Learn · FAQ
Questions people ask.
Assist With Plants has one promise: assist your AI to assist you with everything related to plants. These are the questions that follow from it, answered as the product works today.
Getting started
What is Assist With Plants?
A private field journal for your plants that your own AI can read and write. You bring the AI you already use; Plants gives it a lasting memory of your plants, your places and your seasons, so its help builds on everything it learned before.
Who is it for?
People in charge of plants who want help with them: home gardeners, fruit-tree and houseplant keepers, farmers and growers. And anyone who likes walking around learning about the plants they see.
Do I have to set up my whole garden first?
No. Start with one plant, one photo, or one question. Places, varieties and care details can be added whenever they become useful.
Can I record plants I don't own?
Yes. A tree on a hike, a hedge on a walk, or a plant at a friend's house can be saved as something you encountered or are following, without becoming a plant in your care. A relative's garden you visit often can be its own place, kept apart from yours.
Is it only for gardens, or houseplants too?
Both. A windowsill pot, a patio of containers, a vegetable bed and an orchard all use the same record: a place, the plants in it, and what happens to them over time.
Your AI
Which AI can I use?
Any AI app that can add a custom connector (MCP) can connect directly. No app is named here as supported — whether an app can add a connector is a question about that app, and some handle photos or voice better than others.
You can switch whenever you like; your record stays here. And you do not need an AI to begin: keep a record or two first, and connect when you want your AI to see them.
What does connecting let my AI do?
Read and keep up your plant records and journal, look at your photos, listen to voice notes you leave on a Queue request, and save its research with its name on it. Archive/Restore is included by default and reversible; you can limit it at /settings/ai. It cannot change its own permissions or do anything outside Plants.
Your AI app may still ask you before each step. That is the app's choice, and Plants does not override it.
How do I connect it?
Open Connect your AI and copy the connector address. In your AI app, look for Settings, then Connectors, and add a custom connector with that address. Then choose Connect and sign in — signing in is the approval.
Afterwards, Connect your AI → Your AIs shows each connection and what it may do, and lets you narrow or revoke any of them.
Does Plants have its own AI?
No. Your AI does the thinking; Plants keeps the record, and never asks an AI for advice about your plants. A few jobs do run in the background: making the smaller copies of your photos that the site shows, and, on accounts with the optional Pro extras, sending a voice note to OpenRouter so a speech-to-text model can make a transcript of it. Pro also offers entry title assistance: off by default, with a separate opt-in in Preferences before new untitled manual entries are sent to OpenRouter and its model provider. Your original words stay unchanged.
Can I leave my AI a voice note?
Yes. Record one on a Queue request, and a connected AI that is allowed to see your photos can listen to it. The recording is the note.
On accounts with the optional Pro extras, Plants can also send the recording to OpenRouter, where a speech-to-text model makes a transcript. It is labelled machine-made, the recording stays the source, and you can turn it off in Preferences.
What if my AI gets something wrong?
Every entry shows who wrote it and when. Corrections are added alongside the original rather than over it, so nothing is silently lost and you can see what changed and why.
Privacy and photos
Who can see my plants?
Only you, signed in, and the AI connections you approve. Records are private by default, and there is no public page of your garden.
Can I share a garden, a plant, or a resource with someone?
Not today — everything is private to you. Sharing a garden, a plant, or a resource with someone is planned for later.
What about the location in my photos?
Your original photo is kept privately, exactly as you uploaded it. The copies shown on the site are re-made without any of the photo's embedded data, and when your AI reads a photo, the location data in it is removed first.
Where your garden is reaches your AI only as the location you recorded yourself, and only if that connection is allowed to see it.
Is my data used to train AI or sold?
No. Plants does not sell your records or use them to train a model. Your approved AI connections may read the records you allow. On Pro, voice notes may be sent to OpenRouter to be transcribed unless you turn that off. A separate entry title setting is off by default: only if you turn it on, the text and type of new untitled entries you manually save go to OpenRouter and its model provider for a title. That text may contain private details you wrote. Photos and other record context are not sent for titles, and existing entries are not backfilled.
What your own AI app does with what it reads is governed by that app's terms, so those are worth a look too.
Can I export or delete everything?
Yes, from Settings → Privacy & export. Export gives you every record in one file, with short-lived links to your photos if you ask for them. Deleting removes every record and stored file, and asks you to type “delete” to confirm.
Safety and limits
Is my AI's advice a diagnosis?
No. Research and suggestions are evidence for you to weigh. Plants keeps what you saw, what the AI thought and what you decided separately, so you can always tell which is which.
Can it tell me if a plant is safe to eat or safe for pets?
Your AI can share what it knows, but an identification from a photo is not proof. For anything you might eat, or anything a pet or child might touch, confirm with a trusted local expert.
Will it remind me to water?
Care plans put dated tasks on your Calendar, and you can subscribe to a private calendar feed from your own calendar app so they show up where you already look. Plants sends no emails or notifications today; other reminders may come later.
Can Plants water my garden or control my irrigation?
No. Plants records what your equipment is and how you say it is set. Nothing here controls a device or does care for you.
Is this a plant encyclopedia?
No. Your species pages hold your own knowledge and your AI's research about the kinds of plants you keep. There is no public encyclopedia.
The Assist With family
What is Assist With?
A family of focused spaces, each giving your AI a lasting place to help with one part of life — plants, travel, buying, your home, and more. Assist With Life is the home that links them.
Cost and help
What does it cost?
Plants is free today, and no price has been set. Some accounts have optional Pro extras, such as voice-note transcription, and we may offer Pro more widely later.
How do I get help?
Through the Assist With Life support desk, which every space in the family shares. Plants has no email address of its own.
Assist With Life
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