ZoneSprout tells you when to plant things where you live. To do that it needs an account and to know roughly where you are. Beyond those two, almost everything is optional — and there is no advertising or tracking of any kind anywhere in it.
- No advertising, no ad networks, no analytics or tracking SDKs of any kind.
- Nothing is sold or shared with anybody for marketing.
- No account is needed. Sign in only if you want your garden to belong to you rather than to one phone.
- We never see your card — Apple and Google handle every payment.
- Ask for your account to be deleted and your garden goes with it.
What is collected, and why
| What | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Your US state and USDA hardiness zone | Every planting date in the app is calculated from your zone and its frost dates. Without it the app has nothing to say. | Always. Kept on your device and on your account, so a second phone already knows where you garden. |
| A ZIP code, or your device's location | Only to look up that zone. Whichever you use is exchanged for a zone and a state; the coordinates are not kept. | Only when you tap "Use my current location" or type a ZIP. |
| Email address, and a name if you give one | To sign you in and to send the one email that confirms the address is yours. | Only if you create an account. |
| A Google or Apple account identifier | If you choose to sign in that way. It is the anonymous subject identifier the provider issues — not your password, and never your contacts. | Only if you use Sign in with Google or Apple. |
| Your beds, plantings, seed trays, journal notes and saved plants | They are the point of having an account: so your garden is still there on your next phone. | Only what you create. |
| Photos you attach to a planting | Shown in your own garden journal. They are not published anywhere and nobody else can see them. | Only if you attach one. |
| A photograph you ask us to identify | To work out what the plant is. It is sent to Pl@ntNet's identification service, in France, and they answer with a list of likely species. Nothing goes with it — not your name, your email, your account or your location — and we do not keep the photograph after the answer comes back. | Only when you take or choose a photograph on Identify a plant. |
| An anonymous device identifier | So a garden started before signing in can be joined to an account afterwards instead of being lost. | Always. It is a random string and identifies nobody. |
| Your subscription status | Which plan you are on, whether it is a free trial, when it renews or expires, and the receipt identifier the store gave it. This is what decides whether the planner opens, and it is checked with Apple or Google rather than taken on the app's word. | Only if you start a trial or subscribe. |
| Not your card, and not your billing address | Payment happens entirely inside Apple's or Google's checkout. We are told a subscription exists and when it ends. We never see the card number, the billing address, or who your bank is, and could not charge you if we tried. | Never. |
What is NOT collected
No advertising identifiers. No analytics, crash-reporting or attribution SDKs — there are none in the app at all. No contacts, no calendar, no microphone, no browsing history, and no continuous or background location: the app asks for your position once, when you tap the button that says so, and turns it into a hardiness zone.
Who it is shared with
Nobody, for marketing. Your data is not sold, rented, or handed to data brokers. Three services see the minimum needed to do their job:
- Google or Apple, if you choose their sign-in button — they confirm to us that the account is yours.
- The email provider that delivers a verification or password reset message, which necessarily sees your address.
- Pl@ntNet, and only if you use Identify a plant. The photograph you choose is sent to their identification service, in France, and they send back a list of likely species. Nothing else goes with it — not your name, your email, your account, or your location. We do not keep the photograph, and you can use the whole app without ever opening that screen. Their privacy policy is at plantnet.org.
Beyond that, information is disclosed only if the law requires it.
Where it lives, and for how long
On a server we run in the United States. Account data — your garden, your photographs, your subscription record — is kept until you delete the account, and then it goes with it. Sign-in sessions expire on their own.
Two things are deliberately never written down. The coordinates from "use my current location" are exchanged for a hardiness zone and discarded in the same request; only the resulting state and zone are stored. And the server's error log has the latitude, longitude and any reset token stripped out before a line is written, so a request that fails cannot leave them sitting in a log file afterwards.
Everything travels encrypted. The app and this website talk to the server over HTTPS and nothing is sent in the clear, passwords are stored as a scrypt hash rather than as text anybody could read back, and a sign-in session is an opaque random token that means nothing on its own. This is said here because it is also what we declare on the Google Play data safety form, and the two ought to match.
Deleting your account
In the app: Settings → Delete account, at the bottom of the page. It asks for your password first, then removes the account along with your beds, plantings, journal entries, photos and saved plants. It happens immediately and is not recoverable, which is the point of it.
If you cannot get into the app, email contact@gardenvive.com from the address you signed up with and ask. Requests that way are actioned within 30 days.
Children
ZoneSprout is a gardening tool for a general audience. It is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect anything from them.
Changes
If what is collected changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. It is worth a glance after a big update.