Container Garden Planner
Estimate how many plants fit in a round or rectangular container based on each plant's recommended spacing — pick from 25 common herbs, greens, vegetables and fruits.
Input
Output
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Guides
What does this tool calculate?
Enter your pot or planter's dimensions and pick a plant, and this tool estimates the container's usable surface area, the plant's recommended spacing, and roughly how many plants you can fit. It works for both round pots (diameter) and rectangular planters or raised beds (length x width).
How container spacing works
Every plant needs a minimum amount of room around it for roots, foliage and airflow — crowding plants closer than their recommended spacing stunts growth and increases disease risk. This tool treats each plant's footprint as a circle with a diameter equal to its recommended spacing, then works out how many of those circles (for round pots) or a spacing-based grid (for rectangular planters) fit inside your container's usable area, with a small packing allowance so the estimate isn't overly conservative.
The 25 plants in the picker — common herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary...), leafy greens (lettuce, kale, spinach...) and container-friendly vegetables and fruits (cherry tomatoes, peppers, strawberries...) — use spacing figures drawn from typical container-gardening guidance. Tight-spacing crops like radishes and green onions (as little as 5-8 cm apart) pack in far more densely than sprawling plants like rosemary or cherry tomatoes, which need 60 cm or more.
How to use it
- Choose Round or Rectangular to match your container's shape.
- Enter the dimensions in centimeters — diameter for round pots, or length and width for rectangular ones.
- Pick a plant from the list.
- Read the results: container area, that plant's recommended spacing, and the estimated number of plants that will comfortably fit.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the plant count seem lower than I expected? The spacing figures are a "give each plant enough room to thrive" recommendation, not a minimum survival distance. You can often pack plants tighter, but expect smaller yields and more competition for water and nutrients.
Does this account for soil depth or root depth? No — this tool focuses purely on surface spacing and container footprint. Shallow-rooted herbs and deep-rooted vegetables (like tomatoes) both need adequate pot depth in addition to the horizontal spacing shown here; check a growing guide for your specific plant's minimum depth.
Can I mix multiple plant types in one container? This calculator estimates capacity for a single plant type at a time. For mixed plantings, run the calculation once per plant and divide up the container's area proportionally, leaving room for each plant's mature spread.
What if my container is an unusual shape? Approximate it as the closest round or rectangular equivalent — use the diameter of the widest circle that fits inside an irregular pot, or the length and width of a bounding rectangle.
Privacy
All calculations run locally in your browser. No container dimensions or plant selections are sent anywhere.