Beginner gardener makes one change to how they care for plants - and it works a treat

Some of us are not as green-fingered as others - and that's okay. We need a little helping hand and a bit of motivation to get going when it comes to getting out and about in the garden.

In fact, this is the first springtime as an adult I've had a , so it's proving quite the novelty. I'm not natrually gifted with gardening, so I did some research into how I could maintain the outdoor area.

After some digging, I found out about an app that can not only identify your plants, but let you know if they're thriving or not, I was sold.

How am I, with literally zero gardening experience, supposed to know which plants are growing in the garden, and whether they need attention or not? I decided to take action and make a change to my routine - downloading the ' This app and using the knowledge to give my garden a bit of extra love.

Using the application, you can go around your garden and work out what is thriving. It also identifies what may need a little helping hand to bloom gorgeous flowers again.

You may even find that you have flowers you never knew you had, or didn't know what they were. For example, we noticed gorgeous orange flowers popping up along our driveway. Thanks to the app, I was able to identify they were Welsh Poppies.

And in even better news, the software told me the flowers were healthy.

This prompted me to go all around the garden - and I identified many things. Plants included Chinese wisteria, Mexican orange, and grape hyacinth.

The wisteria grows on our woodshed - and we feared it had been cut back too much to thrive.

Thankfully though, in the last week, the gorgeous purple blooms have returned. To my relief, the flowers are even healthy according to the app.

It's reassuring to know that something is doing well and nothing needs to be done to it other than admiring it.

However, if you do come across a plant that needs attention, for example, the blue passionflower in our garden came back as 'sick,' it tells you how to try and fix the issue.

It recommended dissolving an aspirin in water and watering the flower with that, so I'm definitely going to try that, as it was so beautiful at the end of summer last year.

Helpfully, the app also tells you how often a plant needs to be watered. So if we're having a particularly dry spell in the UK, you can intervene and get the garden hose ready.

As well as this, it shares whether a plant is high or low maintenance. So if you were in a garden centre and looking only for low-maintenance blooms that will not need much doing to them, you could scan the plants quickly to check. It's a little bit like Goodreads, but for plants!

What's more, it works for house plants too. So, if you don't have any outdoor space but are keen to know whether your cheese plant is doing well, you can just snap a picture and it'll give you the low-down! And, much like the outdoor plants, if it needs assistance, it will tell you what to do.

The app also shows you trending flowers in the United Kingdom, so if you like the look of any, you can see whether they thrive in shade or not, whether they're toxic, whether they need fertiliser, weed potential, plant type, native country, and so much more.

It shows you whether the plants are good pollinators, whether they're disease resistant, cold hardy, whether they attract wildlife, and are prolific bloomers.

It even tells you when to prune them, and how to prune them as well - in a lot of detail. So, if you really are clueless about gardening (like me) then it's the perfect hand-holding app to ensure you don't make any mistakes, and are giving your garden the best opportunity to thrive.

The gardening application comes with a seven-day free trial (which I'm in the middle of taking full advantage of). Then if you want to continue your subscription to benefit from the app all year round, you'll have to £35 - which initially may seem a little steep, but works out at under £3 a month.

I'm so impressed with the app that I'm genuinely considering carrying on after the free trial. I think it's great for springtime, but it can help you to manage your garden as the colder months set in, and you can give your green space the best chance of thriving to its full potential.