What to Submit for Your Planting Plan

I Have a Plan

Site plan, DA plan, builder plan, surveyor plan, or landscape plan from an architect.

No Plan — DIY

No existing plans. You'll sketch your property, measure your beds, and photograph them.

Path A — Has a Plan

Upload Your Plan + Photos

If you have any kind of existing plan for your property, this is the fastest way to get started. We trace directly from your plan — no sketching or measuring needed from you.

What counts as a usable plan?

We need a plan that shows the house footprint, garden beds or planting areas, and surrounding features (paths, fences, driveways). It must have enough detail that we can trace your planting zones from it.

Works

Builder's site plan showing house + landscaping
DA/CDC plan with landscape detail
Architect's plan (landscape, floor plan with yard)
Surveyor's plan with house footprint + features
Real estate floor plan — if it includes the yard and has a scale bar (see below)

Doesn't work

Council lot plan (boundary + street only — no house or garden detail)
Title plan / survey plan with just boundaries
Any plan without a scale bar or dimensions
Blurry photos of a plan we can't read

Scale is critical. We need to know the real-world dimensions of your garden beds. If your plan doesn't have a printed scale bar, measure one known feature on the plan (e.g. the width of your house or driveway) and write it on the plan so we can calibrate. Without scale, we can't design accurate spacing.

Where to find a plan: Check your builder (they'll have the site plan from DA approval), your council's online DA tracker (many publish approved plans), or your conveyancer/solicitor.

Using a real estate floor plan

Real estate plans usually show the house + yard but won't have a scale bar. Here's how to make one usable:

Measure one dimension on the plan — go outside and measure something that appears on the plan (e.g. the width of your house, the length of a fence, or the driveway width). Write the real measurement on the plan next to that feature. This lets us calibrate everything else.
Print it out and draw on it — add anything that's changed since the plan was made: new fences, removed trees, added garden beds, paving, retaining walls. Or do this digitally (screenshot + markup on your phone/tablet).
Mark your planting zones — circle and label the areas you want designed.

What to send

1. Your plan (PDF preferred)

Upload as PDF, JPG, or PNG. Must be legible — if you're photographing a paper plan, lay it flat with good lighting.

2. Mark your planting zones

On the plan (or a printout), circle or highlight which areas need planting. Label them: "front bed", "pool area", etc.

3. Photos of each zone

2-3 photos per zone showing current state, what's around it (fence, wall, path), and any existing plants you're keeping.

4. Brief notes

Style preferences, plants you love/hate, any must-keeps, budget constraints, covenant requirements.

Path A Checklist

Plan uploaded (PDF, JPG, or PNG — legible)
Planting zones marked and labelled on the plan
2-3 photos per zone, labelled to match zone names
Style preferences or must-haves noted
Existing plants to keep identified

Path B — No Plan (DIY)

Fill In the Form + Photograph Each Bed

No plan? No problem. We collect your garden info through a structured form — one entry per bed. Combined with your photos, this gives us everything we need without relying on a hand-drawn sketch.

Be specific. We design from what you provide. If bed sizes or sun conditions are off, the species selection and spacing will be too. Better info in = better plan out.

Step 1: Fill in the bed form (10 min)

After purchase, you'll receive a form. For each garden bed you want designed, fill in:

Per bed — example

Bed name: Front fence bed

Size (L x W): 6m x 1.5m

Sun: Morning sun only

Slope: Flat

Borders: Fence (back), path (front), lawn (sides)

Existing plants keeping? One frangipani, left corner

The form uses dropdowns and short fields — no essays needed. You'll fill one entry per bed.

How to measure: Tape measure is best. No tape? Pace it out — 1 big step ≈ 0.75m. A bed that takes 8 paces x 2 paces ≈ 6m x 1.5m. We need accuracy within 0.5m — a 2m x 6m bed gets a very different design than 3m x 4m.

Step 2: Photograph each bed (10 min)

For each bed, take 2-3 photos with your phone:

Wide shot — standing back, showing the full bed + what's around it (fence, wall, house, path)
End-to-end shot — standing at one end looking along the length (this helps us estimate scale)
Any problems — slopes, drainage, tree roots, heavy shade (only if relevant)

Label your photos. Name each file to match the bed name in the form: front-fence-bed-1.jpg, pool-area-wide.jpg. Unlabelled photos are the #1 cause of delays.

Optional: Sketch (helpful, not required)

If you want to show us how beds relate to each other and to the house, a rough sketch helps. Pen on paper, photo it with your phone. But the form + photos are the primary data — a sketch is bonus context, not a requirement.

If you do sketch: keep it simple. One colour, clear labels, north arrow. Don't try to draw every plant or feature — that's what the photos are for.

Path B Checklist

Bed form completed — one entry per bed (name, size, sun, slope, borders, keepers)
2-3 labelled photos per bed
Property address provided
Style preferences noted (or Style Finder completed)
Covenant/estate requirements included (if applicable)

Both Paths

Site Conditions

For each bed, we need three things beyond the layout. The more you tell us, the better the design — but anything you're unsure about, just say so.

Sun / Shade

For each bed, pick one:

Full sun (6+ hours)
Morning sun only
Afternoon sun only
Dappled / filtered
Full shade

Not sure? Tell us which direction the bed faces and what's next to it (house wall, fence, big tree). Or check ShadeMap.app — enter your address and it shows sun/shade patterns for any time of day.

Slope