Cheap Instant Landscaping (4 CD-ROM) (Software) (Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows 98) Price

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