Trace your plot from a map
The fastest way to a plot that is actually the right shape is to copy one that already exists. Bring in a screenshot of your garden seen from above, tell Seasonry how big it is, and trace over it. Your picture stays in the browser: it is never uploaded, and it is never saved into the garden.
1. Bring in your picture
On a brand-new garden, pick Trace it from a map from the three starting cards. Then get a picture: open Google Maps, find your home, switch to satellite view and zoom in until your plot fills the screen. Take a screenshot, leaving the little scale bar in the corner in frame, because that is what sets the real size.
Drop the picture onto the sheet, paste it straight from the clipboard with ⌘V / Ctrl+V, or use Choose a file. PNG, JPG and WebP all work, up to 25 MB. Have a PDF? Screenshot the page instead.
A map is not the only source A land-registry plot map, an e-közmű utility export or an architect’s site plan all work just as well. Anything drawn from above with one known length on it will do.
2. Tell it how big the picture is
One known distance scales the whole picture, and there are three ways to give one. Scale bar is the usual route: Seasonry finds the map’s own printed scale bar for you and puts the two ruler points on its ends, so you only check them and type the number printed beside it. Known distance works when there is no bar, by dragging the ruler across something you already know, like a house wall or a fence run. Coordinates takes two lat, lng pairs copied from Google Maps, and also sets north and your sun-path location while it is there.
Watch the resulting scale read-out underneath: it tells you how many centimetres one pixel is worth, and roughly how many metres across the photo runs. If that number looks wrong, it is wrong, and it is far cheaper to fix here than later.
Zoom in before you place a point At the whole-picture view a scale bar is only a few pixels tall, so a point dropped there can be several metres out. Pinch or press + to zoom the preview right in, then place both ends. The markers are open crosshairs so you can see the pixel underneath.
3. Trace over the photo
The sheet closes and your picture is now on the canvas, faded under the plan, with the pen already in your hand. Click each corner of your plot and close the outline on the first point, exactly as you would when drawing freehand.
The floating Map card top-left is the picture’s controls. Slide Opacity until you can see both the photo and your own line comfortably.
Why corners stop snapping Grid snap pauses while the map is up, on purpose, so a corner can land exactly where the photo says rather than on the nearest half-metre. Shift axis-lock and ruler-mark snapping both still work.
4. Put the map away
The moment your outline closes, the card changes face. Its title becomes Plot traced, the photo steps back once and puts on a dashed frame, and a full-width Put the map away bar appears at the foot of the card. That is the flow telling you the picture has done its job.
Press it. The photo clears, grid snap comes back, and you are left with your plot to plant on. Nothing finishes on your behalf, because closing a shape is not permission to throw away a picture you spent minutes importing and calibrating.
Putting it away is final There is no way to bring that photo back, only to start a new trace. If the scale still looks off, fix it before you finish (the next step shows how).
5. Fix the scale, or swap the picture
Traced the shape but the size came out wrong? Press Adjust the scale on the Map card. Calibration reopens with your picture and both handles exactly as you left them, so nothing is redone. Re-scale, and the plot and every bed inside it move together as one undo step, staying on the same photo pixels.
If the picture itself was the problem, go back a step from there and swap it. That is a fresh start for the tracing, though the area keeps its name and colour.
Correct the scale before you plant The Adjust-the-scale pill disappears once the garden holds anything besides the traced plot, because re-scaling then would drag your plants out from under the plan.