Nursery: 370+ plants chosen for your real garden

The biggest trap for beginner — and even intermediate — gardeners is to pick a plant because it looks pretty on an Instagram photo or sits at the front of the garden centre, without checking whether it can really grow in their patch. Lavender on acid wet soil? Tomato in Brittany without a greenhouse? Camellia in full sun on pure chalk? Guaranteed failure, sometimes after three seasons of struggle.

My Nursery was built to spare you that. It doesn't show you everything — it shows you what can work in your patch, and ranks the options by real relevance.

What the catalogue contains

Today, 370+ plants live in it. Not picked at random: each one has been verified on its key parameters (climate zone, soil, aspect, full cycle, planting months, harvest months, water needs) against external botanical sources — POWO, RHS, ASPCA, agronomic references. The coverage spans the classic vegetable patch through Mediterranean species and tropical fruit trees to hardy ornamentals.

• The classic vegetable patch — tomato, courgette, runner bean, lettuce, potato, squash, leek, carrot, onion, garlic. With their named varieties ("Marmande", "Beefsteak", "Savoy"…) and full cycles.
• Herbs and medicinals — basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, chives, mint, lemon balm, sage, lavender. Annuals and perennials distinguished, with precise preferences (lavender wants drained chalk, mint wants damp).
• Fruit trees — apple, pear, cherry, plum, peach, apricot, fig, persimmon, pomegranate, citrus for the south, raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant, strawberry (with everbearing and June-bearing varieties distinguished).
• Flowers and ornamentals — peony, rose, hydrangea, lavender, ornamental sage, asters, dahlias, cosmos. To structure, attract pollinators, or simply for beauty.
• The southern catalogue — banana, papaya, mango, olive, prickly pear, agave, plumbago, bougainvillea… 95 species specific to Mediterranean, tropical and subtropical climates.

How I filter for your real garden

When you open the Nursery, you don't see the raw catalogue — you see a view tuned to your profile. Three main levers.

Soil diagnosis (hard filter)

If you've done your soil diagnosis from wild plants, I activate a strong "Suits my soil" filter that surfaces the plants your soil actually likes first. You can turn it off to explore wider, but by default I rank what will work.

Aspect, climate, region

You told me your region and your aspect at onboarding; I use those to rule out what doesn't stand a chance. No banana in Brittany, no rhubarb in dry Provence. The recommendations are ordered by contextual score, not alphabetical: the most relevant plant for you sits at the top.

Your own filters

Beyond the automatic sorting, you can refine with soft filters: flower colour, harvest window, mature height, water needs, edible or ornamental, explicit soil type, planting month. Looking for a yellow flower in July for poor soil? Three taps, list ready.

Named varieties — on the species that deserve them

For the emblematic species — tomato, courgette, runner bean, lettuce, potato, strawberry, apple, rose… — I show you the named varieties worth knowing and their criteria: earliness, habit (determinate vs indeterminate), frost resistance, culinary use, yield, disease resistance. You pick a "Beefsteak" rather than a "generic tomato", and your whole schedule adjusts to that variety.

For each variety, you can see what other gardeners have planted at home — and you can add several varieties of the same species to your garden (a "Beefsteak" and a "Black Cherry" for instance, to stagger uses and harvests).

Composing a project — not plant by plant

Picking a single isolated plant is easy. Composing a coherent garden is another matter. My Nursery helps you move from individual choice to whole project.

• Seasonal intentions — "I want to plant this month", "Compose a summer vegetable garden", "Prepare for autumn" bundle coherent plants for a precise goal.
• Good companions — when you add a plant, I suggest its natural companions from 330+ referenced pairings. Tomato + basil + marigold isn't folklore.
• And the bad ones — I also flag plants that clash. Tomato next to fennel: no. Carrot next to dill: same.

Your Garden stays readable

Once you've composed your first garden, the Nursery is still useful — it just adjusts its view. The plants you already grow are marked with an "already in my garden" badge, so you see at a glance what's missing to complete ("I have tomatoes but no red onion as a companion").

And if you manage several gardens — up to 10 per account: family vegetable patch, flat balcony, community plot, holiday garden… — the Nursery adapts to the active garden. Each garden has its own characteristics: soil, exposure, climate zone (derived from its own address, distinct from your profile's), and above all its specific goals — vegetables for one, ornamental for another, fruit trees for the third. Recommendations shift accordingly: a north-facing London balcony doesn't share context with a Devon patch, and a "100 % flowers" garden won't propose the same plants as an intensive vegetable plot.

You switch between gardens via the selector at the top of My Garden (or Profile). You can add a garden anytime via "+ New garden" (with address autocomplete + "Use my location" button), tune its characteristics when your context evolves, or delete it (archived for 30 days before permanent purge — long enough to recover a patch lost by mistake).

And what do I actually do behind the scenes?

A lot. For each plant in the catalogue, I don't just store a name and a photo: I store its full cycle — sowing, transplanting, mulching, pruning, feeding, preventive treatment, harvest — with the months each task should occur and the typical duration. That's what lets me, the moment you add a plant to your garden, generate the right tasks on the right dates automatically.

I also store its USDA climate zone, water needs, ideal aspect, preferred soil, mature height, flowering and harvest periods, common pests and diseases, cultural meanings, and edibility — for humans and for pets (ASPCA reference for cats/dogs). All of that forms the context that makes my answers precise when you ask me a question.

Where do you start?

If you're a beginner: open the Nursery and tick the "easy plants" filter first. Don't scatter your effort — pick three or four species for your first season, and look after them well. There'll be all the time next year to expand.

If you already garden: start with the soil diagnosis, then explore the Nursery with the "Suits my soil" filter on. You'll rediscover your catalogue: plants you'd never have tried will rise to the top, and some "classics" you thought essential will be tagged "soil to prepare". That's what a catalogue that fits you looks like.