Using on Mobile

The big picture

On a phone or a small tablet, the Garden Sketchbook editor reshapes itself into three full-screen tabs. The core design experience is the same — you're still placing plants, drawing shapes, and stepping through seasons — but the panels are stacked one at a time instead of shown side-by-side.

Most things work the way they do on desktop. The main differences:

• The layout is tab-based rather than split-pane.
• Touch gestures replace mouse-and-keyboard interactions.
• Build mode (adding buildings and structures) is desktop-only.
• Large gardens may be slow to render and edit on mobile.

The three tabs

Plants

Your plant library — search, filter, and browse. Tap a plant's card to open its info modal, or tap the plus button to add it to the garden; this will switch to the 2D Plan tab automatically.

2D Plan

The main design canvas — where you arrange plants, draw beds and paths, and lay out the space. Switch between Edit Plants, Draw Shapes, and 2D Background modes using the buttons in the header.

3D View

See your garden in 3D in different seasons. On mobile, the 3D scene only renders while this tab is active — it stops between tab switches to save your battery. That means the first switch back to 3D takes a second or two to warm up, which is normal.

Touch gestures

On the 2D canvas

• Tap a plant or shape to select it
• Drag a selected plant to move it
• Drag on empty canvas to draw a selection box around multiple plants
• Pinch to zoom in and out
• Two-finger drag to pan the canvas
• Double-tap a plant to open its info modal

On the 3D view

• Single-finger drag to orbit around the garden (this is the default)
• Two-finger drag to pan the camera
• Pinch to zoom
• To pan with a single finger instead of orbiting, tap the Pan button in the 3D toolbar
• Reset view button snaps the camera back if you lose your bearings

Adding plants

The two mobile-friendly ways are:

• Tap the plus button on a plant's card in the Plants tab.
• Open the info modal (tap the card body) and tap Place in garden.

Both switch you to the 2D Plan tab and drop you into add mode — tap the canvas to place one instance, keep tapping to place more. Tap another tool or use the on-screen cancel to leave add mode.

Drag-and-drop from the sidebar is a desktop-only pattern; on mobile the two methods above are more reliable.

Editing without a keyboard

Every keyboard shortcut has an on-screen equivalent. In the 2D Plan tab, the toolbar exposes buttons for undo, redo, copy, paste, delete, group, and ungroup — whichever apply to your current selection light up.

The keyboard shortcuts page is still worth a glance if you occasionally connect a Bluetooth keyboard to your tablet — the shortcuts all work.

Build mode: desktop only, for now

Drawing building footprints and adjusting roof geometry needs more screen space and precision than a phone comfortably offers. Tapping Build on mobile opens a short "Buildings are a desktop feature" note with a Share to desktop option:

• Tap Share to copy a link to your current garden.
• Send that link to yourself (email, text, whatever), then open it on a computer to continue in Build mode there.

When you save changes on the desktop, everything syncs back to your account and shows up next time you open the garden on mobile.

Printing on mobile

The Create Printable Plan button (printer icon in the editor header) works on mobile. Tapping the printer icon opens the same dialog you'd see on desktop, and the printable plan opens in a new browser tab.

From there your phone's browser handles printing and saving to PDF — usually via a Share menu with a "Save as PDF" or "Print" option. Every browser is slightly different; iOS Safari's share sheet and Chrome for Android's overflow menu are both good places to look.

See Printing & Exporting for the dialog options.

Add to home screen

There's no native Garden Sketchbook app on iOS or Android — the whole thing runs in the browser. If you'd like an app-like icon on your home screen, use your browser's Add to Home Screen option (in Safari's share menu, in Chrome's overflow menu). It doesn't add offline support, but it makes Garden Sketchbook feel like a real app to launch.

Working across devices

If you're signed in, all of your gardens are available on any device you sign into. Start a design on the couch, refine it at a desk, and print it from wherever.

For anonymous demo gardens, the story is different — demos live in a single browser session and don't automatically appear on other devices. If you want to move a demo, use the Share button in the editor header (or the desktop handoff link from Build mode) to copy a resume link you can open elsewhere.

Where to go next

• Quick Start Guide — same steps whether you're on desktop or mobile
• 2D Design Tools — deeper coverage of the four design modes
• 3D Visualization — camera controls and performance notes for the 3D scene