Backyard Layout
120 m²
A backyard plan with patio, lawn, planting beds and an outdoor seating area.
Use TemplateDesign your garden to scale (planting beds, paths, trees, seating and patios) and connect it to your home.
to scale
A planting bed only works if you can reach the middle of it without standing on the soil. Comfortable reach for most adults is 24 in to 30 in (60 cm to 75 cm). That makes a bed with access on both sides about 4 ft (120 cm) wide, and a bed against a fence or wall no more than 30 in deep. Beds get built at 5 ft or 6 ft all the time because that is what the boards came in, and the middle row then gets trodden on every season. Draw the beds to scale first and the width settles itself.
Everything heavy in a garden moves on a wheelbarrow: compost in, prunings out, a bag of gravel, a tray of plants. A standard barrow is about 24 in (60 cm) across the handles, so the working path needs 30 in (75 cm) clear and 36 in (90 cm) if it has a corner in it. Narrow paths between beds can drop to 18 in (45 cm), but only where you never need to bring wheels through. Draw the paths as real widths in SpacePlanner rather than leaving them as whatever is left over after the beds are placed.
Before any bed is placed, three things pin the plan down. The sun path decides which end of the plot grows vegetables and which end takes shade planting. The tap decides how far you are willing to carry water, and 50 ft (15 m) of hose is the practical limit before watering stops happening. The compost heap wants to be close enough to use daily but out of the main view. Mark all three on the plan, then place the beds around them. SpacePlanner keeps the house and the garden on the same canvas, so you can see the shadow the building throws across the plot.
Draw the piece of ground you will actually grow on, not the whole plot, and put the house wall that shades it on the same canvas. Note which way the beds face while you do it, because aspect decides which end of the plot is worth giving to vegetables.
Put in the back door, the outside tap, existing trees, the shed and anything else that is not moving. These decide where paths have to run and which corner is worth planting. Everything else in the garden is arranged around them.
Draw the working route from the door to the far end of the plot at its real width, 30 in or wider. Gardens designed bed first end up with paths made of leftovers. Path first, and the beds land in sensible sizes on their own.
Drop the beds in at true size and read the widths off the plan. Anything wider than 4 ft with access on both sides, or 30 in against a fence, gets trimmed now while it costs nothing. Then switch to 3D to see how the beds sit against the house.
A garden plan fails in the same two places every time: a bed too wide to reach across, and a path too narrow for a loaded wheelbarrow. Both are fixed on paper in a minute and cost a season to fix on the ground. These are the figures worth drawing into the plan before any timber is cut or any turf is lifted.
| Measure | Imperial | Metric | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bed width, access from both sides | 4 ft | 120 cm | Puts the centre within a 24 in reach from either edge. |
| Bed depth, access from one side only | 24 to 30 in | 60 to 75 cm | For beds against a fence, wall or hedge. |
| Raised bed height for vegetables | 10 to 12 in | 25 to 30 cm | Enough root room for most annual crops. |
| Raised bed height for standing work | 30 to 36 in | 75 to 90 cm | Waist height, so no kneeling is needed. |
| Usable topsoil depth in a planting bed | 12 in | 30 cm | Shrubs and deeper roots want 18 in (45 cm). |
| Main path, wheelbarrow access | 30 to 36 in | 75 to 90 cm | A standard barrow is about 24 in across the handles. |
| Path between two beds, on foot | 18 to 24 in | 45 to 60 cm | Enough to stand and work, not to wheel through. |
| Gap behind a bed to a boundary fence | 18 in | 45 cm | So panels and posts can still be reached and replaced. |
| Compost bin, minimum working size | 3 x 3 x 3 ft | 90 x 90 x 90 cm | Below this the heap loses heat and rots slowly. |
| Dwarf fruit tree spacing | 8 to 10 ft | 2.4 to 3 m | Semi-dwarf needs 12 to 15 ft (3.6 to 4.5 m). |
Plan gardens, patios, pools and outdoor kitchens on the same canvas as your interior rooms.
Click to place walls with live dimensions and smart snapping. Everything stays to scale.
A library of standardized furniture and fixtures at real-world sizes: beds, sofas, kitchens, baths and more.
Connect floors and outdoor levels with stairs to design split-level homes and sloped gardens.
Switch between cm, meters and feet/inches any time. Areas update automatically.
Plan your landscape online for free. Design garden zones, paths, planting and outdoor areas to scale in your browser.
Plan your backyard online for free. Lay out patio, lawn, beds and seating to scale in your browser. No signup needed.
Create a floor plan with a garden online for free. Plan indoor rooms and outdoor garden areas on one connected canvas.
Plan your patio online for free. Lay out paving, furniture and planters to scale in your browser. No signup needed.
A backyard plan with patio, lawn, planting beds and an outdoor seating area.
Use TemplateA house plan combined with an outdoor garden level, showing indoor and outdoor space together.
Use TemplateA patio design with paving, outdoor furniture, planters and a dining zone.
Use TemplateYes. The SpacePlanner online garden planner is completely free to use online. You can start drawing instantly without signing up.
No. It runs entirely in your browser on desktop, tablet or mobile. There is nothing to download or install.
No. You can draw a full plan without an account. We only ask you to sign up when you want to save, export or share your work.
Yes. You can plan gardens, patios, backyards, pools and outdoor kitchens alongside indoor rooms on the same canvas.
Draw it as it is. Measure each boundary run separately and type the lengths in, and SpacePlanner draws the real shape to scale with a dimension label on every side. Odd corners and tapering plots are normal. Once the true outline is on screen you can see which corners are big enough to be useful and which are only good for planting.
Yes. Indoor and outdoor sit on the same canvas, so the house footprint, the back door and the garden beds are all in one plan at one scale. That matters because the route from the kitchen door to the vegetable beds is what decides whether the beds actually get used.
Yes, and you can switch at any time. Bed sizes, path widths and the total plot area all convert together. Useful in a garden, where timber and paving are often sold in metric sizes even when you measured the plot in feet.
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