Gardening is primarily about working alongside nature, nurturing plants with our hands and enjoying the organic beauty. But to be a successful gardener, there’s a lot that you need to keep track of.
These days, technology has evolved rapidly thanks to the smartphone revolution. Even gardeners can benefit from these new developments, with a range of gardening apps available for download. These range from soil checkers and plant ID apps to garden journals and planners.
*Do check out our plant care guide for more tips on specific plants.
In this article, we’ll delve into some of the must-have gardening apps for beginners and masters alike.
Soil Apps
Soil characteristics are crucial for a good garden. Different soils will suit different varieties of plants, ranging from alkaline to acidic and chalky to loamy or sandy. These three soil apps can help gardeners get the maximum benefit from their soil.
mySoil
For UK gardeners, the mySoil app provides a comprehensive resource for soil properties across the United Kingdom. Developed as a joint project by the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), mySoil is available for free on both Android and Apple iOS devices.
Gardeners can use mySoil to check the soil characteristics in their local area, obtaining a variety of data such as soil depth, amount of organic matter, pH levels, annual and monthly temperatures, and soil texture. This allows gardeners to know their local soil inside out, helping them to choose appropriate plants that will thrive in their particular garden.
Users can also contribute to the accuracy of the project by uploading their own data, observations, and photos as part of an online community. As the knowledge base grows, so does the accuracy of the app. MySoil even includes soil data collected from Europe as well, although not to the same depth of information as the UK database.
SoilMapp
In a similar vein as mySoil above, SoilMapp provides gardeners from Australia with crucial information about their soil. SoilMapp was created by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and its database was compiled by the Australian Soil Resource Information System (ASRIS).
The interactive maps provide access to data such as local soil types, pH ranges, the salinity of the soil, and other characteristics such as how quickly it erodes. This app is ideal for gardeners, but also for farmers and anyone else who needs to know what kind of soil they’re working with. SoilMapp works with iPads and can be downloaded from the Apple iOS Store.
Users can also access visual aids such as graphs, maps, photographs, satellite images, and tables that provide even more data. SoilMapp provides useful soil information at both local and national levels. This allows Australian gardeners to identify the plants that would best suit their local soil, creating an enjoyable and productive garden.
Soil Sampler
While mainly used by farmers, the Soil Sampler app can also be helpful for gardeners. The app is designed to help users get the most accurate positioning for taking a soil sample. Having a sample of your soil evaluated by a professional agronomist is incredibly important if you’re a farmer.
This is because it helps identify the unique qualities of your local soil, allowing you to plan your crops accordingly. Gardeners can use this as well, especially if they want to grow some crops of their own. The Soil Sampler app is available on the Android app store and is even compatible with navigation devices such as Garmin GLO antennas.
Soil Sampler uses precise GPS technology to find the perfect soil sample spot on your land, saving you time traipsing around trying to find the right place. A soil sample helps farmers and gardeners to learn about the composition and structure of their soil as well as nutrient levels and other useful data.
Garden Apps for Plant Identification
Sometimes, unexpected plants will spring up in your garden. Without prior knowledge of the plant, it can be difficult to identify. Thankfully, there are now various plant identification apps available for gardeners. These apps help take the guesswork out of gardening with new plants.
Garden Answers
Garden Answers has over three million users, and it’s not hard to see why. The app is quick and easy to use, utilizing your phone’s camera to send a picture of an unknown plant to the Garden Answers database. This catalog spans more than 20,000 plant species, generating a quick answer for your query.
As well as being a plant identification app, Garden Answers also offers other useful features for gardeners. It can recognize diseases and pests that might be present on the plant, helping you to tackle infestations and infections quickly. This is especially useful for inexperienced gardeners but will also help old hands.
Garden Answers also provides access to advice from expert gardeners regarding different plants that you might be interested in. Your previous queries are also automatically stored, allowing you to double-check the plant if you forget. Garden Answers is compatible with most devices and can be downloaded from both the Android and Apple app stores.
Leafsnap
While many gardeners will concentrate on trying to identify plants by their flowers, these blooms aren’t present all year round. Instead, it’s much more effective to try and identify plants by their leaves. That’s where Leafsnap comes in. This comprehensive database was developed by some of America’s leading universities like Columbia University. There are two versions of the Leafsnap app, one for the United States and another for the UK. Both apps provide extremely detailed high-resolution photos of thousands of plants and trees found across the Northern Hemisphere. In the UK, the app is even used by the Natural History Museum. The apps also provide high-quality pictures of bark, flowers, fruits, and seeds to provide a thorough identification platform.
The Leafsnap app is available as a free download for Apple users in both the United States and the UK. The reach of Leafsnap’s database is still growing as more information is added by professional and volunteer botanists. An Android app is currently in development as well.
Pl@ntNet
PlantNet aims to create a working relationship between gardeners and scientists as a collaborative plant identification service. All of PlantNet’s photos are uploaded by its users and then verified by a team of biologists, botanists, and scientists to ensure accuracy. When you take a photo of an unknown plant and ask PlantNet to identify it, your entry is added to the database.
PlantNet’s database currently includes 20,000 species of plants and is still growing. Various search filters can be deployed to suit your knowledge level. You might be pretty sure that the plant is part of a specific family or you might not have a single idea which group it belongs to.
Once a plant has been identified, PlantNet also provides you with a comprehensive fact sheet about the species. This is great if you’ve found a new plant that you want to now grow in your own garden. PlantNet is available for both Android and Apple devices as well as on computers.
Garden Journal Apps
A gardening journal has long been an indispensable resource for gardeners, allowing us to keep track of how our garden performs each year. Now, all the benefits of keeping a garden journal can be found online as well.
Garden Journal
The Garden Journal from the Territorial Seed Company is one of the most comprehensive online garden journal options available. This incredible resource can be used on multiple devices such as a computer and a smartphone to provide plenty of versatility.
When out in the garden, you can take pictures on your smartphone and annotate them with notes. Later on, you can access and expand on these using the computer version. You can track various factors such as the weather conditions, watering and fertilizing schedules, and other observations.
The Garden Journal also tracks everything on a yearly basis, allowing you to compare your current harvests to your previous ones. There’s also an extensive database of plant advice available, including crop rotation information for gardeners with allotments or vegetable patches.
The Garden Journal can be accessed as part of a free trial but you can also access extra features such as email alerts for garden tasks by subscribing to the in-depth Garden Planner also offered by the Territorial Seed Company.
Garden Planning Apps
It can be difficult to make changes in the garden without having a clear plan of action. But it’s challenging to try and visualize any changes just by looking at the garden. However, garden planning apps can make this process easier by helping you to trial new garden designs.
Garden Plan Pro
Garden Plan Pro is an easy garden planning tool for novices and experienced gardeners alike. It features a simple but effective grid layout and a comprehensive database of plant options. The advanced AI software creates automatic spacing between areas to help you plan your garden down to the millimeter.
Beginners can also benefit from the helpful fact sheets that Garden Plan Pro offers. These detail the required growing parameters for each plant as well as ideal companion species. The drawing interface is adaptable and easy to use, taking the fuss out of garden design.
For intermediate gardeners or those looking to grow crops, Garden Plan Pro’s software also provides crop rotation alerts over subsequent years. This helps you to adjust your garden plan and get the most out of your crops.
Once the app knows more about your local climate, it will also take this into account when helping you to plan your garden layout. It also offers relevant advice depending on your growing zone. Garden Plan Pro is available to download for Apple users and works with both iPhones and iPads.
Garden Tip Apps
Sometimes it can be difficult to remember care requirements for every single plant in the garden. It can also be hard to come up with fresh ideas for your outdoor space. However, some apps can help provide useful garden design tips and plant information.
Garden Tags
It’d be easy to simply label Garden Tags as “Pinterest for plants”, but there’s a lot more to this app than sharing garden design ideas. Garden Tags is also packed with useful gardening tips for both novice and experienced gardeners. Garden Tags creates an open and welcoming community that is committed to helping each other grow as gardeners.
Users can share their garden updates with others using an Instagram/Pinterest-style system. Fellow gardeners can comment and ask questions, or just sit back and take inspiration from others. The rapidly expanding community also includes plenty of experts who are happy to answer gardening queries.
Garden Tags also provides a comprehensive database of care information as part of its plant encyclopedia and identification systems. There’s also a helpful blog as well as software that helps you record and manage your own menagerie of plants. Garden Tags can be downloaded by both Android and Apple users or used on your web browser.
Conclusion
Each of these must-have gardening apps can be a fantastic tool for modern gardeners, ranging from plant ID software to garden planners and journals. There are also more technical apps available, like soil checkers that help gardeners to get the most out of their growing medium.
By harnessing the power of technology, gardeners can enjoy their hobby like never before whether they’re a complete novice or an experienced horticulturalist.