What is the difference between a planting plan and garden design?

A planting plan tells you exactly which plants to put where in your existing beds and borders: the plants, the quantities, the spacings and the positions, chosen for your soil and aspect. Full garden design also reshapes the garden itself, moving borders, adding hard landscaping, paths and structures. If your garden's layout is broadly right but the planting is tired, empty or not working, a planting plan is the cheaper and faster route. If you want to change the shape of the garden, see our garden design service.

Do you need to visit my garden to produce a planting plan?

No. A planting plan is produced remotely from your photos, measurements and location. Your soil type and microclimate can be worked out reliably from where you are in Yorkshire and what your photos show, and a short email exchange settles anything unclear. This is what keeps the price down: you are paying for the horticultural knowledge and the plan, not for travel time. If you would rather have someone on site, our garden design service includes a visit.

What do I actually receive?

You receive a scaled planting plan showing the position of every plant, and a full plant schedule listing each plant by name with quantities, spacings, expected size, flowering time and where to source it. The schedule is built so that any competent gardener, or you, can order the plants and set them out correctly. It is delivered as a PDF you can print or send to whoever is planting it.

Will the plants suit my soil and aspect in Yorkshire?

That is the whole point of a bespoke plan rather than a generic border template. Yorkshire soils vary enormously: clay in the Vale of York, limestone and chalk on the Wolds and Dales margins, acidic peat on the Pennine fringe, free-draining sand near the coast. A plan is built around your specific soil, aspect, light and exposure, so the plants have a real chance of thriving rather than being fought with. Getting the soil-to-plant match right is the single biggest factor in whether a new border succeeds.

How long does a planting plan take?

Most planting plans are turned around within one to two weeks of receiving your photos and measurements. Spring and early autumn are the busiest planting windows, so if you want to plant in a particular season it is worth ordering four to six weeks ahead. Autumn and spring are the two best times to plant a new border in Yorkshire, so a plan ordered in late summer sets you up perfectly for autumn planting.

Can I get a low-maintenance planting plan?

Yes. One of the most common briefs is a border that looks good without weekly attention. A low-maintenance plan leans on robust long-season perennials, ornamental grasses and evergreen structure, with mulched ground to suppress weeds between visits. Tell us how much time you are realistically happy to spend on the border and the plan is built to match, rather than handing you something that needs constant deadheading and dividing.

What if I want to change some of the plants?

One round of revisions is included in the fixed fee. If there are plants you dislike, plants you already have and want to keep, or a colour you would rather avoid, say so and the plan is adjusted. The aim is a scheme you are genuinely happy to plant, not a take-it-or-leave-it drawing.

Bespoke planting plans across Yorkshire

Planting Plans for Yorkshire Gardens

A planting plan tells you exactly what to plant and where, chosen for your soil, your aspect and how much time you want to spend on the garden. Send photos and rough measurements, and a scaled plan plus a full plant list comes back, from £250. No site visit, no design jargon, just a border you can actually plant.

Order a planting plan Want the full design service?

Fixed price from £250
No site visit needed
Chosen for your soil and aspect
One round of revisions included

What is a planting plan?

A planting plan is a scaled drawing of your border or garden that shows exactly which plants go where, together with a full plant list giving quantities, spacings and where to buy them. It is the difference between standing in a garden centre guessing, and arriving with a list that has been worked out properly for your soil and your light.

Most people who want a planting plan are in one of a few familiar situations: a border that has gone tired and leggy and needs a fresh scheme; a new-build garden with empty beds and no idea what will cope with the conditions; a garden that looks flat for half the year because everything flowers at once in June; or a plot that keeps swallowing plants because the wrong things were bought for the soil. A plan fixes the root cause, which is almost always a mismatch between the plants and the place.

Crucially, a planting plan does not require anyone to visit or dig anything up. It is a design product, produced from your photos and measurements, and it works whether you plant it yourself over a few weekends or hand it to a gardener. If your garden's layout needs changing as well as its planting, that is a bigger job covered by our garden design service; if the bones are fine and it is the planting that is letting you down, a plan is the faster and cheaper route.

Mixed herbaceous border in full growth — Borders planned for the soil they sit in need half the rescue work later.

What you receive

A planting plan from Yorkshire Lawn and Garden is a proper working document, not a mood board. Every plan includes:

A scaled planting plan showing the position of every plant in the bed or border
A full plant schedule listing each plant by botanical and common name, with quantities
Spacings and expected mature size, so the border fills in without overcrowding
Flowering and interest times, arranged so something is always doing the work
Sourcing notes on where to buy the plants, at trade or retail, without overpaying
Soil and preparation notes specific to your ground

It arrives as a PDF you can print, pin to the shed wall, or forward to whoever is planting it. Because it is scaled and quantified, a competent gardener can order the plants and set them out to the plan without further instruction.

How the soil-and-aspect match works

The reason a bespoke plan beats a generic border template is Yorkshire itself. The county's soils vary more than almost anywhere in England, and the plants that thrive change completely from one district to the next. Clay in the Vale of York holds water and suits astilbes, hostas, persicaria and shrub roses. Limestone and chalk on the Wolds and Dales margins drain fast and favour salvias, sedums, lavender, catmint and ornamental grasses. Acidic peat on the Pennine fringe suits rhododendrons, azaleas and heathers. Sandy coastal ground near Scarborough and Bridlington needs salt-tolerant sea holly, tamarisk and Rosa rugosa.

Get that match wrong and you spend years fighting the garden, replacing losses and wondering what you did wrong. Get it right and the border more or less looks after itself. Working out your likely soil from your location and photos, and building the scheme around it, is the single most valuable thing a planting plan does. Our borders and planting service covers the physical planting side once you have a plan; the north-facing garden guide is a good example of how aspect changes everything.

Ready for a border that actually works?

Send your postcode, photos of the border and rough measurements. A scaled planting plan and full plant list comes back, usually within a week or two, from £250.

Order a planting plan

The full guide

Planting plan prices in Yorkshire

A planting plan is a one-off fixed fee with one round of revisions included. The price depends on how much of the garden it covers, not on the value of the plants, so you know the cost before you commit.

Plan type	Typical cost	What it covers
Single border planting plan	£250–£400	One border or bed. Scaled plan plus full plant list, chosen for your soil and aspect.
Full garden planting plan	£450–£650	All the borders and beds in a typical garden, with a season-by-season interest breakdown.
Planting plan with layout concept	£600–£800	For gardens being reshaped, not just replanted: new bed and border shapes plus the planting.

The plan pays for itself in avoided mistakes. A single wrong shrub bought at retail and lost in its first winter can cost £40 or £50; a border replanted twice because the first attempt fought the soil costs far more than the plan did. Buying plants to a considered list, at the right quantities and often at trade prices, typically saves more than the plan costs. For a wider view of what garden work costs in Yorkshire, see the Yorkshire gardening price guide.

How to order and what to send

Ordering a planting plan is deliberately simple. You do not need a survey, a level, or any design software. You need a phone camera and a tape measure.

Photos. Take a few clear photos of the border or borders you want planted: one straight-on view of each, and one wider shot showing where the border sits in the garden. Morning and afternoon shots help show how the light moves.
Measurements. Rough length and depth of each border in metres is plenty. If a border is an awkward shape, a quick sketch with two or three measurements on it does the job.
Aspect. Which way does the border face, or which way is south? Your phone's compass is fine. This tells us how much sun the border gets, which drives half the plant choices.
Your brief. A line or two on what you want: colours you love or hate, plants you want to keep, how much maintenance you are happy with, whether you want year-round interest or a big summer show.

That is enough to build a plan. Anything unclear is settled by a short email exchange or a couple of extra photos. For a sense of how the whole design-to-planting timeline runs across a season, see the Yorkshire garden design timeline.

Planting plan or full garden design?

The two get confused, but the distinction is simple and it decides which you need.

Choose a planting plan when

The shape of your garden is broadly right. The lawn, patio, paths and borders are where you want them, but the planting is tired, empty, chaotic or fighting the soil. You want to know what to plant and where, and you are happy to plant it yourself or hand the plan to a gardener. This is the cheaper, faster route, and for most Yorkshire gardens it is all that is actually needed.

Choose full garden design when

You want to change the garden itself, not just what grows in it: move or reshape borders, add a patio or path, deal with levels, build in structure. That is a design job with a site visit and drawings, covered by our garden design service, and it often leads into a full garden makeover where the work is carried out for you.

Choose a planting plan with layout concept when

You are somewhere in between: the borders need reshaping but you are not touching the hard landscaping. The middle option gives you new bed and border shapes plus the planting to fill them, without the cost of a full design and build. Many people start here, live with the result for a season, and only later decide whether they want to go further. If you do, a raised bed or a reworked border is an easy next step.

Planting for the seasons in Yorkshire

The most common complaint about a border is that it looks wonderful for three weeks in June and dull for the rest of the year. A good planting plan spreads the interest so there is always something happening, which matters more in Yorkshire than in milder counties because the season is shorter and the winters are longer and greyer.

A well-planned Yorkshire border works across the whole year. Spring bulbs and early perennials get it going while the borders are still waking up. Early summer brings the first flush of perennials and roses. High summer is the peak, but a planned border keeps back some later performers so it does not collapse in August. Autumn is carried by grasses, sedums, asters and seed heads that catch the low light. Winter leans on evergreen structure, bark, berries and the standing skeletons of grasses and seed heads left uncut. A plan that only thinks about June is only doing a quarter of the job.

The best times to plant a new border in Yorkshire are autumn (September to November), when roots establish before winter, and spring (March to May), ahead of the growing season. A plan ordered in late summer sets you up perfectly for autumn planting. For lower-effort schemes that still read well across the seasons, the low-maintenance garden guide and the cottage garden guide are useful starting points, and the small garden guide covers making a tight space work hard.

Frequently asked questions about planting plans

How much does a planting plan cost in Yorkshire?

A single border plan runs £250-£400, a full-garden planting plan £450-£650, and a planting plan with a layout concept £600-£800. All are a one-off fixed fee with one round of revisions included. See the price table above for what each covers.

Do you need to visit my garden?

No. Plans are produced remotely from your photos, measurements and location. That is what keeps the price down. If you would rather have someone on site, our garden design service includes a visit.

What do I receive?

A scaled planting plan showing every plant's position, plus a full plant schedule with names, quantities, spacings, sizes, flowering times and sourcing notes, delivered as a PDF you can print or forward.

Can a local gardener plant it for me?

Yes, and most people use it that way. Because it is scaled and quantified, any competent gardener can follow it. Ask when you order and we can connect you with a local gardener to do the planting.

Will the plants suit my soil?

The plan is built around your specific soil, aspect, light and exposure. Matching plants to Yorkshire's very varied soils is the single biggest factor in whether a border thrives, and it is the core of what a bespoke plan does.

How long does it take?

Usually one to two weeks from receiving your photos and measurements. Order four to six weeks ahead of a spring or autumn planting window if you want to plant in a particular season.

What if I want to change some plants?

One round of revisions is included. If there are plants you dislike, plants you want to keep, or a colour to avoid, the plan is adjusted until you are happy to plant it.

YLG

Yorkshire Lawn & Garden
Practical, Yorkshire-specific gardening guidance from a local garden-services network, written and checked for our soils, climate and towns.

Planting plans for gardens across all of Yorkshire.

Plans are produced by post, so we cover every one of the 240+ towns and villages below. Find your town for local soil notes and what typically grows well in your area.