We tested 18 gardening apps. Here are the ones worth trying.

As a longtime gardener, I’ve often wondered whether a garden planning app could accomplish what I’ve always done with a notebook and pen: sketch out designs, plan a vegetable crop calendar and take notes on plants. So this winter I waded into the weedy landscape of gardening apps. I tested 18 apps, looking at ease of use, plant databases and information, and cost. The results were mixed: Many apps were glitchy, slow to load or had nonintuitive interfaces that felt like they were built in 1999. A few, though, stood out from the crowd. Here are the four that I felt worked best, in no particular order, along with a plant identification app that is so well-designed it merited mention.

Seedtime

Free version/$10 per month Basic subscription; best for desktop/tablet

This app, an organizational system for those interested in growing food or flowers, is getting considerable online buzz. To start, you plug in your growing area, which can be as particular as a ZIP code, then build a list of desired plants. The app then populates a calendar with seeding, transplanting and harvest times. Features also include daily tasks, notes, email check-ins and videos on soil testing, succession planting and other subjects. The drawbacks include overwhelming filters, which may deter the less tech-savvy, and a limited plant database. For instance, garlic is oddly not included.

A monthly subscription allows you to access a layout component, which provides an overhead view of your garden. To start, you drag crops from your calendar to raised beds, which can be tricky because it requires precise cursor placement. Choosing crops from a populated sidebar would be quicker. Also, items in the menu aren’t intuitively labeled. For instance, both trees and buildings are called “landmarks.” Having said that, users can design fairly complex gardens showing the placement of a house, walkways, trees, etc. Overall, it’s a sophisticated app that helps alleviate the stress of managing your crops.

iScape

Free version/$29.99 per month Pro subscription; for desktop, tablet, or phone

Built for landscapers who need to render ideas for clients, iScape is also simple enough for homeowners. If you want to see how a border of plants works together, texturally and color-wise, this app is a good choice.

With iScape, there is no overhead layout piece. Instead, upload a photo of your space, then drag and place elements, designing over the photo or augmented reality. It’s handy if you want to try out varying surfaces for a patio or compare a white hydrangea versus a pink one by your front door. Duplicating, reversing and layering is easy.

The app also offers an impressive selection of trees, shrubs and perennials, with extensive plant information, crucial for homeowners new to gardening. But with that in mind, the interface may be too flexible. Users can stretch or condense a plant, which is great when you want to layer a shrub behind a smaller perennial. However, if you’re unfamiliar with plants, you could mistakenly install giant daisies behind a tiny maple tree. Also, search is clunky. If you look for “evergreen shrubs” or “small trees,” you won’t find any. If you type in “white lilac,” you’ll find zero results but if you type “lilac white,” you’ll find a white lilac. Finally, slightly more uncommon plants are locked behind higher subscription rates.

VegPlotter

Free version/$18 Essentials subscription per year; for desktop only, accessed on phone through browser

If Seedtime is a sophisticated answer for crop organization, VegPlotter is its scrappy cousin. You sacrifice flexibility for simplicity here. But gardeners who aren’t technologically inclined will appreciate how effortless it is to use.

VegPlotter keeps a calendar of crops and allows you to draw a layout of your yard. Items are labeled plainly and filters are few. Crop selection is fairly comprehensive. When you click on a plant, you see size information, growing details and suggested harvest times. It also allows users to modify planting or harvest times, which can help you plan around vacations.

The layout interface feels like a homemade video game, with bright colors and cramped text, but it does the job. You can re-create your yard with raised beds, lawn, hardscaping and even odd-shaped borders. Finding and placing plants is a snap. Modifying or duplicating is also easy. Another handy feature: The app warns you when there’s not enough growing space for what you’ve chosen.

There are a few drawbacks. Surface textures seem to be based on pictures, which give them a strange, out-of-scale appearance. Also, while you can easily insert greenhouses, sheds, cold frames, etc., you won’t find the choice for a house. This may be because the app is also designed for teachers with school gardens. Regardless, there’s a place to check off finished jobs, month-by-month planning and advice on companion planting. With a free version and an affordable yearly subscription, VegPlotter is a no-frills, inexpensive way to keep your garden on track.

Garden Planner (from SmallBluePrinter)

15-day free trial/$48 one-time payment; desktop software for Mac or Windows

When it comes to design layout software, there are few satisfying choices. Most apps are either too granular for the average homeowner or too focused on landscape architecture. Garden Planner, designed by an Australian software developer, is in the sweet spot. It’s a bare-bones app that allows you to start designing immediately. The interface is basic, with only tools and objects tabs, but all choices are intuitively labeled. You can easily drag and drop paths, walls, fences, plants and other features. And modifying your choices is simple. The notebook window produces a list of plants with dimensions, which is handy for shopping. A 3D feature is in beta phase.

The one enormous drawback of Garden Planner is its plant list. Mystifyingly, plants are sometimes labeled with a botanical genus, like Haworthia; other times they have generic labels, such as “simple shrub” or “spiky leaf plant.” This forces users to manually write in their specific choices later. For instance, you might need to note “Japanese Spirea” beside “flowering shrub.” Despite this frustrating flaw, the software can render a fairly accurate design for those who want an overhead landscape plan of their garden.

PictureThis

Free version/varying in-app purchases; for tablet or phone only

While this is a plant identification app, rather than a garden-planning tool, it was so well-designed that I decided to include it here. If you just bought a house and have no idea what plants are in your backyard, a plant identification app can help you learn to care for the garden. PictureThis is the most elegantly designed choice, with only essential features on the streamlined interface. You can identify a plant, diagnose a problem and create a catalog of plants in your garden. It will prompt you for your city/area to assess what plants work best in your region. Plus, you can identify birds, insects and mushrooms.

To start, you photograph a plant and upload it to the app, which then returns a botanical identification with impressive accuracy. The “notes” section will tell you whether the app thinks your plant is healthy. The care tab offers advice on watering, fertilizing, pruning, etc. Plant info gives a thorough rundown of the plant’s characteristics and native habitat. There’s even a feature that rates how easy or difficult it is to grow a particular plant in your region. In other words, it will tell you that trying to grow a banana tree in zone 5 will be an uphill climb. Whoever built PictureThis not only knew gardening but knew what kinds of information gardeners would want. Highly recommended.