Frequently Asked Questions

Songbird is a voice-first garden journal that remembers your garden for you. You hold a button, say what you notice (what you planted, what’s blooming, what’s struggling), and Songbird organizes it all automatically. Over time, it learns your garden’s patterns and gives you advice based on your actual history, not generic zone information.

Think of it as an executive assistant for your garden. Not a dashboard. Not a task manager. An assistant that manages your garden’s memory for you.

ChatGPT can tell you general gardening advice. So can Google. Songbird does something neither of them can: it remembers your garden specifically, across seasons.

ChatGPT doesn’t know that your tomatoes did better in the west bed, that the aphids show up on your roses every May, or that you tried milk spray on the powdery mildew last year and it worked. Songbird knows all of that, because you told it. And it brings that information back at the right moment, without you having to think to ask.

Generic advice is everywhere. Advice based on what’s actually happened in your garden doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Most garden apps are built around dashboards, task lists, and data entry. You set up plant profiles, log activities, track watering schedules, and manage your garden like a project. You’re the project manager.

Songbird flips that. You just talk about what’s happening, and Songbird handles the organizing, the pattern recognition, and the remembering. No dashboards. No Gantt charts. No forms to fill out. You’re the gardener. Songbird is the project manager.

Not at all. Songbird works whether you’ve been gardening for twenty years or just planted your first tomato. You don’t need to use the right terminology or know the Latin name for anything. Just talk naturally about what you see. “Something’s eating my basil” works just as well as “flea beetles on the Genovese basil.”

The less experienced you are, the more valuable Songbird becomes over time, because it’s building a knowledge base about your garden that you haven’t had time to develop on your own yet.

If you can send a text message, you can use Songbird. Hold a button, talk, tap “That’s right.” That’s it. No setup, no configurations, no learning curve. We’ve worked hard to make it feel natural, not technical.

If you ever get stuck, email us at hello@songbird.garden. We’re happy to help.

No. Use Songbird when something notable happens: when you plant something, notice a problem, harvest something you’re excited about, or just want to capture a moment. Even 20 or 30 observations across a season gives you more to work with next year than most gardeners have ever had. There’s no streak to maintain, no guilt if you miss a week, no judgment if you come back after a month. Songbird just picks up where you left off.

Anything you notice. Just talk naturally:

• “Planted the Roma tomatoes in the west bed.”
• “The David Austin roses are going absolutely nuts.”
• “Something’s eating the basil. Little holes everywhere.”
• “First zucchini harvest. It’s massive.”
• “Tried neem oil on the aphids today.”
• “Zinnias are stunning this year. Cutting bouquets every week.”

There’s no right or wrong way to say it. If you’d tell a friend, tell Songbird. The more you share, the more Songbird can help. But even casual, occasional observations add up to something valuable over time.

After every voice note, Songbird plays back what it understood and asks you to confirm. If it got something wrong, you can correct it right there. If it’s noisy outside and voice isn’t working well, you can type instead. Nothing saves until you say it’s right.

Yes. Voice is the primary interface because it’s faster and more natural when you’re in the garden, but you can type observations anytime. Both work the same way.

Yes. You can search for specific plants, dates, or keywords. Search “tomatoes” to see everything you’ve logged about tomatoes. Filter by month to see what was happening last June. Browse by plant to review your full history with anything you’ve grown.

In the future, we plan to add conversational questions (like typing “What did I plant last March?” and getting a natural language answer). For now, you search and browse your organized observations. It’s fast, simple, and it works.

Your first season is free, and you get the full product. Songbird captures and organizes your observations, giving you a searchable memory of your garden. You can search and browse anytime. At the end of the season, you get your first Migration Report, a year-in-review of everything that happened. Songbird is good from day one. It becomes great over time.

Starting in year two. Once Songbird has a full season of observations, it can start connecting dots: reminding you when seasonal patterns line up with last year, suggesting what worked before, and flagging recurring issues. By year three, with multiple seasons of data, the pattern recognition gets genuinely powerful.

We’re upfront about this because we think honesty matters more than hype.

At the end of each growing season, Songbird creates a year-in-review of your garden: your most-mentioned plants, your seasonal timeline, challenges you overcame, and patterns worth watching. Think of it as your garden’s annual story, written for you automatically from your voice notes.

Starting in year two, Migration Reports include year-over-year comparisons showing what improved, what changed, and what patterns are emerging.

Your first Migration Report is part of your free season and will be available Winter 2026.

Starting in year two, yes, but only based on your garden’s patterns, not generic gardening calendars. For example: “Last year cabbage worms showed up the first week of June. Might be worth adding row cover this week.”

These seasonal reminders are gentle suggestions, not demands. Easy to dismiss. Easy to turn off entirely if you prefer. Helpful friend, not nagging parent.

Yes. Your observations are yours. No ads, no selling your data, no social feed, no sharing your garden with anyone unless you choose to. Songbird is a private tool for you and your garden.

Your observations are stored securely in the cloud so they sync across devices (web app now, iOS app when it launches). You can export or delete your data anytime.

No. Your observations are used only to help you: to parse what you say into organized data, to surface patterns in your garden, and to generate your Migration Report. We don’t use your observations to train models or share them with third parties. Your garden is yours.

Your data is always exportable. If we ever had to shut down (we don’t plan to), we’d give you plenty of notice and make sure you can take everything with you. We’re building Songbird as a sustainable business, not a venture-backed startup racing to an exit. The goal is to be around for decades, not years.

Not yet. Photo attachments are on the roadmap. For now, Songbird focuses on voice and text observations. We’d rather do one thing well than do three things halfway.

Songbird is currently a web app that works in your mobile browser. For the best experience on iPhone, you can add it to your home screen: open songbird.garden in Safari, tap the share button, and tap “Add to Home Screen.” It’ll work like a native app.

A true native iOS app is launching Spring 2026. All your observations will transfer automatically.

Not yet. Multi-garden support is on the roadmap. For now, if you have multiple spaces (raised beds, containers on the deck, a community plot), just mention the location when you talk: “south bed,” “pots on the patio,” “community garden.” Songbird organizes by location automatically.

Not yet. Songbird is currently designed as a private tool for one gardener. If you garden with a partner, you can both use the same account for now. Shared access and collaboration features may come later based on demand.

Voice input needs an internet connection for speech recognition. But if your signal is spotty, you can type observations and they’ll sync when you’re back online.

We’re building Songbird deliberately, guided by feedback from real gardeners:

• Migration Report (Winter 2026)
• Native iOS app (Spring 2026)
• Photo attachments (coming soon)
• Multi-garden support (coming soon)
• Conversational Q&A (coming soon)

Have ideas for what Songbird should do? We’d love to hear from you: hello@songbird.garden

Your first growing season is free. Full product access, nothing locked or degraded. After that, it’s $20/year. That’s less than a few packets of heirloom seeds for a full year of garden memory.

If you sign up in spring or early summer, you’re free through October 31. If you sign up any other time, you get a minimum of 90 days. Either way, you get to experience a full growing season with Songbird before deciding if it’s worth $20/year.

At the end of your free season, after you’ve received your first Migration Report. You’ll see what Songbird captured all season, and then you can decide if you want to continue into year two with pattern recognition, seasonal reminders, and year-over-year comparisons. No pressure, no surprise charges.

No. Just create an account and start using Songbird. We won’t ask for payment until your free season ends.

It stays yours. If you decide not to continue after your free season, you keep read-only access to everything you logged. You can browse your observations and export your data anytime. You just won’t get new features like pattern recognition, proactive reminders, or year-over-year Migration Reports. And if you change your mind later, everything is right where you left it.

Yes. No contracts, no cancellation fees. Cancel anytime from your account settings. Your data stays yours either way.

Yes. If Songbird isn’t what you expected, email us within 30 days of your first payment for a full refund, no questions asked.

It aligns with how gardening works. You use Songbird across a full season, not month-to-month. Annual billing matches the rhythm. We may add monthly billing later, but for now, annual makes the most sense for everyone.

Email us at hello@songbird.garden. We’re not trying to exclude anyone from gardening. We’ll work something out.