Gardening is supposed to be about the natural life, right? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t let technology give us a hand. Your smart phone or tablet can be quite the gardening companion. We searched around and found what we thought were the top garden apps that you need today! Seriously, these could change the way you garden, help you create a garden plan you have been putting off, and help you to visualize what it is you want, and how to get it. Got bugs, weeds or plants you can’t identify? Need a designers touch? Forget your gardening chores, time and time again? Got you covered… In other words, use these garden apps, and your view on gardening could totally change right now, today. Who knew?
5 Top Garden Apps
Number 1 – GrowIt
Grow It! is like a gardener’s version of Facebook… You connect with a great community of like minded people, you share lots of photos, and you get to search for helpful info as well! We like this garden app because as you find plants you love in their extensive database, you can organize them into projects to help you design and then shop for your garden. Need help with a plant or a disease problem? Upload a photo and let the community offer up advice! Available for IOS and Android devices.
Number 2 – myGardenAnswers
my Garden Answers is the #1 downloaded gardening app! Why? Because it helps gardeners solve dilemmas. Don’t know what a plant is? Point and click with this app, and now you do. Need help with a pest? Get expert advice. Like “Shazam” for plants! Available for IOS and Android.
Number 3 – Iscape
The Iscape landscape design app lets you plan out any outdoor space like a pro. You can see how it will all look in 3D, and get a shopping list for plants in your design. Drag and drop design allows you to create a hardscape, then add plants and even lighting. Useful for DIY projects, and also to show a potential contractor your vision. Available for IOS only.
Number 4 – LeafSnap
How many times have you been in a public park or garden and fell in love with the trees, but with no one to ask what they are? Leafsnap changes that. Using visual recognition software, Leafsnap can identify trees from a photo of their leaves alone. I can’t tell you how many times I could have used this! This garden app is expanding to cover the entire US and Canada. Available for IOS only.
Number 5 – SmartPlant
Smartplant is the perfect gardening app for anyone who forgets to fertilize the hydrangeas, or needs to be reminded to water the container plants on the porch. And thats all of us, right? Not only does Smartplant have a huge database to get your “plant geek”on, they have expert help. And part of that help goes like this… You add a plant to your digital garden, either through their database, your camera or using their barcode scanner at a retailer. The app then creates a care calendar and sends you a reminder specific for that plant… How often to fertilize, what pests to spray for, etc… You can also chat with experts about pests or other problems and get advice. This. Is. Cool. Available for IOS and Android.
Note: We have updated these app recommendations for 2017- 2018. Some older apps referenced in comments are no longer part of this post!
Remember, if you want to make sure you keep track of this post to reference later, don’t forget to pin this photo (below) on your boards. And don’t forget, sharing is caring! Let us know in comments if you try one of these apps. Love it? Hate it?
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We’ve got a new app out for vegetable gardeners and homesteaders! It’s called SmartSteader and is great for keeping track of how much you’re growing (which is fun and challenges you to do better next year) and what it’s costing you (which really helps with sticking to a budget!) We’ve been keeping paper based records for years so we’re pretty excited to have those records with us wherever we go and not to have to do all that math! We also have note-taking/journaling features and soon will have income tracking for folks who sell their extra produce. (We’re continually adding new features to make it better.) SmartSteader also has all of that available for those who keep backyard chickens or other livestock too. It’s available on iOS & Android, syncs across all your devices, even across platforms, and has secure data storage! It’s been a real game changer for us and hopefully others will find it just as useful.
Take care!
Quinn
i love SmartPlant App soooooooooooooo much. When i need an id i get a real person to app chat with which saves me endless scrolling (thank you!)…it makes so much sense: smart homes need smart plants right? thank you!
Thanks for the great post! I’m in the West and Sunset has always been my go-to reference. I’m eager to find out how their app works. (I wish it were free :( ) Sprout It is another I’ll look into.
Happy gardening!
Sally Olson
Garden Valley Homestead
Sunset is now not available in the US for some weird reason anyway! Sprout is one we really love!
You forgot ” leaf snap” !! which is a fantastic plant identifier (was also free)…. I have garden compass and can’t recommend it more! I received expert advice for free when I had a beetle on my arugula I didn’t know about and other sick plant problems…. and it also helped me Identify things growing I couldn’t find on Google. You send in your pic and they get back to you a day or so later with your questions answered!
I couldn’t find the Sunset Western Garden Book app on itunes and the link didn’t work. Any ideas?
We went back and checked and you re right… as of now, iTunes store lists it as not available in the US at this time… We will check into it!
All of these apps are wonderful but I like SproutIt the most. Another gardening app I use is GoFantastic but it’s more of a gardening services app since you book gardeners to help you.
Excellent! These are perfect, I have been searching for premium gardening apps that I can recommend to my customers and clients, and this list is very worthy of my recommendation.
My personal favorite and one I will be using regularly, will be Go Sprout It. It seems to be very well designed and I like the basic user functionality, because it can help a gardener go from no experience, to a well versed pro. This is the future of gardening, and I am happy that you’re apart of promoting it Kathy.
Keep up the good work!
– Whitney
Yes, it’s absolutely wonderful that Seeds For Change is helping to promote organic growing of fruits and vegetables in ALL under-utilized spaces…but it sure helps when we have great technology to assist us!
We agree!