Best iPhone Apps For Gardeners

12 Jun 2012 Reviews

Fed up with buying big expensive hardback glossy gardening manuals or having to pay a guy who probably knows just the basics to charge you an arm and a leg? With a little help from your app could change all that. Gardening apps are all the rage now, as millions are getting out into the backyard to rekindle their love for nurturing and growing their gardens. Below you will find some cheap and free apps which should you want to explore and grow your knowledge of all things flora and fauna, then these will help a great deal.
Botany Buddy Price: $9.99 Probably at the far end in terms of cost as apps go for gardening, this little beauty is best for identifying trees and shrubs. The latest update also includes a number of Eastern plants and there has been a vast improvement on HD photos of all plants since the latest update, where the new database is huge. You can search for a species through its common name or botanical name and the results from over 9500 documented photographs and descriptions will be displayed. This app makes it a lot cheaper than CD ROMs or books, and the $9.99 is a one-time fee with no extra charges, up-sells or cheeky in-app requirements. Gets good reviews.
Flower Garden $1.99 This app is in fact one of the top selling apps in 15 countries worldwide and that just shows you how many green-fingered enthusiasts there are. However, this gardening app is designed for gardeners who want to grow plants in a virtual world. It’s aimed at honing your skills on raising new flowers and shrubs and bushes, where after meticulously watering and taking care of them in the correct way you get to see them bloom. The other lovely little part to this game is that you then get to take a snip off your flowers and send them to someone special. These virtual bouquets will be sent with a card where you can tell them just how long and how much care they took to grow especially for the recipient! The virtual garden comes with sounds and serenely beautiful 3D flowers, and there’s a flower shop where you can buy what you need to tend to your garden. Latest version includes language in Spanish and a crash bug fix.
iPlant Price: $1.99 iPlant is not a bad app to have if you’re off traveling in the sticks or going camping as it is essentially a culinary and medicinal guide for all things that grow outdoors. So should you be in need of a few herbs for your evening stew 'round the campfire, or some anti-inflammatory leaf to bring down the swelling of a wasp sting then, this app should help. Harmful plants are also listed so you know what to avoid and the app includes some 300 herbs and plants. That said, 300 listings is not an extensive nor comprehensive manual, and not all listed come with photos (which kind of defeats the object of the app) – so some improvement is still needed.

F ruit Garden

$1.99 Not a lot of people grow fruit because they don’t have the luxury of continually warm weather, but that said there are still seasons in Europe and in other countries with cooler climates when fruit can be harvested. This app is really for beginners wanting to explore this gardening niche and this app comes with a clear growing calendar which details what to plant when and how to maintain the fruit, and also includes a harvesting calendar. It briefly describes the gardening jobs that need doing on a month by month basis and how to treat poisonous diseases. It seems to be lacking in more advanced knowledge but it is geared to the novice.