This past month I took the plunge and purchased my first smartphone. Given the field I am in, it was a gadget I should have had for awhile now. I decided on the Droid Incredible 2 for many reasons too boring to mention here. Upon arriving home, I immediately began to hunt for gardening apps.

I didn’t really have a specific app in mind, I was more curious as to what was currently being developed. There were plenty of apps that put flower pictures on your phone as wallpaper, changed the phone icons into potted flowers, reminded you to water your plants, or gave information on how to grow medical marijuana. None of those sounded too interesting to me.

I did find a few that are pretty nifty though. One such app is called BeeSmart™ Pollinator Gardener. This app is an ongoing project by Pollinator Partnership and is available free to download on the Android Market. It is also available for iPhone via the App Store. According to their site, Pollinator Partnership hopes to “promote the health of pollinators, critical to food and ecosystems, through conservation, education, and research.”

BeeSmart™ aids a gardener in selecting native plants to attract pollinators to her/his garden. Being a gardener who squees with delight every time a butterfly, hummingbird, or any other pollinator is spotted on the Lot, I immediately downloaded the app. I imagine this to be very helpful when hitting the garden centers this coming Spring.

BeeSmart™ first asked for my zip code to orient my location on the ecoregions map it includes. Then through the plants section, I was able to select some search parameters. What type of pollinators did I want to attract? What color of bloom did I need in the garden? How much sunlight is available in the new bed? What soil type? What type of plant? After making all the selections I wanted, the search then sorts through the plants in the database, native to the Lot’s ecoregion, and returns a list of possible candidates.

When a plant is selected to view further details, the plant’s common name, latin name, photo, pollinators, soils preference, light preference, soil preference, plant type, flowering season, and height are all included. The option is then presented to make a note of this plant for later review.

I would like to see growth (no pun intended) in the plant database. However, this may be just me not being knowledgable yet of the breadth of native plants available to my region. I contacted the developers via email and they were very friendly and responsive. I imagine it would be difficult to improve the app without constructive criticism from it’s users. This is a really neat little app and I can’t wait to see what the developers have in store for future updates.

Anyone have other garden apps I should try?