- 'Intelligent garden' co-designed with Microsoft to go on show in 2025
- Sensors track garden health with AI model trained on the plant data
- Visitors can also ask the garden questions and get replies
AI could soon take the guesswork out of gardening and let you have conversational chats with your lawn and plants. By monitoring environmental factors and feeding them into a model trained on plant data, so-called 'intelligent gardens' could soon be able to tell you when to water, trim and or fertilize your patch.
That’s the promise of the Avanade ‘Intelligent’ Garden, which will appear at next year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show in the UK. Created by garden designer Tom Massey in collaboration with Microsoft, the showpiece plot will be embedded with an array of sensors which feed real-time information into an AI model.
Those sensors will track factors such as soil moisture, pH and nutrient levels, air quality, temperature and rainfall. This information alone would be beneficial to anyone tending a garden, but the benefit of the dynamic AI model is that it’s proactive in tracking conditions and predicting changes.
The designer Tom Massey told The Guardian that the garden will be interactive, too. For example, visitors could ask "how are you?" and “it could answer: I need a bit more water, I can do with a haircut, maybe”, he added.
In short, it can tell its horticultural keepers how it’s feeling and what it needs.
This will be in evidence at the UK's Chelsea Flower Show (from May 20 – 24, 2025), where visitors to the pavilion can interact with a digital version of the smart garden. It will ‘respond’ to visitor queries by drawing on live data, giving an immediate picture of its health.
Beyond the novelty factor, the idea here is not just to make the lives of gardeners easier. One of the primary motivations behind the installation is to promote the efficient use of resources. By understanding exactly what’s going on in the garden, its caretakers can give it just what it needs – and nothing more.
Water conservation is one example. Whether you use a hose or a sprinkler system, most gardens are watered to a schedule, rather than when the plants actually need it. In an intelligent garden, watering would be based on soil moisture levels, even down to specific areas.
So instead of over-watering the entire plot, a gardener could receive an alert that just one section needs a top-up. In larger gardens with automated systems, these could be activated based on the same data.
A smarter garden
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the use of smart garden sensors. The Netatmo Smart Home Weather Station, for example, can be paired with a Smart Rain Gauge to accurately track rainfall, along with other environmental data. With that information, you can work out whether your garden needs a drink.
Holman also makes a Smart Moisture Sensor, which connects to one of its tap timer irrigation systems via Wi-Fi. This monitors soil moisture and temperature, then automatically adjusts your watering schedule to help reduce wastage. But 'intelligent gardens' promise to take that to a new level with conversational interfaces and more.
Sensors like these will be the primary data source in any intelligent garden. What AI adds to the equation is the ability to bring it all together in a dynamic, predictive model. By processing live information, it can create a picture of the health of an entire garden. Over time, it will be able to anticipate what a garden needs, learn seasonal shifts and detect any anomalies in growing conditions.
The real-world application of this technology is clear. Not only will it limit waste and, in doing so, cut your water bills, but it will fundamentally help you to keep your plants alive and flourishing.
This isn’t just about being a lazy gardener: in a world affected by climate change, understanding what green spaces need to stay healthy will become increasingly crucial.
