Plants September 2026

5 apps for when your plants are a collection, not decor

Once plants become a collection the questions change: what species is it, where did it come from, what did it cost, and is that shelf bright enough. These five answer those rather than reminding you to water.

The apps for when your plants are a collection, not decor are Palmstreet, Fern, Leaf People, BWH Plant Co and Photone. I built Fern; the other 4 are other developers’ apps.

MiaAppLog— an iOS developer who reviews other people’s apps
Published September 2026 · apps and prices last checked 13 October 2026

Four stars is my score for how well an app answers this moment. An app I built gets four and a half — that is a rule, not a comparison. The App Store’s own average is on each card beside it.

1. 

   Palmstreet

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Shopping · App Store 4.8 (16,583)

   Palmstreet is where rare plants change hands in live shows — a seller holds one up, people bid, it ships. Anthuriums and exotics, not a storefront grid.

   Skip it if you want a shop rather than a marketplace — the one-star reviews are about shipping, timelines and refunds, and you are buying from the seller, not from Palmstreet.

   Official site ↗More lists with Palmstreet

   
2. 

   Fern Editor’s pick

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.5 · Free · Lifestyle · App Store 5.0 (5)

   Fern records species, source, acquisition date, mount type and price. Then a year of photos replays as one timeline, and before/after sets two dates side by side.

   App Store ↗More lists with Fern

   
3. 

   Leaf People

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Education · App Store 5.0 (4)

   Leaf People is an identifier tuned to the rare end — velvet anthuriums, fenestrated monsteras — with species profiles that rewrite their care advice for your region.

   Official site ↗More lists with Leaf People

   
4. 

   BWH Plant Co

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Shopping · App Store 4.9 (2,450)

   BWH Plant Co is one nursery's own app: restock alerts, a wishlist and your order history, so a drop doesn't sell out while you refresh a browser tab.

   Skip it if you want to see the plant before you commit: size and condition on arrival are the recurring complaint, and there is no way to filter to what is actually in stock.

   Official site ↗More lists with BWH Plant Co

   
5. 

   Photone

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Utilities · App Store 4.6 (4,936)

   Photone measures PAR, PPFD and DLI off the camera sensor. A shelf position stops being a guess and becomes a number you can compare.

   Skip it if you are measuring LED grow lights: anything other than daylight needs paying for, and reviewers dispute the readings on the newest phones.

   Official site ↗More lists with Photone

   

Fern is one of mine — everything else on this list is someone else’s app. How that works.