Someone sent me an article from The New York Times a couple of weeks ago on gardening apps. So I tried the ones they discussed.

Two I found to not be helpful, but one very much so. It is called Garden Compass. It has it’s very commercial component (which tells you things like Waterloo Gardens in Exton and Devon still exist and doesn’t have nurseries truly local to us in Chester County listed), which I guess I should expect on a free app, but it has a very cool component: it lets you send them photos of plants and garden problems (like pests) you can’t identify.

So there is this plant that pops up in one of my gardening beds I can’t identify. I know it is a native plant, probably classified as a native wildflower, but I had no clue what it was. So I snapped a picture on my phone and sent it in. This morning, Garden Compass gave me an answer:

QUESTION:
Please identify this plant

CUP PLANT (SILPHIUM PERFOLIATUM)

ANSWER: June 13, 2014
Easily grown in average, medium to wet soils in full sun. Prefers moist, rich soils, but tolerates some drought once established. Somewhat slow to establish when grown from seed. Self-seeds in optimum growing conditions.

The photo I sent to them is the photo in the post. How cool is that?

Now I will admit I wonder how many cultivars “cup plants” have because I looked on a fellow gardener’s blog and her cup plants don’t look like mine. (Incidentally the blogger whom I do not know writes at Victoria Elizabeth Barnes and her blog is very cool.)

So we shall see.

This app is available in the App Store and again, it is free. I chose the app because it has a “Plant ID” and “Problem ID”, two tools as a gardener I find helpful. For other gardening apps to try, check out this other New York Times article.

Happy gardening!