Garden Designer

The garden designer is a visual canvas that lets you place beds in their real-world positions, see what's growing at a glance, and spot care tasks without opening individual bed records.

Opening the designer

From any garden detail page, click the Designer button in the top-right toolbar. The canvas loads with all beds that have been positioned. Beds not yet placed appear in the sidebar on the left.

The canvas

Each bed is drawn as a coloured block at its grid position. The visual style reflects the bed type:

Raised beds — timber frame with horizontal plank lines and corner posts
Containers — metallic sheen with a radial highlight
In-ground beds — earth-toned frame with darker inset soil
Border beds — green-toned with a criss-cross interior pattern

A coloured left border on each bed shows its care status:

Orange — overdue care task
Amber — care task due within 7 days
Green — active plantings, no urgent tasks
Grey — empty bed

Plant canopy view

On larger beds, the designer draws coloured canopy blobs for each active planting. Each plant gets a consistent colour derived from its name — so the same plant always appears in the same shade. A density bar at the bottom of the bed shows how full it is.

Plant names appear as a pill label on beds large enough to display them clearly. On small or zoomed-out beds the label is hidden to keep the canvas readable.

Clicking a bed

Click any bed on the canvas to open a popover showing:

Bed name and type
Care status (overdue / due soon / active / empty)
Active plantings and next due care date
A link to the full bed log

Click outside the popover or press Escape to dismiss it.

Placing and moving beds

In the designer toolbar, click Edit layout to enter edit mode.
Drag any bed from the sidebar onto the canvas grid, or drag existing beds to new positions.
Resize a bed by dragging its bottom-right corner handle.
Click Save layout when done — positions are saved immediately.

Canvas controls

Zoom — use the + / − buttons in the toolbar, or pinch on a trackpad
Fit to screen — the Fit button zooms and centres all placed beds in view
Pan — click and drag on empty canvas space to scroll the view

Bed sidebar

The left sidebar lists all beds in the garden. Each row shows a mini preview chip (colour-coded by type and shape), the bed name, and a planting count. Beds with care tasks show a status indicator.

Click a bed row in the sidebar to jump to and highlight it on the canvas.

Obstacles

You can place non-bed obstacles on the canvas — paths, sheds, compost bays, water features — to make the layout reflect the real space. Click Add obstacle in the toolbar and choose a preset type.

Tip: Use Fit to screen after placing all your beds to get a full overview of the layout before zooming into individual areas.