Planter vs Leaftide: Which garden planner fits your garden?
Planter is a polished mobile app for planning vegetable beds with a great companion planting grid. Leaftide goes further with fruit trees, climate-aware scheduling, and care routines. Here's how they compare.
At a glance
What they share
- ✓ Drag-and-drop garden bed layout
- ✓ Custom plants and varieties
- ✓ Planting calendar based on frost dates
- ✓ Custom plants and varieties
Where Leaftide differs
- 🌳 Tracks fruit trees, shrubs, and permanent plants
- 📍 Climate data specific to your location, not just frost dates
- 🌡️ GDD-based harvest predictions
- ✂️ Pruning schedules and care routines
- 🌍 Available in 5 languages
Feature comparison
| Feature | Planter | Leaftide |
|---|---|---|
| Visual bed planner | ✓ | ✓ |
| Square foot gardening grid | ✓ | ✗ |
| Companion planting | Visual grid | List-based |
| Planting calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom plants and varieties | ✓ | ✓ |
| Seed box / inventory | ✓ | ✗ |
| Notes and events | Premium | ✓ |
| Permanent plants (fruit trees, shrubs) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pruning and care routines | ✗ | ✓ |
| Harvest predictions (GDD-based) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container planner | ✗ | Dedicated mode |
| Climate data | Frost dates | Your specific location |
| Mobile app | iOS, Android, Fire | iOS, Android |
| Web app | Premium only | All tiers |
| Multi-language support | English only | 5 languages |
| Free tier | 1 garden | Full features, limited plants |
| Lifetime purchase option | $99.99 | ✓ |
Pricing: Planter is $24.99/year or $99.99 lifetime. Leaftide is £5/month or £45/year.
Key differences explained
🌳 More than vegetables
Planter is built around annual vegetables and herbs. If that's all you grow, it does the job well. But if your garden includes fruit trees, berry bushes, or perennial shrubs, Leaftide lets you track them alongside your veg, with age tracking, pruning schedules, and yearly care routines.
🌡️ Climate-aware harvest predictions
Planter uses frost dates to tell you when to sow and transplant. Leaftide goes a step further: it uses growing degree days (GDD) and climate data specific to your location to predict when your crops will actually be ready to harvest. The result is more accurate timing, especially in cooler or unpredictable climates.
🌍 Web access and language support
Planter's web app is locked behind the Premium subscription. With Leaftide, the web app is available on all tiers, including free. Leaftide also supports English, Spanish, French, German, and Dutch, while Planter is currently English-only.
⚖️ Where Planter does better
- Planter's companion planting grid is one of the best in any garden app. When you drag a plant onto the grid, it immediately highlights which neighbours are friends and which are foes. It's visual, intuitive, and genuinely useful.
- The mobile app is fast and polished, with a clean UI that feels native on both iOS and Android. It's also available on Amazon Fire tablets.
- Planter offers a $99.99 lifetime purchase. Leaftide also has a lifetime option, but Planter's is cheaper.
- At $24.99/year, Planter Premium is cheaper than Leaftide's £45/year plan. If you only grow vegetables and want a straightforward planner, it's good value.
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