Linux at Home: Plan your Ideal Garden with Linux

Last Updated on November 13, 2022

We are told by our governments that in the current crisis the single most important action we can take is to stay at home. The repeated message is that everyone should minimise time spent outside the home. By following this directive, this will flatten the spread of the coronavirus, thereby protecting our health service, and saving lives.

Social distancing is unlikely to be significantly relaxed in the coming months, and there’s a realistic prospect of many measures still being in place next year. Given this forecast, it’s important to recognize the need to protect our physical mental and emotional health. Being mentally or emotionally healthy is much more than being free of depression, anxiety, or other psychological issues.

How can Linux help? In this series, we look at a range of home activities where Linux can play its part, making the most of our time at home, keeping active and engaged, safeguarding our physical, mental and emotional health. We need activities that give a zest for living and the sense of contentment. The change of lifestyle enforced by Covid-19 is also an opportunity to expand our horizons, and spend more time on activities we have neglected in the past.

For this week, let’s look at software that helps plan and create a new garden. Gardening offers so many benefits. You’re burning calories and strengthening your heart. It reduces stress, helps make you feel happier, and you’ll sleep better. The happiness and stress relief that gardening provides is a great thing to share with your household.

You might not associate Linux with gardening. There’s little coverage of Linux software designed to plan the perfect garden. But we’ve unearthed a few gems. Let’s start with Sweet Home 3D.

Sweet Home 3D

Sweet Home 3D is an open source interior design application that helps you place your furniture on a house 2D plan, with a 3D preview. But you’d be wrong to think that the software is for interior planning only.

The software is actually really useful for planning a garden. There are lots of libraries with models of plants, garden furniture, fences, even clothes lines and you can create your own libraries. It’s easy to design ponds, slopes at different heights, as well as defining areas with grass, sand, flowerbeds, and much more.

With functionality like annotation, symbols, dimensions, and 3D rendering, it’s really good for designing and planning the perfect garden.

Read more about SweetHome3D

QCAD

QCAD is complex CAD software. So you might be surprised to see it featured in a gardening article. But QCAD is pretty flexible, and it’s surprisingly practical for planning a garden.

Things like QCAD’s NURBS for drawing curvy lines and the hatch functionality for filling areas are particularly useful.

Read more about QCAD

OpenJardin

OpenJardin is an obvious candidate for inclusion. Out of the 3 applications, it’s the only program specifically targeted at gardening.

This software is written by a French developer. While a lot of the interface has been translated into English, some elements are still in French. You’re therefore at an advantage if you are fluent in French and English, particularly as the project’s manual is strictly a French only affair.

But OpenJardin is still a useful tool for any budding gardener who only speaks English. Just make sure you’ve got Google Translate on hand.

Read more about OpenJardin

All articles in this series: