Whether it’s a thumbnail-sized urban oasis or intended to get you through the zombie apocalypse (or something in between), keeping a home garden is a lot of fun—and a lot of work. It’s worth it, of course—aside from the natural beauty and the fresh veggies you can get from a personal garden, there are a host of physical, emotional, and mental health benefits associated with gardening. That assumes your garden is a success, of course.
If you have a brown thumb and your gardening efforts always turn into a floral graveyard, you might not be experiencing those benefits. If that describes you, the missing ingredient to your gardening triumph might be technology: There are a lot of apps and AI tools out there that can help you with everything from planning to maintaining your garden. If you’re struggling to keep things green, check out these apps and AI-powered tools you can use in your own home garden.
Planning tools
If you’ve never seriously gardened before, or just need some assistance planning it all out in terms of space, species, and layout, there are several tools that can make this process simpler for you:
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VegPlotter is a simple, straightforward app ideal for folks who find complex, feature-packed tools to be difficult to use. You create a simple layout of your garden, select what you’re growing there, and the app tracks a calendar of growth and harvest times for you. It will even warn you if you don’t have enough space for your chosen plants. Cost: Free for up to 40 plantings; $22 or $35 per year for more options.
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Planter is an alternative garden planner that’s easy to use—you just drag cute little pictures of plants onto a grid representing your garden. Planter automatically decides how many “squares” of your grid each plant needs, which makes it easier to lay everything out. Cost: Free, $24.99 per year, or $99 for a lifetime plan.
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Garden Planner is a good choice if you need to plan out more than just plants, as it allows you to include pathways, fencing, and other landscaping features in your garden plan. It’s not as user-friendly as VegPlotter or Planter, but it’s relatively straightforward. Cost: $48 after a 15-day free trial.
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Smart Gardener is a great tool if you want to feed yourself and your family from your own vegetable garden, as it will quiz you on how many people are in the household, what zones you live in, and other basic info to help you plan what to grow and when you’ll be able to harvest it. Cost: $15 for 90 days; $40 for a year.
Reference
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Seed to Spoon offers a lot of tools for planning and caring for a garden, including a robust companion plant reference that makes it stand out. The app shows you which plants will thrive together, making it simple to fill up your garden with a harmonious selection. Cost: Free version includes 10 free plants, $4.99 for 1 month, $24.99 for 6 months, and $46.99 for a year.
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PictureThis is a simple, but powerful, plant ID tool. With just a quick photo of any plant, you’ll find out what you’re looking at, an assessment of its relative health, and information about its care. This is a necessity if you’re taking over an existing garden, if you’re “ungardening,” or if you wake up to discover invader plants insinuating themselves into your planned space. Cost: Free.
Journaling
A garden is a living thing, and all living things change over time. Keeping a garden journal is a crucial aspect of gardening, as it lets you track what you’ve grown, what yields were like, and what works and what doesn’t in your specific little spot. While you can certainly keep track of all this using a variety of tools (some of the other apps listed here include this feature, and there’s always old-fashioned pen and paper), Gardenize is a simple garden journal tool that makes it easy to input information about your garden. It automatically timestamps everything and makes it easy to see the impact of your choices over time. Cost: $8.99 for one month, $3.74 per month for 12 months, or $6.66 per month for three months.
All-in-one
Sometimes you don’t want a bunch of apps that do specific things—you want a single app that does everything:
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Seedtime is a comprehensive gardening app that many gardeners swear by. It includes just about everything you need, from a harvest and planting calendar generated from a list of what you want to grow to planning, layout, and journaling tools. It even tracks your inventory of seeds, fertilizer, and other supplies and lets you know when they expire or need replenishing. Cost: Free for the limited version, $7 per month for a basic subscription, or $9 for an unlimited subscription.
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Growbot AI is a general AI tool—it’s basically ChatGPT but specifically for gardening. You can ask it anything you need to know and get an answer back in natural language, including specific numbers and timelines, if applicable. It’s only available on iOS, however, so if you’re an Android user, you might be stuck using a more generic AI chatbot for your questions. Cost: Free, or $29.99 annual subscription.