Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 25, 2026 (GardenPal 3.1.0)
GardenPal keeps your garden on your phone. There's no account, no ads, no analytics and no tracking. The app goes online only to look up a place you type, to fetch the weather forecast for it, and to send your email address if you choose to join the newsletter.
What the app keeps on your phone
- Your garden: plants with their type, planted date, place, light and notes, their photos with any height and notes you add, and the harvests you log (date, amount and note).
- Tasks and the places in your garden (name, direction, light, indoor or not). If you switch on a reminder for a task, the app also keeps that choice and the time.
- Settings: the town you chose, your zone or your own frost dates if you set them, °F or °C, your theme, whether moon signs are shown, your reminder time, your frost-alert and moon-note choices, and the last forecast so it can be shown offline.
All of it stays in the app's own storage on your phone. LD Coda never receives it. Clearing the app's data or uninstalling the app deletes it; Android's own device backup, if you have it turned on, may include it.
Moon widget (Android). For its home-screen widget, GardenPal also keeps a table of the coming days' moon in its own storage: the phase, how much is lit, what the day suits by tradition and the next full moon, for your half of the world. The widget reads it there. It stays on your phone and is not part of a backup.
Back up and restore. You can save a backup. GardenPal writes your plants with their photos, journal and harvests, your tasks, places and settings (including the town you chose) to one file and opens your phone's share sheet, so you choose where the file goes: Drive, email or a computer, for example. GardenPal does not send the file anywhere itself. A temporary copy stays in the app's own storage until your next backup replaces it. Restoring a backup only adds what is missing; it never deletes or changes anything already in the app.
What goes over the network
| When | What is sent | To |
|---|---|---|
| You search for your town | The text you type | Open-Meteo place search |
| The forecast loads for your town | Its latitude and longitude | Open-Meteo forecast |
| You join the newsletter in the app | Your email address and the app's name | LD Coda's sign-up service, hosted on Amazon Web Services |
Nothing else leaves the app. The Android build contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or billing libraries, and the app never uses GPS. Open-Meteo's handling of requests is described in its terms and privacy policy.
Your location
GardenPal never uses GPS and never asks for access to your location. The only location it uses is the town you type, a coarse location that you enter yourself. The text you type is sent to the place search, and the latitude and longitude of the town you pick are sent to the forecast, both listed in the table above, so that the app can find your town and show its zone and forecast. LD Coda does not receive or store your town. It is not linked to you and is not used for tracking or advertising.
Permissions
Android
GardenPal asks for one permission: notifications. It asks only when you switch on a reminder, frost alerts or the full and new moon notes, or restore a backup that has any of them switched on, and not before. If you say no, the task still shows on the Moon screen and in the Calendar, and the rest of the app works as before. Reminders, frost alerts and moon notes are set up on your phone itself; nothing about them is sent anywhere. Frost alerts use the forecast GardenPal loaded the last time you opened it.
GardenPal also declares internet access, which Android grants when you install the app without asking, and two permissions Android grants without asking so that reminders come back after your phone restarts (start-up and wake-lock), plus an internal permission that Android's own libraries use to keep the app's messages private. It has no access to your location, contacts, camera or files.
When you add a photo you choose Take Photo or Choose from Gallery: Android's camera app or photo picker opens, and GardenPal receives only that photo. Photos are resized to at most 1600 pixels and kept inside the app with the plant. They are not uploaded and not saved to your gallery.
iPhone
On iPhone, iOS asks your permission before GardenPal shows notifications. That happens when you switch on a reminder, frost alerts or the full and new moon notes, or restore a backup that has any of them switched on. iOS may also ask before GardenPal uses the camera or your photos when you add a plant photo. Photos are kept inside the app with the plant and are not uploaded.
Newsletter
Joining is optional, in the app or on this website. Your email address and where you signed up (the app or the website) go to LD Coda's sign-up service. We use it only to send occasional LD Coda news and never sell or share it. To be removed, email gardenpal@ldcoda.com.
This website
gardenpal.ldcoda.com has no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and its fonts are served from this site. The App Store and Google Play badges are loaded from Apple's and Google's servers. The contact form sends what you enter (topic, name, email, device and message) to Formspree, which delivers it to us by email.
How we use information
- Your garden data is used only by the app, on your phone.
- Messages you send us are used to answer you and fix problems you report. We keep them for up to two years.
- We don't sell data, show ads, track you across apps or websites, or require an account.
Children
GardenPal is suitable for all ages. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe your child has sent us personal information through the contact form or the newsletter, email gardenpal@ldcoda.com and we'll delete it.
Your rights
- Access, correction and deletion of garden data: it's on your phone; edit it in the app, or clear the app's data or uninstall it to delete it. Backup files you saved are yours to keep or delete.
- Messages and the newsletter: email us to see, correct or delete what you sent, or to leave the newsletter.
- EU and UK: the legal basis is your consent (contact form and newsletter). The data controller is LD Coda, LLC. You can complain to your local data protection authority.
- California: you can ask what we hold and ask us to delete it. We don't sell personal information.
Changes
If this policy changes, we'll post the new version here with a new date.
Contact
Email gardenpal@ldcoda.com or use the contact form.