Garden Bed Planner | GardenMetric

Visualize bed plant positions with SVG grid.

The garden bed planner draws an SVG grid of exactly where each plant goes in a rectangular bed, instead of just telling you a count. Enter bed length and width in feet plus the per-plant spacing in inches, and the planner computes every position — column by column, row by row — and renders the layout to scale. Seeing the grid makes spacing mistakes obvious before you plant: a bed that 'should' fit ten plants may only hold eight whole spacing intervals, and the drawing shows precisely where the leftover margin ends up.

How it works

Spacing is converted to feet (inches ÷ 12), then columns = ⌊bed length ÷ spacing⌋ and rows = ⌊bed width ÷ spacing⌋. Each plant is placed at coordinates (column × spacing, row × spacing), and total count = columns × rows. The floor operation is deliberate: a fractional position would put a plant closer to its neighbor than the spacing you chose, so partial intervals become edge margin instead of an extra cramped plant.

8×4 ft bed of bush beans at 12 in

12 inch spacing gives 8 columns × 4 rows = 32 positions. The SVG shows a clean grid filling the bed edge to edge — a convenient baseline for any crop with one-foot spacing.

Tomatoes at 24 in in the same bed

Doubling the spacing to 24 inches drops the count to 4 columns × 2 rows = 8 plants — a quarter of the 12-inch count, because plant capacity scales with the square of spacing.

10×3 ft border strip at 18 in

⌊10 ÷ 1.5⌋ = 6 columns and ⌊3 ÷ 1.5⌋ = 2 rows give 12 plants. Six whole 1.5 ft intervals span 9 ft, so the drawing reveals a one-foot leftover strip along the length you can leave as an access edge.

Square-foot-style salad bed

A 4×4 ft bed at 6 inch spacing yields 8 × 8 = 64 positions — the classic dense grid for leaf lettuce, radish, or spinach where each plant needs only a quarter square foot.

FAQ

Why does the planner fit fewer plants than area ÷ spacing²?

Because whole intervals must fit along each side. A 10 ft side at 18 inch spacing holds ⌊6.67⌋ = 6 columns, not 6.67 — the planner floors each dimension separately, so leftover space becomes margin rather than a squeezed extra plant.

Can it draw staggered or triangular layouts?

No — this planner draws a square grid only. For an estimate of how many extra plants a staggered (hexagonal) arrangement fits, use the Plant Spacing calculator, which models offset rows at about 15% higher density.

What spacing should I enter?

Use the seed-packet or extension-service value for your crop and enter it in inches — for example around 24 in for tomatoes, 12 in for bush beans, or 6 in for leaf lettuce. The planner accepts any positive value.

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