Improve your gardening with apps and plant identifiers

Whether you are a seasoned professional or a gardening beginner, there are a range of apps, plant identifiers and digital gardening planner tools that can improve your knowledge.

If you come across an unknown flower or weed and don’t know what to do with it, or maybe you need to troubleshoot why a shrub isn’t growing as it should, there’s an app to help. If you need help to plan and design your garden, there’s a range of expert apps for that also.

With everything from garden planning tips to care calendars and plant identifiers, here are some of the best gardening apps to make you a better gardener all year round.

‘GARDEN ANSWERS’

One of the most useful apps for any gardener is a plant identifier, helping you become a walking encyclopaedia of garden plant species. An easy-to-use identification app that can instantly define over 20,000 plants, Garden Answers comes with some very useful information. Take a snap of the plant you want to identify, press ‘submit’ and you’ll have the answer.

GARDENING COMPANION

The Gardening Companion app can help you track the progress of your garden, care for your plants and access a wealth of gardening knowhow. It also allows you set reminders for things you need to tick off your gardening to do list.

LEAFSNAP

Helping you with identification, this gardening app contains lovely high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruits, petioles, seeds and bark. As the app’s name suggests, the plant species are identified by their leaves.

GARDENTAGS

Offering plant advice, inspiration and gardening tasks, the GardenTags app allows gardeners to share helpful information and tips with other gardeners. Your plant care will be sorted with this app, which can also suggest ways to deal with weeds and pests.

INTO GARDENS

Are you thinking about designing a new garden layout and need a garden planner app? Into Gardens app is ideal for those wanting a more sustainable way of life as it encourages you to eat what you grow.

FLOWER CHECKER

There are a few apps on this list that offer a plant identification service. But the Flower Checker app is perhaps one of the most accurate, using the expertise of real botanists, who are able to identify more than 90% of all plant species. A big plus is that the app has no adverts.

PLANTIFIER

Unlike Flower Checker, Plantifier uses the masses rather than the experts to help with plant identification. All you have to do is upload a photo of the unknown plant, and other users on the app can help you work it out. The app can also help with caring for your garden, while tracking the growth of your flowers and plants.

MY SOIL

The My Soil gardening app is all about soil. It enables you to check the soil in your local area, in terms of soil type, depth, pH, soil temperature and organic matter content, which can help you work out which plants will flourish in your garden.

GARDEN PLAN PRO

Get expert knowledge with Garden Plan Pro. It will help you decide where to put a vegetable patch or a herb garden. The simple tools help layout designing, plant arrangement, and tracking garden progress.

GARDEN MANAGER: PLANT ALARM

The Garden Manager app lets you set alarms so you never miss a care step when it comes to your plants. One of the main causes of plant death is down to people forgetting to feed or water them, so this app is perfect for helping you keep track of your progress. You can even track a plant’s measurements on a graph.

ISCAPE

A garden planner app from Apple, this paid-for app is great for people designing a garden from scratch. It allows you to visualise how your garden would look with different elements by taking photos and super imposing different layers - the end result - a virtual 3D garden to explore.

GARDEN JOURNAL

The Garden Journal app lets you track what you’ve planted and when and how often you need to water, prune and care for them. It also has a pest advice section to help you keep any unwanted visitors at bay. The app is free but you can upgrade to a Garden Planner package which sends email reminders and allows you to draw up plans for a vegetable garden.

SMARTPLANT

This app can help you to identify plants and also includes a ‘Digital Care Calendar’ to reveal what your garden, and the plants within it, need. You can personalise the Smartplant app by adding the plants you have in your garden and the app will notify you of their requirements.

INATURALIST

This app focuses more on the nature you might find in your garden and helps you to identify it. iNaturalist works like a social network, allowing you to take a photo and get instant identification of plants, birds and animals.

INTOGARDENS

This is a digital gardening magazine for tablets featuring garden inspiration, shopping ideas, beautiful imagery and entertaining garden reads.