Instant Landscaping (4 CD-ROM)

The first disc, Instant Landscape, is for the person whose approach to gardening is architectural. It's also more likely to be enjoyed by folks who can point and click fearlessly once in a program, since guidance is minimal. The selling point here is that users can import an image of their own home, and then add shrubs, salvia, or rhododendrons without lifting a shovel. Getting photos into the program is easy if you have an existing digital image of your home. Then a visit to the landscaping section provides plants, garden accessories, fences, and other elements to try. Expect to take some time getting the virtual "landscaping" down. Our first experiments with this program resulted in colossal perennials that dwarfed our home, and porch panels painted a color not found in nature.

3-D Garden Designer 3.0 is from Burpee, the seed company. This fairly comprehensive program is for the plant lover. Navigation here is intuitive: the first screen includes a Primer that explains gardening basics, an Encyclopedia, a Styles section, a Planner, and a Water Gardens chapter. Each section breaks down further into myriad subcategories that explain everything from composting to how hardiness zones are calculated. This program contains the largest illustrated plant reference library in the bundle, with a speedy search function that works with both common and scientific plant names. The garden planner is a fun feature that allows you to select plants from the reference library, "plant" them on a grid, then see a 3-D version of your garden in spring, summer, winter, and fall. Fair warning: onscreen growing conditions are better than actual ones. When we "planted" a garden that already exists, the virtual plants were bigger--and much less scraggly--than the actual ones they were modeling.

Colorful Water-Wise Gardening is a booklike program with no bells and whistles, but plenty of useful information that will appeal to organic gardeners. The program is broken into nine chapters that range from Flowers by Color to Biological Pest Control. The format of this program requires users to hassle with screen arrows to read the entire screen, which is a shame. Use the index as a table of contents, and learn how to repel ants with talcum powder and grow a garden that blooms even in the winter. The Gardener's Journal is just that: a template for a diligent digger's diary. It automatically keeps track of moon phases, but keeping a log of the high and low temperatures, weather, and what went into the ground when is up to you. There are also templates for audio and visual diaries if you have the accessories in place to record sound and/or video.

Planners will enjoy this bundle of programs, and spend hours researching before they dare put a seedling in the earth. Earthy folk who garden because they crave dirt on their hands and bugs in their hair may find this highly organized approach too tidy. Every gardener who uses this set will probably discover something they didn't know, which may or may not make up for time spent on the computer versus time spent in the actual garden pulling real weeds. --Anne Erickson

Amazon.com Product Description
This four CD-ROM set includes 3D Garden Designer, Instant Landscape,Colorful Water-Wise Gardening, and Gardener's Journal Software. These four titles make landscape design and gardening fun,easy, and precise. They allow you to scan in a photo of your own home andyard to design from instead of tediously re-creating your existing layout.You can also opt to choose from 50 garden designs. The four CD-ROMs containinformation on how to landscape and design, as well as information ongardening, horticulture, pests, and how to preserve your landscape.

• 3D Garden Designer 3.0 helps you plan the best garden for your home andyour region. You can choose from 50 garden designs, including water andtheme gardens. Test out the designs and plant combinations before diggingup your yard, and see how your garden will change throughout each season. Acomplete reference guide is available, which allows you to type in your ZIPcode to find out which plants will thrive in your area. A visualencyclopedia of 1,700 plants and flowers is also included with detaileddescriptions and instructions.
• Instant Landscape lets you visualize changes to your yard before spendingany money. Start with an existing photograph of your home and explore thevarious functions and possibilities with a click of the mouse: see howadding that porch will look, or how your garden will appear with a hedge.
• Colorful Water-Wise Gardening is a guide to how to create year-round,colorful gardens using plants and flowers that do not require high wateruse to maintain. There is a month-by-month flowering calendar of shrubs,bulbs, perennials, and climbers, grouped by color with heightspecifications. The biological pest control section contains fulldescriptions and color photographs of insects and pests to watch for, andthe safe pesticides and fungicides category delves into organicallyacceptable sprays. You will learn how to control pests, fight common plantdiseases, and how to make homemade pesticides. The plant disorders section teaches common plant disorders and how to treat them. The Handy Hints sectioncovers all areas of organic gardening procedures: composting, mulching,effective watering methods, and other practical gardening tips.
• Gardener's Journal Software lets you keep track of your records andactivities and build a history with your garden so you can discover thechanges that occur, and compare weather conditions each year for betterplanning. Gardener's Journal provides you with a day-by-day diary andrecord keeper for all of your gardening activities, including weatherconditions, planting cycles, etc. The journal also keeps an accuratehistorical record. Compare individual dates of past years and seasons for weather conditions and temperature changes, and track the activities you performed on that day. As an added feature, this program allows you to keep track of your records in a variety of ways: through text, videos, sound, or visuals.