Two New Zealand-made tools for New Zealand gardeners. Gardenate is a trusted planting calendar. Planting Season is a full garden planner. Here is how they compare.
| Feature | Planting Season | Gardenate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free tier, $34.95 NZD/yr, or $99 NZD lifetime | Free |
| New Zealand planting data | Yes (10 climate regions) | Yes (regional calendars) |
| Bed planner | Yes (drag-and-drop layout tool) | No |
| Companion planting | Yes (warnings built into bed planner) | No |
| Works offline | Yes (full PWA) | No (website only) |
| Variety guides | Yes (New Zealand-suited varieties) | No |
| Watering reminders | Yes | No |
| Seed inventory | Yes | No |
Gardenate deserves credit. It has been helping New Zealand gardeners work out what to plant and when for a long time, and it does that job well. Its regional planting calendars are a reliable starting point for anyone getting into vegetable gardening in New Zealand.
Planting Season was built to go further. Think of it as Gardenate plus a garden planner in one app.
Gardenate is a planting calendar reference. You look up your region, see what to plant this month, and get a list. That is useful, but it stops there. Planting Season includes regional planting calendars for 10 New Zealand climate zones and adds a drag-and-drop bed planner on top. You can lay out your actual garden, assign plants to beds, and see companion planting warnings as you go.
When you place plants in the Planting Season bed planner, the app checks for companion planting conflicts and synergies. Put basil next to your tomatoes and you will see the positive pairing. Drop fennel nearby and you will get a warning. Gardenate does not include companion planting data.
Gardenate is a website. You need to be online to use it. Planting Season installs as a progressive web app on your phone or tablet and works fully offline. Check planting times, update your bed layout, and review your seed inventory while you are out in the garden with no signal.
Planting Season includes New Zealand variety recommendations so you know which cultivars actually grow well in your region. It also offers watering reminders and a seed inventory tracker to help you keep track of what you have on hand. These are features that Gardenate does not provide.
If all you need is a quick monthly reference for what to plant, Gardenate does the job and it is free. It has been a trusted resource for New Zealand gardeners for years.
Where it falls short is in helping you plan your physical garden space, track companion planting, manage seeds, or work offline. If you want to go beyond looking up a calendar and start designing and managing your garden, Planting Season picks up where Gardenate leaves off.
Gardenate has been available for many years and continues to provide planting calendar data. However, it has not received major feature updates recently. It functions primarily as a reference calendar rather than an actively evolving garden planning tool.
Yes. Some gardeners use Gardenate as a familiar quick reference and Planting Season for bed planning and companion planting. That said, Planting Season includes its own regional planting calendars for 10 New Zealand climate zones, so you may find everything you need in one place.
Planting Season has its own independently built planting database covering 10 New Zealand climate regions. The data was not sourced from Gardenate. Both tools cover similar ground in terms of when to plant, but Planting Season also includes variety recommendations, companion planting data, and region-specific growing tips.
Planting Season adds a drag-and-drop garden bed planner, companion planting warnings built into the layout tool, a seed inventory tracker, watering reminders, New Zealand variety guides, and full offline mode. Gardenate focuses on being a planting calendar reference and does not offer garden layout planning or offline access.
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