I learned design using pencil and paper. It's 100% intuitive. I've tried Autocad and low end design programs (though not Punch.) While a computer drawn plan CAN look slick, as others before me have said, it cannot help you design a landscape any more than Microsoft Word can help you write a novel. That comes from study and experience. In the beginning, rather than helping you draw, they inhibit your drawing. While the very basics might not be too bad to learn, some of the details can be maddening. When you can't find a way to accomplish some small task that prevents you from moving forward, it's frustrating. The other bad thing is that it can be very difficult to control the drawing the way that you want. I've seen computer drawn plans that look horrible and were barely readable because of being so cluttered with goofy plant symbols. If a low end program has a plant database, it will be woefully insufficient, especially if you're interested in unusual plants. To use a low end program, I find I must virtually ignore the plant database, and the symbols in order to create a drawing that is uncluttered and easy to read. Doing that makes it impossible to create a computer generated plant list so it's little better than pencil and paper to me. There is one nice advantage to even a low-end program and that's the ability to help you figure out, draw and visualize nice site work. If you're trying to layout some hardscape features, the drawing is precise and clean. The 3-d and rendering capability can make it easier to visualize the end result. I still like pencil and paper the best... except for the erasing. But throw-away tracing paper can eliminate a lot of that.

Mee too, tried on e a few years ago and it wasn't helpful. Plant slection was limited, and I can draw faster than I can arrange stuff in the software. Maybe the programs have more plants listed now. I have seen one where you can import a photo of your own property, so that would make it more useful than using a preset layout.

You might want to visit the Landscape Design forum and search the archives for this topic........it comes up frequently and various products have been suggested. And with varying degrees of recommendation :-) Some are very workable and user-friendly, others much less so. Generally the free programs are less flexible and efficient than those that are purchased. Like the graph paper/pencil route, design software is only a tool and will offer the best results with a good understanding of basic design principles and the plants and their requirements. Some find the pseudo 3-dimensional aspect many programs offer easier to visualize than just plan views created on paper. But you need to be cautious about some of the photoshop aspects, which can distort scale and spacing and alter perspective. And show everything blooming at the same time as well :-) Personally, I prefer the graph paper and circle template, but then I was trained in hand drafting and feel very compfortable with that method. Another handy tool is to take photos of the area in question, blow them up to a workable size and then do tissue paper overlays sketching in the appropriate plants at the appropriate sizes. That combined with a layout to scale on graph paper should get you a long way. There are also various DIY landscaping texts that would be helpful. Sunset's Western Landscaping, the companion to the Western Garden Book, is pretty good. My library is still packed or I'd suggest others but Lowe's and HD usually have a decent selection in their book/magazine area. Look through and find one that presents a reasonable discussion of design principles and a step by step method to preparing a design. That should help a LOT!

I purchased this about a month ago. I consider myself very computer proficient and have had no trouble learning the program. It is amazing the detail you can create with the program although it is very detailed work that takes patience. The instruction book that comes with the program shows you the basics - to get complex designs, visit the website where they show pictures of elaborate rooms with brief summaries of how they were created. With that said, it is much harder to design a house than I thought. I started off with a floor plan I found on line, created it in the BHG program, then started my modifications. My purpose in using the program is so I can walk through the house with my husband - he doesn't "see" the plan as easily from 2-D drawings as I do. All the details of building started to occur to me as I designed. For instance, how much wall space do you need above and below a window? If you don't know how houses are framed, then you have to find that information. That is just one of the many, many building details you need to know. I'm sure there are lots of users out there who learned how to design a plan to the degree that a builder can work from it. That wasn't my purpose in buying the software. I just wanted it mainly for my own entertainment and a chance to play with my design. When the time comes, the floorplan from this software MAY be useful when we ask Don Gardner Homes to make the modifucations we want. Nan