The Best Garden Planner Apps of 2027
The short version: The best garden planner app depends on which part of planning you want help with. For laying out beds, Seedtime, GrowVeg and Planter are all excellent: Seedtime gives you the most control, GrowVeg makes a blank page easy and teaches you as you go, and Planter is the simplest way to design a bed on your phone. For knowing what to do when, Seedtime gives you the most control over every date, and GrowVeg builds the calendar from your layout for you. And Percy, the garden journal that remembers, is the one for planning next year from what actually happened this year.
The best garden planner is the one you'll actually use, and the one that helps you get the most out of your garden in any given season.
There are a lot of good ones, and they don't all do the same job. Laying out your beds, knowing when to plant, and remembering what happened are three different things, and the apps that do each one well are quite different from each other.
I make Percy, which is on this list, so take my recommendations with a grain of salt. But I also use some of the others on this list, and I'm a fan of what they do well.
Last checked: October 23, 2026. Apps change quickly, so if something here is out of date, let me know.
The best garden planner apps, at a glance
| If you want to… | Try |
|---|---|
| Map your beds with the most control | Seedtime |
| Lay out beds from scratch, and learn as you go | GrowVeg |
| Design a bed on your phone, free | Planter |
| Control every sowing, transplant and harvest date | Seedtime |
| A planting calendar that builds itself from your layout | GrowVeg |
| Keep a simple garden to-do list | Planta or Things |
| Plan next year from what actually happened this year | Percy |
1. The best garden layout apps: Seedtime, GrowVeg and Planter
A layout planner gives you a visual canvas. You set the size and shape of your beds, add things like trellises or greenhouses, and place each plant where it will go. It shows how much room every plant takes, which makes it easier to know how many seedlings to buy or seeds to sow. It also helps with succession sowing: as your spring peas wrap up, you can see where the space opens up for your summer vegetables.
Three apps do this especially well.
Seedtime: the most control
Seedtime's Layout gives you a lot of control. You draw beds and containers in any shape, then pull plants from the crops and varieties you've added, and it works out how many fit at your spacing. That's the square-foot-gardening math, like 16 carrots or one big cabbage to a square foot, done for you, so you know how many plants your space can hold. And because the layout is tied to your planting plan and task list, the three stay in step.
Seedtime has also released Garden Blocks: ready-made plans for a section of a bed, built around your frost dates and season length. You drop one in instead of planning crop by crop, then swap any plant for another. It's an easy way to get started, and you can fine-tune from there.
GrowVeg: the easiest blank page
GrowVeg's Garden Planner makes it easy to lay out beds from scratch. You draw your garden in any shape, including raised beds, containers and traditional rows, then drag in what you want to grow. It works out how many plants fit and how many to buy, suggests good companions, keeps track of crop rotation, and builds a planting calendar for your area. There are beginner templates to start from if a blank page feels like a lot.
It's backed by a deep library of guides and how-to videos, and by gardening experts you can ask through the subscription. The GrowVeg YouTube channel is one of the best vegetable gardening resources I've found anywhere. I learned a lot of what I know about gardening from GrowVeg’s educational videos, so I’m a big fan of this one. You can try GrowVeg free for seven days without entering payment details.
Planter: the simplest bed planner on your phone
If you'd rather design on your phone, Planter is very good for that. You drag plants onto a square-foot grid sized to your bed and adjust as you like. It gives you a growing calendar for when to start seeds, transplant and harvest. It organizes a lot of plant information well, so you can tap through to read about care and spacing. It's free for one garden, and a subscription unlocks more.
2. The best apps for knowing when to plant: Seedtime and GrowVeg
The second kind of planner helps you know when to do things. It matters more than it sounds. Planting the right things at the right time, based on your weather and on what else is growing in your beds, is a big part of a good season. So are the recurring chores that are easy to forget, like fertilizing, mulching and watering.
Succession sowing is the clearest example. You can sow new lettuce or radishes every couple of weeks all season and get far more food out of the same space, but only if something reminds you. This is extremely valuable if you’re the kind of person who can’t remember where they put their glasses, let alone to punctually start another round of spinach. (The glasses were on their head.)
Seedtime and GrowVeg both do this part well, and they come at it from opposite ends. Seedtime starts from time: the calendar is the plan. GrowVeg starts from space: you draw the garden, and the calendar follows from it.
Seedtime: the most control over timing
Seedtime has the most thorough version of this. Drop a crop into the calendar and it works out when to sow, prep the bed, transplant and harvest from your frost dates. Seedtime can lay out successions for you. (It cannot help you find your glasses.)
Its calendar shows every sowing, transplant, cultivation and harvest for each of your plants, color-coded, and you can adjust almost everything, from days to maturity to how long you'll be harvesting. It's smart about keeping things in sync: drag a planting and every related date moves with it, and when you check off a task, the rest of that planting reschedules to match what actually happened. Seedtime can also help you plan for winter growing under row covers.
If you take joy in an incredible amount of organization, you'll find it here. There are times that I wish Seedtime could help manage the rest of my life too.
GrowVeg: a calendar that builds itself
GrowVeg's planting calendar comes straight from your layout. As you place plants, it works out sowing, planting and harvest dates from climate data from your nearest weather station, shifts them for anything under a cold frame or greenhouse, and changes them whenever you change the plan.
Its succession planting tool shows when space will open up, and it emails you what to plant in the next two weeks. Next season, it uses last year's plan to steer your crop rotation. If you'd rather design the garden and have the schedule take care of itself, GrowVeg is the one.
Planta and Things
Planta started as a houseplant app, and it earns an honorable mention here for its reminders. You can create your own tasks and get smart care reminders, which works well if a simple task list is what you're after.
And if you'd like your garden to-dos to live with the rest of your life's to-dos, I'm a big fan of Things. It isn't a gardening app. It's a to-do app (for Apple devices) that makes it easy to set up a project for the garden, give each task a date, and see what's coming up. It’s simple, and very satisfying to check things off.
The best planners in this category work like a project manager who knows your garden. They keep track of the plan and bring things up at the right moment.
3. The best app for planning from what happened: Percy
Percy comes at planning from the journal side. It doesn't draw your beds or build a crop calendar. Percy is the garden journal that remembers, so you can enjoy your garden, and it uses what it remembers to help you plan what’s next.
Tell Percy where you garden and it knows your hardiness zone and your first and last frost dates, from the 30-year records of your nearest NOAA weather station, so its planning advice fits your garden, not generic timing from the back of a seed packet. You just talk to it: ask "When should I plant the tomatoes?" and you get an answer for your garden. Tell it something you mean to do and it keeps it in Twigs, Percy's list of things you mean to do, then reminds you in the app when the time is right.
Percy also helps with a part of planning that's easy to skip: deciding whether a plant belongs in your garden at all. Ask about something you're thinking of planting and Percy will tell you if it's invasive where you garden, and point you toward native and pollinator-friendly plants instead. (I learned this the hard way, with the English ivy I spent two summers lovingly encouraging up a stump.) And if there's a flower you loved at a neighbor's, or mystery seedlings coming up in the bed you're planning, take a photo and Percy can identify them before you decide what stays.
What makes Percy different from a traditional planner is that it connects the past, the present and the future. Because it's a journal, it captures what actually happened, day by day, so when you sit down to plan next year you're starting from this one. Ask what went wrong with the tomatoes and it remembers the fusarium wilt, and can point you toward a resistant variety. Ask about the brassicas and it remembers the cabbage moths and the aphids, and suggests getting the row cover on early. It keeps the note that says to move the peppers somewhere sunnier, so you don't have to remember it in February. A log tells you what happened. Percy helps you understand what it means for next season.
About every two weeks, Percy also sends a Garden Letter, written from your own garden's records: local weather worth watching (like your first frost window getting close), what's happening with wildlife near you, and what's on your list. When you open the app, you'll see smaller versions of the same thing, like a nudge to water deeply first thing in the morning before a hot day.
For plans that are more dream than schedule, there's Someday, a mood board for your garden. You can save a jealousy-inducing garden you saw on vacation, a flower you'd like to try, or the seed packets to order for next year. Take a photo, add a note, and it's saved. You can ask Percy to show you every greenhouse you've kept or to see all of the purple flowers you saved.
I use Percy alongside Seedtime: Seedtime maps the beds and schedules out timings, and Percy remembers how it actually went.
Percy has native apps on iPhone and Android, and works in any browser on desktop. Your first full growing season is free, then it's $39 a year.
So which garden planner app should you choose?
- You love mapping things out: Seedtime if you want control, GrowVeg if you want an easy start and a lot of teaching, Planter if you want to do it on your phone.
- You want a calendar that keeps the season moving: Seedtime if you want to control every date, GrowVeg if you'd rather the calendar follow from your layout.
- You want a simple list: Planta, or Things if your garden to-dos should live with everything else.
- You want to check that a plant belongs in your garden before it goes in: Percy.
- You want next year's plan to start from this year: Percy, on its own or alongside any of the others, which is how I use it.
If you're just getting started, I put together a list of the best gardening apps for beginners, and if it's the record-keeping side you're after, here are the best garden journal apps. For every category in one place, see the best gardening apps of 2027.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best garden planner app? It depends on the job. For laying out beds, Seedtime, GrowVeg and Planter are all strong. For a calendar of what to do and when, Seedtime gives you the most control and GrowVeg builds one from your layout. For a planner that remembers what actually happened in your garden, Percy.
What is the best app for planning a vegetable garden? Seedtime and GrowVeg are both built around vegetable gardens: Seedtime if you want detailed control over timing and successions, GrowVeg if you want an easy visual layout with crop rotation and companion planting built in. Percy pairs well with either, because it remembers how each crop actually did.
Is there a free garden planner app? Planter is free for one garden. GrowVeg has a 7-day free trial with no payment details required. Seedtime has a free account. Percy's first full growing season is free.
Can I plan my garden on my phone? Yes. Planter is designed for the phone. Seedtime has a mobile app too, though I find its deeper planning most satisfying on a computer. Percy works on your phone, and you just talk to it.
Is there a garden planner app that tells you if a plant is invasive? Percy flags plants that are invasive where you garden and celebrates native and pollinator-friendly plants, so you can check a plant before it goes in. If you're planning a whole wildlife-friendly garden, see the best native plant and pollinator apps.
What's the difference between a garden planner and a garden journal? A garden planner looks ahead. It helps you decide what to grow, where and when. A garden journal looks back. It records what actually happened so next year's plan can start from it. Many gardeners use one of each.
Do I need more than one app? You don't have to. Many gardeners pair a layout or calendar planner with a journal, because a plan is a guess about the season ahead and a journal is the record of what the season turned out to be.