With AI technology now mainstream, there is a range of apps available online that make garden design plans and landscape visualisation accessible for all. Perhaps you're thinking about hopping on the AI garden design trend yourself. But pause for a second before you do.
In addition to considerations such as AI not offering the same level of engagement you get if you hire an actual garden designer, there is also the key question of whether or not AI can be trusted. Type 'AI garden design trend' into the search engine and the basic programmes that come up will ask questions about how you see your garden ideas shaping up, then create a layout based on your responses.
At the moment, the results are fairly rudimentary. However sophisticated these AI programmes ultimately become, it's hard to believe they will ever be able to replace the benefits of human interaction in creative projects. So we asked top garden designers for their thoughts on the AI garden design trend.
1. A unique touch
Set high in the Hollywood Hills, this property was built in the 70s by the architect Fred Smathers who featured inside out entertaining spaces anchored by 45-year-old olive trees. The restrained and monochromatic color palette focuses on carpets of del rio gravel and block planting.
'At its core, garden design is not simply about layouts or plant lists. It’s a practice of listening: to the land, to light, to rhythm, and to the lives unfolding in that space,' says Mintee Kalra, founder of LA-based fine gardening studio Peruse. 'A human designer brings both intuition and deep horticultural knowledge to each site, interpreting subtle cues in ecology, architecture, and client need.'
AI cannot yet replicate that sense of timing, restraint, or the deep-rooted knowledge it takes to shape a garden that matures well, where structure, texture, and ecology are in quiet conversation. If you want to find out how to plan a garden, your best shot is still to consult a designer.
'For emerging gardeners or DIY homeowners, AI may serve as an entry point, just as Pinterest and Instagram have democratised design inspiration,' says Mintee. 'But for practitioners, the real risk is not the technology itself, but how it's used. If AI is treated as a substitute for expertise rather than a tool to support it, we risk reducing landscape design to a transaction instead of a dialogue.'
Mintee Kalra creates gardens that support an intentional, sensorial, and rooted way of living. She believes in an old-world approach to garden design where craftsmanship and materiality are inseparable from ecological care. Sustainability is embedded into every layer of the process. Peruse designs gardens that are grounded in historical precedent but shaped by the nuances of site, season, and use. The focus is on longevity: not just beauty in the now, but evolution over time.
2. Choreographed planting
This 1965 ranch style property in Canyon Country uses the rule of thirds to approach the space planning, leaning into raw hardscape selections and native planting with a central cutting garden
One of the most critical aspects of fine gardening is understanding scale over time – how a plant will grow, what it will lean toward, how it will interact with its neighbors across seasons and years. This is key if you want flower bed ideas that reach their full potential.
'Designers don’t just place plants; they choreograph them, allowing for breathing room, natural movement, and long-term harmony,' says Mintee. 'That spatial sensitivity – knowing when to leave a gap, how to create tension or calm, or when a canopy should open or close – is not something that can be generated by an algorithm pulling from static images.'
AI does offer accessibility, and for that, it deserves credit. Beginners can explore basic layouts, identify plants, or visualise color palettes with ease. For professionals, AI might assist with early-stage brainstorming too.
'But the downside to the AI garden design trend lies in its limitations,' explains Mintee. 'AI can only draw from what it already knows. It's reactive, not interpretive. The subtleties of context such as regional ecology, architectural history, and client psychology are often flattened. Worse, it risks normalising generic aesthetics and divorcing design from place-based identity.'
3. Deep connections
Garden designers interpret a space and work out the best plants to enhance it that will evolve over time
'When it comes to garden design, there’s really no substitute for the human eye,' says Laura Janney, CEO of The Inspired Garden Masterclass. 'As a designer, I bring intuition, lived experience, and a deep connection to the spaces I’ve helped create. I don’t just plug in plants and hope that they work in the space.'
Laura explains that every time she meets with a new client, she considers how the garden makes her feel, how it reflects someone’s lifestyle, and how it will evolve over time. These are things AI cannot replicate. 'Every garden I’ve created is completely custom and usually influenced by specific nuances, whether that be the slope of the land, the feeling of the soil, the history of the home, how much sunlight the garden gets, or even the personality of the homeowner.'
Laura acknowledges that AI definitely has the potential to be used as a starting point, especially for those who are just beginning their gardening journey. While the ideas it can offer will be pretty basic and generic, it can give one a sense of what’s possible.
'One of the biggest issues with AI at this moment, however, is that it doesn’t truly understand context,' she adds. 'It cannot recognise poor drainage, heavy shade, soil composition, and so on. If you’re a beginner and you aren't aware of this information, you could wind up choosing the wrong types of plants for your garden.'
While the AI garden design trend can definitely help organise ideas or be used as a brainstorming tool, Laura concludes it shouldn’t replace someone who can understand the details and sees the bigger picture.
Laura Janney is a renowned landscape architect and designer, and CEO of The Inspired Garden Masterclass. Laura has left her mark on the cottage garden landscape design scene, winning the 2023 Houzz Best in Design award for her work in the New York area.
4. Fulfilled visions
Garden designers help to create a look that is unique to your garden and the opposite of a generic AI generated plan
Many designers don't view AI as a threat to the profession because they offer something highly personal and creative. 'That said, there’s always a risk when people assume that a tech-generated plan is all they need,' says Laura. 'What looks good on paper (or rather on screen) may not perform well in real life once all of the factors are considered.'
On the other hand, some professional gardeners use AI to help as a mood board generator. While some people find this helpful, Laura feels the magic of gardening gets lost.
'While I can see people using the AI garden design trend to help explore ideas in the early stages, I think it will just help people see how much a human designer is needed to bring their vision to life,' says Laura. 'Homeowners are almost always looking for something super personal that adapts to their lifestyles. No matter how sophisticated AI gets, it cannot replace the creative eye, emotional intelligence, or the problem solving skills that a professional in the space understands and has experience in.'
AI can definitely help produce garden designs, but the results are going to be generic and average, which is fine if you’d like something fairly simple and to blend in, says Laura. If you want something truly off the charts or more unique, there’s no substitute for a human-generated designer.
5. Idea development
All good garden design evolves during the planning and is a two-way conversation that allows ideas to develop and change along the way
'Most people will only be involved in the design of one or two gardens in their lifetimes. Working out what the garden must ‘do’ and how it looks is a daunting task,' says landscape designer Helen Elks-Smith. 'Initially clients often have a long list of things that must be included. As we develop those conversations, we often find that the ‘must’ is more of a ‘maybe’, a list initially given to ensure that things aren’t ruled out.'
Developing a design brief is a critical first step. Creating a process where clients can add ideas, thoughts, and feelings is essential, according to Helen, and people are better at this than machines. 'Communication is often nuanced, how something is said is often as important as the words themselves. Clients will often give apparently contradictory lists of things they like or don’t like, and it's up to the designer to explore this in order to firm up what the design brief is.'
Over time, depending on the sophistication of the AI involved, there will be machine ‘learning’ and it is likely that with sufficient knowledge and investment the currently very basic and often problematic layouts created by AI will improve.
'It is not a given, though,' says Helen. 'Machine learning has to be based on something and AI machines and companies will need to use the work of designers as a basis, whether that is the 2D plans or photographs of the gardens. Shots from drones are a great resource for AI companies seeking to make money from the training and expertise of others and to date I am not aware of anyone being paid for such gleaning of information.'
Known for her thoughtful approach to design and expertise in subtle, textural planting, Helen Elks-Smith studied garden design at Writtle College and set up her studio in 2005. She was made a Fellow of the Society of Garden Designers in 2019 for her outstanding contribution to the industry. Helen has won numerous awards, including two RHS gold medals, three design awards from the Society of Garden + Landscape Designers, and two Design Excellence Awards from the British Association of Landscape Industries.
6. Sense of place
Small shady courtyard garden designs need particular skill and intuition to deal with the way sun and light moves around the space
The best gardens have a strong sense of place, and this isn't something the AI garden design trend has an affinity with. These designs work with the local vernacular and are anchored in their community. A machine would need to have an advanced understanding not just of design but also considerable geographic knowledge alongside site knowledge to get the same results.
'We have seen gardens where one half of the soil is chalk and the other clay, meaning one half drains, the other doesn’t,' says Helen. 'We have designed gardens that are wind blown and others protected by the topography and trees in neighbouring gardens. The list of considerations to take into account is extensive.'
7. Interpreting needs
If halfway through a project you decide on a different material for your fencing, a new direction for a pathway or an alternate grouping of plants, the designer can quickly provide a new rendering of what this would look like with a simple AI prompt
'Thoughtful design necessitates a human touch from architects and designers that simply can’t be replicated by AI,' says Miles Smith, architect and Senior Solutions Manager at Graphisoft, an architectural design company. 'It's hard to say how AI may interpret garden design needs on its own, and depending on the datasets it's pulling from, you may find your project pigeonholed in peculiar ways to reflect specific cultures or aesthetics the data is biased toward.'
The best outcome, according to Miles, will result from a designer pulling from all the landscape styles, garden aesthetics and cultures that inspire them, resulting in a one-of-a-kind final product that's uniquely suited to your needs and preferences.
Miles also points out that architects and designers can benefit from utilising AI to assist in the garden design process. 'Perhaps the greatest advantage to incorporating AI as an assistant is that it can help both the architect and the homeowner better understand and visualise the impact of certain design choices in real time.
'Where developing and adapting traditional manual 3D models is a more challenging and time-consuming process, new AI-enabled design tools create near instant generation of multiple realistic, highly-detailed 3D visualisations to act as a clearer guide of what direction the project is going in.'
This visualization aspect is just one example of the most significant way the AI garden design trend helps free up architects from the tedious, time-consuming parts of the project, allowing them to focus more closely on bringing your creative vision to life.
Miles Smith is the Senior Solutions Manager for the Americas at Graphisoft, a leading global provider of architecture software. Miles has nearly two decades of experience spanning architectural design, building science, and SaaS product adoption. Today, he collaborates with Graphisoft clients to utilize advanced software solutions to address unique design needs and improve efficiency in architecture.
8. Contextualising projects
As technology improves it will become easier for everyone to design their dream garden
'Right now, humans still bring a higher level of creativity and detail that AI can’t,' says designer Bar Zakheim, CEO of Better Place Design & Build. 'We are also able to bring more understanding and context to the table that AI systems just don’t understand. By communicating with and understanding clients, the human touch is still super important.'
Bar explains his is a very technology-driven company that utilises AI heavily. 'We see it as a huge tool to leverage our ideas faster and allow us to brainstorm better with our clients. But, it’s still more of a starting point as the AI just can't match the quality and detail that humans bring to projects.'
He also points out the benefits of AI systems that allow you to upload multiple photos, craft prompts, and create images that help you easily bring your vision to life. But when it comes to detailed plans needed for professional projects, AI just isn’t there yet.
'The technology is getting better every day,' says Bar. 'Right now, we are able to use AI to create instant renderings for clients. In the near future, I see the technology allowing us to create more detailed experiences so you can visualise and interact with the vision you have for your garden. This makes it easier for everyone to plan and build their dream garden.'
Bar Zakheim is CEO of Better Place Design and Build, residential designers and contractors based in the San Diego area, specialising in renovations, additions, and ADUs. With a background in finance and years of construction experience, Bar guides clients in making smart, growth-driven decisions that enhance their property and lifestyle.
In conclusion, experts agree the future of garden design will likely include AI but not as a replacement for the designer. 'The most powerful gardens will always come from the intersection of logic and intuition, analysis and artistry,' says Mintee Kalra.
'A designer’s role may shift toward editor, curator, translator, a steward of the creative process, guiding both clients and technologies toward meaning, not just output. After all, gardens are not just 'solutions.' They are living stories. And stories need authors.'
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