Guest post: Adventures with a plant watering app - a houseplant lover's take

Molly Williams is the author of books How to Speak Flower, Taming the Potted Beast and Killer Plants. She's an avid houseplant collector and an English lecturer at Assumption University in Massachusetts. Find her online at mollyewilliams.com or visit her Instagram - @theplantladi. Here’s her guest column for my newsletter The Plant Ledger.

Not too long ago, in the midst of summer, a casual comment from my teenager led me to try out a popular plant watering app. These apps claim to be your plant care assistant, reminding you when it's time to water each individual plant in your collection. With some curiosity and a hint of skepticism, I tested it on my 93 houseplants. It turned into a comedy of errors, highlighting that not all tech innovations suit plant enthusiasts like me.

The app hit a roadblock from the start. The free version limited me to just five plants, prompting me to upgrade for a nominal fee. Adding all my plants took nearly two hours, mainly because I had to manually input so many of them. Surprisingly, almost 75% of my plants were unrecognised. I also had to correct light and water requirements on the ones that were already in the app's library. What really baffled me was that this widely used app couldn't distinguish an adenium from an aloe. Despite this, I gave it a chance, hoping to really see what the app could do. After all, AI is supposed to be our future, right?

Then came the midnight alerts. The app insisted on watering in the dead of night, a notion too absurd to entertain. Then, as August shifted to September, the app's advice clashed with the lingering summer weather. It suggested cutting back on watering, a misguided recommendation that further distanced me from its guidance. I began to ignore the plethora of daily notifications, then one night I canceled my subscription and deleted the app all together. This technology was not built for someone like me.

I often wonder why people rely on these plant care apps. In our busy lives, the promise of simplified care is appealing. Timely reminders seem like a solution to ensure our plants get the attention they need. For a novice with just a couple of plants, these apps might be useful. They offer nudges in the right direction, preventing overwatering or neglect. But for any collection over five plants, things can go awry pretty quickly.

For truly plant minded people, the technology falls short. It's easy to picture these apps being invented by folks that peruse plant shops on the weekend but never make any purchases because they have faux plants on their shelves at home. The nuances of plant care can't be reduced to lines of code. The rhythm of nature, each plant's quirks, and the seasonal demands require hands-on care and keen observation.

To me, this quick-to-sputter-out-adventure was a vivid reminder that, in the world of houseplants, the traditional approach often prevails. As I return to my routine, watering can in hand, I'm reassured that the best technology for my plants is my own brain.

This blogpost was taken from The Plant Ledger, my email newsletter about the houseplant scene. Subscribe here and get my free in-depth guide to fungus gnats.