Last updated: May 2026
If you’ve been around since the early days of the Garden Planner, first — thank you. And second — a lot has changed.
I took the Garden Planner down for about a year to rethink and rebuild it properly. In March, it came back as Embrace, and better than ever. And in May, I shipped another round of updates that I’m genuinely excited about. Here’s everything that’s new.
May 2026 — The Details That Matter
This round of updates is about making the day-to-day experience of using Embrace feel smoother and smarter.
Task-Based Notes When you’re looking at a task — say, starting your tomato seeds — you can now log notes right there, tied directly to that task. No hunting through a journal to find what you wrote last time. The note lives with the task it belongs to. This is also the foundation for something coming later: year-over-year memory, so Embrace can start to learn and recommend what works in your garden.
Auto-Saving Designs Your garden design now saves automatically. That’s it. No more losing work.
A More Intuitive Way to Add Plants Adding plants to your design and then to your garden plan used to feel like two separate things. Now they flow together the way they should.
Move Plants Around Your Garden You can now drag plants to different spots in your garden. It sounds like a basic thing — and honestly, it should have always been there — but now it is, and it makes a real difference when you’re tweaking your layout.
It Asks the Right Question First Before you start browsing new plants to add to your garden design, Embrace now prompts you to include the ones you’ve already decided on. It’s a small thing, but it keeps your plan accurate and stops you from planning around plants you’ve already committed to.
March 2026 — The Relaunch
When the Garden Planner came back as Embrace, it came back with four things I’d wanted to add for a long time:
Gardening Foundations Course A built-in course for anyone who wants to feel more confident in the garden — not just what to plant, but why it works and how to make gardening easier. Whether you’re just starting out or filling in some gaps, it’s there when you need it.
Ask Embrace — AI That Knows Your Garden Most gardening advice is generic. Ask Embrace isn’t. It’s an AI feature that knows what you’ve planted, where you live, and the specifics of your garden — so when you ask a question, the answer is actually relevant to you. Not a general tip for someone gardening somewhere else with different plants. Your garden, your advice.
Journal Feature A place to capture what’s actually happening in your garden — your wins, your surprises, what you’d do differently. Gardening has a way of teaching you things, and the journal is where those lessons live.
Plan Without Designing Not everyone wants to draw out their beds before they start planting. Now you don’t have to. You can build your planting plan and manage your garden without ever touching the design tool — it’s there if you want it, but it’s no longer in the way.
Embrace is still growing — these updates are part of a longer roadmap, and there’s more coming.
If you haven’t tried it yet (or if you haven’t logged in since before the relaunch), now’s a good time.
