As of 13 August 2026, AI can plan what to plant in your UK garden.

What to actually do

1. Do it yourself

   The route this page recommends

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a free chat tool such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and take photos showing the whole garden, each planting area and any shaded or damp spots.
   2. Measure the length and width of each bed, border or container, and note the garden's aspect, sunlight, soil drainage and any plants that must stay.
   3. Paste the prompt and replace every bracketed slot with your garden details, adding the photos if the chat tool accepts them.
   4. Ask the model to revise the plan after answering its follow-up questions, especially questions about light, drainage, soil and mature plant size.
   5. Copy the final plant list into a simple note grouped by planting area, then compare every plant's light, soil, mature size and toxicity information with its current UK nursery label or another reliable UK gardening source.
   6. Remove any plant that does not match the site or that you do not want around pets or children, then check the final quantities and spacing against the available bed measurements before buying.
   7. Buy the confirmed plants or seeds, mark the proposed positions on the ground, and adjust the layout before planting if the actual conditions differ from the photographs or notes.

   Prompt

   Plan what I should plant in my UK garden using the details below.
   
   Garden location: [town or county, without my full address]
   Garden dimensions: [length and width]
   Areas I want to plant: [beds, containers, borders, lawn edge or other]
   Aspect and sunlight: [north, south, east or west facing, plus hours of direct sun if known]
   Soil: [soil type if known, drainage, moisture and pH if known]
   Existing plants to keep: [list]
   Plants I like: [list]
   Plants I do not want: [list]
   Colours and style: [description]
   Wildlife goals: [pollinators, birds or none]
   Maintenance I can manage: [low, medium or high]
   Pets or children who use the garden: [details]
   Budget and plant sources: [details]
   
   Give me a practical planting plan for the space. Separate plants for sunny, shady, dry and damp areas where relevant. For every suggested plant, state its common name, botanical name if useful, position, approximate mature size, flowering or interest period, soil and light needs, maintenance, and any important toxicity or invasiveness concern. Do not invent facts about my garden. Mark assumptions and ask only the questions that would materially change the plan. Include a simple bed-by-bed or container-by-container layout, a shopping list grouped by area, and an order of work. Prefer plants commonly available in the UK, but do not claim a plant is suitable until its conditions match the details I provided. Tell me which parts I must check on the plant label or with a UK gardening source before buying.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.