Dig for gardening ideas with your smartphone

Gardening apps are getting better all the time, supplanting manuals and textbooks as the way people dig for information. Many university extension services are developing the digital aids to extend outreach to clients.

“Extension apps provide reliable, research-based information,” said Christopher Enroth, an extension educator with the University of Illinois, who evaluates gardening apps for their relevancy, customization and ease of use. “I’ve examined a few apps developed by various companies that are simply another gateway to their products.

“Other various interest groups have apps that give ‘all-natural’ advice that is based more on opinion or beliefs. It always helps to have a critical eye.”

The apps that Enroth refers to are, of course, software designed for use on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Purdue University extension specialists, for example, have created diagnostic apps for gardeners that provide solutions to problems for hundreds of plants. This low-cost Plant Doctor app suite focuses on perennial and annual flowers, tomatoes, turf grass and trees. (purdueplantdoctor.com)

“Every year, homeowners invest millions of dollars in their landscaping materials, and due to insect diseases and sometimes a lack of experience, problems come up,” said Janna Beckerman, a Purdue extension plant disease specialist and content specialist for the apps. “This is an affordable way to fix those problems. You just pull it (mobile device) out of your pocket and have answers right away.”

A new app from Toca Boca called Toca Lab: Plants aims to plant seeds of interest in gardening for children. It features a digital botanical laboratory that helps kids discover scores of plants with differing personalities. It also enables them to create new species. (tocaboca.com/app/toca-lab-plants) Other gardening-related apps: Landscaping: iScape, Rain Harvest For diagnosis: Garden Compass, My Garden Answers.