Garden Zone Planner: Find the Right Plant for Your Garden

We've spent the last few months building something we think will genuinely change how you choose plants. The Garden Zone Planner is now live, and it's free to use.

The idea is simple: tell us about your garden's conditions, and we'll show you plants that will actually thrive there — along with current prices from UK nurseries.

The problem we're solving

Most gardeners have bought a plant that looked magnificent at the garden centre, brought it home, planted it carefully, and watched it slowly fade. The label said "partial shade" but your north-facing border gets approximately forty minutes of direct sun in midsummer. The soil is heavy clay. The spot is exposed to wind from the east. The plant never stood a chance.

Plant labels give you the basics, but they can't account for the specific conditions in your garden. And most of us don't carry a mental database of which plants tolerate clay, which need acid soil, and which will cope with coastal wind.

That's what the Garden Zone Planner does.

How it works

The planner takes you through a straightforward process. No account needed, no lengthy forms — just honest questions about your garden.

Step 1: Map your zones

You start by sketching out your garden's different areas. Most gardens have at least two or three distinct zones: a sunny south-facing bed, a shaded area under trees, a damp patch near the fence. The planner lets you define each zone with a few taps.

For each zone, you specify the key conditions: how much sun it gets (full sun, partial shade, full shade), the soil type (clay, sandy, loam, chalky), how exposed or sheltered it is, and whether the soil tends to be wet or dry. If you're not sure about your soil type, we've included a quick guide to help you work it out — the old "squeeze a handful" test is surprisingly reliable.

Step 2: Add what's already growing

If you have existing plants that are doing well, adding them helps the planner understand your conditions better than any description. A thriving hydrangea tells us quite a lot about your soil and aspect. A happy lavender confirms good drainage and decent sun.

This step is optional but genuinely useful. The planner uses your existing plants as confirmation signals — if what you've told us about conditions matches what your current plants need, we can recommend with more confidence.

Step 3: Get recommendations

The planner returns a curated list of plants suited to each zone, drawn from our database of over 4,000 plants. Each recommendation shows the plant, why it suits your conditions, and current prices from the nurseries we track.

You can filter by plant type (shrubs, perennials, grasses, climbers), by season of interest, by height, and by budget. If you want a flowering shrub under 1.5 metres for a shaded clay border that costs less than £20, the planner will show you what's available.

What it doesn't do

The planner won't design your garden for you. It won't tell you where to place plants within a border or how to create colour combinations. That's the creative part, and it's still yours.

It also won't account for microclimates that only you know about — the warm spot against the house wall, the frost pocket at the bottom of the garden, the corner where the neighbour's leylandii blocks all afternoon light. You'll need to factor those in yourself when defining your zones.

And it's based on general growing data, not a crystal ball. An unusually harsh winter or a prolonged drought can defeat even the most carefully chosen plant. Gardening always involves some risk, and no tool can eliminate that entirely.

Why we built it

ComparePlants has always been about helping you spend your plant budget wisely. Price comparison is a big part of that, but buying the right plant in the first place is arguably more important. A £12 plant that thrives for ten years is infinitely better value than a £8 plant that dies after one winter.

The planner connects those two ideas. Find the right plant for your conditions, then find the best price for that plant. It's the full journey from "what should I grow?" to "where should I buy it?" in one place.

Try it now

The Garden Zone Planner is live and free. No sign-up required. It works on mobile and desktop, though a larger screen makes the zone-mapping step easier.

We'd love to hear what you think. This is a first release, and we have plans to add features like seasonal planting calendars and companion planting suggestions. But the core tool is solid, and we think it's already useful enough to change how you shop for plants.

Give it a go, and let us know what it recommends for your trickiest border.