Japanese garden design, from a photo of your garden.
Japanese garden design from your own photo – calm, structural planting with acers, evergreens and gravel, plus a real planting plan of Japanese garden plants suited to UK conditions.
First design free · no card needed · UK plants
Calm, structural Japanese garden design
Japanese garden design is about stillness and structure: carefully placed acers, evergreens and rock, a ground of moss or raked gravel, and a restrained palette that changes gently with the seasons. It is a garden to contemplate rather than to fill with colour, and it suits shady, sheltered UK spaces beautifully.
Garden Design App reads a photo of your real garden and redesigns the planting into this calm style, keeping your paths, boundaries and existing trees where they are – so you get a Japanese-inspired scheme that works with your actual space and light.
The plants that make the look.
The planting plan lists them in full, with how many to buy and where each goes – so the garden in the picture is one you can actually plant.
Japanese acers
the centrepiece – delicate leaves and fiery autumn colour
Evergreen azaleas
clipped mounds with a spring flush of flower
Ferns
soft green texture for cool, shaded corners
Hakonechloa
cascading golden grass that softens rock and gravel
Bamboo
screening and movement, in a well-behaved clumping kind
Hostas
bold, calm foliage for the shadier planting
Mosses
the quiet green carpet that defines the style
Camellia
glossy evergreen leaves and early, elegant blooms
Pines
cloud-pruned evergreen structure for year-round form
Iris ensata
upright water-side colour for a pond or damp edge
Nandina
'heavenly bamboo' with fine leaves and red berries
Ophiopogon
dark, grassy ground cover between stones
Acers, evergreens and quiet greens
The planting leans on a small, deliberate cast: an acer or two for grace and autumn fire, evergreen structure for year-round calm, and soft ferns, grasses and moss to knit it together. Every plant is chosen to thrive in UK conditions. The planting plan names the full list, with how many to buy and where each one goes.
From idea to a plan you can plant
When you find a design you love, unlock its professional planting plan: every plant named, how many of each, exactly where it goes, and a month-by-month calendar of interest so the garden holds its quiet beauty right through the year.
Professional garden designers often charge over £1,000 for this. Your first design is free, so you can see your own garden reimagined before you spend anything.
Good to know.
Everything people ask about japanese garden design.
How does the AI garden design work?
Upload a photo of your garden or a single border, and tell us what you'd like: refresh your borders, keeping your garden's shape, or redesign the whole space with new layout, paths and planting. Pick a style, and we generate a photorealistic redesign of your actual garden. When you love one, unlock its planting plan – every plant, how many to buy, and where each goes.
Are the plants real – can I actually buy and plant them?
Yes. Every design can become a planting plan of real, available UK plants, with quantities, each plant's mature height and spread, where it goes and a month-by-month flowering guide. The plans are built on real horticultural data and shaped by a professional gardener – not generic AI guesses – so the garden in the picture is a garden you can genuinely plant.
Do I need a special photo or camera?
No – a normal phone photo is perfect. Photograph your whole garden if it's small and simple, or one border at a time for larger or more complex gardens, where each bed has its own light and soil.
Is the first design really free, and what does it cost after?
Your first design is genuinely free, with no card required. After that, subscriptions start at £19 a month. The professional planting plan is a separate one-off you only buy if you want to make a design real.
Other garden styles.
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Your japanese garden is one photo away.
See it redesigned in about two minutes. The first one's on us.