AI garden design from a photo of your yard

Backyard ideas: a cottage garden or a modern one

One bare backyard taken two ways: borders packed with flowers, or clean lines and lights.

English cottage garden

Redesign this backyard as an English cottage garden: curving flower borders full of roses, foxgloves, lavender and hollyhocks, a winding gravel path and a small wooden bench. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Roses, foxgloves and lavender in curving borders, a gravel path and the bench at the back. The fence, the neighbors' roofs and the back door are the photo's. It added blue flower spikes we didn't name and roses up the house wall, and the lawn is gone.

Use this prompt

Modern minimalist garden

Redesign this backyard as a modern minimalist garden: a large-format paver patio, clean rectangular planters with ornamental grasses, a strip of lawn and warm path lights at dusk. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Big pale pavers, planters of grasses along the fence, a clean strip of lawn and the path lights on at dusk. It also set out a table and chairs we didn't ask for. Same fence, same back door.

Use this prompt

Small patio ideas: zen or Mediterranean

A concrete square between block walls, the kind behind a lot of townhouses.

Japanese zen garden

Turn this small patio into a Japanese zen garden: raked white gravel, a few mossy stones, a Japanese maple in a corner, bamboo screening on the wall and a stone lantern. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Raked white gravel, mossy stones, a red-leaved maple in the corner and the stone lantern. The bamboo screen went on the back wall only, so the side wall is still bare block. The chair and the drain are gone under the gravel.

Use this prompt

Mediterranean courtyard

Turn this small patio into a Mediterranean courtyard: terracotta tiles, olive trees and lemon trees in big pots, bougainvillea on the wall and a small mosaic table with two chairs. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Terracotta tiles, an olive tree and a lemon tree in big pots, pink bougainvillea climbing from pots up the walls, and the mosaic table with two chairs. The drain is still there, set into the new tiles, and so are the meter and the pipes.

Use this prompt

Front yard ideas: no lawn, or vegetables

A dry lawn that needs water all summer, replaced two ways.

Native pollinator garden

Replace the dry lawn in this front yard with a low-water native pollinator garden: drifts of coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, salvia and ornamental grasses, mulched beds and a curving flagstone path to the door. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, salvia and grasses in mulched beds, and flagstones to the door. It kept the three bare shrubs by the house, and added boulders and a strip of river rock we didn't ask for.

Use this prompt

Kitchen garden

Turn this front yard into a tidy kitchen garden: raised wooden beds with tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and climbing beans on trellises, wood-chip paths and a small arch over the path to the door. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Raised beds of lettuce, herbs and tomatoes, beans up the trellises and wood chips between the beds. It kept the concrete path and put the arch over it. The bare shrubs by the house came back in leaf.

Use this prompt

A narrow side yard

The strip between the house and the fence that usually holds the trash can.

Side yard garden path

Turn this narrow side yard into a lush garden path: stepping stones through low ground cover, ferns and hostas along the house, climbing jasmine on the fence and a few string lights overhead. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.

Stepping stones through ground cover, ferns and hostas along the house, jasmine in flower on the fence and string lights overhead. The meters, the window, the tap and the gate are the photo's. The trash can, the hose and the air conditioner are gone, and we asked for none of that: if something has to stay, name it.

Use this prompt

How to design your garden with AI

1. Take the photo from where you look at the yard. Hold the phone sideways, in daylight, and get the edge of the house or the fence in: those are what the model holds still.
2. Name the style, a few plants and something to walk on or sit on. Every prompt on this page has the same shape:Redesign this [backyard, patio or front yard] as [a garden style]: [three to five plants or materials], [a path, a seat or lights]. Keep the house, the walls, the fence and the camera angle exactly the same.
3. Say what has to stay. The last sentence holds the house, the walls, the fence and the angle. Everything else in the yard is fair game, and our side yard lost its air conditioner. If a tree, a shed or a play set is staying, add it to that sentence.
4. Try two styles on the same photo. Our backyard took a cottage garden and a modern one equally well. Two pictures of your own yard side by side settle it faster than a folder of other people's gardens.
5. Pick the size. 1K takes 1 credit and 2K takes 2 credits; take 2K to look closely on a screen. Take 4K (3 credits) for a sharp file to print or to hand to a landscaper.

What AI garden design doesn't know about your yard

Where you live, for a start. It put roses, foxgloves and lavender in one border because together they look like a cottage garden, not because they'd all grow in your yard. Our pollinator prompt asked for native plants, and the model has no way of knowing what's native where you are.

It doesn't measure, either. None of these pictures comes with sizes, spacing, plant counts or a price. Treat the picture as the brief: take it to a garden center or a landscaper, and check each plant's hardiness zone, sun and full-grown size before you buy.

Rooms and the front of the house

Inside works the same way: a photo, a style and a sentence that keeps the walls. Our AI room design guide furnishes an empty room in four styles and gives a plain house new siding, a porch and a wood front door.

What it costs

There's no free image: every garden is paid with credits. One takes 1 credit at 1K, 2 at 2K and 3 at 4K (one more with 3 or 4 photos), and packs cost $4.90 for 20 credits or $9.90 for 70, with no subscription. Ours took 18 to 22 seconds each at 1K.