Plants September 2026

5 apps for plants that came with no instructions

Plants arrive without a label more often than not — a cutting from a friend, a supermarket rescue, something still in the post. These five answer the questions that come before care: what is it, where did it come from, what is that on the leaf, and how many days until it lands.

The apps for plants that came with no instructions are PlantNet, Fern, Picture Insect, Buce Plant and Parcel. 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. 

   PlantNet

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Education · App Store 4.6 (7,047)

   PlantNet takes a photograph of the plant and returns candidate species from a botanical research network. Identification only — no care schedule attached to the answer.

   Skip it if you want one answer rather than a shortlist — it hands back candidate species for you to choose between, which is the point for a botanist and a nuisance for everyone else.

   Official site ↗More lists with PlantNet

   
2. 

   Fern Editor’s pick

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

   Fern is a page per plant: dated photos plus what you changed. A year of growth replays in one swipe, which is the only honest way to see a slow plant move.

   App Store ↗More lists with Fern

   
3. 

   Picture Insect

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Education · App Store 4.6 (44,650)

   Picture Insect names whatever is sitting on the leaf, and marks whether it is harmful to plants, a pollinator, or nothing to do with you.

   Skip it if you need the identification to be right: a reviewer with entomology experience puts it near half wrong on macro shots, and the trial converts quickly.

   Official site ↗More lists with Picture Insect

   
4. 

   Buce Plant

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Shopping · App Store 4.9 (787)

   Buce Plant is an aquascaping shop in app form: aquarium plants, hardscape and tanks, for the part of a collection that lives underwater instead of on a shelf.

   Skip it if you would rather shop on a website — the sign-in defeats a lot of reviewers, and the filters are better on the site the app wraps.

   Official site ↗More lists with Buce Plant

   
5. 

   Parcel

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Shopping · App Store 4.8 (22,732)

   Parcel tracks the box, not the plant. Paste the number and you know how many more days the cutting is sitting in a truck before it needs unpacking.

   Skip it if you want it to read your email and tell you first: reviewers report typing numbers in by hand and hearing about a delivery an hour after it happened.

   Official site ↗More lists with Parcel

   

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