The best apps for plant parents

University accommodation, whether you’re in halls or moving into a student house, isn’t always the most luxurious. One instant way to add some décor and life is plants. They can help brighten up or enhance any area but can also be a lot of work and hassle.

Magna, my Monstera plant, who I have had since the beginning of my second year is not having the best of times. So, in a quest to save my gorgeous Magna and to help any other plant lovers – this article will alert you to a few apps that might help with your plants and their needs.

PLANTA

Planta is an extremely helpful app that enables you to add the plants you have in your home, specific to the room they are in and their light levels. The app uses a light meter mechanism to detect when levels are too high or low.

On the app, you can add a profile picture and nickname for your plants, and receive a detailed method of how to water your plants depending on their species. You can also opt into notifications to remind you of the right time to do so – which is a necessity when you have 100 other things you need to remember to do!

Florish

This app has a few similar functions to Planta, it allows you to upload your plants and receive information on their origins. It tells you about appearance and growth milestones to help you be able to identify any problems and provide personalised care instructions.

One particularly cool feature of this app is a quiz you can take which then suggests the best plants to purchase for certain spaces dependent on light intensity and distance from the nearest window. This could be great for helping you choose the right plant for you and your room, as well as opening your mind to plants you may have never even heard of.

Candide

If you want something more advanced, Candide may be a good fit. It’s a little like social media for your plants, where you can share photos of your plants and see others’. It is a community app where you can ask questions and get help from other plant parents. There are also plenty of articles on anything you would want to know plant-related.

Candide also has a marketplace feature that allows you to buy, sell and swap plants with fellow green thumbs. This may be helpful for anybody looking for a specific plant or for those on a budget but still wanting some botanical friends.

Bonus app: Forest

Forest is an app for anyone that struggles with procrastination and needs some incentive to avoid going on their phone when they should be working. It plants a tree after a certain amount of time, of your choosing, and then if you remain on the app for that time a virtual tree is planted in your forest. You also earn coins as you add trees that can be used to plant trees in real life – a way to help the world as well as help yourself.

One downside is that Forest is not free, but Flora is also an alternative option if this is a problem for you.

I hope some of these apps may come in handy for looking after your botanical babies and I especially hope they help my sweet Magna to recover and get back to her normal self.

Words by Liliana Newsam-Smith