Smartphones are where it's at when it comes to garden help.
A number of apps allow you to plan, nurture and identify plants.
Identification
These apps can be handy if you see a plant in the wild or in a nearby garden that you love but can't identify. Or if you forgot the name of the plant in your garden.
Two apps, Like That Garden and Garden Answers, are similar in that you can take a picture of a plant and submit it for identification. You can see some suggestions as to what the plant might be. In testing out a picture of a Ninebark Bush, each app returned at least seven possible matches, including the right one. However, the photos were so ambiguous that in one case, we appealed to the $1.99 Ask the Expert feature. The correct answer came by email in about a day.
On the other hand, we also got the correct answer from the Facebook Plant Ident site, in about 3 minutes. Of course, Facebook relies on what garden experts are online at the time.
Like That Garden also offers to identify a butterfly.
Knowing what to plant
The right soil, sun, and water add up to success in gardening.
The most elaborate app for this purpose is Gro. This app, which is free to download, works with accessories you can purchase to help analyze soil, recommend a plant perfect for the conditions, and even control watering schedules.
Gro can also recommend plant combinations – like the plants you'll need to grow to make salsa, according to maketecheasier.com. Or, it can recommend plants that will beautify your landscape.
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