Hi-Tech Gardening: More Apps

Tomorrow's GardenLife Newsletter has a list of my favorite gardening apps that I have discovered since receiving my iPad2 as a Mother's Day gift. In a short time, I have discovered so many that are my personal "favs," I thought it would be best to include some additional apps in this week's blog. If you download any of the apps I have mentioned in our newsletter or blog, give me feedback on how you like them or add more suggestions.

• Botanical Interests is for people who have a vegetable garden or are thinking of starting one. It gives hints for gardening successfully plus 300 different veggie varieties as well as complete growing and harvesting information. You can also send questions to Botanical Interests, the company that produces the organic vegetable seeds (by Netframes, $5.99).
• Flower Garden is not really a garden how-to app, but it is a fun game where you plant and take care of virtual flowers in pots. The cool thing is you can not only watch them grow, but you can also clip them, create bouquets and send them to people you care about via email! And there are sounds coming from your virtual garden. I especially liked the cricket music. When you add moisture, it sounds like water droplets coming from your watering can and when you turn the flower pot, it sounds like a clay pot moving against the pavement. I like the $2.99 version because it comes with a choice of 20 different kinds of seed, but the lite version is free and comes with 3 types of seed (by Snappy Touch, $2.99 or free lite version).
• iGarden USA helps us plan and track our gardens' progress. Depending on your U.S. climate zone (based on your phone's location), it suggests the optimum planting dates and ideal planting practices for each kind of plant. After your seed selections are planted, there is a garden tracker than monitor's their progress along with the estimated harvest date (by NanoSoft, LLC, $4.99)
• iLocate-Gardening Supplies is a handy database for garden tools and supplies to locate stores wherever you may be and includes contact information and driving directions. Options allow you to scroll through locations, search by zip code or GPS with a one-touch search (by Brighthouse Labs, $0.99).
• iZen Garden-Portable Zen Garden is a quick way to soothe your frazzled nerves on a frenetic day. You get 100 different plants, stones, shells and even fossils to create your garden with background meditation soundtracks and the fluttering of butterfly wings. The updated $5.99 version has flowers and elements such as the yin-yang symbol (by iLounge.com $5.99 for the updated version or the 2009 version, $2.99).
• Garden Design helps you design your garden by using an iPhone camera to take a picture of your garden as it exists and then add or delete plants to see what changes would look like. This allows you to match color schemes or heights to go with the plants that are already in your landscape (by Orilli LLC, $0.99)
• Plants vs. Zombies satisfies my inner child/gamer personality and this is the one I am going to share with my grandchildren. The purpose is to stop 26 different zombies with an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants! There are 50 adventure levels, 20 mini-games, plus puzzle and survival modes and a zombie-free Zen Garden. I know my adult children will roll their eyes at me when I ask my grandchildren to dig into this ghoulish, zombie-zapping world, but I bet it will keep them from squirming from boredom as we wait for our meal at a slow-serving restaurant (by Bejeweled and Peggle, $2.99).