Credits: Social Media
After trying the so-called best plant care apps, the best option is already built into your phone
After trying different apps for plant care, I finally settled on a little-known feature that is already hiding in the depths of your iPhone.
Thanks to the help of TikTok gardeners and exciting tips from experts on the internet, caring for a plant has never been easier. But that isn’t to say it is easy, as anyone with a houseplant will tell you.
After renovating my bedroom and office space to increase the natural lighting, I began my plant journey with a can-do attitude and many questions. As a proud member of Gen-Z, I naturally turned to technology for assistance.
With dozens of plant apps in the store, each with its own set of reviews, surely one of them had to tick all of the boxes?
Plant care apps are great if you’ve got the dollar
With 7 million users and over 32 million plants logged, you’d think that Planta would contain all the information you could possibly need. It does, you just need to pay for it.
On the free plan, users can currently get a watering schedule for their plants with added information on light, placement, toxicity, humidity, and pests to look out for. Unfortunately, such features and many more are locked behind a chunky paywall. Subscriptions to Planta start at $7.99 for a month, $17.99 for a quarter, and $35.99 for a year.
As you might expect, this was a running theme across many of the plant care apps I tried, though admittedly, none were as brutal with their subscriptions as Planta.
Though the dedicated plant-care apps were somewhat of a letdown, some focused more on the organizational side of things. Gardenia and ThePlantMe are great examples of apps that allow you to build a sort of virtual plant deck, therefore organizing your information into aesthetically pleasing sections.
The best plant app is already on your phone
Initially, I considered using multiple apps to gather the information for my houseplants, though that defeats the purpose of downloading an app in the first place. I wanted all of the information in the same place, not dotted around between social media apps and Hinge I abandoned after being placed in Rose Jail.
One of my biggest issues with the apps already on the market was the categorical certainty with which they gave advice. Though said advice was based on science, there was no logical way for my iPhone to measure moisture levels in the soil correctly.
Considering the fact that plant care is not the same between two people or even two plants, many of the paid features seemed pointless. The app is merely relaying care information, not telling you what your specific plant requires at that time.
In a complete 360 moment, this brought me back to the iPhone’s identification feature that initially inspired the search for a dedicated app.
It might not give me fancy light identification on an AI doctor to diagnose my plant issues, but it does have an 80% accuracy.
From there, I was able to build my own document with relevant information and advice from organizations, groups, publications, and experts I trust. Sure it was a little more work, but it meant I was actually learning about my plants and not simply accepting what an app tells me as fact.
While I won’t be redownloading plant care apps anytime soon, I am considering transferring my nasty Google document into an organizational app complete with pictures. Happy planting!
