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ThymeIt is a garden calendar for the plants you actually grow. Tell it your ZIP code and your plants, and it works out when to prune, plant and protect each one from your area’s frost dates. You get a reminder on your phone the morning each job is due.

Setup takes a couple of minutes:

1. Tap Get Started.
2. Share your location once, or type your ZIP code instead.
3. Pick the plants you grow. You can skip this and add them later.
4. See a real task from your new calendar.
5. Choose whether to turn on reminders and automatic backup.

No. There’s no sign-up, email address or password. Your garden is saved on your phone.

ThymeIt is free, with no ads. Automatic backup is free too.

To find your USDA hardiness zone and your local frost dates, which set the timing of every task. Your location is used once, on your phone, to look these up. Only the nearest ZIP code is kept, never your exact location.

Yes. Tap Enter my ZIP code instead. It works just as well as sharing your location.

Go to Settings → Change location and enter your new ZIP code (or use your location). ThymeIt shows the new zone and frost dates before anything changes. When you confirm, your upcoming tasks get new dates for the new place. Tasks you’ve already finished keep their dates.

Moving to a colder or warmer zone can also add or remove winter care tasks. See why some plants get winter care.

Not yet. ThymeIt covers US ZIP codes, including Alaska and Hawaii.

Your last spring frost is the date after which a 32°F frost becomes unlikely; your first fall frost is when frost becomes likely again. ThymeIt uses the median dates from NOAA’s 1991–2020 climate normals for a weather station near your ZIP code (in the mountains, the coldest one close by), so in a typical year there’s about an even chance of frost after the last-frost date.

You can see your dates under Settings.

In the warmest parts of the country, such as south Florida, Hawaii, coastal California and the low desert, a hard frost is rare. ThymeIt then times tasks from a mild-winter calendar (late January to mid-December) instead of a frost date.

No. They’re based on typical weather for your area, so a given year can run early or late. If a cold snap is forecast, trust the forecast and your own eyes.

66 common garden plants: 15 trees, 23 shrubs and vines, 9 perennials and 19 vegetables. Trees, shrubs and perennials come first, because pruning timing is where most gardeners get stuck.

On the home screen, tap Add or edit plants and tick or untick plants. Removing a plant also removes its tasks and reminders. You can also remove one from its own page: Your plants, then the plant, then Remove from my garden and Remove.

Yes. Open Your plants, tap the plant, type a name like “Backyard apple”, and tap Save name. It shows on your tasks and reminders.

Each care task has a window set relative to your last spring frost or first fall frost. For example, apple trees are pruned while dormant, from about eight to three weeks before your last frost. A task is due at the start of its window.

The home screen shows what’s due in the next three months. Tap Show more tasks coming up later to see the rest. If nothing is due soon, it shows the next one.

Yes. When you complete or dismiss a task, the same job for next season is scheduled straight away.

In zones 6 and colder, ThymeIt adds fall tasks to protect plants that need it: mounding soil over hybrid tea, floribunda, grandiflora and climbing roses, watering yew, arborvitae and boxwood until the ground freezes, and mulching garden mums. Gardens in warmer zones rarely need these, so they don’t get them.

Many shrubs flower on buds they made last year (“old wood”). Prune those in spring and you cut off this year’s flowers, which is why lilacs and bigleaf hydrangeas are pruned right after they bloom. Others flower on this year’s growth (“new wood”) and are pruned in late winter. Fruit trees are pruned while dormant, before buds break.

To prevent oak wilt, a fatal disease spread by beetles drawn to fresh cuts in spring and early summer. Extension services advise never pruning oaks from April through July, so ThymeIt keeps oak pruning to the dormant season.

No, wait until it has finished. For shrubs pruned “right after flowering”, ThymeIt estimates when that is from your frost dates, and bloom time varies. Snooze the task until the flowers fade.

Every care task is tied to a quote from a university extension service or botanic garden. See where the timings come from.

• Mark Complete: you did it. Next season’s task is scheduled.
• Snooze 3 days: moves the task, and its reminder, three days later.
• Dismiss: skips the task this season only. It comes back next year.

Yes. Open Your plants, tap the plant, and turn off that task under Care tasks. You won’t get it or its reminder again until you turn it back on. Unlike Dismiss, which skips one season, this lasts.

Yes. A plant’s page lists the tasks you’ve completed or skipped under Done before.

At 8am on the day a task is due. If a task only appears once its window has already started (say, right after you add a plant), you’re reminded the next morning. Reminders are scheduled on your phone; nothing is sent from a server.

Go to Settings → Reminders and tap Turn on reminders. If your phone has already said no once, ThymeIt sends you to your phone’s settings instead: allow notifications for ThymeIt there, then come back.

• Notifications for ThymeIt are turned off in your phone’s settings.
• A Focus or Do Not Disturb mode held it back.
• The task was snoozed, dismissed, or turned off for that plant.
• The task is more than two weeks overdue, so its reminder has passed.

Your tasks always show on the home screen, reminder or not.

If you turn on automatic backup (during setup, or in Settings → Backup and restore), ThymeIt saves your garden to your own iCloud (iPhone) or Google Drive (Android) a few seconds after each change and whenever you leave the app. It’s off unless you turn it on, and it’s free.

In a private folder that belongs to ThymeIt inside your own account. It doesn’t appear in your iCloud Drive or Google Drive file list, and other apps can’t read it. On Android, ThymeIt asks Google only for access to that one folder, not to your other files. ThymeIt has no server, so we never receive a copy.

Apple and Google encrypt it as part of your account’s storage, and on iPhone, Advanced Data Protection adds end-to-end encryption. ThymeIt doesn’t add its own layer: the backup holds your ZIP code, zone, plants and tasks, and never your exact location.

If the new phone is the same kind (iPhone to iPhone, or Android to Android) and signed in to the same Apple or Google account: install ThymeIt, then go to Settings → Backup and restore → Restore from backup. If you turn on automatic backup instead, ThymeIt notices the backup already in your account and asks whether to restore it.

iCloud and Google Drive backups don’t move across, so use a garden file:

1. On your old phone, go to Settings → Move to another phone and tap Save my garden as a file. Save it somewhere your new phone can reach, like email or a cloud drive.
2. On your new phone, open ThymeIt and tap Moving from another phone? Open your garden file on the welcome screen, then Open a garden file.

The file is plain text with your ZIP code, zone, plants and tasks, so keep it somewhere private.

ThymeIt found something in your account it won’t overwrite without asking. Go to Settings → Backup and restore to see which:

• A different ThymeIt backup, usually from another phone. Choose Restore it to bring that garden onto this phone, or Replace it to back up this phone’s garden in its place.
• A damaged backup that can’t be read. Choose Replace it to start backing up again.
• A backup from a newer version of ThymeIt. Update the app to keep backing up.

If backup paused for another reason, it tries again after your next change.

Nothing. ThymeIt has no server and no account system, and it doesn’t contain analytics or advertising code. Your garden is stored on your phone, and only goes to your own iCloud or Google Drive if you turn on backup.

Your ZIP code, hardiness zone and frost dates, the plants you picked (and any names you gave them), your tasks, and your settings. Not your exact location.

Deleting the app deletes everything on your phone. If you used automatic backup, delete that too. Here’s how.

Check the five digits. A few ZIP codes aren’t covered, mostly military (APO and FPO) and single-organization ZIP codes. Try the ZIP code of a nearby street address instead.

Check your zone and frost dates under Settings. If they’re for the wrong place, use Change location. Gardens in a frost pocket, on a hill or near water can run earlier or later than the nearest weather station; adjust with Snooze when your plants are clearly ahead or behind.

• On iPhone, make sure you’re signed in to iCloud with iCloud Drive turned on, in the Settings app.
• On Android, sign in with the same Google account you backed up with.
• If it says the backup was made by a newer version of ThymeIt, update the app first.
• Moving between iPhone and Android? Use a garden file instead.

Email thymeit-support@lixlink.com and we’ll help.