Trending
The Associated Press
You're in your garden and notice that a pretty but unfamiliar flower has popped up somewhere unexpected. Do you pull it or leave it? Or perhaps an unfamiliar garden pest has ravaged your tomato plants. What to do about it? A variety of gardening apps and cellphone features can help. They offer expert garden-planning and planting advice, pest and disease troubleshooting, plant and insect identification, and even integrated artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Among the free apps and features suggested by AP gardening writer Jessica Damiano are Seek by iNaturalist, From Seed to Spoon, PictureThis, Google Lens and Apple Visual Look Up.
You're in your garden and notice a beautiful, new-to-you flower that has popped up somewhere unexpected -- pull it or leave it?
Or perhaps an unfamiliar garden pest has ravaged your tomato plants.
Or you experienced the deflating discovery of a gray-white crust on the soil in your seed-starting tray.
Where do you turn for help when you're on the go? Technology, of course.
The latest crop of gardening apps and cellphone features may surprise you with their expert garden-planning and planting advice, pest and disease troubleshooting, instant plant and insect identification, and even integrated artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Free, reliable apps like the ones below will place an abundant harvest of valuable information at your (green) fingertips.
Seek by
iNaturalist
Created by a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, this crowd-sourced, image-recognition app is as straightforward as can be. Snap a photo of a plant, insect, animal or mushroom -- or even just point your camera at it -- and get its taxonomic classification (from kingdom to species), common name, seasonality, a count of how many observations of it have been recorded on the app, and a short description, typically pulled in from Wikipedia.