Native Garden Planner

A lot has shipped since March. This post covers every new feature and improvement across the product. Jump to the section most relevant to you.

Garden Canvas

Shapes library

A full shapes library is now available — lines, circles, rectangles, triangles, and more. Any shape can be set to type Plot, which makes it behave like a planting area: it can hold plants, gets included in the bloom calendar, and shows up in your export's bill of materials.

Ruler tool

A new ruler lets you measure distances between any two points on your canvas and verify that your spacing matches real-world measurements. Rulers can be saved as lines in your design, so they stay visible as a reference while you work.

Brush and eraser tools

A freehand brush lets you paint surfaces directly onto your canvas — useful when you want to quickly sketch a path or fill an area without drawing a precise shape. The eraser tool lets you remove brushed areas with the same freehand motion.

View in 3D

From any garden, you can now capture the current canvas view and submit it for a photorealistic 3D render. Renders are delivered within a few hours and can be downloaded or included in client deliverables. Available via the garden's export menu.

Plant Catalog

Expanded filter set

Several new filters have been added to the plant catalog:

Growth behavior — clump-forming, rhizomatous, stoloniferous, and more
Winter state — evergreen, semi-evergreen, herbaceous
Additional filters for landscape uses, warnings (including invasive outside native range), and more

New filter UX

The catalog filter panel has been redesigned. Filters are now organized into a source filter, quick-filter chip dropdowns for the most common criteria, and an expandable advanced filters panel for everything else. Faster to get to the filters you use most, without hiding the ones you occasionally need.

Plant reviews, comments, and photos

Leave a review on any plant — "Garden Favorite" or "Would Not Recommend" — to share your experience with the community
Add a comment with more detail: soil prep tips, what worked, what didn't, how it performed in your specific conditions
Upload a photo of the plant from your own garden
Can't find a good photo? Use the built-in Wikipedia Creative Commons search to find and attach a freely licensed image directly from the plant's page

Request a new illustration

If a plant's illustration looks off or hasn't been drawn yet, you can now request a new one from the plant's detail page.

Submit a correction

Found an error in a plant's data? Submit a correction at /catalog/correction. Corrections enter a review queue and are tracked so you can see when they've been accepted.

Submit a new plant

If a plant is missing from the catalog entirely, you can submit it for addition at /catalog/contribute. Fill in the key data fields and it enters the same review queue as corrections.

Community review queue

Any user can help review open correction submissions and new plant submissions from other community members at /catalog/review — flagging issues or approving entries before they go live.

Bulk CSV upload

Organizations and power users can upload large batches of plants at once via CSV at /my-plants/import — either to their own custom plant library or as a bulk submission to the community catalog.

Community

Community gardens

Browse public gardens created by other Native Garden Planner users at /gardens/community. See what people are making, get inspiration for your own design, and fork any public garden into your own account to start customizing it.

Community lists

Browse public plant lists shared by other users at /lists/community — curated collections like "Monarch waystation," "Dry shade ground covers," or "Illinois prairie mix." Fork any list into your own account with one click.

Referrals

A new referral program is live. Share your personal referral link — when someone signs up using it and upgrades to a paid plan, you receive account credit. Find your link in your account settings.

Workspaces

Manage your team at /workspaces.

Team messaging

Workspaces now include a built-in messaging system:

Channels — create topic channels for projects, regions, or whatever makes sense for your team
Direct messages — 1-on-1 DMs between workspace members
Reactions — emoji reactions on any message
Real-time unread counts in the sidebar

Public workspace page

Every workspace can now publish a public-facing page at /w/[your-slug]. Choose which gardens to feature, add a description, and share the link with clients or the community.

Workspace-scoped plant library

The workspace custom plant library is now shared across all members — everyone on the team can use and add to it.

Pro Projects (client delivery workflow)

Access Pro Projects at /pro-projects.

Full project lifecycle

Projects now move through a defined lifecycle with clear status transitions: Inquiry → Ready for Design → Design Draft → Client Feedback → Approved → Published → Archived. Status is visible in the project list and dashboard.

Client portal

Clients receive an invite link and get access to a read-only client portal where they can:

View the current design draft
Leave feedback by clicking directly on plants or areas of the garden
Reply to comments
Approve the design

Intake forms

A public intake form at /intake/u/[your-link] lets prospective clients fill out a structured questionnaire — goals and vision, site conditions, contact info — before the first conversation. Intake submissions appear in your Pro Projects dashboard as new inquiries.

Invoicing

A new invoicing system is built directly into Pro Projects:

Define a service catalog with your standard service line items and prices
Add line items to any project invoice
Send the invoice to the client — they can pay directly via Stripe
Track payment status and export invoices to CSV

Project messaging

Every Pro Project gets its own private messaging channel for the team, plus a separate channel for client communication. No more chasing conversations across email.

Inspiration board

A freeform inspiration board is now available on every project — pin reference images, screenshots, and notes to share with clients or keep for yourself during the design process.

Assignees and tags

Projects can be assigned to team members and tagged for filtering. Useful once you have more than a handful of active projects.

Custom Planner

The Custom Planner — a fully branded, white-labeled version of Native Garden Planner scoped to your organization's plant catalog — is now available as an add-on. See pricing for details.

Your logo, colors, and domain slug at /cp/[your-slug]
Only your catalog plants are visible to your members
Branded export documents
Owner dashboard at /custom-planner: manage your catalog, members, and settings
Analytics: site-level engagement and per-plant interest metrics
Promo banners for sales, events, or new arrivals
Custom coupon codes

Blog & Tutorials

Blog

A new blog is live with guides, tips, and stories about native plants and sustainable garden design.

Tutorials

A new tutorials section features step-by-step video guides for getting the most out of Native Garden Planner. Each tutorial includes a full video embed and a written transcript. The first batch of tutorials covers the NGP Basics series — creating a project, browsing the catalog, adding plants, custom plants, shapes, freeform polygon drawing, and the control panel.

Performance & Bug Fixes

Canvas load times on large projects (100+ plants) reduced by ~45%
Thumbnail generation is now fully asynchronous and no longer blocks saving
Fixed an issue where the bloom calendar occasionally failed to update after a plant swap
Resolved a layout shift on the pricing page in Safari
Fixed mobile keyboard pushing the canvas off-screen on some Android browsers
Plant search results now return in under 200ms on typical connections
Corrected spacing calculations for plants with asymmetric mature sizes
Fixed an edge case where forking a garden with surfaces could produce overlapping layers
Share links now work correctly for gardens with custom plants from a private library