Good morning Ryan, and welcome! I've sorely neglected this forum while my kids are home from school for the summer, and I need to start writing again. Thanks for the much needed nudge.
The software question is probably one of the most popular questions that comes up in landscape forums, because the demand for good software is high, but the available products have not generally met the mark so far. There are many people on this software quest with you. I don't know if you're a designer looking to automate the process, or a hobbyist looking for design assistance, so I'll try to answer the best I can.
I draft all my drawings by hand, using pencil on gridded FADE-OUT vellum. With FADE-OUT, you can have a blueprint shop print the finished drawings for you and the blue grid will "disappear" from the page. A pro design shop will generally use some type of CAD/ AutoCAD software, but it's way out of the budget for occasional hobby users. I spent quite a bit of time a few years back trying to find affordable software to produce drawings cleaner and faster, but each program had drawbacks.
For instance, many programs have difficulty drawing organic shapes and curves. You'll spend a lot of time fighting to get your design represented properly on the screen, and the temptation will be to change your design* to fit the software's capabilities. Another struggle is the very limited, often inaccurate plant libraries. If you're looking to put in a camellia and the only broadleaf evergreen shrub in the library is a holly, you're going to get frustrated in a hurry. Try putting in a 6 ft. 'Feelin' Blue' deodar cedar and finding out the library only has the straight species with an eventual height around 150ft. Grrr! The libraries have improved a lot, but they still aren't good enough.
*Notice I said your design here. Software won't design for you. You still need to do all the thinking and planning required for good design and then find a way to work it into the capabilities of the software . The software simply gives you a crisp, smudge-free, highly reproducible drawing at the end, which is really nice to have, hence the ongoing search for a good software program.
