Block landing · ground cover cad block
Free ground cover and bushes CAD blocks for AutoCAD
By Saumyajit Maity · Published 16 Nov 2022 · Updated 17 Dec 2025
Ground cover and low bushes are the layer that ties a planting scheme together — the carpet beneath the trees and shrubs that knits beds into continuous, weed-suppressing cover. On a drawing they read as massed, flowing zones rather than individual specimens, and that is exactly what these blocks are built for. This page collects free ground cover and bushes CAD blocks in DWG and DXF, drawn in plan and elevation at true millimetre size for AutoCAD 2004 or later. They are free for personal and commercial work, with no signup, no watermark and no attribution.
Use them to fill the gaps between larger plants, edge a path or lawn, mass a low bank, suppress weeds beneath a tree canopy, and give a planting plan its base layer of texture. Because the blocks are scaled to the spread of low, spreading plants, you can set tight centres for fast, solid cover and read the coverage of a whole bed at a glance.
The bottom layer of a planting scheme
Ground cover and low bushes occupy the layer below the shrubs: low, spreading or mounding plants whose job is to cover soil completely. Where a shrub block is a discrete mid-height plant, ground-cover and bush blocks are about continuous mass — drifts that flow into one another and read as a single carpet rather than as countable specimens.
That distinction shapes how you use them. You are drawing coverage, not individual plants, so the symbols are designed to knit together cleanly when massed, and the spacing you choose is tight enough that the cover closes up rather than leaving bare soil between plants.
Plan and elevation for the low layer
In plan, ground cover and bushes are massed into flowing zones at the base of beds, between shrubs and trees, and along edges. The plan symbols are what you array densely to fill an area, and they often sit beneath a hatch that represents the continuous low planting.
In elevation, a low bush reads as a small rounded mound at the foot of a planting scheme or a building, useful in street sections and presentation views to show the bed stepping down from trees to shrubs to ground cover. Many downloads include both views, on layers tidy enough that you can simplify the symbol for small-scale plans or recolour the mass to match a planting key.
Spread and spacing for solid cover
Ground cover and low bushes are valued for fast, complete cover, so spacing runs tight. As design ranges: spreading ground cover (vinca, pachysandra, low junipers) at roughly 250–450 mm centres; mounding low bushes (dwarf hebes, lavender, low spirea) at about 400–600 mm; larger spreading bushes at 600–900 mm. Heights stay low — typically 150–600 mm — which is what keeps this layer reading as a carpet beneath the taller planting.
These are design ranges to draw against, not rules. The principle is consistent: space close enough that neighbouring plants touch and knit within a season or two, because the whole point of ground cover is to close the surface and keep weeds out. The scaled block makes that easy to judge — array at the chosen centre and you can see whether the cover closes.
Inserting and massing ground cover
The blocks are full size in millimetres. Insert at scale 1 in a millimetre drawing, or set INSUNITS to millimetres so AutoCAD rescales on insertion. Run INSERT, snap to the plant centre, and place the first plant. Because ground cover is about mass, ARRAY is the main tool: a rectangular array on a triangular offset gives the densest, most natural knitting cover, while a path array runs a band of low bushes along an edge.
For a more organic look, vary scale and rotation between instances and let the edge of a drift wander rather than following a hard line. Many drafters also hatch the ground-cover zone as a continuous fill beneath a scattering of symbols — the hatch reads as the solid carpet, the symbols give it texture and identify the plant. That combination keeps a busy low layer legible at most drawing scales.
Where ground cover and bush blocks are used
These blocks appear wherever a scheme needs a finished, covered ground plane: residential garden beds, public-realm and park planting, highway and infrastructure verges, commercial and office landscaping, green roofs, and the weed-suppressing base layer beneath tree and shrub planting everywhere. Landscape architects use them to complete planting plans and to specify low-maintenance mass planting; architects use them to finish the ground plane on site plans; students use them to give beds a believable base layer.
Pair them with the trees-and-plants category for the shrubs and trees above, and with the wider planting blocks to build a complete, layered scheme from one consistent, free library.
Layers, counts and reuse
Keep ground cover and low bushes on the planting layer (often with the rest of the softscape, or on a sub-layer of their own) so the low layer can be controlled with the rest of the planting and frozen for a clean structural plan. Because this layer is massed rather than placed, a tidy layer and hatch convention is what keeps it from overwhelming the drawing.
Each plant is still a block reference, so COUNT and QSELECT give you a plant tally for a schedule even in massed planting — important, because ground cover is often ordered in large quantities and small spacing changes move the count a lot. Attribute the blocks with a species code to extract the schedule from the drawing. When a massed drift reads well, WBLOCK it as a reusable group so the same ground-cover treatment carries cleanly into the next bed or the next scheme.
Free download
Browse the full library — DWG & DXF, no signup.
Questions
Frequently asked
What's the difference between ground cover, bushes and shrubs?+
Ground cover and low bushes are the bottom layer — low, spreading plants massed for continuous cover, typically 150–600 mm high. Shrubs are the taller mid layer of discrete woody plants. The two layer together, with ground cover knitting beneath the shrubs.
How close should I space ground cover for solid cover?+
Tight: roughly 250–450 mm for spreading ground cover, 400–600 mm for mounding low bushes, and 600–900 mm for larger spreading bushes. Close spacing lets neighbouring plants knit and close the surface, which is the whole point of ground cover.
How do I keep massed ground cover legible on a plan?+
Combine a continuous hatch for the solid carpet with a scattering of the plant symbols for texture and identification, and keep it all on the planting layer. The hatch reads the mass, the symbols give it character, and it stays legible at most scales.
Are the ground cover and bush CAD blocks free for commercial use?+
Yes. Every block downloads free in DWG and DXF with no signup, no watermark and no attribution requirement, and they are cleared for commercial project use.
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