AI garden design, before you dig

A garden is slow and costly to change. Plants take seasons to settle, paving is heavy, and a path in the wrong place stays in the wrong place. AI garden design gives you a low-risk way to try ideas on a photo of your own space first.

It will not tell you what grows in your soil or how much sun a border gets. What it can do is show proportion and mood: how a tall grass edge feels beside a stone patio, whether a pergola crowds the lawn, what a bench in the corner adds.

Omriss gives you a catalog to choose from instead of a blank prompt.

• Planting. Trees from Japanese maple to olive and silver birch, shrubs, flowers such as lavender and alliums, grasses, climbers, herbs and vegetables.
• Places to sit. A timber deck, stone patio, pergola, gazebo, lounge area or a simple garden bench.
• Paths and ground. Gravel, flagstone, porcelain slabs, river pebbles, a striped lawn or a wildflower meadow.
• Atmosphere. String lights, a fire pit, a pond or a water rill.
• Edges and structure. Raised beds, a hedge, a privacy screen, a slat fence or a stone wall.

You do not need a big plot. For a balcony or terrace, Omriss leaves out the options that need a real yard, such as swimming pools, outbuildings and large trees, so the ideas stay sensible for the space.

A small garden is mostly about restraint: one tree, one material underfoot and a place to sit. The courtyard example below started as a bare concrete side yard. For more of this, see small garden ideas, or the wider garden design ideas guide.

A garden looks different in March and in August, at breakfast and at dusk. Omriss lets you change the season (spring, summer, autumn or winter) and the light (the photo’s own, morning, golden hour or dusk), so you can check that a design still works when the borders are bare or the sun is low.