Entry — Monday, the 7th of September, the first days of autumn

Keep a journal of your plants, & be told what wants water to-day.

Add the plants you own. House & Hedge works out when each one wants watering, feeding and repotting from the season, the light and the pot it lives in, and keeps the list on your own device.

Begin your journal Browse the entries

no account, no app, nothing to pay — the list never leaves the house.

The almanac

What to sow in September

Both halves of the world, researched apart rather than shifted by six months. Pick the one you garden in.

open the almanac for any month of the year

Northern hemispherethe first days of autumnSowcoriander, king protea, lettucePlant outcommon jasmine, daffodil, easter lilyPickapple, basil, beetroot Southern hemispherethe first days of springSowagapanthus, basil, cape leadwortPlant outagapanthus, bougainvillea, cape leadwortPickchives, coriander, kale

Lately entered

Recent plates

The whole index, A to Z

A photograph of an African milk tree against a pale wall, showing upright three angled stems ridged with paired brown thorns and small leaves along the edges.

African milk treeEuphorbia trigonaA three sided green column that looks like a cactus and is not, with a caustic white sap that is the thing to know about it.Light full sunWater sparingPets not known

A hand coloured plate of the African violet, published as Saintpaulia ionantha, showing the violet flowers over hairy leaves.

African violetStreptocarpus ionanthusAfrican violet care that keeps it flowering all year, with why you water from below, what makes the pale rings on the leaves, and how to root a single leaf.Light bright indirect lightWater weeklyPets safe

A hand coloured engraving of an agapanthus in flower, a single stout stalk carrying an open head of pale blue trumpet shaped flowers above two broad strap shaped leaves.

AgapanthusAgapanthus praecoxAgapanthus: planting, sowing and dividing months for both hemispheres, how little water it wants, and why a crowded clump flowers best of all.Light full sunWater weeklyPets not known

A photograph of a potted alocasia, its dark arrow shaped leaves with scalloped edges and broad white veins rising in a clump and not in flower.

AlocasiaAlocasia x amazonicaAlocasia care with the humidity and warmth it insists on, why it drops leaves in winter, and what the tuber is doing when the plant looks dead.Light bright indirect lightWater weeklyPets unsafe

A hand coloured plate of Aloe vera in flower, with a second aloe beside it.

Aloe veraAloe veraAloe vera care on a bright windowsill, with the soak and dry watering it needs, why leaves flatten or curl, and how to pot up the offsets.Light full sunWater moderatePets unsafe

Hand coloured lithograph of a hybrid amaryllis in flower, one thick hollow scape topped by trumpet shaped blooms whose white petals are striped and feathered with red.

AmaryllisHippeastrum hybridsAmaryllis bulbs for winter flowers: when to pot them in each hemisphere, how to water one without rotting it, and how to bring it back next year.Light bright indirect lightWater weeklyPets not known

How the journal is kept

Every plant has an entry: its light, its watering rhythm through the year, the soil it likes, whether it is safe around cats and dogs, and the ailments that most often trouble it. The entries are written for real rooms in real homes, north and south of the equator.

When you add a plant to your list, the journal reads its entry, adjusts for your season and your room, and puts it on today's log when it is due. It explains its reasoning in plain words, and you can overrule it whenever you know better.

What we do not do

We do not ask who you are. There is no account, no email, no app store. Your list is saved in your browser, and you can carry it to another device with a single link or a small file. Adverts pay for the site; they never stand between you and your plants.

More about the journal