How to Plan a Garden: Measuring, Spacing, Quantities

The same 4 by 8 foot raised bed shown twice from above as a grid of one-foot squares colored by hours of sun, with a six-foot fence drawn three feet to the south and a pointer to the corner the neighbor's white pine reaches over. On the left, spring: the north half is yellow for full sun except three orange part-sun squares at its east end, the south half is gray for full shade, and only two squares of spinach are planted. On the right, summer: the bed is planted with pole beans and tomatoes along the north edge and peppers, bush beans and basil in the south half, and every square is yellow except an orange and a blue square in the southeast corner

Garden PlanningOctober 13, 2026 · 7 min read

Planning a Raised Garden Bed Plant Layout: It Starts With the Sun

Tall plants in the back is good advice. It just ignores the fence and the neighbor's pine, which decide where the sun lands.

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A Plantyd plan of a native garden at year 15. Three big tree canopies, a green blackgum, a green redbud and a gold oak, sit shoulder to shoulder with their edges just meeting, and the smaller perennial masses show through underneath

Garden PlanningSeptember 3, 2026 · 9 min read

How Far Apart Should I Plant Trees and Shrubs? Space Them for Mature Size

The spacing arithmetic that keeps a bed from closing up: how to use mature spread instead of pot size, how far from the house to plant, and how to see a collision fifteen years before it happens.

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A Plantyd sun-analysis map of a backyard. A large labeled house and ADU sit on the left with a green lawn between them; open yard to the right is shaded by a row of trees. Yellow marks full sun, an orange band marks part sun around the big tree canopy, blue marks part shade including a strip down the east side of the house, and the legend sits in the corner

Garden PlanningJuly 22, 2026 · 9 min read

How Much Sun Does My Yard Get? How to Sun-Map It (Full Sun vs. Partial Shade)

A step-by-step guide to mapping the sunlight in your yard: the free paper-and-pencil method, what "full sun" and "partial shade" actually mean in hours, and how to see where shade will fall as your trees grow.

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