These Are the Best Plant Watering Apps to Help You Get a Green Thumb

Indoor plants boast plenty of benefits for your home's interior and your overall health, but remembering to water that dose of greenery can be a challenge. Staying on top of a regular watering schedule used to require earnest effort and incessant iPhone reminders. That is until we got wind of Happy Plant, a handy plant watering app that takes the guesswork out of plant parenting. We reviewed the popular app and also shared a few others you should try.

How the Happy Plant App Works

Happy Plant is an Apple-compatible application that reminds you to water your greens according to their unique watering schedules, whether your plant babies require a weekly watering or a drink every 10 days. This free app works by assigning a profile to your indoor or outdoor plants, allowing you to carefully monitor each plant's growth progress and watering schedule. The plant app even encourages users to snap a photo or "plant selfie" of their greens with every water to track growth via a time-lapse video.

Remembering how to properly care for a single indoor plant is tricky enough, and it's a household chore that becomes even more cumbersome with the inevitable addition of new plants to your living space. Fortunately, the Happy Plant app stores up to three plants for free (you have to subscribe with the addition of a fourth) and keeps you up to date on what greens need to be watered on any given day.

What Reviewers Wrote

Even the most skilled gardeners could benefit from this household hero. We love the Happy Plant app for its practicality and the fact that it helps even the neediest plants thrive. Find pleasure in caring for your houseplants, and don't be surprised when you (finally) develop that well-deserved green thumb.

"I don't think I'd have a single plant alive—let alone six—without this app," wrote one reviewer.

"I have lots of plants with different watering needs, and this app has been a lifesaver," wrote another.

Who Can Use Happy Plant

Available for iPhone and iPad users, Happy Plant automates the mundane act of caring for your plants, allowing you to show them some much-needed TLC before your potted efforts are beyond repair.

Other Plant Watering Apps

Of course, Happy Plant isn't the only app out there. Dozens of others are available to help you take better care of your houseplants, and here are a few that we found.

PictureThis

The PictureThis app uses your plant's photo, AI, and an extensive database to identify your houseplant, but that's not all. It provides general instructions about what your specific plant needs, too. It can diagnose and offer remedies for problems such as brown tips, or determine if your plant needs more direct sunlight or fertilizer, just from a photo. Those features are free, but for a fee, you also access a (human) gardening specialist, among other features.

Gardenia

If you're interested in a simple app that just offers plant care instructions and reminders without bogging you down with detailed plant descriptions, Gardenia may be the app for you. Before using its features, though, you have to know the name of your plant, which you'll have to find elsewhere. With your plant identified (and provided it's in its database), Gardenia lists its requirements and provides push notifications for watering and fertilizing as well as repotting, harvesting, pruning, and applying pesticides.

Waterbot

Since this article features an Apple-only app, it's only fair to mention this android-only one, which is ideal if you know your plants' facts, but just keep forgetting to water them. Simple and intuitive, Waterbot creates a watering schedule based on your individual plants and shoots out a memo when the time has come. After watering, you note the completed task by checking the box, so you don't struggle to remember if you watered or not.