

Best plants by habitat role

Regional, species-level guides using five year-round habitat roles, with compact source notes for the recommendations.

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Most-popular plant lists

16 lists

Category-matched genera ordered by each genus’s most-saved qualifying variety. Popularity is clearly labeled.

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Companion planting guides

40 genera

What people genuinely plant together, measured across tens of thousands of real designs — not folklore.

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Four perennials laid out side by side like a designer's planting palette

Ready-made planting lists

58 lists

Whole combinations rather than single plants — designer palettes, starter packs, perennial duos and borders built to carry a season.

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Month by month

Know what to do, and when

The jobs that matter this month, and the exact plants that need each one.

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The garden calendar

12 months · by zone

Prune, divide, feed, plant — built from the real care schedules of the plants gardeners grow, and filtered to your hardiness zone.

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The planting guide

What to plant where, how far apart, and how to give it the best possible start in the ground.

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Before you buy

Pay the right price

We check what nurseries are asking every day, so you can compare current prices and time a purchase well.

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Today's plant price drops

Updated daily

Every plant that costs less today than it did a month ago — measured against its own price history, not a retailer's “was” price.

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The Sow Plant Price Index

Is this actually a good week to buy? The index tracks how widely plants are discounted against their own recent norm.

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A grid of botanical specimens, each with a small blank paper tag tied to its stem

Price sheets by genus

66 genera

What a hosta or a hydrangea actually costs right now, variety by variety — gathered from live nursery listings, not a catalogue.

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Free planning tools

A clearer answer before you buy or dig.

Check a plant, plan a bed, price out mulch, or turn a yard photo into a useful starting point. Every tool is free and works without an account.

Your next garden

Garden Plan From a Photo

Upload a photo of your yard or garden bed and get a planting approach with a recommended plant list.

Choose a style and get a plan made for your space.

Right plant, right place

Plant Hardiness Checker

Check whether a specific plant is likely to survive winter where you live.

Get a clear yes, no, or reason to be cautious.

Plan your vegetable bed

Plant Spacing Calculator

See how many vegetables, herbs, or flowers will fit in your raised bed or plot.

Search over 14,000 plants and varieties in Sow.

Buy the right amount

Mulch Calculator

Find out how many bags or cubic yards of mulch your garden bed needs.

Works for new beds, old mulch, and areas around trees.

Order the right amount of stone

Gravel Calculator

Work out how many tons and cubic yards of gravel, crushed stone or base you need for a bed, path or driveway.

Handles base and surface layers, and stone that packs down.

Soil, mulch, sand or concrete

Cubic Yard Calculator

Turn length, width and depth into cubic yards, bags and weight for any landscape material.

Bags, tons and cubic meters from one set of measurements.

Lay a new lawn

Sod Calculator

Find how many square feet, rolls, slabs and pallets of sod your lawn needs.

Leave out beds and patios, and see what the pallets weigh.

Plan a patio or walkway

Paver Calculator

Count the pavers, base stone, bedding sand and edging for a patio, path or driveway.

Base depths for patios and driveways built in.

Budget before you call

Tree Removal Cost Estimator

Estimate what removing a tree should cost by height, location and access, with extras like stump grinding.

Itemized ranges built from national cost surveys.

See where gardens are dry

U.S. Garden Drought Map

Watch garden dryness change across the continental U.S. over the last two weeks.

Press play to watch the map change day by day.