App comparisons — your questions answered

Growli and Greg are the strongest free starting points. Growli's free tier — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — never expires; photo identification and leaf-based diagnosis sit on its paid Plus plan, with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan. Greg gives free identification and community-calibrated watering. PictureThis, Planta and Blossom are freemium — usable free, but their best features sit behind a subscription.

Yes — most plant apps do this. The difference is how smart the reminder is. Growli, Planta and Greg tune watering to your plant type, light and conditions rather than a fixed weekly ping, which matters indoors where a dim corner and a bright windowsill dry pots at very different rates. A condition-aware reminder is far more reliable than a plain calendar alert.

Apps with photo-based diagnosis do this. Growli lets you photograph a struggling leaf and get a likely cause — overwatering, low light, pests or nutrients — plus a plain-language fix you can ask follow-up questions about; on Growli that photo diagnosis is part of the Plus plan. PictureThis, Planta (Dr. Planta) and Blossom also offer disease detection, likewise as part of their paid subscriptions.

The better apps combine your plant's species, its light level, pot size and sometimes local weather to estimate how fast the soil dries, then schedule watering to match. Indoor light varies hugely from room to room, so this adaptive approach beats a fixed cycle. You should still check the top inch or two of soil before watering — the app guides, it doesn't replace a finger test.

PictureThis is widely regarded as the most accurate identifier and covers a very broad plant library. Greg, Blossom and Growli also identify plants from a photo, though each puts identification behind a paid tier or a capped trial rather than giving it away. If identification is your only need, PictureThis leads; if you also want diagnosis and care in one app, Growli covers the most ground — its photo features sit on the Plus plan, and Blossom's behind its own subscription, which at $59.99–$79.99 a year is the most expensive in this group.

No. Greg's free tier covers identification and watering reminders, and Growli's free tier covers the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks and frost alerts without a subscription (its photo ID and diagnosis are on Plus). Paid apps such as Planta and PictureThis add polish and depth, but you can keep a healthy indoor collection on a free tier plus good habits — right light, checking soil moisture, and acting early on problems.

Yes — several. Growli, PictureThis, Planta, Greg and Blossom all identify succulents and cacti from a photo. Because so many succulents are near-identical look-alikes, choose one that IDs to species rather than just 'a succulent' and pairs the ID with care. Growli adds photo-based diagnosis and ASPCA pet-toxicity; it is free to download, with the photo features on Growli Plus ($44.99 / £34.99 a year, 7-day trial on the yearly plan).

Use the soak-and-dry method rather than a fixed schedule. Flood the pot until water runs from the drainage hole, then let the soil dry out completely before watering again. How long that takes depends on light, pot size and season — often every couple of weeks indoors, less in winter. Overwatering is the top killer, so when unsure, wait.

Some are. Per the ASPCA, jade plant (Crassula), kalanchoe, aloe vera and most Euphorbia are toxic to cats and dogs. Others — Haworthia, Echeveria, Sempervivum (hen and chicks) and burro's tail (Sedum morganianum) — are ASPCA non-toxic. Since many succulents look alike, identify the species and check the ASPCA list, or an app that carries ASPCA data, before trusting one around a pet.

Almost always overwatering plus too little light. Succulents store water in their leaves, so wet soil rots the roots — waterlogged mix starves them of oxygen. Mushy, translucent leaves signal rot; wrinkled ones signal thirst. Fix it with gritty free-draining soil, a bright spot with several hours of direct light, and the soak-and-dry watering rhythm.

A gritty, fast-draining mix. Standard potting soil holds too much water against the roots; cut it with perlite, pumice or coarse sand so it drains within seconds. A common starting point is two parts potting mix to one part grit, always in a pot with a drainage hole. This mimics the rocky ground succulents evolved in and is the single best defence against rot.

Growli is free to download on iOS and Android, and its free tier — the garden plan, watering and frost reminders, ASPCA pet-toxicity data and the growing guides — does not expire. Photo identification and leaf or stem diagnosis are part of Growli Plus, $44.99 a year in the US or £34.99 in the UK, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan. The species library includes extensive succulents and cacti, with care localized to RHS guidance for UK growers.

It depends on the job, and the honest answer is that no single free app does everything. PlantNet is the best free identifier — completely free with no in-app purchases at all, run by a French research consortium, and strongest on wild plants, trees and European natives. RHS Grow's free tier is the best free reference for British garden plants, funded by the Royal Horticultural Society and open to non-members. Growli's free tier is the best free option for ongoing care through a British year, covering the garden plan, weather-timed tasks and frost warnings. Most UK gardeners are best served by two free apps rather than one.

Yes, there is a genuinely free version, and you do not need to be an RHS member to use it. The free tier covers plant identification, the A-Z plant profiles from the RHS's own 35,000-plant database, the Discover articles and podcasts, and your garden and wishlists. Tailored care tips, the Journal, the Garden Planner and the ChatBotanist assistant sit behind a subscription of £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year after a free trial. That subscription is separate from RHS society membership — membership does not include it. Checked against the RHS's own page, 2 August 2026.

PlantNet. It has no in-app purchases at all — not a limited free tier, not a trial, no paid version to upgrade to. It is funded as a citizen-science project by Cirad, INRAE, Inria and IRD rather than run as a business. Seek by iNaturalist is the other genuinely free identifier, better for insects, fungi and wildlife alongside plants, and designed to be safe for children to use without an account.

No. PictureThis is free to download and offers a 7-day trial, but it is not a free app in practice — unlimited identifications, disease diagnosis and care reminders all sit behind a subscription of £34.99 a year in the UK (checked 29 July 2026). The trial converts to a paid subscription automatically, and unexpected charges after a trial people believed they had cancelled are the single most common complaint in its UK reviews. Cancel through your phone's subscription settings rather than by deleting the app.

Growli has a free tier that does not expire and does not convert to a paid plan: the garden plan, weather-timed daily care tasks, frost warnings ahead of cold nights, and step-by-step growing guides all cost nothing indefinitely. Photo plant identification, photo diagnosis with a treatment plan and unlimited chat are on Growli Plus at £34.99 a year or £6.99 a month, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan. If photo identification is what you want and you want it free, PlantNet does that better than any free tier of a paid app.

Camera access is unavoidable for identification. Location is the one worth checking: identifiers use it to weight results towards species that actually grow near you, which genuinely improves accuracy, but it is also the most commonly shared data point. Seek by iNaturalist is the most conservative here — it does not require an account and does not publish your location by default. If an app asks for contacts or unrestricted photo library access to identify a plant, that is not a technical requirement.

Not on their own, and this is the one case where you should not rely on any app alone. Identification confidence drops sharply on seedlings, damaged leaves and closely related species — and several genuinely dangerous plants have harmless-looking relatives. If a pet or a child has eaten something, treat any app's answer as a starting point and call your vet. The UK also has the Animal PoisonLine on 01202 509 000, run by the Veterinary Poisons Information Service and open 24 hours — note that it is a paid service, £35 on weekdays between 8am and 8pm and £45 at all other times, so your own vet is usually the first call. Use an app to narrow down what a plant might be, never to decide that it is safe.

It depends on the job. For a genuinely free app, RHS Grow's free version and Growli's free tier are the two strongest picks — both keep working without a subscription. For pure watering schedules and a polished reminder UI, Planta leads at £32.99 for 12 months. For AI-driven care advice on a smaller indoor collection, Greg is strong, though it publishes tiers from £3.49 to £49.99 without saying which is the annual one. For official RHS advice, RHS Grow is the canonical UK option — free version, or £5.99 a month / £39.99 a year for full features, separate from RHS membership. For a full assistant that combines reminders, conversational symptom diagnosis, a daily morning briefing, frost alerts, and native UK localisation with RHS hardiness ratings, Growli is built for that, with a free tier and Growli Plus at £34.99 a year. Most UK gardeners run one care app plus one identifier. All GB prices checked 29 July 2026.

The RHS Grow app has a free version anyone can download and use — it covers the Discover articles and podcasts, garden and wishlists, and the A-Z plant profiles. To unlock all features you sign up to a subscription: £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year, starting with a free trial you can cancel any time. Importantly, the RHS Grow subscription is separate from RHS society membership — you do not need to be an RHS member, and paying for RHS membership does not include it. If you want a fully free plant care app for the UK, RHS Grow's free version and Growli's free tier are the two strongest options in 2026 — both keep working without a subscription.

Yes, and two of them do not expire. RHS Grow has a usable free tier funded by the Royal Horticultural Society, covering the Discover articles, garden and wishlists, and the A-Z plant profiles. Growli's free tier covers the garden plan, weather-timed daily care tasks, frost warnings and step-by-step growing guides — photo identification and photo diagnosis are on the paid Plus plan. PlantNet, an identifier rather than a care app, is completely free with no in-app purchases at all. Most other plant care apps offer a trial and then convert to a paid subscription.

Free, if you stay on RHS Grow's or Growli's free tier. Among paid annual plans the spread is narrow: PlantIn £29.99, Planta £32.99, PictureThis Pro £34.99, Growli Plus £34.99, RHS Grow £39.99 — about a fiver a year between them, checked on the GB App Store on 29 July 2026. Greg publishes tiers from £3.49 to £49.99 without stating durations, so it cannot be ranked honestly. Because the paid apps sit so close together, price is a poor way to choose between them; what the app actually does with your plants matters far more. Avoid weekly plans — PlantIn's £8.99 a week works out at over £460 a year against £29.99 for the annual.

No — and as of 2026 it cannot be installed anywhere. Vera had been US-only since November 2020 per Bloomscape's own FAQ, but it now appears discontinued entirely: it is no longer listed on the US App Store (checked directly against Apple's catalogue, 29 July 2026), and app-tracking sites date its removal from Google Play to February 2024. Bloomscape's site still shows a promotional page, but the download links lead nowhere. Vera never had in-app purchases — it was free end-to-end as a marketing channel for Bloomscape's plant sales. If the appeal was the human-curated care cards, RHS Grow is the closest UK equivalent and its free tier is genuinely usable.

For watering reminders and species-specific guidance, yes — most apps reliably nudge users to water on schedule and prevent the most common overwatering or underwatering mistakes in UK conditions. For symptom diagnosis, results vary widely. Static FAQ-style diagnosis (used by most apps) misses British-specific cases like the autumn central-heating shock, peat-free compost behaviour, and UK tap-water fluoride damage. Conversational diagnosis (used by Growli) narrows causes by asking clarifying questions and tends to land closer to the right answer for UK plants.

Add each plant to the app with its species, pot size, UK light conditions (north-facing window, sash-window draught, central-heating proximity), then follow the watering and feeding schedule the app generates. Photograph any symptoms as they appear so the diagnostic flow has visual context. With Growli specifically, the daily morning briefing surfaces the tasks for that day across the whole British collection, and UK frost alerts arrive 24 to 48 hours ahead of cold nights for outdoor pots.

RHS Grow is the official UK-native app from the Royal Horticultural Society, with native British species coverage and RHS hardiness ratings. Growli has native UK localisation built in from launch — RHS hardiness ratings, British weather and frost forecast integration, peat-free compost guidance, and UK retailer references (B&Q, Patch Plants, RHS Plants, Dobbies, Notcutts). Most other apps are US-leaning and require manual translation of advice.

Most plant care apps are houseplant-first and treat outdoor gardens as an afterthought. Growli covers both — UK indoor and outdoor — with native frost alerts for outdoor pots and beds tuned to the British forecast, RHS hardiness rating support, and UK weather-aware reminders. RHS Grow is the specialist for traditional British garden plants. For mixed UK collections, Growli is built for that case — created by Justas Macys and Nojus Balčiūnas to handle the specific British failure modes (central heating, peat-free compost, late frosts) that US-leaning competitors miss.

Growli is the broadest fit for beginners because it handles identification, watering reminders, symptom diagnosis, and daily seasonal briefings in one conversational interface — there's no learning curve to figure out which feature to use when. Greg is a strong simpler alternative if your collection is small and indoor-only. PictureThis is the easiest pure identifier.

Growli's free core tier (garden plan, care tasks, frost alerts) is the most useful free tier for active gardeners. The Old Farmer's Almanac is free with a small premium tier and is excellent for US weather and planting calendars. PlantNet is genuinely free for raw plant identification, though it doesn't include ongoing care features.

Growli is the only app on this list with native RHS hardiness rating support, UK Met Office weather data, and frost dates calibrated to UK regions. Most other gardening apps are US-leaning, which means UK gardeners spend time mentally converting USDA zones and US frost dates. If you garden in the UK, install Growli first.

From Seed To Spoon is the deepest US vegetable planning app, with companion planting, crop rotation, and frost-date-aware sowing schedules. Growli is more general-purpose but handles vegetables alongside ornamentals and indoor plants — better if you want one app rather than several.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant. After identification you can ask follow-up questions, log your watering, get a daily morning briefing with weather and tasks, and receive frost alerts. PictureThis and Greg each cover part of this, but Growli is the only one combining all three in a conversational interface.

PictureThis has the largest trained species catalogue and is consistently strongest on ornamentals and houseplants. PlantNet (covered in our plant identifier comparison) is the strongest free option, especially for wild and native species. Growli's identification matches PictureThis on common species and is improving monthly on the long tail.

Try the free tiers first. For most home gardeners, the free tier of Growli plus the free tier of PictureThis or PlantNet covers 80% of what you'll need. Pay for a subscription only if you find yourself blocked by paywalls on features you actually use — most often that's symptom diagnosis (Growli Plus), advanced light measurement (Planta), or unlimited identifications (PictureThis).

For most common houseplant problems and standard vegetable timing, yes — modern AI gardening apps match expert recommendations from horticulture extension services for the typical case. For commercial-scale damage, suspected viral or fungal outbreaks across multiple plants, or unusual species, your local university extension service or the RHS Advisory in the UK will catch nuances an app misses. Growli is calibrated to recommend escalation when confidence is low.

Yes — Greg's core experience is free, including unlimited plant tracking, its adaptive watering algorithm and access to the community forum. A paid tier called Super Greg unlocks watering and fertilizing reminder notifications, detailed care logs and custom notes; Apple lists its in-app purchases from $1.99 to $39.99 without publishing durations, so there is no single annual price to quote. In other words, planning is free but the actual reminders are premium.

There's no single 'better' app — it depends on what you need. Greg is hard to beat for a free community and watering schedule. Growli is stronger if you want conversational AI care, photo-based diagnosis, ASPCA-cited pet safety and UK support — free to download, with photo ID and diagnosis on its Plus plan. PictureThis wins on identification accuracy, and Planta on detailed scheduling. Match the app to the job you do most.

Growli, PictureThis and Plantum all combine care features with photo identification. Growli adds conversational follow-up and leaf-based diagnosis from a library of roughly 11,700 species — those photo features sit on its Plus plan, with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan. PictureThis is the most accurate pure identifier but paywalls most care features. Plantum offers a very large ID library. Greg does include identification too, but ID isn't its main strength.

Growli's free tier is the most capable like-for-like swap: the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides never expire, while photo identification, diagnosis and unlimited chat sit on the paid Plus plan. PlantNet is fully free if identification alone is the job. Most other alternatives — PictureThis, Planta, Blossom and Plantum — put their core features behind a subscription after a limited free tier or trial.

Not in the same way. Greg's advantage is its established in-app community forum where veteran growers answer questions. Growli takes a different approach: instead of waiting for a peer reply, you chat directly with an AI assistant about your specific plant and get an instant, cited answer, including pet-safety flags checked against the ASPCA database. If a busy human community matters most to you, Greg is the better fit.

Most plant apps, including Greg, lean toward US conditions, which means UK gardeners mentally convert USDA zones and US frost dates. Growli is UK-localized, drawing on RHS guidance and UK-calibrated care, so advice fits British growing conditions out of the box. It's free to download on iOS and Android (photo ID and diagnosis are on Plus, £34.99 a year), making it an easy first install for UK plant owners.

Greg and Growli are the strongest free starting points for beginners. Greg offers a generous free tier with unlimited plant tracking, free identification, and a community forum. Growli's free tier — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — never expires; its plain-language chat, photo ID and leaf-based diagnosis are on the paid Plus plan. PictureThis and Planta are free to download but lock most care features behind a paid subscription.

Care-focused apps like Planta, Greg and Growli are built for keeping plants alive rather than just naming them. They send watering reminders tuned to the species and your conditions, offer care guidance on light and humidity, and help diagnose problems. For beginners, the biggest factor is reminders that adapt to your setup instead of a fixed weekly alarm, since overwatering is the most common cause of plant loss.

Yes. PictureThis identifies a plant from a photo and offers care information, though most care features are paid. Growli combines photo identification, care reminders, and a plain-language chat in one app — free to download, with the photo and chat features on its Plus plan — so you can identify a plant and immediately ask how to care for it. Greg also pairs free identification with community-backed care advice.

You do not strictly need one, but a good app shortens the learning curve a lot. It removes the guesswork of identifying an unknown plant, replaces rigid watering habits with reminders tuned to the plant, and helps you tell apart look-alike problems like overwatering and underwatering. Think of it as a coach that flattens the early mistakes most new growers make.

Growli is built around symptom diagnosis for beginners — you photograph an affected leaf or describe the problem in plain words, and it works through likely causes with you. PictureThis and Greg include disease-detection features too, but they lean on a single photo lookup or a community forum rather than a back-and-forth conversation. For anything serious, also consult your local extension service or the RHS.

Modern identifier apps are accurate for common houseplants and garden flowers, though no app is perfect. PictureThis has a large trained catalogue and performs well on cultivated plants. Whatever the app suggests, cross-check the result against the care details — if the light, water and size guidance match what you have, the ID is likely right. For toxic or edible claims, verify against an authoritative source like the ASPCA before trusting it.

Match the plant to its species name, then check the ASPCA's toxic and non-toxic plant list — the authoritative reference for cats and dogs. Common names are unreliable, so a plant app that ties each species to its ASPCA classification (like Growli) lets you photograph a plant and get the answer before you buy. When unsure, treat it as toxic until confirmed.

Yes. Growli flags every plant's ASPCA toxicity for cats and dogs at identification and suggests pet-safe swaps; it is free to download, with photo identification on the Plus plan. PictureThis, Planta and Greg also surface toxicity information within their plant profiles. Growli is built specifically around the pet-owner question, so the safety flag appears the moment you snap a photo rather than being buried.

Yes. Golden pothos (Epipremnum aureum) is toxic to cats and dogs per the ASPCA. It contains insoluble calcium oxalate crystals that cause intense oral burning, drooling, vomiting and trouble swallowing if chewed. It's rarely fatal but genuinely painful, so keep it well out of reach or choose a pet-safe plant instead.

True lilies (Lilium and Hemerocallis) are the worst for cats — even pollen or vase water can cause fatal kidney failure. Sago palm is severely toxic to cats and dogs, with the ASPCA reporting up to 50% of ingestions are fatal. Pothos, philodendron, peace lily and snake plant are toxic but usually less severe.

The ASPCA lists spider plant, Calathea, Maranta (prayer plant), Boston fern and parlor palm as non-toxic to both cats and dogs. They cover a range of looks and light levels, so you can build a full green room without risk. A pet may still get a mild stomach upset from over-eating any plant, but these won't poison them.

The major ones do to varying degrees. PictureThis has a Toxic ID feature, Planta shows a toxicity section and lets you filter to non-toxic plants, and Greg notes toxicity in its profiles. Growli goes furthest for pet owners by attaching ASPCA classifications to every species and recommending pet-safe alternatives when a plant is toxic — all free.

PlantNet is the strongest fully-free identifier for UK gardeners. It is backed by a research consortium, has no paywall or ads, and includes a regional flora filter so you can narrow identification to UK or European plants and rule out North American look-alikes. Seek by iNaturalist is also free and better suited to families and wild spotting.

Growli uses the RHS hardiness scale (H1a–H7) rather than USDA zones, so its overwintering advice reflects British winter temperatures. Most US-built apps default to USDA zones, which do not map cleanly onto the UK. If hardiness and frost timing matter to you, an RHS-aligned app avoids advice built for the wrong climate.

PictureThis identifies UK plants accurately and quickly — its identification engine is climate-agnostic, so a British daisy is recognised as easily as an American one. The weaker point is care guidance: it leans on US hardiness zones and static per-species advice, so it is less useful for UK-specific overwintering, frost timing and watering decisions.

USDA zones divide the map into geographic bands based on long-term average extreme minimum temperatures. The RHS instead gives each plant a single hardiness rating from H1a to H7, based on the absolute minimum temperature it can survive. Most of England and Wales sits around H4–H5. Our UK hardiness zones guide explains how to read the ratings.

Greg, Planta and Growli all handle care reminders. Greg has a generous free tier with community-calibrated watering; Planta is a polished subscription scheduler using local weather data; Growli adds RHS-aligned hardiness, postcode frost alerts and conversational diagnosis on a free core. For UK-specific timing, an app that uses your local frost dates is the safer choice.

Yes. PlantNet and Seek by iNaturalist are fully free with no paywall, funded by research and conservation organisations. Greg offers a generous free tier for plant tracking, though schedules need a subscription. Growli is free to download on iOS and Android, with a free tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts; photo identification and diagnosis are on Growli Plus (£34.99/yr, 7-day trial). Planta and PictureThis are largely subscription-based.

It depends on the job. For pure watering schedules and a polished reminder UI, Planta leads. For AI-driven care advice on a smaller collection, Greg is strong. For a full assistant that combines reminders, conversational symptom diagnosis, a daily morning briefing, frost alerts, and native US + UK localization, Growli is built for that. Most growers run one care app plus one identifier.

Yes. Growli's free tier covers the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost warnings and growing guides, and it does not expire — photo identification and photo diagnosis are on the paid Plus plan. Greg's free tier is also genuinely usable for basic reminders. PlantNet, an identifier rather than a care app, is completely free with no in-app purchases at all. Vera by Bloomscape, long the standard answer to this question, was discontinued and can no longer be installed from either store.

Vera has been discontinued. It is no longer listed on the US App Store — we searched Apple's catalogue directly on 29 July 2026 and it is not there — and app-tracking sites date its removal from Google Play to February 2024. It had already been US-only since November 2020, per Bloomscape's own FAQ, so there was never an Android version on Google Play UK. Bloomscape's website still shows a promotional page for it, but the download links lead nowhere. To answer the other half of the question: Vera never had in-app purchases or a subscription — it was free end-to-end, funded as a marketing channel for Bloomscape's plant sales. If you are looking for its closest surviving equivalents: Greg's free tier for calm watering reminders, RHS Grow's free tier for expert-written care cards, or Growli's free tier for weather-timed tasks and frost alerts.

For watering reminders and species-specific guidance, yes — most apps reliably nudge users to water on schedule and prevent the most common overwatering or underwatering mistakes. For symptom diagnosis, results vary widely. Static FAQ-style diagnosis (used by most apps) misses cases because overwatering, light stress, and pests overlap visually. Conversational diagnosis (used by Growli) narrows causes by asking clarifying questions and tends to land closer to the right answer.

Add each plant to the app with its species, pot size, and light conditions, then follow the watering and feeding schedule the app generates. Photograph any symptoms as they appear so the diagnostic flow has visual context. With Growli specifically, the daily morning briefing surfaces the tasks for that day across the whole collection, and frost alerts arrive 24 to 48 hours ahead of cold nights for outdoor pots.

Not really — genuinely free apps are rare in the category because adaptive scheduling and AI care advice carry real compute cost. Vera by Bloomscape used to be the answer, funded as a marketing channel rather than a subscription product, but it was discontinued and can no longer be installed from either store. Today the closest options are PlantNet, which is completely free but identification-only, and the free tiers of Growli and Greg. Growli's free tier — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — does not expire; photo identification, conversational diagnosis, and offline mode are on the paid Plus plan, with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan.

Most plant care apps are houseplant-first and treat outdoor gardens as an afterthought. Growli covers both — indoor and outdoor, US or UK — with native frost alerts for outdoor pots and beds, USDA zone and RHS hardiness rating support, and weather-aware reminders. From Seed to Spoon is the specialist for US vegetable gardens. For mixed collections, Growli is built for that case.

It depends on the job. For raw species identification, PictureThis leads on catalogue size and PlantNet leads on free, science-backed accuracy. For ongoing plant care and symptom diagnosis, Growli is built around conversational follow-up — describe symptoms in plain English, get a ranked diagnosis, and receive a daily morning briefing. Most growers end up running one identifier (PictureThis or PlantNet) and one care assistant (Growli or Greg).

PictureThis and PlantNet are the two strongest in 2026. PictureThis has the larger trained catalogue and a faster, more polished UX, but locks most features behind a subscription. PlantNet is free, open-source, and backed by a French research consortium — it is particularly strong on wild and native species. For cultivated houseplants, PictureThis still edges ahead on accuracy.

PlantNet is the strongest fully-free option. It is backed by a citizen-science research consortium, has no paywall or ads, and is transparent about confidence scores. Seek by iNaturalist is also free and better for biodiversity logging. Growli has a free core tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts, with conversational diagnosis on the paid plus plan.

Growli is built specifically for symptom diagnosis. Photo-only apps return a species name and a static FAQ page; Growli asks clarifying questions — soil moisture, recent repot, watering history, light conditions — and ranks the most likely cause by your specific answers. PictureThis and Greg have diagnostic features but neither supports a multi-turn dialog.

Growli leads on disease and symptom diagnosis because it treats it as a conversation rather than a single photo lookup. Common causes — overwatering, light, pests, fungal disease — overlap visually, so a multi-turn dialog matters more than the photo itself. For commercial-scale or fast-spreading disease, escalate to your local university extension service or the RHS Advisory.

PictureThis is strongest on ornamental flowers and cultivated varieties thanks to a larger trained catalogue. PlantNet edges ahead on wild flowers and native species because of its research-grade citizen-science dataset. For mixed use — flowers in your garden plus the care that goes with them — Growli combines identification with seasonal advice tied to your climate.

PlantNet is the most credible option for trees and woody plants in the wild, with strong species coverage and conservative confidence scores. Seek by iNaturalist is a close second and feeds your observations into a real biodiversity database. PictureThis is faster but more focused on garden ornamentals than forest species.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant. After identification you can ask follow-up questions, log your watering, get a daily morning briefing with weather and tasks, and receive frost alerts ahead of cold nights. PictureThis and Greg each cover part of this, but Growli is the only one combining all three in a conversational interface.

It depends on the job. For raw species identification, PictureThis leads on catalogue size at £34.99 a year, and PlantNet leads on free, science-backed accuracy for British wild plants. For RHS-aligned UK gardening, RHS Grow is the official option. For ongoing plant care and symptom diagnosis with native UK localisation (RHS hardiness ratings, British weather, central-heating context), Growli is built for that. Most UK gardeners end up running one identifier (PictureThis, PlantNet or RHS Grow) plus one care assistant (Growli or Greg).

PictureThis Pro is £34.99 a year in the UK App Store after the 7-day free trial. The GB listing also shows £3.99 and £7.99 short plans, a £39.99 tier, and a £49.99 Family Plan. By comparison Growli Plus is also £34.99 a year, RHS Grow is £39.99 a year with a free tier underneath it, and PlantNet and Seek are free. SUPER Greg lists products from £3.49 to £49.99 without publishing what period each covers, so it cannot be given a fair annual figure. All checked on the GB App Store, 29 July 2026.

PlantNet is the strongest fully-free option for UK gardeners. It is backed by a French research consortium (Cirad, INRA, INRIA, IRD), has no paywall or ads, is transparent about confidence scores, and is strong on European native species. Seek by iNaturalist is also free and better for UK biodiversity logging. RHS Grow has a free tier with limited features. Growli has a free core tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts, with conversational diagnosis on the paid Plus plan.

RHS Grow has a free version anyone can download — useful for UK plant ID, plant profiles, and RHS articles. Full features cost £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year after a free trial, and this subscription is separate from RHS society membership (you do not need to be an RHS member, and membership does not include it). It is the strongest UK-native option for advice on British natives, garden ornamentals, hedgerow species and traditional UK varieties, with the official RHS hardiness rating system and a ChatBotanist feature. If you want a fully free option, RHS Grow's free version and Growli's free core tier are the two strongest picks.

Growli is built specifically for symptom diagnosis with native UK localisation. Photo-only apps return a species name and a static FAQ page; Growli asks clarifying questions — compost moisture, recent repot, watering history, light conditions, central-heating switch-on date — and ranks the most likely cause by your specific answers. PictureThis and Greg have diagnostic features but neither supports a multi-turn dialog tuned to British conditions like the autumn central-heating shock or peat-free compost behaviour.

PlantNet is the most credible option for British wild flowers, hedgerow species, and trees thanks to a research-grade dataset built on European citizen-science records. RHS Grow is the official UK option and is particularly strong on garden ornamentals and British natives. Seek by iNaturalist is a close third and feeds your UK observations into iRecord and similar biodiversity databases. PictureThis is faster but more focused on garden ornamentals than wild species.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant with native UK support. After identification you can ask follow-up questions in plain English, log your watering, get a daily morning briefing with British weather and tasks, and receive frost alerts ahead of cold nights tuned to the UK forecast. PictureThis and Greg each cover part of this, but Growli is the only one combining all three in a conversational interface with RHS hardiness ratings and UK retailer references.

Different jobs. RHS Grow is the official RHS app and is strongest on official RHS advice, British native species, and member benefits — best for traditional UK garden questions. Growli is a conversational AI assistant designed for symptom diagnosis, daily morning briefings, and frost alerts across a mixed indoor and outdoor collection — best when you want a back-and-forth dialog rather than an article. Many British growers run both: RHS Grow for official advice, Growli for in-the-moment diagnosis and reminders. Growli is built by Justas Macys and Nojus Balčiūnas with native RHS hardiness rating support, not bolted on.

Planta Premium is $35.99 a year in the US and £32.99 in the UK, with a three-month tier at $17.99 and a monthly plan around $7.99. Apple's listing also shows a higher $47.99 tier, so the exact figure you see can depend on the plan offered to you. The app is free to download; the subscription is what unlocks identification, the light meter and diagnosis.

Only in a narrow sense. Planta is free to download and the free tier covers watering reminders and basic task logging, but plant identification, the light meter and health diagnosis are all Premium features. If those are the parts you actually wanted, Planta is effectively a paid app at $35.99 a year.

Partly. Growli is free to download on iOS and Android, and its free tier — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — never expires; photo identification and diagnosis sit on the paid Plus plan, with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan. Greg offers a generous free tier built around a community feed. Both are strong swaps if Planta's subscription is your main reason for leaving.

Planta puts most of its useful features — plant identification, disease diagnosis, personalized care schedules and unlimited plants — behind Planta Premium, which runs about $7.99 per month or $35.99 per year. The free tier is mostly watering reminders, so getting real value effectively requires the subscription, which is why many people look for a cheaper or free alternative.

Planta is worth it if you value a polished, beautifully organized care-scheduling interface and don't mind paying around $35.99 a year. Its light meter and per-plant task view are excellent. If you'd rather not pay at all, the free tiers of Growli or Greg cover the reminder side at no cost — though Growli's photo diagnosis, like Planta's, sits on a paid plan.

Growli's free tier — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — never expires, which makes it the strongest free starting point; photo identification and diagnosis are on its paid Plus plan. Greg is the best free option if you specifically want a social community feed. Most other apps, including Planta, PictureThis, Plantum and Blossom, gate their strongest features behind a paid subscription.

Mostly no — in 2026 nearly every app paywalls photo identification, and that includes Growli, where photo ID sits on the Plus plan ($44.99 a year, 7-day trial on yearly) alongside diagnosis; the free tier covers the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts. PictureThis charges $39.99 a year, and Plantum lists products from $1.99 to $59.99 with no single annual figure. If free identification is the whole goal, PlantNet is genuinely free with no in-app purchases at all.

Growli is the strongest choice for pet owners because it carries ASPCA-cited toxicity data across roughly 11,700 species, so you can check whether a plant is toxic to cats or dogs before buying it. You can browse the same data on our pet-safe plant hub. Most other apps mention toxicity only in passing rather than as structured, sourced data.

PlantIn's annual subscription is listed at $29.99 or $39.99 depending on the tier you are shown, and £29.99 in the UK, according to the App Store listing checked in July 2026. Shorter plans run from roughly $6.99 to $17.99 a week. A $49.99 lifetime option existed but was withdrawn in early 2026. Because the tier offered varies between users, check the figure in your own App Store listing before subscribing.

Only in a limited way. PlantIn is free to download and its free tier does not expire, but it caps you at roughly three plants in your spaces and a few dozen identifications. Care notifications, the feed and the plant database are included. If you own more than three plants, PlantIn is effectively a paid app. One exception: PlantIn is free for university students with a valid university email address.

PlantNet, if identification is all you need — it is run by a French research consortium, has no paywall and no ads, and publishes confidence scores. For care rather than identification, Greg keeps a genuinely generous free core. Growli's free tier also never expires and is not capped at three plants, though its photo identification and diagnosis sit on the paid Plus plan.

PlantIn withdrew the $49.99 lifetime option in early 2026; the company has not published a reason. If you bought it before then, existing lifetime purchases were honoured. For anyone comparing now, the practical effect is that the cheapest long-term route into PlantIn no longer exists, which is one reason searches for alternatives rose through 2026.

PictureThis has the larger trained catalogue and performs better on uncommon ornamentals and wild species. PlantIn is broadly comparable on common houseplants. Both are subscription apps with short trials that convert automatically — PictureThis at $39.99 a year (£34.99 in the UK), PlantIn at $29.99 to $39.99. If identification breadth is the deciding factor, PictureThis is the stronger of the two.

Look for one that diagnoses from a photo of the affected part and then asks follow-up questions, because brown leaf edges can mean underwatering, fertiliser salt build-up or root rot and a single photo looks similar in all three. Growli is built around that conversation, with diagnosis on its Plus plan. A photo-only result page cannot ask what it needs to know, which is where most identification apps stop.

Most are built US-first and quote USDA zones only, which is not much use in Britain. Growli carries RHS hardiness ratings alongside USDA zones and localises care timing to UK conditions. The RHS's own Grow app is the other genuinely UK-native option — see our guide to what RHS Grow costs for how its free and paid tiers split.

Yes. PlantNet is completely free, ad-free, and has no paywall or in-app purchases. It's run as a citizen-science project by a French research consortium — Cirad, Inria, IRD, and INRAE — and funded through institutional and research-grant support rather than subscriptions. Every identification you submit helps train its model and can feed public biodiversity databases. There is no premium tier to unlock.

No. PlantNet is an identification tool only — it names the plant from a photo but does not provide care instructions, watering schedules, reminders, or symptom diagnosis. That's by design; it was built as a botanical ID app, not a gardening assistant. If you want care guidance after identification, an app like Growli or PictureThis adds that layer, while Growli's is conversational and free.

It depends on the job. For pure free identification of wild plants, nothing is meaningfully better — PlantNet is best in class, with Seek by iNaturalist a close free alternative. But if you want the step PlantNet skips — care, diagnosis, reminders, and pet-safety checks — Growli is the strongest upgrade, since it pairs photo ID with conversational care guidance and is also free.

Yes. Growli is free to download on iOS and Android. Its free tier covers care reminders, frost alerts and a daily plan; photo identification, leaf diagnosis and unlimited chat are on Growli Plus ($44.99/yr, with a 7-day trial). It also includes ASPCA pet-safety data and UK-localized RHS guidance. Unlike PlantNet, which stops at the name, Growli covers the ongoing care of plants you already own — without a paywall on the core features.

PlantNet is highly accurate on wild flowers, weeds, trees, and native species, because its dataset is built from outdoor citizen-science observations and it lets you photograph multiple organs — leaf, flower, bark, or fruit — to narrow the result. It's weaker on cultivated houseplants and hybrids, where catalogue-heavy apps like PictureThis often do better. It shows ranked candidates with confidence scores rather than a single guess.

For naming houseplants, PictureThis has the largest cultivated-plant catalogue, though it's paid. For actually keeping houseplants alive — watering reminders, diagnosis of yellowing or browning leaves, and pet-safety checks — Growli is the better fit; it is free to download with a free tier that does not expire, and its photo diagnosis sits on Growli Plus ($44.99 / £34.99 a year, 7-day trial on the yearly plan). PlantNet itself is weaker on cultivated indoor plants than on wild species, so a care-focused app is usually the better indoor companion.

Plantum is free to download and lets you identify plants without paying, but it caps free health diagnosis and puts its care tools — the light meter, pot meter, water calculator and detailed diagnostics — behind Plantum Premium. That subscription runs roughly $20 to $30 per year depending on region and promotion, usually after a short free trial. If you want an app with no paywall on identification or diagnosis, Growli is free on iOS and Android.

Yes. Plantum is the rebranded version of NatureID — the developer renamed the app while keeping the same core plant identification, disease diagnosis and care features. If you used NatureID in the past, Plantum is its direct continuation, now with an expanded species catalogue and additional professional tools like the light meter and botanist consultations.

Plantum is generally accurate for identification, scoring highly in independent 2026 comparisons of leaf-photo recognition, and it advertises a large species catalogue. Accuracy still drops on blurry photos, unusual angles or bark and roots, which is true of every AI plant app. For borderline cases, Plantum lets you escalate to a professional botanist, and other apps such as PictureThis are also strong on clear leaf images.

Growli is the strongest all-in-one alternative: photo identification, leaf-based problem diagnosis and conversational AI chat alongside care reminders and ASPCA-cited pet-safety data. It is free to download on iOS and Android — the free tier covers the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts, while identification, diagnosis and unlimited chat sit on Growli Plus ($44.99/yr, 7-day trial). Greg is the best free option if you specifically want a community feed. Most other apps, including PictureThis and Planta, gate their strongest features behind a paid subscription.

Plantum offers structured care guides and the option to request a written consultation from a professional botanist, which typically returns advice within a few days. It is not a real-time conversational assistant. If you want to ask free-form follow-up questions about your specific plant and get an instant reasoned answer, Growli's conversational AI is built for exactly that back-and-forth.

Growli is the strongest choice for pet owners because it carries ASPCA-cited toxicity data across roughly 11,700 species, so you can check whether a plant is toxic to cats or dogs before buying it. You can browse the same data on our pet-safe plant hub. Most other apps, including Plantum, mention toxicity only in passing rather than as structured, sourced data.

Only in a limited way. Blossom offers a free tier that typically allows just a few plant identifications, after which the core features — unlimited ID, disease diagnosis, the light meter, the water calculator, unlimited reminders, and AI botanist chat — require a paid subscription. Prices change and some users report notable renewal increases, so verify the current cost in-app. Growli's free tier does not expire, and its paid plan is $44.99 / £34.99 a year against Blossom's $59.99-$79.99.

For beginners who want a polished all-rounder, it can be. Blossom is well-designed and strong on common houseplants, and its light meter and pot-size watering calculator are genuinely useful tools that Growli doesn't offer. The catch is the paywall and the lack of conversational diagnosis. If you mainly need help troubleshooting sick plants or want ASPCA-cited pet-safety data for free, Growli is the better fit.

For ongoing plant care rather than just identification, Growli is the strongest choice: free to download on iOS and Android, it identifies plants, diagnoses leaf problems and lets you chat about them, sends condition-tuned reminders and frost alerts, and includes ASPCA-cited pet-safety data for every species. Unlike Blossom, it doesn't gate the features that matter behind a subscription.

Yes. Blossom includes photo-based disease identification that suggests likely issues from an image. The limitation is that it returns a static result with no follow-up. Growli also diagnoses from a photo but then lets you chat about your plant — answering questions like when you last watered or whether you've repotted — to narrow the cause to your specific situation rather than the average one.

Yes — a built-in light meter is one of Blossom's standout features. You point your phone around a room to measure the light level, and the app matches it to what a given plant needs. Growli does not include a light meter, so if that specific tool is your main reason for downloading an app, Blossom has the edge there.

Yes. Growli is natively localized for both US and UK gardeners, using RHS hardiness ratings rather than only USDA zones, so its frost alerts and planting advice match UK conditions. For pet owners, every species in Growli's roughly 11,700-plant library carries ASPCA-cited toxicity data, so questions like whether a plant is safe for cats or dogs get a sourced answer rather than a guess.

Not really. PictureThis offers a 7-day free trial and a very limited free tier, but the features most people want — unlimited identifications, disease detection, and care reminders — sit behind a paid subscription the App Store lists at $39.99 a year in the US and £34.99 in the UK. The trial auto-converts to paid billing, and users often report unexpected charges. If you want to start without paying, Growli is free to download on iOS and Android.

It depends on the job. PictureThis is better at pure identification — it has a far larger species database and top independent accuracy scores. Growli is better at everything after identification: conversational diagnosis of plant problems, condition-tuned care reminders, frost alerts, ASPCA-cited pet-safety data, and native UK (RHS) localization — free to download, with the photo features on its Plus plan at the same price band as PictureThis Pro. Choose PictureThis to name plants; choose Growli to care for them.

Yes, PictureThis includes photo-based disease detection that suggests likely issues from an image, though it's a paid feature. The limitation is that it returns a static answer with no follow-up. Growli also diagnoses from a photo but then lets you chat about your plant — answering questions like when you last watered or whether you've repotted — to narrow the cause to your specific situation.

For free identification only, PlantNet is the leading option — it's run by a French research consortium and has no paywall. For plant care rather than just ID, Growli is the strongest choice: its free tier (garden plan, care tasks, frost alerts) never expires, and its photo diagnosis and ASPCA-cited pet-safety chat sit on the Plus plan with a 7-day trial on the yearly option. See our PictureThis alternatives roundup for a full seven-app comparison.

Very accurate on clean photos of common and even uncommon species. Independent 2025 testing ranked it the top plant-ID app, with roughly 76% of identifications correct and about 88% helpful once partial matches were counted. Accuracy drops on bark, damaged or poorly lit leaves, and on distinguishing cultivated varieties — it often can't tell one snake-plant variety from another, for example.

Yes. Growli is natively localized for both US and UK gardeners, using RHS hardiness ratings rather than only USDA zones, so its frost alerts and planting advice match UK conditions. For pet owners, every species in Growli's roughly 11,700-plant library carries ASPCA-cited toxicity data, so questions like whether a plant is safe for cats or dogs get a sourced answer rather than a guess.

Free, if you are willing to stay on a free tier. PlantNet costs nothing and has no in-app purchases at all. RHS Grow's free tier is the strongest no-cost option for British gardeners, funded by the Royal Horticultural Society and open to non-members. Growli's free tier — garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides — does not expire either. Among paid annual plans, PlantIn is lowest at £29.99, then Planta at £32.99. Checked on the GB App Store, 29 July 2026.

PictureThis Pro is £34.99 a year on the GB App Store, checked 29 July 2026. The listing also shows £3.99 and £7.99 short plans, a £39.99 tier, and a £49.99 Family Plan. Many comparison pages still quote around £25, which is out of date. The 7-day free trial converts to a paid subscription automatically, and unexpected renewal charges are the single most common complaint in its UK reviews — cancel through your phone's subscription settings rather than by deleting the app.

RHS Grow has a free version anyone can download and use — the A-Z plant profiles, the Discover articles and podcasts, and garden and wishlists. Full access is £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year after a free trial, per the RHS's own page. Importantly, this subscription is separate from RHS society membership: you do not need to be a member, and paying for membership does not include it. Its GB App Store listing also shows £29.99 and £34.99 tiers without explaining what they cover, so the £39.99 the RHS publishes is the figure to plan around.

Nobody outside Greg can answer this honestly. The GB App Store listing shows ten SUPER Greg products — £3.49, £5.99, £5.99, £6.49, £6.49, £16.99, £25.99, £26.99, £39.99 and £49.99 — and publishes the duration of none of them. The £39.99 tier is the most likely annual plan by comparison with Greg's US listing, but Apple does not state it. Any page quoting a single annual figure for Greg is guessing at it.

No — and as of 2026, nowhere else either. Vera had been US-only since November 2020 per Bloomscape's own FAQ, and it now appears discontinued entirely: no longer listed on the US App Store (checked directly against Apple's catalogue, 29 July 2026), with app-tracking sites dating its Google Play removal to February 2024. Bloomscape's site still promotes it, but the download links lead nowhere. Vera never had in-app purchases or a subscription, so pages quoting its UK prices are inventing them. If the appeal was Vera's human-curated care cards, RHS Grow is the closest UK equivalent and its free tier is genuinely usable.

Almost never. PlantIn's weekly tiers run from £4.99 to £8.99, and £8.99 a week works out at over £460 a year against £29.99 for the same app's annual plan. Weekly pricing exists because the number looks small at the paywall. If you only need an app to solve one problem, use a free one — PlantNet for identification, RHS Grow for care. If you need it through a season, take the annual plan.

Apple and Google set store prices per territory rather than converting a single figure, so a US price and a UK price are two separate decisions by the developer. PictureThis Pro is $39.99 in the US and £34.99 in the UK — not a conversion. Growli Plus is $44.99 in the US and £34.99 in the UK. This is why quoting a US figure with a pound sign in front of it, which most comparison pages do, produces the wrong number.

Growli is free to download and its free tier does not expire — the garden plan, weather-timed daily care tasks, frost warnings and step-by-step growing guides cost nothing indefinitely. Growli Plus adds photo plant identification, photo diagnosis with a treatment plan, and unlimited chat, at £34.99 a year or £6.99 a month, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan. That is level with PictureThis Pro in the UK — we are not the cheapest app in this comparison and would rather say so.

The fastest route is a photo identification app — PictureThis, PlantNet, or Growli will return a species name in under five seconds on common houseplants with around 90 percent accuracy. If the result looks off, cross-check by leaf shape, growth habit, and any flowers, and post a photo to r/whatsthisplant for a human second opinion. Growli combines all three steps by asking one or two clarifying questions in the identification dialog, which catches cultivar and juvenile-form errors that single-shot apps miss.

For pure species identification on common houseplants, PictureThis has the largest catalogue and the fastest UI but locks features behind a paid subscription. PlantNet is the best free option and is credible on the most common indoor species. Growli is the best choice if you want identification plus a conversational care plan — it asks follow-up questions when the model is uncertain rather than guessing confidently. Most experienced growers run one identifier and one care app side by side.

Yes. PlantNet is fully free with no paywall and is the strongest free identifier on the market. Seek by iNaturalist is also free, but it is intentionally conservative on cultivated varieties and is better for wild species. Growli's free tier covers the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks and frost alerts and does not expire, but photo identification and diagnosis sit on Growli Plus ($44.99 a year, £34.99 in the UK) with a 7-day trial on the yearly plan — so it is not the one to pick if you want free identification. Posting to r/whatsthisplant on Reddit is also free and often returns a confident answer within an hour.

Three common reasons. First, the plant is a cultivar — variegated pothos, Thai constellation monstera, Pink Princess philodendron — and the app has only been trained on the green parent species. Second, the plant is juvenile and looks different from the mature form the app has learned. Third, two species genuinely look similar — pothos and heartleaf philodendron are the most common confusion. A conversational app like Growli handles these by asking one or two clarifying questions before locking in an answer.

Both have heart-shaped leaves on trailing vines, which is why apps confuse them. Pothos leaves are thicker, waxier, and often variegated with cream or yellow. Philodendron leaves are thinner, softer, and uniformly green with a more matte finish. Pothos has a textured upper surface; philodendron is smoother. Heartleaf philodendron also shows visible aerial roots at every node, whereas pothos has more subtle nubs. If you cannot tell from a photo, snap a leaf side by side with a coin and run Growli's conversational identifier.

Often, yes. Photo apps can identify roughly 80 percent of common houseplants from a single clear leaf shot if the lighting is good and the leaf is in focus. Accuracy improves dramatically if you also capture the growth habit (trailing, upright, rosette), the underside of the leaf, and any flowers or fruit. Single-leaf identification fails most often on succulents and air plants where many species share near-identical leaf shapes.

Pothos versus heartleaf philodendron is the single most common mix-up, including by paid apps. Pothos has thicker, waxier leaves often variegated with cream; philodendron is thinner, softer, and uniformly green with prominent aerial roots. The second most common confusion is between juvenile monstera and philodendron, since young monstera leaves are unsplit hearts. Apps that ask one clarifying question — Growli does this — catch both cases reliably.

Not always. A 99 percent confidence with no alternatives offered is a UX choice, not necessarily an accuracy claim. PlantNet and Growli both surface alternative matches when the model is uncertain, which is usually more useful than false certainty. If the answer looks wrong against the visual cues you can see — leaf shape, vein pattern, growth habit — run a second app and post to r/whatsthisplant before committing to a care plan.

£5.99 a month or £39.99 a year, after a free trial you can cancel any time. There is also a genuinely free version that does not expire. Checked against the RHS's own page on 29 July 2026. Note that the GB App Store listing additionally shows £29.99 and £34.99 tiers without saying what period they cover, so check what your own paywall offers — you may be shown something cheaper than the published price.

Yes, there is a real free version, not a trial. It includes plant identification, the A-Z plant profiles from the RHS's own 35,000-plant database, the Discover articles and podcasts, and your garden and wishlists — and it does not expire. Tailored care tips, the Journal, the Garden Planner and the ChatBotanist assistant require the paid tier at £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year.

No. RHS Grow is separate from RHS society membership, and this is the most common misunderstanding about it. Membership does not include the app subscription — members pay the same £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year as everyone else. Equally, subscribing to the app does not make you an RHS member: no garden entry, no magazine, no member benefits. Anyone can use RHS Grow whether they are a member or not.

Yes. The RHS lists 'Identify Plants' in RHS Grow's free column alongside the 35,000-plant database and its Discover articles, so you can identify plants without paying anything and without RHS membership (checked 2 August 2026). The subscription — £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year — buys tailored care tips, the Journal, the Garden Planner and the ChatBotanist assistant. PlantNet is also completely free with no in-app purchases at all and is excellent on wild plants, trees and European natives, and Seek by iNaturalist is free too.

Because the RHS publishes more than one app, and the membership benefit refers to a different one. RHS Grow is a separate, standalone product with its own subscription. The RHS's own FAQ answers the question directly: 'I'm an RHS member, do I need to pay for RHS Grow?' — 'RHS Grow is separate to RHS membership and available to everyone.' You have not been double-charged for the same thing. For reference, individual RHS membership is £79.99 a year, or £55.99 on the 30% Direct Debit offer running as of 29 July 2026, and buys garden entry, The Garden magazine and Partner Garden access — not RHS Grow's paid tier.

It is worth it if you garden outdoors in Britain and want guidance grounded in RHS hardiness ratings rather than American USDA zones — nothing else in the category carries the Society's authority on native species and traditional garden varieties. It is less compelling if you mostly keep houseplants, where PictureThis identifies better at £34.99 and PlantNet is free. Start with the free tier: the A-Z reference is worth having installed regardless, and you can decide about the paid features later.

It is the most expensive of the mainstream options. Annual plans on the GB App Store as of 29 July 2026: PlantIn £29.99, Planta £32.99, PictureThis Pro £34.99, Growli Plus £34.99, RHS Grow £39.99. PlantNet and Seek are free outright. SUPER Greg lists products from £3.49 to £49.99 without publishing durations, so no honest annual figure exists for it. The whole paid field sits within about a tenner a year of itself, so price is a poor way to choose between them.

Yes. PlantNet is the leading fully-free PictureThis alternative. It's run by a French research consortium (Cirad, INRA, INRIA, IRD), uses citizen-science contributions to train its model, and has no paywall, no ads, and no nag-screens. Seek by iNaturalist is another fully-free option, better suited to biodiversity logging than houseplant care. Growli also offers a free core tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts.

PictureThis has a free trial but is not a free app in practice. Most useful features — unlimited identifications, disease diagnosis, care reminders — sit behind a subscription of $39.99 USD or £34.99 GBP per year. The free trial converts to a paid subscription automatically and many users report being charged unexpectedly. If you want a fully free alternative, PlantNet is the cleanest option.

PictureThis is typically $39.99 USD or £34.99 GBP per year on annual billing, with monthly options usually around $7-8 USD. Pricing varies by region and promotional offers. By comparison Growli Plus is $44.99 per year, PlantIn's annual products run $29.99–$39.99, Greg lists in-app purchases from $1.99 to $39.99 with no durations published, Planta is around $36, and PlantNet and Seek are free.

Deleting the PictureThis app does not cancel your subscription — billing continues. To cancel, open your phone's subscription settings. On iPhone: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → PictureThis → Cancel. On Android: Play Store → profile icon → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions → PictureThis → Cancel. Cancel before switching to an alternative or you'll pay for both apps in parallel.

PictureThis is reliable on common species and ornamentals — its trained catalogue is among the largest in the market. It is less reliable on similar-looking cultivated varieties and hybrids, where it sometimes returns a confident answer that turns out to be a sibling species. For wild and native species PlantNet is often more reliable because it shows confidence scores and alternative matches. For symptom diagnosis, no photo-only app is reliable without follow-up questions — which is why Growli's multi-turn dialog exists.

They solve different jobs. PictureThis is better for cultivated houseplants, garden ornamentals, and quick identification with a polished UI — at the cost of a paid subscription. Seek by iNaturalist is better for wild species, biodiversity logging, and citizen science — and it is free and family-friendly. For indoor plant care neither is ideal; consider Growli or Greg instead.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant. After identification you can ask follow-up questions in plain English, log your watering, receive a daily morning briefing with weather and tasks, and get frost alerts before cold nights. PictureThis and Greg each cover part of this, but Growli is the only one combining all three jobs in a conversational interface with native US + UK localization.

Yes. PlantNet is the leading fully-free PictureThis alternative for UK users. It is run by a French research consortium (Cirad, INRA, INRIA, IRD), uses citizen-science contributions to train its model, and has no paywall, no ads, and no nag screens. Seek by iNaturalist is another fully-free option, better suited to UK biodiversity logging than houseplant care. RHS Grow has a free tier with limited features. Growli also offers a free core tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts.

PictureThis has a 7-day free trial but is not a free app in practice. Most useful features — unlimited identifications, disease diagnosis, care reminders — sit behind a subscription of £34.99 a year in the UK App Store, checked 29 July 2026. The free trial converts to a paid subscription automatically and many UK users report being charged unexpectedly. If you want a fully free alternative, PlantNet is the cleanest option: no paywall and no in-app purchases at all.

PictureThis Pro is £34.99 a year on annual billing in the UK; the GB listing also shows £3.99 and £7.99 short plans, a £39.99 tier and a £49.99 Family Plan. By comparison, PlantIn is £29.99 a year, Planta is £32.99 for 12 months, Growli Plus is £34.99 a year, and RHS Grow is free with an optional £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year subscription separate from RHS membership. PlantNet and Seek are completely free. SUPER Greg lists products from £3.49 to £49.99 without publishing what period each covers, so no honest annual figure exists for it. All checked on the GB App Store, 29 July 2026.

Deleting the PictureThis app does not cancel your subscription — billing continues. To cancel, open your phone's subscription settings. On iPhone: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → PictureThis → Cancel. On Android: Play Store → profile icon → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions → PictureThis → Cancel. Cancel before switching to an alternative or you will pay for both apps in parallel — a common UK mistake.

PictureThis is reliable on common UK species and ornamentals — its trained catalogue is among the largest in the market and includes substantial European data. It is less reliable on similar-looking cultivated varieties and hybrids, where it sometimes returns a confident answer that turns out to be a sibling species. For wild and native British species PlantNet is often more reliable because it shows confidence scores and alternative matches, and RHS Grow is the strongest UK-native option. For symptom diagnosis, no photo-only app is reliable without follow-up questions — which is why Growli's multi-turn dialog exists.

They solve different UK jobs. PictureThis is better for cultivated houseplants, garden ornamentals, and quick identification with a polished UI — at the cost of a paid subscription. Seek by iNaturalist is better for British wild species, biodiversity logging on country walks, and citizen science — and it is free and family-friendly. For indoor UK plant care neither is ideal; consider Growli or RHS Grow instead.

Growli is built specifically for this. PictureThis returns a species name and a static FAQ page; Growli asks clarifying questions — compost moisture, recent repot, watering history, central-heating switch-on date — and ranks the most likely cause by your specific answers and UK region. Static FAQ-style diagnosis misses British-specific causes like the autumn central-heating shock, peat-free compost behaviour, and UK tap-water fluoride damage on calatheas.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant with native UK support. After identification you can ask follow-up questions in plain English, log your watering, receive a daily morning briefing with British weather and tasks, and get frost alerts before cold nights tuned to the UK forecast. PictureThis and Greg each cover part of this, but Growli is the only one combining all three jobs in a conversational interface with native RHS hardiness ratings and UK retailer references. Built by Justas Macys and Nojus Balčiūnas as the British-aware alternative to US-leaning competitors.

They are good at different things. PictureThis has the best identification engine in the consumer market — a claimed 400,000-species catalogue and near-instant results — but treats care as a static per-species card. Greg has a genuinely adaptive watering engine that factors pot size, light and species, a usable free tier, and a community where experienced growers answer questions within about a day, but a smaller catalogue and weaker long-tail identification. Choose PictureThis for identification, Greg for keeping a small indoor collection watered.

Greg does not publish it, which is an unusual and genuine problem. Its App Store listing shows ten SUPER Greg products — $1.99 to $39.99 in the US, £3.49 to £49.99 in the UK — and states the duration of none of them (checked 29 July 2026). The $39.99 and £39.99 tiers are the most likely annual plans by comparison across storefronts, and £49.99 is plausibly a lifetime purchase, but those are inferences. Any page quoting a single confident annual figure for Greg is guessing at it.

Yes, and it is a genuine free tier rather than a trial — basic reminders, identification and community access keep working without payment. That is a meaningful advantage over PictureThis, which offers a 7-day trial that converts to a paid annual subscription automatically rather than any permanent free tier. If you want to test the watering engine that is Greg's main strength, you can do it for nothing.

The watering engine works anywhere — pot size, light and species are not country-specific. The rest is US-skewed: USDA hardiness zones rather than RHS ratings, US-centric seasonal timing, and no British weather or frost integration, so UK users end up translating advice as they read it. For native UK localisation, RHS Grow is the official Royal Horticultural Society option with a free tier, and Growli carries RHS hardiness ratings and a British frost forecast alongside its US support.

The 7-day free trial converts to a paid annual subscription automatically, and deleting the app does not cancel it — many people discover the distinction on a bank statement. It is the single most common theme in PictureThis's App Store reviews on both the US and GB storefronts. Cancel through your phone's subscription settings if you are unsure you will keep it; cancelling still leaves you access until the trial period ends.

Neither does it well, for the same underlying reason: overwatering, underwatering, light stress and nutrient burn look alike in a single photograph. PictureThis returns a static species care page. Greg does better — photo intake plus a community thread — but the community answer depends on someone being available and typically arrives within a day rather than a minute. Separating those causes needs follow-up questions about watering history, recent changes, position and feeding, which is the approach Growli takes.

Rarely worth it. If you want both identification and adaptive watering, the cheaper route is PlantNet — completely free, no in-app purchases at all — alongside Greg's free tier, which costs nothing and covers most of what people pay PictureThis for. Add a paid plan only once you know which of the two jobs you are actually doing every week.

Yes. Pl@ntNet has no paywall, no trial and no premium tier — it is ad-supported and open source, run by four French public research institutes (CIRAD, INRAE, INRIA and IRD) and funded partly by donation. This is unusual: most plant identifier apps give you a limited free allowance and then ask for a subscription.

Pl@ntNet, in most cases. Its database holds 84,710 species across 77 regional floras and its deepest coverage is European flora, which is where the project originated — that maps closely onto British gardens and countryside. A peer-reviewed comparison found Pl@ntNet among the top performers tested, correctly identifying 80-90% of species. PictureThis tends to do better on houseplants and unusual ornamentals, where the question is a consumer catalogue one rather than a botanical one.

The app is free to download and puts identification behind a subscription. We deliberately do not quote a figure: App Store subscription prices differ by storefront and change without notice, and an article that names a price to the penny is usually copying another article rather than checking. Open the App Store listing and read the in-app purchase list — that is the only reliable source, and it takes a few seconds.

No. Pl@ntNet is genuinely free and strong on British flora, which covers most of what a UK gardener actually points a camera at. Paying makes sense if you are regularly identifying houseplants and unusual ornamentals, where a larger consumer catalogue helps, or if you want care guidance bundled with the identification.

Neither is built around them. British hardiness runs on RHS ratings from H1a (heated greenhouse) to H7 (very hardy, below -20C), and an app reporting USDA zones leaves you converting in your head. If hardiness is the reason you are identifying the plant, see our guide to UK hardiness zones.

That is the sensible setup, and it costs nothing extra. Pl@ntNet for anything growing outdoors in Britain, PictureThis for houseplants if you already subscribe. Most UK gardeners end up with one identifier and one care app rather than trying to make a single app do both jobs.

Because it is showing you its confidence rather than hiding it. It is a research project, and returning a ranked shortlist for a genuinely ambiguous plant is more honest than picking one and sounding certain. When you see a shortlist, photograph a different part of the plant — a flower, the leaf arrangement, the bark — and identify again.

They win at different things. PictureThis has the best identification engine in the consumer market — a claimed 400,000-species catalogue and roughly two-second photo-to-name — but its care side is a static per-species FAQ that does not adapt. Planta has the best adaptive watering engine in the category, built from your window orientation, room and pot material, but its identification lags PictureThis at the long tail. Choose PictureThis if you often meet plants you cannot name; choose Planta if you own plants you keep forgetting to water.

Planta, by about four dollars a year — and not by enough to decide on. PictureThis Pro is $39.99 a year in the US and £34.99 in the UK; Planta Premium is $35.99 for 12 months in the US and £32.99 in the UK, checked on each app's own App Store listing on 29 July 2026. PictureThis also offers a Family Plan at $49.99 / £49.99 with no Planta equivalent, which is better value across a household.

No, though it is closer than the catalogue sizes suggest. Planta tested at around 95% identification accuracy on common indoor species and carries cultivar-level detail across roughly 25,000 species. PictureThis leads clearly at the long tail — obscure ornamentals, garden centre cultivars and unusual species — where its claimed 400,000-species catalogue tells. For a dozen common houseplants the difference will rarely show; for identifying whatever you found on a walk, PictureThis wins.

Not really. PictureThis offers a 7-day free trial rather than a permanent free tier, and it converts automatically. Planta has a limited free tier covering basic watering reminders and plant logging, but identification, Dr Planta diagnosis and the light meter are all premium-gated. If you want a genuinely free plant identifier, PlantNet has no in-app purchases at all, and Seek by iNaturalist is also fully free.

Because the 7-day free trial converts to a paid annual subscription automatically, and deleting the app does not cancel it — a distinction many people only discover on the bank statement. It is the single most common theme in PictureThis's App Store reviews on both the US and GB storefronts. If you trial it, cancel through your phone's subscription settings, and note that cancelling still leaves you access until the trial ends.

Not reliably, and this is the shared weakness. Overwatering, underwatering, light stress and nutrient burn produce visually similar yellowing, so a single photo cannot separate them — it takes follow-up questions about watering history, what changed recently, where the plant stands and when it was last fed. PictureThis returns a static species care page; Planta returns a troubleshooting article. Neither asks anything back. Conversational diagnosis, which Growli is built around, is a different approach to the same question.

It is a common combination and it costs about $76 a year, which is a lot for two apps neither of which diagnoses problems. A cheaper version of the same coverage is PlantNet — free, no in-app purchases — for identification, alongside Planta for scheduling. That gets you the best free identifier and the best scheduler for $35.99.

Yes — PlantNet is completely free, ad-free, and has no paywall or in-app purchases. It is run as a non-profit citizen-science project by a French research consortium (Cirad, INRA, INRIA, IRD) and funded through institutional and research-grant support. There is no premium tier and no auto-renewal trap. By contrast, PictureThis charges $39.99 USD / £34.99 GBP per year after a free trial (checked against its App Store listing, 29 July 2026).

PictureThis has a free trial but is not a free app in practice. Most genuinely useful features — unlimited identifications, disease diagnosis, care reminders — sit behind a subscription of $39.99 USD or £34.99 GBP per year. The free trial converts to a paid subscription automatically, and many users report being charged unexpectedly. If you want a fully free alternative with comparable identification quality, PlantNet is the cleanest option.

PictureThis is typically $39.99 USD or £34.99 GBP per year on annual billing, with monthly options usually around $7-8 USD. Pricing varies by region and promotional offers. PlantNet is free with no paid tier. Growli has a free core tier and a paid plus tier at a comparable annual price point to PictureThis but built around conversational care rather than identification alone.

PictureThis is reliable on common cultivated species and garden ornamentals — its trained catalogue is among the largest in the market. It is less reliable on similar-looking hybrids and cultivars, where it sometimes returns a confident answer that turns out to be a sibling species. PlantNet is often more reliable on wild and native species because it shows ranked candidates with confidence scores rather than a single answer. For symptom diagnosis, no photo-only app is fully reliable without follow-up questions — which is why Growli's multi-turn dialog exists.

Yes — PlantNet is one of the strongest plant ID apps for trees and woody plants. The citizen-science dataset behind it includes extensive tree imagery contributed by researchers and amateur botanists, and PlantNet returns ranked candidate species with confidence scores rather than a single guess. It handles bark, leaf, flower, and fruit photos and supports multi-organ submissions for harder identifications. For garden ornamentals and cultivated trees, PictureThis can be more specific on cultivar names.

No — PlantNet is identification-only and does not include a disease or symptom diagnosis layer. PictureThis offers a paid disease-identification feature, but it is still a photo lookup rather than a dialog, and it cannot ask the clarifying questions (watering history, light, recent repot) that distinguish visually similar causes such as overwatering, root rot, and fungal disease. For symptom diagnosis specifically, a conversational tool such as Growli is a better fit than either app.

PlantNet is better for wild plants. Its dataset is built from outdoor citizen-science observations of native species, weeds, wildflowers, and trees, and it is backed by a French research consortium with peer-reviewed credibility. PictureThis is stronger on cultivated houseplants, garden ornamentals, and hybrid cultivars. If your photographing happens mostly outdoors and away from gardens, PlantNet is the credible choice — and it is free.

Yes — Growli is built as a combined identifier plus AI gardening assistant. After identification you can ask follow-up questions in plain English, log your watering, receive a daily morning briefing with weather and tasks, and get frost alerts before cold nights. PictureThis and PlantNet are both excellent at identification, but neither offers conversational follow-up or weather-integrated care guidance. Many growers run PlantNet for free wild-plant ID and add Growli for the ongoing care of plants they already own.

There is a genuinely free version, and no, membership is not required. RHS Grow is separate from RHS society membership and available to everyone — paying for membership does not include the app subscription. The free tier covers plant identification, the A-Z plant profiles from the RHS's own 35,000-plant database, the Discover articles and podcasts, and your garden and wishlists. Tailored care tips, the Journal, the Garden Planner and the ChatBotanist assistant sit behind £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year after a free trial. Checked against the RHS's own page, 2 August 2026.

RHS Grow, for anything growing in a British garden. It carries native RHS hardiness ratings rather than USDA zones, planting calendars tuned to UK regions, and an expert-written A-Z covering British natives and traditional garden varieties — and its free tier gives you most of that for nothing. PictureThis is better at raw identification, particularly for houseplants and exotic ornamentals, but its care and hardiness guidance is US-leaning and needs mental translation. Most UK gardeners are best served by RHS Grow's free tier plus a dedicated identifier.

RHS Grow is £39.99 a year or £5.99 a month, on top of a free tier that keeps working. PictureThis Pro is £34.99 a year with no permanent free tier, only a 7-day trial that converts automatically. So PictureThis is £5 a year cheaper but gives you nothing for free, while RHS Grow costs slightly more and lets you use its best free feature — the A-Z plant profiles — indefinitely without paying. Both checked 29 July 2026.

No. PictureThis leads clearly on raw identification, with a claimed 400,000-species catalogue against RHS Grow's British-focused library, and it is markedly stronger on houseplants and exotic ornamentals. RHS Grow's identification is good and improving, and it is more likely to be right about a British native or a traditional garden variety — and it is free, sitting in the free column of the RHS's own table, so you can test it before paying for anything. For free identification, PlantNet has no in-app purchases at all and is excellent on natives and trees.

The 7-day free trial converts to a paid annual subscription automatically, and deleting the app does not cancel it — a distinction many people discover on a bank statement. It is the dominant theme in PictureThis's UK App Store reviews. Cancel through your iPhone or Android subscription settings if you are not sure you will keep it. Cancelling still gives you access until the trial period ends, so there is no reason to delay.

RHS Grow can, and this is its clearest advantage. It uses the RHS hardiness rating system (H1a to H7), which is built for British conditions and is what UK plant labels and nurseries actually use. PictureThis reports USDA zones, an American system that maps poorly onto a maritime climate — a plant rated for USDA zone 8 may or may not cope with a wet British winter, because the limiting factor here is often waterlogging rather than minimum temperature. For overwintering decisions, use an RHS rating.

It is a sensible combination, and it can be a cheap one. RHS Grow's free tier costs nothing and gives you the best British plant reference available in an app; add PictureThis at £34.99 only if you regularly meet plants you cannot name. If identification is occasional, PlantNet is free with no in-app purchases at all and covers most of it, which makes RHS Grow free tier plus PlantNet a genuinely capable no-cost setup for a UK gardener.

PlantNet is free with no in-app purchases at all — it is run by a French research consortium rather than as a business, which is why it has no paywall. For UK gardeners, RHS Grow's free tier is the strongest no-cost option with real care content behind it. Among paid apps, PlantIn starts lowest at $29.99 a year.

RHS Grow has a free tier anyone can use, funded by the Royal Horticultural Society. The paid tier is £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year (checked July 2026). You do not need an RHS membership to use the free version.

PictureThis Pro is $39.99 a year in the US App Store and £34.99 in the UK, with shorter plans at $3.99 and $7.99 and a Family Plan at $49.99 (checked July 2026). The free trial converts to a paid subscription automatically, which is the single most common complaint in its reviews.

Blossom, at $59.99 to $79.99 a year depending on which tier the paywall shows. It is sometimes described as a budget option, which its own App Store listing does not support.

Growli is free to download and the free tier does not expire — the garden plan, weather-timed care tasks, frost alerts and growing guides cost nothing. Growli Plus adds photo plant identification, photo diagnosis and unlimited chat at £34.99 a year in the UK or $44.99 in the US, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan.

Almost never. A $7.99 weekly plan costs about $415 a year, against $59.99 for the same app's annual plan. Weekly pricing exists because the number looks small at the paywall. If you only need an app for one problem, use a free one; if you need it for a season, take the annual plan.

Apple and Google set store prices per territory rather than converting a single figure, so a US price and a UK price are separate decisions by the developer. PictureThis is $39.99 in the US and £34.99 in the UK, which is not a currency conversion. Always check your own store.

Growli is the strongest single-app choice for diagnosis because it asks clarifying questions in dialog — soil moisture, watering history, recent changes — and ranks the most likely cause by your specific answers. PictureThis is faster for identification but its diagnosis layer is a static FAQ rather than a dialog. greg.app offers a community angle that catches edge cases but takes hours. For symptoms that overlap visually (yellow leaves, drooping, brown tips), the dialog is what separates the causes.

Growli has a free core tier covering the garden plan, care tasks and frost alerts; the conversational diagnosis sits on the paid plus plan at $44.99 USD / £34.99 GBP per year. PictureThis offers a 7-day free trial that converts to a paid subscription at $39.99 USD / £34.99 GBP per year. greg.app has a free tier with limited features and Super Greg at around $29.99 USD per year. PlantNet is fully free but does not include a diagnosis layer at all. If budget is the top constraint, posting to r/houseplants on Reddit is free and often returns useful answers within an hour.

Partly. A photo is enough to diagnose unambiguous symptoms — visible pests, powdery mildew, scorched leaves, advanced root rot. It is not enough to separate the most common overlapping causes — overwatering versus underwatering versus light stress all show similar yellowing patterns. That is why dialog-based apps like Growli ask about watering history, soil feel, and recent changes before committing to an answer. A confident single-photo diagnosis on a yellow leaf should be treated as a guess.

PictureThis identifies the species and then shows a static FAQ page of common issues for that species. If your problem is in that FAQ, the answer is fine; if not, the app cannot go deeper. Growli treats diagnosis as a conversation — it asks two or three clarifying questions about soil moisture, watering history, and recent changes, then ranks the most likely causes by probability. The dialog handles the visually overlapping symptoms that single-photo apps cannot reliably separate.

Overwatering, by a wide margin. Roughly half of all houseplant deaths come from chronically wet soil and the root rot that follows. The symptom — yellow lower leaves and droopiness — is often mistaken for underwatering, which leads people to water more and accelerate the problem. A diagnosis app that asks about watering history rather than just looking at the leaf catches this pattern reliably. See our [overwatered vs underwatered](/blog/overwatered-vs-underwatered) guide for the visual difference.

For most houseplant problems, an app is faster, cheaper, and accurate enough. For commercial-scale issues, fast-spreading disease, or rare collector plants, escalate to a human — a local university extension service in the US, the RHS Advisory in the UK, or a specialist nursery. The app and the human are complementary: use the app for the initial triage, then escalate if the plant is valuable enough or the diagnosis is genuinely ambiguous.

Days to weeks, depending on the cause. Underwatered plants often perk up within hours of a deep drink. Overwatered plants take a week or more once you let the soil dry and trim damaged roots. Pest treatments usually need 7 to 14 days and a second application. Frost or transplant shock can take a full season to outgrow. Set a 7-day check-in and re-photograph the plant — if symptoms are stable or improving, the diagnosis was right; if worse, re-run the dialog with the new context.