"Pam - gardengal" wrote in message
news:IjAXc.67980$Fg5.29804@attbi_s53...

Does such software actually provide planning advice, or does it just
give
graphical assistance in placing symbols on the screen?

Planting advice? perhaps, and some better than others. Designing advice,
most likely none worth mentioning. From the viewpoint of a professional
landscape designer, the variables involved in real life design situations
are so extensive as to be virtually impossible to reproduce in any detail
or
thoroughness through a software program.

This is sort of what my intuition tells me, too.