About
About The Woven Garden
The Woven Garden is a small, independent site with one job: helping you work out how much of something to buy before you start a garden project.
Hello, I'm Bertha
I run The Woven Garden. I am a home gardener. I am not a contractor, an engineer or a horticultural scientist, and nothing on this site pretends otherwise.
What I am is someone who got tired of the two things that go wrong on nearly every garden project. The first is running out: twelve bags of mulch into a bed that needed fifteen, or a patio base that comes up half an inch thin because nobody mentioned that gravel shrinks when it is compacted. The second is the opposite: the half pallet of leftover pavers behind the shed, bought "to be safe".
Both come from the same place. The measuring is easy and the arithmetic is easy, but the bit in between is full of traps. Inches multiplied by feet. Bags labeled by weight when you need volume. A "six inch" board that is five and a half inches wide. A tag that says "space 12 inches apart" without saying in what pattern. This site exists to deal with those traps once, properly, and show the working.
What is here
- 12 calculators for the jobs that come up most in a garden: mulch, soil, compost, plants, sod and seed, fertilizer, gravel, pavers, retaining walls, concrete, fences and decks.
- 18 guides on measuring, choosing depths and allowances, comparing bags with bulk, and planning the work.
- Reference tables for coverage, conversions and weights, a glossary, and a printable worksheet.
Everything is free to use. There is no account to create and nothing to download.
How the calculators are made
Each calculator is built around a formula that is printed on its page, in words, so that you can check any result with a pencil. The values it has to assume, such as how much a bag of concrete makes or what a cubic yard of crushed stone weighs, are listed in a table on the same page with the reason for each one.
Before a calculator goes live, its two worked examples are calculated by hand and then run through the calculator itself, and the two have to agree. The assumption tables were last reviewed on October 3, 2026 and are reviewed again every three months. The full process is on the methodology page.
The guides are written to explain one decision each. They do not pad a short answer into a long page, and they do not summarize what other sites say. Where a guide gives a number, it shows where the number comes from.
I use software, including AI writing and drawing tools, to help draft pages and prepare diagrams. Nothing is published until its numbers have been checked against the calculator code and its advice read through for sense. The editorial policy explains how that works and how mistakes get corrected.
What the site does not do
It estimates quantities. It does not design structures, and it does not replace a building code, a permit, a manufacturer's installation guide or an engineer. A calculator can tell you how many blocks are in a wall. It cannot tell you whether that wall is safe to build where you want it. Where a project needs professional advice, the page says so. Please take that seriously, and read the disclaimer.
How the site is funded
The Woven Garden is supported by advertising. Ads are served by Google AdSense and are labeled as advertisements. They are kept away from the calculator controls, and they do not appear on the contact page or the legal pages.
Advertisers have no say in what the site covers or recommends. The site does not accept payment for coverage, does not publish sponsored articles, and does not recommend particular brands or stores. If affiliate links are ever added, they will be marked, as the affiliate disclosure explains.
Independence
The site is not owned by or connected with any retailer, manufacturer or landscaping company.
The thewovengarden.com address was used some years ago by an unrelated garden design business in Los Angeles. This site has no connection with that business or the people who ran it. If you are looking for them, this is not their website.
Get in touch
If a calculator gives you an answer that looks wrong, I want to know. So do tell me if a guide is unclear, or if there is a calculation you wish existed. Write to contact@thewovengarden.com or use the contact form. Corrections are logged publicly, with the date.