With spring upon us and Earth Day this weekend, caregivers and their senior clients might be wondering what they can do to be environmentally friendly and get outdoors a little more. As a hobby, gardening offers a way to help the earth, grow your own healthy foods and relieve some stress. The Garden Compass app provides gardening assistance to caregivers and their senior clients.
Caregivers and their senior clients can spend some time discussing what they'd like to plant in their garden before purchasing seeds. Seeds can be purchased online or at a retailer such as Home Depot. Once caregivers and their senior clients have decided what they'd like to plant and selected a location for their garden, then they can begin using the app.
Users need to create an account upon initially opening the app. This can be done using a Facebook profile or email address. Then, caregivers can begin building their garden virtually. The app allows users to quickly scan the barcode on a plant to accurately add it to their garden. Alternatively, caregivers can search by the exact scientific name of their plant to add it to the list, or they can add a more generic category to the garden list. The generic categories include Annuals, Bulbs, Citrus and Avocado, Vegetables and Herbs, etc.
In the free version of the app, users can add up to three different plants to their garden. This gives caregivers a chance to try the app and see if they like it, and then if they do they can upgrade to the paid version. The different garden selections are then used to populate the Care Calendar on a month-by-month basis.
The Care Calendar gives caregivers specific advice on how to take care of each plant during that month. For example, during April it indicates which garden items can be planted during cold weather, and then it May it will detail which vegetables can be harvested. This will be particularly useful for senior caregivers and their clients who are new to gardening.
If caregivers run into unexpected issues while tending to their garden, such as bugs eating their plants or the plants not growing as expected, the app also offers a pest identification service. Using this section of the app requires a credit, which users are given a few of for free upon signing up or can purchase. They then can snap a photo of their garden and upload it to the app. They can also include a comment, and then the experts will examine the photo and offer specific identification of the pest.
The Garden Compass app is available for
Apple and
Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver
stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a
senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko