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Vol. 14 — Spring 2025

Yard ideas that actually fit your zone, your budget, and the way you live.

Eight thousand, four hundred original landscape plans — each one graded by climate, cost, and care — from the editors of Verdant Studio.

A weekly idea book. Unsubscribe in one click. Read by 312,000+ homeowners.

A modern Pacific Northwest front yard at golden hour, layered grasses and a Corten steel edge.
From the Spring 2025 Idea Book — Pacific Northwest, Zone 8, $15K budget tier.

From the editors

An independent landscape publication, made by working designers.

Verdant Studio was founded in 2011 in Portland, Oregon, by two ASLA-certified landscape architects. Today, an editorial team of eleven full-time designers, horticulturists, and photographers publishes a curated library of 8,400+ landscape design ideas across forty-two style categories. Every idea is graded the same way: by USDA Hardiness Zone, by budget tier ($5K, $15K, $40K, or $75K+), and by the maintenance effort it asks of you. Nothing here is generic inspiration — every photo, plant list, and cost line is something our editors have personally walked through.

The library, filtered to your home

Three filters, applied to every idea.

No more scrolling past a picture that won't survive your winters or your wallet. Open any style and these three dials narrow the library in real time.

  1. 01

    USDA Hardiness Zone

    Tag every plant, every plan, and every "this will survive your winter" claim against Zones 3 through 10. Substitutes are listed for plants that won't.

  2. 02

    Budget Tier

    Filter to projects you can actually start this year: $5K refreshes, $15K makeovers, $40K transformations, or $75K+ whole-property redesigns. Costs are crowdsourced from 1,200+ verified contractor line items.

  3. 03

    Sun & Exposure

    Full sun, part shade, deep shade — set it once and the library shows only ideas that thrive in the light your yard actually gets.

A build sheet notebook open on a wooden workbench.

Build Sheets

From a pretty photo to a project you can actually build.

Every flagship idea ships with a downloadable Build Sheet: a materials list, a step-by-step construction order, and a line-item cost breakdown sourced from 1,200+ verified contractor estimates. Readers who report their final numbers back ship, on average, 23% under their original budget (self-reported).

See a sample Build Sheet

Plant identification cards laid out on linen.

Plant This, Not That

A species database that knows your zone.

The Verdant plant database covers 4,700+ species, each with a regional substitute for your USDA Zone, mature size, sun and water needs, and a candid note on what tends to go wrong. No Latin-name gatekeeping, no zone-stretching optimism — just plants that work where you live.

Open the plant database

By the numbers

A publication readers keep coming back to.

  • 8,400+ curated landscape ideas in the library
  • 312,000+ weekly newsletter subscribers
  • 1,200+ contractor-verified cost estimates
  • 23% average reader savings vs. original budget (self-reported)

Featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Garden Design Magazine, and Sunset. Named "Best Landscape Design Resource" by the HGTV Remodels annual awards, 2023.