Need reminding to water your tomatoes? Or want to find out the pH of your soil? Or just quickly want to identify that weird shrub you don't remember planting? Yep, you can guarantee that for almost any of your gardening queries, there's an app.
So since spring finally feels like it's on the way (just dream with us here, people), and garden design and planning advice is at the top of our workflow list, we have, with the help of the garden experts behind Garden Buildings Direct, rounded up our favourite gardening apps to help you get the best garden possible both quickly and efficiently.
1. PlantSnap
PlantSnap is a FREE app which helps to instantly identify plants of all kinds, anywhere in the world. Flowers, trees, succulents, mushrooms and more can be quickly recognised by the app’s massive database.
Simply take a picture of the plant you’ve found, and the app will tell you what it is in seconds. Clever.
2. SmartPlant
As well as plant identification, this app also offers a ‘Digital Care Calendar’ which will remind you what your plant needs and when they need it.
There’s also a ‘My Garden’ section where you can add plants from your garden and the app will notify you of their needs. SmartPlant also offers a premium membership which includes pest identifications.
3. Garden Plan Pro
Plan your perfect vegetable, herb and fruit garden on your iPad or iPhone with Garden Plan Pro.
From the creators of the most successful online Garden Planner with over 350,000 users, Garden Plan Pro combines expert plant knowledge with simple-to-use tools so that you can plan your own flexible garden design.
4. My Soil
From the British Geological Survey, this app lets you check the soil in your local area so you can decide which plants will grow well.
You can source information about soil type, depth, pH, soil temperature and organic matter content, and the app suggests fruit and plant varieties to use in your location.
5. GardenTags
GardenTags is an all-in-one gardening app that allows gardeners to share wisdom and information. It advises and schedules plant care tasks and can help you deal with weeds, pests and infections that might otherwise be hard to deal with.
6. Into Garden
Created by a British garden designer, Into Gardens is a garden design app designed to help you eat what you grow. Relaxed and cheerful, it provides regular updates for garden designers and is perfect for the summer vegetable gardener.
7. Flower Checker
The Flower Checker app provides a paid plant identification service. However, by using real botanists to identify unknown plants, moss fungus and even lichen, it is perhaps the most accurate of the plant identification apps.
The team of plant experts can take several minutes or hours to respond to a request. The developers claim they can identify more than 90 per cent of plant species. The app is ad-free and available on Android and iOS platforms.
Read more about getting your garden ready for spring...
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