If, like me, you're a novice gardener (read: I occasionally plant some bulbs and then wonder why my garden doesn't look nice all year round), then you might want to download a new iPhone app, Hota, which aims to help beginner gardeners with what they should plant and where.
The Hota app is well designed with an easy to use UX that makes gardening much more accessible. When you open it, it identifies the direction your garden is facing, as well as what it calls Soil ID – the type of soil you have, which is based on your location (Hota currently only works in the UK).
You then input the size of your bed, the themes or colours you prefer, and it brings up a list of easy to maintain plants to plant in the front, middle and back of your bed. "Hota was born out of a want to make gardening simple, without the need to spend thousands on bespoke garden design or researching for dozens of hours," explains co-founder and landscape architect, Hannah Shaw.
This app really is fun to use thanks to the beautifully designed UX. Its colour scheme of coral and orange works beautifully with the plants suggested within the app and I particularly enjoy the app icon – a flower that really brightens up my Home screen.
"The app icon was initially inspired by the shape of a tulip, and the original name of the app “bud” (it loosely shapes the letters b-u-d), but we soon discovered a popular marijuana app that we didn’t want to compete with. We landed on [the name] 'Hota' but stuck with the logo," explains co-founder Toby Gale, who has a background in both gardening and tech.
Hota's design ensures it also stands out amongst the competition. "So many gardening products use light greens or watercolours, but we wanted to design something that represents the boldness of flowers, which is also helpful when trying to compete with the bright lights of a phone Home Screen," says Hannah. "Having bright pinks and corals felt energising and fun."
Once you have planted Hota's suggested plants, you click a button to let the app know and it then tells you when to water, weed, prune and deadhead, using a traffic light system so show you the urgency of tasks. "We wanted a homepage that you can see at a glance what needs doing. This inspired the traffic light garden maintenance icons at the top of the home page, with more detail available tapping into a bed," says Hannah.
For Toby, who has been working with developers to develop and fine-tune the app for the past couple of years, it was important that the app leads the user, rather than the other way round. "Hota is for people who are new to gardening but don’t know necessarily know where to start. It was therefore important to make design choices that felt as if the user is being led, as opposed to having to make too many decisions, so uncluttered, simple pages are essential." It feels like the app achieves this very well, especially in contrast to some gardening books or websites, which can feel overwhelming.
The biggest design challenge Hannah and Toby faced was ensuring the user experience gets people to a list of plants quickly enough for them not to lose interest, and I think they have achieved this. I initially got stuck on the section where it asked me to measure my flower bed, but once I'd done that, I found I was looking at a list of plants that would thrive in my garden very quickly.
The app officially launched last year at the RHS Urban Show in Manchester, UK, but a few new features have just arrived, including Bed Design, which generates an interactive plant bed design, showing you exactly where to plant each plant. You can also now buy the suggested plants directly from the app, thanks to a partnership with Proctors Nursery.
What are the husband and wife duo most proud of? "The bed design feature," says Hannah. "Creating a tool that will generate a strong garden border design, for all soil types, for all light levels and all dimensions was a huge technical challenge. We hope this will encourage new gardeners to get started easily."
"The partnership with Proctors nursery is very validating for us," adds Toby. "They have won several gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, and to see Hota now sell the recommendations is a great moment."
I look forward to seeing what's next for Hota, as well as how my garden will develop following its recommendations.
You can download Hota from the App Store.
