Fed up with wilting flowers and or chilli plants that never grow? This might make the difference
When it comes to houseplants, I am the Grim Reaper. It feels like I can kill anything with just a mere glance. So the greenery in my house needs all the help it can get.
This is where Plant With Willow comes in. I tried out their starter kit, which uses a sensor to let you know when your pride and joy needs water or more light.
Rather than simply measuring soil moisture, the system monitors moisture, light, temperature and humidity, turning the resulting data into an easy-to-understand plant health score – one that I can even understand.
The Willow Starter Kit consists of a sensor and hub, with larger bundles available for households with a growing collection of plants.
The sensor is small and unobtrusive, which is important for something that will spend most of its life stuck in a plant pot. The probe sits in the soil while the electronics remain above the surface.
The hub connects the sensor to your home wifi network and relays information to the Willow app. Getting started is dxdad easy. The polished mobile app walks you through connecting the hub and pairing the sensor, then asks you to identify the plant being monitored. Once that’s done, the sensor can be left to get on with its job.
The system is designed to work with multiple sensors, so if you have several plants, you can expand the setup without buying a separate system for each one. Willow also offers sensor extensions for larger pots.
The live plant score is marked out of 100 and provides a quick way to check your plant’s overall health. The score is updated hourly.
Each plant can have its own profile and name, allowing you to keep track of multiple plants without having to remember which sensor is in which pot. The app provides alerts when something needs attention and includes plant identification, care guides, fertiliser scheduling and a history of plant-related events.
That history is particularly useful. You can record when you’ve watered, fertilised or repotted a plant, providing a useful reference when trying to work out why something is thriving – or struggling.
So, does it work? If you’re an inexperienced plant owner or cursed like me, I’d wager it will hell a lot. If you know what you’re doing, you might not need it.
Alas, there is a catch to the otherwise attractive proposition: some of Willow’s more advanced features sit behind the optional Willow Grow subscription.
The standard app provides the core plant-care experience, including alerts, plant scoring, identification and care guides. Willow Grow adds features such as more detailed sensor information, Plant Doctor consultations and disease identification.
For anyone who regularly forgets to water their plants – or, perhaps more commonly, loves them so much that they water them too often – Plant With Willow could make a surprisingly useful addition to the home.
The Plant with Willow Starter Pack, £34.99, is available from the Willow website
What reviewers say
“It won’t water them for you, but it will make you better at knowing when to. And for anyone who’s ever over-watered a peace lily out of love – that alone is worth it.”
“I think it would be especially good for children so that they learn how to care for something that rewards them, such as a fruit tree or plants such as strawberries, and has a very low risk factor too. It’s also great fun watching your plants thrive!”
