Augmented reality landscape design app that lets you drag plants and elements onto a live camera view of your yard.
Real redesign: Minimalist backyard. Drag to compare.
Price
$19
per month, 250 designs
Turnaround
Under 2 minutes
Unlimited re-rolls on every plan
Best at
Unlimited iterations on your own photo, before you spend a peso on plants
iScape, as it looks today.
Price
$30
per month on Pro, free tier available
Turnaround
Real time, built by hand
Per design round
Best at
Standing in the yard and seeing a plant at true scale where it would actually go
The short answer
iScape and AI Garden Design solve different problems. iScape gives you AR placement so you can see actual plant sizes in your real yard. AI Garden Design gives you photoreal full-garden reimagining in any of fifteen styles without manual placement. For most homeowners, the fastest path is to use AI Garden Design to lock the style, then iScape to verify plant sizes in the real space.
iScape is the most established AR landscape design app on iOS. You point your phone at your yard and place plants, hardscape, and structures on top of the live camera feed. The output is more like a design mock-up than a photorealistic render, but the AR placement is genuinely useful for getting plant sizes right against the real space.
Open the app, take a photo of your yard or use the live AR camera, and drag plants and elements from a library onto the scene. The free version covers basics; the Pro subscription adds a larger plant library, higher-resolution exports, and project saving.
Every row is a real difference, not a checkbox. Where iScape is genuinely stronger, the table says so.
| Feature | AI Garden Design | iScape |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Photorealistic full-garden AI redesign | Manual AR placement of plants and elements |
| Pricing | $19/month yearly ($228/yr) for 250 designs on Personal, $69/month yearly ($828/yr) for 1,000 designs and commercial license on Pro | Free tier + ~$30/mo or ~$300/yr Pro |
| Speed per design | Under two minutes, fully composed | Minutes to hours, depending on how much you place manually |
| Style exploration | Fifteen distinct styles in one click | Manual, you build the look yourself |
| Realism | Photorealistic, share-ready | Composited; reads as mock-up, not photo |
| AR / real-space accuracy | Not AR, works from a photo | Yes, true scale via phone camera |
| Plant catalogue | Style-based plant suggestions with growing guides | Large plant library with drag-and-drop |
The reality check
AR and photo redesign get lumped together as the same category and they are not remotely the same experience. One puts an object in front of you at true size. The other reimagines the whole scene. Knowing which problem you have saves you the wrong app.
AR earns its keep at the moment of a specific decision. You are standing at the nursery, or in your own yard, wondering whether that olive tree is going to look absurd next to the shed. Point the phone, drop it in, walk around it. Nothing else answers that as well, and no AI render answers it at all, because the render will happily draw a tree at whatever size makes the picture look nice.
Where it stops being enough is scope. iScape builds designs the way a person builds them: one element at a time, dragged in and positioned by you. A full backyard is dozens of those placements, and the result looks like objects sitting on your lawn, because that is what it is. The plants do not cast the right shadows, the paving does not sit into the ground, the whole thing reads as a mockup rather than a photograph.
There is also the matter of ideas. AR shows you your idea. It does not have any. If you do not already know that your space wants a Mediterranean treatment with gravel and olive and a low stone wall, AR will not suggest it, because it is a placement tool with a plant library, not a design engine.
True scale, on site
Seeing an actual mature tree size against your actual house is something no render gives you honestly.
One decision at a time
Perfect for the narrow question: does this specific plant belong in this specific corner.
The plant library is real
Species with real growth habits, not an AI approximating what a shrub looks like.
Whole-yard scope
Placing forty elements by hand to design a full backyard is an afternoon, and it still looks composited.
No opinion of its own
It renders your plan. It will not propose a style you had not thought of, which is what most people are actually stuck on.
Only what you point at
AR needs you standing in the space with the phone up. A photo works from the sofa, or from a listing of a house you have not bought yet.
The honest workflow uses both: settle the look with photo redesigns until one direction clicks, then use AR on site to check that the specific tree you fell in love with is the size you think it is.
Not renders of someone else's garden. Drag the handle to see the original photo turn into the redesign.
Upload a photo and get a photorealistic redesign in under two minutes. Try as many styles as you like before deciding whether iScape is worth it.
Redesign my gardeniScape has a free tier with a basic plant library and limited exports. The Pro subscription unlocks the full library, higher-resolution exports, and project saving. AI Garden Design is a flat monthly subscription starting at $19/mo.
iScape produces composited mock-ups, plants and elements layered onto a photo or AR feed. It is not a photorealistic generator. For photoreal output, an AI tool like AI Garden Design is the right fit.
Yes, and it works well. Use AI Garden Design to discover the style and overall composition, then use iScape to verify plant sizes against your actual space using the AR feature. Each tool is the best at one thing.
AI Garden Design vs Yardzen
Online landscape design service with human designers, full plans, plant lists, and contractor matchmaking.
AI Garden Design vs Tilly Design
The online landscape design service acquired by Bower & Branch in 2024, now sold as Design Studio with the plants for sale alongside the plan.
AI Garden Design vs a Local Landscape Designer
Hiring a local landscape designer for a site visit, custom plan, and ongoing project oversight.
AI Garden Design vs HomeDesignsAI
AI design tool covering both interior and exterior, with a broader product surface and similar AI redesign workflow.
AI Garden Design vs SketchUp
Free 3D modelling tool widely used by hobbyists and pros for landscape and garden design.
If you want the full list of options rather than a head-to-head, the alternatives page covers every tool and service in this category.
All alternatives to iScape →