A garden that can take care of itself: Smart gardening grows popular

Tan KW

Publish date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019, 12:33 PM

The Internet and smartphone are becoming more and more important in the garden as manufacturers unveil networked, programmable devices that make taking proper care of your lawn or plants easier than ever.

Gardening isn't quite like fashion when it comes to adopting new trends every few months, but thanks to the Internet, things are still being shaken up. And smart gardening – gardening with the help of networked and programmable devices – is starting to catch on.

At the recent Spoga+Gafa trade fair, where manufacturers present their new products for the upcoming season, it was obvious that the industry is increasingly focusing on digitalisation.

There was hardly any company that didn't have some form of networked devices, if not complete product ranges.

"Smart gardening is all about the garden being able to take care of itself," explains Anna Hackstein, managing director of the German Gardening Industry Association. Robots can mow the lawn or automatic irrigation systems can water the garden exactly when required as a result of programming or soil sensors. "If necessary, you can send the commands remotely via a smartphone app," says Hackstein.

Of course, some gardeners may wonder what the point of all this technology is, since the point of gardening is to go out and get your hands dirty.

Yet, smart tools can help by doing things that amateur gardeners may not like to do – the hard and monotonous weekly, or even daily, tasks such as watering and mowing.

Hackstein reports significant growth in the sector.

"The product range is growing. There are also more and more entry-level products." Nevertheless, owners of private gardens seem interested in only a very small product range for smart gardening.

Automatic pond pumps are popular, while the mowing robot is the best-selling smart product.

However, many of these new products can be expensive. For example, fully automatic irrigation systems are mainly used in parks and public gardens. They often have to be installed by a landscape gardener.

Lawn robots, meanwhile, can cost up to US$3,250, excluding the cost of installation. "This is a hurdle for many when buying: You have to lay a signal wire so that the mowing robot does not go into the neighbour's garden or fall into the pond," explains Peter Botz, managing director of the Association of German Garden Centres.

At the same time, the lawn robot shows that gardeners are getting more and more interested in smart products.

"This is about convenience," says Botz. And a mowing robot achieves better results than a normal lawnmower. "Many people want a lawn that looks like a picture book," says Botz. "But they don't want to maintain and cut the lawn as often as that would require."

– dpa

Discussions

Be the first to like this. Showing 1 of 1 comments

MiaLee

Very efficient.
I needed exactly one of these programs.
Thank you so much.
With crowded and glamorous programs nowadays it is impossible to remember them.

2019-09-16 06:46

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