Percy vs Gardenize: Garden Journal Apps Compared
The short version: Percy and Gardenize are both garden journal apps, and both can hold a detailed record of your garden: what you planted and where, what you did, what you noticed, what you harvested. The difference is how the record gets made and what it does for you after. In Gardenize, you build it by filling in forms for plants, areas and events, then browse it. In Percy, you just say what you want to remember, the chores and the good parts alike, and Percy builds the record for you, then puts it to work: answering your questions, connecting the seasons, coming to you with advice, and turning your season into a keepsake. Put simply, in Gardenize the record-keeping can be the pleasure. Percy does the record-keeping so the garden can be.
I should say up front that I make Percy, so read everything below with an eyebrow raised.
But I also like Gardenize. It's a thoughtful, capable app that takes building a garden record seriously. Gardenize has been helping gardeners keep track of their gardens since 2016, long before Percy existed. Its founder even answers gardeners' questions in the app.
Last checked: October 9, 2026. Apps change quickly, so if something here is out of date, let me know.
Percy vs Gardenize at a glance
| Gardenize | Percy | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Gardeners for whom building the record by hand, field by field, is part of the fun, with a community around it | Gardeners who'd rather say it than fill in forms, and want Percy to keep the detailed record (good moments included) and turn it into advice and a keepsake |
| How you add things | Fill in forms for plants, areas and events | Say it (or type it) in a sentence |
| Getting your history back | Search and browse your records | Ask a question; Percy answers from your history |
| Advice | Ask the community and the founder; care advice for your hardiness zone with a Gardenize Plus subscription | Answers based on your location, weather and garden history |
| Proactive guidance | Reminders you set | Reminders you set, plus proactive suggestions and the Garden Letter email, drawn from your garden |
| Weather on every note | Not found in my testing | Yes, automatically |
| Plant ID from photos | With a Gardenize Plus subscription (iPhone only), to add the plant to your garden | Yes, with advice about it for your garden, including whether it's native or invasive where you garden |
| Pest and disease help | Not found in my testing | Yes, helps you identify the problem and suggests what to do, organic options first |
| Harvest weights, costs, time spent | Yes, dedicated fields | Remembers them if you mention them, but doesn't tally them |
| Community | Follow other gardeners, browse their gardens, chat | None, it's private by design |
| Year-in-review | Not found in my testing | The Migration Report, a keepsake of your season |
| Price | Free tier; Gardenize Plus is $35 a year in the iPhone app, or try a month for $7 | Free for your first full growing season, then $39 a year, with every feature included |
| Where it works | iPhone and Android apps; desktop with a Gardenize Plus subscription | iPhone app, and any browser on Android or desktop |
Gardenize: a structured garden record you build
Gardenize is built around your garden's structure. You set up your plants, your areas (a raised bed, a border, the pots by the door) and your events (planted, pruned, fertilized, harvested), and you connect them to each other. Used consistently, you end up with an organized, browsable history of your garden.
Adding a plant opens a form. Only the name is required, but there's a lot of room to go deeper if you want it: variety, Latin name, plant type, which area it's in, color, scent, height and width, month-by-month checkboxes for seeding, flowering, harvest and trimming, seeding depth and distance, and pickers for light, soil, water and pH. You can also add plants from Gardenize's database of around 45,000 plants, or (with Plus, on iPhone) by taking a photo.
Events work the same way. You pick an activity type (you create your own, so the list matches how you actually garden), connect the event to plants and areas, and add a photo and a note. There are even fields for quantity, weight, cost and time spent, so if you want to know exactly how many pounds of tomatoes came off the back bed and what the whole enterprise cost you, Gardenize will tell you. Few garden apps do.
Beyond the record, Gardenize has a social side: you can follow other gardeners ("Gardenizers"), browse their gardens and chat, plus an inspiration feed of seasonal articles. Subscribe to Gardenize Plus and it unlocks care advice based on your hardiness zone, plant ID, exporting your garden, desktop access, and drawing on your photos to mark where the bulbs went.
Gardenize is a great fit if keeping a precise record is part of the pleasure for you, you want to track yields and costs, or you'd like a community of gardeners around you.
Percy: a garden journal that remembers
Percy is the garden journal that remembers. You don't fill out forms. You hold a button and say what's going on, the way you'd tell a friend: "Planted three Cherokee Purple tomatoes along the fence today." Percy works out the plant, what you did and the date, records the weather at that moment, and shows you the note to check (and fix, if it misheard) before you save it. Ten seconds, and you're back to gardening.
Of course it keeps the practical record: plantings, pests, harvests, what you'd change next year. But most of what makes a garden worth having never fit in a form field, and Percy keeps that too.
Your record, turned into knowledge
Because Percy remembers, you can ask. "When did I plant the cucumbers?" "Which tomatoes did I say were worth growing again?" Three weeks into your first season, you'll ask something you've already forgotten, and Percy will know. Show it a photo of a leaf that looks wrong and the answer isn't just a name; it knows you've dealt with this before, and what worked.
Percy also comes to you. It gives you a heads-up when a heat wave or risk of frost is coming. And every couple of weeks the Garden Letter, a short email, shares what you've noted lately and gives advice on what's coming and what to plan for where you live.
A garden diary that writes itself
Everything you share lands in the Nest. Each plant gets its own chapter: when it went in, what you noticed, and every photo in order. It's like a coffee table book about your garden that writes a new page every time you share a note.
Percy also keeps the things that don't fit a plant-tracking category: the first firefly, the day the dog discovered the peas, the harvest party that was a thinly veiled attempt to unload your squash. And it helps you notice more. It tells you whether a plant is native or invasive where you garden, and remembers, so over a season your record shows what your yard is doing for the wildlife around it.
At the end of the season, the Migration Report turns it all into the whole story of your garden's year: a keepsake of your season, not just a record of it. The first ones arrive in January 2027. Gardens are beautiful. The record of yours should be too.
Percy is a great fit if you've started garden journals before and stopped (most of us have, usually around July), you want the record without the record-keeping, and you want a memory of your garden that can give you advice, and a beautiful keepsake of your seasons. Percy does the remembering, so you can enjoy your garden.
The difference, in one tomato
| Gardenize | Percy | |
|---|---|---|
| You | Open the New Plant form, type the name, add the variety, choose the area, and fill in any other fields you care about | Say, "Planted three Cherokee Purple tomatoes along the fence today." |
| The app | Saves the plant with the details you entered | Works out the plant, variety, action and date, adds the weather, and files it |
| Next spring | You open the plant's record and review what you logged | You ask, "How did the Cherokee Purples do?" and Percy tells you |
That's the deeper difference. In Gardenize, your record is something you keep. In Percy, it becomes a living source of knowledge about your garden, one that connects the seasons, notices what you'd miss, and tells you what it means.
Which should you choose?
- Choose Gardenize if you like the tidy satisfaction of a filled-in form and a number in the weight field, or you want a gardening community inside the app.
- Choose Percy if you want more than a record. You garden and say what happened, and Percy turns it into knowledge: connecting what happened across seasons, spotting patterns you'd never have seen, and coming to you with advice drawn from your own garden's history.
- Not sure? Percy's first full growing season is free, which is long enough to decide if it earns a place in your garden.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main difference between Percy and Gardenize? Gardenize is a structured garden journal: you enter and organize plants, areas and events, and you get a record you browse. Percy keeps just as detailed a record, but you build it by describing what happened in your own words. Then Percy turns that record into knowledge you can use: it answers your questions, connects what happened across seasons, comes to you with advice drawn from your garden's history, and turns your season into a keepsake.
Which is easier to use, Percy or Gardenize? That depends on how you like to work. Gardenize is easier if you like structured forms and organizing plants, areas and events yourself. Percy is easier if you'd rather describe what happened in plain language and let the app organize the record for you.
Is Gardenize a good garden journal app? Yes. It's especially strong for gardeners who like detailed plant records, yield and cost tracking, and a gardening community. Percy is a better fit if you want less manual entry and more recall and personalized advice.
Is there a garden journal app that doesn't require filling out forms? Yes. That's the whole idea behind Percy. You talk (or type) about your garden in plain sentences, and Percy turns them into an organized record.
Can Percy record harvest weights? You can say "picked about two pounds of beans" and Percy will remember it, but it isn't built around yield tracking. If that's central to how you garden, Gardenize's dedicated fields are a better fit.
Does Percy work on Android? Yes. Percy works in any browser on Android, desktop or iPhone, and there's a native iPhone app. A native Android app is in review on Google Play.
Looking for a Gardenize alternative? If you like the idea of a detailed garden history but would rather capture it by talking than field by field, Percy is the natural alternative. For more options, see the best garden journal apps. If you enjoy Gardenize's structured approach, there's plenty of reason to stay with it.