I am officially old; in the last few months, I have grown increasingly interested in gardening, having plants in beautiful pots and watching them grow (most of the time).

There’s nothing as peaceful as watching the fruits of your labour flourish and sway in the wind.

Anyways, below are a few tools I recommend everyone doing casual gardening to have.

• PictureThis (Plant Identifier) – This is a terrific and useful app which uses Machine Learning to identify plants from their photos. I found the accuracy of this app to be very high. After identifying a particular plant, it shows you information about the plant. It is especially useful when buying new plants because in many instances, I have seen that a seller is not able to explain details about a plant. The basic version is free, but there’s a subscription which allows you unlimited identification and also lets you diagnose plant problems or diseases.
• Trowel – This is a must have for everyone, is useful for loosening the top soil of plants periodically, mixing fertilisers etc. Buy different sizes depending on the size of your pots and requirements.

• Water Spray – These come in different varieties. You need to fill water, pump the top handle to compress the air inside and then you can use the trigger to spray water out.

Most of these have an adjustable nozzle which can spray a fine mist or shoot a thin jet of water. It is especially useful to spray water on plant leaves (cleaning and moisturising them) or watering smaller pots without making a mess.

More detailed posts coming up.