GardenDelete means it never happened. Died means it happened and is over.
Live · This works today.
Delete is for a mistake — a plant you added twice, a bed you were experimenting with. It goes for good, on this phone and your others, and nothing about it stays in your record. Recording that a plant died keeps everything: the variety, the day it went in, every entry and photo. If it really grew, say it died.
Two doors that look similar and mean opposite things
A plant can leave your garden two ways, and the app deliberately does not treat them as the same.
Delete is for something that should never have been there — you tapped the wrong crop, added the same tomato twice, made a bed to see what the screen did. It removes every trace, because there is no trace worth keeping.
Recording that it died is for a plant that really grew and then stopped. It keeps everything — the variety, the day it went in, what you did to it, the photos — and marks it finished.
The control itself opens by pointing at the difference, because getting it wrong is easy and quiet:
Delete this plant — for something you added by mistake. If it really died, say that instead so it stays in your record.
The one question that decides it
Did it ever actually grow in your garden?
If yes — even for a week, even badly — say it died. If no, delete it.
That is the whole test, and it settles almost every case without you having to think about what the app does underneath.
Why we made this a choice instead of one button
Most apps have one delete and it means whatever you decide it means. We split it because the journal is the point of this app, and the two mistakes damage it in opposite directions.
Deleting a plant that really died removes a real season. The sowing date, the feed in June, the photo from July, and the fact that it failed at all. A failure is the entry you are most likely to want next year — it is the one that tells you not to do that again.
Recording a test plant as dead writes a false gardening fact. Next spring your own history says that variety dies in your garden. It never grew there. You would be reading a note you wrote to yourself, and it would be untrue.
What it tells you before a delete goes through
Deleting a bed takes its contents with it, so the confirm names them:
Deleting Bed 2 also removes 3 plants and 14 journal entries.
It only names what is actually there. No plants in that bed and it does not mention plants. And deleting a single plant does not say “1 plant” — a number that is always one teaches you to skim the line, and the entry count beside it is the number that matters.
Underneath, plainly: It goes for good, here and on your other devices. Nothing about it stays in your record.
There is no undo, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
There is a confirm step and a Keep it button. Past that, it is gone — on this phone and on any other device you use.
If you are signed in, the deletion syncs, so there is no older copy on our side waiting to be restored. The protection is the question before it, not a rescue after it. That is why the control leads with “if it really died, say that instead” rather than burying it.
The date it keeps, and the year with it
Finishing a plant records the day you said so, and the page shows it back to you: “Harvested out on Aug 3. Still here, still readable.”
It says the year whenever the year is not this one. A plant that finished last summer reads Jul 19, 2025, not Jul 19. That is the difference between a record you can read and one you have to work out — and it matters most for perennials, which come and go season after season and otherwise look identical on the page.
Until 23 August 2026 every finished plant said Dec 31, whatever day you had given it. The records you already had were converted rather than left wrong, using the year the plant went in, and the corrected dates sync to your other devices on their own.
Writing something down about a plant you have finished
You can, as long as it happened before the end. Remembering on Sunday that you watered on Thursday — and pulling the plant out on Friday — is ordinary, and the app takes it.
What it refuses is an entry dated after the plant was finished: nothing further can happen to a plant that is gone, so it asks you to reopen it or fix the date. Notes are always allowed, because a note about a finished plant is often the most useful line in the whole record.
If you want to clear out everything
Deleting one thing at a time is the wrong tool for a fresh start. There is a single control in your profile that empties the whole garden and leaves your account alone — starting again from an empty garden covers what it removes and what it keeps.
Common questions
- What is the actual difference?
- **Delete says this never happened. Died says it happened and is over.** That is the whole distinction and it is not a wording preference — the two write opposite things into your record. A deleted plant leaves no trace: no dates, no journal, no photos, nothing to look back on. A plant recorded as dead keeps all of it and is simply finished. Both are correct in their own case and each is wrong in the other's.
- Which one do I want?
- **Did it ever actually grow in your garden?** If yes — even for a week, even badly — record that it died. If no, because you tapped the wrong crop, added the same tomato twice, or made a bed to see how the screen worked, delete it. That question settles almost every case.
- Why does it matter if I get it the wrong way round?
- **Because the journal is the product, and both directions damage it.** Deleting a plant that really died removes a real season from your record — the sowing date, what you fed it, the photo from July, and the fact that it failed at all. Losing a failure is worse than losing a success, because the failure is the one you would want to look up next year. And recording a test plant as *died* writes a false gardening fact: next spring your own history tells you that variety dies in your garden, and it never grew there.
- What does it warn me about before I delete a bed?
- It counts what goes with it and says so in the sentence — *"Deleting Bed 2 also removes 3 plants and 14 journal entries."* **It only names what is actually there**, so it never pads the warning with zeroes. Deleting a single plant does not say "1 plant", on purpose: a number that is always 1 teaches you to skim the line, and the entry count next to it is the one that matters.
- Does it delete on my other devices too?
- Yes. **It goes for good, here and on your other devices.** A delete is not a local tidy-up — it syncs like everything else, so it is gone from the phone in your pocket and the tablet in the kitchen.
- Can I undo a delete?
- **No.** There is a confirm step and a *Keep it* button, and past that it is gone. This is the one place in the app with no way back, which is exactly why the first thing the control says is that recording a death is probably what you want instead.
- I deleted something I should have kept. What now?
- If you have not signed in, the only copy was on that phone and it is gone. If you are signed in, the deletion synced too, so there is no earlier version sitting on our side to restore. **We would rather tell you that plainly than imply a recovery that does not exist.** The honest protection is the confirm step before it, not a rescue after.
- What date does it record, and does it say the year?
- **It records the day you said so, and it shows the year whenever the year is not this one.** A plant you finished this summer reads *ended Aug 3*; one you finished two seasons ago reads *ended Jul 19, 2025*. That matters most for the plants it is easiest to lose track of — a perennial that came and went three years running looks identical on the page otherwise. Until 23 August 2026 every finished plant said *Dec 31* instead, whatever day you gave it; **the old records were converted rather than left wrong**, using the year the plant went in.
- Can I still write something down about a plant I have finished?
- **Yes, as long as it happened before the end.** Remembering on Sunday that you watered on Thursday, and only pulling the plant out on Friday, is ordinary gardening and the app takes it. What it refuses is something dated *after* the plant was finished — nothing further can happen to a plant that is gone, so it asks you to reopen it or correct the date. Notes are the exception and are always allowed, because a note about a finished plant is often the most useful thing in the record.
- What about clearing out the whole garden?
- That is a different control and it has [its own page](/help/restarting-your-garden/) — one button in your profile that empties everything and leaves your account intact. Use that when you want a clean start, rather than deleting things one at a time.
Shipped 2026-08-11. Last checked 2026-08-23. Something here wrong or out of date? Tell us — support docs going stale is a bug.