About Gardener
Built by plant lovers, for plant lovers. A simple app with a powerful mission: keep your garden data private.
Our Story & Values
Our Story
Why We Built Gardener
Gardener was born from a simple frustration: every plant care app we tried wanted to track our data, required cloud accounts, or pushed subscriptions. We just wanted to track our tomatoes and remember when to water our herbs.
So we built what we wanted to use ourselves - a beautifully simple, completely offline plant tracker that respects your privacy. No corporate tracking, no data mining, no subscription traps. Just you and your plants.
Gardener is developed by GMG Digital, a small indie studio building tools that put users first. We believe software should be simple, respectful, and actually solve real problems - whether that means prioritizing privacy, improving workflows, or just making daily tasks more enjoyable.
Our Principles
These aren't just features - they're commitments we make to every user:
🔒 Privacy First
Your data belongs to you. We design offline-first because we believe your garden records shouldn't live on someone else's server.
💚 User Respect
No dark patterns, no hidden costs, no surveillance. We make money through donations, not by monetizing your attention or data.
🌱 Keep It Simple
Feature creep kills good software. We focus on doing a few things really well instead of everything poorly.
🆓 Always Free
No freemium tiers, no premium features. If we can't sustain Gardener as a free app, we'll open source it before we'll paywall it.
🛠️ Built to Last
We're not chasing growth or exits. We're building sustainable software that works the same way in 5 years as it does today.
🤝 Community Driven
Your feedback shapes our roadmap. We build what users actually need, not what looks good in a pitch deck.
What Gardener Isn't
To be clear about what you're getting:
- ❌ Not a massive plant database - We've curated 300+ popular plants to get you started, but you're free to create your own entries for anything we've missed.
- ❌ Not AI-powered - No machine learning, no plant identification by photo, no "smart" features that require servers.
- ❌ Not a social network - No sharing, no following, no community features. It's personal gardening software.
If you need advanced features, cloud sync, or professional-grade garden planning, there are other apps for that. Gardener is intentionally simple and intentionally offline.
What's Next
Features we're considering based on user feedback:
📤 Export/Import
Backup your garden data to JSON or CSV. Move data between devices manually.
🔔 Widget Support
See today's tasks on your home screen without opening the app.
⌚ Smartwatch Integration
Quick task completion from your Apple Watch or Wear OS device while in the garden.
📊 Basic Analytics
Local-only insights about your care patterns and plant health trends.
🌙 Dark Mode
Easy on the eyes for night-time plant checking (we know you do it too).
🔍 Better Search
Find plants quickly across large gardens with filtering and sorting.
No promises on when or if these will ship. We prioritize stability and privacy over feature velocity.
Get Involved
Help Shape Gardener's Future
We're a small team building Gardener in public. Here's how you can help:
- Send Feedback: Use the contact form to report bugs or suggest features
- Leave Reviews: Rate Gardener on Google Play or the App Store to help others discover it
- Support Development: Donate to keep us building without ads or tracking
- Spread the Word: Tell fellow gardeners who value privacy about Gardener
Every bit helps. Whether it's a bug report, a kind review, or a donation, you're helping build a better alternative to surveillance capitalism in gardening software.