Which plant care app is best?

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Once upon a time, we might have relied on paper labels or organizers to help us become better plant parents. Now, apps can do the hardest work of gardening for us: remembering which of our plants need watering, repotting, or fertilizing at precisely the right time.

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Plant apps hold care information for hundreds and thousands of indoor plant species. You simply select the ones you need help with and they will ping you reminders for all the gardening chores you need to do on a specific day.

The best plant apps go beyond rule-of-thumb basics and even take into account your home environment and seasonal weather. Using these parameters, it will work out optimal frequencies for topping up water or misting the leaves.

Armed with the app we've reviewed below, you can keep on top of every single plant even in the most sprawling indoor jungle.

Planta: the plant app to end all plant apps

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Planta, developed by Swedish software company Strömming AB, is currently the best plant app out there. Its tagline is simply 'Keep your plants alive' and with its wide range of features, it is sure to deliver on its promise.

Planta sends you reminders for watering, fertilizing, misting, cleaning, and repotting. It will also help you diagnose plant ailments from photographs. The app doesn't just cover succulents, orchids, and other indoor favorites but also herbs and vegetables.

Although it comes with a free trial, you need to purchase a subscription to get the full benefits. The subscription lets you access many features that plant owners normally have to download different apps for: plant identification and plant recommendations. This is truly the only indoor gardening app you will ever need.

Planta is smarter than other plant care apps out there. It knows your geographic location and local climate which helps it finetune watering freqencies and pick out plant recommendations based on the conditions you're able to provide. It also tracks live local weather events, which is useful for vegetable growers or when you've placed your houseplants outside for the summer. If it rains, it updates your watering schedule accordingly.

Other parameters that Planta uses in deciding when you need to do which chores are local temperatures, how many hours of daylight your plant receives, pot type, soil type, site humidity, and air conditioning and heating levels.

Because you can adjust all these parameters, you can even use the app for tracking propagation. You simply change the soil type to 'water' and the pot size to the smallest option.

It gets even better. What makes Planta such a stand-out app is that it comes with the holy grail of indoor horticulture tech: the light meter.

Standard gardening terms for lighting like partial shade or bright indirect light are confusing in their vagueness and everyone has a slightly different idea about what they mean. With Planta, you can really do away with all the guesswork.

The light meter is simple to use. Point your camera at the place you want to put your plant and the algorithms will analyze the image. It translates the pixels into a figure for how much light it is receiving. Because getting the lighting right is one of the most crucial parts of keeping a plant happy and healthy for longer, this is a real bonus that justifies the price tag.

Florish: Best free app

The best free app is Florish, a brand new indoor plant care app for iPhone still in its beta stage. This is a great app for beginners and helps you decide what new plants to get for your place with quizzes. With an in-app purchase, you'll also be able to use the light meter. Users in LA can also order their perfect plant for delivery straight from the app.