I don't know of one around here, but there could be. I do know that at the Better Homes and Garden website you can find many similar plans (downloadable using your Adobe Acrobat reader). I find them helpful at times.

Patty

The wife of the davesgarden.com site owner posted in their garden design forum not too long back about any interest in developing a garden design plans database.

I didn't follow that particular post but it is an interesting idea. My only concern would be criteria/quality control issues.

-Ron-

I'm curious to know what we are looking to get out of plans for other places.It is nice to see how some people pair up plants an maybe rendering styles, but a design for one home does not usually have recycle qualities.

This is probably not the best site to look for good design plans to study because part of the rules of the forum include that anything posted including pictures become part of the public domain. That drove off a lot of very good professionals that did share their work for discussion purposes, but would not continue when that policy was instituted.

The best hope is probably referals to other sites, but be careful to respect copyrights when they apply.

I hope we don't get treated with an ad out of this.

I can see some value in looking at other's plans- when I started with my employer, I had 20 years worth of drawings to look at to start learning their style. That said, I hesitate to put mine out in the public domain- not because I think I have amazing ideas, but because with as hard as I've worked I want to maintain some degree of control.

However, I did buy a great book at the National Building Museum in D.C. (great museum, by the way, and the old pension building in which it's housed? AMAZING piece of architecture.) Anyhow, the book is called "Garden Plans" and it's a British book, a compilation of plans and some photos from designers from around the world. There's a mix of good and not-so-good, but I bought it primarily for the graphics. I'm always trying to improve, you know? So that's a great resource.

Sunset Magazine has a great book of garden plans: Garden Designs by Philip Edinger. They're not "top down" but there are some interesting ideas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to book on Amazon website

The 'top down' view you are refering to is called 'plan view'. If you do a google image search for 'plan view landscape plan' you'll come up with lots of stuff to look at.

I do plans like that professionally but I also charge a lot of money for them. I use some specialized rendering techinques that I spent a lot of years and $$$$ to acquire so I probably wouldn't be interested in posting my work anywhere but on my own website. I will consider it though- goodness knows I've often been inspired by the work of others. Interesting question.

laag wrote: "I'm curious to know what we are looking to get out of plans for other places."

I love hand drawn landscaping plans, just because they're beautiful when they're well drawn...works of art in themselves, imo. I'd rather look at a well-made plan than a photograph any day. (But I don't expect the professionals on this forum to give their work away.)

Also, even though a particular design may not solve the problem I'm working on at the moment, it's interesting to see how others approach their own challenges.

I just picked up Mitchell Beazley's 'Plans for Small Gardens' on the clearance shelf at Barnes & Noble. It has some very nice drawings in it. I may not use a thing in it, but it sure is fun to look.

Thanks folks for responding to my thread and also for the links. I will do the google search tomorrow. :)

There is a free downloadable trial program, Smart Draw 2007, that you can download to play with for 7 days. It contains a variety of templates for residential that you might find fun to play with.