I understand that Vectorworks is supposed to be a very good professional program. It has a landscape specific cad module.

I have had only minimal use of mac in school a few years back. Professional design offices pretty much stick to pc based cad systems, although I believe a lot of photoimaging and other graphics are often done with mac.

VectorWorks is a great software program - I'm seriously considering it myself for a PC application. But it may be well beyonds the needs of a nonprofessional. It's pretty expensive, has a sharp learning curve and requires a plotter. All in all, a little heavy duty for a homeowner just wanting to mess around with design software.

not specifically landscape but you could have a fun time with Sketchup
http://www.sketchup.com

Also, archicad is another professional, mac-compatible CAD program. (expensive tho!)

Another vote for SketchUp. It's easy to use, once you get the hang of it (and the keyboard shortcuts). And fun to play around with. It's got some built-in landscaping shapes, but not many, unfortunately.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our yard idea, in SketchUp

Good luck. I couldn't find anything but a 60.00 program
on ClubMac that was total crap. This was about a year ago.
After not being able to find any floor plan/create a house programs
(and there are some great ones for pc's for non professionals) and now
none for landscaping I'm pretty peeved. I owned PC's from 88 till 2003 or so. I like the stability of my Mac but I'll be going back to a PC.
Hope you fare better.

Sketchup is $500. PC non-pro landscaping programs cost 1/10 that. It's disappointing that developers aren't catering to this market, but they follow the money.

One option, if you're not on Tiger and have a sufficiently fast Mac, is to try running a Windows landscaping program in Virtual PC. Depending on the graphics load, it will perform passably or sluggishly; only way to know is to try.

ok, how about mac draft

Doodle CAD

or appleworks or any one of a number of graphics/drawing programs for putting plant pictures on photos. True, there is no insta-garden, insert red plants here software (well, maybe there is somewhere, but its obviously hard to find), but there are many ways to make scaled drawings, and visualize things, with some creativity and thought. I don't believe the 3d-ish landscape modelling programs will work under virtual PC.

How about GardenSketch (used to be iGarden)? It's still in beta and still has -- i think -- some pretty obvious bugs, but looks really promising if they continue development. see for the current version.

Try 'Virtual Garden' available on BBC's website...simple, free and offers 3D views. May have to 'pretend' that some plants are others as there are no planting zone options...obviously...the UK supports pretty much the same type of plants, no arid deserts there...

Here is a link that might be useful: BBC's Virtual Garden

Hi, I have been searching for a landscape program for the mac for quite some time and think I have found it - Punch! Home Design is available at the Apple Store web site in the software section. It's pricey ($149.95) but seems to offer everything I'd like, e.g. photo importing, 3d, full growth etc.
Hope that helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: Home Punch Home Design

Punch! does look interesting. I checked their website and will probably purchase soon. I've been using a draw program for about ten years now called Canvas. It's worked very well for me but the company was sold and it looks like it may not be supported for much longer. It has a paint component as well, but I've been using PhotoShop for imaging for almost as long, so I've never used Canvas for that.

The originator of Canvas, a company called Deneba also created an application called DenebaCad, which I purchased but never learned. I've long considered biting the bullet for the cost in dollars and learning curve for the highly rated VectorWorks (originally called MiniCad).

It seems like Punch! may be worth checking out as the price is quite reasonable for what it says it can do. Did you ever acquire Punch!, chillin already?

Google scetchup is free now for personal use and there's a huge library of components that people upload to share. But beware, it's addictive.

"there are some great ones for pc's for non professionals"

Really? I have tried a couple (purchased Broderbund's software and tried a demo of Punch) and they seemed like a lot of work to produce something that was not very useful. I found that I had much better luck with graph paper and sketching over the top of photo printouts. Funny because I am not very artistic, I like to do a lot with the computer and I have a hard time envisioning a design without seeing a picture.

- Brent

Has anybody found a Mac software for the actual cataloging of plants and keeping photo's of plants along with planting info, such as pruning time, soil requirements etc. I have Ideas Genie for PC but really want to be able to drag photos from iphoto straight into a programme without resizing and stuff. Any ideas ! Anyone !

I use 'highdesign'. It's very user friendly and trouble free. Cost is about $150.

I used PunchUp for a community garden that I had to lay out in detail because the folks I was presenting it to couldn't "see" in their heads. It wasn't awful, which is more that I can say for any other home-user software I've tried.

I love Sketch-up for visualizing hardscapes and how beds will relate to a house, especially with substantial changes planned, but I haven't tried placing individual plants with it.

Punch. Does the software require photos to be uploaded. Also is it beginner friendly

I can see it was mentioned, but years ago, so people might like how landscape and floor planning templates looks in ConceptDraw PRO now