A Comparison of Planting Apps and 2021 Goals

 Hello from the Garden,

Today I am thinking about what it means to be the reluctant greenthumb and how I can make myself a better, more successful gardener.

When I say I am a reluctant greenthumb, I usually mean I am an eager plant collector that likes to bring new and beautiful plants into my home and then I just cross my fingers and hope that things go well.

I should also admit I am a total flake when it comes to most things. “Out of sight, out of mind” could be my mantra. I am easily distracted by projects and I can become hyper focused on a subject and lose track of time and daily activities. This works great for my job where my focus is needed to find errors and work to find solutions but not so much around my house. My dog Buddy has learned to forgive me and has found a very good whine that reminds me he needs a walk. 

The same goes for my garden. My plants are patient but they do need watered, especially as the thermostat starts to inch its way up to 100 degrees in Texas. They also need fertilized, pruned, repotted, and misted. God forbid one of them gets spider mites! Game over. 

I know my own weaknesses and I’ve been working on getting better at taking steps to set reminders for plant care and keeping myself focused on caring for the garden as well as doing more to educate myself on the needs and wants of my plants.

As I’ve stated before, I was educated in gardening by my gramma in Pennsylvania. My gramma had a great touch for growing flowers and veggies that were very comfortable in North-Western Pennsylvania. Her plants tended to be hardy perennials that could suffer the harsh, snowy winters and the temperate, wet summers. Learning at my gramma’s side prepared me to keep her flowers and garden thriving, but it didn’t teach me a thing about growing in 100 degree heat, through droughts, or dealing with hurricanes. 

Texas is a whole new experience. When I first came here I was so excited to finally be able to enjoy those exotic and heat loving plants that never survived up north, or I’d just never seen before unless I was in a conservatory. I of course had made attempts to grow plumeria in Indiana but it took all my effort babying my few plants that I never had the time or energy to grow anything else. I was tickled pink when coming to Texas and finding my plummies were absolutely thriving in the heat and I could finally loosen the reins a little bit on them and focus on other plants to add to my garden. 

And now, with the bright lighting  in my apartment and with a large open area on the porch and backyard, I can fully embrace my desires for a true green space. And I have thrown myself full force into filling those spaces with interesting and beautiful plants. 

Have I been successful, for the most part, yes. I have had setbacks just like any other gardener. I have over watered plants before and under-watered them too. I’ve accidentally drowned, dried up, sun scorched, and plain neglected plants before. 

I am also guilty of buying plants I have zero clue how to care for but brought them into my garden anyways without knowing what they require to thrive. Some have done fine. A lot more have died no matter how much I tried. C’est la vie. 

This year though, I decided I wanted to not only be pickier about my garden selections, choosing plants I had some knowledge about or had similar thriving plants to, but I also started using apps to help keep me on track.

I’m not sponsored so this is all my own opinions going forward.

 During the spring and summer, I hadn’t fertilized any of the plants and I never replanted them unless they had come to be bare-rooted to start with. I had put houseplants outside because they looked good and burnt them. I shocked a couple more by moving them around the house too much. I also hadn’t checked my windows and doorways for drafts in the fall.  So around December a couple of my plants I had bought spontaneously during the summer started to look a little rough. I had built a greenhouse and set up grow lights for my plants, but I didn’t regulate a proper watering cycle, or monitor the humidity and heating levels in the room.

I was a very neglectful plant parent to say the least! 

I went to my husband and explained that I was super frustrated with my garden withering away and my complete lack of a schedule to keep up with them. During this time I was also facing a lot of stress from work, the holidays, and just the general dismay that was Covid-19. My plants were my “happy space” and to see them failing was a real gut punch. 

My husband isn’t a plant guy in any form. He doesn’t know a clover from an oak tree but he loves how the plants in the house look and how the house seems to feel cooler and greener with them around. While he couldn’t give me advice on what to do, he is a techy at heart, so he set about helping me upgrade my gardening hardware. The first was by helping me set up my lights on timers and voice command so I could turn off and on the nursery lights from my phone or from the Google minis. After that, he started exploring different plant apps that could help me set a schedule and manage my plant care.

I tried out several and found two that were really good, but only one I decided to stick with. The top two apps were Planta and Vera by Bloomscape. Planta’s tagline is “Keep your plants alive” and Vera’s is “Care Made Simple”.

Both apps are subscription apps. Vera gives you a free 7 day trial while Planta allows you to use the app for free, but routines, timelines, and advice from the “Plant Doctor” are behind a paywall. Both allow you to upload pictures of your plants, add nicknames, create routines, offer care advice from their respective plant experts, and track the wellness of your plants.

Vera is a much more visually engaging platform. The pastel pinks, greens, and creams are very pleasing to the eye and offer a sophisticated palette. Meanwhile, Planta focuses on a minimalist green and white color scheme. It reminds me very much of a piece of Ikea furniture in a way. Minimalist with clean lines and functionality. 

Now when it comes to setting routines, Vera lets you set the routine times and dates. Planta creates a watering, fertilizing, cleaning, and misting schedule as soon as you add the new plant to your garden. When it comes to adding a new plant to your collection, both apps take a different approach. Vera is more of conversation, asking you what your plant’s nickname is, where it is located, and when you acquired the plant. After adding your plant to Vera, you can add a picture of your plant and special notes on your plant, like lighting, condition, etc. At this point in Vera you can save and set a watering routine.

Now this is where I prefer Planta’s app vs Vera. Vera you set the days and alert times for watering, fertilizing, and misting yourself. This is where I struggled the most using Vera because some of the tropicals I was picking up at garden shops were mislabeled, had no labels at all, or I just didn’t have enough experience with to say how often I needed to water them, let alone fertilize them. This was what I was already doing with my plants and it was not working.

Planta makes you add your plant’s locations in the house before letting you add plants. You add a room, like an office, and then tell Planta what the lighting levels in that room are. Once you’ve added the room and lighting levels, you can start adding plants to this room. Planta will immediately start giving you warnings if the plant you are trying to add to that room will thrive or not. My office/guest room gets low levels of light, thus why I use grow lights in that room. Planta would very loudly warn me about my lack of light when adding plants to those areas. Further, it immediately sets up a water, fertilizer, and misting routine that is easy to follow and understand. As well, all your alerts for Planta start in the morning, so I look over them with my morning tea to give myself an idea of plant care for that day. It also takes into consideration if you have repotted the plant, what kind of pot you’ve used, and how those factors may negatively affect your plant’s care needs.

Since I was struggling with where my plants would be happiest and when to care for them, this is why I went with Planta and not Vera.

I do have to say that there were several things in Vera that I wish Planta had. First, Vera had a plant identification system that was amazing! I went around my house and ID’d all of my plants and Vera was 99% accurate. It even helped me ID several succulents and a pepperomia that were unlabeled when I purchased them. I was truly impressed with that function alone that I thought really hard about buying the subscription just to use that. 

As well, Vera offers very user friendly blogs and gardening advice in the app under their “Learn” section. While Planta does offer blurbs and basic care details with each plant you add, their material is relatively dry and scientific. Vera gives positive affirmations when you complete your plant goals for the day. I know it sounds silly, but I like a little fluff with my plant care. Also, Vera offers a journal in the app so you can write about your plant whereas Planta only allows for notes.

A function of Planta that I really appreciate that Vera doesn’t offer is that Planta’s suggestions for plants based on your location, lighting, and plant needs. As well, you enter your comfort level as a gardener into the app and it will give you a ranking of plants that would be suitable for your skills and which plants will just destroy your entire faith in humanity.

Negatively, Vera is created by Bloomsape, a plant shop website, so it does tend to push its plants and goods whereas Planta doesn’t have the same affiliations to any particular plant shop or nursery. Planta tends to be rather dry and not as interactive as Vera, which can become very boring and can lose some users for lack of engagement. 

Overall though, in my opinion, I prefer Planta because it helps a forgetful and not always educated gardener keep her plants happy and cared for to the best of their abilities while keeping the steps simple and easy to manage. 

But I’m not letting my learning journey end there this year. I am going to educate myself more on theTexas horticulture, so I’m more prepared for growing in Texas. I am reaching out more to Reddit and DFW Gardening groups to gather more knowledge and learn from their experiences. It also allows me to share my own knowledge which is super satisfying. And of course, I am arming myself with books! 

2021 is my year of new growth! Let’s go from Greenhorn to a real Greenthumb this year.

As always, keep growing my friends.