Most garden planners think in tidy rows. Permapeople's planner thinks in guilds, polycultures and food forests — so you can design a regenerative garden that mostly takes care of itself. It's free, runs in your browser, and is backed by our community plant database.
Build plant guilds around a central tree or crop, then surround it with nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators, pollinator attractors and ground cover. Lay out polycultures the way nature does — mixed, layered and mutually supportive — instead of monoculture blocks that need constant inputs.
Food forests work in vertical layers: canopy trees, understory, shrubs, herbaceous plants, ground cover, roots and climbers. Place plants at the right layer and use shapes and canopy outlines to see how light and space stack up over time.
Every plant you drop in links to its profile, including companion and antagonist relationships from our plant database. You can spot a bad pairing before it's in the ground, and lean into combinations that fix nitrogen, deter pests or improve the soil. See worked examples in our companion plant combinations.
Permaculture leans on perennials — plant once, harvest for years. Plan perennial beds, fruit-tree guilds and edible landscapes, save your design, and share it with the community for feedback.
Yes. The planner is completely free, with no paywall and no ads, and the plant data is open — see the free garden planner page for details.
Yes. You can place trees, shrubs and ground cover at different layers, draw canopy outlines, and design multi-layer food forests and guilds.
Yes. Plants you add link to companion and antagonist data from our community plant database, so you can plan polycultures that actually work together.